NATO knocking on Indo-Pacific door. How India can make the best of this opportunity

File photo of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh (left) and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin | Ministry of Defence

Global engagement with the Indo-Pacific has increased despite the war in Ukraine and as some have argued, because of it.

As security and economic initiatives flock the region, nothing raises more concern and discomfort in New Delhi as NATO’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific. After engaging with India through several dialogues since 2019 and finalising a liaison office in Japan, the question of what NATO wants from India made a comeback recently.

Right before PM Modi’s state visit to the US later this month, two significant developments catch our attention.

The deepening ties

First, after an arduous decade spent in putting together finer details, India and the US have agreed on a cardinal defence deal to facilitate Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) partnership with American firm General Electric (GE) for jointly manufacturing indigenous jet engines of fighter aircraft, later to be extended to the naval domain. Not only has it arrived after considerable hard work, but its importance can also be gauged by US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin’s visit to India next week to chalk out the contours of the deal, especially around the Transfer of Technology (TOT) issues. Whether or not the US delivers on the enticing TOT promise, there is little doubt that this deal will align India’s defence engines to US technology for many decades to come and give a significant bump to interoperability.

Second, the US committee on China, in a first, recommended India to be made a member of the NATO-plus to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. For the uninitiated, NATO Plus is a security arrangement that unites NATO and five countries—Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and South Korea—to boost global defence cooperation. The logic seems well grounded: India’s inclusion would make seamless intelligence sharing easier as well as enable speedier access to West’s latest military technology. From the west’s perspective, it complements the burgeoning defence cooperation between US and India.

But for India, it impinges upon the disdain to be seen as a formal US ally in lieu of all the qualitative convergence otherwise. In fact, Ashley Tellis recently argued the limits to US-India ties, seen in the backdrop of India’s non-response in a likely crisis in Taiwan. However, the only plausible rebuttal to this from New Delhi’s point of view is that India-US convergence in the Indo-Pacific is much more than India sending military help to Taiwan.

The tendency in India to disengage uncomfortable foreign policy demands rather than engage them with due pragmatism is problematic. And this is where the self-effacing limit to India’s pursuit of its interest lies.

Can NATO find the Indo-Pacific sync?

The region does not have a permanent security architecture, but it is replete with different formal and informal geometries of largely four kinds – US-steered; EU-steered, Japan-steered and individual countries’ trilateral mechanisms. A special mention is also required of regional groupings such as the IORA and India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI).

What is common to them is that in varying degrees they work to deter unilateral change in status quo by finding common ground, engaging the relevant countries of ASEAN and improving members’ capabilities. When and if NATO pivots this space, the cooperation matrix to emerge is likely to remain flexible and informal.

The “plus” cooperation framework is Pareto optimal vis a vis expanding cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The region’s security geometries are informal and fluid in nature where elements of competition, cooperation and deterrence glisten simultaneously along the same continuum. Therefore, whether it is the “plus” framework or unofficial cooperation without taking up any label, the idea is that cooperation can and should be achieved without compromising the strategic autonomy of stakeholders.

The binding glue of those burgeoning geometries is premised on finding common (not identical) interests. Differences with respect to approach and engagement with China, among other things, is accepted among other players. For example, the Quad informally capitalises on upholding a rules-based order among India, Japan, US and Australia in the Indian Ocean Region of the larger Indo-pacific. If there is a Quad 2  comprising the US, Japan, Australia and Philippines, whose convergence on China is more hawkish, so be it. As long as these geometries complement each other and connect the dots to deter unilateral change in status quo, there should be no conflict.

What should be India’s strategy?

Pragmatism, not denial should be India’s strategy to engage NATO’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific.

It is remarkable that despite the luminescence of India’s truly global intersectional diplomatic footprint, its disdain around NATO seems to be fixated in the cold war paradigm.

Officially, India on its part has been engaging NATO through political dialogues and meetings since 2019. But these encounters are steered with extreme caution because public opinion is staunchly dismissive of NATO in the Indo-Pacific and the strategic community is quick to rebut any overtures made in this regard. The rebuttals are quick to arrive without delving into what NATO’s pivot to the region would entail for India.

For sure the discomfort isn’t without genuine misgivings. Last time NATO went global, it resulted in blunders for Iraq and Afghanistan. Geographically far-removed from the security order in Europe and NATO’s role in ensuring and stabilising it, the region has been concerned about engaging in a cold war time security alliance. Contrary to the largely defensive character NATO upholds in the European security order, in Asia, it has been perceived as the tool with which America unleashed its brute unipolar strength.

But that was decades ago. There are at least two valid reasons why India should engage a 21^st century Global NATO’s overtures.

What has changed

The collective consciousness of the world has evolved ever since the US stopped having exclusive control of the levers of global power, challenged by China. There has also been a rise of middle order powers whose consequential hedging makes the world operate in forever flux. There was hardly any ‘Indo-Pacific’ in India’s strategic imagination three decades ago.

The problem is, India’s strategic community’s criticism of NATO’s pivot to Asia is not etched in the rigour of analysis.

There is no serious review of NATO’s  Strategic Concept of 2022 that marks the inflection point of the alliance’s evolution and its approach to broadening security concerns. It is of unmissable relevance to India. Several of its key points echo India’s objectives and national interest with uncanny similarity. For example, the 13^th point in the Strategic Concept is of direct relevance to New Delhi as it talks of vulnerabilities around critical infrastructure and rare earth dependence on China in the light of the Ukraine war. The next few points talk about freedom of navigation (14th point) and NATO’s commitment to co-develop and co-design norms and principles around maritime space architecture (23^rd point) and emerging tech challenges (15^th and 17^th points) in the new information age. 19^th point lays down NATO’s plans to fight climate change.

Countering NATO’s axis to China and Pakistan

From India’s perspective, it is important that a more global avatar of NATO has been engaging with its arch rivals China and Pakistan. Until December 2019, NATO had held nine rounds of talks with Beijing. The global alliance’s political dialogue and military cooperation with Pakistan has been a reality too. Having opened selective training for Pakistani officers, its military delegation held the 9^th  edition of military staff talks in November 2019, a process that has continued well after into later years. It shows NATO’s sustained engagement with Pakistan that India must take note of, especially now as the alliance pivots to Indo-Pacific.

Power of precedent

While NATO’s pivot is met with ‘cold stares’ in New Delhi, a parallel can be given from ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY), World War times’ intelligence sharing alliance that recently became operational  in the Indo-Pacific. Just as the case with NATO, China was never the reason why the ‘Five Eyes’ (FVEY) group was formed. But over the years, it has expanded its threat spectrum and geographical focus, particularly in operations regarding China.

In 2019, Congressman Democrat Adam Schiff, then chair of the “House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence” in a US report to the House of Representatives had argued the case for India, Japan and South Korea to be part of a similar alliance as the ‘Five Eyes’. The stated goal was to maintain peace and rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.

The June 2020 Five Eyes defense minister joint statement clearly underlined their focus on India and Japan, noting the importance of adding new “regional partners and institutions.

Notwithstanding growing speculation, neither India nor Japan have joined the FVEY plus even as cooperation with the group grows. Therefore, as long as India remains open to engaging NATO’s pivot to Indo-Pacific with pragmatism, joining it formally or informally is neither conditional nor preferable — just like with the FVEY.

Merging of the two security theatres is underway. What is required is a re-imagining of the security landscape in Indo-Pacific in a non-conformist, post-alliance space.

The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)