ASIAN STRATEGIC REVIEW 2015 India as a Security Provider ASIAN STRATEGIC REVIEW 2015 India as a Security Provider Editors S.D. MUNI VIVEK CHADHA INSTITUTE FOR DEFENCE STUDIES & ANALYSES NEW DELHI PENTAGON PRESS Asian Strategic Review 2015: India as a Security Provider S.D. Muni, Vivek Chadha (Eds) First Published in 2015 Copyright © Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi ISBN 978-81-8274-825-5 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining written permission of the copyright owner. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, or the Government of India. Published by PENTAGON PRESS 206, Peacock Lane, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi-110049 Phones: 011-64706243, 26491568 Telefax: 011-26490600 email: [email protected] website: www.pentagonpress.in Branch Flat No.213, Athena-2, Clover Acropolis, Viman Nagar, Pune-411014 Email: [email protected] In association with Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses No. 1, Development Enclave, New Delhi-110010 Phone: +91-11-26717983 Website: www.idsa.in Printed at Avantika Printers Private Limited. Contents List of Contributors vii 1. Introduction 1 S.D. Muni 2. Political Will and Military Capacity to Provide Security 9 Brig Rumel Dahiya (Retd) INDIA AND ITS IMMEDIATE NEIGHBOURS 3. Can India be a Security Provider to its Neighbours: Competing Interests, Dichotomical Expectations, Challenges and Constraints 31 Smruti S Pattanaik 4. Defence and Security Partnership with Myanmar 67 Sampa Kundu 5. Afghanistan Post-2014: Can India Emerge as a Key ‘Security Collaborator’? 82 Rajeev Agarwal 6. Mutual Assured Security: India-Nepal Security Cooperation to Mitigate Common Threats 104 Nihar R Nayak 7. Assuring Security to Sri Lanka 122 Gulbin Sultana INDO-PACIFIC 8. Maritime Security Partner in the Indo-Pacific 145 Cdr Abhijit Singh 9. India-U.S. Security Cooperation in Asia: Can India be a Net Security Provider? 166 Saroj Bishoyi vi Asian Strategic Review 2015 10. Security Engagement in Southeast Asia 193 Rahul Mishra 11. India in East Asia: Reviewing the Role of a Security Provider 213 Jagannath Panda 12. India and China: Competition and Cooperation in the Evolving Asian Security Scenario 230 Avinash Godbole 13. India-South Korea Defence and Security Cooperation: Exploring the Possibilities and Challenges 250 Pranamita Baruah 14. India-Japan Security Cooperation: Expectation, Challenges and the Way Forward 268 Titli Basu WEST ASIA 15. India’s Constraints in the Gulf Region 287 Prasanta Kumar Pradhan 16. India and Iran: Progress and Prospects of an Evolving Security Relationship 301 M Mahtab Alam Rizvi 17. Equipping to Play the Role: India-Israel Strategic Engagement 312 S. Samuel C. Rajiv NUCLEAR 18. Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership: India’s Gift Basket of Nuclear Security 329 Reshmi Kazi 19. Concluding Assessment 349 Vivek Chadha Annexures 357 Index 393 List of Contributors Rumel Dahiya is an Army veteran and presently Deputy Director General of IDSA Dr. Smruti S. Pattanaik is a Research Fellow at the IDSA. She specialises in South Asia. Her current focus is role of states in India’s neighbourhood policy. Dr. Sampa Kundu is a Research Assistant at IDSA. Her research interests include India-Myanmar bilateral relations, Southeast Asia and regional cooperation. Col Rajeev Agarwal is a former Research Fellow at IDSA. His areas of interest include West Asia and Afghanistan. Dr. Nihar R. Nayak is an Associate Fellow with IDSA. His area of expertise is Nepal, Bhutan, Left Wing Extremism, peace building and cooperative security in South Asia. Dr. Nayak has both national and international publications including the book Strategic Himalayas: Republican Nepal and External Powers. Gulbin Sultana is a Research Assistant with South Asia Centre, IDSA. Sri Lanka is her focus area of research. Cdr Abhijit Singh is a Research Fellow at IDSA. He looks at strategic maritime issues in the Asia-Pacific region, and littoral security in the Indian Ocean. Dr. Saroj Bishoyi is a researcher at the North American Centre, IDSA. His areas of research include India-US relations, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. domestic politics and international relations theory. Dr. Rahul Mishra is a Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, Sapru House, New Delhi. His areas of interest include politico-military, economic and strategic developments in Southeast Asian countries, regional groupings in Southeast Asia, and Asia-Pacific security issues. Dr. Jagannath P. Panda is Research Fellow and Centre Coordinator for East Asia at IDSA. His research areas are: India-China relations, East Asian power politics and Asia’s multilateralism concerning China and India. Avinash Godbole is a researcher with the IDSA. His areas of interest include China; domestic politics, minorities, energy and environment and China’s viii Asian Strategic Review 2015 Asia strategy and India China relations. He is also assistant editor for IDSA’s CBW magazine. Pranamita Baruah is a researcher at the IDSA. Her areas of research include India-Japan relations, North Korean nuclear issue and security in the Korean Peninsula. Dr Titli Basu is a researcher at the IDSA. Her research interests include Japanese foreign and security policy. Dr. Prasanta Kumar Pradhan is an Associate Fellow at the IDSA. His areas of research include domestic, foreign policy and security issues in the Gulf region and the Arab world. Dr. M Mahtab Alam Rizvi is an Associate Fellow at the IDSA. His areas of research include political developments, economic and trade issues in Iran and the Gulf Region and Iran-China economic, political and defence relations. S. Samuel C. Rajiv is an Associate Fellow, IDSA. His current research interests include the Iran nuclear issue and India-Israel ties. Dr. Reshmi Kazi is Associate Fellow at IDSA. She specialises in areas of India’s nuclear weapons policy, WMD proliferation studies, nuclear security in Asia and global disarmament. Her latest publication includes her monograph Nuclear Terrorism: The New Terror of the 21st Century. 1 Introduction S.D. Muni The role of a security provider is generally assigned to or expected out of the great and capable powers that can deploy their surplus national assets for the safety and stability of other countries. The buzz of India being a security provider in the Asian– particularly the Indian Ocean region – has been growing louder in the official and intellectual strategic discourse in Asia for the past decade and a half. Officially, the US policy makers were the first to clearly articulate it. Addressing the Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore on May 30, 2009, the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: “In coming years, we look to India to be a partner and net provider of security in the Indian Ocean and beyond”. This theme has continuously been reiterated by many other US leaders and officials in recent years. The perception in the US and elsewhere, about India emerging as a security provider in Asia, must have been prompted by the ground reality of developments in India’s military capabilities and political will. India offering to escort US ships passing through the Malacca Strait in 2002, and providing a credible response to the Tsunami of December 2004, were significant pointers in this respect. In both these cases, the US had a chance to be a witness to India’s capabilities and strategic intent. With China proving to be a growing strategic challenge to its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, the US has also been looking for strategic partners and military allies who could share the burden of meeting the Chinese challenge. It made considerable sense to US policy makers to encourage India –given its great geo-strategic advantage of location—as a ‘pivot’ in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions (India’s first Prime Minister Nehru used this term for India as early as in 1944), to play the role of a security provider in this respect.1 This is not to say that India was not itself aware of its potential and growing capabilities to be an Asian security provider. India has, in fact, always been a 2 Asian Strategic Review 2015 security provider to its willing immediate neighbours like Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar (then Burma) and Indonesia, since its own independence in 1947. It continued to play this role throughout the 1970s and 1980s in relation to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. With the rise in its economic strength and military capabilities from the late 1990s onwards, India has, since the beginning of this century, been openly expressing its aspirations and willingness to be a dependable security partner to its immediate and extended neighbours, as stability and order in Asia has been in its own intrinsic interests. The statements made by the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee in 2006 and the then National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon in 2010 at the Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore, where top honchos of the Asian strategic community gather for serious policy discussions every year, bear strong testimony to this. India’s maritime military strategy, officially outlined in May 2007, stipulated: Smaller nations in our neighbourhood as well as nations that depend on the waters of the Indian Ocean for their trade and energy supplies have come to expect that the Indian Navy will ensure a measure of stability and tranquillity in the waters around our shores. Ensuring good order at sea is therefore a legitimate duty of the Indian Navy. This task will require enhanced capabilities, cooperation and interoperability with regional and extra-regional navies.2 Highlighting the thrust of this strategy, India’s then Defence Minister A.K.