US-Pak F-16 Deal, India's Ukraine Stand: Two Irritants In India-US Ties And The Questions Being Raised

India expects US to be sensitive towards its national & strategic interests while dealing with Pak. Previous admins took care of these concerns, and India wants Biden admin to not change the course.

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press conference in Washington, DC, on September 27, 2022.

Source : AFP

Two major developments in recent times, with a bearing on bilateral  relations between the United States and India, have raised questions if respective national interests will come in the way of a strong strategic partnership not only for mutual benefit but also for the Indo-Pacific region. While the US decision to refurbish and upgrade the F-16 fighter fleet of Pakistani air force has irked the Narendra Modi government, India’s decision to not follow the US diktat of condemning Russia over its military invasion and grabbing of Ukrainian territory has created dismay in the White House and Foggy Bottom. 

Both these issues were raised during the Washington meeting of Union Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the last week of September. While the two sides maintained  their declared positions on the contentious issues of the US resuming military assistance to Pakistan and India ignoring US sanctions on Russia. Just three days after this meeting, India abstained for the 9th time on a US-sponsored resolution against Russia. As strategic partners, both expect to be mindful of each other’s security and strategic concerns.

India-US Ties Grew After Washington Started To Distance Itself From Pakistan    

Just a day before meeting Blinken, Jaishankar bluntly took a dig at the US administration, saying: “You are not fooling anybody by saying these things”, referring to the US statement that the F-16 aircraft are meant to fight terrorists. He said this was like acquiring a gun to kill a mosquito.

During the media interaction after their talks, Blinken reiterated the established US formulation on F-16s: “Pakistan’s program bolsters its capability to deal with terrorist threats emanating from Pakistan or from the region. It’s in no one’s interest that those threats be able to go forward with impunity, and so this capability that Pakistan has had can benefit all of us in dealing with terrorism. Whether it is TTP that may be targeting Pakistan, whether it’s ISIS-Khorasan, whether it’s Al-Qaida, I think the threats are clear, well-known, and we all have an interest in making sure that we have the means to deal with them. And that’s what this is about.”

There are no takers for this assertion, at least in the South Block. India is bothered that the return of US policy of using Pakistan as a strategic springboard will revive the era of zero sum game in South Asia, when the US used to keep India and Pakistan hyphenated. This policy created trust deficit between the two biggest democracies, which are now being described as “natural allies”. In fact, former president Barak Obama’s famous adage, “defining partnership of the 21st century”, is often quoted in strategic circles. 

When they met in the last week of September in Washington, the two foreign ministers vouched to maintain the strong bilateral relations, which saw an upward trajectory after the US started to maintain a safe distance from Pakistan whose policy of harbouring terrorists was characterised by the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011 as rearing “snakes in the backyard”.   

In the changing geo-political equations, the speed with which the US and India started collaborating surprised many. In fact, India’s former foreign secretary Shyam Saran recently said that when he was in the South Block he never imagined the relationship to reach to such a depth within a span of two decades. Both sides want to preserve this hard earned companionship. This is why both Blinken and Jaishankar were eloquent on this relationship. While Blinken said the partnership between India and the US “is simply one of the most consequential in the world”, Jaishankar said he was “very bullish about that relationship”. That means both countries will not allow to compromise on these ties.

India Not Comfortable With Recent US Stance Towards Pakistan 

India expects the US to be sensitive towards its national and strategic interests while dealing with Pakistan. The previous presidents took care of India’s concerns, and India wants the Joe Biden administration to not change the course.

However, in the last week of September, the US Foreign Office hosted foreign ministers of both India and Pakistan within a span of few hours. Before this highest-level interaction in recent years between the US and Pakistan, the former had announced its decision to not only provide all technical and material support to modernise the F-16 fighter fleet of Pakistani air force, but also give $450 million as aid for the upgrade. What does US expects from cash-strapped Pakistan, whose economy is in dire straits, in return? Does this mean a return to the old US policy of Pakistan appeasement, when Pakistan used to seek aid in lieu of informing the location of terrorists wanted by the US? It is very interesting that the killing of Al Qaida chief Ayman Al- Zawahiri in Kabul, whose location was said to be disclosed by Pakistan, was followed by the F-16 package. A very generous US administration also announced $66 million assistance for flood relief. Does this mean the US is returning to the balancing game between India and Pakistan?

In contrast to the Donald Trump administration’s policy to keep Pakistan at a distance and stop all defence aid, which continued with the Biden administration initially as the president even refused to talk to then Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan over the phone, the US seems to have had a rethink on its Pakistan policy. Diplomatic observers are, however, of the view that F-16 and Ukraine will not have an immediate direct impact on the robustness of the India-US relationship, though both countries will be formulating policies in future keeping in mind the recent negative vibes in the relations.

Common strategic concerns have brought the two countries on common platforms of QUAD, I2U2, Indo-Pacific Economic Forum etc. Only recently, India made smart diplomatic moves to checkmate China at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) where  an effort was made to denounce the AUKUS (Australia, US and UK) as the treaty offers nuclear submarines to Australia, which was described as a violation of Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. 

Similarly, the US very often co-sponsors resolutions in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to proscribe Pakistan-supported terrorists and their cohorts. The two countries together aim to meet the China challenge from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean. After meeting Jaishankar, Secretary Blinken said: “I think no two countries have a greater ability and, I think, opportunity and responsibility to try to shape the future of this century than the United States and India as the world’s two largest democracies.”

The author is a strategic affairs analyst.

[Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs, and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal.]