The military-strategic alliance between India and the US is anti-national and war-mongering
Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 24th August 2018
The inaugural ‘two plus-two’ dialogue between India and the US is scheduled to take place in New Delhi on September 6, 2018. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary James Mattis will be hosted by their Indian counterparts, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Minister of Defence Nirmala Sitharaman. The declared purpose of these talks is “to discuss strengthening strategic, security and defence cooperation”, for US and India to “jointly address challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond”.
The military-strategic alliance between India and the US is anti-national and war-mongering
Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 24th August 2018
The inaugural ‘two plus-two’ dialogue between India and the US is scheduled to take place in New Delhi on September 6, 2018. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary James Mattis will be hosted by their Indian counterparts, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Minister of Defence Nirmala Sitharaman. The declared purpose of these talks is “to discuss strengthening strategic, security and defence cooperation”, for US and India to “jointly address challenges in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond”.
The decision of the two governments to hold regular bilateral talks involving their foreign and defence ministers indicates the importance being given by the ruling class of both countries to strengthen their military strategic alliance. This alliance has been growing since the end of the Cold War and particularly since 2003.
The US looks at this alliance as an important component of its strategy to establish its complete domination over Asia. The US is trying to establish its control over the oil, gas and mineral rich countries of Asia, encircle and contain China and weaken Russia, to achieve this strategic aim. Towards this end, it has carried out military invasions, organized regime changes and enforced crippling sanctions. It is building bilateral and multilateral military strategic alliances with various countries in the region. It is deliberately stoking up conflicts between the countries and peoples of Asia to weaken all of them and realise its aim.
The Indian ruling class has its own imperialist ambitions of becoming a major power in the Indian Ocean Region – including South Asia, West Asia, the countries of Africa on the Indian Ocean, and the countries of South East Asia. It looks at China as the major challenge in achieving this aim. It hopes to achieve its ambitions by coordinating its strategy with that of the US through a military strategic alliance.
Step by step, the US has ensured that the Indian state has got more and more entangled in its strategic embrace. It has encouraged the Indian ruling class to take a belligerent attitude towards China and Pakistan. It has been assisting the Indian state to upgrade its armed forces, by selling the most sophisticated weapons in its military arsenal. Simultaneously, it has been working to dovetail the plans of the armed forces of India and its intelligence agencies with that of the US.
Towards this end, the US has been demanding that India signs three agreements. The first of these agreements was the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA). This agreement was signed in August 2016. It commits the Indian state to providing wide-ranging military logistical support to the US armed forces. Indian ports and naval military bases are committed to provide logistical military support to the US military for their naval fleets and surveillance activities in this region.
According to news reports, the government of India is ready to sign the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) with the US. This agreement would ensure that the Indian Armed Forces will henceforth use communication technology which is provided by the US armed forces. This will effectively ensure that the US will have full access to the internal communications within the Indian armed forces. The proposed agreement will also allow the US armed forces to carry out periodic inspections at Indian military bases to check the COMCASA equipment. Alongside of COMCASA, the US is also pushing India to sign a third agreement, called the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA).
These agreements endanger the sovereignty of India, by tying up the Indian armed forces with that of the US. They will imply a spurt in purchase of sophisticated military equipment by India from the US. There will be ever-increasing pressure on the Indian state to closely dovetail its strategy in the Indo Pacific region with that of the US. With US imperialism striving to establish its domination over Asia through wars of aggression, there is great danger of India being drawn into wars against other Asian countries.
The US is simultaneously pushing hard that India play a greater role in a quadrilateral alliance – a military alliance including India, Japan, Australia and US – for the Indo-Pacific region. India is not only participating in joint naval exercises in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal, but also in the Pacific Ocean. The US is fuelling the ambitions of the Indian ruling class to join it in encircling China.
The growing Indo US military alliance is leading to increasing tensions in India’s relations with other countries, including China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran.
The two plus two dialogue between India and the US is taking place at a time when the US has imposed sanctions against other countries trading with Russia and Iran. India has close and long standing relations with both these countries. The US is threatening India with sanctions if it continues to trade with these two countries.
India is currently in the process of purchasing the S-400 air defence system from Russia. The Indian ruling class, while eager to participate in the Indo-US strategic alliance at this time, would not like to jeopardise its option of buying military hardware from Russia. It is bargaining with the US to allow it to purchase military hardware from Russia.
Iran is the second biggest supplier of crude oil to India. India is also building a port at Chabahar which will open a trade route to Afghanistan and Russia. The US has demanded that all countries stop trading with Iran by November or face sanctions. The sanctions on Iran, apart from hurting that country’s people, will lead to a massive increase in crude oil price worldwide. Instead of opposing these unjust and unilateral sanctions, the government of India has ordered the oil refining companies to stop purchase of crude oil from Iran. This is an act against the interests of both the peoples of Iran and India. It has damaged India’s relations with Iran.
An important point to bear in mind is that even though India is an imperialist power with ambitions of becoming a world class power, and it is in order to fulfill these ambitions that the Indian ruling class is strengthening this strategic military alliance with the US, the relation between the US and India is an unequal relationship weighted in favour of the US, which is the stronger power, militarily and economically.
The experience of all countries which have entered into a military strategic alliance with the US, reveals in each case, the totally unprincipled character of US imperialism. US imperialism uses its alliance partners to advance its own imperialist aims. Towards this end, it brazenly violates previously agreed upon norms and terms of any agreement, arrogating to itself the “right” to brutally interfere in the internal affairs of its allies and violate their sovereignty. Military strategic alliances have served the US in establishing its control and domination over its allies. Any country that enters into a military strategic alliance with the US does so at its own peril. Its brutal interference in and destabilisaton of Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey show what lies in store for the people of such countries.
It is extremely important for the people of our country to oppose the growing military strategic alliance of the Indian state with the US state. US imperialism is on an aggressive warmongering course. It has openly declared that its aim is to establish a uni-polar world under its domination, through any and every means. It has committed and continues to commit the most monstrous crimes against humanity. Over the last two decades, it has used its military might to dismember Yugoslavia, invade and destroy Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. It has imposed a brutal civil war on Syria and an inhuman blockade of Iran, North Korea and Cuba. It is threatening numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that do not toe its line with economic blockade, destabilization and regime change.
The growing military strategic alliance with the US is not in the interests of the Indian people. The Indian people have nothing to gain and everything to lose by joining the US in launching unjust imperialist wars of conquest against other countries and peoples. The Indo-US strategic and military alliance must be resolutely opposed because it is an alliance that is directed against the sovereignty of the Indian people and against peace and security in the Asia Pacific region. It is an anti-national and war mongering alliance, totally against the interests of the Indian working class and people, and all the nations, nationalities and peoples of this region.