What is the issue?
- In 2017, India and U.S. commissioned the “Finance and Defence Ministers 2+2 format for enhancing bilateral engagement.
- But a scheduled meet was called off recently and the format remains a non-starter, partly due to the straining of Indo-U.S. ties.
What are the stress points currently in the Indo-U.S. ties?
- U.S. administration recently enhanced sanctions against Russia and Iran in addition to pulling out from the Iranian Nuclear Deal.
- Further, Trump’s toughening stand against countries and entities conducting business with “Iran and Russia” directly affects India.
- India has, in turn, tightened its engagement with Russia, China and Iran, with PM Modi advocating a course of “strategic autonomy”.
- Indo-U.S. tensions have also been playing out amply in the context of bilateral trade, and even verbal exchanges are being exchanged.
- While their strategic relationship was recently upgraded to “major defence partnership”, there hasn’t been much progress here too.
- The 3 critical “foundational agreements”, which are ideal for enhancing defence ties and procurements haven’t moved ahead.
How is the South Asian strategy of U.S. evolving?
- Initially, there seemed to be perfect resonance between the Trump administration’s outlook and Indian concerns in South Asia.
- Trump had gone public in lashing out at Pakistan for being soft on terror and threatened them with suspension of military aid.
- U.S. also managed to get Pakistan “grey-listed” internationally through the “Financial Action Task Force” for financing terror.
- Trump’s Afghan policy placed emphasised on India’s centrality in Afghanistan and sought to enhance India’s role in regional security.
- But presently, there are sufficient indications that the U.S. is resorting to its older doctrine of Pakistan centric Afghan policy.
- Such change in outlook is likely to constrain India to a mere supplementary role and also deprive India of strategic options.
What are the perceptible changes in the U.S.-Pak equations?
- Recent months have seen a sharp betterment in Af-Pak relationship alongside an improvement in the U.S.-Pak ties.
- Multiple diplomatic visits by government officials of “U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan” had been organised in successions.
- Additionally, the politically influential Pakistani military and the Afgani-Taliban have also been kept in the loop throughout.
- Concurrently, there has been a softening of U.S. line on Pakistan’s overall terror record, all of which seems to be clearly coordinated.
- The U.S. has asked Pakistan to act against all terror groups on its soil, but it seems focused just on groups targeting Afghanistan.
- More importantly, terror groups and operatives targeting India are being provided a free run and are even fighting elections in Pakistan.
How does the future look?
- India has decided to go ahead with its Chabahar Port project in Iran despite U.S.’s position, but sanctions will be surely constraining.
- Additionally, India is likely to cave in to U.S. pressures on reducing oil imports from Iran, which might strain Indo-Iran ties.
- While it is a tight rope to thread, India has nonetheless been through such phases in the past and can be expected to manage through.
- But the fact that Indo-U.S. ties aren’t robust like in previous occasions is indeed a cause of worry.
- Enhanced engagements with China and Russia are only expected to further strain matters over the next few months.
- Rescheduling the 2+2 at the earliest is hence vital for both New Delhi and Washington, if ties are to be normalised.
Source: The Hindu
