India never had ‘NATO mentality’
India in recent years has broken many presumed political taboos in its foreign policy, but talking to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is not one of them because any suggestion that India should engage the NATO is usually met with a cold stare in Delhi.
Why India should be a part of NATO?
- Post-cold war era growth of NATO: NATO has built partnerships with many neutral and non-aligned states since the end of cold war in 1991.
- India’s refusal to join NATO was premised on its non-alignment but this argument had little justification once the Cold War ended during 1989-91.
- Regular contact with military alliance: As most of the members of the NATO are well-established partners of India, an India-NATO dialogue would simply mean having strategic military benefits for India.
- India has military exchanges with many members of NATO including the US, Britain, and France in bilateral and minilateral formats.
- India’s growing engagement in Europe: The deepening of India’s maritime partnership with France since 2018 is an example of ending prolonged political neglect of Delhi towards Europe.
- India also joined the Franco-German Alliance for Multilateralism in 2019 and the Prime Minister’s first summit with Nordic nations in 2018 was a recognition that Europe is not a monolith but a continent of sub-regions.
- China’s growing influence across the globe: China’s meteoric rise has dramatically heightened India’s need for closer security relationships with politically reliable, like-minded states.
- Establishment of India’s deterrence against its rivals: India would benefit from having prior planning and arrangements in place for cooperating with NATO and its Mediterranean partners to secure its western flank and the approaches to the Red Sea.
- Partnering with NATO carries technological benefits: Under a provision in the US 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, India now enjoys the same technology-sharing and cost-sharing perks as other non-NATO US allies for purposes of the Arms Export Control Act.
- Adding NATO partner status could also position India to benefit from possible future programmes aimed at lowering the barriers for cooperation in emerging technologies between NATO and its Asia-Pacific partners.
- It could also help to offset the growing concerns and negative scrutiny that India is increasingly attracting in Congress for its disproportionate reliance on Russian military equipment.
Challenges for India-NATO link
- Delhi’s difficulty in thinking strategically about Europe: Through the colonial era, Calcutta and Delhi viewed Europe through British eyes and after Independence, Delhi tended to see Europe through the Russian lens.
- Lack of Delhi’s attention towards Europe’s demand: The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union demanded a fresh approach to Europe but Delhi could not devote the kind of strategic attention that Europe demanded.
- The bureaucratisation of the engagement between Delhi and Brussels and the lack of high-level political interest prevented India from taking full advantage of a re-emerging Europe.
- Ongoing conflict with NATO: It is riven with divisions on how to share the military burden and strike the right balance between NATO and the EU’s quest for an independent military role.
- NATO members disagree on Russia, the Middle East and China, and conflicts among NATO members such as Greece and Turkey have sharpened.
- Relationship between India and Russia will be at stake: Russia has not made a secret of its allergy to the Quad and Delhi’s dalliance with Washington and engagement of India with NATO is unlikely to make much difference.
- Delhi cannot be happy with the deepening ties between Moscow and Beijing.
- As mature states, India and Russia know they have to insulate their bilateral relationship from the larger structural trends buffeting the world today.
- A pragmatic engagement with NATO must be an important part of India’s new European orientation especially amidst the continent’s search for a new role in the Indo-Pacific.
- In order to play any role in the Indo-Pacific, Europe and NATO need partners like India, Australia and Japan and Delhi, in turn, knows that no single power can produce stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
- A sustained dialogue between India and NATO could facilitate productive exchanges in a range of areas, including terrorism, changing geopolitics and ensuring peace and security.
- An institutionalised engagement with NATO should make it easier for Delhi to deal with the military establishments of its 30 member states.
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