 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss the 2 plus 2 summit which was held between the United States and India in New Delhi recently. We have with us D. Ravanandran to discuss the issue. Lago, what it appears is that India seems to have made a new turn if you will from what it was getting towards in Wuhan and Sochi later, which was a more independent foreign policy back to what it was before say the 2014 or the earlier period when India used to talk about geostrategic autonomy. But with this particularly signing of the Comcast agreement and no other change in the relation between India and the United States whether it is Iran sanctions, whether it is the S 400 issue, whether it is a trade issue or even what always in Indian discussions comes up the visa issues regarding the business visas that India wants United States to extend. This seems to have been almost a one-sided session by India to US demands that India signs the Comcast agreement. This communication agreement is in some sense a demand that US has been making for a long time. Do you see anything that is that India has got out of the summit apart from considering the Comcast? See I think that the Wuhan and similar moves meant to allay Chinese fears. I am not sure that I would see it so much as a U-turn as that I think there were apprehensions in Russia, in China in particular that India's pro-US tilt was becoming so sharp and pronounced that India felt the need to appease anxieties in China. Allay the anxieties. To allay the anxieties. That having been done I think India has now reverted to its position of throwing all its eggs into the US basket. Now in terms of what India has got out of this, I think if you weigh the pros and cons, I think India has given away more than it has got. In the sense that India has already acquired a fair number of US weapons systems. The P-8i reconnaissance aircraft, the transport aircraft, the C-17 and the C-130 Hercules. Now all of these are currently operating with bought out commercially available communications and security hardware and software. Now clearly if you wanted to maximize the potential of these systems, you need to upgrade the CONSEC, the communications and security hardware on these systems. To do that, they have now acquired the American systems which has necessitated signing of the Comcast. In fact, the buying spree which India had entered into for US armaments virtually has pre-supposed India signing on to the Comcast and many commentators have been warning that the increasing stepped up purchases of US hardware by India would mean entering into the strategic embrace of the US rather than just being one of transactions. Let us look at the Comcast agreement itself. What it means of course is that India gets access as you said to shall we say more souped up American hardware in terms of communication equipment. The ability to use this whatever the military hardware it is bought better. But the converse is also true that the United States gets access to all this equipment even if it is in Indian hands because the software really drives this and the software the back doors whatever the integration of the American systems are ensure that the United States will know exactly where all these are positioned A and B push come to shove they have the ability to disable this equipment if it wants and this is something which will always mean that there is a back door open as it were to American equipment. And that is what I was suggesting when I said India is losing more. Pro US commentators those who have been salivating at the prospects of India acquiring sophisticated US equipment have been making much of the fact that Comcast will now enable India to tap into US communications and intelligence systems that India will have access to real time intelligence from the US systems. But these commentators forget the fact that this is at the pleasure of the United States and the United States can always cut off the supply of such intelligence may not share this intelligence with India can code the information in such a way that India does not access that is one part of it. So you enter into a strategic embrace with the US assuming that you have access to a large pool of information but forgetting that this is at the beck and call of the US. And second the point that you mention is the intrusive nature of the US role once you have got this equipment. We do not know the exact details of the agreement signed with India which is supposed to be India specific. But if you look at similar agreement signed with other US military allies the US has retained the right to inspect this equipment. It has sold right for servicing and maintenance of this equipment including the coding of the software. None of this is in Indian hands. This is way beyond end use monitoring of the equipment. This is actual on-site inspection, repair, maintenance which means access to all military facilities of India wherever such equipment is being used including by the way the Andaman integrated command where a lot of this equipment is also going to be made available. Other part of it even you had the interest to see that the United States does not impose sanctions on oil issue which is the Iran issue. India is now going to still buy Iranian oil using Iranian tankers and this will not be denominated in dollars. The S-400 is still being opposed. The United States are still threatened sanctions if India goes ahead with it. And interestingly both these were announced by Pompeo in the US Embassy not during the summit and we have absolutely no softening of the US stand on the trade issue where they have said trade has to be balanced. Now here is the issue that it is not a question of what it needs or doesn't need. What US needs or doesn't need it is that it has to be entirely reciprocal in terms of quantity, in terms of money. Now those are things which are completely outrageous and it is not a part of shall we say the GATT or the WTO arrangement but this is not the basis of the trade. In fact if India thought that entering into this kind of strategic alliance with the US will give India a lever and a leg up in foreign policy relations while retaining a degree of sovereignty and independence it is very much mistaken because no US ally NATO not accepted. The UK, Germany, Japan and the Koreas, Australia no country has been given exceptional treatment by the United States. Pax Americana runs. It doesn't matter whether there is a UN resolution or not the United States has commanded its coalition allies to enter the war in Afghanistan to enter into operations in Iraq and in many other theaters around the world and it doesn't matter what sensitivities are involved. If the United States could do this with 70 year old allies going back to the Second World War Johnny come lately is like India are not going to be able to shift the US and I think it was very remarkable that no concessions were made by the US to Indian sensitivities with regard to Russian equipment being bought for India. More than 60 percent of India's military hardware is of Russian origin and if you are prevented today from buying S 400s there is nothing to suggest that tomorrow you will not be further prevented from buying Russian hardware which means you are being forced into a position where you will buy more and more US hardware. So even if Trump had not blackmailed you into balancing the payments you would head in that direction anyway by this compulsion to buy more US military equipment. It's also interesting that Shushma Swaraj, a foreign minister seems to have made defense as the cornerstone of foreign policy which was never India's foreign policy it was also always based on not just defense and military issues but also a different view of the world which also was talked about what shall we say is the emancipatory view of the decolonization project the colonial or neocolonial pressures which have been put all of this was a part of Indian foreign policy to make an entire defense centric is quite new. Last point I would like to take this two plus two coupling defense with foreign policy do you see this is a big shift in India's foreign policy rather than defense. Oh definitely two things that I would like to say with regard to this the first is that much of this shift to an explicitly pro-US stance was initiated during the first NDA government under then Prime Minister Vajpayee but cemented during the UPA regime which entered into the Indo-US defense framework agreement which in fact has paved the way for all this and that framework agreement itself makes defense the basis for external affairs for foreign relations between the two countries. So it is a relationship rooted in a defense agreement which then drives external affairs that is one. The second point is that having entered into such an agreement the UPA discovered and listened to many voices from the strategic ecosystem in India which were warning the government not to enter into much deeper relations with the US precisely because it threatened Indian sovereignty and independence and decision making. This government within a matter of three years has signed the foundational agreements Lemoa and now Comcast is inevitably going to sign Beka and has entered into this formal agreement which more or less makes India today a designated military ally of the United States which as we all know means that you then become part of the US foreign policy establishment and worldview. You know the interestingly enough we also seem to have reiterated our willingness to buy the discredited Westinghouse reactors which are finding no takers at the moment even in the United States. Leaving out all of this consideration it does seem that India is now on a trajectory which is somewhat different from what we had hoped after first the Doh Club standoff then Sochi and Wuhan then there was some thawing of India-China relationship some balancing we seem to be back on track post Doh Club again. I am afraid so. Thank you very much Raghu for being with us do keep watching news click for further discussion on this and other topics.