THE joint statement issued after the Obama-Modi talks has affirmed that the Defence Framework Agreement will be renewed for another ten years. This Framework Agreement, the first of its kind, was signed in June 2005 by the UPA government. What has now been decided is that negotiations would be held so that another framework agreement is put in place by June 2015 for the next ten years. This had already been decided when the US Secretary for Defence, Chuck Hagel, visited Delhi in August this year. It may be recalled that the UPA government had entered into a strategic alliance with the United States and this was signaled by the signing of the Defence Framework Agreement in June 2005 followed by the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington, a month later in July when the joint statement was issued along with President Bush. This statement had four components – defence collaboration, political support for spreading democracy, economic partnership and the civil nuclear deal. PENTAGON PLAN The Pentagon had set out its perspective on India before the 2005 agreement. A study by the Net Assessment Office of the US Department of Defence in 2002 had set out the view that “building a strategic and military relationship with India as a long term process will help position the United States for future challenges in Asia”. The researcher who conducted the study concludes “We want a friend in 2020 that will be capable of assisting the US military to deal with a Chinese threat. We cannot deny that India will create a countervailing force to China”. The 2005 Framework Agreement was designed to facilitate this Pentagon aim. The CPI(M) and the Left parties had strongly opposed the defence agreement when it was signed in a clandestine fashion in 2005. This marked the beginning of the confrontation with the UPA on strategic and foreign policy. The Framework Agreement came ten years after the “Agreed Minute on Defence Cooperation” which was signed by the Narasimha Rao government in 1995. This had opened the way for defence collaboration with the United States. JOINT EXERCISES: HIGHEST NUMBER The defence collaboration was the centerpiece of the US-India strategic tie-up. It was a major departure from India’s hitherto non-aligned position and refusal to join military alliance with any country. Through the new framework agreement, the United States succeeded in enlisting India for a long term military collaboration. The agreement set out joint military exercises, multinational missions abroad, missile defence cooperation, defence trade purchases and ensuring interoperability between the two armed forces. This set the pace for steadily increasing military collaboration with the United States. The Malabar naval exercises have become an annual event; joint exercises of the other wings of the armed forces – army and air force followed at a steadily expanding rate. By 2011, the US had the largest number of military exercises with India compared to any other country. The CPI(M) and the Left parties had conducted a number of protest actions against the joint exercises with the US forces. Notable among these were the demonstrations on the West Coast in Kerala, Karnataka and Goa against the Malabar exercises in 2008. The big demonstration against the joint air exercises in Kalaikunda air base in West Bengal in 2006 and the two jathas on the East Coast in 2007 against the joint naval exercises. GROWING ARMS SALES During the last decade, the US also began to sell arms and equipment to India. Since 2008, ten billion dollars worth of equipment was bought by India from the United States. India is the largest arms importer in the world and the US is aiming to become the major supplier overtaking Russia and Israel. As the defence trade progressed, India has been demanding joint production and co-development of arms manufacturing which will involve transfer of technology. A Defence Trade and Technology Initiative was mooted in 2013 in order to further advance US arms sales to India. So far, the Americans have not agreed to transfer high end technology. The United States has been demanding more integration and `interoperability’ between the two armed forces for providing more advanced equipment. INTEGRATING THE FORCES Under the Defence Framework Agreement, the Americans have been trying to get India to sign two agreements – the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA). The LSA would have meant providing for refueling and repair facilities for American planes and warships and this would require `interoperability’, i.e., the use of similar equipment by the two armed forces. The LSA is similar to the agreement that the United States signs with its NATO allies. The CISMOA is to ensure that the communication systems provided by the US on equipment supplied by it are protected from third parties. India would get advanced technology only if we are ready to sign this agreement as the other close allies of the US. India has been sending officers of its armed forces to the United States to train under the International Military Exchange Training Programme of the United States. In the last one and a half decades, the US has been given ample opportunity to penetrate and influence the higher echelons of the armed forces. STRATEGIC MILITARY TIES In the decade of the defence collaboration since 2005, the US has been able to draw India into a closer military relationship. There have been regular joint exercises between the two armed forces, strategic consultations through the Defence Policy Group, the apex political-military committee and expanding arms sales to India. India has been drawn into trilateral security arrangements between India, Japan and the US. India is being treated as a close military ally by the US Pacific Command. However, the Defence Framework Agreement of 2005 has only partly accomplished the tasks needed to draw India into a sustained military alliance. The United States would be looking to further draw India deeper into a military alliance when the agreement is re-negotiated. US STRATEGY FOR ASIA The decision to renew the ten year defence agreement is being taken at a time when the US is rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific region (which is acknowledged by India in the joint statement). The pivot to Asia is being undertaken as America sees China as its long term threat. For its geo-political strategy in Asia, the US wishes to harness India as an ally. Apart from Japan, India is the other major Asian country for which the US plans a key role in countering China. On the Indian side, it is the BJP government headed by Narendra Modi which will be taking the defence collaboration forward. The BJP, in its earlier stint in government in 1998 and 2004, had shown eagerness to become what Vajpayee called “a natural ally” of the US. In the short period since the BJP government has taken office, Narendra Modi has visited Japan and the Australian prime minister has visited India. These are the two countries with whom the United States wants India to join to form a quadrilateral security alliance. The eagerness of the Modi government to get the United States to accept joint production and co-development of weapons and defence equipment in India is seen in the way it has increased the FDI cap on defence production to 49 percent from 26 percent. The United States will agree to joint production of advanced weaponry only if India commits to further integrating its armed forces and `inter-operability’. The renewal of the agreement cannot be just an extension of the 2005 Framework Agreement. In negotiating a fresh agreement, the US would try to draw India into a closer strategic and military relationship. Though India has been shying away from calling this an alliance, Modi has agreed to treating the USA at the same level as its “closest partners” and vice versa. MODI GOVERNMENT: DEEPER ENTANGLEMENT Thus, the danger is that the Modi government will deepen the military entanglement with the United States. A fresh defence collaboration agreement with the United States is against the basic interests of the country, its strategic autonomy and independent foreign policy. India cannot become a subordinate partner to the US geo-political strategy in Asia. The Indian armed forces cannot be harnessed to the US war machine to serve American imperialist interests. So, what is required is not a “renewal” of the framework agreement but its scrapping. In the coming months, in the run-up to the fresh agreement, a powerful campaign should be mounted to highlight the dangers of military collaboration with the United States. All the Left, democratic and patriotic forces should come out against the renewing of the military agreement with the United States.