Cooperation with the US continues to be important to both sides

07:02 GMT, March 17, 2010 The 22-hour visit by Russian Prime Minister (PM) Putin to India has helped the two countries resolve the differences that had cropped up due to various long standing unresolved issues, including the price rise of the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. Other factors responsible for drifting the two cold war allies apart were Russia’s search for a new market to export its military hardware for which it tried to develop relations with China. And also India’s efforts to build bridges with the West and America, as India believed a strong diplomatic support from them, could coax Pakistan into putting a halt to its anti-India rhetoric.

As 8ak (http://www.8ak.in), a media partner of defpro.com reports, the billion-dollar contracts signed during the short visit is an indication that the two nations want to remain close and that Russia was keen to fill the vacuum that propelled Israel as a major partner in the Indian defence market in the past decade. The successful visit is being read by many as a signal to the world that the two nations remain each other’s prime partners and the brief period of stagnation had passed.

The long list of deals signed between India and Russia during Putin’s visit is impressive:

1) US$1.5 billion deal for the supply of 29 additional MiG-29 Fulcrum D-based fighter aircraft.

2) An agreement to sign a contract on the joint development of a new fifth-generation fighter.

3) A revised price-deal of $2.3 billion on the upgraded Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier with a displacement capacity of 45,000 tons, a maximum speed of 32 knots (59 kilometres per hour) and a range of 13,500 nautical miles (25,000 kilometres) at a cruising speed of 18 knots

4) Deals to establish a joint venture to produce navigation equipment for GPS (global positioning system) and its Russian equivalent Glonass, and the use of Glonass signal for military use by India.

5) Several agreements for the construction of up to 16 nuclear power plants in India by 2017.

The swift signing of deals indicates that both Russia and India are trying in their own ways to strike trade deals with each other as a countermeasure to Chinese overtures. While India is apprehensive of China’s new friendship with South Asian countries of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar as a part of its ‘string of pearls’ strategy, Russia is insecure about the vulnerability of its eastern regions. The visit clearly exhibits that the two nations remain each other’s best bet in times of adversities.

Bharat Verma of Indian Defence Review told 8ak: “We may have given Russia a tad too much, as they do not have the modern technology which India requires at the moment. Russia is itself buying some of the technologies from France and other countries to which India has direct access. But the fact remains that no nation would fulfil the requirements of India like the Russians and no one would be willing to lease their submarines for a decade to India except for Russia. Thus, Russia undoubtedly is of immense importance to us.”

Verma’s statement hold true as the much hyped 2008 civil Indo-US nuclear deal, which threatened the future of Manmohan Singh-led UPA government has not been completely implemented by the Obama administration. This is primarily due to Obama’s reluctance to transfer “dual-use technology” to India. But it provided the international non-proliferation framework which Moscow needed to boost cooperation with Delhi on a range of sensitive areas such as reprocessing technology, joint thorium fuel cycle nuclear power projects and fast neutron reactors. It is this reluctance that the Russians have exploited well during the visit, as it is evident from the agreements that have been signed on constructing 16 nuclear plants in India by Russians.

The return of the warm ties has also been made possible because, both Russia and India, have been time and again let down by America. On the terrorism front, the Americans have not provided enough aid to the Indians in getting Pakistan to act against the perpetrators of the 26/11 attack. The American’s undoubtedly have failed to ensure that its military hardware, which it supplies to Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda along its western borders, is not used against India by Pakistan. On the Russian front, it has been let down by the Americans due to constant interference in Central and Eastern Europe. The attempt of NATO to intervene in the Georgia-Russia-South Ossetia impasse in 2008 has not helped Russia-US relationship either.

But in foreign policy matters nothing can be translated in to black and white. On the one hand, where we are jubilant about the most successful visit of Russian PM Putin in recent times, certain issues need to be sorted out. The priority should be the Rs 2,000 crore joint venture, mooted almost three years ago to set up an integrated chemical and metallurgical complex to produce titanium dioxide and other titanium products in Orissa. Business Standard reports that the project is in a limbo, as partners have parted ways last month after differences over land allotment. Another major project between Russia’s VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation, the world's largest producer of titanium, and the Kerala government for processing and smelting of titanium, has not taken off either. As per the contract, the company was supply aviation metal to Hindustan Aeronautics, with raw material titanium tetrachloride procured from Kerala Minerals and Mining Limited (KMML), which is owned by the state government.

But the deals do not mean that the US is any less important to either country. It is no secret that the moment Putin returned to Moscow, the US President called his counter-part President Medvedev to discuss the “final stages of preparation” of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and they agreed that “it is now possible to talk about specific dates” for initialling the agreement.

On India’s part, New Delhi has mooted a new legislation which would make it easier for US nuclear energy companies to secure multi-billion dollar contracts in the Indian market. Many security experts believe this deal was inked solely to create a new market for US companies, which were finding operations difficult due to the highly capital-intensive nature of the industry with long gestation periods, and not to implement the complete deal. Thus, the developments in both countries following the Russian PM's visit exhibits that both countries are looking for greater business proximity to the Americans.


-----
By Akshay Kumar, defence correspondent at 8ak.in