Here comes the Asean-India security alliance
ington, but also in Beijing and Moscow, with the three most powerful nuclear powers in the world testing wills over Kim’s whims.
That game is still on, but this year, the geopolitical fulcrum may again shift, from northeast to south and southeast. Today, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hosting the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) at the Republic Day celebrations of Indian independence from British rule 70 years ago.
That repeats history. When Jawa was also from Southeast Asia: Indonesia’s founding President Sukarno.
Seven years later in 1954, the two Third World stalwarts spearheaded the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of developing nations in Bandung, Indonesia, steering a neutral course amid the Cold War rivalry between the American-led West and the com- munist bloc under Russia and China.
Today, Asean and India are still striving to avoid superpower entanglements, even as the world’s most powerful nations, America and China, in Asia, fast becoming the economic and geopolitical center of the planet.
With no ambitions for hegemony in East Asia, India offers Asean’s superpower-wary members a formidable defense partner that will not unduly dominate or exploit their alliance for geopolitical advantage, as America and China might.
India can help fight terrorism …
There are three areas of defense linkages which Asean and India can most productively explore: counter- terrorism, armaments and maritime cooperation.
when Modi meets his Southeast Asian guests. The leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, Asean’s founding members, are most keen to forge joint efforts against Islamic State, Jemayah Islamiyah, al-Qaida, and other terrorist groups preying on Muslim communities.
- tremists driven by Muslim grievances and aspirations, especially Pakistan’s - ity territory partitioned between India and its Muslim neighbor.
Those efforts have escalated over the past decade following the Mumbai carnage in 2006 and 2008, where several hundreds died. New Delhi is planning to establish a National Counter-Terrorism Center, patterned after a highly effective one in Washington.
Asean, during the Marawi siege last year, India contributed half a million dollars for the Philippines’ counterterrorism campaign — the largest assistance by an Asian country, exceeding China’s $300,000 aid.
India certainly has much to impart and contribute to Asean in fighting terrorism, from decades of dealing with deadly extremists from archrival Pakistan, as well as building intelligence networks in jihadist hotbeds in the Middle East, where Indians, like Filipinos, make up much of the workforce.
… and counter China’s clout
Asean- India cooperation in counterterrorism won’t bother China. Neither would weapons cooperation, for the most part.
India has a mammoth arms industry, harnessing technology from Russia, Israel and Europe, but exports only a fraction of its output. Still, the country can be a cost It already supplies the US, Russia, European nations, and Singapore, and will be selling Vietnam its supersonic anti-ship BrahMos projectile, based on Russian rockets.
The Modi government also has export plans for the Akash and Pragati missiles, Tejas light combat aircraft, an airborne early warning system, the Abhayas high-speed aerial targeting system, and other high-tech gear like sonar, battlefield radars, and identificationfriend-or-foe (IFF) systems.
And what would make Indian armaments even more attractive are the long-term weapons development programs for air force and leading global arms makers lining up for development contracts. The plan also includes an indigenization effort till 2025, to produce more and more weaponry in India.
This development effort, dwarf- ing anything in Asean, can offer lower-cost but still fearsome armaments, designed to match up with India’s likely adversaries, including China. Plus: India can subcontract components to Asean, as it has done for top arms makers.
- ing Asean, the third way that India can boost the region’s security is direct or indirect alliance. Last year it joined the four-nation QUAD security grouping forged with the US, Japan and Australia. QUAD’s aim: to curb perceived Chinese efforts to militarily dominate East Asia.
India may also forge similar defense cooperation with Asian countries wary of China. And whether as part of QUAD or in tandem with Asean allies, India can offer a major deterrent to feared Chinese aggression: interdicting vital imports, especially oil, sailing through the Indian Ocean.
That would court Beijing’s ire, and both New Delhi and Asean won’t even hint at such linkages — for now. But if China fears don’t subside, then its neighbors would look for protection. And the Chinese might just decide that the Indians are far more preferable as guarantors of Asean security, than the Americans.