India is not part of any military alliance: Deputy NSA shuts door on Chinese doubts on ties with US

By Vipin Vijayan | First Published Jun 6, 2023, 1:03 PM IST

'India does not believe in being a partner in military alliances. We are however a partner for many countries, including in the military and defence fields. And the alliance is a very different allusion to it and a very different interpretation to it. And I would just say that we are not part of any military alliance,' Deputy NSA Vikram Misri said.

India and the United States have made it clear that both countries are not in a military alliance. Taking part in a special session of the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue 2023 in Singapore recently, India's Deputy National Security Advisor Vikram Misri and US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral John Aquilino responded to a query from a Chinese military representative who expressed concerns about India accelerating and reinforcing collaboration with the United States in the Indian Ocean.

Responding to the Chinese representative's query on how India looked at the US’s role in Indian regional security and whether it sees itself as a leader or is it an equal participant in the Indian Ocean security, Misri said, 'A lot of this question was focused on engagement and relations between India and the United States and there were certain characterisations in the question that I don’t necessarily agree with. But first of all, let me say that India and the United States enjoy a strong and robust defence and military relationship. We cooperate in a wide variety of fields from training to exercises to obtaining platforms and exchanging strategic views and assessments on areas of common concern. We are a partner of the United States and I think in concluding various agreements with the United States, which is a normal feature of such relationships, which you characterised as intelligence communications.'

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'Whichever way you characterise them I think we are as sovereign countries each one, India and the United States, within our rights to conclude such agreements, as do all other countries. And pretty much every country represented around this table has those kinds of agreements. Secondly, I don’t know if the interpreter translated you correctly, but what I heard in my earpiece was your reference to a bilateral military alliance between India and the United States. India does not believe in being a partner in military alliances. We are however a partner for many countries, including in the military and defence fields. And the alliance is a very different allusion to it and a very different interpretation to it. And I would just say that we are not part of any military alliance,' he added.

Taking a swipe at China for seeking an open and inclusive Indian Ocean, the Deputy NSA said, 'We see ourselves as equal participants in all of the mechanisms that we are part of. That equality is the foundational principle of many of these mechanisms and forums that I spoke of. So there is no question of anyone being a leader and the others being followers. We are all equal participants in these regional constructs that I mentioned.'

'Of course, it should be open and inclusive. Collaboration everywhere should be open and inclusive. And in fact, I think if I am not mistaken it is in India’s conception of the Indo-Pacific for instance of what began life as the free and the open Indo-Pacific, for us to describe it as the free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific. So inclusivity is definitely a part of our thinking and our definition of these constructs. But since you talk about openness and inclusivity in terms of participation, I hope that this principle will be respected equally and by everyone else also in different geographies when it comes to that,' Misri added.

Admiral John Aquilino, too, said that the United States certainly does not have a military alliance with India.

He said, 'The United States has many relationships around the world, bilateral, some multilateral and as the National Security Advisor said, it is certainly not a military alliance with India. It is a special defence cooperation agreement that exists but foundationally from the United States’s position when our friends and partners in India and their sovereignty was challenged and they needed assistance the United States delivered based on our relationship and our agreement. So all of those relationships, whether they be bilateral, whether they be alliances, whether they be multilateral agreements are layered and they are additive to each other. There is no one that trumps another. We take our relationships seriously and we meet our commitments always.'

'QUAD is not a military relationship'

India and the United States also made it clear that the QUAD alliance is not a military relationship, but more of a diplomatic and economic relationship.

Admiral John Aquilino said: 'The QUAD is a diplomatic and economic relationship. It is not a military relationship. Again, so there’s the fact that the Quad nations get together and operate together in exercise Malabar and other military operations whether they be maritime, air those are things that we do often whenever we can get together to build interoperability and increase our capabilities together. So just so we are clear, not a military alliance by any means.'

The Indian Deputy NSA echoed the US Admiral's view and said that the QUAD does not have a military character.

Misri said, 'Those who want to put the QUAD and the Malabar exercises together, just for your information the Malabar proceeds the QUAD by many, many years. So it is got nothing to do conceptually with the QUAD. And incidentally, Malabar has had participants who are not QUAD members. Singapore, for instance, has participated in Malabar exercises in the past.'

'In terms of what it does for maritime security, a very interesting and valuable initiative that has emerged is the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness initiative. That is something not a product necessarily only for the QUAD members but is intended as a public good for the Indian Ocean region as a whole. So the products that will come out of this initiative will be of use to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness of members in general who’d want to be associated with that,' he added.

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