The State Department finally informed Congress of the details connected to last summer’s $4 billion Predator attack drone deal with India, and they now have 30 days to either let it pass by doing nothing or actively obstruct it. The Wire earlier reported that their newly troubled ties since November could pose a problem, however, after the Justice Department charged an unnamed official with conspiring to assassinate a Delhi-designated terrorist-separatist with dual American citizenship on US soil last summer. If the deal is obstructed, then American interests would be harmed in the following ways:
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1. India Would No Longer Consider The US To Be A Reliable Military Partner
Indo-US ties are driven by economic complementarity and shared concerns about China’s rise, the latter of which form the basis of their military ties, but India would no longer be able to rely on the US in this second respect if Washington played political games with Delhi’s national security.
2. The US Would Signal That It Doesn’t Really Consider China To Be An Implacable Threat
The notion that China must urgently be contained via unconditional American military support for neighboring countries with whom it’s embroiled in territorial disputes would no longer appear credible if the deal didn’t go through and India’s national security interests vis-à-vis China were adversely affected.
3. Bullying India Would Appear More Important To The US Than Containing China
Accordingly, the natural conclusion that one would arrive at in light of the previous two points would be that bullying India is more important to the US than containing China, the first of which would appear to be prioritized by Washington over the latter if political games with India ultimately win out.
4. Suspicions Would Swirl That The US Might Have Cut A Deal With China Behind India’s Back
Considering how counterproductive that development would be, speculation would swirl that the US cut a deal with China during the Xi-Biden Summit in mid-November, which could have taken the form of the US distancing itself from India in exchange for Chinese concessions elsewhere in order to thaw their ties.
5. The World Is Watching & Few Would Trust The US If This Deal Is Obstructed
Any suspicions that the US is playing political games with India’s national security despite these two’s shared concerns about China’s rise would show the rest of the world that it’ll likely play the same with them too seeing as how most of their shared security interests pale in comparison to the US and India’s.
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American interests would be greatly harmed by holding military cooperation with India hostage to political factors. The US’ hard-earned trust with India would be ruined for the foreseeable future and the rest of the world, especially its other Asia-Pacific partners around China’s periphery, would see that they can’t rely on it either. The media often fearmongers about the message that would be sent to others by failing to indefinitely fund NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine, but the consequences of playing political games with India over this drone deal would directly affect its ability to contain China.
