India would have hoped that, following his meeting with Putin, Trump would create political space to not apply the US Congress-mandated CAATSA sanctions

by Arun K Singh

In principle, India should welcome the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16. 

Relations with both the countries are critical for India. Russia remains our largest source for defence equipment, accounting for around 65% of our inventory. It has reliably provided us political support for decades in the global and regional context. US is our largest trading partner, among the biggest sources of foreign investment and civilian technologies, and a growing supplier of defence equipment, totalling $15 billion over the past decade. 

It is home to the largest single country presence of Indian diaspora of around 4 million, with growing impact on all aspects of economy and society, including politics. It is a preferred destination for our students, numbering around 200,000 today. It is supportive of many of our global aspirations, piloted NSG waiver for India in 2008, articulated support for India’s permanent membership in UN Security Council in 2010, and has facilitated our membership in international export-control regimes, such as MTCR and Wassenaar Arrangement. 

When these two countries, despite inevitable elements of global rivalry and strategic competition, are able to have functional cooperation, there is space for India to pursue specific areas of cooperation with each without testing the limits of concern of the other. Today, driven by its own domestic politics, US has passed CAATSA, which makes any major purchase of Russian defence equipment sanctionable under US law. India’s plans to buy the S-400 system from Russia could fall in this category. For its own security considerations, India cannot permit any third country to determine the nature of its cooperation with Russia. Any US sanctions on this count would only reinforce perceptions in India about lack of proven ability of US as a reliable partner.

India would have hoped that, following his meeting with Putin, Trump would create political space to not apply the US Congress-mandated CAATSA sanctions.

The meeting with Putin, however, was followed with a host of negative reactions in US Congress, media, think tank community, and elements of the Administration itself. Trump has been bold in advocating for a better working relationship with Russia, despite severely negative reactions in US on account of perceptions of Russian “meddling” in the 2016 US Presidential elections.

Trump has two motivations. He wants to show that he is better than his predecessors, and work out a more productive relationship with North Korea and Russia, which Obama and Bush were not able to. He also does not want to allow a feeling to overwhelm that his election victory was a result in any way of Russian involvement. By engaging with Russia and Putin, he wants to draw attention to the benefits of cooperation with Russia in addressing the global challenges of nuclear proliferation, terrorism, ISIS, Syria, Ukraine etc. His Democratic opponents, however, want to keep the focus on Russia’s role, so as to undermine his credibility, and impact on Congressional elections scheduled for November this year. If they are able to gain control of any house of US Congress, the expectation is that hearings and other processes aimed at impeachment would get a fillip.

Their efforts have been aided by the consolidated assessment of the US intelligence community that Russia did try to influence the elections.

It will take some days for Republicans, Democrats and others to assess how their political fortunes would be impacted by Trump’s seeming unwillingness to square off with Putin on the issue of 2016 elections.

The Trump-Putin meeting is also symptomatic of the changes being attempted on the global stage. Post World War II, the US had sought to build a global order, based on a system of alliances, anchored in Europe and East Asia. It had created a narrative to justify this by advocating for democracy, globalisation and economic interdependence.

The global economy benefited, but now there is a blow-back from a segment of US population which felt left out. Their candidate Trump is seeking to change the parameters. He has been criticising his allies in Europe for exploiting US economic and military largesse, and has expressed admiration for authoritarian leaders. This would weaken arguments for excluding Russia from any European compact, where it was earlier seen as the “other”. Trump’s articulations also reveals a mindset that US remains dominant in a uni-polar order, and feels that it can deal with any challenges without nurturing alliances and by building single country relationships.

Only time will reveal how long this can be sustained before US is faced with a unexpected challenge.

For India, it means that many of the pre-2016 assumptions for the global order cannot be taken for granted.

New opportunities will have to be sought in flux, and unexpected challenges anticipated.

The author is former Indian Ambassador to the US