By Kanwal Sibal
India does not have defence relations with Europe as such; it has them with individual European countries. Europe has forged a strong economic personality in the form of the European Union, but it has failed to develop a common foreign and defence policy in the true sense. When it comes to economic issues India, like other countries, has to deal with Brussels. In foreign affairs Europe has acquired some role as an interlocutor through the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, with India holding a regular dialogue with the EU as a dialogue partner. But in defence relations India deals, not with Brussels, but with individual capitals.
It also needs to be pointed out that even though the EU exists as a shared economic space protected by common external tariffs, individual European countries commercially compete with each other intensely in foreign markets. In the defence area such competition is even more spirited as the overall cake is much smaller, the opportunity to win sizable contracts are not many, the contracts are generally high-valued and the margins are considerable. Also, the contracts create a long term relationship, with provision of spare parts, training, overhauling, periodic upgrades, modernization etc providing plentiful returns.
Defence ties, besides, have a political element that commercial exchanges do not have. Countries with serious political differences, including the potential of conflict, can have flourishing economic ties, as is the case between US and China or Japan and China, not to mention political differences between Russia and Europe not standing in the way of their close energy ties. In such cases defence ties are excluded because that pre-supposes a degree of geo-political understanding beforehand.
Such ties also give the country that sells arms a degree of political leverage over the recipient country because the latter becomes dependent on the former for its defence preparedness. The danger is always there that at a critical moment spare parts may not be released or needed ordnance may not be available because of imposition of sanctions or the existence of a conflict situation. All these aspects are very relevant to India’s defence ties with European and other countries.
India’s defence relations with European countries have reflected, over the years, India’s foreign policy choices, its adherence to the policy of non-alignment during the Cold War and the impact of the Cold war on our region with Pakistan deciding to join western military pacts and receiving military aid from the West. The position taken by European countries and others on India-Pakistan differences, especially on J&K, that taken by individual European countries on sanctions imposed on India because of India-Pakistan hostilities or the degree of reticence in selling arms in order to avoid sharpening tensions in a region seen as unstable. India’s nuclear and missile programmes have also had a bearing on the policies of European countries with regard to transfer of sensitive or dual use technologies barred under the technology denial regimes set up by the West.
Not many countries, even in Europe, manufacture advanced defence systems that can be sold in the international market. Defence manufacturing is a high-cost enterprise as very advanced technologies are involved, which, in turn, require huge outlays on R&D for development.
The need to export in order have some economies of scale and amortize development costs is therefore a pressing one. All the more so because in the absence of any real external threat European countries have had to reduce their defence budgets and the size of their standing armed forces, with the consequence that domestic orders for defence equipment are not sufficient to achieve the wanted economies of scale.
Europe’s great success is, in fact, the creation of a genuinely conflict free geographical space in a continent that has witnessed the most inhumane and destructive wars in the past. No European country is threatened with aggression by a neighbour. This should have argued in favour of a massive contraction of the European defence sector. Ironically, outside the US which maintains a gargantuan defence sector and Russia which inherited an oversized defence manufacturing base from the Soviet Union but which has declined considerably, individual European countries still retain impressive defence manufacturing capabilities.INAV