Abstract
In the post-9/11 world, the current US counterterrorism efforts in the Af-Pak region and the terror attacks on Indian cities have prompted India and the US to cooperate more closely on counterterrorism concerns. However, this counterterrorism cooperation is not commensurate with the comprehensive Indo-US strategic partnership. This apparent lack of cooperation plays out in their approach toward terrorism and bureaucratic impasse. India and the US need to make use of the trust and confidence that they have built in their bilateral relationship, readjust their perspectives on the threat of terrorism, understand each other’s core national security interests that shape their respective anti-terrorism goals, and make counterterrorism an important module in their ‘strategic partnership’ to tackle terrorism at the domestic, regional and global levels.
Introduction
Today, the India-US bilateral relationship is going through an unprecedented convergence of interests which were not seen during the entire Cold War period. The security and defence perceptions of India and the United States were so divergent and conflicting during the Cold War days that they were not able to enter into a robust partnership (Kux 1993; McMahon 1996). 1
However, the collapse of the Soviet Union changed much of the international alliance structure of the Cold War period. India’s rapidly growing economy, the opening of its market, thus allowing greater interaction between the US and Indian business communities and successful lobbying by the Indian Americans created a positive perception among the US policy-making circle towards India (Hathaway 2001, 21–34; Kirk 2008, 275–300; Sharma 2008a). Also, the factors such as the revolution in India’s information and technology sector, a democracy of more than one billion people with relatively stable political and economic structures, India’s acquisitions of nuclear weapons and the concurrent growth of India’s conventional military capability that could contribute to the stability in the Asian region, the growing menace of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, and the geo-strategic and geo-economic realities have paved the way for positive change in the US-India relationship (Ganguly et al. 2006; Sharma 2008b). Consequently, the Indo-US relationship has entered into a ‘Strategic Partnership’ which is very much visible through joint military exercises, a 10-year Defence Framework Agreement, the United States–India Peaceful Atomic Cooperation Act of 2006, defence commerce, missile defence cooperation and counterterrorism cooperation.
In this enduring strategic partnership, in the recent bilateral dialogues and meetings between New Delhi and Washington, counterterrorism cooperation has surfaced at the forefront. The Indian and American counterterrorism interests are increasingly converging, as a series of terror attacks on Indian cities, the Indian embassy in Kabul, the horrendous Mumbai terror attack of 26/11 in 2008 (which claimed more than 180 lives and injured more than 300), and the ongoing US effort to combat terrorism in the Af-Pak region, all have galvanised both sides into even closer coordination on counterterrorism issues and intelligence sharing, with the goal of thwarting regional and global terror attacks in future.
However, the counterterrorism cooperation is not corresponding to the Indo-US strategic partnership. This apparent lack of counterterrorism cooperation could be seen in terms of their different perceptions on the issue of terrorism and security and bureaucratic impasse. The strategic partnership which the US and India are going through is very much visible in the defence sector and military-to-military cooperation, but it is not ‘fully’ reflected in the counterterrorism cooperation. Although both the nations have been cooperating on the counterterrorism issue, there is scope and potential for a greater level of counterterrorism cooperation.
This article proposes that India and the US, taking leverage of their mutual trust and confidence that they have built in the overall bilateral relationship in this century, must enhance and include counterterrorism cooperation as an important component of their growing and enhanced strategic partnership and work together in the field of intelligence sharing, combating terrorism and enhancing counterterrorism cooperation. Given their counterterrorism experience and the security threat that both nations are facing, it is in the interest of India and the US to come out of their earlier bureaucratic deadlock and view the threat of terrorism more objectively. They should thus make the counterterrorism collaboration an important aspect of their strategic framework to deal with this asymmetric war launched by terrorists at the domestic, regional and global levels.
This article also briefly examines the Indo-US strategic partnership that is very much evident in the defence, military, missile defence and nuclear energy cooperation spheres. Then it examines the current Indo-US counterterrorism cooperation and the factors that are impeding the momentum of counterterrorism cooperation. This article is divided into three main sections and within those a few subsections. The first section examines the Indo-US relationship in the post–Cold War era which saw the relationship being transformed from cooperative engagement to strategic partnership with focus on the military-to-military cooperation and defence cooperation, the Ten Year Defence framework agreement and the US-India Civilian nuclear deal. The second section scans the counterterrorism cooperation between India and the US. The third section deals with constraining factors in the Indo-US counterterrorism cooperation. It has two subsections, the first dealing with differing perceptions between India and the US on the threat of terrorism and the second subsection dealing with differences in legal framework and performance of anti-terror agencies. Finally, the article concludes that it is in the interest of both the nations to enhance their counterterrorism cooperation which would benefit their understanding of counterterrorism cooperation and would help them in countering terrorism at the domestic, regional and global levels.
Post–Cold War Era: Cooperative Engagement to Strategic Partnership
Throughout the Cold War period, there was hardly any significant economic cooperation and political convergence between India and the US on various international issues that could enable them to enter into a sound strategic and defence cooperation framework. The exception was the brief interlude of cooperation during the Indo-China War in 1962, military aid between 1954 and 1964 (worth $10 billion) and Memorandum of Understanding signed in 1984 on transfer of technology under which some sensitive technology transfer took place.
After the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, nations tried to reshape their foreign policies and place themselves in a new international matrix. The growing trends of the Indo-US defence cooperation during the 1980s were substantiated by efforts to increase reciprocal exchange of information and personnel. The military-to-military interaction began to improve under the ‘Kickleighter proposals’ (April 1991). Further, the activities under Kickleighter’s proposal were formalised by the ‘Agreed Minute on Defence Cooperation’ in January 1995, and interactions slowly expanded in frequency, depth and scope until the Indian nuclear tests in May 1998 (Ganguly 2005, 120–124). A Defence Policy Group (DPG) was established and it became a primary mechanism to guide the Indo-US defence ties (Chari 2003). This positive trend in 1990s was a period of cooperative engagement between them. Also, this was the period when the end of the Cold War resulted into modification of Indian non-alignment policy, leading to the intensification of strategic interaction between the US and India.
Although the Indo-US relations began to move in a positive direction in the 1990s, issues like signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Kashmir issue, the human rights issue, and India’s nuclear test, kept creating problems and derailing the relationship. The sides were on the verge of moving to a new level in bilateral military-to-military interaction among all services during 1998, when the Indian nuclear tests triggered a set of stringent US sanctions. Even in the wake of Indian nuclear tests, the US tried to retain as much of the military-to-military relationship as possible. Clinton, instead of isolating India, followed the ‘Strategy of Engagement’ (Talbott 2004). This was a bilateral strategic dialogue between the US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in June 1998 (Singh 2006).
However, during the George W. Bush administration it changed for the better and the growing Indo-US bonhomie entered into a ‘strategic partnership’. The Bush administration and especially the Pentagon redefined the defence cooperation with India and they saw strategically important India as a potential partner in providing peace and stability in the Indian Ocean and in shaping a new Asian balance of power amidst the rising China. Consequently, in May 2001, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage came to India to explain President Bush’s strategic framework that included a Missile Defence Programme and hinted at a new beginning with India as well as the countering of rogue states, by naming Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and some in India’s neighbourhood as state supporters of terrorism.
India’s support for a missile defence system and full cooperation with the US after 9/11 was seen positively by the Pentagon. The frequency of high level military and political leaders’ visits to each others’ capitals and dialogue on defence cooperation focussing on the institutional dialogue to include other areas of defence cooperation increased (‘Text of Ambassador Robert Blackwill’s Speech’, 2003). The cooperation in the defence and military sector emerged as one of the most intense and fastest growing components in the Indo-US bilateral relationship, paving the way for another breakthrough in the form of the Next Step in the Strategic Progress (NSSP) in 2004, which would guide and transform the Indo-US Relations in the coming years.
Defence and Military Cooperation
Both the countries have made tremendous advances in relatively short periods of time since 2001, which has been marked with more than 50 military exercises (Malik 2006, 82–112) 2 and combined military operations like naval cooperation during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and the Malabar Naval exercise involving Quad group nations such as the US, Japan, Australia and India in the Bay of Bengal (Chellaney 2007).
The instant and successful coordination of Indian, American, Australian and Japanese naval forces to tackle the tsunami disaster in December 2004 demonstrated the effectiveness and potential of this cooperation in ensuring not only traditional security but non-traditional security issues as well. A series of natural disasters in 2011 such as earthquakes in Japan, an earthquake in New Zealand, a cyclone in Australia and the US shows the inevitability of such cooperation in the future.
The US Pacific Command and Indian naval forces have engaged themselves more frequently and have been conducting increasingly significant naval exercises involving aircraft carriers, frigates and guided missile destroyers, and plans to deploy technical assets on Indian ships for improved coordination and execution of joint tasks. Securing the sea lanes between the Persian Gulf and South-east Asia is a critical objective of Indo-US cooperation, because over 45 per cent of international maritime commerce transits through these dangerous waters, which are prone to drug and small arms trafficking and WMD-sensitive proliferation (Srivastwa 2006, 21–28).
The logic behind these exercises was to develop ‘inter-operability’, the ability of the two forces to communicate, coordinate and fight together and enhance the cooperative security relationship between the two countries. The fact that the top American and Indian leaders have repeatedly attested to the significance of the strategic ties, while defence and military personnel have infused the interaction with substance and a spirit of cooperation, augurs well for underpinning the ongoing military ties.
New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship and Defence Cooperation
In June 2005, the US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee signed a 10-year defence partnership agreement known as ‘New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship’ which outlined collaboration in multilateral operations, expanded two-way defence trade, increasing opportunities for technology transfers and co-production, expanded collaboration related to missile defence, and established a bilateral Defense Procurement and Production Group.
In the areas of defence commerce, both countries have made impressive progress (Blackwill 2002). The commercial military sales to India have also seen a sharp rise. Today almost all the big defence companies from Boeing to Lockheed Martin have an office in India and are ready to tap the Indian defence market. As India aspires and rises to become a key defence market and a future market player, it is facing challenges of coming out of a parent–client or buyer–seller relationship, to enter in equal partnership for joint-production in the defence sector and simultaneously to develop its own indigenous defence industry (Mohanty 2004). To overcome the challenges of modernisation and development of its defence industry, India is inviting private companies and foreign companies with offset arrangements.
The US-India Nuclear Deal
The nuclear deal signed on 18 July 2005, known as Henry J. Hyde United States–India Peaceful Atomic Cooperation Act, 2006 (India-US Press Release 2005), became a law after the US President George W. Bush signed the nuclear deal bill on October 2008, ratified by both the Houses of the US Congress, and now known as the United States–India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Non-proliferation Enhancement Act. This is another landmark in the US-India strategic convergence. The nuclear deal is focused on issues such as energy security, nuclear safety cooperation, and integrating India into the global nuclear regime so as to address India’s desire for renewed access to safeguarded nuclear fuel and advanced nuclear reactors (Sharma 2007, 158–172).
In fact, the nuclear deal has impacted substantially on the Indo-US defence and security cooperation. This nuclear agreement is part of a larger set of initiatives involving space, dual-use high technology, advanced military equipment and missile defence (Tellis 2005).
This deal has led to the dismantling of the technology denial regimes that had constrained the US-India nuclear energy cooperation, defence cooperation and often acted as an obstacle in the improvement of the overall US-India bilateral ties. The exceptionalism in the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the US nuclear legislation was defended by the Bush administration on the grounds that India would be incorporated into the nuclear non-proliferation regime and would address India’s looming energy crisis.
During his India visit in November 2010, President Barack Obama declared his support for India’s inclusion into the NSG and three other multilateral export control groups. In 2011 at the NSG’s plenary meeting, the US came out with a ‘Food for Thought’ paper on possibilities for bringing India into the group (Horner 2012). While the progress regarding India being brought into the non-proliferation regime seems to be static, the benefits that India has been reaping since the declaration of nuclear deal by the Bush administration on 18 July are visible. The deal has opened up the opportunities for India to buy enriched uranium for its peaceful nuclear energy programme and nuclear technology from the leading international players and also allowed India’s nuclear and defence market for them.
Russia declared restarting nuclear cooperation with India days before Bush arrived in New Delhi in 2006 to finalise India’s plan to place some of its facilities under safeguards, and France signed a nuclear agreement with India in September 2008 that would allow sensitive nuclear transfers, too (Squassoni, 2010). On 4 December 2011, Australia passed legislation for selling enriched uranium to India for addressing its energy security concern. The US has yet to make substantial commercial deal, to reap India’s nuclear energy market. However, due to lifting of the ban by the nuclear deal, there has been substantial progress in US-India defence deals and the trend shows that it has huge potential to go further. Without lifting the restrictions of Nuclear Non-proliferation Act of 1978 that imposed ban on sale or transfer of sensitive and the dual use technology, the defence and high technology cooperation with India would not have been possible. It is also seen in the context of the emerging geo-strategic and geoeconomic realities. It has enhanced India’s international profile and assisted in counter-weight to China in the Asian balance of power.
The Evolving Counterterrorism Cooperation
India has been facing terrorism since independence in a literal sense (Swami 2006), but since 1989 it has been facing the terrorist threat actively sponsored and assisted by both Pakistan and transnational non-state actors affiliated with Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Kashmir (Hyot 2009, 74). Today, both India and the US are high on Al-Qaeda’s and other terrorist organisations’ lists. Although India was the victim of terrorism much earlier than the US, it was only after 9/11 that Washington became aware of the gravity of the situation. India responded by offering full cooperation and ‘unlimited support’ to Washington, including the use of specific air bases, just three days after the 9/11 attacks (Fair 2004, 76–77); but the US preferred Pakistan as a partner in its War on Terrorism because of its familiarity with the Taliban and the terrain of Afghanistan and its linkages with terrorist organisations. Pakistan became a frontline state in the US war on terrorism, but it could not affect US-India counterterrorism cooperation.
Even with the encouraging trend of the Indo-US ties, New Delhi has been careful and choosy with regard to its collaboration with Washington on the war on terror. In fact, India’s offer of full cooperation and use of its military bases to the US in war in Afghanistan was surprising to many but so was the convergence of views and interests of the US and India on global security. This also reflected Indian understanding of the US security threat and sympathy as well as their unrelenting resolve to enhance the ties. This was very much obvious when President Bush and PM Vajpayee agreed in November 2001 that terrorism constituted a major threat to both countries.
In the Bush administration, people like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Counselor Philip Zelikow saw a transformed relationship with India as vital to the fight against terrorism and proliferation, and the preservation of a stable balance of power in Asia over the long term (Carnegie Endowment for Peace 2005). On the India side, the incumbent government, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), was led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu Nationalist Party who considered Islamic terrorism a big security issue. The views on the global threat of Islamic terrorism of Republicans and the BJP coincided.
Consequently, counterterrorism became an important issue in the evolving India-US strategic ties. Still, detailing the cooperation becomes difficult since such kinds of cooperation are conducted with discretion if not secrecy. Counterterrorism cooperation has often been related to the internal security, and foreign and defence policy, and piggybacks quietly on existing law enforcement and military or intelligence relations that carry their own confidentiality requirements (Nayak 2006, 131–153). However, the recent trends of counterterrorism cooperation provide enough evidence about the US-India counter-terrorism cooperation.
Both Washington and New Delhi have been cooperating on counterterrorism for years, but the beginning of counterterrorism cooperation became full-fledged when in January 2000 the US-India Joint Working Group on Counterterrorism was established (Nayak 2006, 131–153). The inaugural meeting of the US-India Counterterrorism Working Group (held in Washington in 2000) expressed concern at the growing menace of international terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking. The two sides unequivocally condemned all acts, methods and the practice of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, whatever political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other philosophy may be invoked to justify them (Department of State 2000). The Generalized Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), signed in 2002, has facilitated real-time cooperation against piracy and drug interdiction, as well as in search-and-rescue and joint patrol operations (Srivastwa 2006, 21–28). The Anti-terrorism Assistance Programs (ATAP) for the US Department of State has furthered cooperation with India. US officials have trained Indian military and security personnel engaged in counterterrorism programmes and in anti-terrorism law agencies.
By 2007, counterterrorism cooperation became more broadened and tried to cover all aspects of terrorism and Asian regional security. In November 2007, a US-India joint working group on counterterrorism meeting discussed bilateral cooperation in fighting the global menace of terrorism. Both sides strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and underscored it as a major threat to democracy, pluralism, international peace and security. India and the US called upon all states to abide by their commitments under the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2006 and called for finalisation of the draft UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
They discussed, inter alia, regional counterterrorism efforts, threat assessments in South Asia, the Middle East and South-east Asia, bioterrorism, the ongoing Anti-terrorism Assistance Training Programme and co-operation in the field of forensic epidemiology. Other issues discussed include terrorist finance and money laundering, the ideological dimensions of terrorism, information sharing and widened cooperation for preventing terrorist acts. Both sides agreed to identify measures to strengthen institutional linkages leading to closer interaction and cooperation (Press Release 2007).
After more than 10 years of formalised US-India counterterrorism cooperation, there has been some success in terms of tackling terrorism but it still remains an issue which needs to be tackled more seriously. The US has successfully managed to prevent (so far) a repeat of 9/11 because of the tightening of laws relating to terrorism and the strengthening of homeland security measures. But in India, terrorist attacks continue, and are no more confined to the Jammu and Kashmir region. Examples are numerous: the Mumbai blast; the Banaras temple blast; the Sarojini Nagar blast in New Delhi, attacks in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Malegaon and UP; and more than 64 blasts in the year 2008 alone (in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmadabad, Delhi, etc., not to mention the terror in Mumbai and recent attacks in Delhi and Mumbai in 2011). 3 The reason lies in India’s own socio-religious problem, its soft stand on terrorism and the lack of sound legal framework to tackle terrorism (Muni 2006; Santhanam and Saxena 2003; Sharma 2006; Sood 2006).
But when it comes to the international arena, their efforts seem to have had some success. The global economy, including in Asia (the region most affected by terrorism of various hues), has continued to progress despite sporadic acts of terrorism directed against certain sectors of the economy such as tourism. International co-operation has so far prevented any act of terrorism involving the use of weapons of mass destruction. Regional and international cooperation to enforce maritime security has not only prevented any catastrophic act of maritime terrorism but also helped in bringing transnational piracy in the South-east Asian region under control. The number of major attacks by pirates in the South-east Asian region declined from a high of 70 in 2001 to 28 in 2003, 18 in 2005 and 10 in 2006. In the year 2007, no major pirate attacks were reported from this region (Raman 2007), notwithstanding the recent year’s pirate attacks on ships.
In the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attack, the visit of Condoleezza Rice to India and Pakistan, the US government’s tough gesture to Pakistan (asking them to act on terrorism and cooperate with India), and the FBI team’s visit to Mumbai to probe and assist Indian investigators, are all significant steps in bilateral cooperation. This resulted in some actions from Pakistan to crackdown on terrorist camps operating in Pakistan.
Also, the US President Barack Obama and the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held their first bilateral talks on the sidelines of G20 in April 2009 and agreed to intensify the strategic partnership in all areas. Apart from the global economic meltdown, their discussion covered the entire array of bilateral, regional and global issues, including terrorism, energy security, climate change and the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. During the talk, tackling terrorism figured prominently and both leaders agreed that they must work together to counter the forces of terror. All the meetings and dialogues between them, including the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visits to India, have emphasised on counterterrorism cooperation as the key component, in the recent years.
Constraining Factors in the Indo-US Counterterrorism Cooperation
Although there has been progress in counterterrorism cooperation between India and the US, the framework of this growing partnership is not free from constraints. The counterterrorism cooperation that began in this century is often impeded by constraints that range from perceptual differences, to differences in threat perception and policy execution preferences.
Differing Approach towards Terrorism
India and Pakistan emerged as important states in the US-led Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) after the 9/11 terror attack. But the difference in approach and perceptions has impeded the momentum of the cooperation (D’Souza 2008, 1067–1084). Despite having common interest, their approach to terrorism seems to be different.
Prior to 9/11, Washington viewed terrorism ‘mainly as a threat to the US interests abroad’. This is not to deny the existence of domestic threats in America, but they were far more limited. Given their different priorities, Washington perceived Pakistan’s role in Kashmiri militancy through the lens of the India–Pakistan conflict. In America’s eye, India’s terrorism problem was ‘regional’ and as a consequence did not have global implications that required close cooperation (D’Souza 2008, 1067–1084). For the US, the main aim is to prevent attacks on the homeland and/or US interests in other parts of the world. While America recognises Pakistan as a training ground of worldwide terrorism, so far as the US is concerned, Pakistan has been willing to cooperate in destroying terrorist cells operating in that country against America (or, for that matter, against Europe).
Since for India, terrorism means only one thing (a Pakistani-inspired, relentless, single-point objective to destabilise the world’s largest multicultural, pluralist democracy), India’s concerns about terrorism are mostly domestic and regional. India has been fighting this menace single-handedly long before 9/11 and will continue to do well after that. India and Pakistan were pressed with a fresh, unconventional initiative to address the Jammu and Kashmir issue, but many analysts were not optimistic about its success. True to their apprehension, it was derailed after India decided to stop dialogue with Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai terror attack.
There is also a basic perceptual difference among the policy-makers in Washington and New Delhi. For the US after 9/11, terrorism became prominent in its national security agenda. The American strategists viewed it not just as a domestic act but also as an act of external aggression and as a war that required retaliation by military instruments (Hyot 2004, 162–185). This led to the attack on Afghanistan to liberate it from the Taliban: ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, which received support from international community, including India. New Delhi also supported the war militarily by providing Indian port facilities to US warships for rest and recuperation. But when the Bush administration militarised its terrorism policy with the ‘Axis of Evil’ speech in 2002 (State of the Union Address 2002) and announcement of suspicion of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq in March 2003, it invited international criticism. The US preventive or pre-emptive military operations as a counterterrorism approach deviated from the initial response to 9/11. India opposed the Iraqi operation by not sending troops to Iraq. Iraq remained the focal point of the US-led war on terrorism until the arrival of Barack Obama’s new Af-Pak policy.
In fact, the views and perceptions of predominant Indian intellectuals and policy-makers are at variance with US preferences on the appropriate responses to the threat. Because of India’s long history of regional terror and multifaceted approach for resolving domestic and regional terrorist problems, Indian elites broadly disagree with the US approach. Different schools of thought in India view the current US approach differently. Nehruvians reject the use of military force as a solution, neoliberals understand the use of force but think that the root causes must be addressed through economic means, and hyperrealists sympathise with the US and accept the use of force but feel it has been misapplied. For the US, the rise of transnational terror is a recent phenomenon and Americans focus on the Islamist threat to allies in the Middle East (including Israel), Europe and the homeland. For all practical purposes, the US focuses on radical Islamist threats emerging in South-west Asia directed primarily westward into the Middle East and Europe. India’s long struggle with Pakistan-supported insurgents (including Afghan and foreign fighters in Kashmir) demonstrates to India that threat of radical Islam is pointed east at India (Hyot 2009, 73–98)—a notion supported by some AQAM statements (2006). Until recently, the US counterterror strategists were focussed on the Middle East and ignored terrorist organisations operating in the Afghanistan–Pakistan border (Sharma 2007).
After 9/11, the US ignored India’s offer of cooperation in war on terrorism and recognised Pakistan as an important ally in its war on terrorism and a major non-NATO ally. This created uneasiness among the Indian strategic and security community. Pakistan’s re-emergence in the US strategic partnership framework created disquiet among Indian strategic and security circles, as they perceived Pakistan as the ‘hub of terrorism’.
Similarly, India has shown reluctance on its part in the US-led GWOT and in the US approach in dealing with Iraq, Iran and the Middle East as a whole. India’s support to the US effort to fight against WMD is conditioned by its demographic constraint, domestic politics and its good relationship with the Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Iraq and Persian Gulf nations, which are also its main source of petroleum products. India is home to the second-largest Muslim population in the world and it is concerned that joining the US-led coalition may push its Muslim population towards extremism (D’Souza 2008, 1067–1084). India thus did not join the US-led War on Iraq and did not send any troops. However, New Delhi expressed interest in sending troops for post-war development, reconstruction and peacekeeping operation in Iraq. This move, when Indo-US military ties were attaining a new height, did not go well with the US strategic community and it created a suspicion and doubt over future prospects of US engagement with India on the counterterrorism front. On top of that, the Indian government’s reluctance to criticise various terrorist attacks by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has at times created doubt and suspicion among the US strategists on the level of counterterrorism cooperation with India.
One example of difference of perception can be judged from the US State Department’s ‘Annual Country Report on Terrorism—2008’ (Hyot 2004, 162–185) which focussed on terrorism in South Asia. As a whole, this report depicts a gloomy picture on the state of terrorism in South Asia. It mentions numerous terror attacks and their executors. Among various incidents of terrorism are three terror attacks, particularly, the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul on 7 July, the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on 20 September and the terror attacks on Mumbai on 26 November; these were identified as ‘high profile’. The report correctly mentions India as ‘among the world’s most terrorism-afflicted countries’. The report also brings out some of the inadequacy in India’s counterterrorism measures: ‘the Indian government’s counter-terrorism efforts remained hampered by its outdated and overburdened law enforcement and legal systems’. It also mentions that these terror attacks were masterminded and accomplished by ‘both externally-based terrorist organisations and internally-based separatist or terrorist entities’. However, the identity of these ‘externally-based terrorist organisations’ is not mentioned in the report. Undoubtedly, the perpetrators of these terror attacks are mainly from Pakistan and also, to some extent from Bangladesh.
Instead of recognising this fact, the ‘Annual Country Report on Terrorism—2008’ portrayed Pakistan as a ‘victim’ of terrorism. It also completely ignores the involvement of at least a section of the Pakistani establishment in perpetuating terrorism in the region, especially against India. Again, in the section dealing with ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’, the report pertinently pinpoints that ‘without state sponsors, terrorist groups would have greater difficulty obtaining the funds, weapons, materials, and secure areas they require to plan and conduct operations’. Despite Pakistan’s involvement in all the above activities, it fails to figure in the US list of ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ (2008).
This annual terrorism report gives an impression that Pakistan is serious in its approach to punish perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attack and give information to India to facilitate investigations of the attack. However, this is not the case. Despite requests from all over the world, Islamabad has not been serious in providing even basic information sought by India, leave alone tackling terrorists based in its soil. The fact that Osama bin Laden was found and killed by US counterterrorism forces in Abbottabad, close to a Pakistani military training base, further questions the Pakistani commitment and seriousness in the fight against terrorist.
These different policy visions impede the counterterrorism cooperation between New Delhi and Washington. As long as this deliberate opaqueness on the part of the US continues, it will be difficult to completely root out terrorism both from the region and from the world at large. This shows American perceptions about terrorism, counterterrorism policy and its reluctance to accept Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism. In fact, Washington and New Delhi have failed in the past to work as closely as they could to minimise terrorist threats due to Indian reticence to deepen the intelligence relationship and US bureaucratic resistance toward elevating counterterrorism cooperation beyond a certain level.
Differences in Legal Framework and Counterterrorism Agencies: Execution and Performance
The US has the legal framework to deal with terrorism and has effective anti-terrorism laws. The United States Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 made terrorism a federal offence, expanded the responsibility of the FBI in solving such crimes and imposed the death penalty for terrorism. Other laws include the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA) and the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Manoharan 2009), and modernisation and upgrading of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 4 of 1978 (FISA) in 2008 (Zarate 2008) which aims to deter and punish terrorist acts in the US. The PATRIOT Act provides far-reaching authority to both domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies. These acts have widened the definition of terrorism and established that it may have religious or ideological as well as political motivation and would cover actions which might not be violent in themselves but which can, in a modern society, have a devastating impact.
In the wake of 9/11, the US focussed on enhancing its intelligence and security agencies. The US has followed a combined, manifold and cohesive approach clenched by a counterterrorism design in which the National Counter-terrorism Center (NCTC) sits on the top; also included is the DHS, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, NORTHCOM, the National Security, Divisions of the Department of Justice, the FBI’s National Security Branch and the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). These measures have institutionalised the counterterrorism and homeland defence missions (Zarate 2008). Since 9/11, the US government has been consistent in its counterterrorism approach and has taken adequate legal, police and intelligence measures to avert any further attack. The US realised that the counterterrorism establishment had to be equipped and reoriented to handle the new task. The US government, therefore, strengthened its intelligence networks, spent huge sums of money to equip them, hired experts and strengthened coordination between the various agencies.
For India, however, there is still a long road ahead. India’s Multi-agency Centre, which is planned to coordinate the fight against terrorism, is languishing. In India, the entire approach to terrorism smacks of a succession of knee-jerk reactions, while the only constant element in the approach is its striking inconsistency. For example, the then-Home Minister of India granted freedom to imprisoned terrorists for the safe return of his abducted daughter in 1990; the Foreign Minister of India personally escorted terrorists to Kandahar in 1999 and swapped them with passengers of the hijacked IC-814 Indian Airlines plane. The terrorists repaid by orchestrating an attack on the J&K Assembly and the Indian Parliament. An exceptional mobilisation of Indian Armed Forces during Operation Parakaram was the immediate reaction of the attack on Parliament that ended in a feeble whimper. Then in the aftermath of a series of terror attacks in India in 2008, the government responded by cutting off the bilateral dialogue with Islamabad—but the lack of a long-term strategy in the direction of legal, police, administrative reforms continues. Evidently, these and countless other policy waffles benchmark India’s approach to combating terrorism.
India has also enacted many special security laws to deal with the challenges arising from terrorism. One of the oldest laws to deal with insurgency and extremist activities is the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958, which is currently in operation in some of the north-eastern states and in Jammu & Kashmir. The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) (1987), which came in 1985 and was modified in 1987, was allowed to lapse in 1995 and there was no anti-terrorism law to replace it for about five years. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government introduced the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) in 2001. But some of its measures, such as the ability to keep terror suspects in custody without bringing them to trial, met objections. In 2004 the law was scrapped after allegations emerged that officials were abusing their powers when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came to power. India was left with no single law in the hands of the counterterror establishment for years but again after a series of terror attacks (including the Mumbai terror attack), the government began to mull over the idea of a counterterror law to deal with terrorism at national level. The Mumbai terror attack exposed India’s failure of its counterterrorism policy and its agencies. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act (2008) was introduced to strengthen the anti-terrorism law enforcement agencies in the wake of Mumbai.
India’s counterterrorism measures have often been the subject of appeals by human rights organisations: for example, several Indian political parties and the Human Rights groups opposed the enactment of an anti-terrorist law. Debate over the use of counterterrorism measures often overrides the enabling capacities of such acts, which means that most of them, often described as extraordinary legislation, have been formulated to arm law enforcers and investigators with certain powers that are seen as critical to addressing terrorism. While the Indian perception of the US legal framework for counterterrorism is viewed as a curtailment of individual freedom, US State Department officials view India’s counter-terrorism efforts as being hampered by its ‘outdated and overburdened’ law enforcement and legal systems (D’Souza 2008, 1067–1084).
On the performance of India’s counterterrorism agencies, Stephen P. Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, opines that the old institutions of India cannot cope with the new pressures of arising from security threats. Wilson John, a senior fellow with the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, writes in the Terrorism Monitor that the problem is an intelligence structure which has yet to emerge from its ‘debilitating colonial legacy and a complementary stranglehold of bureaucracy’ (Kaplan and Bajoria 2008).
In the US, each branch of the armed forces has its own elite units: Army Rangers, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Delta Force and the USAF Special Ops. Some of these units were deployed in Afghanistan and are reported to have given a good account of themselves. However, in India, there is an element of overlap in the anti-terrorist operations. Forces are deployed not so much according to their suitability for a particular terrain or the nature of operations, but more according to their availability. It is essential that they have the right force for the right situation.
In India, there are a number of intelligence agencies like the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Military Intelligence, BSF G-branch, Revenue Intelligence, etc. However, there has been intelligence failure during past crises. Wilson John argues that the state police and intelligence units are mostly structured as agencies to protect law and order and to spy on rivals rather than act as investigative and intelligence units. He says that there is reluctance, and even refusal, to share information among the intelligence and security agencies (Kaplan and Bajoria 2008).
Unlike the US, India lacks a unified command of the civil and defence forces which is absolutely essential to deal with any terrorist situation. The concept has already been accepted and applied in J&K and in Assam. The implementation, however, calls for improvement. There is a need for proper coordination between civil services and the defence forces. They need to avoid bureaucratic apathy and intra-agency/inter-department competition which often means obstacles in implementing counterterrorism policies and programmes.
The full efficacy of Indo-US defence ties and military cooperation can be realised better when the common goals of security and combined operations suit both nations’ geo-strategic and security interests. Rightly, Ashley Tellis suggests that there is no reason why the US and India cannot formalise a memorandum of understanding on cooperative military operations in the Indian Ocean region (Tellis 2005).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is clear that counterterrorism cooperation needs more emphasis as a component of the ongoing Indo-US strategic partnership. Nevertheless, the India-US counterterrorism cooperation on the intelligence sharing front seems to be improving. New Delhi’s reluctance to intensify intelligence sharing and Washington’s bureaucratic opposition to enhanced counterterrorism cooperation beyond a certain point finally seem to be changing. The policy-makers are realising that India is one of the worst victim of terrorism (Economic Times 2009). The fact that the US shared intelligence information related to the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul with the Indian government weeks before the attack occurred is an indication in this regard.
It also augurs well for tackling terrorism in the future that in his very first bilateral talk with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Barrack Obama emphasised a need for the US and India to work together on the counterterror issue. Still, there could be a better congruence between American and Indian viewpoints if and when the US administration grasps the point as the American media, American think tanks and of course, the rest of the world have, that it is Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies which are standing in the way of stabilising democracy in Afghanistan. The coalition forces in Afghanistan are facing a well-armed and well-trained Jihadi Taliban force and are suffering casualties only because Pakistan is supporting them. The gravity of the threat posed to both countries from terrorists in the region requires New Delhi and Washington to overcome past suspicions and recognise that they both stand to gain considerably from stepping up cooperation.
However, the two significant developments that have taken place in the recent years validate India’s point on Pakistan’s role in supporting and abetting terrorism and the hidden risk that it poses to the security of the region and the world (Sharma 2012). The first in 2011 the American forces were able to track down and kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad near Pakistani military headquarters. The second is the recent declaration by the US government about a bounty of $10 million on Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Jamat-ul-Dawa, a cover organisation for the most dreaded Islamic terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taeba, for his role in Mumbai terror attack in 2008 in which US citizens were killed. Finally, the Indian and the US views on counterterrorism seem to be converging and lately the US administration has realised that it was Pakistan which gave shelter to Osama bin Laden and had been reluctant to take action against and showing leniency to the activities of terrorist mastermind such as Hafiz Saeed. This implies the success of intelligence agencies and counterterrorism forces, but it exposes the lack of Pakistani commitment and their true intention in the GWOT and vindicates the Indian view point about Pakistan’s role in the GWOT. Still there was not much scope for the counterterrorism cooperation between India and the US in the Af-Pak region. But both the nations need to focus on counterterrorism cooperation and likely threats from the terrorism of tomorrow: namely, maritime terrorism, WMD, cyber terrorism and terrorism affecting energy security.
It is now the time for India and the US to assist each other in foiling terrorist threats at the regional and global level by sharing more counterterrorism skills and capability, increasing joint counterterrorism activities, enhancing trust and confidence in each other’s counterterrorism strategies, and understanding each other’s core national security interests better. If these measures are successfully implemented, counterterrorism will finally be treated as an important module in the ‘Indo-US strategic partnership’.