India-US-Israel: a domino effect affinity

As the Nehruvian Cold War legacy withered away, India recasted itself in the new
international environment. Both internal and external. As a newly independent state, just
emerged from the British dominion, India persuaded a third way between the two
ideological secular philosophies polarized in the two great military blocs: the Western
capitalist world and the Communist Warsaw Pact. Internally Nehru deviced a hybrid
economic plan that combine the federal capitalist British style with a centralized
economy, inspired by the Chinese and Soviet models- considered to better serve the
public interest. Externally the Non-aligned movement dubbed by the historian Paul
Johnson “The Bandung generation” was to provide India with the possibility to mould its
peculiar character to a moral international politics, different from what was considered
the imperialist and hypocritical powerpolitics of , lets say United States or the Soviet
Union. Concerning the relation with the United States, Delhi and Washington seem to
have been trapped in a succession of <mutual irritation and missed opportunities> to
quote Stanley Hoffmann conclusion. India not signing the NPT emphasized the
Hindustani prowess and nationalism wounded by the Western refusal of its importance.
More than that: American support for India’s traditional northern enemy, Pakistan only
embittered the relation. After 1990 all of that was to change when India abandoned the
socialist economic model that assured a modest 3% growth per year for a Chicago school
more neoliberal way. Although the political relations between the two great democracies
remained rather cold, India was to become more important for the American external
agenda once with the post 9/11 war on terror/terrorism. US realized that it needed India to
better cope with the Afghan stalemate. India used the ‘war on terror’ justification to
pursue and justify its internal struggle against different separatist movement and rebel
organizations, such as the Maoist movement.
But not only the relation with the global hegemon was reset, but from 1990 the relation
with one of hegemon’s most important proxies: Israel. In the Nehruvian key of lecture
Israel was nothing more than a regional imperialist power which brutalized the
Palestinian people and antagonized the Arab world. In the post 9/11 aftermath India did
not see itself like a much bigger Palestine but as a perennial threatened Israel facing
external terrorist attacks from Pakistan along with domestic extremism.∗1 One can notice
here that India’s improvement of its ties with Israel is even older than the post 9/11 US-
India warming diplomacy. The first steps were taken just before the initiation of the
Israeli-Palestinian from Oslo in 1993. Although India officially recognized Israel, none of
the two countries had diplomatic missions. The foreplay happened in October 1991,
during the Madrid Conference dedicated to the Middle East issues. In February 1992
Israel and India opened an embassy in each other’s capital. Israeli Foreign minister,
Moshe Yaeger visited New Delhi thus adding weight to the seriousness of Tel Aviv’s
intentions. Also in 1992 India and Israel sign a military treaty. In December 1996 Ezer
Weizman was to be the first Israeli president to ever visit India. A major period optimal
for relation boosting was the BJP 1998-2004 period. After defeating in parliamentary the
Congress Party, India nationalist alternative, without being troubled too much by the
potentially protestant voice of the Indian Muslims, deepened the military ties with Israeli
defence technology providers. Such an opportunity was offered by the 1998 Kargill war
when Israel sided with India and provided it with UAVs. Israel was somehow forced to
court the Indian weapons market because of the American embargo on arms supply to
China. As China’s market become out of reach, Israelis adapted to meet China’s southern
neighbor.
The post 9/11 added a more profound significance to the Israeli Indian alloy and, on a
broader stage to the US Indian Israeli alliance. A XXI Entente, the American Israeli
Indian strategic triangle is bound by shared values (democracy, liberal market) and
committed to a - lets say for the sake of simplifying things- the common enemy of
extremist Muslim terrorism. (We might say that American-Indian warming relations were
determined by the Indian-Israeli couple. Sitting with Tel Aviv, Delhi would appear in the
American eyes as a reliable partner, sailing on a Western course.)
Shortly after 9/11 Uzi Dayan, the Israeli National Adviser on security matters had an
appointment to its Indian counterparts that was to signal prospects for future

1∗ Such a statement must be adapted to nuances. In spite of Nehru stubborn believes, several political
parties, other than the Congress were willing to initiate a broader and deeper connection with Israel. More
than that: Israel itself was willing to help India against the bordering northern rivals, embodied in China
and Pakistan. Secret meetings between the military staffs of the two countries negociated technical support
for India. In 1978 a low profile visit of general Moshe Dayan was stepping on the same route of military
affinities between the two countries.
collaboration, although the press qualified the meeting as mere routine. In January 2002,
Shimon Perez, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs visited Indian and labeled the tie
between the two nations as a <a coalition without a choice> in the face of terrorism.
In May, 8, 2003, to climb again the attention on a broader map, Bradesh Mishra, India’s
National Security Adviser, during a speech at the American Jewish Committe suggested a
triangle between Washington-Tel Aviv- New Delhi.
Industrial cooperation has centred on surveillance radars, drone aircraft, and on missile
systems. India and Israel signed a contract worth 1.1 billion $ for three Phalcon radar
systems in 2004. Cooperation on missiles had begun in 2001 with a contract worth 270
million$ for a ship defence system based on Barak missiles. It reached a new level in
January 2006 when the countries agreed to jointly develop a new generation of missiles.
This brought Israel into competition with Russia, which was also jointly developing
cruise missiles with India. In 2007, India and Israel unveiled a joint project worth $2.5bn
for the development of a new air defence system based on Barak missiles, for use by both
the Indian air force and army, illustrates an article from Le Monde diplomatique,
November 2010. Today India is Israel’s second arms supplier, while Israel has become
India’s first (some say second; depend on who is asked) arms supplier. The overall
exchange between India and Israel rose from 200 million dollars in 1992 to 4 billion in
2008.
Not only weapons but anti-terrorist experience between the Indian and Israeli special
forces are dubbing the defence technology exchange. Indian troops are training with their
Israeli counterparts in order to better prepair to fight the Maoists insurgents.
Pillored on democracy as the defence factor, and on the war against terrorism as the
offensive factor, the American-India-Israeli triangle encounters at least a serious
problem: Iran. For US and Israel Iran is at best a peril, at worst an archrival (in this case
we must consider the ultrahawkish circles from Washington and Tel Aviv). For India
instead, Iran is a valuable energy provider for the new century. An Iranian-Indian robust
oil flux its one of Delhi’s priorities. On the other hand Iran sided with India in the
Kashmiri matter, the only Muslim country to do that. US and Israel would also want a
better security deal with Tehran, if one take out of the consideration the ideological
predicament. Should the Iran factor be considered a minor issue in the American-Indian-
Israeli Entente or it is to become the dissolution factor? States are not billiard ball actors
and they may behave in numerous ways, overlapping each other. The Indian presence in
the Central-south Asia and its ties with the West need not be seen in a pessimistic
manner, but as a hub of change: influencing Iran to become more moderate, and the
American-Israeli alliance more diplomatic, India may serve its ambition as regional
hegemon.