The Biden administration’s Pacific strategy will face a major test later this year when India makes good on a controversial $5 billion arms deal with Russia, an agreement that could trigger U.S. sanctions at a time when Washington is trying to pull India closer.
Biden now has two allies which possess or plan to take delivery of dreaded Russian made missiles.
To date, the only countries sanctioned under the law are Turkey and China, both for buying the same S-400 system slated to arrive in India. It’s a precedent that could put the Biden administration in an awkward position with a key ally. On Friday, US undersecretary of State Department Wendy Sherman warned Turkey to mothball her S-400s. Biden will need to set a very delicate strategy to treat both partners evenly.
As background, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, a 2017 law with broad support in Congress that punishes countries for making major arms deals with Russia, the world’s second-largest arms exporter.
To date, the only countries sanctioned under the law are Turkey and China, both for buying the same S-400 system slated to arrive in India. It’s a precedent that could put the Biden administration in an awkward position with a key ally.
The government of Narendra Modi appears to have made the decision to go forward with the system, and “they’ve not backed down for the last three years despite the threats of sanctions,” said Sameer Lalwani, senior fellow for Asia Strategy at the Stimson Center.
India has for decades been a customer of weapons made in the U.S., Russia, France and Israel. But in recent years successive administrations in Washington have tried to wean India off Russian gear, with important wins. But Russia maintains a grip on some major systems, selling nuclear-powered submarines and warships to the Indian armed forces.
WATCH: Why is Turkey so interested in Afghanistan? | Real Turkey
The S-400 air defense system, however, looms large. In 2020, the Trump administration kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program and imposed sanctions under CAATSA after Turkey received its first S-400, a major step against a longtime NATO ally.
Being removed from the F-35 club was a bitter pill for the Turkish government, but Washington and its NATO allies had spent years publicly and privately warning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan against consummating the deal. Turkish leadership remained defiant throughout, however. Just this past week, Erdogan said he was prepared to buy a second S-400, pledging “nobody will be able to interfere in terms of what kind of defense systems we acquire, from which country, at what level.”
WATCH: Emerging Markets: The Dawn Of A Lost Decade | Real Turkey
The Indian government “was definitely watching all of that in great detail and all along the way we continued to warn them,” said R. Clarke Cooper, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs under the Trump administration, now at the Atlantic Council. The message to the Indian government after inking the deal with Russia in 2018 was “‘look, you take delivery of the S-400 you’re going to potentially jeopardize interoperability with the United States, and you’re going to potentially jeopardize interoperability with other partners that you value,” Cooper said.
Since CAATSA went into effect, the message to countries with long-standing relationships with the Russian defense industry has generally been, “keep your AK-47s, but if you really are looking to have a modern military alongside the United States and partners, don’t put that at risk,” Cooper said. “I would be surprised if the Biden team is having any different kind of conversation with the Indian government.”
A senior administration official, who was not authorized to discuss the issue and asked for anonymity, said India’s planned defense purchases from Russia are no secret, but “we urge all of our allies and partners to forgo transactions with Russia that risk triggering sanctions,” under CAATSA.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not made any determination about sanctions, and “CAATSA does not have any blanket or country-specific waiver provision,” the official said. Any transaction with Russia’s “defense or intelligence sectors must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”
In Turkey’s case, the worry inside NATO was that the powerful Russian radar system that tracks targets for the S-400 would pump valuable information back to Moscow about how the F-35 and other aircraft operate. Leaders in Brussels said there was no chance they would put their F-35s anywhere near that radar system, even if it were operated by an ally.
“Whatever happens, whether it’s sanctions or whether it’s a waiver, the real challenge for the administration is figuring out how to avoid having to deal with this over and over and over again,” said Stimson’s Lalwani.
In 2023, India will receive the first two of four new frigates from Russia, and in 2025, will begin leasing its third nuclear-powered submarine from Moscow, all major deals already sealed.
“The question will be whether this is going to trigger a wave of sanctions each time,” Lalwani said. “So the other reason the administration will have to work this out with Congress is so this Sword of Damocles isn’t hanging over the relationship for the next five to 10 years because those deals have already been made and signed.”
In March, Senate Foreign Relations Chair Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warning, “if India chooses to go forward with its purchase of the S-400, that act will clearly constitute a significant, and sanctionable, transaction with the Russian defense sector … it will also limit India’s ability to work with the U.S. on development and procurement of sensitive military technology.”
In May, the State Department approved the sale of six P-8 submarine-hunting aircraft to India, adding to the 12 Boeing-made aircraft the country already operates. The deals all carry the provision that 30 percent of the manufacturing take place in India, part of Modi’s Make in India program.
The Obama administration’s designation of India as a major defense partner in 2016 was meant as a sign of Washington’s desire to draw closer to New Delhi, while nudging the Indian government to begin shunning some Russian gear.
The deal grants India access to U.S. defense technologies at a level comparable to NATO allies, and came just after Russia lost a $3 billion deal to Boeing to build Apache and Chinook helicopters.
The United States and its influential defense industry are not about to walk away from these deals and a growing relationship with India at a time when the country has become a close ally in deterring China. But with India not about to walk away from its relationship with Russia, Congress and the White House will soon have to decide how much they’re willing to accept.
White House’s India decision will affect relations with Turkey, too, as US Congress agitates for deeper CATSA sanctions for the wayward ally. Unlike India, new CAATSA sanctions could severely hurt investor confidence, becoming a domestic economic issue for Erdogan.
Follow our English language YouTube videos @ REAL TURKEY: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKpFJB4GFiNkhmpVZQ_d9Rg
And content at Twitter: @AtillaEng
Facebook: Real Turkey Channel: https://www.facebook.com/realturkeychannel/