After introducing the panel Lt. Gen Satish Nambiar (Retd), former Director, United Services Institution of India and a Member of UN High Level Panel on Restructuring of the United Nations – 2004 and Chair of the inaugural session explained military to military relationships as one of the founding pillars of enduring Indo-US relationships.
In the inaugural address General VK Singh (Retd), Union Minister of State, MEA, former Chief of Staff, Indian Army emphasized on upsurge in the Indo-US relationships. Highlighting both security as well as the developmental agenda he said ‘Indo-pacific also brought out that both US and India are poised to partner, collaborate and participate in all initiatives for a shared view of prosperity and wellbeing through different platforms’.
The Keynote address by Amb S. Jaishankar, Former Foreign Secretary elucidated the concept of the Indo-Pacific and also spoke about the current multipolar world scenario. He concluded with a question that what kind of world are we moving into due to the vacuum left by the US?
Dr. Jasper Wieck, DCM, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in India stressed upon Indo-Pacific as an ‘emerging order’. He threw light on improved Indo-German relations in trade and Germany’s further contribution through bilateral development initiatives and armed forces interoperability cooperative initiatives to strengthen it.
In session 1 of “Indo-US Relations in a Changing Indo-Pacific” Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Senior Foreign Editor, Hindustan Times threw light on “Economic and Trade Scenarios in the Indo-Pacific”. He said that US China tariff war on global trade policy might result that USA shifting to unilateral action just like it’s pushing with other countries including India as well. Dhruva Jaishankar, Fellow, Brookings India on “US Role and Likely Policies” elaborated first his observations on the US policy, secondly implications in Trump era in macro sense and thirdly the implications for US’s traditional allies and partners such as India and Europe. On Indo-US bilateral political and strategic engagement/partnerships and trade negotiations on the identified challenges, Maj. Gen. P K Mallick (Retd), Advisor, Vivekananda International Foundation highlighted that these would be developed in the coming 2+2 meeting. Mentioning the military challenges due to limited US aid to India since 1962, Air Marshal K K Nohwar (Retd), Director, Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS) brought out the main aspects of US military and strategic cooperation with India.
Session 2 was about presenting external perceptions where in firstly, Ambassador Ashok Kantha presented his view from China. He said that in order to move China to the central stage of the world, Xi Jinping has implemented policy in many ways through BRI, emphases on overseas and maritime domain, as per strategic priorities of China.
Enunciating the concept of Indo-Pacific and Indo-US relations, Dr. Heribert Dieter, SWP Germany linked the changes occurring in the Indo-Pacific to structural changes taking place at the global level like rise of populist movements around the globe. Whereas Dr. Daljit Singh, The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore commented on implications for Southeast Asia that how Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) would undermine the centrality of ASEAN.
In the last session there were discussion and recommendations on India’s policy options by Maj. Gen. Dipankar Banerjee, Convenor, FSI and Dr. Arvind Virmani, President, FSI. The principal policy challenges in the realm of national security were concluded under three broad heading: first- Grand Strategy for India, second Geo-Political options and lastly enhancing National Strategic Capability.
The detailed report of the conference will be uploaded soon.