India, US sign landmark logistics pact

Signalling a paradigm shift in their defence relationship, India and the United States finally inked the long-awaited Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMoA) in Washington on Tuesday, allowing for unprecedented closer ties between the militaries of the world’s two largest democracies.

The announcement about the deal was made by defence minister Manohar Parrikar and US defence secretary, Ashton Carter, at a joint press conference.

“Our decision to sign the LEMoA today would make it easier for our armed forces to carry out joint activities, such as training and exercises, as well as HADRmissions,” Mr Parrikar told the media in the presence of Mr Carter. He is on a three-day visit to the US.

A landmark pact which was 12 years in the waiting, LEMoA — a watered down version of the Logistics and Supplies Agreement (LSA), an agreement that the US has with its key Nato allies — will facilitate much easier and simpler access to each other’s bases in the form of logistical support, refuelling, supplies and other such services on a reimbursable basis.

The agreement, signed during Mr Parrikar’s sixth meeting with Mr Carter in two years, has added further fillip to the belief that a new military alignment is in the making — one whose impact may be quite pronounced in the South Asia region.

LEMoA will also make joint military operations between the two countries much easier, coordinated and efficient — a development that China will definitely watch with a lot of concern. After all, the US is the largest operator of overseas military bases with 662 bases across 38 countries.

The military logistics agreement between the two countries was first proposed in 2002 but India did not agree to signing the pact till earlier this year. In April, during Mr Carter’s visit to Delhi, the two countries announced an in-principle agreement to sign the pact. Following further negotiations and due approvals by various ministries, the pact was finally signed on Tuesday.

Over the years, there were serious concerns that such a pact would enable US combatants to station themselves in India, which would compromise India’s sovereignty and autonomy.

But Mr Parrikar summed up the change in priorities — strategic and military — in his opening statement at the joint press conference with Mr Carter at Washington: “Indeed, defence cooperation between India and the US has never been stronger than it is today.”

Mr Carter, in turn, told reporters: “I have already spent more time with Mr Parrikar than I have with any other defence counterpart anywhere in the world.”

Mr Parrikar’s US visit this time has an interesting itinerary. His visit to the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, US Cyber Command and the planned tour to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is indicative of the forward-looking idea that cutting-edge scientific applications and cyber collaborations are what India is looking at.