US-India COMCASA Agreement Crawls, Ash Carter’s farewell visit to India next month



Nearly three months after the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) between India and the US was signed in the presence of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his American counterpart Ash Carter, the pathbreaking agreement is yet to be operationalised. The agreement allows the Indian and American militaries to access each other’s bases for supplies and repairs.

The delay is because the defence ministry has not shared its “points of contact” list with the Pentagon. Ministry sources said a routine bureaucratic process was involved, wherein an accounting standard for the three services is still being worked out. It forms part of the “points of contact” list to be submitted to the Pentagon.

The “points of contact” list is a list of designated officials, with their contact details, to whom the US military would have to send its request for logistics support under LEMOA. The Americans furnished their “points of contact” list at the time the agreement was signed. Senior US government officials told The Sunday Express they were confident of the LEMOA being operationalised, and were not looking at a specific deadline.

Although it has not been officially announced so far, Defence Secretary Carter will be making his farewell visit to
India early next month. No progress is, however, expected on the other two pending foundational agreements, the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) — formerly known as the Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) — and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). These agreements allow for the secure exchange of communication between the militaries, and the sharing of geospatial data, respectively. The defence ministry has not shown any interest in the Pentagon’s attempts to resume negotiations on these two agreements.

The two sides have, however, been negotiating hard on defining the exact contours of the Major Defence Partner (MDP) status bestowed by the US on India. This is a unique nomenclature created solely for India, and was announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in June. During Parrikar’s visit to the US in August, he had shared with Carter a non-paper on India’s expectations from the MDP status. The two sides have since exchanged multiple notes on the subject and a clear framework on the MDP status — which will allow India to get the latest defence technologies from the US — is expected to emerge during Carter’s visit. No official announcement is expected to be made, though.

During Carter’s visit, the two sides will discuss the impact of the political transition in Washington on the India-US defence relationship. American officials say that institutional mechanisms created during the Obama administration, such as the DTTI and MDP status, will ensure a healthy relationship between the two countries. They, however, concede that the next defence secretary may not necessarily share the personal chemistry that Carter shares with Parrikar. US officials gave the example of a meeting at the Pentagon, where, they said, Carter, a physics major, used the metaphor of the Zeeman’s Paradox to describe the bilateral relationship. While all the other officials were flabbergasted, Parrikar, an IIT graduate, went on to recite the full formula of perspective geometry.

The two sides are expected to announce the signing of the much-delayed M777 howitzer deal during Carter’s visit. The
Rs 5,000 crore deal, which has been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security, and for which funds were sanctioned by the finance ministry earlier this month, envisages the procurement of 145 heli-portable artillery guns, which will be assembled in India. This will be the first induction of artillery guns in the Army since the ill-fated 155 mm Bofors guns in the 1980s
.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Network Centric Warfare Capabilities & INDIAN ARMED FORCES

Image
By: Next Generation Weapons Technology Network Centric Warfare and Indian Navy & IAF and land based units. More satellites will be launched as grid as launched previously. In addition to making platforms and infrastructure for network centricity, the Navy has also made organizational changes to create and efficiently manage the transition to seamless Network Centric capabilities. The creation of a new post of Assistant Chief of Naval S taff (Communications Space and Network Centric Operations) is step in the process to migrate from a ‘Platform Centric Navy’ to a ‘Network Enabled Navy’. During various exercises, Network Centric Warfare (NCW) has been one of the crucial aspects being validated. During the various coordinated exercises conducted by the Army with the Air Force, the endeavor has been to validate and integrate the use of all available assets, including satellites, UAVs and HUMINT (Human intelligence) to assist commanders at all levels in taking dynamic and pr
Read more

The Heat is on!! for INDIA as China Unveils its 5th Gen Stealth J20 Fighter Jet ; Pakistan expresses interest to buy

Image
China on Tuesday unveiled its J-20 stealth fighter jet at its biggest air show which will have major implications for India as it is the first indigenously-made fifth-generation Chinese aircraft which Pakistan has shown interest in acquiring. Two J-20 aircraft which made waves in the Chinese media in the last few years flew at the Zhuhai city air show where the Pakistan Air Force is also taking part flying with its J-17 Thunder jets which are jointly manufactured with China. This is the first, public show of the J-20 warplane. Pakistan, the largest importer of Chinese arms has said earlier that it is in talks with China to buy the FC-31 - an export variant of the same aircraft. The FC-31 was briefly flown in the 2014 Zhuhai airshow. The stealth aircraft is regarded as major breakthrough for China which is otherwise mostly reliant on Russian aircraft including advanced versions of Sukhois. India is yet to make stealth aircraft which can penetrate through enemy radars. The J
Read more

Where Is Article 370 Now!!!!, That Rohingyas And Bangladeshis Are Being Settled In Jammu And Ladakh ???

Image
Jammu is up in arms against the authorities. This time, it is not against discriminatory policies being pursued by the successive Kashmir-dominated and Valley-centric governments in Jammu & Kashmir since 1947, but against the settlement of Rohingyas from Myanmar in Jammu and Ladakh, both strategically vital for national security. According to the late Jammu and Kashmir chief minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the number of Rohingya Muslims living in different parts of Jammu city and around it, was 5,107 in 2010 (AINS, 10 October 2015). And, as per Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s June 2016 Assembly statement, there were 13,400 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis living in camps in Jammu. She said “Bathindi Ka Plot is home to the highest number of Rohingya Muslims” (The Hindustan Times, 5 December 2016). The break-up of Rohingyas settled in the state is as follows: Jammu – 5,086, Jammu’s Samba district – 634 and Ladakh – 7,664. The total number is 13, 334. The Jammu Chamber of C
Read more