C. Uday Bhaskar

Opinion | Blowback over Pakistan F-16 deal highlights limits of India’s closer ties with US

The India-US relationship has transformed from estrangement to one of engagement and is now touted as one between partners and friends, but all is not well

New Delhi’s anger over Washington’s upgrades for Pakistan’s jet fighters is the latest example of US foreign policy clashing with India’s core security interests

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C. Uday Bhaskar

Published: 3:30am, 1 Oct 2022Updated: 6:01am, 1 Oct 2022

India and the United States moved swiftly in tandem this week to engage in a damage-control exercise to smooth a jolted bilateral relationship. New Delhi was visibly upset over Washington’s decision to extend support to Pakistan by way of upgrading its US-supplied F-16 fighter aircraft.

On Monday, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the US’ claim that the F-16s package was to aid counterterrorism operations was “not fooling anyone”. Following that sharp observation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted his counterpart over a working dinner in Washington that evening.

The conviviality was clearly effective. In a joint press conference, the two men were upbeat about the current level of cooperation. Jaishankar noted that, “In today’s meeting, we discussed our political coordination, working together in plurilateral and multilateral formats and exchanging assessments on collaborating on important regional issues and global challenges. I would specifically mention the Ukraine conflict and the Indo-Pacific situation in that regard.”

In his remarks, Blinken explained the US decision on the F-16s: “These are not new planes, new systems, new weapons. It’s sustaining what they have. We have a responsibility and an obligation to whomever we provide military equipment to make sure that it’s maintained and sustained.”

The prickly matter was laid to rest, and both ministers discussed a range of other issues that included the turbulence engendered by the war in Ukraine and its global geoeconomic and geopolitical fallout, including its impact on the situation in the Indo-Pacific. Jaishankar said the Ukraine conflict had many consequences, including “the prospect of instability in the Indo-Pacific, because today Asia and the Indo-Pacific is so central to global trade and particularly in some very critical areas”.

Pakistan Air Force F-16 fighter jets fly in formation during a National Day ceremony in Islamabad. Photo: AP

Some preliminary inferences can be made from this latest public demonstration of cordiality and harmony in the India-US relationship. First, remember that these two countries, two of the world’s oldest and largest democracies, had a bitter and estranged relationship for almost four decades during the Cold War.