DTN News - U.S. - INDIA DEFENSE NEWS: Routine Interactions Build U.S-India Defense Relations
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada / WASHINGTON, August 24, 2011: The U.S.-India defense relationship is a natural partnership created by shared interests and values and driven by increasingly routine day-to-day interactions, a senior Defense Department official said here today.
Robert Scher, deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia, spoke to an audience at the New America Foundation.
Day-to-day successes that lay the groundwork for the U.S.-India defense relationship are rarely in the spotlight, Scher said, “but they are an important factor in driving our relationship forward and helping us understand each other.”
The U.S.-India relationship is a priority for the Obama administration and the Defense Department, Scher said, one that President Barack Obama has called a defining partnership of the 21st century. In recent years, he added, high-level visits have cemented the commitment of both nations to the bilateral relationship.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the United States in 2009, and Obama traveled to India in 2010. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s July attendance at the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue was her second trip there as secretary of state.
“India is a major regional and global power,” Scher said. “We view our relationship with India as a partnership of equals -- two nation states with a commonality of security interests in the Indian Ocean region and beyond.”
Scher said the most important thing the United States is doing in its defense relationship with India is building mutual trust and understanding that will help to ensure that common values and interests can translate into common approaches.
Three key areas in the U.S.-India defense relationship are people-to-people ties, military engagement and defense sales, the deputy assistant secretary of defense said.
Examples of people-to-people ties include attendance by service members from both nations at U.S. and Indian military educational institutions, Scher said.
“In 2010, we had nearly 100 members of the Indian armed services at military schools or courses in the United States,” he said. “These educational interactions are fantastic opportunities to share perspectives, understand cultural mindsets and simply become friends with colleagues.”
All three of the Indian military’s current service chiefs went to school in the United States during their careers, Scher noted.
“Air Marshal [Norman Anil Kumar] Browne graduated from the Air Command and Staff College, he said. “General [Joginder Jaswant] Singh is a graduate of both the U.S. Army Ranger School and the U.S. Army War College. And Adm. [Nirmal Kumar] Verma is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College.”
In the United States, Scher added, retired Navy Adm. Walter L. Doran attended the Indian Defense Service Staff College in Wellington, Tamil Nadu, India, in 1979. There, he formed a close relationship with Indian colleagues who included former Indian Chief of Naval Staff Adm. Arun Prakash and Adm. Sureesh Mehta.
“This has real-world implications,” Scher said. “During his 10 years as admiral of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Doran’s personal relationship with Admiral Prakash proved instrumental in initiating coordination between the U.S. and Indian response efforts to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.”
The U.S. Naval Postgraduate School recently formalized a memorandum of understanding with India’s Defense Institute of Advanced Technology, he added.
