US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, who boarded the flight with Secretary of Defence Mark T. Esper for the trip to India yesterday, sounded upbeat about the third edition of the 2+2 Ministerial dialogue.
Pompeo tweeted: “Wheels up for my trip to India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Indonesia. Grateful for the opportunity to connect with our partners to promote a shared vision for a free and open IndoPacific composed of independent, strong, and prosperous nations.”
In a bid to counter China’s belligerence in the region, Pompeo will also be visiting Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia.
The two US Secretaries will be interacting with their counterparts in India Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar tomorrow. They will meet National Security Adviser Ajit Doval too. They are also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The first two 2+2 Ministerial dialogues were held in New Delhi in September 2018 and in Washington DC in 2019.
Talking to the media, a senior US government official said on Friday, “Broadly, we intend to focus on four major themes at this year’s 2+2: global cooperation, which includes public health collaboration and our work together in the Indo-Pacific; economic cooperation, which includes our partnership on energy and in space; people-to-people ties; and defense and security ties.”
On the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly threatening postures, the US official said, “Given China’s increasingly aggressive behavior across the Indo-Pacific from the Himalayas to the South China Sea, it’s more important than ever that we work with likeminded partners such as India. We were pleased to see India’s recent announcement regarding Australia joining the Malabar naval exercise…”
The foundational concept behind the Quad is one of vibrant democracies working together towards a common vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, he said. “To that end, Quad foreign ministers discussed our collective efforts to collaborate on pandemic response, maritime security, cybersecurity, quality infrastructure, counterterrorism, and in other areas. We’re also looking forward to working with India during its upcoming term on the UN Security Council to address these challenges and the other pressing issues before us today.”
Commenting on India’s invitation to Australia to join the Quad, another US official said, “This invitation signals not only a strategic convergence between the Quadrilateral partners but a recognition that regional security requires strengthening allies and partnerships and working multilateral on issues of mutual concern.”
The second important point he focused on was “information sharing, which figures prominently in our defense cooperation.” Elaborating on this, he said, “We’ve made significant progress towards concluding the last foundational defense enabling agreement, the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement, or the BECA. This agreement will allow for expanded geospatial information sharing between our armed forces. We are also seeking to expand secure communication capabilities between our respective militaries as well as between our foreign and defense ministries, and that too figures prominently on what we’re trying to accomplish in the information-sharing space.”
On military-to-military engagement, he said, “we’re working to build greater interoperability by increasing the sophistication of our combined exercises. The passing exercise between the Indian navy and the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group this summer is just one example. The recent refueling of one of our Navy P-8 aircraft in Port Blair is another example.”
Over the past year, the US has placed a liaison officer at the Information Fusion Center-Indian Ocean Region, which is India’s maritime domain awareness fusion center. “And an Indian liaison was placed at US Central Command, which both of these have enhanced coordination and information sharing between our navies. We also hope to confirm two additional Indian liaison officer placements in the near term to expand counterterrorism cooperation.”
We’re also looking to increase mil-to-mil cooperation in emerging technologies, the second US official said. “We held an inaugural Defense Cyber Dialogue in September, this last September, and are looking—we’re looking to have a defence space dialogue in the coming year, most likely in early 2021.”
He also talked about defense trade. He said that earlier this year India acquired Apache and Seahawk helicopters, and we’re seeking to advance sales for several other defense platforms, to include fighter aircraft and UAVs.”.
