Pravin Sawhney

With the signing of Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), India has potentially mortgaged digitized military capability of its three services--army, air force and navy--to the United States. If this sounds startling, it is.

Working in tandem with the Communication, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) signed in 2018, the two are much more than about developing inter-operability (ability to fight together against common enemy) as said in media reports and background briefings. If that was not bad enough, through the twin-routes of datasets (given under BECA) and the systems (given under COMCASA), Indian indigenous kill-chains (sensors to shooter networks working through command center) would potentially be under US’ control through its humongous cyber capabilities.

What prompted the Modi government to take this mindlessly suicidal extreme step, considering India is neither US’ military ally nor has any commitment that US military would fight its wars, has been indicated by an Indian-American analyst. On eve of the BECA signing, senior fellow at US’ Brookings Institute, Tanvi Madan tweeted, ‘Arguably without Doklam and Ladakh crisis, India would not have got to yes on COMCASA or reportedly BECA.’ The reality is India has cut off its nose to spite the Chinese by (a) flaunting untested strategic ties with the US, and (b) in the hope that US’ geospatial intelligence and real-time images datasets would he