Threat of CAATSA Sanctions On India By USA Speaks Of A Doltish Administration
The United States has no capability to coerce India into abandoning its purchase of S400 missile systems or any other Weapon System from Russia or from any other Country, India wishes. The sooner Washington realizes it, the better. How can USA, which cannot persuade even Turkey in this matter and which abandoned Afghanistan in such great haste, can even think of threatening India with sanctions.
The Indian Prime Ministerial visit to the United Stated for the first actual Quad Leaders’ Summit and a bilateral with the American President, indicates an upswing in India-US relationship.
A confirmation of the improving ties was evident most recently with the visit to India of Wendy Sherman earlier this month. The US deputy secretary of state was able meet not only the Foreign Secretary but also the National Security Advisor and also the External Affairs Minister.
During the meetings, both sides discussed the developments in Indo-Pacific and Kabul. Wendy Sherman lauded India’s position in Afghanistan, declaring that India’s “security is first and foremost”, and will always be “front and centre” for the US and that New Delhi and Washington have “one mind and one approach” on Afghanistan. She even proclaimed that the days of Washington hyphenating India and Pakistan are over, that the US no longer pursues a “broad relationship” with Pakistan except a narrow a specific one. Naturally, in case India starts hyphenating between US and Iran or US and North Korea then same will not be liked.
However, probably momentarily forgetting the current geopolitical position of India,She did pass some odd remark on India’s purchase of S-400 air defence missile systems from Russia — the first batch of which is due to be delivered this year.
Wendy did make gestures that procurement of these weapon systems will immediately trigger secondary American sanctions under that turd of a law called Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
To limit the sale of Russian arms to other states and starve Russian military-industrial establishment of funds and at the same time promote the sales of American weapon system, the USA has come out with CAATSA . Then seeing that countries like India will just ignore CAATSA, the clever Americans made a provision for a waiver, with the sole authority resting with the president, who must work with the US Congress to show that the states under the sanctions cloud for dealing with Russian contractors meet the specific criteria for exemption.
The US Congress introduced the presidential waiver — six months at a time — through an amendment to Section 231 of CAATSA “presumably with India in mind”. India is just ignoring it and going ahead with the purchase, thus making the USA a laughing stock.
Though the Cowboys are not giving up. Soon after being sworn in, some joker in Biden administration official told CNBC-TV18 that India’s proposed deal with Russia for S-400 systems could trigger sanctions and “we urge all of our allies and partners to forgo transactions with Russia”. That joker forgot that Russia was a bigger partner of India.
A month later, Democratic chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, senator Bob Menendez to acted like a dolt by writing to US defence secretary Austin Lloyd ahead of his trip to India that “If India chooses to go forward with its purchase of the S-400, that act will clearly constitute a significant, and therefore sanctionable, transaction with the Russian defence sector under Section 231 of CAATSA. It will also limit India’s ability to work with the US on development and procurement of sensitive military technology. I expect you to make all of these challenges clear in conversations with your Indian counterparts.”
On 6 October, during a roundtable with journalists, Sherman described the S-400 deal as “dangerous”. “We’ve been quite public about any country that decides to use the S-400. We think that it is dangerous and not in anybody’s security interest,” said Sherman. Well it may not be in the security interest of USA but it certainly is in security interest of India that Wendy knows quite well. Also Indian interests are decided by India only and not by someone foreign Joe.
Imposing any sanctions on India will reverse bilateral ties.
