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India’s defence pact with Qatar | Pragmatic Euphony
During the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Qatar earlier this week, India and Qatar signed a defence cooperation pact. One of the top Indian officials there labelled the agreement on — Joint training exercises, training of personnel and maritime cooperation — as “just short of stationing troops (in the region)”. The significance of this pact has not been grasped by the Indian media, which has left this landmark agreement unexplored.
“The defence and security cooperation agreements are the only one of the kind that India has signed with any country,” he [government official] said.
Under the agreements, New Delhi has committed to protect assets and interests of Qatar from external threats. “The agreements are short of stationing troops,” the official said but did not elaborate the form in which India will go to Qatar’s rescue in case of a threat.
Qatar has a large US troops stationed on its soil but wanted more “comfort” and had been pursuing the deal with India since 2005.[PTI]
This means that India has actually vowed to protect Qatar’s considerable assets — petroleum and gas fields and sea lanes — if the need arises. India and Qatar had earlier agreed in June 2007 to jointly produce weapons and military equipment. This defence cooperation pact signed now will also pave the way for joint production of weapons at Indian facilities.
New Delhi has added Qatar to the list of countries with which India has inked defence cooperation agreements — United States, United Kingdom, France, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Germany and lately, Japan. Qatar become the first country in the Middle East to sign such a pact with India. Why is Qatar so important to India?
Qatar is of immense strategic importance due to its geographical location in central Persian Gulf near major petroleum deposits and its own enormous energy reserves. Qatar is surrounded by a neighbourhood – Iran, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia – that it can hardly trust. It has been concerned about its own security, despite a large US base, strategically placed at the narrow mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. It is from this Al-Udeid base, where the operational headquarters of US Central Command were located during the Second Gulf War, that the US monitors a potentially-nuclear Iran, an unstable Iraq and China’s growing footprint in the region, especially activity in the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Qatar is the richest country in the world by World Bank per-capita estimates. The stalled round of WTO talks is named after Qatar’s capital, Doha. The Al Jazeera television network, which has become the main outlet for the political views of the Middle East, is based there. Al Jazeera has ruffled many feathers with its unique brand of lively reportage and critical commentary. This includes, not only Israel and the United States, but many Islamic regimes including Saudi Arabia.
Qatar has had a vexed relationship with the US in the recent past. Relations between Qatar and the US took a nosedive over the issue of Al Jazeera. The US felt Al Jazeera was promoting radical view points and supporting terrorism. As host of the annual summit of Gulf Arab leaders this year, Doha invited Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend. Following Hamas’s election victory in 2006, Qatar publicly rebuked the US for working to undermine the results of the democratic process in Palestine.The relations soured further when the US found it difficult to convince Qatar to vote on some sensitive subjects during the latter’s tenure as a member of the UN Security Council. However, there are signs that the ties between Qatar and the US are again warming up now.
The difficult relationship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia has also been repaired in the recent months. Besides objections to the portrayal of the Saudi ruling family by Al Jazeera, Saudi Arabia had earlier taken offence to Qatar’s relationship with Israel. Qatar, on the eve of accepting the chairmanship of the OIC in November 2000, closed the Israeli trade office in Doha. Many observers have noted that Saudi Arabia also did not like the special security relationship Qatar had developed with the United States. It meant that the US had acquired more flexibility for launching military operations in the region, thereby undermining Saudi Arabia’s key strategic importance in the region. However, a three-day visit of the Saudi Crown Prince earlier this year has suggested a normalisation of relations between Qatar and Saudis. The normalisation of their relationship also indicates the normalisation of relations between Qatar and the US.
Qatar, with the third-largest reserves of natural gas in the world, has identified India as a big market for its natural gas. RasGas of Qatar has signed a 25-year deal for shipping 7.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually to terminals in Dahej in Gujarat and in Kochi. The ex-ship price of $2.53 million British thermal unit (mmBtu) is considered a steal in current times of LNG prices breaching $20 per mmBtu. Earlier, Qatar had rescued India by supplying 1.5 million tons of more LNG on a short-term contract basis to recommence the beleaguered Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra, when other nations sought review of gas price due to increase in prices of crude oil. This favourable gesture of the Qatar government has underpinnned the burgeoning economic and staretgic relationship between New Delhi and Doha.
The maritime cooperation agreement provides India with a strategic naval base in the Gulf region. It is to be noted that the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150), including the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Pakistan has been operating from bases in Djibouti and Bahrain. The CTF-150 has been the dominant naval presence in the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, wheras Indian Navy gets a foothold in the region only now.
India has a distinct stake in West Asia particularly in the Gulf region because 60% of its energy imports originate from this area. As India meets nearly 80% of its oil demands from imports, the Gulf region has great strategic importance for India. Moreover, as India (along with China) constitutes the leading component of Asian demand from the region, it becomes an important destination for the Gulf countries too.
In fact, the shift of global energy trade towards Asian economies has its own geostrategic implications as energy relations, despite driven by market theory, are still governed by geopolitical concerns. Nearly 15% of the world’s super tanker capacity transits from the Gulf to South East Asian waters. The US has been the custodian of the energy security regime in the region so far. With India and China emerging as a major constituent of the global energy market, this Indo-Qatar pact is the first step in redesigning the energy security architecture in Asia.
This maritime security initiative will provide India and Qatar with a capacity to act against maritime threats against their commercial interests. India with a stronger and professional Navy will have a dominant role to play in mobilising responses against risks associated with energy transaction, be it safety of trade route or repelling attacks by terrorists. This is a clear declaration of the Indian intent to be the preeminent power between the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Strait.
Interestingly, this not only provides a greater opportunity for much closer cooperation but also indicates a strengthening relationship between India and the US. The greater Indian naval presence in the Gulf will in fact allow the US to shift its military focus to its real concern areas — Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After a similar landmark pact with Japan, India’s signing of a defence pact with Qatar is indicative of the growing importance and trust reposed by US in India as a strategic partner. Both these pacts with staunch US allies could not have been signed without the blessings of the US. Unlike the pact with Japan, which was dismissed by many as a US scheme of a Indo-Japan alliance to strategically contain China, the Indo-Qatar pact is unrelated to China. This should counter the argument that the US was propping up India only as a countervailing force to a rising China.
However there is a big downside to the Indo-Qatar pact. India’s relationship with Iran, which had weakened considerably after the Indian vote against Iran at the IAEA, has now hit a nadir. There has never been and is even now, no real clash of interests between India and Iran in the region. With a new US administration keen on engaging Tehran, India would have had a great opportunity to play the role of a facilitator between the US and Iran.
New Delhi needs to deftly navigate the relationship with Iran, despite the robust growth of its ties with the US on a parallel track. The most visible effort that India can make to signal the revival of its strong ties with Iran is to resume serious discussions on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. An improved relationship with Iran would allow India to align its geostrategic interests with those of Iran [and the US] in stabilising Afghanistan.
Indian sovereign rights are best served by maintaining an independent foreign policy, which allows New Delhi to retain its autonomy of action and thinking on various regional issues. As far as the Gulf region is concerned, the Chairman of the IISS had read the signs correctly –
- See more at: India’s defence pact with Qatar | Pragmatic Euphony
http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2008/11/13/indias-defence-pact-with-qatar/
During the Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Qatar earlier this week, India and Qatar signed a defence cooperation pact. One of the top Indian officials there labelled the agreement on Joint training exercises, training of personnel and maritime cooperation as just short of stationing troops (in the region). The significance of this pact has not been grasped by the Indian media, which has left this landmark agreement unexplored.
The defence and security cooperation agreements are the only one of the kind that India has signed with any country, he [government official] said.
Under the agreements, New Delhi has committed to protect assets and interests of Qatar from external threats. The agreements are short of stationing troops, the official said but did not elaborate the form in which India will go to Qatars rescue in case of a threat.
Qatar has a large US troops stationed on its soil but wanted more comfort and had been pursuing the deal with India since 2005.[PTI]
This means that India has actually vowed to protect Qatars considerable assets petroleum and gas fields and sea lanes if the need arises. India and Qatar had earlier agreed in June 2007 to jointly produce weapons and military equipment. This defence cooperation pact signed now will also pave the way for joint production of weapons at Indian facilities.
New Delhi has added Qatar to the list of countries with which India has inked defence cooperation agreements United States, United Kingdom, France, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Germany and lately, Japan. Qatar become the first country in the Middle East to sign such a pact with India. Why is Qatar so important to India?
Qatar is of immense strategic importance due to its geographical location in central Persian Gulf near major petroleum deposits and its own enormous energy reserves. Qatar is surrounded by a neighbourhood Iran, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia that it can hardly trust. It has been concerned about its own security, despite a large US base, strategically placed at the narrow mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. It is from this Al-Udeid base, where the operational headquarters of US Central Command were located during the Second Gulf War, that the US monitors a potentially-nuclear Iran, an unstable Iraq and Chinas growing footprint in the region, especially activity in the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Qatar is the richest country in the world by World Bank per-capita estimates. The stalled round of WTO talks is named after Qatars capital, Doha. The Al Jazeera television network, which has become the main outlet for the political views of the Middle East, is based there. Al Jazeera has ruffled many feathers with its unique brand of lively reportage and critical commentary. This includes, not only Israel and the United States, but many Islamic regimes including Saudi Arabia.
Qatar has had a vexed relationship with the US in the recent past. Relations between Qatar and the US took a nosedive over the issue of Al Jazeera. The US felt Al Jazeera was promoting radical view points and supporting terrorism. As host of the annual summit of Gulf Arab leaders this year, Doha invited Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend. Following Hamass election victory in 2006, Qatar publicly rebuked the US for working to undermine the results of the democratic process in Palestine.The relations soured further when the US found it difficult to convince Qatar to vote on some sensitive subjects during the latters tenure as a member of the UN Security Council. However, there are signs that the ties between Qatar and the US are again warming up now.
The difficult relationship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia has also been repaired in the recent months. Besides objections to the portrayal of the Saudi ruling family by Al Jazeera, Saudi Arabia had earlier taken offence to Qatars relationship with Israel. Qatar, on the eve of accepting the chairmanship of the OIC in November 2000, closed the Israeli trade office in Doha. Many observers have noted that Saudi Arabia also did not like the special security relationship Qatar had developed with the United States. It meant that the US had acquired more flexibility for launching military operations in the region, thereby undermining Saudi Arabias key strategic importance in the region. However, a three-day visit of the Saudi Crown Prince earlier this year has suggested a normalisation of relations between Qatar and Saudis. The normalisation of their relationship also indicates the normalisation of relations between Qatar and the US.
Qatar, with the third-largest reserves of natural gas in the world, has identified India as a big market for its natural gas. RasGas of Qatar has signed a 25-year deal for shipping 7.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually to terminals in Dahej in Gujarat and in Kochi. The ex-ship price of $2.53 million British thermal unit (mmBtu) is considered a steal in current times of LNG prices breaching $20 per mmBtu. Earlier, Qatar had rescued India by supplying 1.5 million tons of more LNG on a short-term contract basis to recommence the beleaguered Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra, when other nations sought review of gas price due to increase in prices of crude oil. This favourable gesture of the Qatar government has underpinnned the burgeoning economic and staretgic relationship between New Delhi and Doha.
The maritime cooperation agreement provides India with a strategic naval base in the Gulf region. It is to be noted that the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150), including the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Pakistan has been operating from bases in Djibouti and Bahrain. The CTF-150 has been the dominant naval presence in the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, wheras Indian Navy gets a foothold in the region only now.
India has a distinct stake in West Asia particularly in the Gulf region because 60% of its energy imports originate from this area. As India meets nearly 80% of its oil demands from imports, the Gulf region has great strategic importance for India. Moreover, as India (along with China) constitutes the leading component of Asian demand from the region, it becomes an important destination for the Gulf countries too.
In fact, the shift of global energy trade towards Asian economies has its own geostrategic implications as energy relations, despite driven by market theory, are still governed by geopolitical concerns. Nearly 15% of the worlds super tanker capacity transits from the Gulf to South East Asian waters. The US has been the custodian of the energy security regime in the region so far. With India and China emerging as a major constituent of the global energy market, this Indo-Qatar pact is the first step in redesigning the energy security architecture in Asia.
This maritime security initiative will provide India and Qatar with a capacity to act against maritime threats against their commercial interests. India with a stronger and professional Navy will have a dominant role to play in mobilising responses against risks associated with energy transaction, be it safety of trade route or repelling attacks by terrorists. This is a clear declaration of the Indian intent to be the preeminent power between the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Strait.
Interestingly, this not only provides a greater opportunity for much closer cooperation but also indicates a strengthening relationship between India and the US. The greater Indian naval presence in the Gulf will in fact allow the US to shift its military focus to its real concern areas Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After a similar landmark pact with Japan, Indias signing of a defence pact with Qatar is indicative of the growing importance and trust reposed by US in India as a strategic partner. Both these pacts with staunch US allies could not have been signed without the blessings of the US. Unlike the pact with Japan, which was dismissed by many as a US scheme of a Indo-Japan alliance to strategically contain China, the Indo-Qatar pact is unrelated to China. This should counter the argument that the US was propping up India only as a countervailing force to a rising China.
However there is a big downside to the Indo-Qatar pact. Indias relationship with Iran, which had weakened considerably after the Indian vote against Iran at the IAEA, has now hit a nadir. There has never been and is even now, no real clash of interests between India and Iran in the region. With a new US administration keen on engaging Tehran, India would have had a great opportunity to play the role of a facilitator between the US and Iran.
New Delhi needs to deftly navigate the relationship with Iran, despite the robust growth of its ties with the US on a parallel track. The most visible effort that India can make to signal the revival of its strong ties with Iran is to resume serious discussions on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. An improved relationship with Iran would allow India to align its geostrategic interests with those of Iran [and the US] in stabilising Afghanistan.
Indian sovereign rights are best served by maintaining an independent foreign policy, which allows New Delhi to retain its autonomy of action and thinking on various regional issues. As far as the Gulf region is concerned, the Chairman of the IISS had read the signs correctly
- See more at: http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2008/11/13/indias-defence-pact-with-qatar/#sthash.bYrvfXlz.dpuf
During the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Qatar earlier this week, India and Qatar signed a defence cooperation pact. One of the top Indian officials there labelled the agreement on — Joint training exercises, training of personnel and maritime cooperation — as “just short of stationing troops (in the region)”. The significance of this pact has not been grasped by the Indian media, which has left this landmark agreement unexplored.
“The defence and security cooperation agreements are the only one of the kind that India has signed with any country,” he [government official] said.
Under the agreements, New Delhi has committed to protect assets and interests of Qatar from external threats. “The agreements are short of stationing troops,” the official said but did not elaborate the form in which India will go to Qatar’s rescue in case of a threat.
Qatar has a large US troops stationed on its soil but wanted more “comfort” and had been pursuing the deal with India since 2005.[PTI]
This means that India has actually vowed to protect Qatar’s considerable assets — petroleum and gas fields and sea lanes — if the need arises. India and Qatar had earlier agreed in June 2007 to jointly produce weapons and military equipment. This defence cooperation pact signed now will also pave the way for joint production of weapons at Indian facilities.
New Delhi has added Qatar to the list of countries with which India has inked defence cooperation agreements — United States, United Kingdom, France, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Germany and lately, Japan. Qatar become the first country in the Middle East to sign such a pact with India. Why is Qatar so important to India?
Qatar is of immense strategic importance due to its geographical location in central Persian Gulf near major petroleum deposits and its own enormous energy reserves. Qatar is surrounded by a neighbourhood – Iran, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia – that it can hardly trust. It has been concerned about its own security, despite a large US base, strategically placed at the narrow mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. It is from this Al-Udeid base, where the operational headquarters of US Central Command were located during the Second Gulf War, that the US monitors a potentially-nuclear Iran, an unstable Iraq and China’s growing footprint in the region, especially activity in the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Qatar is the richest country in the world by World Bank per-capita estimates. The stalled round of WTO talks is named after Qatar’s capital, Doha. The Al Jazeera television network, which has become the main outlet for the political views of the Middle East, is based there. Al Jazeera has ruffled many feathers with its unique brand of lively reportage and critical commentary. This includes, not only Israel and the United States, but many Islamic regimes including Saudi Arabia.
Qatar has had a vexed relationship with the US in the recent past. Relations between Qatar and the US took a nosedive over the issue of Al Jazeera. The US felt Al Jazeera was promoting radical view points and supporting terrorism. As host of the annual summit of Gulf Arab leaders this year, Doha invited Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend. Following Hamas’s election victory in 2006, Qatar publicly rebuked the US for working to undermine the results of the democratic process in Palestine.The relations soured further when the US found it difficult to convince Qatar to vote on some sensitive subjects during the latter’s tenure as a member of the UN Security Council. However, there are signs that the ties between Qatar and the US are again warming up now.
The difficult relationship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia has also been repaired in the recent months. Besides objections to the portrayal of the Saudi ruling family by Al Jazeera, Saudi Arabia had earlier taken offence to Qatar’s relationship with Israel. Qatar, on the eve of accepting the chairmanship of the OIC in November 2000, closed the Israeli trade office in Doha. Many observers have noted that Saudi Arabia also did not like the special security relationship Qatar had developed with the United States. It meant that the US had acquired more flexibility for launching military operations in the region, thereby undermining Saudi Arabia’s key strategic importance in the region. However, a three-day visit of the Saudi Crown Prince earlier this year has suggested a normalisation of relations between Qatar and Saudis. The normalisation of their relationship also indicates the normalisation of relations between Qatar and the US.
Qatar, with the third-largest reserves of natural gas in the world, has identified India as a big market for its natural gas. RasGas of Qatar has signed a 25-year deal for shipping 7.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually to terminals in Dahej in Gujarat and in Kochi. The ex-ship price of $2.53 million British thermal unit (mmBtu) is considered a steal in current times of LNG prices breaching $20 per mmBtu. Earlier, Qatar had rescued India by supplying 1.5 million tons of more LNG on a short-term contract basis to recommence the beleaguered Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra, when other nations sought review of gas price due to increase in prices of crude oil. This favourable gesture of the Qatar government has underpinnned the burgeoning economic and staretgic relationship between New Delhi and Doha.
The maritime cooperation agreement provides India with a strategic naval base in the Gulf region. It is to be noted that the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150), including the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Pakistan has been operating from bases in Djibouti and Bahrain. The CTF-150 has been the dominant naval presence in the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, wheras Indian Navy gets a foothold in the region only now.
India has a distinct stake in West Asia particularly in the Gulf region because 60% of its energy imports originate from this area. As India meets nearly 80% of its oil demands from imports, the Gulf region has great strategic importance for India. Moreover, as India (along with China) constitutes the leading component of Asian demand from the region, it becomes an important destination for the Gulf countries too.
In fact, the shift of global energy trade towards Asian economies has its own geostrategic implications as energy relations, despite driven by market theory, are still governed by geopolitical concerns. Nearly 15% of the world’s super tanker capacity transits from the Gulf to South East Asian waters. The US has been the custodian of the energy security regime in the region so far. With India and China emerging as a major constituent of the global energy market, this Indo-Qatar pact is the first step in redesigning the energy security architecture in Asia.
This maritime security initiative will provide India and Qatar with a capacity to act against maritime threats against their commercial interests. India with a stronger and professional Navy will have a dominant role to play in mobilising responses against risks associated with energy transaction, be it safety of trade route or repelling attacks by terrorists. This is a clear declaration of the Indian intent to be the preeminent power between the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Strait.
Interestingly, this not only provides a greater opportunity for much closer cooperation but also indicates a strengthening relationship between India and the US. The greater Indian naval presence in the Gulf will in fact allow the US to shift its military focus to its real concern areas — Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After a similar landmark pact with Japan, India’s signing of a defence pact with Qatar is indicative of the growing importance and trust reposed by US in India as a strategic partner. Both these pacts with staunch US allies could not have been signed without the blessings of the US. Unlike the pact with Japan, which was dismissed by many as a US scheme of a Indo-Japan alliance to strategically contain China, the Indo-Qatar pact is unrelated to China. This should counter the argument that the US was propping up India only as a countervailing force to a rising China.
However there is a big downside to the Indo-Qatar pact. India’s relationship with Iran, which had weakened considerably after the Indian vote against Iran at the IAEA, has now hit a nadir. There has never been and is even now, no real clash of interests between India and Iran in the region. With a new US administration keen on engaging Tehran, India would have had a great opportunity to play the role of a facilitator between the US and Iran.
New Delhi needs to deftly navigate the relationship with Iran, despite the robust growth of its ties with the US on a parallel track. The most visible effort that India can make to signal the revival of its strong ties with Iran is to resume serious discussions on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. An improved relationship with Iran would allow India to align its geostrategic interests with those of Iran [and the US] in stabilising Afghanistan.
Indian sovereign rights are best served by maintaining an independent foreign policy, which allows New Delhi to retain its autonomy of action and thinking on various regional issues. As far as the Gulf region is concerned, the Chairman of the IISS had read the signs correctly –
- See more at: India’s defence pact with Qatar | Pragmatic Euphony
http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2008/11/13/indias-defence-pact-with-qatar/
During the Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Qatar earlier this week, India and Qatar signed a defence cooperation pact. One of the top Indian officials there labelled the agreement on Joint training exercises, training of personnel and maritime cooperation as just short of stationing troops (in the region). The significance of this pact has not been grasped by the Indian media, which has left this landmark agreement unexplored.
The defence and security cooperation agreements are the only one of the kind that India has signed with any country, he [government official] said.
Under the agreements, New Delhi has committed to protect assets and interests of Qatar from external threats. The agreements are short of stationing troops, the official said but did not elaborate the form in which India will go to Qatars rescue in case of a threat.
Qatar has a large US troops stationed on its soil but wanted more comfort and had been pursuing the deal with India since 2005.[PTI]
This means that India has actually vowed to protect Qatars considerable assets petroleum and gas fields and sea lanes if the need arises. India and Qatar had earlier agreed in June 2007 to jointly produce weapons and military equipment. This defence cooperation pact signed now will also pave the way for joint production of weapons at Indian facilities.
New Delhi has added Qatar to the list of countries with which India has inked defence cooperation agreements United States, United Kingdom, France, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, Germany and lately, Japan. Qatar become the first country in the Middle East to sign such a pact with India. Why is Qatar so important to India?
Qatar is of immense strategic importance due to its geographical location in central Persian Gulf near major petroleum deposits and its own enormous energy reserves. Qatar is surrounded by a neighbourhood Iran, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia that it can hardly trust. It has been concerned about its own security, despite a large US base, strategically placed at the narrow mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. It is from this Al-Udeid base, where the operational headquarters of US Central Command were located during the Second Gulf War, that the US monitors a potentially-nuclear Iran, an unstable Iraq and Chinas growing footprint in the region, especially activity in the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Qatar is the richest country in the world by World Bank per-capita estimates. The stalled round of WTO talks is named after Qatars capital, Doha. The Al Jazeera television network, which has become the main outlet for the political views of the Middle East, is based there. Al Jazeera has ruffled many feathers with its unique brand of lively reportage and critical commentary. This includes, not only Israel and the United States, but many Islamic regimes including Saudi Arabia.
Qatar has had a vexed relationship with the US in the recent past. Relations between Qatar and the US took a nosedive over the issue of Al Jazeera. The US felt Al Jazeera was promoting radical view points and supporting terrorism. As host of the annual summit of Gulf Arab leaders this year, Doha invited Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend. Following Hamass election victory in 2006, Qatar publicly rebuked the US for working to undermine the results of the democratic process in Palestine.The relations soured further when the US found it difficult to convince Qatar to vote on some sensitive subjects during the latters tenure as a member of the UN Security Council. However, there are signs that the ties between Qatar and the US are again warming up now.
The difficult relationship between Qatar and Saudi Arabia has also been repaired in the recent months. Besides objections to the portrayal of the Saudi ruling family by Al Jazeera, Saudi Arabia had earlier taken offence to Qatars relationship with Israel. Qatar, on the eve of accepting the chairmanship of the OIC in November 2000, closed the Israeli trade office in Doha. Many observers have noted that Saudi Arabia also did not like the special security relationship Qatar had developed with the United States. It meant that the US had acquired more flexibility for launching military operations in the region, thereby undermining Saudi Arabias key strategic importance in the region. However, a three-day visit of the Saudi Crown Prince earlier this year has suggested a normalisation of relations between Qatar and Saudis. The normalisation of their relationship also indicates the normalisation of relations between Qatar and the US.
Qatar, with the third-largest reserves of natural gas in the world, has identified India as a big market for its natural gas. RasGas of Qatar has signed a 25-year deal for shipping 7.5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually to terminals in Dahej in Gujarat and in Kochi. The ex-ship price of $2.53 million British thermal unit (mmBtu) is considered a steal in current times of LNG prices breaching $20 per mmBtu. Earlier, Qatar had rescued India by supplying 1.5 million tons of more LNG on a short-term contract basis to recommence the beleaguered Dabhol power plant in Maharashtra, when other nations sought review of gas price due to increase in prices of crude oil. This favourable gesture of the Qatar government has underpinnned the burgeoning economic and staretgic relationship between New Delhi and Doha.
The maritime cooperation agreement provides India with a strategic naval base in the Gulf region. It is to be noted that the Combined Task Force 150 (CTF-150), including the US, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Pakistan has been operating from bases in Djibouti and Bahrain. The CTF-150 has been the dominant naval presence in the area surrounding the Gulf of Aden, wheras Indian Navy gets a foothold in the region only now.
India has a distinct stake in West Asia particularly in the Gulf region because 60% of its energy imports originate from this area. As India meets nearly 80% of its oil demands from imports, the Gulf region has great strategic importance for India. Moreover, as India (along with China) constitutes the leading component of Asian demand from the region, it becomes an important destination for the Gulf countries too.
In fact, the shift of global energy trade towards Asian economies has its own geostrategic implications as energy relations, despite driven by market theory, are still governed by geopolitical concerns. Nearly 15% of the worlds super tanker capacity transits from the Gulf to South East Asian waters. The US has been the custodian of the energy security regime in the region so far. With India and China emerging as a major constituent of the global energy market, this Indo-Qatar pact is the first step in redesigning the energy security architecture in Asia.
This maritime security initiative will provide India and Qatar with a capacity to act against maritime threats against their commercial interests. India with a stronger and professional Navy will have a dominant role to play in mobilising responses against risks associated with energy transaction, be it safety of trade route or repelling attacks by terrorists. This is a clear declaration of the Indian intent to be the preeminent power between the Persian Gulf and the Malacca Strait.
Interestingly, this not only provides a greater opportunity for much closer cooperation but also indicates a strengthening relationship between India and the US. The greater Indian naval presence in the Gulf will in fact allow the US to shift its military focus to its real concern areas Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After a similar landmark pact with Japan, Indias signing of a defence pact with Qatar is indicative of the growing importance and trust reposed by US in India as a strategic partner. Both these pacts with staunch US allies could not have been signed without the blessings of the US. Unlike the pact with Japan, which was dismissed by many as a US scheme of a Indo-Japan alliance to strategically contain China, the Indo-Qatar pact is unrelated to China. This should counter the argument that the US was propping up India only as a countervailing force to a rising China.
However there is a big downside to the Indo-Qatar pact. Indias relationship with Iran, which had weakened considerably after the Indian vote against Iran at the IAEA, has now hit a nadir. There has never been and is even now, no real clash of interests between India and Iran in the region. With a new US administration keen on engaging Tehran, India would have had a great opportunity to play the role of a facilitator between the US and Iran.
New Delhi needs to deftly navigate the relationship with Iran, despite the robust growth of its ties with the US on a parallel track. The most visible effort that India can make to signal the revival of its strong ties with Iran is to resume serious discussions on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. An improved relationship with Iran would allow India to align its geostrategic interests with those of Iran [and the US] in stabilising Afghanistan.
Indian sovereign rights are best served by maintaining an independent foreign policy, which allows New Delhi to retain its autonomy of action and thinking on various regional issues. As far as the Gulf region is concerned, the Chairman of the IISS had read the signs correctly
- See more at: http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2008/11/13/indias-defence-pact-with-qatar/#sthash.bYrvfXlz.dpuf
Congrats! 
Interesting times ahead. 
