Interview | India-US ties require constant tending, not on easy autopilot: Ashley J Tellis

Washington: Ashley J. Tellis holds the Tata chair for strategic affairs at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. Among the most influential and authoritative voices on US strategy towards Indo-Pacific in general and India in particular, Tellis played a key role in crafting the India-US civil nuclear deal and has recently published a paper on how India can reclaim the promise of nuclear power.
In a wide-ranging interview, over email, Tellis examined Joe Biden’s legacy for India-US ties, progress under the initiative on critical and emerging technologies (iCET), roadblocks in nuclear cooperation, the divergences between the two sides on Bangladesh and Khalistan, the significance of the Chagos deal and Chinese activities in the Indian Ocean, and the potential impact of a Donald Trump or Kamala Harris administration on ties:
Q: In a new paper for Carnegie, you point to India’s energy ambitions and needs, the inability to meet those needs without tapping nuclear energy, the deficits that exist in producing the scale of nuclear energy that the needs warrant, and then offer some suggestions. Can you take us through what you see as the fundamental issue with India’s nuclear energy production capacity and what’s the way out?
A: The key point to remember is that India cannot meet its development goals and its net zero emission ambitions simultaneously without increasing the share of nuclear power in its energy mix. India has done a remarkable job of expanding its investments in renewables in recent years. Obviously, that should continue, but even renewable energy is subject to various production, storage and distribution limitations. So, if India is to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels as it marches forward, there will be no choice but to invest more in nuclear energy.
Which brings us to the issue of constraints. India does not have the domestic capacity to quickly build the high-output nuclear power plants in the numbers required over the next two decades. India’s indigenous reactors are still too small in terms of output; that makes the cost of electricity more expensive. The current domestic industrial base also cannot support a large expansion of indigenous reactor construction. That could change over time, but if India is to increase its nuclear power investments over the next quarter century, it will need much larger foreign participation in its nuclear program. That, in turn, will require changing India’s legal and regulatory regime as well as its current nuclear liability law.
The nuclear story: From liability to SMRs
Q: Many officials mention small modular reactors as perhaps key to unlocking the nuclear puzzle. What are SMRs, what’s the India-US conversation on this, why is everyone excited and what are the roadblocks that need to be overcome?
A: Small modular reactors (SMRs) are new advanced reactors that are smaller in size and output (usually 300 megawatts-electric (MWe) or less) compared to traditional nuclear power plants that are large and can have a gross output of as much as 1,700 MWe. Because SMRs can be constructed “modularly,” that is, their major components can be built in assembly line fashion at a factory and then transported for installation to a site, they are expected to have cost advantages over traditional reactors. They also have advanced passive safety features and can operate synergistically with renewable power sources, which make them even more attractive.
India should, therefore, look closely at SMRs. But the jury is still out on whether they can be perfect substitutes for traditional nuclear power plants. Consider, for instance, the cost. If a 300-MWe SMR produces about 1/5th the power of a 1,650-MWe reactor—the French reactor planned at Jaitapur—will the SMR’s acquisition costs also be 1/5th or less than that of the French plant? What are the costs of managing the nuclear waste from a multiplicity of small reactors? These are issues that are still unclear but deserve closer scrutiny. Unfortunately, there are no SMRs currently operational anywhere in the world, so we don’t have an operating history and knowledge about their cost-effectiveness just yet.
But this is an emerging technology that India would be wise not to overlook. There are many US companies in this space, among which Holtec, NuScale, GE Hitachi, Westinghouse, and General Atomics are very prominent. The US is encouraging the development and commercialisation of SMRs, among other things, because of the increased electricity demand generated by artificial intelligence development and semiconductor manufacturing. SMRs have become a key component of current US-India bilateral cooperation. They feature in the iCET dialogue, and the US Government has encouraged US nuclear companies to consider India not simply as a sales destination but as a location for manufacturing components and subsystems for the global market. Holtec, in particular, has been very forward leaning and has tabled ambitious ideas for manufacturing in India.
President Joe Biden’s administration has driven this conversation with New Delhi enthusiastically, but success will require India to do at least three things: amend its nuclear liability law; provide patent protection for nuclear-related intellectual property; and amend the Atomic Energy Act to permit private participation in India’s nuclear industry. I suspect we still have some ways to go on all counts but Biden’s interest here is driven by his desire to see India succeed in its development and climate goals while further deepening the strategic partnership.
Q: Sticking to nuclear but turning to the more strategic elements, the Asian nuclear architecture appears to be going through a churn. Three of American adversaries that are nuclear powers are all Asian powers too – Russia, China and North Korea – and if Iran succeeds, that’s a fourth adversary to the list. How does the US, and how should the US, now think of India’s nuclear weapons program in this security landscape?
A: While Washington has come around to accepting the reality of India’s nuclear weapons, there is still discomfort about them in important parts of the US bureaucracy. The global nuclear environment has undoubtedly become more threatening to the US. But some of India’s foreign policy choices — the failure to address outstanding problems pertaining to Indian ties with Russia, for example — and the weaknesses of New Delhi’s own nuclear weapons prevent Washington from embracing India’s strategic capabilities as an asset for American interests.
I have noted elsewhere that the safety, security, effectiveness, and vulnerability of India’s nuclear weapons pose serious challenges to India’s own interests. The US may be able to help in addressing some of these issues. But that is impossible in the absence of an honest dialogue between the two sides. We have never had such a conversation. So, it is not surprising that we are still very far from where we should be.
On divergences, tech and seas: The Biden legacy
Q: Joe Biden is the fifth American president who has invested a fair amount of political capital in deepening ties with India. How will and should India, and the US, remember his presidency on this question?
A: Both sides will remember Biden’s presidency as scaling new heights in US-India cooperation. Beyond the particulars, such as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit and developments such as the iCET, what was truly remarkable was how the administration stayed the course in deepening the partnership when there were plenty of irritations that could have thrown it off course.
The problems with minorities in India and the attempted assassination of a US citizen on US soil could have provided, for example, easy fodder for a president who deeply believes in liberal democracy and the importance of the liberal international order. But senior administration officials from the president down did not let their concerns about India get in the way of strengthening bilateral ties because of their overarching fears about China. Even the frustrations caused by India’s ties with Russia were controlled early on, though this cannot be taken for granted if the current problems about technology diffusion are not addressed by New Delhi.
That these difficulties have not blown up is due largely to the efforts of a few senior administration officials. There is no assurance however that these factors will perpetually remain in place. Realising the relationship’s promise, therefore, will need careful tending. While the structural factors that make for a close partnership, like China, will be enduring at least for a while, the steady improvement of bilateral ties is still not on any easy autopilot.
Q: If I can look at the wider tech relationship, it’s been a year-and-a-half since iCET was launched. How do you assess its tangible progress and what are the challenges that the mechanism and the wider tech relationship continues to confront on both sides?
A: iCET has provided new avenues for cooperation in the arenas that matter most to the US and India — frontier technologies. It has intensified the process of engagement between the two countries by making both governments more sensitive to the problems of high technology trade. In the US, this has involved increasing the leadership’s attention to the difficulties of license release; in India, it has raised attention to the impediments facing inward foreign investment.
Equally importantly, it has fostered deeper private sector engagement across the two countries, and it has opened a new space for academic exchanges in high technology research. On all these counts, iCET has proven to be an important step forward. But, by its very nature, it was not designed to produce eye-popping deals. Rather, it was meant to correct the information deficits that prevent greater US-India private sector collaboration and to provide a clear US government signal to US private companies that partnering with their Indian counterparts in the new high technology spaces is entirely welcome.
iCET has been successful on both these counts, but I know that the Indian government has even loftier ambitions. What New Delhi really wants functionally is a license-free regime for high technology trade. More liberalised license access has been India’s dream since the days of the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI). This is a bridge too far, but we can still achieve important granular successes in time to come. If, for example, we could provide India with licensed access to critical SMR technology or the technologies required to bring a military semiconductor fab to fruition, it would be worthwhile proof that iCET is truly delivering on critical emerging technologies.
Q: We recently saw a historic deal on Chagos and there is an upcoming India-US dialogue on the Indian Ocean. What’s driving this convergence in the region that India has traditionally been reluctant to engage US on, what should they do, and how is the Chinese build up in the Indian Ocean looking to you from here?
A: The planned US-India dialogue on the Indian Ocean is a good thing because it gives Washington a chance to address New Delhi’s concern that the Indian Ocean ends up playing second fiddle to US priorities in the western Pacific. The fact that the region is divided between multiple combatant commands and there is an absence of a dedicated bureaucracy in either the Departments of State or Defense makes Indian anxieties understandable. But the plain fact is that while the Indian Ocean is of primary importance to India, it is only of derivative importance for the US.
This divergence in interests has to be managed — and the best solution is to institutionalise a better division of labor where security management in the Indian Ocean is concerned. This means that India, Australia, France, and even the UK, should take the lead — with American support — in ensuring security in the ocean basin.
Chinese military capabilities in the Indian Ocean today are still modest but that is poised to change. China is a significant economic and strategic partner of many littoral states, and it is only a matter of time before its flag follows in strength. Given this prospect, coordinated maritime patrols between US, Indian, Australian, and French naval assets are an urgent requirement. I would like to see these forces routinely use each other’s naval facilities — at Diego Garcia, Andaman and Nicobar, Cocos (Keeling), and La Réunion — to support a rotational presence of at least patrol aircraft and possibly ships for sustained surveillance of the Indian Ocean. The recent agreement between the UK and Mauritius over the future of the Chagos Archipelago is of great significance in this context. It ensures that the US-UK base at Diego Garcia will survive on sturdy legal foundations, and it removes one more source of dissonance in US-India relations.
The gulf, from Bangladesh to Khalistan
Q: Bangladesh appears to have made the Delhi-DC gulf on India’s immediate neighbourhood quite visible. How do you read the divergences between India and the US on this: is Washington being too complacent about Islamist threat in Dhaka or is Delhi being too alarmist? Is Washington underplaying its role in the movement that ousted Sheikh Hasina or is Delhi exaggerating the role?
A: The divergence between Washington and New Delhi on Bangladesh is not new. It goes back years, but it was spotlighted by Sheikh Hasina’s sudden ignominious exit. The Indian allegations about the US role in her ouster are simply fictitious — the product of frustration no doubt, but also the invention of too many feverish minds in New Delhi.
Obviously, Hasina’s departure has created new space for Islamist elements in Bangladesh to operate more transparently and even return to power. But clearly, her authoritarianism was not particularly effective in squelching this problem. And India’s uncritical support for her has made it an accomplice to her failures.
Blaming Washington for this problem may be satisfying to some in Delhi but it does not alter the fact that Hasina’s autocratic policies fueled the domestic grievances that gave the Islamist elements continuing lease on life. I think it is important that the US and India talk about how to avoid the worse outcomes imaginable, but the solution cannot anymore be Delhi telling Washington, “We know Bangladesh better than you — leave things to us”.
Q: If the two countries can’t agree on Bangladesh and Myanmar — the two countries to India’s near east that are critical for India’s connectivity to Southeast Asia — does it speak of a deep trust deficit and limits to ties?
A: Our biggest problem is not that we have differences in interests — all states do — but that our soaring and exaggerated rhetoric about our strategic partnership obscures the reality that we do not always agree on everything. The US bears the lion’s share of the blame here. So, when those differences are shown up, for example, on Russia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and other functional issues, such as sanctions, de-dollarisation, human rights, and the liberal international order, claims that the US-India relationship is “the defining partnership of the 21st century” ring uncomfortably hollow.
We have to admit that while there is much on which we agree, there are also important differences of interest between us on many issues. As India grows in power, or if the China threat abates, these differences will grow in salience. A more sober approach to managing the partnership is therefore needed. The current approach of talking it up in public while remonstrating in private will not deliver in the long run.
Q: Using the same prism of security, India feels America is either too sanguine about those it sees as Khalistani terrorists operating in US who are now American nationals and even suspects parts of the American establishment may be using them as leverage when action isn’t taken. The US is still reeling from the shock of the Pannun episode and sees many of these activists as Sikh Americans legitimately expressing their views and India as violating American sovereignty. There are summons against the NSA. How serious is this issue and rift becoming and how should the two sides bridge the divide?
A: I think both sides have managed this problem — uncomfortably — thus far. But the final curtain has not yet dropped on this sorry episode. I think Delhi should move quickly to conclude its internal investigation and cashier those responsible. There is a good chance that the prosecution of Nikhil Gupta will throw more unwelcome surprises and hence closing the books on this matter sooner rather than later is desirable.
Although both sides have had several discussions now on the underlying issue of how to handle resentments in some sections of the Indian diaspora toward New Delhi, I suspect Washington will never be able to fully satisfy the Indian government on placing a lid on many Khalistani activities within the US. The American political system permits its citizens far more personal freedoms than the Indian government may be comfortable with. This will create difficulties from time to time. Indian sensitivities on the Sikh issue should undoubtedly be appreciated given the trauma that the country went through several decades ago. This requires US law enforcement to more actively monitor and counter threats that may emerge from some diasporic segments, but what that entails precisely will remain an issue of continuing disagreement between the US and India.
The future under Trump or Harris
Q: Looking forward, how do you see a Kamala Harris and a Donald Trump administration responding to China and engaging with India?
Looking to the immediate future, I think the broad course of the bilateral relationship is well set. There will be no fundamental deviations from the recent past, but the style of engagement will likely change. Under a Trump administration, there will be more hairy moments because trade and immigration are likely to become sources of increased discord with India. US relations with China are also likely to further degenerate in ways that may not always be beneficial for India. In contrast, I see greater continuity with today in a Harris administration.
Before we wrap up, permit me to look back for just a moment to pay tribute to Ratan Tata who recently passed away. Ratan has received well-deserved accolades for his enormous contributions to business and philanthropy and for putting India on the international map. But he also played a critical and still little-known role in bringing the US and India together during George W. Bush’s first term in office when the foundations of the transforming relationship were being laid by Ambassador Bob Blackwill’s energetic activism in New Delhi. Thankfully, Ratan lived to see the fruit of his efforts.