India, South Korea to Boost Defense Cooperation

In April, Indian defense minister Manohar Parrikar made a four-day visit to South Korea. The trip, Parrikar’s first overseas since assuming the defense portfolio in November last year, saw the two strategic partners boost their defense cooperation even further ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit there next month.

While India and South Korea have had official diplomatic ties for more than four decades, it was only in the 1990s when the relationship was given its due, particularly with India’s Look East policy under Narasimha Rao, which led to a historic visit to Seoul in 1993. While relations have continued to improve since then, the real turning point came in 2010 when both sides upgraded ties to the level of a strategic partnership and concluded a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Though this was a boost for the economic side of the relationship, the defense realm has tended to lag relatively behind despite gradual increases in port calls and exchanges.

That now appears to be slowly changing under Narendra Modi, particularly given his desire to both boost foreign investment in a way that facilitates indigenous production via his “Make in India” initiative and to accelerate defense modernization efforts. During Modi’s visit to South Korea in January 2014, he and President Park Geun-hye agreed to establish an annual interaction between their national security structures and launched a cybersecurity dialogue. And at the eighth Joint Commission meeting between Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se in December last year, the two sides agreed to enhance cooperation in areas including shipbuilding and defense production while also outlining mutual interests in other areas like nuclear security.

Against this backdrop, Parrikar’s visit saw some important gains in the India-South Korea defense relationship which could be consolidated in the coming months. He co-chaired the India-South Korea defense ministerial meeting with his Korean counterpart Han Min Koo, where they discussed how to further improve security ties. According to a Ministry of National Defense press release, the two sides discussed a wide range of issues including the situation on the Korean Peninsula, how to collaborate on defense production, and ways to improve the bilateral defense relationship by facilitating more high-level exchanges, joint exercises and regular policy consultation between their defense establishments as well as building partnerships between their defense industries. He also met with Seoul’s national security adviser, the head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But the more interesting part of Parrikar’s visit was the heavy emphasis on private sector cooperation, with the minister specifically stating that he had chosen to make Seoul the first destination for his visit under the “Make in India” campaign. His itinerary included visits to major South Korean defense companies, including Hanhwa Group and Samsung Thales Co., and he used them as opportunities to encourage them to invest in India. Parrikar also wooed leading South Korean firms more directly when he addressed an India-Korea defense industry forum. In that speech, he urged these companies to enter the Indian defense market for the long term under New Delhi’s “Make in India” approach, stressing that specific reforms initiated by Modi would probably see around $250 billion in business for the Indian defense industry over the next decade. He also noted that the internal process of streamlining India’s defense procurement policies would be completed in less than three months. Parrikar was accompanied on his visit by a high-powered delegation of top Indian firms, including Goa Shipyards, Bharat Electronics, Mahindra Defense and Tata Power SED.

Both sides agreed to enhance efforts to develop “mutually beneficial partnerships in defense production,” but no specifics were offered in terms of what these partnerships would entail. Nonetheless, the intense engagement with the private sector on areas of cooperation suggests some potential promise in terms of specific opportunities in the future. For instance, according to a South Korean ministry official, India has shown keen interest in K-9 self-propelled howitzers and minesweepers. An earlier deal for minesweepers with the South Korean manufacturing firm Kangnam was canceled last year following allegations of irregularities, but the defense acquisition council headed by Parrikar cleared a fresh project earlier this year under Goa Shipyard with the help of a foreign partner.

Whether or not these deals will occur depends on a range of factors, particularly given that they will go through a competitive bidding process. And even if deals are eventually reached, delays, inefficiencies, and other factors may scupper them still as was illustrated in the minesweepers deal. But with the warming of the bilateral relationship, both sides seem serious about getting past the usual obstacles to operationalize their growing cooperation. That is definitely a good place for these strategic partners to be when Modi and Park meet in a few weeks’ time.