Focus: GS-II International Relations
Why in news?
- After concluding a logistics support agreement with Japan in recently, India is now working on three such agreements with Russia, the U.K. and Vietnam.
- Logistics agreements are administrative arrangements facilitating access to military facilities for exchange of fuel and provisions on mutual agreement simplifying logistical support and increasing operational turnaround of the military when operating away from India.
Details
- Following the agreement with Japan in September 2020, , India now has military logistics agreements with all Quad countries, Australia, Japan and the U.S., significantly improving interoperability as they also operate several common military platforms.
- The agreements with the U.K. and Vietnam are under discussion and the agreement with Russia, the Reciprocal Logistics Support (ARLS), is expected to be signed during the bilateral summit.
- The agreement with Russia gives India access to Russian facilities in the Arctic region which is seeing increased global activity as new shipping routes open up and resources become available, officials said earlier. India has recently announced investments in the Russian Far East.
- The utility of the agreements will be visible at the next edition of the Malabar trilateral naval exercise.
- Recently, India and Australia signed the long pending Mutual Logistics Support (MLSA), elevated their partnership to Comprehensive Strategic partnership and also announced a joint declaration on a shared vision for maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
- India and Japan have already signed an implementing arrangement for deeper cooperation between the Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF).
- India has signed several logistics agreements in recent years beginning with the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Understanding (LEMOA) with the U.S. in 2016, and the Navy has been the biggest beneficiary of them.
- After India signed foundational agreement Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) with the U.S., it got access to encrypted communication systems for seamless communication.
- There has been a sharp increase in India’s maritime interactions with the Quad countries on a bilateral basis centred around information sharing for improved Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) in the Indian Ocean Region and Indo-Pacific.
-Source: The Hindu
