Three major events this week draw attention to the expanding Indian diplomatic footprint. One is the annual Raisina Dialogue, hosted this week by the Observer Research Foundation and the Ministry of External Affairs, which brings together ministers, officials, scholars, and policy researchers from across the world to promote an India-centred global agenda. The other is the biennial Multilateral Naval Exercise (Milan) in the Bay of Bengal that attracts naval leaders from far and wide for professional exchanges on maritime issues.
A less visible but equally important event is a gathering of top intelligence officials from like-minded countries on the margins of the Raisina Dialogue. For India, the emerging “intelligence diplomacy” could be as consequential as the “discourse diplomacy” of the Raisina Dialogue and the “naval diplomacy” of the Milan exercises.
The three events are part of a broader trend in international politics. As the volume of international engagements dramatically expanded in the 21st century, there has been a rapid growth in the size of the global communities interested in international commercial, political, technological and military affairs. This has translated into a proliferation of think tanks and media outlets discussing foreign and security outlets.
The rise of the international conference circuit on foreign and security policy issues is part of this process. For example, the Aspen Security Forum, the Munich Security Conference, and the Shangri-La Dialogue focus on American, European, and Asian security issues. The deepening military crises worldwide, the new stresses on the global economic order and the return of great power rivalry have created new risks to global peace and prosperity. They have raised the value of the forums that facilitate valuable exchange of notes among national security professionals.
Over the last decade, Delhi has taken to this arena with some vigour. Communication with foreign media, academia, and civil society to influence perceptions has always been part of statecraft. India is no exception. The Foreign Office’s External Publicity (XP) Division and its embassies have long pursued these outreach activities. The business chambers — CII and FICCI — have been at the forefront of creating these networks since the economic reforms began at the turn of the 1990s. What we have seen in the last decade is the intensification of this outreach through conference diplomacy.
Within eight years of its launch in 2016, Raisina Dialogue has become a “must-go” event for the global strategic community interested in India. The MEA also supports an annual Global Technology Summit organised by Carnegie India that has become a major international forum to discuss issues at the intersection of technology, policy, and geopolitics. Among the other MEA conferences are the Pune International Centre’s annual Asia Economic Dialogue and the India Foundation’s Indian Ocean Dialogue. South Block’s traditional suspicion of the Track-Two conversations has been replaced by a recognition that discourse diplomacy sets narratives and creates transnational networks that bring together serving officials, business leaders, scholars, analysts, consultants, and the media.
The Milan exercise is part of a much older naval diplomacy. Navies have always been flexible instruments for sovereigns in power projection and diplomacy. In India, the navy was the first service to take to active military diplomacy in the reform era. By nature, internationalist in its outlook, the Indian Navy pushed to end ingrained isolationist sentiment in Delhi’s defence establishment. The annual Malabar exercises with the US and the multilateral Milan exercises were among the first initiatives of the Indian Navy in the early 1990s. Today, they together showcase India’s new strategic salience in the Indo-Pacific.
“Milan” began as a modest “Indian Ocean Panchayat” to bring the Bay of Bengal navies to reflect together on regional maritime security. Four countries (Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand) joined India in the 1995 Milan exercises in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands waters. It has become bigger with each iteration. In the 2022 edition, 39 countries participated. Fifty countries are expected to participate this year.
But what about “intelligence diplomacy”? Although barely visible in the public domain, the intelligence agencies are an essential part of the national security establishment along with the diplomatic community and the armed forces. As the first line of defence against internal and external threats, intelligence has been a critical part of statecraft since ancient times.
The role of intelligence in national security has grown significantly in recent years thanks to the rise of international terrorism, the growth of cross-border criminal networks, renewed economic competition, the increasing need to protect intellectual property, the return of great power rivalry, and the impact of new technologies that are reshaping the domestic and global dynamics of an interconnected international society. Along with the new importance of intelligence in national security has come the idea of “intelligence diplomacy”.
At its simplest, “intelligence diplomacy” is about sharing information with allied governments and their security agencies. The US, for example, has a tight circle of intelligence gathering and sharing with its Anglo-Saxon allies — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Similar to the “Five Eyes” arrangement are intelligence-sharing networks among the NATO allies and the EU partners. As it looks beyond its traditional alliances to deal with emerging challenges, which are global and demanding, the US is pursuing a wider range of partnerships; intelligence cooperation has become an important element of this strategy.
For India, too, “intelligence diplomacy” has become critical amidst the expanding scale and scope of its security challenges. The regular exchanges between the Indian agencies and their counterparts from like-minded countries on the margins of the Raisina Dialogue underline Delhi’s shift from the isolationism of the later Cold War decades to building productive intelligence partnerships today. Delhi’s intelligence diplomacy aligns with India’s current strategy of building regional and global coalitions. It is also an important part of modernising India’s spying agencies — the Intelligence Bureau and its many offspring — which date back to the late 19th century.
The writer is a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
For India, “intelligence diplomacy” has become critical amidst the expanding scale and scope of its security challenges
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19.02.2024
Three major events this week draw attention to the expanding Indian diplomatic footprint. One is the annual Raisina Dialogue, hosted this week by the Observer Research Foundation and the Ministry of External Affairs, which brings together ministers, officials, scholars, and policy researchers from across the world to promote an India-centred global agenda. The other is the biennial Multilateral Naval Exercise (Milan) in the Bay of Bengal that attracts naval leaders from far and wide for professional exchanges on maritime issues.
A less visible but equally important event is a gathering of top intelligence officials from like-minded countries on the margins of the Raisina Dialogue. For India, the emerging “intelligence diplomacy” could be as consequential as the “discourse diplomacy” of the Raisina Dialogue and the “naval diplomacy” of the Milan exercises.
The three events are part of a broader trend in international politics. As the volume of international engagements dramatically expanded in the 21st century, there has been a rapid growth in the size of the global communities interested in international commercial, political, technological and military affairs. This has translated into a proliferation of think tanks and media outlets discussing foreign and security outlets.
The rise of the international conference circuit on foreign and security policy issues is part of this process. For example, the Aspen Security Forum, the Munich Security Conference, and the Shangri-La Dialogue focus on American, European, and Asian security issues. The deepening military crises worldwide, the new stresses on the global economic order and the return of........
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