Don’t Let Sanctions Chill Warming Ties With India
To preserve a crucial relationship, President Joe Biden should waive penalties for the fellow Quad member’s purchase of a Russian missile system.
The U.S. fears the S-400 could steal information about U.S. warplanes.
Photographer: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. has spent more than two decades cultivating closer ties with India, not least to counterbalance China’s increasingly assertive influence in Asia. A new dispute threatens those years of progress. U.S. President Joe Biden should act now to defuse it.
At issue is India’s purchase of the powerful Russian-made S-400 air-defense system. Delivery of the system, which has apparently begun, technically puts India in violation of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. This bans dealings with major Russian arms contractors. An additional fear is that either Russian technicians or the S-400’s sophisticated radars might send sensitive information back to Moscow. After Turkey (a NATO ally) concluded a similar deal in 2017, the U.S. imposed sanctions and banned it from buying or working on the F-35 stealth fighter, which the S-400 system is partly designed to counter.