Anders Fogh Rasmussen, (below) Ivo H Daalder

Lately in Brussels and Mons, Sept. 1: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) has urged New Delhi to turn its non-alignment policy on its head and start a strategic dialogue with it building on co-operation in Afghanistan and in naval counter-piracy missions in the Indian Ocean.

Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited New Delhi earlier this year and the deputy secretary general has also briefed Indian foreign ministry officials in talks that have so far been kept low-key. But the 28-nation military alliance would now like India to come out of the closet, as it were.

“It is going to be India’s decision. But it is important to have a dialogue on how India’s concept of its own security and international security fits in with Nato’s concepts,” the US ambassador to Nato, Ivo H. Daalder, told a group of Indian journalists (including The Telegraph) this week at Nato’s political headquarters in Brussels and at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Shape), the military headquarters in Mons.

“We do that (co-operate with India) already in Afghanistan and in counter-piracy missions and it is now important to strengthen the relationship between India and Nato. Nato has relations with other countries that go farther — Australia, for instance, is now the 10th largest contributor to operations in Afghanistan,” said Daalder.

India was a leader of the Non Aligned Movement, the group of countries that distanced itself from the two military alliances in the Cold War — Nato, led by the US, and the Warsaw Pact, led by the former Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact dismantled with the demise of the Cold War but Nato expanded itself to include former Soviet Bloc countries and re-invented itself as the largest military alliance that is now engaged in operations in eastern Europe (Kosovo), Libya, the Mediterranean and in Afghanistan.

It has the largest military presence in Afghanistan, where India had substantial strategic and commercial interests, with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Nato has announced that ISAF will hand over security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

A senior Nato official admitted that despite the tactical co-operation in Afghanistan and in maritime patrols, the Nato-India relationship is “virtually non-existent”. But, he said, Nato officials have been trying to explain to Indian counterparts how co-operation in understanding security concepts — such as ballistic missile defence — could be mutually beneficial.

Accepting that a formal Nato-India relationship would still surprise policy wonks in New Delhi, the official wondered if India “can explain how non-alignment is relevant in 2011”. The official said that there was particular interest in India’s missile defence mechanism.

Nato has been setting up missile defence establishment in southern and eastern Europe primarily as a deterrent to Iran but this, say Nato officials, makes Russia nervous. Nato and Russia have a 10-year dialogue with Russia also maintaining a mission in Shape’s Military Cooperation Division though it is not a member of Nato. A Shape official said this was chiefly to address Russian concerns.

The official said the nature and threats to Nato countries and to India from missile “may be different but there may be similarities in the responses and in access to technology.”

India and the US have shared notes on BMD (ballistic missile defence) separately, just as India has military-to-military relations with other Nato countries but without getting into one with the alliance itself. New Delhi has in fact scaled down its military exercises that give the impression of an alliance-in-the making.

Not since Exercise Malabar in the Bay of Bengal with the US and five other countries who are either members of or strategic partners of Nato has India got into a multinational military drill. Beijing had raised the issue with New Delhi after there was speculation on whether India and Nato were crafting an “Asian Nato” as a response to China’s growing military stature.

At Nato headquarters in Brussels, senior officials were keen to emphasise that India has not spoken out or acted against the alliance’s interests. Even the Nato air strikes in Libya were enabled by India abstaining from a vote in the US Security Council in February. Nato is now in sight of ending the operations in Libya in which US, British and French air forces bombed Muammar Gaddafi’s troops in “Operation Unified Protector”. Six months since the UNSC resolution, anti-Gaddafi rebels have now all but overrun the Libyan capital in Tripoli and the former dictator has gone into hiding.

(The journalists’ visit for two days of briefings was sponsored by the US government)