Nepal-US ties after the SPP saga

After much persuasion by his coalition partners, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba at long last agreed to inform the US that Nepal is opting out of the State Partnership Program (SPP).

The SPP had become controversial in Nepal after its mention in the Indo-Pacific Strategy, another US cooperation program that many see as a tool to cap China’s growing regional clout. 

The US has acknowledged the letter sent by Nepal’s Foreign Ministry and it is likely to remove Nepal from the SPP list. But will that be the end of it?

Many suspect Nepal will have to bear the consequences of turning down the SPP, particularly on the long-standing military-level ties between the two countries.  

Immediately, they say, the Nepal Army will lose out on the $500m it was supposed to get under the program over the next five years to better equip itself against natural disasters.

Retired Major General Victor JB Rana says other areas of cooperation will also be hit, though the US has not said anything about it. America is also likely to suspend some bilateral exchange programs in response.

Anil Sigdel, founder of Washington DC-based Nepal Matters for America, a think tank, says staying out of SPP will definitely be a setback in deepening ties between the two militaries. Nepal’s army will now face additional constraints in securing American resources, training, and other cooperation. The US has been strengthening its defense cooperation in Asia with other countries with similar partnerships and policies. 

Several ex-army officials who spoke to ApEx on the condition of anonymity fear the same. They reckon Nepal’s leadership botched the opportunity for the country to get continued support in areas like natural disaster management and cyber security.

Several factors made Nepal turn down the SPP.

The first was the supposed draft MoU circulated in the media, which had some objectionable provisions including the presence of American troops on Nepali soil. The US has been consistently saying that the document is ‘fake’. Many politicians and experts in Nepal think otherwise.

The mention of the SPP in the much-contested Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) also rang alarm bells in Kathmandu. 

The US had listed Nepal as an SPP partner in 2019 following the latter’s repeated requests in 2015 and 2017. But the SPP’s mention in the IPS document changed everything. The left-leaning Nepali politicians then started fearing that the partnership program could harm Nepal-China relations.

Nepal Army Chief Gen Prabhu Ram Sharma has categorically said that the IPS link was the reason the country backtracked from the SPP. The process of joining the partnership program was in itself opaque. 

Former army chief Rajendra Bahadur Chhetri in 2015 had written a letter of intent to the American Embassy in Kathmandu, apparently without adequately consulting then political leadership. There is no information on the content of a second letter sent in 2017.

In doing so, the army was accused of bypassing both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many suspected that the US was trying to drag Nepal into its military orbit through the SPP.

Whatever the case, say international relations experts, there was no need to scrap the SPP. “If America comes up with a draft, we can negotiate its provisions and remove the ones we do not like, especially those that could affect the sensitivities of our neighbors,” says Rana.

Nepal was already a part of SPP but it was yet to sign a MoU specifying areas of cooperation. 

Besides the SPP, Nepal and the US have various other avenues of military cooperation. Under the International Military Education and Training, the US Army trains and educates Nepal’s military officials. There is also a leadership exchange program, under which Gen Sharma recently visited Australia to attend the Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense Conference.

Similarly, the US Army provides both lethal and non-lethal assistance to its Nepali counterpart as a part of its foreign military financing program.

The other areas of cooperation are support on counterterrorism, arrangements for purchasing American military hardware, and cooperation on United Nations peacekeeping operations.

There is a unanimous view that Nepal cannot become a partner in all the issues that come under the SPP’s purview. But, they add, there are many topics like disaster preparedness and cyber security in which the partnership could be continued.

More than 90 countries, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives, are already in such partnerships under the SPP.

The key areas of cooperation under the program are, among other things, disaster preparedness, humanitarian assistance, defense support of civil authorities, counterdrug, border/port security and public private partnership.

But the official page of the SPP also says: “Through SPP, the National Guard conducts military-to-military engagements in support of defense security goals but also leverages whole-of-society relationships and capabilities to facilitate broader interagency and corollary engagements spanning military, government, economic and social spheres.”

A senior retired army official who was privy to the initial SPP negotiations tells ApEx that it is only natural for Nepal to handle the logistics and arrange for the shelter and upkeep of foreign army personnel when they come to help Nepal.

“The SPP was pushed forward after the 2015 earthquake,” he says. “But not on the terms mentioned in the document that is being circulated in the media.”

He is of the view that Nepal should take assistance on the basis of what we need, not what the US wishes to offer. The retired official adds that the Nepal Army has in the past declined many US offers.

In 2013, for instance, the US had sent a draft of a logistics service agreement whereby the Americans would look after the logistics of Nepali soldiers deployed in peacekeeping missions and the Nepalis would handle the logistics of US Army personnel who came to Nepal.

“We said no to it as it could have impacted Nepal’s relations with India and China,” says the ex-officer.

Anil Sigdel, of the Washington-based think tank, says staying out of SPP will definitely be a setback in the ties between two military establishments.

“The understanding in Nepal that such a partnership will go against its non-alignment policy,” Sigdel adds, “but the US is also determined to integrate states and different agencies in its foreign policy objectives.” This, he says, is the crux of the problem.

The Nepal-US military ties will continue, Sigdel adds, but the rebuffing of the SPP will certainly affect cooperation.

The key takeaway from the SPP saga is there should be consultation among key stakeholders in how to deal with big powers. Specifically, there is a need for a broad understanding on the modality of cooperating with the US that has put both economic and military assistance inside the same IPS basket.