SPP saga and Nepal’s non-alignment foreign policy

The endorsement of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a US grant program, by the Nepali parliament in February this year caused a huge political controversy in Kathmandu. Next came the outrage over the draft of the US State Partnership Program (SPP) that was leaked to the media. While the US says the document is fake, a section of Nepali leaders and intellectuals are not convinced.  Some provisions mentioned in the draft go against Nepal’s non-alignment foreign policy and could upset the security and stability of South Asia. That is why the Nepal government has put the ‘disaster reduction plan’ on hold, for now, stating that it cannot join any military alliances. The Sher Bahadur Deuba government, like its predecessors in 2015, 2017, and 2019, was initially impressed by the SPP's mitigation content, but a closer look at the "partnership" program reveals a risk that Nepal cannot afford.

Some argue that the SPP is administered by the National Guard Bureau, guided by the foreign policy objectives of the US Department of State, and carried out by senior military officers (state lieutenants) in each US state in support of the policy objectives of the Department of Defense.

Through the SPP, the National Guard conducts military-to-military engagement in support of national defense security objectives but also leverages society-wide relationships and capabilities to facilitate broader inter-agency and inevitable engagement across military, governmental, economic, and social domains. The ‘military alliance’ between Nepal and the US would be unacceptable to India, with which Nepal has a close relationship. It would also infuriate China. The SPP was created in the 1990s as a post-Cold War effort to pair National Guard units from various US states with those from the former Soviet bloc. It has been described as "a key US security cooperation tool." It has a strong military component, including joint Nepal-US military training and scholarships for Nepali officers to be trained at US colleges. As one diplomat puts it, the SPP is "a multipurpose tool for advancing broad US political and strategic goals under the blanket cloak of humanitarian engagement." It is worth noting that the US has been working with Ukraine since 1993 through a similar program. The state of California, the US claims, has contributed significantly to Ukraine's continued defense modernization. "For the past 29 years, the California National Guard has taught, trained with, and shared successes and failures with Ukrainian military personnel," the Defense Department mentions on its website, which came into play this year after military broke out between Russia and Ukraine. The US once again mentioned the SPP in its Indo-Pacific Strategy paper in 2022. So does the US want Nepal to become the next "Ukraine" region? Such a question deserves serious consideration in Nepal. Since its inception, the SPP has been administered by the National Guard Bureau, whose director holds the rank of general and is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, equal to the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The US National Guard integrates the characteristics of the reserve forces, local armed forces, and militias of many countries.  As an important part of the US reserve forces, it has the same powerful combat effectiveness as the US active forces, and its equipment and training level far exceed that of the active forces of many countries. Such a force is difficult to define as a national army in international law. This, we believe, is the most cunning part of the SPP agreement. In recent years, the US has increased its involvement and penetration in Nepali politics, and the disclosure of the SPP documents has once again laid bare Washington's ambition to strengthen its military presence in Nepal. The projection of US military power into Nepal would undoubtedly upset the fragile balance and greatly exacerbate the geopolitical and security landscape in the region. The Nepali people themselves are well aware of their precarious situation. Politicians from the ruling and opposition parties have been warning against signing any military agreement with the US. Many say signing the SPP would be "equivalent" to signing the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. And Nepal is not really an ally in the eyes of the US, nor does it have the bargaining power with Washington. If such an agreement is signed it will hamper Nepal’s independent and non-alignment foreign policy.  A country like Nepal can never achieve real security unless it is very strong itself or learns to balance great power relations instead of blindly joining "military alliances" or "selection stations.” (Khin is the director of Tampadipa Institute in Yangon, Myanmar. )