Playing Favourites

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

On the weekend prior to demitting office, General V.K. Singh, using the media, publicly firebombed the government one last time as Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Separately interviewed by the main television channels intent on wringing the last few drops of sensationalism out of the situation, he gave notice that the government can expect more criticism in the future. Actually, a retired VK may prove a bigger thorn in the Congress Party coalition government’s side. In the know of everything that’s afoot in the army, and all the decisions in the pipeline, VK can be expected to hold his successor’s, the Defence Ministry’s, and the government’s feet to the fire. Several of VK’s immediate predecessors, it was known in army circles, were susceptible to corruption – the reason why his elevation two years back was welcomed by great many upright serving and retired officers. This, of course, raises the question: How is it that persons with soiled reputations get effortlessly promoted in the army, even as genuinely capable officers have their careers sidelined? The explanation is that a motivated army chief can play havoc with the promotion boards – throw out the grain, keep the chaff. I mean, how does a Tejinder Singh, the conduit for filthy lucre as alleged by VK, become Director-General, Defence Intelligence Agency, for god’s sake?

But one issue, however, remains unanswered: Why did VK approach the Supreme Court to “restore” his honour, rather than asking for an adjudication on his age? By making his personal ‘honour’ the principal legal concern, VK afforded the Court which was wary of getting sucked into this controversy the escape route of getting the government to withdraw the offending document that reiterated the wrong age. It is no use for him to now claim that the judges were leaning in the direction “the wind was blowing”. He undermined his own chances and voided the possibility of a ruling on whether or not, for government service purposes the school-board exam certificate is the only proof.

The in-coming COAS, General Bikram Singh, doesn’t have the soldierly credentials of VK and, during his tenure, will be operating under a cloud,  his every decision under the microscope. He will be like the teacher’s pet appointed class monitor on the basis of connections, not merit. In Bikram’s case, the “succession plan” crafted by General J.J. Singh, ignobly furthered by his successor, Deepak Kapoor, involved in the Adarsh housing scam, and diligently propelled by the government, will hang round his neck like the dead albatross on the ancient mariner.

Despite burning its fingers, this government is apparently convinced that pre-selection is a good thing and the next man in has already been so anointed. Except, by putting the present GOC, III Corps, Lieutenant General Dalbir Singh Suhag’s promotion as army commander on hold, VK has presented Bikram with a dilemma. He countermands VK’s rules-wise correct show-cause notice to Suhag, as desired by many in the government, and he further besmirches his reputation. Or, he lets the order stand, derails the next stage of the succession plan of an army command for Suhag, and courts enmity of the very people who helped him reach the top. Bikram’s strength of character, or lack of it, will soon become evident.

Many people wonder if VK’s actions have “politicized” the army. In a citizen army, the average officer and jawan alike is socially conscious and politically aware. But army discipline and tight-lipped, straight-backed demeanour are usually mistaken for political naivete by politicians and civil servants. It is the use by the latter two of their own more elastic morality and ethics in dealing with the military and when deciding on national security matters that poses the greatest danger to the republic.

The Congress Party has a track record of destroying institutions by playing favourites. Indira Gandhi undermined the integrity of the Indian Administrative Service during the Emergency in the mid-1970s from which the IAS has not recovered. Constitutional rights were suspended and a “committed bureaucracy” obtained by choosing select babus for certain posts. These babus bent rules and did her bidding. Up until then, promotions were generally on merit, and postings of civil servants were as per vacancy, and the entire process was managed by the Chief Secretaries in the states and the Cabinet Secretary at the centre. It was too useful an innovation, however, for subsequent non-Congress governments to give up, except they were less brazen about it than the Congress party.

Unfortunately, during the Emergency some favour-seekers among flag-rank officers, disregarding a military officer’s code of conduct, visited persons believed close to Sanjay Gandhi. That era is long gone, but uniformed officers still seek politicians’ help in promotions and postings, albeit more discreetly these days. However, if pre-selecting favourites for the top posts in the three Armed Services becomes the new normal, there’s nothing to stop the venal politician-bureaucrat nexus from auctioning off these posts to officers who promise the most returns, in the manner Delhi Police and other state police reportedly do when filling positions in “lucrative” police thanas. See where this is going?

The frightening thing to consider is that the Congress government is now insinuating practices it has perfected elsewhere in government in its dealings with the military. Hoisting chosen persons into choice slots is one such practice. The motivation is not hard to fathom. With thousands of billions of dollars worth of hardware purchases in the pipeline, if you apply the 15% Kamal Nath standard, revealed by the Confederation of Indian Industry’s then top honcho, Tarun Das, in the Nira Radiia tapes, that amounts to how much by way of commission/cut to the politicians? Do the math. In the event, it is good business to appoint your own chaps to manipulate the field tests, the weapons short list, and the terms from foreign suppliers.

The fact is the Armed Forces being a microcosm of Indian society, most of the societal ills have been steadily seeping into the military for a while now. Like all things bad their progress has been rapid.

[Published in the ‘New Indian Express’ as “No favouritism in army” on June 1, 2012 at http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/op-ed/no-favouritism-in-army/397262.html]

Posted in civil-military relations, Indian Army, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Military Acquisitions | 2 Comments

Lavoy and Indian Tanks in Afghanistan?

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

Heard the other day from Rahul Bedi of Janes’s and, following up on my blogging re: Lavoy, said he had heard from his MoD army sources that Lavoy, during his trip here last week, had urged India to dispatch Indian army’s T-72s and T-90s to Afghanistan!! Lavoy, I know, did suggest that India quickly up its stake and occupy at least part of the space being vacated by ISAF. But tanks? I am doubtful he pitched this, in the main, because, well, how would you get these monstrous things from here to there? Have the Indian armoured columns take the Grand Trunk Road to Peshawar and across the Khyber, or detour via Quetta past Bolan? And how would this armored formation be logistically supplied — through Pakistan? Or, the round about route presently used by NATO the so-called Northern Distribution Network via Latvia, Russia, Kasazkstan, Uzbekistan or up through the Caspian entrepot? Simply isn’t feasible.  But if Lavoy did ask for this, he must be loco. Then again, the US comes with some damn fool ideas.

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army | Tagged | 11 Comments

Mission Taliban

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

There are some immutable laws of military history that repeated attempts at disproving them only end up confirming their veracity. One such law has to do with certain countries being simply intolerant of interventions by foreign powers. Vietnam and Afghanistan come readily to mind; they are the fabled “graveyards of empires”. India is at the other end of this spectrum; it is, in military sociologist Stanislaw Andreski’s pithy phrase, “the land of subjugations”. No invader in India has not succeeded in establishing his rule on parts or whole of this country.

Vietnam has kept the Chinese empire at bay for a thousand years, and compelled Chairman Deng Xiaoping, “the great helmsman”, to ponder his folly of sending the People’s Liberation Army into Vietnam in 1979 to “teach” this pesky country a “lesson” only to see his forces get mauled. Afghanistan is the other black hole that many outside powers have, at great cost, discovered is best left undisturbed and to its own devices. There is always a huge cost to getting involved in Afghanistan.

It is easy to capture Kabul, immensely more difficult to control the Afghan countryside – a fundamental lesson few invading forces have understood before going in. So when Lieutenant-General John C. McColl of the British Army led the Nato forces into Kabul in January 2002 and fairly easily ran the Taliban regime of the one-eyed Mullah Omar out of town, he must have believed his job was done. General John Keane at the head of the East India Company Army must have felt much the same way as he took Kandahar, reduced Ghazni, and marched to Kabul in the Spring of 1839, and replaced the reigning monarch, Dost Mohammad, with the more pliable Shuja Shah Durrani – a feat repeated by the UN-mandated ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in 2004 with the installation of Hamid Karzai. There might be no annihilation of the departing ISAF like the one suffered at Gandamak in the winter of 1842 by the retreating Company forces, but there’s also no doubt as to who has won this fight, and how it might spur the jihad.

The Chicago summit on Afghanistan ended May 20 with President Barack Obama’s plan to “cut and run” from Afghanistan being endorsed by relieved members of Nato, who have been hankering to get the hell out. This will be the third time in recent history — after Vietnam and Iraq — that the United States, following a forceful intervention, got mired in a hopeless and bloody war, decided that enough was enough, and pulled out with the mission goals unachieved. What this says about America’s staying power and stamina to its strategic allies and potential partners in Asia contemplating a belligerent China, is not hard to guess.

But the Nato plan to transfer the fighting to the newly raised 325,000 soldiers strong-Afghan National Army (ANA) and police, and to decamp by 2014, is absurd. The US has spent some $20 billion all told on ISAF operations over a decade, and no military technology has been spared — not drones, not the latest sensors that can detect movement and direct precision-guided munitions to the spot in real time — to obtain results. But nothing quite worked, and Americans lost to a motley collection of religious brigands with only their faith, Kalashnikovs and Improvised Explosive Devices to rely on. Now the nascent ANA is supposed to finish the job ISAF started with nothing like the battlefield tech-support and infrastructure the foreign armies benefited from, and with only a bare-bones presence of American Special Forces to buck up the Karzai government’s spirits. And all this is to be accomplished on an annual Nato dole of $4.2 billion for a country with a diminished GDP of $17 billion. Fat chance!

The response, in the event, to contemplating any kind of Indian military role in Afghanistan would instinctively be “Good god, no”! Think again. India has not had the foresight to protect itself by securing a defence perimeter at a distance from the homeland, and has time and again found the enemy at the gate. Moreover, it has been a habitual free-rider on security usually provided by the United States. Every American official passing through Delhi in the last several years has dutifully heard Indian pleas to not distinguish between the good and the bad Taliban, for ISAF not to leave Afghanistan precipitately, and for Washington to stay militarily committed to the Karzai government. Well, the Western troops are going home and a friendly Afghanistan is in peril. Ideally, the best thing would have been for the Indian and Pakistani governments to agree to send a joint South Asian peace-keeping force to that country. That isn’t feasible, or is it? Surely, MEA can send out feelers to Islamabad.

On its own, India should, of course, quickly ramp up its “training, mentoring and instructing” efforts. But it is in India’s interest to do more. The Indian government had almost dispatched an Infantry Division to Iraq in 2003 to please Washington. Surely, the Indo-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement signed on October 4, 2011 hints at much larger Indian stakes in Afghanistan and an Indian military role in that country. With their vast counter-insurgency experience, Indian army contingents can leverage the high comfort levels the Afghan people will naturally have in dealing with them. They will be able to conduct their business with empathy while retaining Afghan goodwill. Deploying a static Indian military presence, say, in the Hajigak region where Indian companies have mining concessions and will need protection, seems a reasonable first step. It will free up ANA for fighting elsewhere. The more kinetic element could be Indian Special Forces deployed to fight in support of ANA and alongside the American Rangers and SEALs in the toughest terrain against currently the most formidable guerrilla adversary – the battle-hardened Taliban cadres. Para-commandos are the sharp edge of expeditionary forces that India needs to stress and to bulk up for the future. No better place for them to sharpen their fighting skills than in a difficult country related to us intimately by history.

[Published May 24, 2012 in the Asian Age www.asianage.com/columnists/mission-taliban-402 and Deccan Chronicle at www.deccanchronicle.com/columnists/bharat-karnad/mission-taliban ]

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Army, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Special Forces, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism | 2 Comments

More strange, Lavoy

Posted on May 20, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

Peter Lavoy, leading a Pentagon team to convince India to up its stake in Afghanistan, acted strange. May be he wears his intel background too seriously on his sleeve. In the dinner table conversation, I brought up the matter of Lt Gen Ausaf Ali, Director — Operations and Plans  the most important man in SPD (Strategic Plans Division) – the Pakistani nuclear command secretariat. And Lavoy acted mystified. He kept saying Khalid Kidwai, repeating it everytime I mentioned Ausaf. This was passing curious! I mean does Lavoy think that Ausaf and his position in SPD is secret, not known to anybody in India??? If it was a joke and he was playing the innocent, it was being taken too far.

I also said that, may be, GOI could condition India’s greater involement in Afghanistan on a  few stray US drones taking out, separately, you know who! And there was absolute silence from the Americans at the table — not a stir or a cough to break the tension for, as dinner table conversations go — a while. Not sure how to interpret the American reaction. Has such a quid pro quo been broached?

Posted in Afghanistan, Geopolitics, India's Pakistan Policy, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Strategic Relations with the US & West | 8 Comments

Lavoy — Nukes in S Asia; India in Afghanistan, please!

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

A Pentagon team headed by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence Peter Lavoy is in town. At a dinner hosted last night by the newly credentialed US Ambassador Nancy Powell, Lavoy rvealed that his team was in Delhi to plead with the Indian Govt to enhance this country’s role in the ongoing Afghan game. Whatever else India may be able to do, Lavoy said he hoped Indian military would more fully be involved in training the Afghan officer corps and JCOs/NCOs — either in Afghanistan itself, along the lines of the Indian army’s permament training detachment in Bhutan, presumably, or intake more Afghans into training institutions in India. The idea is to make the Afghan national army fit to take over the hard business of fighting the Taliban after the US forces begin decamping in 2014. The US will, however, continue, he said, to run the more high tech missions, such as combat aircraft in strile mode, hepter gunships, intelligence and, though he did not mention this, no doubt drone attacks.

Have known Lavoy for nearly two decades now. He has come to the DoD post from the US National Intelligence Council where he replaced Nancy Powell as head of the South Asia directorate. He’s among the original Americans, alongwith Michael Krepon at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, who has consistently tried to scare Washington and, because of the process of reverse osmosis, the Indian government  about the so-called India-Pakistan “nuclear flashpoint” — which I have argued since 1998 when it was first raised by these worthies, is so much nonsense. But because it doesn’t take much to scare Delhi, this thesis has become ingrained in the thinking of the Indian political class, the babus, diplomats, and even the military.

It is nonsense because of the unfavourable ‘exchange ratio’ — two Indian cities for the certain extinction of Pakistan. Which amongst the maddest mullahs in and out of uniform in Pakistan would take such a risk?  The IRONY is it is the Indian establishment that seems more deterred by this prospect!!!

One other thing about Lavoy. In a seminar held in 2002 (if I recall right) with the USI in Delhi, Lavoy led a team from the Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC) at the Naval Post-Graduate school, Monterrey, CA, there was a telltale incident in which a US Special Forces officer  — a “Major Paul Smith”, part of the American team, inadvertently, indirectly, and in a roundabout way, said a few things. He confirmed what I had said during my previous presentation that intense US efforts were then underway by the US military and intel orgs to locate Pakistani nuclear assets for the purposes of preemption in crisis.  I jokingly added that that was India’s first line of nuclear defence against the Pakis!!  All this was just too sensitive info for it to get out and CCC tried to rub it out from the record of the proceedings. The website reference to this seminar, for instance, had me saying banal things about the nuclear situation in S Asia. I remember emailing Peter asking him to correct this piece of disinformation being put out. Didn’t hear back from him. And the CCC account remained uncorrected.

Then again what is intelligence except dezinformatisya to fool a foreign or a home audience?

Posted in Afghanistan, civil-military relations, Geopolitics, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Special Forces, Strategic Relations with the US & West | Tagged | 7 Comments

India, an example?

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Constitution last Sunday, speaker after opposition speaker pointed out that while democratic norms have been tenuously maintained, the promise of social and economic equity is nowhere near being achieved for the bulk of the people, and that the system swamped by a tsunami of corruption and inefficiency at all levels of the government cannot cope. That this was declaimed with a straight face by many party leaders and members of Parliament facing grave charges of financial irregularity, malfeasance, and possession of wealth (bank accounts and properties) beyond “known sources of income” and were cheered on by  many blatant bribe-takers, who for reasons of proximity to the Congress Party’s First Family have escaped investigation, suggests that the political class now thinks of the filthy lucre as only another entitlement, along with government bungalows to live in, fleets of government cars to cart them around, and armies of servants – from menial to civil service types, to help them live the good life at the expense of the taxpayer and to siphon off public funds. That those most responsible for the spreading misgovernance are shameless enough to muster the moral gumption to complain loudly about it on an occasion demanding serious introspection about how, why, and where the Indian system has gone off the rails, hints at the unrecoverable slide the country seems to be in.

Plainly, the system has broken down and the best its minders can apparently do is faintly acknowledge the problem. But even the Titanic needed its famous band to keep playing ostensibly to lift the morale of the hopeless people on board as the ship sank. That role of the Titanic band is performed by a bunch of policy intellectuals led by former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, who produced a document – ‘Nonalignment 2.0’ (NA 2.0), helpfully suggesting the principles and guidelines for foreign policy-makers to follow.

The initial reactions to this document after its release in end-February were negative. Critiques of NA 2.0 are on the net, in numerous blogs, op-ed pieces, media commentaries — the reason why the government never fully owned up to it and, in publicity terms, has dumped it. Much of its contents either because they restate familiar themes from public debates in the last two decades or revive the rhetorical slant of policies from a more remote past, seem to have only a passing relevance for the present and, even less, the future. But NA 2.0 does reflect the thinking of the Prime Minister, the ruling Congress Party, and the top bureaucrats and diplomats running the system.

If the historical knowledge of Indian foreign and military policy of most of our politicians, diplomats, civil servants, and senior military officers were not other than book jacket-deep and the country’s policy-making was not based principally on the past as  contained in files, and precedent, with MEA and Defence Ministry officials fleshing out current policy options with an eye principally on previous notings in recent files, India would by now have been actualizing strong policy and capabilities for 2020 and beyond, and pondering the nature of the world in 2050 and India’s place in it, rather than wrestling mindlessly with themes that were long ago put to rest. Then again NA 2.0 is, perhaps, a side-effect of the country adrift in a Manmohan Singh-induced policy haze.

NA 2.0 can be faulted, and has been, on many counts. Its most questionable contention, among a host of problematic theses it has propounded, is its identifying “the power of [“the country’s] example” as the “fundamental source of India’s power”. Oh, really?  It has been the central conceit of the Indian political class and intelligentsia starting with Independence that India stands for something unique, has extraordinary value to offer the world. The less there is to show by way of development and economic progress compared to, say, China, the more we seem to fall back on patting ourselves on our democratic backs. At one level this is nothing but a variant on the exceptionalist rant by every country. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, all countries are unique in their own ways, so what’s so special about India?

India’s “example” is defined as high economic growth rate combined with maintenance of democracy. Those in the developing world who, presumably, are waiting breathlessly to emulate India have actually waited for more than sixty years for this Indian model of development to pan out. Their wait gets longer because our system is still only a work in progress.  The secret of delivering development to a billion plus people logically lies in effective democratic management of the state. In reality this is precisely what has failed the country. That the decrepit and slovenly apparatus of state serves only itself only adds to citizens’ woes.

Were there a self-cleansing and self-correcting mechanism, there would be cause for hope. In its absence, the system can be reformed radically only by its chief beneficiaries – the politicians and armies of non-performing babus from petty clerks to cabinet secretary. But there is zero incentive for them to do so. Moreover, a political class that cannot countenance the gentle ribbing by cartoons and a government craven enough to succumb to pressure to ban them from school text books, are unlikely to reform themselves or the system. India is thus destined to meander, without the end-goal in sight. What example is this?

Further, by any developmental criterion, using any set of socio-economic indices, of development produced by any of a host of international organizations, India ranks in the bottom quartile alongside states in sub-Saharan Africa. These statistics damn India’s “democracy”. That it is lauded more in the West than is taken seriously in the developing world, tells its own tale. The shiny Chinese model of fast-paced economic development and amazing First World infrastructure would appear more attractive. But, venal rulers of third-rate regimes may be enthused by the India model – it allows them to loot and mismanage the country, and also to preen themselves as “democrats”!

[Published as “Ïndia rolls down the hill” in the ‘New Indian Express’ on Friday, May 18, 2012 at http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/op-ed/india-rolls-down-the-hill/392714.html ]

Posted in civil-military relations, Indian Politics, Internal Security | 4 Comments

India-US trade, Iran

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

People may wish to see what was said on a panel disccussion on NDTV Profit channel earlier this week.

We Mean Business: Outsourcing backlash hurts India-US trade

Posted in Asian geopolitics, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Indian Politics, Strategic Relations with the US & West | Leave a comment

Brothers-in-arms

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

bharat karnad1_0.JPG

The test-firing of the Agni-V intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) on April 19 was greeted with a heartening absence of official bluster in Pakistan. The matter-of-fact counter-launch a few days later of a medium-range Pakistani Hatf missile likewise generated no heat here. It was a wonderfully sober, low-key exchange of signals — India’s to Pakistan saying this IRBM should not concern you, and Pakistan saying, well, okay, but just in case, here’s a demonstration. That was that — no gripe, no fuss.

Maybe the subdued Pakistani response to Agni was on account of the unfortunate avalanche on the west side of the Saltoro Ridge earlier that buried alive Pakistan Army soldiers from the Northern Light Infantry, bringing home to a grief-stricken nation the human cost of the Siachen deployment. It triggered a wave of popular resentment against it. Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-(Nawaz) and Imran Khan of the Tehreek-e-Insaf Party called for unilateral withdrawal and hoped this gesture would be reciprocated by India. The mounting public pressure compelled the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, to talk of “peaceful coexistence” and the need to resolve all disputes in a peaceable manner.

What is fascinating to see is how, for the first time in recent memory, the space for public and political discourse and debate within Pakistan about the best way to deal with India was seized, and the lead in thinking given, by mainline political parties and civil society, and how much the Pakistan Army’s room for manoeuvre on even national security issues has shrunk. India should have reacted to the Siachen tragedy with prompt offers of material and expert help, and proposed an immediate meeting between Gen. Kayani and his Indian counterpart, Gen. V.K. Singh, to explore ideas the Pakistani COAS might have for resolving disputes and coexisting peacefully. India had nothing to lose.

When I said this on a television programme featuring two Pakistanis — former foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan and retired Maj. Gen.  Rashid Qureshi — a former ambassador to Afghanistan Vivek Katju pointed out that because the Indian Army does not enjoy the same exalted position its opposite number does in Pakistan, it would be an interaction between unequals. What he, and the Indian government,  fail to appreciate is that regular meetings between the two Army Chiefs will advance the rapprochement process and put the stamp of approval of General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, on a peace dynamic created by warming economic and trade ties.

In the context of the Indian government once again whining about Washington not arm-twisting Islamabad enough to contain terrorist Hafiz Saeed and the Pakistani Lashkars to the visiting US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, making a case for restoring links between the armies of the two countries with shared regimental histories and background would appear to be quixotic. However, as I had argued in a research paper published 16 years ago, in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs in London, it is the soundest basis for confidence and security-building in the subcontinent. When Mr Gohar Ayub Khan referred to the strong “sentiment” of the shared past in the two armies, Mr Katju cut him short; negotiations, he harrumphed, cannot be on the basis of sentiment. Actually, between states that together once formed a whole, cultural ties, sentiment and fellow-feeling are exactly the right foundation to build a close relationship on — a line Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, perhaps, instinctively understands but lacks the political heft to push.

In India-Pakistan relations, among the low hanging fruit are military-to-military links forged by such things as joint sports meets, visits by officers to parent regiments and, dare I mention, seats allotted to Pakistan Army officers at the National Defence College in Delhi. Except, the Indian government’s atrocious treatment of Pakistani military attachés negates this possibility. We talk of “military diplomacy” but have failed since 1947 to do the obvious thing of cultivating Pakistan’s defence, air and naval advisers posted here — brigadiers, naval captains, and Air Force group captains headed for higher rank. Treating these officers well, according them courtesies beyond those enjoyed by big power defence attachés, making them feel special costs us nothing and the benefits are substantial. A growing group of such military professionals in Islamabad, with pleasant memories of their stay in India, will begin to temper the Pakistan Army and the government’s attitude.

Instead, the pettiness and small-mindedness encountered by Pakistani military-men posted to their high commission in Delhi is so sustained and unrelenting, it is a wonder more of them arriving here a little wary don’t turn bitter on the spot. That Indian defence attachés are similarly mistreated is no excuse. Once official India’s behaviour towards the Pakistani officers becomes less cussed, the situation of our representatives in the Islamabad high commission will automatically improve. Rather than dealing with them as honoured guests, however, they are subjected to indignities. They are not invited to any Indian military functions, invitations to passing-out parades at our various military academies are tardy, requests for meetings with Service Chiefs of Staff and their principal staff officers are rarely entertained, and they are not allowed to travel outside Delhi without permission, or even permitted to play golf in Gurgaon. This is entirely counter-productive behaviour.

Imagine the positive fallout from, say, encouraging the Pakistani defence attachés to observe our “integrated” military exercises, such as Operation Shoorveer now underway in the Punjab plains. It will help them experience at close quarters military formations being marshalled effectively by Indian commanders and to realistically compare their country’s capabilities and stamina with India’s. What’s there to be so secretive about? What new stuff could they possibly learn about our military that they don’t already know, or that departs hugely from how the Pakistani armed forces themselves practise fighting wars? It is amusing to recall, on this subject, what the late Israeli general, Moshe Dayan, said about the Indian and Pakistani armies. “They fight by the book,” he said, and, after a pause, with perfect comic timing, added, “the same book”.

[Published on May 10, 2012 in the Asian Age at www.asianage.com/columnists/brothers-in-arms-466 and in the Deccan Chronicle at www.deccanchronicle.com/columnists/bharat-karnad/brothers-in-arms ]

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Geopolitics, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Internal Security, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism | 11 Comments

Perils of Double-hedging

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Delhi after leading the American delegation in the latest round of the US-China Economic and Strategic Dialogue held in Beijing on May 3-4, an exercise that usually involves the largest American delegation of officials and experts in a bilateral interaction America is involved in. As a strategic partner of India, the United States likes to keep Delhi informed about whatever transpires in these talks. The last time Hillary Clinton was here she had urged India to not merely “look east, but act east”. Since then India has gained missile teeth. Anticipating the successful test-firing of the Agni-V intermediate range ballistic missile able to hit any point in China, External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna’s response to a Chinese warning against India collaborating with Vietnam to explore for offshore oil was, for a change, uncharacteristically muscular. “The South China Sea is not China’s Sea”, said Krishna, surprising just about everybody including, no doubt, Beijing that had grown used to the usual MEA snivelling. Beijing may also have noted that these fighting words echoed a Chinese Admiral’s challenge from over a decade back that “the Indian Ocean was not India’s Ocean”.

China’s intentions are uncertain and there is fear of the dragon lashing out against nations on its periphery for any of a host of reasons – economic slowdown, internal transfer of power problems, evidence of high-level destabilizing corruption, a restive hinterland, and the Peoples Liberation Army gearing up for assertive action to safeguard sea territory claimed by China beyond what’s permitted under the UN Law of the Seas. The states on the Chinese rim, therefore, seek assurance that in the worst case they won’t be overwhelmed. Hence, their search for overarching security however and from whomsoever they can obtain it.

The United States is the obvious Pacific power to provide it, except ten years of unproductive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have enervated the American spirit, emptied the US Treasury – these two conflicts costing over a trillion dollars to-date, and sapped the will to take on the coming superpower, China. Despite reorienting its attitude and military wherewithal China-wards as demanded by the recently announced “pivot to Asia” policy by the Obama Administration, the fact is the United States sees itself more as an offshore balancer, relying on countries engaged in territorial disputes with China to put in the main effort. Hence, Washington’s desire that India undertake the job of “net security provider” to littoral Asian countries.

But this is only a third of the main story. The United States has been so busy pushing free market nostrums, it did not notice China’s state-capitalist system creeping up as the prime beneficiary, nor is it quite reconciled to becoming a debtor country, one that relies on the Chinese government to continue buying US Treasury Bills and subsidizing the life style the American people have got accustomed to. Much of this “spend beyond your means” lifestyle involves buying cheap Chinese products of all kinds produced at low cost because of a system of state subsidies, and paying for such purchases with credit from China. This is no bad condition for Beijing to be in. China is like the supplier who channels drugs to an addict to keep him hooked. Except, Beijing is beginning to worry, mindful of that old adage – “if someone owes me five hundred dollars it is his problem; if he owes me $500 billion, it is my problem”, and is diversifying its investments to Central and Eastern Europe and the European Union countries. Even so, China and the United States are entwined in an economic embrace that neither country can easily pull out of. And, short of a direct military confrontation, this embrace will not be disturbed. That’s the reason why Washington cannot afford militarily to be very proactive in Asia.

Therefore, the US has floated two trilateral groupings as economic and military counterbalancing arrangements and system stabilizers – the US, China, India economic sub-set and the US, Japan, India military subset. But this is as much a double hedge strategy for America, as it is for China, and for India and Japan as well, considering Japan is the largest investor in China after Taiwan, and China is now India’s biggest trading partner. Russia is also in this strategic mix, keeping on the right side of China with joint naval exercises and military technology sales but of the second grade while transferring first-rate military goods to India to beef up the Indian military posture. Washington too wants the Indian armed forces to qualitatively upgrade and bulk up while it is strengthening the military alliance relationship with Japan. Seeking to eliminate the local friction created by the US military presence in Okinawa, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihoko Noda met with President Barack Obama on April 30 to seek redeployment of some 9,000 US troops to Guam.

Even so, that essentially leaves countries that most seriously apprehend territorial conflicts in the future with China, namely, India, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines and Russia to each fend for itself – the reason why all of them are going in for the same double-hedge strategy of keeping economic ties with China in tact but also the appearance of a front that could firm up militarily in case Beijing acts up. Manila has gone to the extent of invoking the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty with the United States and Hanoi, likewise, is sidling up to Washington.  This is a dicey game all-round — conveying an image of Asia-Pacific solidarity without actually having it in substance, and leaves these countries exposed, with only the United States enjoying the margin of conventional and nuclear military advantage over the Peoples Liberation Army and its naval and air force arms.

Over-aware of its own limitations and not motivated to correct the military imbalance by building up adequate strategic and conventional capability to deter China, India, which has always been a free-rider on security afforded Asian states by the dominating US military presence in Asia, has the most to lose from its own and other countries’ double-hedging.

[Published in’the ‘New Indian Express’, Friday, May 4, 2012, at http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/op-ed/perils-of-double-hedging/388198.html ]

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Indian Politics, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Relations with Russia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West | 5 Comments

India can play bigger military role in Asia

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Bharat Karnad

The Singapore statesman, Lee Kuan Yew likened Asia to an airplane with India and China as the two wings keeping the continent flying. This aviation metaphor was constructed, at least in part, on the hope and prayer that India would get its act together and emerge with heft matching China’s. Otherwise the Asian plane, assuming it could take-off at all, would bank to one side and crash.

It has been an unequal game so far. Managed effectively by a Communist Party cabal able to deliver world class infrastructure that meets the basic needs of the people, China is the proverbial hare to the Indian tortoise. India’s mindless bureaucratism and vicious domestic politics paralyse government and negate private sector-led economic growth.

China’s spectacular economic rise has spurred its military ambitions. The aggressive Chinese posture with several ASEAN members over the rich oil-  and gas-bearing offshore territories has driven home the wisdom of Mr. Lee’s metaphor of India having to be equal of China in order to reap the region’s benefits of peace, order and stability.

Despite considerable growth in India’s conventional and nuclear military reach and clout, the problem has been India’s slow pace in advancing economic reforms. This may be changing. Fatigued by two decades of foreign wars, the United States is seeking a standoff role, notwithstanding its “pivot to Asia”. India has to step into providing overarching security to the Asian rimland. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has publicly and privately urged India to be a “net security provider” to Asian states. While this has not fallen on entirely deaf ears, the Indian government is moving with its customary caution.

Even as Delhi plays Hamlet in a gradually worsening security situation in Asia, India’s strategic military capabilities have matured. The long range Agni-5 successfully test-fired last month is one such instance, with the state-of-the-art chip-embedded guidance system and accurate delivery at extreme range. Indeed, Chinese military sources are convinced that Agni-5 is an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) tested at a reduced 5,000 km range.  Outfitted with MIRV (Multiple Independently Re-targetable Vehicles) technology, a single Agni-5 and a true ICBM follow-on Agni-6 of 10,000 km range will be able to engage five to eight targets. With Agni-5, India has deterrence parity in being able to strike anywhere in China. It is no coincidence that a few weeks before the Agni launch, the mild-mannered Indian foreign minister, S.M. Krishna, responded with fighting words to Beijing’s warning India against joining Vietnam in offshore oil exploration, saying “the South China Sea is not China’s sea”. It mirrored a Chinese Admiral’s challenge from an earlier decade that the “Indian Ocean is not India’s ocean”.

With the 50,000 ton Kiev-class carrier, Vikramaditya, carrying MiG-29K attack aircraft soon joining the navy, the Arihant nuclear powered ballistic-missile submarine undergoing sea-trials, an Akula-II already patrolling, and both submersibles sharpening the Indian Navy’s Eastern Fleet, India has impressive naval forces on call. Add the possibility of Indian naval ships based on the central Vietnamese coast at Na Thrang, offered by Hanoi to protect potential Indian oil assets in the South China Sea. Further, with a Division-sized amphibious force and attendant sealift capability, and the Indian Air Force’s Su-30 MKIs presently deployed on the Car Nicobar Island, India’s military pieces are in place on the geopolitical chessboard.

What is missing is Indian political will to capitalise on the interest created by Agni-5 and Indian “naval diplomacy” – joint exercises and joint anti-piracy patrols with littoral navies. Delhi has to explore ways in which the Indian armed forces can actively contribute to South-east Asia’s sense of wellbeing, in line with the Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s plea at the ASEAN Plus Eight Defence Ministers Meeting in Hanoi in November 2010, for “cooperative approaches” in the Asia-Pacific region to keep “the sea lanes…open, secure, and free for navigation”. India can begin by selling Vietnam the supersonic anti-ship Brahmos missile it seeks. Indonesia desired the same weapon but Delhi’s procrastination drove Jakarta to buy a variant directly from Russia.

With both China and India having observer status, it is tricky for India and the Asean members to work to, in effect, ring-fence China and Chinese ambitions. But that’s a political hump the two sides will have to get over.

[Published in the ‘Straits Times’, Singapore, on May 2, 2012]

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Ocean, Military Acquisitions, Missiles, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West | 14 Comments