“Erstwhile foe”

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

The main presentation of interest on the first day of the 16th Asian Security Conference hosted by IDSA (Feb 19-21) was by Beijing’s designated hardline pitchman — Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University. Yan made clear that the “new model for major power relations” that President Xi Jinping has articulated, tends in fact towards “competition” not “cooperation” as many in the West and the usual docile lot of China-pleasers in the Indian foreign policy establishment believe is the case. He, moreover, stressed that the world was moving towards bipolarity owing to the increase in China’s “material power” which, he claimed, is the sole reason for the “inevitable” rivalry with the United States. And, as regards Japan, Yan was almost vituperative. But he got as good as he gave from Vice Admiral (ret) Fuma Ota, former head of Japanese Military Intelligence, who responded with zest to Yan’s provocations — and on a projected map highlighted the growing incidents at sea and in the air, any of which could have escalated into military crisis. When asked how long the Chinese Navy would take to integrate their recently inducted aircraft carrier, Liaoning, into fleet operations — the litmus test of a carrier-centered navy, Ota estimated 20 years, and Andrew Scobell of RAND ventured that this eventuality “is long way off”.

In the first event of the morning, MK Narayanan, Governor of West Bengal, in his keynote address proved what I have publicly written and stated that he was, perhaps, the worst National Security Adviser India has had to-date. In the main because of his singularly risk-averse attitude and thinking. For instance, he went on and on about “the risk of unintended consequences” of the India-China naval race, and why “deft management” is necessary to avoid conflict — something, no doubt, he feels he provided as NSA. Worse, he yoked the country’s nuclear arsenal and policy not to its own national security interests or the emerging geostrategic situation in Asia and the world, but exclusively to Chinese aggressiveness and also to whether and how much America retrenched. It emphasized his way of thinking that had confirmed India’s status as a free-rider on security and is the sort of approach that helped Narayanan deliver the inequitable nuclear deal that enormously hurt India’s nuclear weapons program and strategic interests, to Condoleeza Rice in July 2005. He also confessed that in his time “We never worked very hard on an Asian security architecture” because of the divisions and differences between Asian states. He ended with a gratuitous dig at me saying MEA stalwarts such as — and he named — Rakesh Sood, who was in the audience, had stalled “our erstwhile foe, Bharat Karnad” in the foreign and security policy realms. While this mention was flattering, wonder what Yan Xuetong thought about it considering China is the foe Narayanan ought to have worked aggressively against as NSA, but did not.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, China military, civil-military relations, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Politics, Japan, nonproliferation, Northeast Asia, Nuclear Policy & Strategy, Nuclear Weapons, South Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, United States, US., Weapons | 2 Comments

Lively encounters

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

The India Today-hosted “Panchayat”-sort of events (held all day Feb 13) with politicians debating, discussing, publicly quarreling with each other have three aspects. There is the plain entertainment value, say, of the recent entrant to Mulayam’s party, the commedian Raju Srivastav having a blast with AAP’s Kumar Vishwas and the more sober Bhojpuri film hero Manoj Tiwari displaying earthy cow-belt lingo and humour in skewering each other and the unfortunate Congress MP aspirant, the actress Nagma, who seemed like the proverbial witless ingenue winning a beauty title and claiming her aim in life is to work for “world peace”! There’s the high-octane verbal kinetics, with the Congress minister of state Manish Tiwari losing his cool when verbally prodded and deliberately provoked by the AAP member and fellow lawyer, Mehra (?) even as the former deputy chief minister of Bihar Modi on the panel enjoyed the show. And then there’s the seriously political. In the exchange featuring Amit Shah, Narendra Modi’s canny chief campaign strategist, and Jairam Ramesh, the resident intellectual in the Congress Party ranks, the latter was clearly bested with Shah being relentlessly on the offensive charging the Congress with politics of polarization and vigorously defending the Gujarat model of economic growth, which RFamesh had hard time refuting. What was more revealing than what was said and how it was said was the body language. The impression was conveyed by all Congress reps throughout the day that the party sees the writing on the wall, is reconciled to defeat in the coming general elections, and is already looking ahead to the 2019 polls, with Ramesh painting Rahul Gandhi as a political “marathoner”, not a 100 metre “sprinter”.

P.S. — The real stinger, I forgot to mention, was the quicksilver reaction by AAP’s Mehra to Manish Tiwari. The latter was reminded about Kapil Sibal’s comment that there was “zero loss” on the coalgate and 2-G issues in the context of the GOI yesterday realizing some Rs 61K crores for the spectrum recently in a transparently-conducted auction, which’d indicate the extent of loss to the public exchequer when the 2-G bandwidth was allotted to his cronies by the DMK minister K. Raju w/o any openness. Mehra’s stinger was that of course, the Congress “felt insulted” considering it was such a small amount compared to Rs 1 lakh74K crores the CAG said Congress had “eaten up” in the 2G scam!

Posted in Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, Internal Security, society, South Asia | Leave a comment

S Menon to leave NSA post

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

The annual brunch held over the weekend at his residence for those involved in, and dealing with, foreign and defence policies — with DRDO and all armed Services (except the CAS, ACM Raha) and Intel chiefs in attendance, and all concerned Department secretaries too present, was as usual otherwise also well populated. It allowed talking of “business” with persons in the loop. The curtest of the lot was R Chidambaram who, understandably didn’t want to speak to me considering I have called him the greatest disaster to befall the Indian nuclear weapons program, of course, but more generally the nuclear energy programme as well.

Shivshankar Menon told me that he had informed the PM that he’d be leaving his post come May whatever the results of the forthcoming general elections and even if the UPA-III manages to materialize. I instinctively felt that underlying this decision of the NSA was a sentiment best expressed by Richard Nixon in a press interaction after losing the presidential elections in 1960 to John F Kennedy: “You won’t have me to kick around anymore”(!), which would more reasonably accord with Manmohan Singh’s relieved feelings, no doubt!

Posted in DRDO, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian democracy, Indian Navy, Indian Politics, society, South Asia, United States, US. | 3 Comments

Strategic Bomber for IAF

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

A trick question: What was the most decisive weapon of the Second World War? If your answer, as expected, is the atom bomb, you are wrong. It was the B-29 Superfortress bomber that delivered it. Without the plane, the A-Bomb would have been only a novelty. The flip side of this question is: What was the most egregious policy failure of Imperial Japan (besides the surprise raid on Pearl Harbour)? It was the delay in developing its Nakajima G10N Fugaku strategic bomber with the range to hit American island bases in the western Pacific and the US west coast early enough in the war to make some difference. Often, the means of delivery are as important as what’s delivered.

These historical thoughts were prompted by the statement of the new Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, who talked of his service achieving a “strategic” profile in terms of its ability to pull “expeditionary” missions. While the growing numbers in the inventory of C-17 and C-130J transport planes, and of aerial tankers able to extend the range of combat aircraft, make expeditionary actions easier to mount, such tasks in the past (Operation Cactus in the Maldives, Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka) were adequately managed with the old An-32s. The Raha statement revealed an eagerness to sidestep the traditional criterion — a fleet of bombers capable of long range attack — that distinguishes a strategic air force from a theatre-oriented one, such as the IAF.

How and why did the IAF, despite a palpable need, not become strategic? The fault lies in the natural shrivelling of missions beginning in the 1950s that accompanied the dimming of the strategic vision and the narrowing of the military focus, laughably, to Pakistan as main threat, and the quality of leaders helming the air force. The 1947 era of service brass, mostly Group Captain-Air Commodore rank officers fast-forwarded to the top, having loyally served the Raj and imbibed British ways of thinking, configured the service in the manner their old bosses had planned. It resulted in the IAF emerging as a creditable tactical force.

Short-legged fighter aircraft with a leavening of fighter-bombers became its calling card with the UK-built Lysanders, Tempests, and Spitfires of the 1940s replaced by the French Dassault Ouragans and Mystere-IVs, and the Hawker-Siddeley Hunters which, in turn, were succeeded by the Russian Mig-21s, MiG-23s, MiG-27s, MiG-29s, and the Su-30MKIs. The odd Western import during this latter phase — the Jaguar and Mirage 2000, were also only short to medium range aircraft. The only dedicated bomber the IAF ever acquired was the medium-range Canberra in the Sixties. But highlighting its limited operational mindset was the air force’s choice of the Folland Gnat, a local area air defence aircraft, for licence-production in the country.

It was different early on. When Jawaharlal Nehru’s government first approached the United States for arms aid in 1948, it was the war-tested B-25 Mitchell bomber which topped the procurement list. During the Second World War the Walchandnagar aircraft company (precursor to the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd), among other planes, built the B-24 Liberator bombers in Bangalore. Most of these aircraft were shipped back to Britain. But a significant number, which could have constituted an embryonic bomber component of the IAF, was deemed “surplus to the need” and deliberately destroyed by the departing British at the Maintenance Command in Kanpur by hoisting these aircraft, one by one, up by their tails to considerable height and dropping them nose down on the hard ground.

The IAF brass at the time — Subroto Mukherjee, M.M. Engineer, Arjan Singh, et al — did not protest against this dastardly deed by the British, apprise Nehru and the Indian government of the strategic cost of the loss of long range air power, and otherwise failed to prevent these wanton acts of sabotage. True to form, after the 1962 Himalayan military fiasco, the IAF sought not bombers able to reach distant Chinese targets as deterrent but the US F-104 for air defence, before settling on the MiG-21.

What showcased the IAF’s apparent institutional reluctance against transforming itself into a strategic force, however, was the decision by the Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal-led regime to reject in mid-1971 the Soviet offer of the Tu-22 Backfire strategic bomber. The reasons trotted out verged on the farcical.

As Wing Commander (later Air Marshal) C. V. Gole, member of the Air Marshal Sheodeo Singh Mission to Moscow and test pilot, who flew the Tu-22 informed me, he was appalled by the fact that he had to be winched up into the cockpit, and that the plane would have to takeoff from as far east as Bareilly to reach cruising altitude over Pakistan! (This and other episodes are detailed in my book ‘Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security’.) Evidently China didn’t figure in the threat perceptions of the Air Headquarters at the time, nor has it done so since then.

IAF’s doggedly defensive-tactical thinking married to theatre-level capabilities have ensured its minimal usefulness in crises and conflicts.

Forty years on, while China is bolstering its already strong strategic bomber fleet (of Xian H-6K aircraft) by buying off the production line of the most advanced Backfire, the Tu-22 M3, and prioritising the indigenous development of the four-engined, wing-shaped, H-18 strategic stealth bomber, IAF hopes its Su-30s assisted by aerial tankers will be a credible deterrent and counter against the Chinese bomber armada.

It will be prudent for the IAF, even at this late stage, to constitute a Bomber Command and cadre, lease ten or so Tu-160 Blackjacks from Moscow and, rather than the fifth-generation fighter, invest the Rs 35,000 crores in a programme jointly to design and produce with Russia the successor aircraft to the Blackjack — the PAK DA, which is expected to fly by 2025. I have long advocated acquisition of a bomber because, compared to strike fighters and ballistic and cruise missiles it has far more strategic utility, including in nuclear signalling, crisis stability, and escalation control. It is a conclusion also reached by a recent RAND report extolling the virtues of a new “penetrative bomber”.

[Published,7th February 2014 in New Indian Express, at http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinion/Strategic-Bomber-for-IAF/2014/02/07/article2042008.ece#.UvQulWKSw7s

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Bangladesh, China military, Defence Industry, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's Pakistan Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Ocean, Japan, Maldives, Military Acquisitions, Pakistan, Pakistan military, Relations with Russia, Russia, russian assistance, russian military, South Asia, Special Forces, Sri Lanka, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., Weapons, Western militaries | 20 Comments

“Can India be Cunning”

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

The above was the title of a talk at the Subbu Forum, at IDSA, this evening by the West’s go-to Asian savant, Kishore Mahbubani, former Foreign Secretary of Singapore and currently Dean of the Lew Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. There was a big audience because everybody expected something novel, but they’d have been disappointed. “Cunning”, a word Mahbubani conceded in the Indian context is “by definition evil”, in his telling, turns out to be an inapt word to describe what in essence and substance is nothing more than hard-headed realpolitik that a few of us have been advocating for well nigh two decades now. His choice of the word cunning apparently serving his purpose of being “provocative” rather than being otherwise useful. His thesis that India needs to wisely use the geopolitical space that’s opened up with the international system poised between the ending of the 200-year old era of Western dominance and the emergence of an Asia-on-top world order by befriending China and not getting in too thick with the declining West is an unoriginal take on the unfolding global drama and the historical power shift to the East. His example of cunning: China’s supporting the US invasion of Iraq, winning President Bush’s gratitude enough for Washington to put the clamps on Taiwan’s move to declare itself a sovereign state while Beijing opened up access of the Taiwanese people to mainland China, thus solidifying China’s position on Taiwan and affording Beijing ten years of “peaceful rise” even as the US was got more and deeply embroiled militarily in the worsening Iraqi mess of its own creation. He suggested India adopt a similar strategy with Pakistan — open up people-to-people relations, and separating this from the govt-to-govt ties. Yes, fine, but will Islamabad allow this? A 2nd example of “cunning” — Japan’s nonproliferation rhetoric combined with the acquisition of capability that can beget Tokyo nuclear weapons in a few weeks. But this is well known.

His main theme was that New Delhi should cultivate both China and the US & the West, and play them off against each other using “cunning” (the word he repeated relentlessly until grated on the ear!) and that this would fetch India geopolitical “dividends”, But such policy is what the Manmohan Singh government and the NSA Shivshankar Menon helming its foreign policy can reasonably claim they have been pursuing in the past decade!

A more practical recommendation by him published in today’s Indian Express, which he repeated, is for India to jettison its efforts to gain membership to the UN Security Council as member of the Group of Four (India, Germany, Japan, and Brazil) for the obvious reasons that China’d veto Japan and the UN General Assembly would consider Germany’s inclusion (in addition to UK and France) excessive representation for Europe — precisely the reason, he said, why London and Paris are pushing for it, guaranteeing the failure of any such attempt to enlarge the SecC. Anecdote-wise, he recalled from his time as the Singaporean Permanent Representative at the UN HQrs in New York, how his Italian counterpart, Paolo Pucci (?) exasperatedly shouted in the meeting of the Open-ended Committee for Restructuring the Security Council, in the context of Japan’s and Germany’s membership membership case gaining some traction in the mid-1980s, that Italy too deserved a permanent Council seat because “ït too lost the War”!

Mabhbubani felt that India stands the best chance if it campaigned for a reconstitution of the council with 7 members — US, Russia, China, European Union (UK and French seats being merged), India (to join China as a second Asia rep), Brazil to represent Latin America, and Nigeria the continent of Africa. And another 15 states — such as Pakistan, Argentina, South Korea, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Egypt, etc accorded the status of semi-permanent members (chosen by population, GDP, etc), each of whom will thus be assured a Council seat every eight years, giving them a stake in this new UN system and making them more agreeable to supporting such structural changes.

Posted in Africa, Asian geopolitics, China, Europe, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, Indian democracy, Japan, Northeast Asia, Pakistan, Russia, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism, United States, US., West Asia, Western militaries | 5 Comments

Growing evidence of US as unreliable partner

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

It is important to point out that the major theme related to security in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to the US Congress on January 28 evening was military retrenchment.

Highlighting the fact that he had reduced foreign deployment (mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan) from 180,000 when he took office to 60,000 troops today, he emphasized that the main threat was terrorism, not what Senator John McCain earlier in the day in the confirmation hearings for former Senator Max Baucus as Ambassador to Beijing said was “the rising threat from China”. And even as regards terrorists, Obama said “America must move off a permanent war footing” and that he “will not send our troops into harm’s way unless it’s truly necessary; nor will I allow [Americans] to be mired in open-ended conflicts. We must fight the battles that need to be fought, not those that terrorists prefer from us – large-scale deployments that drain our strength and may ultimately feed extremism.” Included in this reduced effort is imposing “prudent limits on the use of drones – for we will not be safer if people abroad believe we strike within their countries without regard for the consequence.” Rather, the US, he stated, would “aggressively pursue terrorist networks – through more targeted efforts and by building the capacity of our foreign partners” Further, the US president elaborated that “in a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.” he attributed the supposed success the America has had in Syria, in moving Israel towards accepting an independent Palestine, and in halting “the progress of Iran’s nuclear program” to “American diplomacy backed by power”.

Mirroring his boss’ views, Sen. Baucus responded to McCain’s threat perception of China as “a rising threat or challenge to peace and security in Asia because of the profound belief in the Chinese leadership that China must, and will, regain the dominant role that they had for a couple of thousand years in Asia” by saying that “The overarching goal here is for us as a country…to engage China with eyes wide open to try to find common ground,” such as through improved military-to-military cooperation in a complicated relationship.

It provides more and growing evidence of a US that’s simply unwilling to risk a fight with China and a Washington bending over backwards to avoid it including, as mentioned in my piece — “America an unreliable partner”, any conflict between China and any Asian strategic partner in which American security interests are not directly engaged. In fact, military-to-military cooperation will only end up benefitting the Chinese military by exposing PLAN to new ways of fusing and using its forces, and new technologies and novel ways of utilizing them, etc.

It compels the governments of India and other countries of Asia on the Chinese periphery and with manifest security problems with China to think of joining in a collective hedging strategy to curtail Chinese ambitions and the use of its military muscle. This the Asian countries won’t be able to do if New Delhi, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hanoi and the ASEAN states continue to disregard the imperatives of strategic geography and believe that accommodating China will prevent and preempt conflict with it in the future.

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, China, China military, Great Power imperatives, India's China Policy, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Politics, Japan, Northeast Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Technology transfer, United States, US., West Asia, Western militaries | 1 Comment

Callow and confused Rahul

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

Arnab Goswami’s interview with Rahul Gandhi last night revealed the Congress Party Vice President as a callow and confused person. To every question posed he had the same stock nonsequiterish response — RTI, recruiting the aam janata into politics, etc. While he was cut short on occasion, he persisted. The main problem being his pitch that the Congress Party was in terms of power less centralized than BJP and had less power concentrated at the top — a near-nonsensical thesis the interviewer failed to challenge! Considering Narendra Modi is a proven Chief Minister who has on the basis of his performance come up from the ranks and established himself at the top in the BJP, either Rahul was being remarkably cheeky, or he genuinely believes what he says in contravention of the facts — which is even more worrying — that the Gandhi Family supremo of the moment since Indira’s time — Rajiv and Sonia, has always been the final authority, the main veto-er of government initiatives, and adjudicator of intra-party power tussles. In the face of this reality, Rahul perhaps meant that power in the Congress is presently divided between him and his mother, with Priyanka, the third member of this ruling triumvirate pulling the strings so far from the sidelines. As long as there’s a Gandhi Family member at the helm there’s no chance for anybody else to ascend to the apex level, with even the PM-ship being held by political non-entities such as Manmohan Singh at that Gandhi’s sufferance. So, there are limits to democracy that Rahul extolled within his party, which Goswami did not push him on. Apparently, he believes that more democracy within the party means more average people joining in to prop up the same old Family-led order.

Equally appalling was his claim that while the Gujarat state mechanism aided and abetted the 2002 Hindu rioters, the Delhi and Central govts had no hand in facilitating the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. While conceding that high-ranking Congress Party leaders may have been involved, he differentiated them from the govt apparatus! And as regards the massive corruption and the involvement of Congressmen in rank thievery and worse, he only offered that old saw about the law taking its own course!

Rahul Gandhi was coached and primed to offer stock replies no matter what the question. He did so robotically. The only time he seemed unsettled was when he was asked about his academic degrees from Cambridge University and Harvard as per Subrahmanyham Swamy’s charge that he had degrees from neither place. He did not refute Swamy’s contention, merely countering that his name would be found on the muster of the said college at Cambridge U — not that he actually secured a degree from any such institution. In this he is much like his grandmother, Indira, who spent time at Sommerville College, Cambridge, and his father Rajiv who whiled away a term or two at Trinity without anything to show for it (except his courting of a certain Italian girl enrolled in some sideline school in town to learn English).

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Europe, Indian democracy, Indian Politics, South Asia | 2 Comments

Who was the President shooting at?

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

Most presidential addresses on Republic Day eves are a bore — usually a string of banalities, platitudes, and exhortations. The arch politician in President Pranab Mukherji appeared last night, and what he said was intriguing because he sharply targeted mostly the Congress Party and other constituent parties of the ruling UPA under cover of attacking the Aam Admi Party!

On the face of it, he was slamming Arvind Tejriwal and his Johnny come-lately AAP for reducing governance to media circus. W/o naming it, he held AAP (and Congress) responsible for what he said was “populist anarchy” which he stated couldn’t replace governance, and reminded the people that government is “not a charity shop”. But he also railed against the massive and unprecedented corruption of the Congress Party in power over the past decade saying it “is a cancer that erodes democracy and weakens the foundations of [the Indian] state” and predicted, in so many words, that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress government will be removed in the forthcoming general elections. He decried hypocrisy that informs Indian politics but also sought a stable government free of the excesses of “capricious” provincial governments which he warned would result in a “fractured government, hostage to whimsical opportunists” — “än unhappy eventuality” that he said would be “catastrophic” in 2014.

He was remarkably disingenuous in ostensibly attacking AAP for populist anarchy, but then the Congress Party and he as Defence and Finance Minister for much its two terms wrote several budgets, and seeded a whole bunch of programs as dole and economic giveaways that also, if not fit, then skirt his description of populism gone berserk, something Kejriwal with far less effect on the financial health of the Delhi Union Territory has mounted with the 700 litres free water, etc. Surely, if any one party deserves the blame for irresponsible vote-buying schemes from Indira Gandhi’s days (remember “Garibi Hatao”!!), it is the Congress Party that, undeterred by the fiscal pit it was pushing the country into, initiated NREGS and, despite empirical data to suggest that instead of such giveaways that end up making every official — petty level up to the highest politician in the land — rich beyond measure, has assiduously rejected calls for straight forward cash transfers to correctly identified “poor people” all over India as a genuinely effective poverty-alleviation measure.

But President Mukherji also talked of “corruption” and “hypocrisy” and here he was more two-faced considering his personal reputation is not all that clean. His name features prominently, for instance, in the Mitrokhin Archives — the secret documents of the erstwhile Soviet state spirited away in the days when the Soviet govt was going the way of the Dodo bird. It details the payoffs to Indian state functionaries in the pay of Moscow during the Cold War era. He was then apparently the “bagman” for the Congress Party. So, it is a bit rich to hear him speak of hypocrisy.

Yes, corruption has eaten away at the Indian state, hollowing it out, much as the red ants gnaw away at the superstructure even as the house frame is left standing, only to give way at the first sign of anarchy. See how the Indian state almost came unstuck because of the relatively small incident such as Kejriwal’s dharna outside Rail Bhavan!

And yes government is not charity shop. But six decades of Congress party rule has reduced the Indian people to a horde of beggars desiring endless free lunches — something for nothing, tenderizing them so that they salivate at the thought of populist policies. It is this tendency Narendra Modi will find most difficult to reverse, and end up seeing as a major hindrance to realizing his aim of a proud and self-respecting people in a self-confident fiscally responsible India that depends only minimally on government for its progress.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, Indian democracy, Indian ecobomic situation, Indian Politics, Internal Security, Russia, society, South Asia | 1 Comment

America an Unreliable Partner

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

If there’s one attribute about the United States that makes partnering it risky, it is its unreliability. Washington initiates conflict as suits its momentary interest without caring about the possible ramifications for the countries, including allies, in the vicinity and effect on the prevailing order, which may not be to its liking but manifests stability. It is unscrupulous about the means it uses and, when the situation gets hot and body bags and fatigue take their toll, it thinks nothing about precipitously departing the scene leaving its regional partners holding the can. The absence of grit, stamina, and the will to absorb losses and to stay the course, is America’s major strategic failing that countries expecting the US to bail them out in strategic crises need to ponder.

Consider the recent record. The US intervened controversially in Iraq in 2001 to remove Saddam Hussein leading to a revival of the old Shia-Sunni schism, endless sectarian violence and consolidation of Islamist militancy in the beleaguered country. Thirteen years on, Washington decided to decamp with the “democracy” it has installed in Baghdad showing few signs of enduring. So infirm is its commitment that a few weeks ago it turned down prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s plea for help militarily to oust the militant Sunni group with known connections to the Al-Qaeda occupying the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in the Anbar province.

Elsewhere, after a decade of hard fighting in Afghanistan the Americans, longtime experts in “cut and run” tactics, are allowing a condominium of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban—the latter headed by the enigmatic Mullah Fazlullah operating out of the North Waziristan mountains—to displace in slow stages the legally elected government in Kabul and, simultaneously, to create sustained turmoil and dissension inside Pakistan in a bid to take over an already fragile nuclear armed state—everyone’s worst nightmare. Of course, Washington originally seeded this problem which is turning out to be catastrophic for South Asia. It exploited religion to rile the Afghans into fighting the Soviet Union-supported communist regime in Kabul, armed and motivated the Afghan mujahideen who, post-Russian withdrawal, in their new avatar as the Taliban spawned extremist outfits drawing disgruntled Muslims from everywhere, especially Central Asia and as far away as Chechnya. They are creating havoc in Pakistan and Indian Kashmir, and spurring Sunni radicalism in the Islamic crescent from the Maghreb to Indonesia.

India was recently reminded that its concerns about terrorism emanating from Pakistan, for example, count for little in the American scheme of things. In the Consolidated Appropriations Bill 2014 approved by the US legislature the conditions attached to Pakistan getting the annual multi-billion dollar grant-in-aid broadly requires that Islamabad only ensure that the Afghan Taliban under its control do not harass the retreating US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and that the Pakistan Army don’t usurp power. Moreover, while Washington is anxious that any terrorist threat to America incubating in the proliferating Saudi-funded madrassas within Pakistan be nipped in the bud, it doesn’t much care and is unwilling to throttle the menace before it assumes demonic proportions by pressing Riyadh to halt financial flows to them and by prompting the Islamabad Establishment and Pakistan Army to sever their patronage ties to 65 “Taliban groups” and lashkars active in that country.

Tokyo was likewise presented with more evidence by Washington that while Japan is central to its “rebalancing” in Asia in America’s direct rivalry with China, it would rather sit out any military clash Japan may have with China over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. It seems to have even bought Beijing’s line that visits by the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine, revered by the Japanese people as the repository of the souls of the dead in past military campaigns, was avoidable provocation. In the event, Tokyo finally appears determined to look out for itself, and is amending its “peace Constitution” to legitimate “collective self-defence”.

It is the wayward and “unreliable America” then that contextualises the discussion between Abe, who’ll be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations, and his retiring Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, about how best and quickly to operationalise comprehensive military cooperation between the two nations. Collective self-defence is precisely what Singh should fruitfully discuss in detail with Abe and the Indian armed services and the Japanese Self Defence Force ought to begin implementing in earnest. It is preferable to New Delhi and Tokyo, ever mindful of Beijing’s sensitivities, holding back on joint Indo-Japanese military activity to cramp China’s strategic and maritime options in Asia.

India has a more immediate issue at hand vis-a-vis the US. Under pressure from the Manmohan Singh government, the ministry of external affairs is compromising on the strict reciprocity predicate ordinarily dictating equitable interstate relations. Indian ambassador S Jaishankar is concocting a deal with US deputy secretary of state William Burns whereby not only is there no hint of an US apology for the Devyani Khobragade incident, but in exchange for Khobragade and two previous Indian consul-generals in New York who had servant trouble being able to enter America freely in the future without fear of prosecution, the status quo ante favouring the US diplomats stationed in India is restored. They will once again enjoy immunities and privileges—unhindered access and exemption from body searches at airports, income tax-free status for family members working illegally, leniency in import of victuals, etc.—unavailable on a reciprocal basis to Indian diplomats posted in America. This is unacceptable.

New Delhi has buckled under the threat of prosecution of Indian diplomats and accepted the US minimum wage standard. The principle of sanctity of Indian embassies/consulates as sovereign territory and carryings-on within them as sovereign matter has thus been breached, mocking the foundational principle of sound bilateral ties. It will confirm the US view of India as a bully-able country. This will only weaken the frame of the strategic partnership the US is keen to forge with India, and doesn’t bode well for the “rebalancing” in Asia both countries are engaged in.

[Published 24th January 2014 in New Indian Express at http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinion/America-an-Unreliable-Partner/2014/01/24/article2016305.ece

Posted in Afghanistan, Asian geopolitics, Central Asia, China, China military, Geopolitics, Great Power imperatives, guerilla warfare, India's strategic thinking and policy, Indian Air Force, Indian Army, Indian Navy, indian policy -- Israel, Iran and West Asia, Japan, Northeast Asia, Pakistan, Pakistan military, South Asia, Strategic Relations with South East Asia & Far East, Strategic Relations with the US & West, Terrorism, United States, US. | 10 Comments

Fizzling out?

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Bharat Karnad

The Aam Admi Party (AAP) is on a sharp parabolic curve — rising spectacularly, reaching its apogee with the assumption of power in Delhi Union Territory, and then going into a free-fall and apparently precipitous decline — all inside of three weeks! The crucial misjudgement by the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal being his decision to adopt agitation as mode of governance. It was a novel approach but showed up the paucity of AAP’s political skills set. If taking to the streets is all AAP knows and running the government is taken by it to mean impromptu ministerial decisions on the run, then the results could have been predicted early — the loss of a major chunk of its support base — the middle class — in the population. Thank God, Kejriwal terminated his agitation at the moment he did because another day of the dharna and the army would have come willy-nilly into the picture. The army would have tried gently to push the agitators out of the central verge, failing which followed its instincts and forcibly removed them. Any resistance would have been absolutely disastrous, one can imagine how the situation would have gotten quickly out of hand. The country was spared that.

The Middle Class may be selfish and self-centered conflating its good with the government’s and the nation’s, but it rears back frightened when confronted by a near breakdown in law and order triggered by the AAP Chief Minister’s dharna tactics. Even the APP voters from the shanties and slums looking forward to the instant goodies promised them by Kejriwal — the daily wagers and those who rely on the rickety public transport as conveyance must have been dismayed by the turn the agitation outside Rail Bhavan was taking. Loss of earnings is serious matter for people living hand to mouth, and order matters more to the less well-off than the middle class that has the means to somehow manage when police mass to prevent AAP possible excesses, thereby living the city to the tender mercies of criminals and habitual law breakers.

Chaos is anathema to orderly society and the middle class especially is shaken by the evidence of AAP-instigated actions leading to the situation degenerating into chaos and the fear of this spreading and engulfing the city — which was a real possibility. This is a turning point as AAP takes stock of its support base and realizes it has lost the aam admi. Anarchy is not another novel means of governance as Kejriwal trumpeted.

A permanent revolution — as the Cultural Revolution piloted by Mao showed in China — makes for perennial disorder, not progress, and even less for meeting the needs of the people. Now that AAP, as expected, is plunging in the public’s estimation, national politics can get back on the rails. Congress Party has taken a collateral hit with cynical support to AAP to form a govt in Delhi. There’s a price to pay for micalculation and AAP an the Congress will pay it. Advantage Modi and the BJP.

Posted in Asian geopolitics, China, civil-military relations, Indian Army, Indian Politics, Internal Security, society, South Asia | 2 Comments