UKRAINE: TIME TO CUT A DEAL?

On 7 May, after months of unrelenting
economic, military and propaganda
campaigns against his fraternal
neighbour, Ukraine, President Putin
suddenly signalled what appeared to be a
change in direction. He called on the “pro-
Russian” separatists in the eastern
Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and
Luhansk to postpone their referendums on
independence, and declared that the
presidential elections scheduled by Kiev for
25 May were a “step in the right direction.”
Earlier, on 28 April, Russian defence
minister Sergey Shoigu had claimed that the
Russian forces deployed on the Ukraine
border for months had returned to their
bases, a claim Putin repeated on 7 May. As
became clear in each case, no such
withdrawals were observed by anyone able to
do so, which seemed to suggest that any
softening of the Kremlin’s line on Ukraine
was an optical illusion.
Seemingly in defiance of Putin’s calls for a
postponement, the separatists in Donetsk and
Luhansk held their hastily scheduled
“referenda” on 11 May, with slightly farcical
claims of huge turnouts and Soviet-style
electoral margins in their favour. But their
appeal for Moscow to annex them, as it had
earlier annexed Crimea, elicited no response.
Putin has since declared again his readiness
to accept the results of the Ukrainian
presidential poll and repeated his assurance
that the troops would be withdrawn; and this
time there are indications that the troops may
indeed be embarking on a draw-back (though
many of the units could be redeployed within
a couple of days).
Despite the more conciliatory tone, Putin has
continued to make some ominous
pronouncements: renewed threats of another
gas-price war to force Ukraine to pay the
abrupt increase Gazprom is demanding;
claims that Ukraine is in the grip of a civil
war; and the polite suggestion that his close
friend Viktor Medvedchuk (Putin is godfather
of one of Medvedchuk’s children), the most
pro-Kremlin politician in the Ukrainian
political class, should become the mediator
between the Kiev government and the
“rebels” in the eastern provinces. But to
Western capitals, desperately eager to find a
solution to the problem that would relieve
them of any need for sterner measures, any
change of tone will be grasped as a sign that
Putin is finally ready to “de-escalate.”
Putin is not known for any propensity to take
a backward step, much less sudden about-
turns. In the matter of Ukraine, he has shown
a particular determination to prevail from
well before the military operation against
Crimea. So what are we to make of Putin’s
unexpected amiability? What may have
brought it about, how genuine is it, and how
long may it last? Have his objectives changed,
or is this merely a tactical shift?
he heavy media coverage of the
Ukrainian issue recently has probably
made its fundamental grammar and
vocabulary more familiar to the general
reader. But to judge by commonly recurring
omissions and misconceptions in public
discussions some salient facts might be worth
recalling.
While Russians and Ukrainians are ethnically,
linguistically, religiously and culturally close,
there are important differences between
them, only partly flattened out by tsarist and
Soviet conditioning. And those differences are
apparent within Ukraine itself. For historical
reasons, central and western Ukraine have
come under the influence over centuries of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland. A
substantial minority concentrated in the west
are Uniate Catholics by belief or tradition,
whose homelands had never formed part of
Russia before the end of the second world
war. Though Orthodoxy is the religion, at
least nominally, of the overwhelming
majority, there is an important difference
between the followers of the Moscow and Kiev
Patriarchates of the Orthodox Church. The
Moscow Patriarchate has always been
favoured by Moscow and its Ukrainian
loyalists, but the more nationalist Kiev
Patriarchate may actually have a slightly
larger following within Ukraine. Their
relationship is troubled. There is also a much
smaller Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox
Church.
Moscow rulers have often sought to suppress
Ukrainian language and culture. The Soviet
leadership in its early years was more liberal
in such matters, but for much of its
subsequent history it was very oppressive.
Even since Ukraine became an independent
state, Russia has refused to tolerate more than
the most minimal cultural facilities for the
millions of Ukrainians living in Russia. In
Moscow-ruled Ukraine, by contrast, Russian
enjoyed a privileged status and the use of
Ukrainian was informally or formally
tabooed. Independent Ukraine has taken
modest steps to improve the relative position
of Ukrainian within the state, which has
tended to anger some Russian speakers.
But the use of Russian is under no serious
threat, and repeated suggestions in the media
that the government that emerged after the
Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square)
protests wants to ban Russian are
misinformed. The bill in question, though
politically foolish given its timing, was aimed
not at “banning” Russian, a totally impossible
objective, but rather at restoring greater
official status to Ukrainian in an attempt to
rebalance very partially the wrongs of the
past. It was, anyway, very quickly vetoed by
provisional president Oleksandr Turchynov
and withdrawn.
The Soviet period was a series of demographic
disasters for most of the country. But it was
worst of all for the “ bloodlands” of Ukrainian,
Belarusian, Baltic and Polish settlement. Per
capita, Jews, but also Ukrainians and
Belarusians, suffered far more than Russians.
Slips of the tongue equating Soviet citizens
with “Russians” and referring to the twenty-
five or thirty million Russian dead in the
second world war serve to erase a universe of
suffering sustained in the west of the country,
in which Stalin’s regime was partly complicit
as a perpetrator. Similarly, in the 1930s
Ukrainians were among those national
groups, together with Jews and Poles, who
suffered disproportionately in the purges.
The early Bolshevik leadership had
encouraged strong development of the
languages and culture of the national
minorities, partly to ensure victory over the
Whites in the civil war of 1917–22. The
Ukrainian communist leadership of the 1920s
was active in this respect. From the late
1920s, however, Stalin brutally reversed this
policy to favour Russian, and the whole
emergent generation of Ukrainian national
communist leaders and cultural activists was
decimated.
Worst of all, in the process of brutally
collectivising agriculture in Ukraine (which
had been the breadbasket of the empire), and
then extracting grain from it for export, Stalin
inflicted terrible casualties. The culmination
was the artificial famine of 1932–33, which
led to mass starvation and innumerable acts
of cruelty aimed at preventing the victims
from receiving any relief. Historians debate
both the numbers of dead and the Kremlin’s
precise intent in manufacturing this holocaust
(known in Ukrainian as holodomor ), but
whether it was genocide by some definition or
not, at least three million Ukrainians perished
(and some estimates go higher).
The Soviet regime suppressed discussion of
these monstrous events and succeeded in
largely obliterating them not only from the
public domain, but also to a considerable
degree from popular awareness. The Russians
who were encouraged to migrate into
depopulated parts of Ukraine have even less
awareness of the past. Through discreet and
indeed hazardous family communication,
Ukrainians have retained at least a
fragmented folk memory of the great famine,
which naturally doesn’t always dispose them
positively to Moscow. For its part, the Putin
regime greatly resented pro-Western
president Viktor Yushchenko’s attempts to
restore a basic historical understanding
among Ukrainian citizens of the holodomor ,
which was at odds with Putin’s policy of
progressively rehabilitating Stalin and his
works. When Viktor Yanukovych succeeded
Yushchenko in 2010, he moved quickly to de-
emphasise the issue and de-fang it of any
anti-Russian accents, a difficult exercise in
the circumstances.
Until recently, despite the burden of history,
Ukrainians and Russians have continued to
get on reasonably well with one another in
Ukraine. Ukrainians living side by side with
Russians in other parts of the post-Soviet
sphere mingle easily, intermarry with
Russians, and often adopt Russian ethnicity
and the Russian language. The same has been
largely true of Ukraine itself. It was not the
case, Kremlin propaganda notwithstanding,
that ethnic Russians faced any threats of
persecution from Ukrainian fellow-citizens in
the east of Ukraine before the invasion of
Crimea. At most they might experience
irritation at the public use of what they
regarded as an inferior but basically
comprehensible rustic dialect in public places
or on street signs.
The main resentments of Russians in eastern
Ukraine centred on the fact that the central
government in Kiev, controlled by the
Donetsk-based Yanukovych clan, had done
nothing to improve their standard of living,
rather the reverse. Meanwhile, as they were
keenly aware, he and his notorious familia
were dipping into the public purse right up to
their armpits. Because of the cultural and
historical differences between the east and
west of the country, some political
polarisation also existed, reflected in differing
regional levels of support for the main
political parties.
But the differences were less than virulent,
and in the twenty-odd years since
independence they had been successfully
managed by elections that tended to produce
regular alternation between eastern-oriented
and western-oriented presidents. Eastern
Ukrainians were mostly unenthusiastic about
the pro-Western Orange revolution of 2004–
05 and the Maidan protests of 2013–14,
though a substantial minority in the east,
including Russians and Russian-speakers,
supported them as movements that might
improve their standards of living and
increase probity in public life.
In fact, there was a degree of structural
pluralism in Ukrainian society, which
contributed to the retention of more
democratic freedoms in the country than in
neighbouring Russia or Belarus, for example.
In that sense, Ukraine was a more democratic
polity than any other part of the former
Soviet Union, apart from the Baltic states and
Georgia, and remains so despite the current
artificially induced turbulence.

THE SEISMIC SHIFTS BEHIND THE COUP IN THAILAND

Thailand has been in crisis since an
armed forces coup overthrew prime
minister Thaksin Shinawatra in
September 2006, ultimately forcing
him into exile. Although his opponents used
fair means and foul to keep various
incarnations of Thaksin’s party out of
power, his sister Yingluck Shinawatra
became Thailand’s first female prime
minister following a resounding electoral
victory for Thaksin’s Pheu Thai (For Thai)
party in 2011.
But Yingluck’s government started to unravel
in 2013 when it attempted a mass amnesty for
those charged with corruption or other
crimes. It was clear the amnesty was designed
to allow Thaksin to return from exile.
Opposition to the government surged, further
fuelled by the failure of a populist rice-
subsidy scheme that not only provided
opportunities for corruption but also proved
so costly that the government couldn’t honour
its payments. Yingluck faces corruption
charges over the scheme.
On 7 May, the Constitutional Court removed
Yingluck office for her role in trying to install
the brother of Thaksin’s former wife as police
chief. She pleaded, disingenuously, that he
was no longer family. The divorce was a
political convenience, of course, and
Yingluck’s manoeuvre shows just how
ingrained oligarchic politics is in Thailand.
In the end, the evolving crisis led to another
coup on 22 May. Intriguingly, it has met with
much less opposition than anyone expected.
o understand the crisis in Thai politics,
it’s important to examine the
momentous changes Thai society has
undergone in recent decades. If certain
key institutions, such as the monarchy, have
not yet been transformed, then they are about
to be. Old relationships have been
destabilised; new ones are not yet in place. It
is this setting – the perfect opening for a
populist demagogue like Thaksin – that
explains much more about contemporary
Thailand than the grossly simplified image of
a struggle between the “rural poor” and the
urban middle-class and elites.
I have been watching events unfold from
neighbouring Laos, a perfect observation
point. Thailand’s northeast region, just across
the border, accounts for 31 per cent of the
total population. Commonly called Isan (and
its people, Khon Isan), the region is mostly
ethnic Lao, and has been a major base of
support for Thaksin. According to
anthropologist Charles Keyes, the region’s
ethno-regional identity and solidarity has
made the local people into a formidable
political force. But, as Keyes also shows, Isan
has been transformed out of sight since he
first visited fifty years ago.
When Keyes and his wife Jane went to central
Isan in 1963–64 it was still the poorest region
in Thailand. Self-sufficient peasants battled
with irregular rainfall and poor soils to make
ends meet. The local geography conspired
against commercial agriculture, and so men
had begun heading to Bangkok for work in
construction or other menial jobs, especially
during the dry season. When Thailand
became a playground for US troops on leave
from the war in Vietnam, women headed to
the urban bars and brothels for work.
American aid drove roads through the region
and sped up the circulation of people between
city and countryside. Drawn out of their rural
isolation, the migrants came into contact with
others like themselves from across Isan,
fomenting an ethno-regional sentiment.
Together, they became aware of the wealth
differences between Isan and Bangkok.
For residents of Bangkok, many of whom were
of Sino-Thai descent, these dark, short-
statured people in simple clothing were ban
nok, “country bumpkins” whose dialect was
crude to their ears. When TV came along they
became the fall guys in Thai comedies, and in
everyday life they had to suffer the contempt
of those above them.
Keyes describes how the people of this region
became Thai through an expansion of the
national bureaucracy, the centralising of the
Buddhist sangha, and especially – since the
1930s – schools that educated both boys and
girls. They learned to use the central Thai
language and its various polite forms and,
especially from the 1950s on, they learned to
love the Thai king, Bhumiphol Adulyadej.
Essentially, it was good old-fashioned nation
building, and similar processes occurred for
every region, including Bangkok, where the
Chinese, for instance, needed to be turned
into Thais.
Migration in search of work, especially
overseas, transformed the lives of Isan’s
peasants to the point where they became rural
entrepreneurs. “By the early twenty-first
century,” writes Keyes, “non-agricultural
work had become the most significant source
of cash income for villagers. The money
villagers brought back from urban or overseas
work was increasingly invested not in
agriculture but in small enterprises such as
convenience stores, repair shops, and food
stalls as well as rice mills.” Importantly, it
was also used to pay for higher education for
children, of whom there were fewer now that
women were embracing birth control.
Thaksin’s power base is in the north, around
Chiang Mai, where the conditions suited full-
scale commercial farming. This, too, caused
migration from the countryside to the city
and upward mobility through education. The
north’s ethno-regional identity is strong –
they are known as Khon Muang – but because
their aristocracy had been seamlessly
absorbed by the Siamese state they are not
looked down on like the people of Isan.
Indeed, Thai soap operas are more likely to
romanticise old northern aristocratic life and
emulate its speech forms.
n one sense, what had been forming in
the Thai countryside by the time of
Thaksin’s rise in the late 1990s was a
rural entrepreneurial class determined to
better their lives and sweep away any
bureaucratic obstacles. Thaksin the mega-
entrepreneur played to this audience
perfectly, and his million-baht-per-village
loan scheme, alongside cheap universal
healthcare, won him unwavering support. The
majority of activists in the Red Shirt
movement are in their forties or older –
exactly the group that has made the transition
from scarcity to having tasted the good life.
Big, shiny cars are now ubiquitous on Isan’s
highways; as one Red Shirt follower said, “We
are not going back to riding motorcycles.”
This doesn’t quite fit with journalistic clichés
about the “rural poor.” In the same way,
bland assertions about the “Bangkok middle-
class” blur the changing urban landscape.
As its skyline shows, Bangkok has been
remade since 1980 by dramatic economic
growth. The city’s workforce has diversified
and middle-class occupations have grown
steeply. Labour shed by agriculture has
flowed into manufacturing, where the
workforce grew from 14 per cent of the total
in 1990 to 20 per cent in 2008. But white-
collar work grew even faster – from one-in-
five employees to almost one-in-three – and
within its ranks professionals and senior
white-collar workers grew fastest.
Even in Keyes’s rural village, 17 per cent of
children in 2005 had gone on from high
school to vocational colleges or (in 4 per cent
of cases) to university, and 22 per cent had
finished high school. Because most of them
sought white-collar jobs, often in the capital,
migrants played an important role in the
growth of the middle class in Bangkok. Many
are upwardly mobile, socially and culturally,
and have learned to speak flawless central
Thai. They dress for and aspire to an affluent
urban lifestyle. An important indicator of the
dislocations involved in cultural change,
however, is the fact that the Bangkok
metropolitan area has one of the highest non-
marriage rates for women in their twenties
and thirties of any city in Southeast Asia.
For these upwardly mobile new members of
the middle class, the plebeian style adopted by
the Red Shirts is exactly what they are
running away from. Of course, many of them
aren’t politically active, but others have
joined the anti-Thaksin forces because they
agree with the middle-class critique of the
government corruption epitomised by the
Thaksin years. No doubt these migrants are
part of the reason why the Thai press speaks
of bitter divisions in families over politics.
Over this same period, Thailand’s elite has
also changed radically. The Asian financial
crisis of 1997 hit Thailand especially hard,
sending many old business families to the
wall. The boom years had been built on major
inflows of foreign investment and a globalised
economy. Close relations with the Thai state
had once provided local capitalists with very
comfortable incomes, but now globalisation
had destabilised the cosy arrangements. In
fact, Thaksin’s wealth in the
telecommunications sector had initially been
built on a deal that gave him a monopoly. Yet
he was part of a new breed of Thai capitalists
who thought globally and aimed to take over
the government and run the state as if it was
a business. As Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris
Baker write in their superb biography,
“Thaksin’s project was built around a fatal
confusion – between business and politics,
country and company, Shin Corp and
Thailand. Throughout his career, politics and
profit-making were entwined around one
another like a pair of copulating snakes.”
After the election of his Thai Rak Thai (Thai
Love Thai) party in January 2001, Thaksin’s
already rich business and family network
went into a feeding frenzy.
The monarchy, headed by enigmatic King
Bhumiphol Adulyadej, is also about to change
irreversibly. A conservative who believes in
rule by righteous individuals, the king has
done deals with military dictators to
strengthen the monarchy but has never been
a thug himself. His preference, as much as
one can discern it, is for a form of guided
democracy. He has been an enormously
popular and respected figure for many
decades. But he became physically enfeebled
just as the political turmoil began, and the
Queen has since been crippled by a stroke,
and so now the royal couple are marionettes
of the Privy Council.
The heir, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, has
none of his father’s political talent or
charisma. He is believed to have had dealings
with Thaksin, although it is unclear what these
amount to. In late November last year,
according to the Economist, “the King signed a
decree mandating that all decisions by the
powerful defence council were subject to veto
by the Crown Prince,” but whether
Vajiralongkorn really wields this power is
moot. With the passing of King Bhumiphol,
the personalised networks that have been
spun around him for so long will unravel and
Vajiralongkorn will find himself presiding
over a weakened monarchy. It will be a big
blow for conservatives.

AFGHANISTAN, US AND THE PEACE PROCESS

If the rise in violence this month is any mark of the year
that is to be, then we can conclude that 2014 will turn
out be an ominous year for Afghans. The winter season
in Afghanistan, which tends to witness a reduction in
fighting, has in fact faced a sharp rise in violence,
shocking many in Afghanistan. In Kabul alone there
have been several attacks, in and around the fortified
diplomatic enclave, targeting both local and foreign
security personnel, government and military
installations. Many believe this to be a glimpse of what
is yet to come, as Afghanistan gets ready to hold its
third Presidential elections in April 2014.
US Lt General Mark Milley has predicted that this trend
is likely to continue into 2014 with insurgents
targeting. For many locals, this scenario has reinforced
their anxieties concerning the prospects for 2014 being a
pivotal year, marking the end of the security transition
process, withdrawal of international troops, and
handover of all political, security and development
responsibilities to the Afghan leadership. While the
challenges to peace and security are many, the
solutions however are extremely limited and difficult to
reach in the time-lines that have been set. One such
mechanism has been the Afghan peace and
reconciliation programme (or peace process) which was
launched in 2010. This process envisioned political
means to facilitate military measures for reconciliation
and reintegration of insurgents through talks and
negotiations. This process was to assist the security
transition process and set the stage for the handover of
all responsibilities from international to Afghan
ownership by the end of 2014. However, the lack of
achievements coupled with consistent setbacks and
growing obstacles have done little to set the foundation
needed to ensuring peace and stability post-2014. With
the prospects for reaching a peace deal with the
insurgency almost next to none, many are left
wondering what to expect from it in the post-2014
period.
The Afghan peace process is a two-tiered initiative with
a reintegration and a reconciliation pillar, both of which
have been implemented simultaneously. The
reintegration pillar has been implemented at the sub-
national level where foot soldiers are enticed to
reintegrate and take advantages of the financial
incentives provided by the ‘Afghanistan Peace and
Reintegration Programme’. The reconciliation pillar on
the other hand has been implemented at the national
and regional levels where the Taliban leadership has
been approached to participate in official channels of
communication with the Afghan government in the
hopes of starting a negotiation process that could lead
to a peace deal. Thus far the Afghan government has
been able to reintegrate 7,375 foot soldiers and local
commanders, making reintegration a relatively
successful programme, whereas reconciliation efforts
have consistently hit roadblocks with no major
achievements to date.
The Afghan government and its international partners
have tried to win over the top tier of the insurgency by
employing several trust-building mechanisms. These
include the release of Taliban prisoners by the Afghan
government, removal of UN sanctions and blacklist
against former Taliban members, the creation of a
political address for senior-level Taliban commanders for
their participation in mainstream politics, allowing
representatives of the insurgency to participate in track
II meetings abroad, offering Taliban and other armed
groups non-elected positions and opportunities to be
included into the power structure of the state. In
response, the Taliban have increased their attacks
across Afghanistan, continued to engage in
indiscriminate killings of civilians as reflected in the
spike in civilian casualties observed in 2013 which
marked the second highest recorded year since 2001,
targeted killings of Afghan government officials including
the High Peace Council members, parliamentarians, and
Afghan National Security Forces, continued
implementation of their draconian laws in areas under
their influence, refusal to enter peace talks with the
Afghan government whom they still refer to as a puppet
regime which has sustained their inflexibility in
accepting the ‘red-lines’ for entering negotiations (which
include accepting the Afghan Constitution and breaking
ties with international terrorists groups including al
Qaeda). While many experts will argue that the Taliban
have shown a steady willingness to negotiate over the
years, their actions however continue to denote another
tone.
It remains highly doubtful that the Afghan government
and its international backers will strike a peace deal
with the Taliban before 2014 or even in the immediate
post-2014 environment for that matter. This is not
surprising considering that in the past five years the
Afghan government and the international community
have been largely unsuccessful, and that such efforts
have become ever more daunting as the security
transition process enters its last tranche and the
international community is set to withdraw by the end
of 2014 irrespective of the scenario that emerges
between the Afghan government and the insurgency by
the end of this year. At the current juncture, ground
realities continue to display the Taliban to be in a
position of strength, a trend that has been strengthened,
instead of weakened, by the peace process.

INDIA-CHINA BILATERAL UNDER NARENDRA MODI

As the recently formed government in New Delhi is
settling down, the domestic and external policies to be
adopted are being worked out. While no specific blue
print is available, one can take the ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) election manifesto, speeches of the
BJP leaders during the election campaign, actions taken
over the past two weeks, the president’s address to the
Joint Session of the parliament on June 9, and the
contextual aspects into considerations to reflect on the
new government’s policies.
First, a common denominator among the
aforementioned aspects is Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and his team’s domestic rejuvenation agenda.
President Pranab Mukherjee’s address to the parliament
outlines the new government’s agenda for the next 60
months. A majority of the points in this address were
taken verbatim from the BJP manifesto. These include
enhancing the role of the manufacturing sector,
improving infrastructure projects across the country and
overall capacity build-up. It is clear, however, that for
this to happen, the foreign policy front needs to be re-
calibrated for the domestic agenda.
For instance, China had become the global
manufacturing hub thanks to its vigorous efforts over
the past two decades of reform and opening policies
and financial and technical assistance from Japan,
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the US. In this
regard, if Modi’s efforts are to transform India into a
“globally competitive manufacturing hub powered by
Skill, Scale and Speed,” he needs active cooperation of
all the countries mentioned above.
Additionally, for setting up “world class investment and
industrial regions, particularly along the Dedicated
Freight Corridors and Industrial Corridors,” the new
government needs Japan and the other countries.
Japan, in the recent period, committed nearly $92 billion
for the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and had also
been exploring the Bangalore-Chennai sector. While
clearances on land acquisition, environmental issues,
and labour reforms have delayed the project, more
thrust could be expected during Modi’s visit to Tokyo
next month.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in his meetings with
the Indian officials during his recent visit, reiterated
China’s interest in setting up industrial zones in five
states and Beijing’s participation in railway projects. For
Japan, China and the EU countries, the proposed
diamond quadrilateral project of high speed trains, the
Sagar Mala port project, substantially augmenting
electricity generation capacity, the national solar
mission, etc. are lucrative and mutually beneficial.
Concerns on foreign investments closer to the security
establishments of course, prevail in India; and so are
anti-dumping duties on solar panels from China.
There are several commonalities in the new
government’s path forward and that of China’s. Both
leaderships emphasise on nurturing innovation; urban
mission programmes; renewable sources of energy;
among others. China’s 12th Five Year Plan outlined
these aspects, and both could learn from each other’s
experience.
Second, several items on the Modi government’s
domestic agenda could provide for opportunities or even
frictions with neighbours in the longer run. The BJP
manifesto and the presidential address suggested to
building world-class infrastructure, including the
“expansion of railways in hilly states and Northeast
region, conservation of Himalayan ecology; creating 50
tourist circuits and establishing a Central University of
Himalayan Studies.” While China itself had expanded its
infrastructure projects towards its peripheries in Tibet
and Xinjiang – often intruding into disputed territories
between India and Pakistan in the Northern areas – it is
suspicious of the dual-use aspects of these initiatives
by India.
Third, during the election campaign – such as at
Pasighat in February this year when Modi chastised
China for its “expansionist mindset” – and subsequently,
it is clear that securing the borders will be among the
priorities of the new government’s agenda. This is
reflected in the appointments of Gen. (Retd) VK Singh,
and Kiran Rejiju, among others. The presidential address
simply stated that the new government will “strengthen
defence preparedness,” but there was no mention of
revising the nuclear doctrine as stated earlier by the
BJP manifesto.
Fourth, the BJP-led government clearly identified the
Indian neighbourhood as its foreign policy priority. It
was reflected in the invitation to the South Asian
neighbours to Prime Minister Modi’s swearing-in
ceremony, and in his choice of Thimphu for his maiden
foreign visit. The presidential address also identified
China, Japan, Russia, the US and the EU; but it is clear
that India’s relations with the US and Japan are poised
to be on the upswing. Specifically on China, the
address, while reiterating the “strategic and cooperative
partnership” agreement of 2005, stated that the new
government “will engage energetically” with Beijing.
Fifth, the BJP manifesto and the presidential address
clearly identified zero tolerance to internal disturbances,
including terrorist incidents. While in the foreign policy
domain, this issue is mainly directed towards Pakistan,
there was also a mention during Foreign Minister Yi’s
visit to New Delhi that counter-terrorism efforts
between India and China will be furthered. So far,
although both India and China have acceded to the UN
Security Council resolutions 1267, 1373 and 1540 on
counter-terrorism, no effective coordination or
cooperation exists between the two nations that identify
this issue as number one security challenge.

TEHRIK-I-TALIBAN PAKISTAN: THE MEHSUD BREAKAWAY

On 28 May, 2014, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
Wali-ur-Rehman faction led by Khan Said, also known
as Sajna, announced its separation from the TTP,
alleging that the current Mullah Fazlullah-led TTP is
bombing public places using fake names to avoid
responsibility. Sajna was a strong contender for the
TTP’s leadership after its former chief Hakimullah
Medsud was killed in a US drone attack in November
2013. The post was handed over to Mullah Fazlullah of
the Swati Taliban. Sajna was a key ally of former Wali-
ur-Rehman Mehsud, who originally led the breakaway
group and who was killed in a US drone strike in May
2013.
Why did the Split Take Place?
The TTP split into two factions after major group based
in South Waziristan quit the TTP and accused its
leadership of having fallen into invisible hands and
turning the TTP into an organisation providing safety to
criminals. Sajna’s spokesperson Azam Tariq said “We
announce separation from the TTP leadership which has
deviated from its path.” It accused the TTP leadership of
indulging in robberies, killing for money, extortion and
kidnapping for ransom with the help of a group of
conspirators, and said all these actions are considered
as un-Islamic.
The spokesman said the split too place because the
TTP under Fazlullah had become a den for extortionists,
and that it carried out blasts in mosques. This
assertion, however, does not hold much sincerity. This
is because the TTP has a long history of carrying out
blasts inside mosques, and their principal source of
income is extortion. Prima facie, it appears to be a case
of infighting for leadership roles.
Primarily, the split appears to have been a result of
tribal infighting for the leadership of the TTP. The TTP
has traditionally been a group of tribesmen from the
Mehsud clan, and Fazlullah is the first non-Mehsud
tribesman to have assumed leadership of the group.
Prior to joining the TTP, Fazlullah used to lead his own
militant organization called the Tehrik-i-Nafaz-e-
Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM). He was never inclined
to any negotiation and used to carry our ruthlessly
violent attacks.
The military's role in this split is unclear. Unlike the
Afghan Taliban, the TTP never took commands from the
Pakistani military. Their primary targets are the military
and law-enforcing agencies. Time and gain, the TTP
attacked military posts, taking some officials as
captives, and subsequently, killing them brutally. The
government’s failed attempt at negotiations with the
TTP is also among the key reasons for the ongoing
civil-military tension in Pakistan.
What are the Potential Implications?
It is yet to be seen how the splinter groups act in the
coming days. There is a likelihood of Fazlullah
regrouping the cadres of his former organization, the
TNSM. His seat of power was Swat valley, where he is
believed to command the loyalty of many of his
followers. Now, both the splinter groups might try to
assert their existence and relevance by carrying out
more attacks.
The military might try to take the advantage of the
ongoing infighting and mount serious offensives to
cause damage to the groups. The government might try
to engage in negotiations with Sajna’s group that
appears eager to hold talks. The consent of military to
such negotiations is very less.
According to the Pak Tribune, following the
aforementioned split, 13 militants were killed in a
bombing and gun-fighting in North Waziristan last
week. 56 people have been killed in the violence that
erupted on 1 June between Sajna’s supporters and
those of the late Hakimullah Mehsud group in North
Waziristan.
The Wali-ur-Rehman Mehsud group is likely to emerge
stronger after the division because it enjoys the support
of both the Punjabi Taliban, and al-Qaeda. This
breakaway may end the centrality of the TTP and lead
to further disintegration. However, the government has
not commented on the split and it is yet to be seen as
to how this would affect the government’s peace
initiative.

POST AFGHAN ELECTION: END OF THE ROAD FOR TALIBAN?

Undoubtedly the elections in Afghanistan last week to
elect the next President is historical. According to initial
reports, more than 60 percent of the 12 million
electorate took part in the elections; given the security
environment and the ability of the State to organize
polling booths in every district, 60 percent is a
phenomenal statistics for the Afghan democracy.
Does the positive vote mean end of the road for Taliban
and to radical politics through threat and fear? Initial
responses to the elections from the US to our own
region have been as a vote against the Taliban, or a
sign of its decline. But is it not early to make an
assertion whether the Taliban would become irrelevant
after this election? Does militancy, such as that of the
Taliban, really decline and disappear? If it does, under
what conditions? What has been the success story in
our region so far?
True, the elections were not as violent, as it was
expected. There were few high profile attacks, including
the use of suicide bombs immediately before the
elections. The horror in the Serena Hotel in Kabul and
the suicide attacks in one of the offices of the election
commission immediately before the elections did raise a
fear that the process would be violent. Few polling
booths were in fact closed due to security situation; and
in many places, especially in the southern and eastern
districts, where the Taliban is having its base, post
election interviews do inform that the threat from the
Taliban against voting did work.
By no stretch of imagination one could make an
argument that the Taliban is weak enough not to carry
out targeted attacks, or general bomb blasts anywhere
in Afghanistan. In fact, there were days in the recent
past of Afghanistan, which were even more violent than
what one had witnessed during the day of election last
week. Though the Afghan national security forces
(ANSF) are better trained and equipped today, the
security is not fool proof that the Taliban could not
penetrate.
Perhaps, this is a calibrated strategy by the Taliban. A
section within Afghanistan and outside was not sure
about the election outcome; they believed this one
would also be as farcical and fraudulent as the previous
one in 2009. With a deeply polarized society and strong
ethnic differences between the major communities, many
considered this election would be contentious and
inconclusive, leading only to further political instability.
So the calculation within the Taliban and their
supporters elsewhere could have been to wait and
watch; if the election process results in political
instability, it would only strengthen the case of the
Taliban and undermine the democratic process and a
transition funded and supported by the “West”. So why
use violence and undermine a process that is already
seen as faulty and unproductive? Perhaps, this was a
strategy in keeping a low profile.
Second reason for Taliban’s relative restraint during the
elections is to wait, watch and choose a time and place
of their own choice. The Taliban is well aware that this
is only the first round; if none of the candidates get the
desired percentage of votes, there would be a second
round amongst the top two. Taliban could very well
target the process at that time; perhaps, this could be a
future wait and watch strategy by the Taliban, as it did
immediately after the international security forces landed
in Afghanistan in 2001-02. They disappeared into the
mountains, only to engage in a guerrilla warfare, that
too successfully. Perhaps, this time the Taliban wanted
to gauge the response of the people, and pursue an
appropriate course of action. The fact that the election
process in the South and East were stunted does
highlight that its base is intact.
To conclude, it is too early to write off the Taliban. Few
high profile suicide attacks in Kabul would change the
entire context and the discourse.
The larger question and challenge for Afghanistan and
the rest of South Asia is – do militancy of the Taliban
variety decline and disappear? Or they only decay but
only mutate further? Even if the second round of
election is free of violence and results in a new
President taking over, what is the likely response of
Taliban in the near future?
In South Asia – we have few examples – the NSCN in
India’s Northeast, Khalistan movement in Punjab, the
LTTE in Sri Lanka and the Baloch insurgency in
Pakistan. The NSCN today has become a fractionalized
movement, and the level of corruption in the State has
only made an underground movement into a semi-over
ground but parallel government. In Punjab, the State
used force on the one hand, but politically co-opted the
parties and ensured there is better governance; as a
result, the Khalistan movement in Punjab today is all
but dead, except occasional posters and periodic
discussions.
In Balochistan, Pakistan used brutal force to undermine
the Baloch national movements more than three times
since independence. Neither there was better
governance, nor the local population got co-opted into
the mainstream. Same was the case in Sri Lanka as
well; the government towards the end of Eelam War,
used brute force to physically annihilate the LTTE.
Though violence has come to an end, the Sri Lankan
Tamils are still far from being satisfied.
Which way would the Taliban insurgency turn into in
Afghanistan after the elections? This is an important
question not only for Afghanistan, but also for the entire
regional security. Much would depend on how the
Afghan led and Afghan owned transition takes place at
the ground level, in terms of improving the situation of
the Afghan people.
Though the ANSF may be better trained and well
equipped to take on the Taliban militarily, the military
equation between the State and the Taliban is not going
to be the decisive factor. Political stability and social
reconstruction by the Afghan government, an inclusive
economic growth along with equitable distribution of
development in urban and rural areas would become the
decisive factor. Though corruption is also an issue, in
the case of Afghanistan, the critics are exaggerating the
case; this is a common issue for the entire South Asia
and accusing Afghanistan alone may not provide the
right answers.
So the question where would the Taliban go – is not in
the hands of Mullah Omar, but with the next President,
and the rest of international community including
Pakistan. If there is better governance, equitable
development and inclusive growth, the Taliban will be
relegated into an insignificant militant group that would
eventually mutate into splinter groups, like the multiple
Mujahideen groups did after the so called jihad against
the Russians in the 1980s. If the international
community lose interest in Afghanistan and allows the
positive developments to go down the drain, along with
ignoring any Pakistani ingress, it would only strengthen
the hands of the Taliban. Worse, if the next government
fail to deliver, support for the Taliban would only
increase. Not by design, but by default.
The success and failure of the Taliban, is not in the
hands of Mullah Omar. It rests with the next President
and his ability to take Afghanistan forward.

IRAN'S NUCLEAR DEAL: REGIONAL SHADOWS

There are indications of further substantive progress in
P5 plus Germany’s negotiations with Iran in the latest
round in Vienna. Iran has shown readiness and given
plans to change the design of the Arak research reactor
to drastically reduce plutonium in its spent fuel. While
Iran has no reprocessing plant and the Arak reactor is
still under construction, the plutonium production risk
has been one of the main sticking points about Iran’s
nuclear programme. The comprehensive agreement
which the negotiators hope to achieve by July 2014
looks distant still. It will need considerable hard work
and has 50-60 per cent chance of happening by the
deadline; going by the comments of the Chinese and
Russian negotiators after the latest round.
Iran’s stance as revealed in statements by the Iranian
foreign minister Javad Zarif remains consistent with its
line since November 2013, that it will take steps to
reduce the enrichment level, output and stocks at both
locations alongside agreed improvement in transparency
and access required for IAEA’s close monitoring. While
the Iranian part of the deal is focused on its nuclear
programme the other side, particularly the US
academics, congressmen and the Israelis have shown
differing views of what should constitute an acceptable
agreement to reward Iran with lifting of sanctions. On
the one hand, despite the heightened tensions about
Ukraine, Russian negotiators seem to show that there is
no impact on their (constructive) role in the P5-plus-
one process. On the other, there is a rising domestic
chorus in the US putting pressure on its negotiators
about the full range of demands from Iran in these
negotiations.
In recent weeks, more and more concern has come up
front that mere nuclear concessions by Iran should not
earn it the desired sanctions relief. The regional impact
of Iran’s role and policies has loomed large in recent
weeks as evident in commentaries about the visit of
President Obama to Saudi Arabia, the Middle East
shuttle diplomacy of Kerry, the role of Hizbullah and the
situation in Syria since the failure of Geneva II.
An article in the Washington Post co-authored by Gen
Petraeus on 10 April about these negotiations with Iran
goes to the extent of putting the clock back on the
entire contour of the Iran imbroglio over the past two
decades. Petraeus and his co-author stress that “a
successful nuclear deal with Iran could result in the
United States and its partners in the Middle East facing
a better-resourced and, in some respects, more
dangerous adversary”. This, they argue, is ‘because
sanctions relief would bolster Tehran’s capability to
train, finance and equip its terrorist proxies’ and
therefore ‘sanctions related to terrorism should remain
in place’ and should even be enhanced. Another very
exhaustive paper by well known US non-proliferation
scholar, Robert Einhorn, spells out the strict
requirements of a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran
– while stating at the outset that he does not at all
address the sanctions relief part of the bargain. Israel’s
position on the accords since November 2013 has been
of stout negation of anything good in this process since
it would only relax the hold of tight sanctions on Iran
and remove its isolation – and with no sight of reliable
nuclear guarantees.
Ironically, if such arguments receive greater credence,
they would reinforce Iran’s innate fears from the very
beginning that the whole nuclear issue has been raked
up with ulterior regional aims. This line was probably
felt in Tehran particularly starkly in 2002-03 in the
context of a similar case against Iraq. Hence perhaps
the concessions that Iran was offering in its talks with
the European-3 (Germany, France and UK) in October
2003. The whole point of the relaxation of the situation
after Rouhani’s election in 2013 and subsequent back
channel progress between the US and Iran was to reach
a breakthrough with a limited focus on Iran’s nuclear
programme and sanctions relief. Iran is on record
stating that the deal will be dead if sanctions persist.
In a worsening situation, if these talks founder, Iran’s
regional concerns too might come to the fore and pull
back its leadership from the statesmanship
demonstrated over the past year. The reports about
Saudi Arabia’s mounting unease with prospects of Iran
emerging from the cold and speculations about Riyadh’s
drastic review of its strategic posture are significant.
Mutual apprehension between Iran and Saudi Arabia and
suspicions about the likely Saudi nuclear outsourcing to
Pakistan are likely to enormously complicate the
situation. Iran-Pakistan strains have been skillfully
managed so far despite provocations arising out of
sectarian strife in the region, the reported role of
Pakistani regular or retired troops in Bahrain, and recent
stories about Pakistani jihadis having joined the
opposition in Syria.
Sartaj Aziz has hinted at Pakistan’s mediation between
Saudi Arabia and Iran, and going by past history of
Pakistan’s deft and uncanny ways in this regard, it
might be difficult to rule such stuff out in the unfolding
scenario of leverages and diplomacy. Is nuclear-armed
Pakistan thus again on the threshold of a big role post
the US exit from Afghanistan, with its human resources
deployed in Syria and who knows where else, and go-
between diplomacy elsewhere? Are the straws in the
wind about the likely relaxation of US (and NSG)
strictures on nuclear Pakistan integral to any larger
pattern, overlooking the terrorism angle?

PERILS OF STRATEGIC NARCISSISM

China’s rise has powered an impulse to military growth
and unilateral intervention which in turn evokes
anxieties and resistance by players in the same strategic
milieu. The paradoxical effect is to undermine its own
strategic standing.
Historical Similitude
The Franco-German War of 1870 forms a watershed in
strategic thought. After the annexation of the North
German Confederacy in 1866, Bismarck sought the
Southern German States. He deceived the French into
believing that a Prussian Prince would rule from the
throne of Spain as a larger strategy of encirclement. By
July 1870, France was conned into a seemingly
‘inevitable’ war. Germany through superior military craft
and technology inflicted a crushing defeat on the host.
In the process the balance of power in Europe was
upset. The War, from deception, to alliances,
provocation of crisis and defeat of the enemy forcing a
one-sided negotiation could well have been scripted by
Kautilya or, more significant to this narrative, Sun Tzu.
German victory ushered a strategic orientation to
compete with the principal imperial power, Britain. Three
strategic objectives swayed the rivalry: military
dominance over land and sea; global economic and
technological ascendancy in tandem with unimpeded
access to primary resources; and thirdly, diplomatic and
political pre-eminence. By 1890, Germany had
established continental military dominance and a
warship-build programme that would challenge British
command of the seas. Economically, Germany had
already overtaken Britain in heavy industries and
innovation, capturing global markets and amassing
capital. This in turn muscled influence and superiority in
one sector after another.
A thirty-year projection in 1890 suggested that
Germany, home to the most advanced industries having
unimpeded access to resources of the earth, best
universities, richest banks and a balanced society,
would achieve her strategic goals and primacy. Yet
precisely thirty years later, Germany lay in ruins, her
economy in shambles, her people impoverished and her
society fragmented. By 1920, her great power
aspirations lay shamed between the pages of the Treaty
of Versailles. The real lesson was that Germany’s quest
for comprehensive power brought about a
transformation amongst the status-quo powers to align
against, despite traditional hostility (Britain and France;
Britain and Russia) to contain and defeat a rising
Germany that sought to upset the existing global order.
China in Perspective
Historical analogies are notorious in their inability to
stage encores, yet they serve as means to understand
the present.
Contemporary fears of nations are driven by four vital
traumas: perpetuation of the State; impact of internal
and external stresses; reconciliation with the
international system; lastly, the conundrum of whether
military power produces political outcomes. The
paradigm of the day is ‘uncertainty’ with the tensions of
multi-polarity, tyranny of economics, anarchy of
expectations and polarisation along religio-cultural lines
all compacted by globalisation.
If globalisation is a leveller to the rest of the world, to
China, globalisation is about State capitalism, central
supremacy, controlled markets, managed currency and
hegemony. The military was to resolve fundamental
contradictions that threatened the Chinese State.
Significantly, globalisation provided the opportunity to
alter the status-quo. Against this backdrop is the
politics of competitive resource access and denial,
which rationalised the use of force. It is in this
perspective that the rise of China must be gauged.
China’s dazzling growth is set to overtake the US. Its
rise has been accompanied by ambitions of global
leadership. This has in turn spurred an unparalleled
military growth. In this circumstance the race to garner
resources by other major economies is fraught. But the
real alarm is that China seeks to dominate international
institutions without bringing about a change of her own
morphology. China’s claims on the South and East
China Sea; handling of internal dissent; proliferatory
carousing with North Korea and Pakistan are cases in
point.
The emergence of China from its defensive maritime
perimeters into the Indian Ocean is seen as the coming
‘Third Security Chain’. Gone is Deng’s ‘power
bashfulness’; in its place is the conviction that the-
world-needs-China-more-than-China-the-world. Its
insistence on a bilateral policy to settle disputes even
denies the natural impulse of threatened States to seek
power balance in collective security.
The Sense in Cooperative Security Strategies
The standpoint that provocation and intimidation can
benefit China by persuading the victim to negotiate
outstanding issues from a conciliatory position is a
strategically mistaken one. India, Japan, Vietnam and
the South China Sea Littorals have demonstrated so.
Far from acquiescing they have chosen to resist,
adopting (in trend) a cooperative security strategy. This
includes deliberate negative response to favour Chinese
economic monopoly even when the benefits are obvious.
While individual action may be insignificant, the
aggregate of combined action may impede China’s
growth which in turn question’s strategic stability of
dispensation.
The parallels with the rise and fall of Germany is
complete when it is noted that China’s Defence White
Paper of April 2013 underscores the will to expand
offensive military capability in pace with economic
growth. Internationally, this can only be viewed as
acutely threatening. The delusion that menaced States
will not align to contend and defy China’s grand design
is a strategically misleading notion.

THE SECOND NUCLEAR AGE IN ASIA PACIFIC

President Obama’s West Point speech in 2014 reflected
a qualified fatigue with internationalist causes. The
recent Chinese comment on North Korean threats about
an impending test had an interesting term in cautioning
its difficult but important neighbour: that there is no
justification for a new nuclear test and that North Korea
should not do it. It implies some kind of acceptance of
the status quo. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Ye
during his Seoul visit continued to press for all in the six
party talks to persevere peacefully towards a
denuclearised peninsula. Visits and parleys among key
members of the six nations, with a focus on North
Korea, including Japan and North Korea, indicate
chances of a reactivation of the process. Meanwhile,
Russian anger against US and the G7 is being cited as
reason for Moscow’s new look at expanding relations
with Pyongyang. Russian support has expanded over
the past one year and particularly since the onset of the
crisis in Ukraine.
Russia has waved huge loans (US$10 billion) owed by
North Korea since the Soviet times and has offered US
$1 billion for a trans-Siberian railway project through
North to South Korea, received North Korean president
at the Sochi winter Olympics and sent a ministerial
delegation on a visit to Pyongyang to sign up on
important economic and trade cooperation. This
refashioning of ties between the Cold War allies might
add heft to Pyongyang’s hard stance for resumption of
the six party talks without preconditions. The G7
brandishing to Putin more sanctions for Russian actions
in Ukraine may have the effect of diminishing Russian
interest in tighter sanctions on North Korea. As for
Japan, a distinct possibility of Prime Minister Abe
making a visit to North Korea is being seen in the
announcement in the Diet by his foreign minister about
an upcoming official visit. Some headway has been
made in a meeting in Sweden in the direction of the
return of the Japanese kidnapped in North Korea and
Japan’s provision in turn for food supplies. This may
also be helpful to resume the six party talks.
The growing tensions in Southeast and East Asia
between China on one side and Japan, Vietnam and the
Philippines on the other are giving rise to new ways to
deal with China, but possibly without disturbing the
existing non-weapon status of the highly developed
Japanese and South Korean nuclear enterprises. The so
called break out fears, much talked about in the context
of Iran, do not come to fore because of the impeccable
record of Seoul and Tokyo with the IAEA. However,
China has begun to raise questions about the high
plutonium holdings of Japan. The reason advanced by
Japan, namely, plutonium to meet fuel requirements for
its breeder programme, may be less credible in the wake
of Fukushima-induced anti-nuclear sentiment. As for
Seoul, it appears inclined to try non-nuclear options like
building its own ground-based mid-course missile
defence to cope with nuclear threats from the North,
instead of contemplating any deterrent route.
Within US too there are the long-held views being
reinforced by profound thinking that foresees far more
problems for strategic stability in case new allies
develop their own deterrent. Hence the reinforcing of US
rebalancing and commitment to the Asia-Pacific allies
as witnessed in the annual Shangri-La dialogue in
Singapore in end-May 2014. US Defense Secretary Hagel
was so candid in voicing concern about China’s
threatening actions in the South China Sea that the
Chinese reacted equally forcefully and virtually told
Hagel to lay off.
These are the facets of diverse approaches for the
management of the second nuclear age in the Asia-
Pacific and do not provide much reassurance. The latest
Pentagon reports show that China is underreporting its
defence expenditure by 20 per cent and suggest that the
correct annual figure should be US$145 billion, almost
four times that of India and ahead of Japan. China’s air
force is said to be growing at an alarming rate,
including with development of advanced drones and
testing of hypersonic missiles, which when combined
with earlier stories about its SSBNs and improvements
in its strategic forces, send unmistakable messages
about where China is headed. The recent US Justice
Department’s charges against Chinese generals about
cyber attacks against US businesses and China’s strong
reaction and counter-charges against the US
demonstrate an escalation of the Cold War-like rhetoric
in Asia.
Putin’s closeness to China as reflected in the conclusion
of a US$400 billion, thirty year, gas deal and a host of
others including about defence procurements as well as
Russian-Chinese joint veto in the UN Security Council
are indications of emerging new configurations in
geopolitics. These will call in to question what was
suggested even as recently as 2012 by the Yale
Professor Paul Bracken about an abiding common
interest of the existing great powers in managing the
second nuclear age (ie the age when new proliferating
States emerge). If anything, China and Russia appear to
be set to devising ways to mount a concerted challenge
to what the Chinese openly call US hegemony.
This is the short take from the dynamic that is evolving
in Asia. The news story about Russian arms to Pakistan
in this setting should raise Delhi’s heckles – the new
fangled diplomacy of Kerry and Hagel to woo Pakistan
(propensity of US think-tanks to reward Pakistan with a
nuclear deal), Russia’s indulgence, and China’s all-
weather friendship firmly backing its trusted ally
compounds the strategic scenario for India. A perceptive
remark by a former Indian Ambassador to Russia is
poignant to the US-India situation: “The US has been
looking to cooperate with an India that is strong enough
to be a balancer of China but (should not be strong)
enough to cause concern to Pakistan.” Talking of
paradoxes, the US is not alone. China’s position for
continued peaceful engagement and diplomacy about
North Korea, and its consistent reluctance to put
Pakistan or its terror outfits on the spot is in contrast
with the increasing severity with which it reacts to
Japan and bristles over outsiders counsel on maritime
disputes with Japan and in the South China Sea.
China has generally refused dialogue with India as a
nuclear weapon state invoking what it called the
international mainstream (eg NPT) whereas on Japan
and South China Sea it rejects anything that differs from
its own national hard line regardless of the weight of
international mainstream, eg, UN Convention on the Law
of the Seas, freedom of navigation and security of the
sea lanes.
In short, rules are less and less likely to govern the
evolving uncertainties in Asia except the inherent
strength and might of nations, or a concert thereof,
backing whoever takes a stand. This is the setting for
the first high level Sino-Indian diplomatic engagement
which begins over this weekend. As a special envoy of
Chinese president Xi, Foreign Minister Wang Ye is set to
meet the new government in Delhi with a message
comprising all the right and reassuring points.

OBAMA'S NEW FOREIGN POLICY

The foreign policy community’s anxious wait to hear US
President Barack Obama make his foreign policy speech
at the West Point Military Academy finally came to an
end on 28 May, 2014. In his commencement address to
the graduating military officers, President Obama
outlined his foreign policy views and approaches that
stunned some analysts, and pleased many ruling elites
abroad.
Some saw a new foreign policy approach in the US
president’s speech, but those who keenly follow US
foreign policy, saw very little in the content that could
be described as new.
What was striking in the presidential address was
Obama’s strong articulation of liberal institutionalism at
a time when the potential military and economic rivals
of the US are busy flexing their muscles in parts of
Europe and Asia.
Highlighting the importance of observing international
norms and rules, President Obama said, “American
influence is always stronger when we lead by example.
We cannot exempt ourselves from the rules that apply
to everyone else.... What makes us exceptional is not
our ability to flout international norms and the rule of
law; it’s our willingness to affirm them through our
actions.”
The decision to affirm the importance of international
law, norms and institutions by a US president in the
backdrop of one military intervention every 17 months
between 1991 and 2001 is certainly a refreshing
development to believers in multilateralism. Obama
chided “a lot of sceptics who downplay the effectiveness
of multilateral action,” and said, “working through
international institutions, like the U.N. or respecting
international law” was not a sign of “weakness.”
While many would contest his own approach to the UN
in executing his war against terror in Afghanistan by
use of Drones, championing liberal institutionalism at a
time of planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan
is understandable.
President Obama, moreover, has shown utmost restraint
in dealing with difficult situations, such as the ones in
Syrian civil war, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the
Chinese occupations of islands and atolls in South
China Sea. His difficulty in handling violence and
lawlessness in Iraq post the US withdrawal; in Egypt
after the Arab Spring; and in Libya after the overthrow
of Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime gives ample reason
to sing the praise of liberal approach to international
politics as opposed to the neoconservative penchant for
frequent use of military and coercive diplomacy in
dealing with international crises.
Obama coded his policy of using soft power instead of
military means in this address by saying, “...U.S.
military action cannot be the only, or even primary,
component of our leadership in every instance. Just
because we have the best hammer does not mean that
every problem is a nail.”
Advocates multilateralism would certainly draw
inspiration from Obama’s liberal approach to world
affairs, but it is important note the traditional US foreign
policy approach, cutting across the political divide that
wasn’t missing in Obama’s speech. He made it loud
and clear: “Let me repeat a principle.... The United
States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary,
when our core interests demand it.” And the US will
obviously determine what that “core interests” would
be. Does it mean his advocacy of liberalism is mere
opportunism?
In any case, Obama has come under fire from many
critics who say his foreign policy is just a “hedging
strategy” and devoid of any “grand strategy.” Many
Republicans and some Democrats have criticised his
foreign policy as “global retrenchment” of the US that
has shaken the confidence of allies and pleased the
adversaries.
Some have lamented that he said little about meeting
the emerging Russian challenge in Europe and the
Chinese effort to dominate Asia. Newspaper editorials in
the US carried no praise for Obama’s new foreign
policy. Lawmakers in the US too remained unhappy.
One Senator made a caustic remark on Obama’s
speech: “The President’s speech was just another great
example of his disastrous foreign policy. The reset and
the pivots have all failed. All you have to do is look at
Syria, Iran, Libya, Ukraine, or the South China Sea to
see where this foreign policy gets us in the world.”
President Obama has approximately one and a half
years before he leaves the White House. Many citizens
of the US were expecting the president to spell out his
foreign policy plans in coming months, but failed to get
any satisfaction from the West Point speech. The rest of
the world always carefully listens when an US president
speaks.
The fact that there was hardly any adverse reaction to
his speech from the rest of the world signals that
Obama was actually speaking to his own people at
West Point. One key new suggestion that needs more
clarification is his proposal to set up $5billion worth
structure to combat terrorism with willing partners
around the world.

SYRIA TODAY: IS REGIME CHANGE THE ANSWER?

There are three aspects of the Syrian imbroglio: First,
what was originally a political struggle has become a
progressively more devastating civil war. Second, those
fighting against the Assad regime have fragmented into
several distinct and contending elements - the Western
and Gulf countries’ backed Syrian National Coalition,
now the weakest of the opposition groups in terms of
fighting ability; a large array of Islamist groups, many
armed and funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey,
significant numbers of whom have come together under
two different Islamist fronts; the Nabhat Al Nusrah, an
effective fighting unit largely composed of Syrians but
an affiliate of Al Qaeda; and, the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL), an Al Qaeda outfit, consisting
mainly of Iraqis, the most extremist, brutal and effective
fighting unit, whose agenda goes much beyond the mere
removal of Assad and is the establishment of a
fundamentalist Islamist Emirate. The involvement of so
many different groups makes the possibility of any
solution very difficult. Third, the active involvement of
foreign countries – France, Iran, Qatar, Russia, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, UK and the US; this has led directly to
Syria getting to the point where it is now. The
enormous complexity of the situation should be self
evident.
Those advocating regime change need to seriously
ponder over the fact that that the internal situation
today in both Iraq and Libya is far worse than it was
when Saddam and Gaddhafi were in power. Intrusive
military interventions by foreign countries in Libya and
Iraq are not examples to be emulated but shunned.
Indeed, externally encouraged efforts towards regime
change in Arab countries must stop forthwith. Given the
current ground realities in Syria and its diverse ethnic
and sectarian makeup, regime change in Syria could
lead to a much worse outcome than in those two
countries, even the breakup of the country with deeply
destabilizing consequences for the Levant as a whole.
In the past year Assad has regained a lot of lost ground.
All other opposition rebels are now spending greater
effort fighting the ISIL considering it a more detestable
and dangerous enemy than the Assad regime. The very
recent Turkish air strike on a convoy of the ISIL and
Premier Erdogan’s visit to Iran suggest that Turkey is
rethinking its policy in Syria. There is increasing
reluctance of Western countries’ to aid rebels fearing
that arms will fall into the hands of extremist groups.
Thus, Assad is much stronger today vis-a-vis both his
domestic and international adversaries than in June
2012 when the first Geneva conference “agreed on
guidelines and principles for a political transition that
meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people”. It
is now increasingly highly unlikely that Assad can be
defeated on the battleground. Therefore, he is hardly
likely to agree to his handing over power in a conference
room. Pursuing regime change now is a no brainer.
Humanitarian issues such as ensuring that aid should
reach the millions in dire distress and urgently attending
to the desperate conditions of the 4 million plus
internally displaced should be accorded top priority. The
second priority must be addressing the growing violence
much of which, for all practical purposes, has now
morphed into pure terrorism. Geneva II can be said to
represent the beginning of a peace process and an
encouraging sign is agreement that the next meeting
will be held starting Feb 10th.
Another hopeful feature of Geneva II was, in the words
of UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, “there is of course
agreement (amongst the fighting entities) that terrorism
…is a very serious problem inside Syria but there's no
agreement on how to deal with it”. Another good omen
is that both sides of internal Syrian conflict observed a
minutes silence together to remember those killed. Now
that a door has been opened, the warring parties within
Syria need to pursue these two issues on a priority
basis. However, the boycott of hard line extremists
suggests that in the unlikely event of any agreement, its
implementation would be sabotaged. This is a risk that
will have to be taken and should not become an excuse
for no action.
Iran was not represented even though the UN Secretary
General had invited it; the invite had to be withdrawn
due to strong US opposition. Iran commands the
greatest influence with Assad; Iran and Russia acting in
tandem are the only two countries that can persuade
Assad to make meaningful compromises. Iran’s
participation therefore is absolutely vital to the success
of any conference on Syria.
An agreement amongst the main players – the patrons
of the different contending parties within Syria: the P- 5,
EU, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - on a common
approach is a prerequisite. Therefore a separate
conference involving them should be held soonest
possible complementing a resumption of the Geneva II
talks on February 10. A priority subject should be taking
on the ISIL and similar extremist groups head on.

SAUDI ARABIA -US ESTRANGEMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR INDIA SUBCONTINENT

The Arab Spring strongly compounded Saudi Arabia’s
progressively increasing disillusionment with the US
when, to its utter consternation and deep anger, the US
failed to prevent the overthrow of Mubarak, a faithful
ally for more than three decades. US criticism of Gen Al
Sissi’s overthrowing of the Muslim Brotherhood
government of President Morsy and cutting off economic
and military assistance added fuel to the fire.
The West’s holding back of arms supplies to rebels
fighting against the Assad regime in Syria and the US
decision not to take military action against it for
breaching a publicly announced red-line, the use of
chemical weapons, added to Saudi Arabia’s growing
anger. After these disappointments, the sudden opening
of negotiations on the nuclear issue with Iran, the
rapidity with which an interim agreement was reached
and the continuing pursuit of a thaw in relations with
Iran represent in Saudi eyes a willful disregard of its
security concerns and sensitivities. Saudi Arabia has
maintained that no agreement will constrain the nuclear
programme and Iran would still be able to make the
bomb very quickly should it finally decide to do so.
From 2009, Saudi Arabia started sending signals from
the King downwards and has more than once since then
stated publicly that in the event Iran acquires the
capability to make nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will
do so also.
Pakistan-Iran relations have been witnessing a serious
downturn in the past few months – Iran has threatened
military intervention to secure the release of its security
personnel and in the context of the continuing killing of
Shias; Iran has cancelled the much flaunted gas pipeline,
etc. A flurry of exchange of visits between Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia are coincidentally taking place during this
downturn. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud’s sudden
visit to Pakistan in January 2014 followed very soon
thereafter by the new Pakistani Army Chief’s visit to
Saudi Arabia and now Prince Salman choosing Pakistan
as the first country to visit after becoming Crown Prince
and Defence Minister has prompted a lot of speculative
commentary in the Western strategic community. Those
who closely follow Saudi Arabia’s relations with South
Asia believe that the Saudi Arabia-funded Pakistani
nuclear programme and payback time may be
approaching. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan was
given privileged and complete access to Pakistani
nuclear installations in 1999 (and again in 2002) and
soon thereafter Dr AQ Khan visited Saudi Arabia. US
experts such as Bruce Reidel and Gary Saymore, who
should know, say that a secret and long-standing
agreement exists that Pakistan would provide the
Kingdom with nuclear technology and weapons should
Saudi Arabia feel threatened by a third party nuclear
programme. This would inevitably invite strong
reactions from the US and Iran and would also almost
surely evoke strong opposition from China which would
not want to jeopardise its overarching relationship with
the US for an issue far removed from its core national
interests. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have strongly
denied any such intention and also reports that
Pakistan will, at Saudi request, be supplying
sophisticated weapons to rebels in Syria – this would
greatly anger Iran but will hardly make a difference in
Syria. However, both these contingencies are unlikely to
happen.
It is far more likely that these visits are in the context
of the domestic situation in Saudi Arabia. These are
delicate and sensitive times in Saudi Arabia – Crown
Prince Sultan and Crown Prince Nayef passed away in
quick succession in October 2011 and June 2012
respectively; the King is in his mid-nineties and his
health is fragile; Crown Prince Salman’s health is not
particularly robust; Saudi Arabia is approaching
uncharted territory in relation to the succession to the
throne. Massive unemployment, the popular appeal of
the Arab Spring, Sunni Islamic extremism, Shia
restiveness particularly in the oil-rich eastern provinces,
are factors that present serious putative security
concerns. Given the one-of-its-kind rather unique
Saudi-Pakistan relationship, assertively Sunni Pakistan
may be the perfect security partner to help meet internal
threats. Western security partners cannot be used while
Arabs will always be more problematic and risky.
Crown Prince Salman also paid a highly satisfying
three-day visit to India during which an MoU on defence
cooperation was amongst agreements signed which
build upon the relationship spelt out in the Delhi
Declaration of 2006 and the Riyadh Declaration of 2010,
both landmark, path-breaking documents signed
personally by King Abdullah with the Indian Prime
Minister. These established a wide-ranging strategic
partnership. An Indian defence minister had paid a first-
ever visit to Saudi Arabia in 2012. In contrast to
Pakistan, the interaction with India is in the context of
tentative beginnings of a potential reorientation of Saudi
foreign policy to move away from complete and total
dependence on the US. Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi
Foreign Minister, had given a thought provoking speech
in Manama, Bahrain, on 5 December 2004. The subject
was ‘Towards a New Framework for Regional Security’.
He said, inter alia, that "the international component of
the suggested Gulf security framework should engage
positively the emerging Asian powers as well, especially
China and India." Since then, this theme is increasingly
reiterated by leading Saudi personalities.

US IN ASIA: A NON-ALIGNMENT STRATEGY?

As territorial and maritime disputes in Asia have sparked
regional cold wars, the United States appears to have
adopted a non-aligned strategy to navigate in troubled
political space of the continent.
George Washington and Non-Alignment
Non-alignment as a diplomatic instrument of state craft
has been known to American Administrations for
centuries. Although the term “non-alignment” was not
used, the need of such a strategy was first articulated
by first President of the United States—George
Washington. In his farewell address, Washington warned
against the folly of getting involved in the European
entanglements.
In order to keep the US out of European quarrels,
controversies and collisions, he pleaded that “Europe
has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or
a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in
frequent controversies, the causes of which are
essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it
must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial
ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the
ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships
or enmities.”
Three centuries later, as the US recognizes the
economic and strategic significance of Asia for its
national interests, it encounters myriad Asian quarrels
and controversies over “sovereignty” issues. Such
disputes are “essentially foreign” to American
“concerns”.
Asia Pacific Today and the American Non-Alignment
Turbulence in the Asia Pacific is discernible in Sino-
Japanese rivalry over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. The
spat over the islands, islets and reefs in the South China
Sea between China and five other claimants, such as
Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei
threatens to contaminate the cooperative ties of China
with these countries. China-Taiwan conflict remains
unresolved despite a series of confidence building
measures and rising trade and investment ties.
During the Cold War days, Washington shunned the
non-alignment foreign policy championed by India and
many others. But the strategic compulsions and
economic imperatives of the post-Cold War era have
tempted the US policy makers to innovate “non-
alignment” strategy and apply in the mini-Cold Wars of
Asia.
TheUS political support to the idea of creation of a
“Palestinian State” in the post-9/11 incident and
building of pressure on Israel to seriously negotiate
peace; Washington’s policy of making India a “strategic
partner”, while elevating Pakistan’s status as “major
non-NATO ally” during the anti-terror operations in
Afghanistan; constructing a rock-solid economic
partnership with China, while maintaining defence and
security ties with Taiwan; giving lip service to
multilateral dialogue for resolution of South China Sea
disputes, yet conducting joint research with China for oil
exploration in the waters of this sea; refraining from
backing Japanese claim of sovereignty over Senkaku/
Diaoyu islands, but standing by the US-Japan bilateral
alliance treaty are some of the prominent illustrations of
American non-alignment.
It is true that non-alignment emerged out of a bipolar
power structure in the international system. The two
poles, represented by capitalist USA and communist
USSR, made it difficult for a large number of newly
independent countries to take sides in the Cold War. The
enlightened self-interest compelled them to pick out a
stratagem that would enable them to seek cooperation
with both the rival power blocs. The hostility to the idea
of non-alignment by both Washington and Moscow
often posed acute dilemmas for the non-aligned
countries. Since non-alignment was not maintenance of
equidistance from the two poles, non-aligned countries’
stances on various cold war related issues were
sometimes sympathetic to Moscow and sometimes
supportive of Washington. For example, India appeared
to have appreciated the US position on the Suez crisis,
but sympathized with Moscow’s approach to the
Hungarian crisis in 1956.
The United States in the post-Cold War era has no die-
hard adversary. Although there is visible decline of the
US influence in world affairs and relative rise of the
Chinese power, the PRC is no USSR. Up-and-coming
superpower China perceives an emerging new
containment strategy of the established superpower, the
USA.
American strategic community, on the other hand,
senses a Chinese project to push US out of the Asia
Pacific. Such mutual mistrust has, nevertheless, not
sparked a new cold war. Complex economic
interdependence is almost certain to preclude a Sino-US
Cold War, though cold confrontation seems to be
mounting between the two.
China has responded to America’s Asia rebalance
strategy by picking up squabbles with most American
allies, such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and
others. But the non-aligned approach adopted by
Washington has resulted in growing Chinese
assertiveness and dwindling credibility in the US as a
security provider. The Asian allies of the US doubt, if
Washington would protect their interests at the cost of
losing business in China. American non-alignment
makes China fear less and America’s allies doubt more
about the efficacy of alliance treaties.

ASIA PACIFIC: RESET FOR QUALITATIVE CHANGE

Permeated by many turbulent events in May 2014, East
Asia served as the milieu for events from the coup
d'état in Thailand, to maritime cooperation for the
Indonesia-Vietnam boundary between President Susilo
and the Prime Minister of Vietnam, all on the backdrop
of the World Economic Forum in East Asia in Manila.
Indonesia, the largest Muslim democracy in Southeast
Asia, was at the center stage. During the forum,
outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono received
the Statesmanship Award, and many of his
achievements during his decade of Presidency were
discussed. During his speech, President Susilo made
direct reference to China regarding the East China Sea
emphasising that “…any disputes including maritime
border tension can be resolved peacefully - not with the
use of military might which [may] endanger stability and
peace in our region.”
East Asia, with a population of 600 million, which is
roughly double the size of the US, is planning to build a
US$4.3 trillion economy with a single market in the next
several years. The challenges to achieve these targets,
however, are many. The infrastructure to link many
ASEAN countries is weak, poverty rates are high, and
rates of corruption are staggering. It is important to
move away from the present culture of high corruption,
to a better culture that fosters development of regional
framework to fight corruption. Countries should not
confine to their own boundaries but work
collaboratively. The point of intersection between
countries has to be improved. President Benigno Aquino
in his remarks stated his leadership to introduce good
governance to Philippines to dismantle corruption is
commendable with the improving positive economic
indicators.
In the Eurasian region, a Sino-Russian partnership for
US$400 billion for energy for the next three decades has
been signed, and the sophisticated Russian military
missile system has been given to the Chinese
government. There are signs of China and Russia
moving towards a strategic relationship in the very near
future.
There is now a tripolar world with US, Russia, and China
in the new equation. The Maritime Silk Road (MSR) to
the South China Sea, disputes with Japan, and the
placement of a Chinese oil rig in Vietnamese waters, are
a few of the events that have raised many eyebrows.
According to geopolitical analyst Robert Kaplan, “This is
a region that’s going to be on the boil for years and
years to come. Seas crowded with warships,
submarines, merchant shipping, fifth generation fighter
jets – that can easily create incidents that in turn could
enable a crisis.” In Seoul during his Asia visit, President
Obama said that China “has to abide by certain norms”
when it comes to its quarrels with neighbours. With all
the notable events that have taken place in this part of
the region, the US pivot to Southeast Asia cannot be
negated.
In India, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) has been sworn in as the new Prime Minister. The
Indian public believes that he can deliver rapid growth
in the country as he did in his 13-year tenure as Chief
Minister of Gujrat. However, India has many internal
challenges to consider first. Nearly half the country’s
households lack basic access to electricity. Modern
infrastructure is underdeveloped. Creation of job
opportunities through a large manufacturing sector,
especially for its young population aged 15-34 – which
is around 400 million people making up one-third of the
population – amidst rising corruption, is an obstacle.
These are some of the major challenges for the new
government. The question is, does India need a total
reset on its many internal and external challenges?
Sri Lanka, with whom India’s has had a love affair since
the days of the Mahabharata, always sends a tiny ripple
towards India. A line in an Indian newspaper before the
Geneva HR Council vote on Sri Lanka was, “Will Ceylon
become a Cyclone to India?” The Sri Lankan President’s
visit for the swearing-in ceremony created certain
political turmoil in South India and Sri Lanka’s Northern
Province Chief Minister Vigneswaran. Despite the stormy
atmosphere, both leaders, PM Modi and President
Rajapaksa, held successful talks as both possess high
resilience levels when facing challenges. Hopefully, an
improved and stronger relationship between both
countries is on the cards in the coming years, not
cyclones.
All of these episodes, however, have failed to address
one fundamental issue: bringing qualitative change to
the people living around the world. How can one thrive
in a world where 1 billion people go to bed hungry each
night? Can progress be made in a global community
where 1.2 billion of the poorest people on the planet
account for just 1 per cent of global consumption? 1
billion people are without food and 1 billion who are
obese. 85 of the richest people in the world have as
much wealth as 3.5 billion of the poorest. The inequality
gap is widening every day. So, is a world of 9 billion
people to be catered to in the future? This is a topic
that should be looked at seriously. World leaders must
look to improve points of intersection between
countries, rather than focus on internal boundaries with
nationalism or hubris. Does every country need to reset
its strategies to bring that qualitative change?

INDIA-US: WILL MODI AND OBAMA COME TOGETHER?

After denying Mr Narendra Modi a visa for nearly a
decade the US saw the writing on the wall and started
changing its tune just before the 2014 elections were
held. Mr Modi is now officially welcome in the
Washington but it will be a long time before the US-
India relationship will reach the same levels it was at
during the second term of George Walker Bush.
Obama’s Compulsions
The US, once again, has had its focus shifted from
China to a series of brush fires around the world - Syria
and Ukraine being the most prominent. The Bush
administration when it came to power named China as
a strategic competitor but was forced to shift its
attention to Afghanistan because of the September 11
attacks. These traditional battlegrounds have their
constituents in Washington. The bottom line is that
quite a few American strategic analysts are obsessed
with the Middle East and would like to revive the Cold
War even though President Obama quite correctly
dismissed Russia as a regional power. Because brush
fires have overridden grand strategy in Washington, the
Obama Administration’s Pivot to Asia and enhanced ties
that go with it have been put on the backburner and,
instead, the focus is on regions that both present
unsolvable problems and provide little reward to the US.
The Middle East, after its flirtation with the so-called
Arab Spring, has swung back to soft authoritarianism,
and Russia will never be in the US camp. Nor will
challenging Russia, a much diminished power, bring the
sort of global rewards that the Cold War did to the US’
position in world affairs. Now, challenging Russia does
not lead to a rise in military budgets or in a national
rejuvenation as happened with the race to the
moon. But the Obama administration is likely to be
caught up in putting out these brush fires till the end of
its term.
Coupled with the shift from a strategic to a tactical
focus is the fact that the three trends in the short to
medium term are going to make US foreign policy take a
less proactive role in world affairs. First, the country is
tired of wars and, therefore, there is a real dislike for
foreign intervention. President Obama recognised this
when he put the Syrian issue in the hands of Congress
knowing fully well that the legislature was unlikely to
authorise American troop commitments. Secondly, at a
time when the American economy has yet to fully
recover from the economic crisis of 2008, it is difficult
to tell the American people to spend more on defense
and external military commitments. Third, the bills of
the Iraq and Afghan wars are now starting to pile up
with the need for new equipment as well as taking care
of tens of thousands of walking wounded. Given these
facts, the US is quite happy in pursuing a foreign policy
where, as in Libya, it leads from behind unless its
security interests are threatened (President Obama has
argued that a terrorist attack remains the most direct
threat to the US). President Obama’s domestic critics
see all this as a sign of weakness but he has made a
more careful exercise of American military power as a
centerpiece of the last two and a half years of his
presidency as stated in his speech at West Point on 28
May 2014.
Along with this preoccupation with short term crises and
the exhibition of caution in exercising military power is
the fact that the Pivot to Asia has not been concretised
in an economic plan of action for Asia. Consequently, it
is China that is making major economic inroads in the
region as some of the US’ major allies - South Korea
and Australia - now have China as their largest trading
partner. The fact that the Trans Pacific Partnership - the
Obama Administration’s economic centerpiece for Asia -
does not include China or India means in fact that it will
have a limited impact on the US role in Asia.
All these trends should mean that the US takes the
initiative to build a stronger relationship with Asia since
as President Obama stated at West Point, “On the other
hand, when issues of global concern do not pose a
direct threat to the United States, when such issues are
at stake -- when crises arise that stir our conscience or
push the world in a more dangerous direction but do
not directly threaten us -- then the threshold for military
action must be higher. In such circumstances, we
should not go it alone. Instead, we must mobilise allies
and partners to take collective action. We have to
broaden our tools to include diplomacy and
development; sanctions and isolation; appeals to
international law; and, if just, necessary and effective,
multilateral military action. In such circumstances, we
have to work with others because collective action in
these circumstances is more likely to succeed, more
likely to be sustained, less likely to lead to costly
mistakes.” Instead, for several reasons, the two
countries will likely take some time to warm up to each
other.
US businesses ranging from the commercial to the
defense sectors, for example, now suffer from a bad
case of India fatigue. The last five years of the UPA
government saw Indian decision-making move at a
glacial pace and simple attempts to open up the
economy were stymied by corruption charges and
coalitional infighting. The Modi government, therefore,
will have to recreate the kind of excitement that existed
in business quarters about India in the early 2000s in
order to generate renewed interest from Western and
particularly US firms. Given the economic focus of the
new Indian government, however, this is likely to
happen sooner than later as witnessed by the move to
allow 100 per cent foreign direct investment in the
defense sector.
A more difficult issue will be to see if India and the US
can develop complementary world views especially on
the issue of the rise of China and how to balance Beijing
with a pivot to Asia. While New Delhi sees the value of a
US that balances China in Asia it is not keen on being
part of an anti-Chinese alliance as some in the US and
Asia would want it to be. This is especially the case
with Mr Modi who has made several trips to China and
quite clearly recognises the role Beijing could play in the
economic development of India. Moreover, as long as
the word expeditionary is taboo in New Delhi it is
doubtful that the Indian government will agree to
participate in coalitional efforts with the US (unless of
course it is under the aegis of the United Nations).
And there is the simple fact of personalities. Mr Modi, in
his years as chief minister, spent time cultivating the
nations of East Asia because he was not permitted to
visit the West. He is likely to use that friendship to
bring quick investment to India, something that the
West will not be willing to do. Consequently, an India
that finally adopts a true Look East policy and for a
while at least adopts a wait and see approach with the
US may be seen.
Having said that, such an approach cannot be
maintained in the long run since India’s development
will require technological inputs from the West and that
means at some time either Mr Modi goes to Washington
or Mr Obama comes to Delhi. It will happen but not any
time soon.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own
and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Air Force
or the Department of Defense.