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Now it's Russia's turn to look
east
By Rahul Bedi
NEW DELHI
- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov's extended trip
across Asia - including India, Pakistan and Cambodia -
is part of Moscow's "Look East" policy to counter
Washington's push in these regions.
Ivanov, who
met senior Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee on Monday, is seeking economic and
security relations across a vast region extending from
the oil-rich Central Asian republics to Southeast Asia
in a move reminiscent of the Cold War era.
Russia remains a close Indian ally and its
principal weapon supplier. It is reportedly attempting
to revive the five-year old proposal for a
Moscow-Delhi-Beijing axis against US ascendancy to
ensure a multi-polar world.
Ivanov's Delhi visit
came a week before Vajpayee leaves for China, the first
Indian prime minister to travel to Beijing in a decade
to forge closer political and diplomatic links between
the world's two most populous countries.
Russia's proactive policy across Asia has
coincided with the US's post-Iraq plans to re-deploy its
forces around the world, particularly the "arc of
instability" that stretches from the Central Asian
republics to North Korea.
In retaliation, a
considerably weakened Russia, following the 1991 breakup
of the Soviet Union, is seeking to forge an "alliance of
stability" across this region through subtle
partnerships and by playing on latent fears of
lone-superpower hegemony.
Consequently, a
Russian naval task force, the largest after the Soviet
Union disintegrated, is now deployed for an
indeterminate period in the Indian Ocean and surrounding
seas. This area is fast becoming a potential
confrontation zone, not only among China, India and
Pakistan, but also potentially between Russia and the
US.
After extended maneuvers with the Indian
navy earlier this month, the Russian squadron of nine
warships, including strategic bombers, is "marking time"
in the Indian Ocean at a time when the US military is
firmly ensconced in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Central
Asian republics and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization is "marching" swiftly eastward toward
Moscow.
Russian naval officers claimed that
their Indian Ocean deployment is not connected to the
US-led military presence in Iraq and insisted that their
squadron would not enter the Persian Gulf. "This is a
continuation of our old dialogue and the good relations
between the Indian and Russian navies," said Pacific
Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Fedorov. The exercises
are not linked to the situation in Iraq, he added.
But analysts disagree. "The maritime strategic
focus after the Cold War and especially after September
11 has shifted to the Indian Ocean region and Russia
wants to register itself there," said Commodore Uday
Bhaskar, deputy head of the Institute of Strategic
Studies and Analyses in Delhi.
Others claimed
that the Russian presence in the Indian Ocean underlined
the importance of "exercising control" over the Indian
Ocean through which pass vital oil routes from West
Asia. Russia recently announced plans to boost its
military presence in the Central Asian republics by
establishing permanent defense bases in Kyrgzystan and
Tajikistan in order to offset around a dozen overt and
covert "staging points" that the US government had
access to in the region - including Georgia,
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - after the 2001
Afghan war.
The US military bases at Manas, 30
kilometers from Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek, adjoining
China, and a similar though little publicized presence
of US-led allies at Khanabad in Uzbekistan, are of grave
concern to Moscow, which anticipates an eventual clash
with Washington over the area's vast oil and gas
deposits.
The US is already the leading foreign
investor in Central Asia's energy sector, openly
declaring that it wants to promote political and
economic stability in the area to safeguard its energy
imports and to combat international terrorism and arms
trafficking.
Russia and China are also proposing
to turn the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a
regional Central Asian grouping of which they are
members alongside Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan, into a larger coalition and to extend its
mandate beyond the region by inducting India, Pakistan
and possibly even Iran.
Formed six years ago to
deal with border issues, combat ethnic and religious
tensions in each other's countries and to safeguard
against the export of terrorism by Afghanistan's Taliban
regime, the SCO is re-aligning itself given the changed
realities in the region. The SCO is seen as the means
through which Russia and China now have a "hidden
agenda" to frustrate Washington's burgeoning influence
in Central Asia.
Vajpayee and Russian President
Vladimir Putin will hold their next summit in Moscow in
November. "Russia has a special place in India's foreign
policy and we intend to further strengthen the
time-tested relations between our two countries," Indian
ambassador to Russia Krishnan Raghunath was quoted as
saying by ITAR-TASS news agency in Moscow.
From
Delhi, Ivanov went to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh
for a regional security meeting with the Association of
Southeast Nations (ASEAN), where his attendance is also
part of Russia's "Look-East" strategy.
Aided
considerably by anti-US feelings in the region - there
were widespread anti-US protests before the Iraq war in
several ASEAN nations - Russia recently sold its
multi-role fighters to Malaysia and Indonesia. Indonesia
ordered two Sukhoi-30 and two Su-27
interceptor/ground-attack aircraft, and Malaysia signed
a US$1.4 billion deal for 18 advanced Su-30MK fighters -
and chose these over US F-18 Super Hornets.
Officials say that Kuala Lumpur's decision to
buy the Russian fighters would increase India's
strategic and business interests in Southeast Asia, as
it is expected to provide training and servicing to the
Royal Malaysian Air Force for its new Su 30s.
"India has acted as a gateway for Russian arms
sales to Southeast Asia," Dr Alex Vaskin of the
Indo-Russian Strategic Forum said. In the last decade,
Malaysia has bought Russian MiG 29 fighters and Mi-17
helicopters, after studying India's experience with
these aircraft, he added.
(Inter Press
Service)
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