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4 The new 'NATO of the East' takes
shape By M K Bhadrakumar
on the basis of the assessment that
the SCO is still some way from becoming a
strategic alliance and there is still time to
weaken it before an opposition bloc actually takes
shape.
The US is focusing on Russia, while
there is no immediate fear of a rising China.
Whereas the strategic "threat" that Russia poses
is a current one, the potential threat from China
will be a matter at least 15-20 years away.
Besides, the US estimates that it has sufficient
leverage vis-a-vis China. On the other hand, Russian-US
relations have touched a new
low, especially as Russia's recovery is
accelerating and, correspondingly, Russia's
strategic might is reviving.
Moscow has
announced that it is embarking on an ambitious
upgrade of its strategic nuclear capabilities that
is designed to negate the effectiveness of the
United States' anti-ballistic-missile systems. The
plan features Tu-160 strategic bombers of the air
force; the strategic rocket force's land-based
Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM);
and Project 941 (Typhoon) strategic nuclear
submarines of the navy. Meanwhile, Russia is
developing its own fifth-generation
missile-defense system, while at the same time
expanding its missile-defense network in its "near
abroad" in Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan.
Also, Moscow is speeding up the development of
new ICBMs and realigning its strategic warheads.
On July 14, the Kremlin announced that it was
suspending the implementation of the Conventional
Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. Simply put, Russia
is determined to keep up its Soviet-era strategic
parity with the US.
By the end of 2006,
the Russian economy had recovered to its 1991
level (before the collapse of the Soviet Union).
Surplus resources are once again available to keep
the military machine running. Fu wrote in China
Daily, Russia's economy "has been undeniably
recovering after it hit rock-bottom as a result of
the 'shock therapy' following the end of the Cold
War. The country has been profiting from high oil
prices on the world market in recent years. The
influx of oil and gas dollars has pumped up the
country's confidence."
Russia's
post-Soviet transformation hasn't gone the way
that Washington scripted. Again, to quote Fu,
"Moscow no longer feels it has to behave in
deference to the US ... Russians are now ready to
say whatever they want, like what Putin did at the
European security summit in Munich." Thanks to
Putin's massive popularity - rating above 80% -
Washington's hue and cry about "authoritarianism"
isn't frightening the Kremlin. Russia is bent on
rebuilding its traditional empirical power.
Therefore, the fundamental objective of
the US regional strategy in Central Asia is to
weaken Russian influence in a region, which
constitutes Russia's "soft underbelly", no matter
Russia's legitimate interests there. The strategy
works on different planes vis-a-vis different
protagonists.
Thus Washington follows a
differentiated approach toward China, aimed at
creating tensions within the SCO. Washington has
been probing a limited arrangement with Beijing on
the basis of their perceived "common interest" as
energy-consuming countries interested in opening
Central Asian energy to alternative export routes
outside Moscow's influence.
Second, US
diplomacy projects the Russian objective within
the SCO as aimed at tying China down within a
formal alliance structure. Admittedly, Russian
interest in increased security cooperation within
the SCO easily lends itself to such US projection.
On the whole, the US strategy is predicated on the
assumption that there are fundamental
contradictions in Russo-Chinese relations that can
be exploited.
US wooing India
On the other hand, in New Delhi, for
instance, which Washington increasingly sees as
its junior partner in the pursuit of its Central
Asia policy, US diplomacy harps on China's growing
influence in Central Asia and the thickening
strategic cooperation between Russia and China.
This projection principally aims at playing on
India's latent sense of rivalry with China.
The Indian strategic community, which is
already worked up to a frenzy by gnawing anxieties
over China's phenomenal rise, is only too willing
to lap up the US doomsday scenario, and to work
with the US in countering China's regional
influence anywhere in Asia.
The mood in
Delhi works splendidly well for the US interests
insofar as a watchful India, which resents the
thickening strategic ties between Russia and
China, also makes it a point incrementally to
distance itself from Russia. Of course, the
collateral damage to the traditional bonds of
friendship and cooperation between India and
Russia meets the core objective of US diplomacy.
Ironically, not too long ago, Russia used
to regard India as a reliable partner in Central
Asia. Russian diplomacy constantly urged India to
play a proactive role in Central Asia's difficult
post-Soviet transition. Russian diplomats even
showed frustration that New Delhi was not as
active in Central Asia as it could be and ought to
be. Moscow's comfort level with Delhi was such
that in the Soviet era, India was one of only four
fraternal countries that were permitted to
maintain consulates in the Central Asian region.
However, despite the pro-American tilt in
India's foreign policy in the recent years, it is
doubtful whether Delhi sincerely believes in the
viability of the United States' "Great Central
Asia" strategy. Delhi would know that thanks to a
variety of factors, especially the perceived US
defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, US stock is very
low in the Central Asian steppes. US diplomacy
doesn't have any credibility with the Central
Asian ruling elites.
Delhi's real mind
remains inscrutable; it hardly articulates on
developments concerning Central Asia; its
political exchanges with Central Asia have become
few and far between. Conceivably, India is keeping
its counsel to itself. But by the same token, the
US can draw satisfaction that it has succeeded to
a great extent in cooling India's initial fervor
toward the SCO.
India was the only country
that was not represented at the level of head of
government/state at the SCO's gala
fifth-anniversary summit in Shanghai. India has
also begun dragging its feet over the
Russia-China-India trilateral format. Moscow is
taking note of the shift in the Indian stance.
Russia has come out openly against the
United States' so-called "Great Central Asia"
strategy aimed at drawing the Central Asian states
away from the SCO toward a cooperation arrangement
with the South Asian region.
Russian First
Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said in an
interview with the Vremya Novostey newspaper
recently that
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