Page 2 of
2 India holds key in NATO's world
view By M K
Bhadrakumar
Cooperation Council
comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In
comparison, the Indian Ocean region remains a
"vacuum" for NATO, though it has made headway in
the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, NATO gives the
spin that the issue is not how far it can or
should go, but how to enable the alliance to act
wherever its collective security interests are at
stake. It insists that it is not
"pushing into Asia or the
Pacific region", but countries such as Japan,
Australia, New Zealand and South Korea have
displayed an interest in working with NATO, and
the alliance has welcomed this.
Unlike
with NATO's Gulf and the Middle Eastern partners,
which are all authoritarian regimes, the alliance
prides itself as sharing "common values" with its
partners in the Asia-Pacific. Here, NATO's refrain
is "common values and common security threats". It
is easy to see that such exclusivity is intended
to keep out China.
During a visit to NATO
headquarters in Brussels in January, the first by
a Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe summed up
the paradigm: "Japan and NATO are partners. We
have in common such fundamental values as freedom,
democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It is
only natural that we cooperate in protecting and
promoting those values. My government is committed
to reinforcing the stability and prosperity of the
world based on the fundamental values I have just
mentioned. For its part, NATO is widening the
circle of freedom through an expansion of
membership and partnerships."
Significantly, in the same speech, Abe
referred to "some uncertainties surrounding
China", such as its defense expenditure and its
"continued lack of transparency", and the need for
Japan and NATO, therefore, to "pay close attention
to the future of this nation".
From
Japan's perspective, a joint security agenda with
NATO would include Asian nuclear non-proliferation
(North Korea and Myanmar), prevention of a
cross-strait conflict between China and Taiwan,
and balancing the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization in which China and Russia play a lead
role. Involving NATO in northeast Asia's security
problems and ensuring a credible deterrence
against China through increased partnership with
NATO would be Japan's optimal aim.
Through
its robust partnership with NATO, Tokyo hopes to
ensure that a coalition composed of partners who
share basic democratic values takes place in the
Asia-Pacific. Japan defines it as an active
coalition for maintaining global security,
comprising countries that subscribe to
Euro-Atlantic values. Such an approach would leave
NATO to form an association with China, but that
would remain an affiliation system, like Russia's,
for the limited purpose of engagement and
confidence-building.
Japan's partnership
with NATO runs parallel to its three-way defense
cooperation with the US and Australia. In March,
Japan and Australia signed a groundbreaking
defense pact with Australia. Tokyo and Washington
have already begun installing a missile shield in
Japan. In April, officials from Japan, the US and
Australia agreed to study a plan for a joint
missile system. Progress on this front has been
rapid.
Alongside, NATO has also veered
round to the view that the US's long-range missile
defense system doesn't upset strategic balance.
More important, NATO is open to the idea of
"bolting together" with the US system its own
national short- and mid-range missile defense
systems.
Though the missile shield is
projected as a defensive system, China doesn't see
it that way. As a Chinese scholar, Jin Linbo of
the China Institute of International Studies, put
it, "We [China] cannot regard it as a defensive
system just because that's what it is called.
Since ancient times both spears and shields have
been regarded as weapons in Chinese culture -
because shields can make spears useless." China
sees the joint US-Japan-Australia missile shield
as focused on curbing it.
Bridging the
Indian Ocean For any security system in
the Asia-Pacific (US, Japan and Australia), India
remains the prize catch. Equally, without India,
NATO's partnerships in the Indian Ocean region
would remain inherently weak. Abe, during his
recent visit to India, invited India to become
part of a coalition of Asian democracies.
Thus, India was involved in naval
exercises with the US, Japan and Australia last
month in the Bay of Bengal. Billed as the
"Malabar" exercise, it was similar in scope to the
"Talisman Saber" in June between the US and
Australia (with Japan as an observer), which
involved 20,000 US troops and 7,500 Australian
forces, backed by an aircraft carrier, 10 US
ships, 20 Australian ships and 125 aircraft.
Both "Malabar" and "Talisman Saber"
maintained the pretence that they were intended
against sea piracy, drug trafficking and for
coordinating disaster relief and humanitarian
efforts. But they were largely seen as templates
of a collective security system in the making,
under US leadership.
Japan is pressing
India to enter into a defense cooperation
framework with it - a memorandum of understanding
at the very least. The outgoing Japanese
ambassador to India said recently,
"Military-to-military exchanges [with India] are
very much advanced ... It is time to prepare some
framework to cover all the ingredients. That is
the intention of both governments."
India
has taken part in the past year in a strategic
dialogue format with the US, Japan and Australia.
Another round of this is due soon. Japan is
pushing for raising the level of this interaction
to ministerial level.
Simultaneously, the
US is also pressing for the "inter-operability" of
its armed forces with India's. Sustained efforts
in this direction by both sides are evident. In
the past five years, for instance, more than half
of the military exercises held by India with
foreign armed forces have been with the US. Of
course, "inter-operability" with the US armed
forces would enable India to partake of the US's
plans for missile defense systems.
NATO
woos India Thus, a matrix is developing.
As far as Delhi is concerned, at the root of it
lies the problem that India is unable to come to
terms with China's phenomenal rise. The talk in
Tokyo and Canberra that they do not want a
"unipolar" situation emerging on Asia's strategic
chessboard easily finds resonance in Delhi.
The meeting between the Indian foreign
minister and the NATO secretary general in New
York last week should be viewed against a huge
backdrop rather than the limited canvas of
Afghanistan. The NATO-India consultation has so
far remained unpublicized at the official level.
Delhi has traditionally lacked a "bloc mentality"
and Indian public opinion largely militates
against the idea.
Any pronounced
gravitation toward an "Asian NATO" form of
collective security will inevitably affect India's
relations with China. (India shares Australia's
predicament on this score.) Therefore, India has
to perform some very tricky rope acts in the
period ahead. In a major speech during a visit to
Thailand on September 14, Mukherjee stressed, "The
India-China partnership is an important
determinant for regional and global peace and
development, and for Asia's emergence as the
political and economic center of the new
international order."
Three days later,
addressing the strategic community in Seoul, the
minister underlined the importance of a "truly
integrated Asian economy that will draw on the
economic potential of India and China". Expressing
confidence that India's "strategic and cooperative
partnership [with China] will mature and steadily
develop", he added, "Sensitivity to mutual
aspirations is the underpinning for building
confidence and trust. There is enough space and
opportunity for both of us to grow and develop."
The challenge for Indian diplomacy will be
to convincingly interpret the implications of its
"strategic partnership" with the US. The
perception is growing, and is incrementally
gaining credibility, that India is aligning with a
US-led security system in Asia. Clearly, the
request by the NATO secretary general to call on
the Indian foreign minister wouldn't have been
made without Washington's nod.
M K
Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the
Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with
postings including India's ambassador to
Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).
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