US woos India back to the Bush era
By M K Bhadrakumar
United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is not new to the field of
diplomacy in the South Asian region. The "Gates Mission" in 1990 to defuse a
cascading wave of India-Pakistan tensions is the stuff of legends. Historians
are still in two minds whether Gates deserves to be credited for having
conceivably averted the world's first nuclear war.
In comparison, Gates' mission to New Delhi and Islamabad last week wasn't
breathtaking but it stood out as a pivotal moment. He was choreographing the
US's global strategy.
Gates charms Indians ...
Delhi faces an existential dilemma: it needs to determine how far it is
prepared to go with Uncle Sam down the path into the garden where it has never
been before. Gates made it clear the enterprise could be rewarding. He said,
"India can be an anchor for regional
and global security ... this will be a defining partnership for the 21st
century." In the Barack Obama presidency, India has never heard such heady
thoughts.
There were three vectors to Gates' visit - Afghanistan, India-Pakistan
relations and the US-India security partnership. Gates upheld India's
legitimate interests in Afghanistan. He praised the Indian role and in turn
received an Indian offer on an enhanced role strictly within the parameters of
the overall US/North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy - "frankly,
the kind of support and extraordinary support that India is providing in
Afghanistan now is really ideal".
India will not complicate the US's diplomacy in Islamabad by seeking any role
in the build-up of the Afghan armed forces or police. Beneath that threshold,
Delhi will play a role in the "Afghanization" process. Nor is Delhi inclined to
raise dust about US plans regarding the "reintegration and reconciliation" of
the Taliban. The Indian position was dogmatic but nuances have crept in. This
is partly tactical, as it is clear Indian opposition will not stall the process
of integrating the Taliban into Afghan political life.
But Washington assured Delhi that the established Afghan government would
spearhead the peace process and the United Nations would endorse and promote
it. The bottom line for Delhi is that the US should not cut and run from the
Hindu Kush. As long as the US remains the supervisor-cum-custodian of the peace
process with the Taliban, Delhi feels that a takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban
leader Mullah Omar won't be in the cards. Again, the US no longer buys the
Pakistani thesis about "Pashtun alienation". Delhi considers that any
broad-based government in Kabul that reflects Afghanistan's plural society will
be a bulwark against the return to Taliban rule.
In sum, Delhi has opted to hitch its wagon to Washington's strategy. Delhi's
choice is limited. Pakistan has done everything possible to keep India out of
any regional frameworks, such as Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan,
Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan or the Organization of Islamic Conference
initiative. Other like-minded countries that abhor religious militancy such as
Russia, Uzbekistan and Iran have their own agenda born out of national
interests.
... by piling on Pakistan
Delhi's most important consideration is that Washington has at long last
accepted the Indian interpretation that the forces of al-Qaeda and the Taliban
as well as the Pakistan-based terrorist organizations operating against India
are birds of the same feather.
What pleases Delhi no end is that Gates underlined it forcefully during the
Islamabad leg of his tour. He said:
Al-Qaeda, the Taliban in
Afghanistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Haqqani network - this is a syndicate of
terrorists that work together. And when one succeeds they all benefit, and they
share ideas, they share planning. They don't operationally coordinate their
activities, as best as I can tell. But they are in very close contact. They
take inspiration from one another, they take ideas from one another.
Delhi's comfort level with the Obama administration has been rapidly rising
since Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the US last November.
Following up on Washington's repeated assurances that it had no intention to
"mediate" India-Pakistan differences, Gates went one step further and took note
that if there was another terrorist attack on India by Pakistan-based groups,
it was entirely conceivable that India might not exercise restraint, as in the
past, and may retaliate. "But no country, including the United States, is going
to stand idly by if it's being attacked by somebody," he point-blank told a
Pakistani interviewer.
Gates also was dismissive of Pakistani criticism regarding US arms sales to
India. In essence, Washington has quietly reconfigured its AfPak strategy.
Gates repeatedly bracketed Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the US. Delhi's
earlier apprehensions that the US sought a pretext to talk about the Kashmir
issue have given way. Whereas Delhi had sought exclusion from the AfPak
strategy while Pakistan insisted on India's inclusion, a reversal of roles is
happening.
Gates' hidden agenda
Why is the US accommodating India to this extent? Clearly, the US has hardly
any non-NATO allies - other than Georgia, perhaps - that endorse its Afghan war
effort so enthusiastically as India does. Japan has just rolled back logistic
support. Indeed, the Indian role also serves as a pressure point on Pakistan.
However, beyond Pakistan and Afghan-related concerns, Gates went to Delhi with
a hefty agenda with regard to military sales and security cooperation with
India. He attached strings to the transfer of "dual-use" US technology to
India. He linked it to Delhi signing the Logistics Support Agreement and the
Communications, Interoperability and Security Memorandum Agreement, which are
pending. Gates said the Indian prime minister told him that Delhi needed to be
convinced that the agreements brought India substantial advantage.
Gates' message was simple: India must decide quickly whether it is willing to
move forward as a fully fledged ally of the US. He underlined the two
countries' "common interest in security of the Indian Ocean and security of the
global commons, and the global commons meaning the air, sea, space, and if
you're talking about the Internet, the ether."
Arguably, China - and the US missile defense system - couldn't have been far
from his mind. Though he pro forma said he "didn't talk about China at
length" with Indian officials, he added, "There was a discussion about China's
military modernization program and what it meant and what the intentions of
that military buildup were." Significantly, in the same breath, Gates drew a
parallel between the US policy to engage China in a strategic dialogue and the
strategic arms talks with the former Soviet Union.
To be sure, China is back with a bang in the US strategic calculus. That was
also the thrust of Gates' mission. The Obama administration is reverting to the
George W Bush-era doctrine regarding the potentials of an unbound India as a
junior partner in the US's geostrategy. By accommodating India's interests in
Afghanistan and by expressing support and understanding for India's security
concerns vis-a-vis Pakistan, the US is "freeing" India to play a bigger role.
The US is losing ground to China in the Asia-Pacific. What the Americans call
Southwest Asia (which includes the Indian Ocean) becomes the US's "Maginot
Line". It must be held if the US is to stay embedded in the Asian region at a
time when it is showing unmistakable signs of decline. Gates sought to assess
what role India could play in the US's tug-of-war with Beijing.
Suspicion of China runs deep in India, as also does resentment over China's
perceived "assertiveness". But a parallel normalization track also runs, which
the pro-US lobby in Delhi has not been able to derail. No matter what Gates
said, Delhi will have no choice but to keep its fingers crossed as to the fate
of the US's AfPak strategy; the best-laid plans have gone awry in the tangled
Hindu Kush mountains.
As a leading Pakistani editor mildly put it, "The Pakistani military has no
cogent reason to change its strategic paradigm." Gates was still in the region
when news broke that Obama had suffered a setback in the election in
Massachusetts and it may be that the US is dealing from a weak hand.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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