Indo-Pak Talks: SM Krishna's Recent Visit to Islamabad

India-Pakistan talks have not collapsed, asserts India's Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao (Nirupama Rao's interview with NDTV is given below). But has it progressed in any manner? Was there any agenda specified at all for External Affairs Minister SM Krishna's visit to Islamabad? The concluding line is that the talks must go on; but talk about what? Terrorism, Kashmir or Siachen. There have been assertions of sorts by at least sections of the stratgeic community that India should not limit it to terrorism, but have they forgotten about the lives of people who were affected by the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai? Life has not been the same for so many people after 26/11. The State cannot absolve of its responsibilities in its yearning for improved relations with Pakistan. Improvement in Indo-Pak relations cannot be done at the cost of its own people. India has to, in the first instance, take these talks forward with a clear agenda, in the absence of which, these can achieve nothing. Anot even improvement of atmospherics can be achieved when you have the Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi equating Indian Home Secretary to terrorist leaders like Hafiz Saeed.



Barkha: With so much controversy surrounding the India Pakistan meeting of the two foreign ministers...the meeting of SM Krishna and Shah Mehmood Qureshi... where does this leave the peace process. India at this point said that the attempt is to bridge the trust deficit but has this now become a deficit of trust.

Joining us now on NDTV is Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao. Thank you for your time ma'am.

When you look at the perception in the media on both sides that the talks, in a sense, have collapsed...the talks are in tatters and that it was unprecedented acrimony. Would you agree that the talks did not all go the way you had hoped?

Nirupama Rao: Well Barkha, I would by no means say that the talks collapsed. I think what happened yesterday was we were able to have a very, I must say, protracted discussion on various ideas that could take the dialogue forward. There was a hiatus, if I may say so, in expectations because I believe that the Pakistan side had certain ideas about the re-engagement that were not completely acceptable.

Barkha: I wanted to ask you that one of the central controversies has been the fact that when Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in response to a question on Hafiz Saeed, compared this to draw some sort of equivalence with G K Pillai's remarks on the ISI's role in 26/11. Questions are being raised as to why our Foreign Minister at that time did not rebut the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Why did he not Ms Rao?

Nirupama Rao: Well Barkha, the External Affairs Minister said very clearly on record today (Friday) that there was no question on any comparison between Hafiz Saeed and the disclosures made by the Home Secretary on the David Coleman Headley's investigation. And at no point, may I add categorically, during the discussion held yesterday (on Thursday) did the External Affairs Minister in any sense express agreement with the point of view of Mr. Qureshi on the remarks of the Home Secretary.

Barkha: Can I then clarify Ms Rao that although Mr. Qureshi claimed that both Foreign Ministers were in agreement that the Home Secretary's remarks were ill-timed...no such indication was in fact given by the Indian delegations to the Pakistani delegation in the course of the talks. Is that correct?

Nirupama Rao: Yes, absolutely. No such indication.

Barkha: Ms Rao was it then considered a choice by the Foreign Minister to not rebut Mr Qureshi in public when those remarks were made?

Nirupama Rao: Well, I think if you were there at the press conference at the Pakistan Foreign Ministry...there were a huge number of journalist...the pale nail of questions and you know the to and fro... the queries that were raised, the answers from the Foreign Ministers...it may have just happened at that stage the External Affairs Minister did not react. But by no means can you draw the conclusion from that, that External Affairs Minster SM Krishna was in any way in agreement with the remarks of Mr. Qureshi

Barkha: Ms Rao did it handicap the Indian side, the timing of the Home Secretary's remarks?

Nirupama Rao: Well, I think one has to be very clear about our sights here. We have a dialogue that we are seeking to restore with Pakistan but we also have very real core concerns about terrorism and about the trauma of Mumbai, the aftermath of Mumbai and the action that Pakistan needs to take on the basis of very credible evidence on the involvement of Pakistani agencies, Pakistani nationals in the Mumbai attacks. So the Home Secretary was perfectly within his rights to draw attention to this.

Nirupama Rao: Well Barkha, about the involvement of the state and the non-state agencies in the whole business of terror unleashed in India by Pakistan, this disclosure about the involvement of ISI is not new to India. India has all along maintained that when it comes to the terror machine that unfortunately continues to exist in Pakistan...that there are serious introspections that are required by Pakistan into why terror has been used as an instrument in policy against India...and that involves both state and non-state actors ...I am constrained to say that there are state and non-state actors and Pakistan needs to undergo that whole process of...I believe of catharsis when it comes to understanding why terror is now threatening the very fabric of Pakistan itself.

Barkha: Mr Qureshi also suggested this morning that the Foreign Minister did not have the mandate to take his own decisions and that he was on phone to New Delhi throughout...something that Mr Krishna then went on to deny. Are you concerned as the highest ranking diplomat of India at the tone and tenor of the remarks of the foreign Minister of Pakistan?

Nirupama Rao: Well definitely the tone and tenure of those remarks have not contributed...let me say...to a positive atmosphere between India and Pakistan and I believe those were remarks that could have been avoided.

Barkha: Where do these talks leave India and Pakistan at the present moment? How would you describe it? You said in the beginning that the talks have not collapsed. What would be your choice of words to describe what has happened in the last 24 hours?

Nirupama Rao: Well I think we went through a very serious discussion yesterday. It was by no means a futile exercise. We have several pointers before us as far as the future is concerned. We have exchanged ideas. We have by no means come to a conclusion which would suggest that the way forward is blocked in any way. And as I said and as our Foreign Minister said, Mr. Qureshi is due to come to India in the later in the year. In the interregnum there is time enough for us and I believe particularly for Pakistan to reflect on the process...the modalities carrying it forward and to understand that the reduction of the trust deficit and the building of confidence are itself catalysts to take this dialogue forward. And that is why we need to undertake graduated steps when it comes to the resumption of dialogue.

Nirupama Rao: Well there is a gap in perception, I have to be honest and admit that. But these are not unbridgeable divides between India and Pakistan. On a number of ideas that we exchanged yesterday we were in agreement...in agreement about how to build confidence and trust. On certain other ideas I think much more time and ground will needed to be covered before we can say we are ready to start dialogue in those particular areas. But let me say that in most of the sectors that we talked about yesterday...the sectors for assumption of dialogue...we were in agreement.

Nirupama Rao: Well, I would say that I would have hoped that we would've had more positive outcome to our discussions yesterday. But I think in diplomacy, as in life, disappointments such as these needs to be surmounted because as neighbors India and Pakistan will have to deal with each other. We don't have the luxury of maintaining irresolvable distances between our two countries.

India-China Strategic Partnership -- story in Foreign Policy Magazine

Here's the link to a story, quoting me, on India-China strategic partnership, particularly the nuclear dimension. The story written by Christian Caryl has appeared on the July 14, 2010 issue of the Foreign Policy Magazine.

Europeans and Americans, who have dominated world affairs for so long, are understandably fascinated by the recent rise of China and India. It's obvious that the rapid economic resurgence of these two great Asian powers fundamentally alters the global rules of the game.



China and India have built up a $60-billion-per-year trading relationship, and for years they've insisted that they want to work more closely on a variety of fronts. Yet that expressed desire for collaboration co-exists uneasily with a long-running strategic rivalry. Parts of their mutual border remain in dispute. China has long supported Pakistan, India's main enemy, while the Indians have often befriended competitors of the Chinese (be it Moscow or Washington). Lately Beijing has been cultivating relationships among countries in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean -- including Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka -- to protect the flow of commerce and access to supplies of natural resources. That has the Indians fearing encirclement.
Lately, though, another element is threatening to complicate the strategic calculus: the nuclear factor. In themselves, of course, nuclear weapons are nothing new to either country. China has been a nuclear power for decades, while India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974 (though most outsiders tend to think of 1998, when New Delhi conducted a series of underground explosions designed to establish its bona fides as a genuine nuclear power). Although both countries have sworn off first use, both have built up formidable deterrents designed to retaliate against any attackers.

So what's new? A lot. Concurrent with their rising economic might, China and India have set about modernizing their militaries to lend extra muscle to their growing strategic ambitions -- and given their complicated history, that can't help but spark worries. "China has the most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the world," noted one U.S. report. "China's ballistic missile force is expanding in both size and types of missiles." China's Dongfeng long-range missiles boast independently controlled multiple warheads, mobility, and solid fuel (meaning that they can be fired with little notice). That's just one of many areas in which the Chinese have demonstrated their advanced technological capabilities. In January China shot down one of its own satellites with a missile -- once again demonstrating, as it did with a previous test in 2007, that it's well down the path toward a ballistic missile defense system.

That test unnerved the Indians, who saw the prospect of Chinese space weapons as a potential threat to the credibility of their own nuclear deterrent. The Indians, meanwhile, have been hard at work on a new generation of long-range missiles of their own. The Agni-5, which is set for a test flight by the end of this year, has a projected range of 5,000 to 6,000 kilometers -- meaning that it would be able to hit even the northernmost of China's cities. The Indians are also conducting sea trials of their first ballistic missile submarine, the Arihant, which could be ready for deployment within another year or two.

It is undoubtedly true that the two countries mainly have other potential enemies in mind. China is primarily concerned about deterring potential attacks by the world's leading nuclear power, the United States, while India's strategic calculations focus on the threat from Pakistan. Yet strategic logic is creating the potential for direct friction between Beijing and New Delhi on several fronts. The two countries are already engaged in a naval arms race as they jockey for influence in the waters around South Asia. Tensions have also been mounting over the two countries' border disputes -- especially the one involving the disputed area of Arunachal Pradesh (which is controlled by the Indians). The Indians complain of a rising number of Chinese incursions into the area; a remark by the Chinese ambassador to India a few years ago, when he claimed the territory as China's, stirred up public outrage. The Chinese, who regard Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet, worry in turn about a buildup of Indian troops in the region.

Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan of the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi notes one concern. Starting in 2007, the Chinese military began a major upgrade of its missile base near the city of Delingha in Qinghai province, next to Tibet. In addition to the intermediate-range missiles already stationed in the region, Rajagopalan says there are indications the Chinese may have beefed up the force with long-range DF-31s and DF-31As -- thus threatening not only northern India, including Delhi, but targets in the south as well. It's entirely possible, she acknowledges in a 2007 paper, that the Chinese move could be aimed primarily at countering Russian missiles stationed in Siberia, but warns that "what the Chinese may consider a routine exercise may send a wrong signal and have serious implications." For his part, former U.S. diplomat Charles Freeman says that he regards Indian fears of a Chinese nuclear buildup as exaggerated, but worries that a fateful mismatch of perceptions could already be spurring both countries toward a genuine nuclear arms race.

The extent to which the two militaries are getting on each other's nerves became apparent in a bit of high-ranking trash-talking earlier this year. India's chief military science officer, V.K. Saraswat, declared that new advances in his country's ballistic missile technology meant that "as far as cities in China and Pakistan are concerned, there will be no target that we want to hit but can't hit." That prompted a retort from Rear Adm. Zhang Zhaozhong of China's National Defense University, who pointedly derided the "low level" of Indian technology. "In developing its military technology," Zhang said, "China has never taken India as a strategic rival, and none of its weapons were specifically designed to contain India." If that was meant to console anyone south of the border, it doesn't seem to have worked.
The best time to talk about an arms race, of course, is before it really gathers steam. Krishnaswami Subrahmanyam, former chairman of India's National Security Advisory Board, says that China and India should take their nuclear concerns to the Conference on Disarmament, a multilateral negotiating forum at the United Nations. But that, of course, would require the Chinese to acknowledge that there's a problem, which they might not be willing to do. Rajagopalan notes that India and Pakistan have managed to set up some effective confidence-building measures on their common border, but that India and China have yet to do the same (aside from a few stillborn efforts in the early 1990s). Instituting mechanisms to warn each other of pending missile tests might be a start. "I think there's a great need for that," she says. "Otherwise these kinds of tensions can spiral out of control." You can say that again.

India sends mixed signals on Iran

Here's the link a story on the recent Iran sanctions by Peter Brown, quoting me. The story has appeared in Asia Times.

India has adopted an ambiguous approach towards Iran in recent years. On the one hand, India wants to work the Iran option, given the growing demand for energy resources. But on the other hand, it has also had problems with Iran's clandestine nuclear activities, especially the Pakistan link, and thus follows Washington's lead in supporting sanctions against Tehran.



It is easy to misread the signals India's leadership is frantically sending out concerning the imposition of sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. India has been commended by the United States for its record of backing sanctions votes, though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has consistently doubted they can work.

At the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors, India has cast three votes against Iran over its failure to meet international obligations. And shortly after the recent India-US Strategic Dialogue, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns commended India for its "admirable" record when it came to implementing previous UN Security Council resolutions. He said that he fully expected India to "follow through and implement the new resolution". [1]

In Toronto in late June as the Group of 20 (G-20) summit closed, US President Barack Obama directed this curious comment at Manmohan: And I can tell you that here at the G-20, when the prime minister speaks people listen, particularly because of his deep knowledge of economic issues, as well as the fact that he understands that as India rises as a world power, not just a regional power, that it also has enormous responsibilities to work with the rest of the world community around issues of peace and prosperity. [2] If everyone were really listening to Manmohan as closely as Obama described, the latest round of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council would have never been approved, let alone proposed in the first place.

Manmohan has been quite consistent. Following a nuclear security summit in April, for example, he openly questioned the effectiveness of the planned sanctions, and shared his concern that the poor and not the power elite in Tehran would suffer.

Manmohan once again reminded Obama that India viewed Iran as also "entitled to all the rights that members who have signed the NPT [nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and are peaceful users of atomic energy, are entitled to". [3]

Manmohan words were well chosen, and Obama knew immediately that India had no plan to abandon Iran entirely.

"India has adopted an ambiguous approach towards Iran in recent years," said Rajeswari Rajagopalan, senior fellow in security studies at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. "On the one hand, India wants to work the Iran option, given the growing demand for energy resources. But on the other hand, it has also had problems with Iran's clandestine nuclear activities, especially the Pakistan link, and thus follows Washington's lead in supporting sanctions against Tehran."

The Pew Research Center in its most recent Global Attitudes Survey released in June injected an element of considerable uncertainty into the mix by exposing how few threads connect India's leaders to the Indian people over what to do about Iran. [4]

What leaps out is that among those in India who oppose Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, there is greater support for the use of military force than for tougher economic sanctions.

"Just over half (52%) of Indians who would not like to see a nuclear-armed Tehran - Indians oppose Iran in this regard by a margin of 48% to 33%. [p 45] - say it is more important to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action; 39% say avoiding a military conflict with Iran is more important," said the survey's authors.

Even more confounding is the simultaneous 10 percentage point drop in the overall US favorability rating in India since a year ago - only Mexico experienced a larger drop. Controversy over the US granting Indian investigators access to David Coleman Headley - a key suspect in the November 2008 Mumbai terror attack - might explain the 17 percentage point drop in the number of Indians who favor the US-led effort to fight terrorism, to 65%. India's overall favorability rating of the American people remained unchanged.

The Indian and American governments share a common vision on Iran to the extent that neither wants to see a nuclear Iran. However, the two countries differ on the best way to achieve that goal. "While India feels that a nuclear Iran is not in the interest of regional stability, New Delhi is keen that the US and the international community use dialogue and diplomacy to resolve Iran's nuclear issue," said Rajagopalan.

As much as the US wants to include India on its list of staunch supporters willing to bear down hard on Iran, India resists being included, and its resistance is likely to grow rather than diminish in light of the US's relatively muted response to China's nuclear deal for two new nuclear reactors with Pakistan.

"It would be naive to assume that India and the US are on the same page regarding Iran sanctions. First, India does not see Iran as a threat. There are no major disputes between them. On the contrary, India has always had generally friendly relations and also business and cultural ties," said Subrata Ghoshroy, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Program in Science, Technology, and Society.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a growing suspicion, rightly or wrongly, that the US stands ready to quietly cast a less stringent eye on Sino-Pakistani nuclear dealings in exchange for Chinese cooperation on the Iranian brief at the Security Council.

"This pattern of deal-cutting above Indian heads - mildly reminiscent of the [president Bill] Clinton years - continues to grate on Indian nerves, and is likely to forestall any effort by PM Singh to deepen the US-India link on Iran," said Sourabh Gupta, senior research associate at Samuels International Associates in Washington, DC.

It does not help that the US prefers to ignore Iran's status as the second biggest supplier of crude oil to India. Iran could also become a major supplier of natural gas to India, although the India section of the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline deal is dead in the water for now. And while Obama has been to Ankara and Cairo - and perhaps soon Jakarta - in his attempts to strengthen US ties to the many Muslim communities around the world, he will have to be especially diplomatic in his choice of words when he arrives in New Delhi in November.

"India is home to nearly 160 million Muslims consisting of both Shi'ite and Sunni. Friendly relations with Iran is crucial to maintaining credibility in the Islamic world at home and abroad to counter Pakistan's influence, a country that does not have a close relationship with Iran," said Ghoshroy.

Many Indians accept that their national security interests are better served by maintaining good relations with Iran, and contend that any strict sanctions, including maritime interdictions and inspections, will exacerbate tensions in a region that is already volatile - right in India's backyard.

India has been realistic, however, in addressing US concerns, and for that reason the confidence expressed by Burns and others is not entirely misplaced. US-India relations have reached a new high - though the Pew survey deflates this image somewhat - and cooperation on the non-proliferation/civil nuclear front is prized in New Delhi.

"Mindful of the fact that Iran constitutes a core US security concern, the Singh government has over the past couple of years - coinciding with the Iranian case being reported to the Security Council - maintained a relative standstill in functional bilateral cooperation with Tehran," said Gupta. "At minimum, the Road Map to [Bilateral] Strategic Cooperation that it had inherited from the predecessor [Atal Bihari] Vajpayee-led government has not been deepened."

Besides, India's commercial interests rank the size and scope of any business opportunities in the US far above any in Iran.

"So long as US-Iranian relations remain in a deepening spiral and Iran in contravention of security council resolutions, Indian voting behavior at the IAEA board is likely to loosely shadow the US's and discretion in outreach to Tehran will remain the watchword in New Delhi," said Gupta.

In contrast, China has been able to bargain both politically with the US within the Security Council while also simultaneously benefiting commercially with the Iranians. This does not go unnoticed in New Delhi. As China pushes forward, India is in a quandary - reluctant at best to abandon future-oriented energy cooperation with Tehran, and so, for example, the framework of their joint working group on oil and gas is sustained, but pragmatic enough to exclude itself from making any new or immediate investments.

"India continues to maintain a distinction between UN and unilateral US sanctions on Iran. But in this regard too, the red lines established here by the US are known and internalized: no new, large hydrocarbon investments in Iran; no assistance to the regime to meet its refining deficiencies; no high-profile military exchanges or defense-industrial cooperation with Tehran," said Gupta.

The war in Afghanistan and the IPI pipeline are important considerations here, too, but for different reasons.

"India has continued to argue that pricing is a major impediment in taking the IPI initiative forward, while not making officially clear its position on the issue. It may be under the US influence that it is not pursuing the pipeline at this point of time, however, New Delhi has not ruled out this option for the future, given the growing demand for gas," said Rajagopalan. "This will necessitate India to keep this option for the future given that Iran has the second largest reserve of natural gas. On this, India should look to the example set by Turkey, and pursue it through third countries and swap deals."

As far as the war in Afghanistan is concerned, the US faces very tough choices. India's patience with the current US-Pakistan relationship may be wearing thin despite a new round of talks, and it is no secret that India would welcome a significant reduction in the US dependence on Pakistan as the ultimate answer in the war on terror.

Beyond that, there are those who call from within India for the US to bring Iran on board on this and other issues. Critics of the status quo want the US to become more sensible about Iran, and to embrace the work done by Brazil and Turkey and others. Ignoring Iran's ancient roots, its cultural influence, and the importance of its role as a regional power in the least places Iraq's future in jeopardy, among other things.

"This is not a quick-fix solution," said Rajagopalan. "Both the governments need to invest time and effort looking at long-term benefits of bringing a positive direction to this relationship."

Reaching out to Tehran would solve two problems in one shot, the argument goes. It would bolster Iran's regional power status, and an overall rapprochement with Washington might also bring an end to Tehran's nuclear issue as well.

"Washington has to move beyond Islamabad and consider other options that are available or that can be made available in the near future. Iran could prove to be an alternative, which Washington should work on," said Rajagopalan.

Washington is reluctant to listen to this advice at a time when US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is warning that Iran is fast becoming a military dictatorship. The element of risk that is present for the Singh government is enormous. If it simply signs on to the US agenda at a time when the US position is growing more bellicose - perhaps using the Pew survey results to support this shift - it might come to regret this move.

"Because [Manmohan's] government appears to be operating at a point close to the Indian polity's - and policy of strategic autonomy's - threshold of tolerance in bending to the will of Washington vis-a-vis Iran, his scope of maneuver is limited," said Gupta. "The inability to sustain indefinitely this domestic consensus is likely to be aggravated by the perception that the current US administration is edging away from the favorable lens through which it has viewed India for much of the past decade."

Manmohan's own domestic political concerns are amplified by Obama's pending trip to India. "Ratings of Obama are also overwhelmingly positive in Japan (76%), South Korea (75%), India (73%) and Indonesia (67%)," the survey reported. (p 25).

Manmohan is caught between a rock and a hard place. He must be careful not to push too hard on Iran, and he must prepare for Obama's arrival. The lifting of export controls and other important issues loom in the background.

"[Manmohan] still leads a coalition government which is proving to be more fractious than previously anticipated. Cozying up to America will not be seen as a popular policy," said Ghoshroy.

India's commitment to adhere to the basic outline of UN resolutions on Iran is not in doubt, but India's record of technological achievements and how exactly these came about cannot be ignored completely.

"Clearly, US and Indian interests are different. It is true, India has publicly stated that an Iran with nuclear weapons will be harmful for the region, but it cannot say it too loudly given its own track record in developing the nuclear bomb," said Ghoshroy. "Indian scientists were proud in how they busted the US sanctions imposed after 1974 and tightened after 1998, and developed the bomb." Obama may soon meet a few of those same scientists.

Notes
1. US expects India to implement Iran sanctions .
2. Click here.
3. PM tells Obama that Iran sanctions will hit poor 4. Click here

McChrystal's Exit: What Does It Mean for Afghanistan?

Here's the link to an article of mine published by ORF on the exit of Gen. McChrystal and what it means for Afghanistan.

Indiscretion is the one thing that General Stanley McChrystal could be blamed for. It is not the COIN strategy, also now known as the McChrystal strategy that was at fault, but the manner in which he dismissed some members of the political or diplomatic class that was at fault. Should he have been sacrificed on account of that? What about punishing Ambassador Eikenberry and others for leaking secret cables to the media and bringing out in the open the country's divisiveness in its AfPak strategy? What does McChrystal's exit mean for the war on terror in Afghanistan?


President Obama opting for General Patraeus to take charge of Afghanistan appears to be not a bad option given that both he and General McChrystal had worked together in developing and implementing the current COIN strategy in Afghanistan. Even Obama's statement that replacing McChrystal with Patraeus was not “based on any difference in policy with General McChrystal” makes one believe that there is going to be continuity in the strategy and the manner in which the war will be taken forward. This is not to suggest that Patraeus and Obama have an excellent equation. A story in Time brought out their problems which seem to have begun in Obama's first meeting with Patraeus in Baghdad in 2008 during the presidential campaign. Apparently, the Obama-Patraeus disagreement was over Obama's intention to pull out all combat troops from Iraq by 2010.

Eikenberry's argument that the surge strategy, which has been a critical component of the current strategy, was not going to be effective was little premature. McChrystal's strategy was being criticized as a failure even before it could take off. The facts on the ground may appear to support such criticism because of the sharp spike in the violence level in Afghanistan in the last few months. But this spike was expected. In fact, the violence level in Iraq went up before it started coming down. The fact of the matter is that McChrystal had a dedicated team of men with him to do what had to be done.

More importantly, the General was liked by President Hamid Karzai. And Eikenberry is wrong about Karzai too. Instead of ridiculing Karzai, as evident in Eikenberry's cable message, he should have realized that the US has to go with the best choice it has. It is also wrong to sit and pass judgment at Karzai making deals with Taliban given that the US has made it clear that it will be packing its bag in a year's time. Karzai was left with no option but to make peace with the good/bad Taliban. It is naïve to assume that he would sacrifice his government and see Taliban in power in Afghanistan again. In the absence of a clear policy from Washington, Karzai can be seen to be doing more peace jirgas and gain some kind of recognition from the Taliban even at the cost of US unhappiness.

If the current COIN strategy continued, McChrystal was going to request for another 30,000 soldiers for Afghanistan. It remains to be seen whether such a request will be made by General Patraeus and whether it will be accepted by Washington. But Eikenberry's argument that increased strength of US forces in Afghanistan will only increase Afghan dependence on the US instead of developing their own forces is a bit of a stretch.

The more fundamental issue after having thrown McChrystal out is whether there is clarity in Washington about what they want to do in Afghanistan and what kind of an outcome they would like to see in Afghanistan. What kind of a message is Washington sending to Karzai and even Pakistan for that matter? Is there any agreement between the political and diplomatic sections in Washington as to what they want to achieve in Afghanistan? Or is the superpower ready to take a beating and leave Afghanistan?

Lastly, it is unclear what this episode says about President Obama. Obama's approach has left even coalition partners wondering on the AfPak strategy. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's special envoy to Afghanistan, has already gone on an extended leave – an indication of his disagreement over the US policy. The Obama Administration has to recognise that Afghanistan is not a war that can be fought easily or alone; the US has to build in a larger coalition of nations, particularly the neighbours, to make long-lasting changes in Afghanistan. Until then, Obama is going to be taken for a ride by Pakistan by making piece-meal arrangements that have kept the Americans happy all this while.

1.However, there are significant differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. In the case of Iraq, most of the war was fought in urban centres, which is not the case in Afghanistan. Afghan is much larger and given the mountainous terrain, it is a much harder task. Therefore, the kind of force level that is needed to clean up an area and then hold is going to be significantly larger. There was also the application of full-spectrum warfare – to use all the available tools in the kit – in Iraq which needs to be replicated in Afghanistan.

India-US Strategic Dialogue: Challenges Ahead

Here's the link to an article of mine on Indo-US Strategic Dialogue published by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS).

Though India and the US have rebooted their relations with their first ever strategic dialogue, a few key issues will decide the fate of the new strategic partners. These include the geopolitics of AfPak and the war on terror, dealing with China, hi-tech trade and export controls.



Do India and the US have a common vision vis-a-vis the AfPak issue and the war on terror issues? The US has restated a stable Afghanistan remains as vital to its national security interest although it has a limited objective – ensuring that the Taliban/ al Qaeda do not use the Pakistan-Afghan territory to carry out terrorism. This can be achieved in two ways – through reconstruction and development of Afghanistan’s society, economy and polity; and second, by putting together some sort of a coalition of forces, including the so-called moderate Taliban. It appears President Obama is keen on following the second option. This explains the added importance of Pakistan in the US’ AfPak calculus. On the other hand, India’s interests go much beyond resources, Taliban or terrorism to ensuring a stable, democratic and strengthened Afghanistan in its neighbourhood that will contribute to regional peace and stability. It is unclear if these differing objectives can be strategically adjusted.

Second, the two countries have a problem on China too. Dealing with a rising China will in fact be a test case for US-India relations as well as the US-Japan alliance. With the US deeply entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan, China has managed to carve out a crucial strategic space for itself in the region, developing significant leverage. North Korea and Myanmar are cases in point. Chinese military modernization and the opaqueness of its policies and intentions have created suspicions in several countries in the region. There are a number of complications between India and China. India-China relationship cannot be and should not be seen in a purely bilateral framework. It is necessary to contextualize India-China relations in the broader Asian state security context. It is India’s rising profile in Asia and beyond – India’s rising profile in South East Asia, its strengthened relationship with Japan, Vietnam, US – that has been at the crux of the issue in the recent years. The Sino-Indian border issue is only a manifestation of these other problems. And Washington may be forced to take sides in case of a conflict in the future.

The state of US-China relations will have a major bearing on India’s relations with both of these powers as well as on Asian stability. India will be uncomfortable with cosy ties between Washington and Beijing, although a tense relationship is also not going to be easy for India to manage. A G-2 scenario will be nightmarish for India given their potential to ‘manage’ South Asia jointly. Beijing also was not comfortable with a Bush Administration that was cosying up to India as major pillar in the emerging Asian balance.

Finally, how India and the US will approach the hi-tech trade and export controls is a major issue. In fact, as analysts have pointed out, hi-tech trade between India and the US will be a ‘litmus’ test of the still uncertain India-US partnership. India’s engagement with US in the field of hi-tech trade and defence should be monitored through military-to-military relations, defence trade, and defence industrial collaboration. While military to military relations have been going quite strong, there is also improvement in the defence trade arena. There are again issues that need to be sorted out before it can improve significantly. Problems in this area have included India’s refusal to sign up to agreements that the US wanted including the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMoA) and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA). Washington finds it hard to trade with New Delhi on high-end technology items or transferring advanced avionics, communications equipment and satellite navigational aids on board some platforms that India wants (for instance the P-8I Poseidon multimission maritime aircraft or the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft). Not being party to CISMoA or BECA could also potentially affect India’s plans to purchase Boeing C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft or the 145 BAE Systems M777 ultra light-weight howitzers or Apache AH-64 attack helicopter. Washington is also keen that India signs the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and the Access and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA). As far as LSA is concerned, India feels that making available facilities for maintenance, servicing, communications, refueling and medical care will drag India into regional conflicts unnecessarily making India’s position much more complicated. India having been used to the Soviet/Russian style of defence trade, finds it difficult to agree to such strict terms and conditions from the US side. India took a big step last year in signing the End User Monitoring Agreement (EUMA) which was being dragged on for several years. Lastly, operationalisation of the India-US civil nuclear deal will also say a great deal about the commitment of the new dialogue partners to their relations.

True, strategic dialogue is all about thinking big and strategic issues and not to focus on deliverables or tactical issues, but problems on several tactical fronts can blow the air out of the strategic balloon. India and the US need to be cautious to see that that does not happen.

Disarmament Still A Talk Shop Topic

Here's the link to an article of mine on the recently concluded NPT Review Conference and how disarmament remains a distant dream for the near future.

As long as Asia continues in this vicious cycle of security and insecurity, the salience of nuclear weapons in the overall security calculus cannot diminish, which in a way indicates that nuclear weapons will continue to play a major role in the coming decades and the issue of disarmament remains a talk shop topic and not a reality.



NPT Review Conference 2010 was considered a success by many around the world, wherein 189 countries were able to finalize on a 28-page document that reiterated nuclear disarmament, the need to prevent “further proliferation of nuclear weapons,” as well as “preserving the [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] Treaty’s vital contribution to peace and security.” Some in India have not been happy with the mentioning of India in the final document which called upon India, Pakistan and Israel to sign the treaty as non-Nuclear Weapon States and to put nuclear facilities under the comprehensive safeguards of the IAEA. But, by and large, the bottom line was that the Treaty is a good thing and it is also a good thing to be a “Friend of the NPT.” However, on the issue of whether the conference was a step forward, there are different views, depending on what one wanted to achieve through this conference. Assuming that stopping horizontal proliferation was a major objective, the conference did not see much progress. There are not going to be any “rollbacks” nor can one predict with certainty that more countries will not go nuclear in the near future, before the next NPT Review Conference in 2015. Therefore, global disarmament is likely to remain a pipe dream for the near future.

If nuclear proliferation is really as big a problem as the US and others seem to believe, then greater attention needs to be paid to nuclear disarmament. This is one side of the story – the demand side of the problem: as long as nuclear weapons remain legitimate for some, others are bound to seek it also. And this is not just for reasons of prestige, as it has been made out in the case of India. The Cold War rivalry drove the US and Soviet arsenals, and thereafter, Chinese insecurities about the US, and subsequently the Soviet power drove the Chinese to develop their arsenal. That same chain reaction led to the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons programme. This quest is likely to continue in the foreseeable future. Even if overwhelming American military power manages to stem the tide of proliferation for the next several years, the inevitable (relative) waning of American power can be counted upon to lead to a new round of WMD proliferation. Indeed, the disparity in power between the US and the other powers itself is likely to spur other nations to seek nuclear weapons. For example, North Korea seems to have decided that the main lesson of the decade-long crisis over Iraq is that one cannot challenge the US without first acquiring nuclear weapons.

The non-proliferation fundamentalists of Washington have found it very convenient to assume and even conclude that states pursue nuclear weapons for purpose of prestige, since it then precluded them from looking at the real reasons for acquiring these weapons – security-related reasons. If Washington shifts its focus to security concerns as the key, then the reasonably correct conclusion would be that the process of proliferation is inevitable unless there is some serious drive towards nuclear disarmament, which is rarely paid the attention it requires. Instead, the global (Washington’s) focus has almost entirely been on the supply side of the question: how and why states acquire these capabilities and what capabilities they acquire. But there are other issues that need attention too.

First and foremost, there should be questions as to how the policies of the great powers have encouraged such acquisition; Pakistan’s acquisition/development of nuclear weapons is a good point to start with. Without American and Chinese acquiescence or assistance, neither Pakistan nor Israel could have acquired nuclear weapons. The logic of such actions suggests that a significant source of future proliferation could be the imperatives of great power politics. The US policy approaches tend to be very short-sighted. In order to make some quick, tactical gains, these critical issues are often ignored. The manner in which Pakistan-China nuclear proliferation was ignored so as to have Pakistan on board for its Cold War policies against the Soviet Union is a classic example.

Second, NPT has been instrumental in seeing that there is no horizontal proliferation, i.e., states other than the five “haves” do not become nuclear weapon states. There has been hardly any mention of vertical proliferation and the need to stem that as well. This mismatch has to be looked into and until then, there cannot be any genuine progress toward nuclear disarmament. This issue needs to be addressed even if regional weapon free zones are to become a reality. Though there has been significant reduction in American and Russian nuclear arsenals, they still have thousands of warheads each and, of course, the other three nuclear powers are not yet part of this nuclear arms control process.

Third, the world is moving towards increasing insecurity. As the Cold War ended, the world in general was expected to become a much more secure place with the disappearance of the two superpowers and their rivalries. However, post-Cold War stability has given way to increasing insecurity, which in turn has put greater emphasis on military modernization, including nuclear weapons, which further increases insecurity. The Asian scenario is a classic case of this. There are several contributing factors, including US unilateralism, particularly during the Bush Administration. Rising China with major military focus has also contributed to the rising insecurities in the region. Similarly, Russian insecurities and its responses to that insecurity as well as increasing adventurism by North Korea have been factors contributing to the securitization of Asia.

As long as Asia continues in this vicious cycle of security and insecurity, the salience of nuclear weapons in the overall security calculus cannot diminish, which in a way indicates that nuclear weapons will continue to play a major role in the coming decades and the issue of disarmament remains a talk shop topic and not a reality.

Discussion on India's Border Infrastructure

ORF organised a roundtable discussion on India's Border Infrastructure on June 09, 2010. The discussion was initiated by Mr. Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Member of Parliament and was followed by three other panelists -- Brig. Arun Sahgal, Maj. Gen. Sheru Thapliyal and myself. While Brig. Sahgal dicussed the Sino-Indian border infrastructure in the broader context of Chinese grand strategy, Gen. Thapliyal elaborated on the ground situation on the border. My presentation was in the context of the larger Asian strategic context as well as the trends in Chinese military strategy and modernisation.

The interaction was well attended by military people, both serving and retired, as well as members from the diplomatic community and media. Some of the media coverage can be found here.



There is a clear military imbalance between the two; military imbalance in terms of equipments & units as well as the infrastructure. In the last few years, the infrastructural developments that China has undertaken in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as well as on the India-China border provide the potential to the PLA Army to mobilize forces and equipment in a much shorter span of time. China now has a 40,000-km road network in Tibet, apart from rail links like the 1,118-km one from Lhasa to Gormo in Qinghai province. This would enable China to mobilize large forces by train and by road onto Indian borders. Earlier this exercise not only took a long time but also was impossible during winter. The new rail line into Tibet, and expressways, have changed the scenario totally.

For a long time, the politicians, bureaucracy and the military had maintained strict opposition to development/upgradation of the border infrastructure arguing that it will only facilitate Chinese walking into our territory, particularly in case of a conflict. Recently, this was acknowledged by none other than our defence minister, Antony. While addressing a function of the BRO, Antony said, “Earlier, the thinking was that inaccessibility in far-flung areas would be a deterrent to the enemies.” Describing such thoughts as an “incorrect approach,” he said the government is now taking a number of measures to upgrade roads, tunnels and airfields in the border areas (May 07, 2010). BRO DG Lt Gen AK Nanda recently had stated that the infrastructure along the borders was not improved upon earlier by design. He said, “We did not want to develop the areas because we did not want the enemy forces to take benefit out of it. But now, our approach has changed and we are building it on our capacity, modern equipment and workforce.” (September 30, 2008)

In a potential limited conflict in the India-China context, the PLA’s contingency plans emphasize a “short and swift localized” conflict (confined to the Tawang region, along the lines of the 1999 Kargil conflict) with the following objectives in mind: capture the Tawang tract; give India’s military a bloody nose; and deliver a knockout punch that punctures India’s ambitions to be China’s equal or peer competitor once and for all.