| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| Kill the deal to help China |
| 2007-08-21 |
| By Ashok K Mehta Of the many things the Army teaches you, foremost is contingency planning, especially meeting the unforeseen. This axiom was apparently not factored into the run-up to the 123 Agreement with the US, singularly the most widely and hotly debated agreement in 60 years of India's foreign policy. Not only was there no fallback position, the political czars had also taken the Left opposition for granted. The Government expected future battles to be fought in the NSG, IAEA and US Congress, not on its own turf threatened by an unpredictable ally. They were lulled into equanimity partly due to the fact that treaties and agreements in India do not require to be ratified by Parliament. In most countries you need a two-thirds parliamentary majority for the consummation of any agreement which impinges on national security. But in India national interest seldom figures prominently in any political calculus: Survival of the Government and electoral prospects determine the national agenda. Soldiers, on the other hand, fight for their regiment and their country. There is no other consideration except service before self. Notwithstanding the current hiccups, it has to be acknowledged that the 123 Agreement with all its alleged imperfections and improprieties is a good deal, the result of skilful negotiations with experienced American interlocutors. With the deal, we are better off, not net losers, as the nay-sayers to the deal are claiming. The agreement has been politicised both in content and context. The opposition to the deal has come from the Left parties, historically antagonistic to the US. They support the UPA Government from the outside only to keep the 'bigger evil' - the BJP-led NDA - at bay. Did the Government foresee the Left threat of withdrawal of support - "heavy political consequences" - if they went ahead with the agreement? The answer is probably is no, judging by the crisis that was generated over the spat between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, which the former passed on to a Kolkata daily in the citadel of the Left. The 'Breaking News' story catalysed the crisis. Rumours about the aftermath to the crisis wafted across the central lawns of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on a hot and sticky Independence Day reception by President Pratibha Patil, where, for the first time, the ropes had been reconfigured to create a separate enclosure for Cabinet Ministers. It was conspicuously empty as Ministers chose to mingle with the aam admi. The Prime Minister, went the rumour, will have to go, as UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was not kept on board about his 'Take-it-or-leave-it' challenge to Mr Karat. That this so-called non-Prime Minister had strategised his operational plan through the media showed the high value and credence he attaches to it. It is strange that instead of lauding the Prime Minister for showing political spine in calling the Left's bluff over the 123 Agreement, Ms Gandhi chose discretion over valour and put the UPA on the defensive. She did not share the Prime Minister's new-found aggressiveness, ignoring a life-threat to the Government. One learns in the services the importance of the clarity in the chain of command and no premature deviations from a plan once it has been implemented. The dual command system followed in the Congress-led UPA Government is confusing as well as dangerous for scoring self-goals. Now everyone knows, if they did not earlier, that the UPA chairperson and not the Prime Minister has the last word. By retracting his challenge to Mr Karat, Mr Manmohan Singh had to eat crow. Ms Gandhi may have saved the Government for some time and her electoral plans of the future, but her actions have severely undermined the office of the Prime Minister and the credibility of the Government at home and abroad. Gen KS Thimayya used to say, "Never make your subordinate lose face." By asking Mr Pranab Mukherjee to find a middle path, Ms Gandhi has let down her Prime Minister, the Government and the country in the larger interest of political survival. The lesson for the political class from this brief brush with brinkmanship is to be found in Sun Tzu's Falling off the Precipice. He offers a simple suggestion: "Be calm, firm and keep both feet on the ground." The face-saving formula the media has described as deal-breather, not deal-breaker, was found in a meeting between non-Government actor No II and CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, sometimes the Government's special envoy to Nepal, and Mr Pranab Mukherjee. It is not clear who among the two re-discovered the evergreen committee formula, but it was Mr Yechury who announced that a panel would examine how the US Hyde Act will impinge on the 123 Agreement. The Left is insisting that while this panel is in place, negotiations with the IAEA and the NSG should be put on hold, which effectively means the 123 Agreement is dead. A middle path to this would be for both to function in tandem, as time is at a premium due to the US election in 2008. US Under-secretary of State Nicholas Burns has said that India-related NSG and IAEA certifications have to be in before year-end for passage through Congress. Over two-and-a-half years, the pros and cons of the 123 Agreement have been thrashed out in micro detail by all manner of experts. The debate has now turned into political theatre: India needs nuclear energy; no, it does not. India will join the nuclear club; no, it will freeze and roll back the nuclear programme. The US will help India in becoming a great power; no, it will make India subservient to the US... and so on. Guess who's having the last laugh? The non-proliferation ayatollahs of the world, apart from China and Pakistan. Never reconciled with India's nuclear tests, which were attributed to China, Beijing has frequently criticised the 123 Agreement and, in fact, demanded India join the NPT as a non-nuclear state. Pakistan has said the 123 Agreement will disturb the strategic balance in South Asia and has asked Washington to do an equivalent agreement with Islamabad. Last year, President George W Bush told Gen Pervez Musharraf to his face, "India and Pakistan are two different countries with different histories." Consequently, the US will not apply the parity principle. Instead, all-weather ally China has agreed to oblige in case the 123 Agreement is done. If this deal does not go through, China will rise as the dominant power in Asia, leaving India behind, tied down in the region countervailed by Pakistan. Blame it on the culture of coalition Governments, thanks to Mr VP Singh's Mandalisation of politics. Ashok K. Mehta is a retired Major General of the Indian Army |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #1 Tomorrow never dies By Ashok Malik The India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement is just one element of a grand bargain that Japan and America are offering India. It is to the credit of the CPI(M) that only it has realised the implications It is a strange week in Delhi. Communists don the garb of ultra-nationalists. India's formerly Right-wing party becomes an add-on of the Left Front. The accidental descent into an election that nobody - with the exception of Ms Mayawati and the BSP - is ready for is a clear and present danger. In a week like this, only the big picture can provide reassurance. The small picture, alas, is simply too smudged. While they are the villains of the day, Mr Prakash Karat and the CPI(M) need to be thanked for having brought into the open the philosophy behind the India-US nuclear deal. Yes, this deal is about energy security and containing greenhouse gas emissions from thermal fuel sources and such noble and good intentions. Yet, slipped into the 123 Agreement is the blueprint for 21st century security architecture. By openly opposing the relationship with America - and by aligning their position with that of the Chinese Government - India's Communist parties have made a public debate on an overarching foreign policy decision simply unavoidable. It is now becoming increasingly untenable to pretend that India's economic rise is simply a matter of higher GDP, better trade figures, more outsourcing contracts - and has no strategic implications. That may be the view preferred by the Indian ostrich, but the rest of the world is not looking at it that way. It is seeing India as a potential counterweight to China, at least as part of a mutually balancing concert of powers that would include, of course, both Asian giants and others such as the US and Russia. In an extreme situation, India could have a role in a containment of China, though that eventuality seems far away. In any case, the very need to contain China would depend on how China and its polity evolve over the coming decade or two. To reflect on that right now would be to gaze into a crystal ball. For the moment, the world is only hedging its bets, which is why it is courting India. The rise of China and what India should do vis-Ã -vis its northern neighbour are obviously exercising various groups of Indians. They are also the subject of cogitation in other countries. In offering India the civilian nuclear deal, the Republican Administration in the US has shown its cards. In Australia, the degree of the national economy's dependence on China - Chinese factories are hungry for Australian commodities - has caused some disquiet. There is a perception, particularly to the right of the political spectrum, that this will compromise Canberra's ability to maintain an independent foreign policy, free of Beijing's influence. It is this sentiment that is driving strategic affairs pundits in Australia to advocate sale of uranium to India. The point was made, for instance, in Widening Horizons: Australia's New Relationship with India, a paper brought out by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in May 2007. In Japan - as the current visit of that country's Prime Minister, accompanied by 150 odd businessmen, makes clear - India is seen as the next Asian manufacturing hub. The 1,500 km long Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is, essentially, envisaged as a 10-year project for the transplanting of Japanese manufacturing facilities. Japanese investment in India is the economic analogue of the nuclear deal or the American promise to provide India military hardware worthy of a future power. Why is Japan doing it? For one, it has a historically unsteady relationship with China. Second, Japan is an ageing society and moving its factories to India is part of an enormous retirement plan. If it wants to retain the factories at home, Japan will have to open itself up to immigrant workers and managers - many of whom may be Chinese. It is looking at a more agreeable alternative - outsourcing manufacturing to India. It is not television sets and mini-CD players that Japan wants to make in the DMIC. From high-end industrial electronics to elements of aerospace manufacture, very sophisticated technology transfer is on offer. The Japanese are also investing heavily in infrastructure. There are no free lunches in economics, no free dinners in diplomacy. In return for Japanese investment, Australian uranium and American weaponry, India would not need to go to war with China - but it would need to make small, subtle and unavoidable choices. It is to the credit of the CPI(M) that it has understood the contours of the grand bargain and made its position clear. In no country do complex foreign policy issues become the bread and butter of domestic, provincial politicians. India is not going to be an exception. As such, one cannot expect every member or party in Parliament to have an informed, enlightened view on the fork India finds itself at. Yet, the role of the BJP in the entire discourse has been a trifle disappointing. As a nationalist party, which led a government that crafted the framework of 'modern diplomacy', surely it could do better than merely mimic Marxists and give them certificates of patriotism? Today, the credit for the deal lies with the Congress - even though it built on the gains of the NDA years - and the Opposition space lies with the Left. The BJP is everywhere - and nowhere. Where will the Karat-Manmohan Singh brinkmanship on the nuclear deal lead to? In terms of ancillary negotiations and the wider foreign policy roadmap, it could delay matters rather than reverse the course. India's direction is inevitable; the Left is defending a lost cause. Not that there isn't a precedent. Between the Spanish-American War and Pearl Harbour, 1898 and 1941, the US swung in and out of the international system. It saw intense internal debate over whether its economic muscle now obligated it to be a global power - or whether old-style isolationism was still feasible. In 1919, at the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson helped frame the Treaty of Versailles, and helped found the League of Nations as part of 20th century security architecture. The US Senate, however, snubbed Wilson, rejected the treaty and kept America out of the League. Wilson warned another war would engulf Europe within a generation. Provincial politicians, American exceptionalists and hyper-nationalists thought he was talking nonsense. Two decades later, Wilson was proved prescient. The US walked into World War II and recognised that this time there was no going back. Do all aspirant powers go through such existential dilemmas? The big picture, remember, does look reassuring! |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-08-21 16:27 |