Article

2005-09-19 Afghanistan/South Asia

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Phuter Angosh3729 2005-09-19 14:36|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Article: Defending Delhi's ties with Iran, a senior Indian official noted that the US has an relationship with Pakistan which is independent of its ties with India, and hence there was no reason why India could not maintain independent relations with both the US and Iran.

Actually, there are a lot of reasons - primary among which are the sale of US military technology to India and the upcoming provision of nuclear technology to its power industry. The fact is that we are providing India with goodies traditionally reserved for good friends of Uncle Sam. If India will not reciprocate by standing with Uncle Sam against Iran, then maybe we should rethink our relations with India. There are good reasons as to why relations with India have been cool for close to 60 years - the Indians are backstabbers of the first order and have a boulder-sized chip on their shoulder about the West.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 14:52|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 14:52|| Front Page Top

#2 Word.

Posted by .com 2005-09-19 14:56|| 2005-09-19 14:56|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm curious .. when did India backstab the USA ?

Posted by john 2005-09-19 16:45|| 2005-09-19 16:45|| Front Page Top

#4 Or any other country?

Posted by john 2005-09-19 18:58|| 2005-09-19 18:58|| Front Page Top

#5 From the American perspective, john, the whole Non-Aligned Nations thingy India organized was a way to pretend not to be on the other side.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-09-19 19:26|| 2005-09-19 19:26|| Front Page Top

#6 Korea, Afghanistan (Soviet invasion), Iraq, Iraq. And this is just a sample of the anti-American Indian positions on international conflicts. India votes against Uncle Sam's position at the UN 81% of the time. Our romance with India today is reminiscent of Clinton's clinch with China even as he stomped on Indonesia - kissing up to our enemies while ditching long-time friends. A big part of our problem with Pakistan is that we've sided persistently with India, after all the support Pakistan offered us throughout the Cold War.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 20:19|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 20:19|| Front Page Top

#7 I would hardly call the Indian positions "backstabbing". Its position was well known. It was neither an ally nor an enemy of the USA.
Because of its location and economy, it was rather irrelevant to the USA for decades and American policymakers could tolerate this position.

You should read some of US Ambassador Dennis Kux's articles (or his book on India-US relations). He points out (1) how the US grossly underestimated the ill effect that transfers of US weaponry (in the early 1960s) to Pakistan would have on relations with India.
(2) The tilt towards Pakistan by Nixon and the dispatch of the Enterprise battle group to the Bay of Bengal poisoned relations for thirty years.
(3) Ambassador Robin Raphael practically ran South Asia policy in the late 1980s. Her unauthorized statements on Kashmir caused much distrust.

The Fabian socialist idiots who ran India were quite distrustful of the USA. One could hardly expect them to support US policy.

Note that the current Indian cabinet still has a few of these morons - the senile Foreign minister Natwar Singh and the strongly anti-US petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyer.
They can be counted on to sabotage moves made by the Prime Minister or Defence Minister.

Posted by john 2005-09-19 20:48|| 2005-09-19 20:48|| Front Page Top

#8 Backstabber or otherwise, any nation in India's position-- courted by all, friend to none-- would act as India is acting now. They hold all the cards, and will of course up the ante to the maximum possible with anyone: Iran, the US, China, Japan, Israel, France, Britain. The fact of the matter is that we are constrained in multiple ways in Asia and will have to cut all kinds of deals-- with India and Russia especially. We'd better get used to it.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-09-19 22:36|| 2005-09-19 22:36|| Front Page Top

#9 India's position in the contemporary near and far east is analogous to Russia's position prior to WWII: the ultimate power broker, a cynical as opposed to an honest broker. Kissinger called Molotov-Ribbentrop the outcome of "Stalin's bazaar", in which Soviet support was sold to the higher bidder. We can expect the Indians to act the same way. They are not our enemies, but they'll not likely be our friends for at least another generation.

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-09-19 22:39|| 2005-09-19 22:39|| Front Page Top

#10 lex: The fact of the matter is that we are constrained in multiple ways in Asia and will have to cut all kinds of deals-- with India and Russia especially.

Actually, we're constrained only because we have these mutual defense treaties all over the place, which means that India can piggyback on the security that we provide. If we pull back on all fronts, India's the one that will come begging. Note that China continues to have claims on substantial chunks of Indian real estate - territory that used to be part of China's tributary state structure before the British East India Company came along. There is nothing I would love more than to see the Chinese put the screws to the Indians. It would be like the Soviets fighting the Nazis all over again.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 22:42|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 22:42|| Front Page Top

#11 That's why the Indians have nukes

China will not sacrifice Beijing, Chongqing and Shanghai for Arunachal Pradesh

Posted by john 2005-09-19 22:48|| 2005-09-19 22:48|| Front Page Top

#12 Play the India card, eh? Interesting.

Can someone please tell me again why this nation wastes so much bandwidth, resources, diplomatic and political capital on irrelevant Europe?

Posted by thibaud (aka lex) 2005-09-19 22:51|| 2005-09-19 22:51|| Front Page Top

#13 john: China will not sacrifice Beijing, Chongqing and Shanghai for Arunachal Pradesh

And India will not sacrifice all of its cities for South Tibet (Arunachal Pradesh). China has hundreds of short and medium range nukes that can annihilate big chunks of India's industry. In this respect (of stockpiling nukes), India is decades behind. Any war between China and India will be a strictly conventional affair.

China's cities are conurbations - low population density areas designed for surviving nuclear attacks - a legacy of tension with both Uncle Sam and the Soviet Union. Shanghai's population is 13m people. It rests on an area of 6,700 sq km. Bombay (incl suburbs) has a population of 9.5m people. It rests on an area of 438 sq km. Guess which city is more likely to be completely destroyed by a nuclear attack.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 23:05|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 23:05|| Front Page Top

#14 But India does not need to annihiliate entire Chinese cities. Shanghai is now a modern skyscaper laden metropolis. Hong Kong is, well, Hong Kong.
The city centres would be destroyed in an attack.
The economic losses would be terrible. They would weaken China in a confrontation with other powers (Japan, USA).

And there is a question as to how many bombs China does have. It may have hundreds of missiles but how many warheads are available for an attack on India? China has to deter much bigger fish.

Posted by john 2005-09-19 23:20|| 2005-09-19 23:20|| Front Page Top

#15 Fact is China refrained from further territorial expansion wars against India when the Indian military was much weaker (and non-nuclear) because it did wish to get involved in a protracted war with India over land. It was simply not worth it.

It is not likely to risk severe damage to its economy at this stage in its developmwent. The costs of a war with India now would be quite high.
A conventional war would probably escalate.

Posted by john 2005-09-19 23:26|| 2005-09-19 23:26|| Front Page Top

#16 Stimulating thread.

Posted by jules 2 2005-09-19 23:44|| 2005-09-19 23:44|| Front Page Top

#17 john: And there is a question as to how many bombs China does have. It may have hundreds of missiles but how many warheads are available for an attack on India? China has to deter much bigger fish.

FAS has an estimate of the Chinese nuclear missile inventory here. China doesn't need deter either the US or Japan, because neither country is interested in attacking China. In a war over South Tibet, all it needs to deter is a first strike from India. And its hundreds of missile-mounted and air-delivered nukes will do just that. If China isn't worried about bringing on about an American nuclear attack over an invasion of Taiwan, it certainly won't get worked up about India's dozen or so nukes. Fact is that India is a much smaller country with far more of its industry located in city centers. The PLA was built around fighting a nuclear war, first with the US, then with the Soviet Union. I think it can survive a nuclear war with India. Can the Indian military survive a nuclear war with China? What will the Pakistani military do when Indian cities are a pile of ashes? Payback time...

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 23:44|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 23:44|| Front Page Top

#18 Never mind that - what will the PLA do? India doesn't want to find out.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 23:46|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 23:46|| Front Page Top

#19 john: Fact is China refrained from further territorial expansion wars against India when the Indian military was much weaker (and non-nuclear) because it did wish to get involved in a protracted war with India over land. It was simply not worth it.

Actually, that was probably due to the Soviet Union getting worked up about China beating up on one of its good buddies. The Soviets got all worked up again when China invaded Vietnam in the 1970's.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2005-09-19 23:49|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2005-09-19 23:49|| Front Page Top

#20 If China isn't worried about bringing on about an American nuclear attack over an invasion of Taiwan, it certainly won't get worked up about India's dozen or so nukes.

First Indian test was in 1974.
It has been producing weapons grade plutonium since then (at one stage continuously refuelling some CANDU reactors, limiting power production but maximizing usable plutonium yield).
A dozen weapons in thirty years? Not very likely.

China clearly has numerical and technological nuclear superiority against India.

It does however worry about an American attack and would hardly be expected to weaken itself over a land dispute with India.

Someone driving an old, beaten-up Ford pickup can be reckless in traffic. The guy with the Mercedes is a little more careful. As China becomes richer, its tolerance for nuclear war fighting drops.

Posted by john 2005-09-20 00:02|| 2005-09-20 00:02|| Front Page Top

00:03 Douglas Adams
00:02 john
23:57 11A5S
23:50 mac
23:49 Zhang Fei
23:46 Zhang Fei
23:44 Zhang Fei
23:44 jules 2
23:35 Alaska Paul
23:31 Redneck Jim
23:30 Zhang Fei
23:27 11A5S
23:26 john
23:20 john
23:20 thibaud (aka lex)
23:19 RWV
23:18 C-Low
23:16 C-Low
23:15 RWV
23:06 thibaud (aka lex)
23:05 Zhang Fei
23:04 RWV
23:03 thibaud (aka lex)
23:01 SteveS