Frozen Smiles, limp handshakes

The India-China Relationship

It was good to hear the Chinese ambassador in New Delhi speak of an irreversible China-India friendship. There have been manifest signs of improved ties with burgeoning trade, comprising our raw materials for shoddy Chinese manufactured goods, exchange of high-level visits, quadrilaterals in the form of Brazil, Russia, India and China and a trilateral mechanism with Russia and cooperation on climate change policies. The Chinese foreign minister is now in Bengaluru and Zhou Yongkang, standing committee member of the politburo, will visit India in November. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met his Chinese counterpart in Thailand last Saturday. Quite obviously, the smiles were frozen and the handshakes limp as the Chinese spoke of functional cooperation, which is quite different from President Hu Jintao’s formulation of a vision statement. This is one reality of apparent normality.

There is, however, another reality which cannot be ignored. There has been a gradual and a disturbing shift in the Chinese attitude towards India in the past few years and the voices that one has been hearing from Beijing in recent months have been less than comforting.

From an initial pretence of disdain about India’s economic rise, the mood has switched to some irritation with India’s new relationship with the United States, which the Chinese today probably evaluate as being more strategic than just relating to a civil nuclear deal. In recent months since August 2009, there have been increased intrusions into India, accompanied by a marked sharpness in tenor. The decibel of references to Arunachal Pradesh is higher — protests about the Dalai Lama’s planned visit to Tawang and belated protests about our Prime Minister’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh even in the official People’s Daily that reflects the Communist Party of China’s official position accurately. This message was delivered while Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Nepal Communist Party boss Prachanda were in Beijing. There have been other worrying signs, notably the practice of issuing paper visas to residents of Jammu and Kashmir, thereby conveying that the state was disputed territory. All this underscores the reality that improved trade relations between neighbours do not necessarily mean improved political relations as long as there are undemarcated borders. Questions of demarcation have now been converted into territorial disputes, with the Chinese now repeatedly referring to Arunachal as “Southern Tibet”.

There are international and domestic issues that may be worrying the Chinese. The Tibet disturbances of March 2008 and those in Xinjiang in July this year alarmed Beijing. The decline of Pakistan and the present situation in Afghanistan are both challenges and opportunities for the Chinese. Pakistan’s instability means that an important plank of Chinese policy in the region, to contain India and secure access to the Arabian Sea, has become unsteady and may have an uncertain future. Apart from that, a weakened but Islamised central authority in Islamabad could have repercussions among the restive Uighurs of Xinjiang. The troubles in Xinjiang were serious enough for President Hu Jintao to leave the Group of Eight summit and head home. It is possible that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is now handling the situation both in Tibet and Xinjiang and the hard line from the Chinese foreign office on Arunachal Pradesh and the Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang may be a result of this change.America’s predicament in Afghanistan provides China an opportunity to raise its profile in Afghanistan/Iran and Central Asia. With a $3.5 billion investment in the Anyak copper project in Logar province, one of the world’s largest copper deposits, China is today the largest investor in Afghanistan. China has also offered to build a railway line and a power plant which would treble its investment.

As India and China seek to progress there will be greater competition for resources, markets and influence. Cooperation will remain an ideal and both would want to avoid confrontation, or worse, conflict. In terms of military spending, India does not have the capability or even the intention to match China weapon for weapon, force for force. It is extrapolated that by 2050 China will be spending $775 billion on defence — three times India’s defence budget despite our huge land and sea boundaries. The high drama in the Indian press that the Chinese were anxious about Indian plans to develop Agni 5 is just that. No Chinese general is too bothered about this considering that the PLA has already covered India and most of the world with its missiles. What irks them really are the graphics that accompany such reportage, showing Beijing as having been brought within range of Indian missiles.

Quite often, many ask if India will ever catch up with China. The figures of military spending, the size of the economies, the rate of growth, the amount of money spent by each country on infrastructure, electricity production, agricultural produce, research and development and reserves held, confirm that the gap is enormous. Mohan Guruswamy and Zorawar Daulet Singh in their latest book Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch Up with China? make this quite clear. Even though Goldman Sachs predicts that China, the US and India will be the three largest global economies by 2050, it would be more realistic for India to aspire to be a global player whose voice will be heard rather than attaining the status of a superpower. The question we need to ask is can China afford to catch up with India’s raucous democracy and still survive?China has endeavoured to restrict India’s influence to its borders. Only recently, it reminded our neighbours that India had hegemonistic tendencies while extending its “peaceful” relationship with them, while claiming “harmonious rise” in a wary neighbourhood. The prime example of this is the manner in which China has godfathered Pakistan’s India-specific nuclear and missile capabilities.

China is our powerful neighbour and India and China are not in the same league. Pakistan refused to accept this reality in its relations with India and today finds itself adrift despite valiant US efforts to shore up its ally. It is best to accept the India-China reality and fashion our responses accordingly.

There is nothing to be gained either by becoming a hysterical tabloid nation when it comes to a bigger neighbour or a helpless flailing state when we have to deal with a smaller neighbour. We simply have to evolve a method of peaceful cohabitation; there is nothing to be gained by jingoism and everything to be lost by seeming to be weak and succumbing to pressure. It is quite likely that the Chinese leadership will glower at us from across the Himalayas; should that happen we should not blink — and it should not be that His Holiness suddenly develops a diplomatic illness! That would be most unfortunate because that would, in effect, give the Chinese a veto on our relations with His Holiness and decide who visits Tawang.

Thus, we need to be able to protect our interests more effectively, at and inside our borders, in our neighbourhood, the seas that surround us and in Asia. Therefore, massive infrastructure development is required in the Northeast which is people-friendly and not simply meant to cater to our strategic requirements. There has to be two-way socio-cultural assimilation of the region with the rest of India. Instead of buying loss-making companies abroad, we should be adopting regions for development. It is in our interest to develop friendlier relationships with countries on China’s periphery and strengthening relationships with the US and Japan is part of this policy. The armed forces — all three wings — need upgrading, with long-range strike aircrafts as well.

Diplomacy would need to be more nimble-footed and proactive rather than reactive. We have to look at 2050 and work accordingly. Short-term “band aid” solutions will not do. Until then it would be good to follow Sun Tzu’s advice: “The side that knows when to fight and when not will take the victory. There are roadways not to be travelled, walled cities not to be assaulted”.

Source : Asian Age , 28th October 2009

US just can't leave Afghans to their fate

IT was expected that Gen McChrystal would seek more troops for Afghanistan in his assessment report of June 2009 and that he would scapegoat India for doing good work among the Afghan people. The report also showed up that, eight years into the Long War, the Americans have still not understood the culture of the people they ostensibly went to help while securing themselves.
It was clear from Gen McChrystal’s observations that the Americans were still groping for a strategy against their enemy.

President Obama will now have to live up to his Nobel image as he fights his necessary war. But he is surrounded by military men who determine policy in Afghanistan; not Clinton nor Holbrooke. His advisers include retired Lt General Karl Eikenberry, currently Ambassador in Kabul, Lt Gen Douglas Luke, Presidential Adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Jones a retired Marine Corps general is the National Security Adviser and former CIA Chief, Robert Gates is the Secretary Defence. By inclination they will ask for more troops and funds.
Meanwhile, a Norman Mailer style campaign reminiscent of the Vietnam war era has begun in America.

The argument is that Afghanistan means little to Americans who do not even know where it is located. The fear that if Afghanistan falls to the Taliban then Pakistan will surely follow, is misplaced.

The idea of bombing the country and then offering aid is considered hypocritical and ineffective. Andrew Bacevich begins his most recent article with the comment “ No serious person thinks that Afghanistan — remote, impoverished, barely qualifying as a nation state — seriously matters to the United States.” But surely the Americans went into Afghanistan to make Americans safe from Al Qaeda and to ensure that no terrorist attack would take place from that country against the US and its friends.

Dilemma
The dilemma is that losing is not an option for the US; stalemate is strategic defeat for a superpower; troop augmentation to the extent required is unacceptable, and even a surge of 40000 is difficult. The much talked of Afghan army is still a ghost army. Ann Jones in her report in the Nation ( Sep 21, 2009) describes the Afghan Army as a figment of Washington’s imagination. It does not exist in the numbers claimed, it is poorly trained, many of the recruits/ trainees are repeats who come back with new names for the money, the food and the equipment they can take away and sell. It is a frightening thought to have a man trained with rubber guns for three weeks, then given the real gun and sent off to fight battles for his country.
This became apparent when the Helmand campaign began last July and the ANA could muster only 600 men, far short of the 90000 that are supposed to be enlisted. The hope that Afghanistan will suddenly have an efficient 134000 strong army in two years is very much a false hope.

What should worry Washington is that now there are reports of demoralisation and self- doubts among some sections of the US forces. The state of the Afghan police is even worse with 60 per cent suspected to be on drugs. Ill- equipped and illtrained, they are easy pickings for the Taliban. No wonder Pakistan will continue to hedge its bets with the Taliban, targeting only those that they see threatening them. They are aware also that NATO countries may not be able last out in Afghanistan much beyond 2010.

Vice President Joe Biden’s alternative plan to resort to off shore targeting of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan does not make sense since the Al Qaeda, the Pakistan Taliban and the Afghan Taliban hierarchy are all comfortably located in NWFP, FATA, Balochistan or elsewhere in Pakistan. It is obvious to all that the US/ NATO is staring at a stalemate in Afghanistan.
The US has already spent 50 per cent more time in this war than it did in the two world wars with an estimated military expenditure of US $ 4 billion a month and no light at the end of the tunnel.

There is no getting away from several aspects of this arduous campaign.
The US needs to have substantially increased troop deployment if it wants to subdue the Taliban. There is just no other alternative.

Worse than no troops is an inadequate force which runs the risk of military defeat or overkill tactics.

The present spin portraying the Taliban as a local territorial problem that does not threaten the US is patently shortsighted and leaves no one in doubt that the US is preparing to negotiate with the very force that it has been battling for eight years and which has now regained dominance in varying degrees over 70- 80 per cent of Afghan territory. Negotiating now will be appeasement.
Instead be prepared for the long haul. Any dithering now in Washington will only strengthen the hands of the fundamentalists in the Pak Army.

The Afghans do not understand democracy the way the Americans do but to leave them now in the hands of the Taliban would mean leaving them in the hands of the Al Qaeda, under a strong Sunni Wahhabi Islam preached in Saudi Arabia and increasingly in Pakistan.

Assistance

The American forces must not give the impression that they are fighting for themselves. This makes it America’s war and a war of occupation.

Instead, foreign forces must fight for the Afghans and show it. This means spend more money on them instead of on the forces or the for- profit private military companies or the notfor- profit NGOs. It would be difficult for the ISAF/ NATO to protect themselves without protecting the Afghan from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Apart from sheer military force, in a country where 40 per cent of the men are unemployed it is not enough to dole out money. They need jobs and the dignity that goes with it. We cannot get rid of the opium — which is a source of revenue for the Taliban and livelihood for the peasant — unless we simultaneously provide alternative livelihood for the Afghan peasant.

Neighbourhood
The fear is that unable to go in for the long haul, the US may opt for a surge, a quick thrust, parry and withdraw after proclaiming victory. The US is realising, perhaps a bit too late, that Pakistan never intended to be the most suitable boy, who would let his benefactors down repeatedly. In tremendous difficulties in the Punjab, the Pakistan Army is unlikely to be willing to do anything substantial for the Americans, citing dangers from its traditional enemy. It is not that the Pakistan Army fears an assault by the Indian forces but for them to move troops away from its eastern borders would mean that the threat from India is minimal and this would undercut its very own primacy. Then there is China, waiting in the wings for the Americans to get sufficiently unpopular and then move in with its deep pockets. Pakistan would be comfortable with an increasing Chinese profile in Afghanistan but not with an Indian profile.
This is where India comes in. It must stay the course in Afghanistan and concentrate on the various infrastructure projects in the country — roads, dams, bridges, communications, schools, hospitals, power stations and transmission lines. Training of the Afghan Army and police, civil servants, education in various disciplines can be handled by the Indians. This would be far more economical and relevant to local conditions and requirements.

Pakistan will respond in its own way. There will be more bombs and attacks on Indian interests in Afghanistan. Sending troops to Afghanistan is not an option.

Do we back out or do we hunker down, more determined than before?

Source : Mail Today , 16th October 2009

Corporate Jihad

Book Review of SEEDS OF TERROR – THE TALIBAN, THE ISI AND THE NEW OPIUM WARS by Gretchen Peters , Hachette India,302 pp; Rs 495

INSURGENCIES AND terrorism need ideologies — real or perceived — to start, but need access to weapons, funds and sanctuaries to succeed. Invariably and inevitably, they soon transform into something even more sinister as the need for finances becomes the need to keep terrorism going – to make their millions. The need to keep killing and creating lawlessness is paramount for both the terrorist who needs the criminal for his money, and the criminal who needs the terrorist for protection.

Various solutions to AfPAk have been offered, but the most elusive and essential aspect of the war against terror, which is rarely discussed, is how to curb the money flow from drugs. Gretchen Peters’ book is a chronicle of missed opportunities from the 1980s till today.
It’s assumed that defeating the Taliban or Al Qaeda, through the so-called troop surge and development efforts or a change of guard in Kabul, will lead to a satisfactory solution. The pursuit of happiness through elections and the installation of democracy in an essentially tribal society, without first providing basic law and order or livelihoods, was not going to be a game-changer. Unless the drug menace is tackled, neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda will be controlled.
In 1986, US Ambassador to Pakistan Deane R Hinton was advising his DEA man in Islamabad that for America, drug eradication was a lower priority to defeating the Soviets and preventing non-proliferation. The Soviets withdrew, Pakistan proliferated, the drug trade and terrorism flourished. Two years later, Robert Oakley, Hinton’s successor, cabled Washington that the fight against the ‘heroin-Kalashnikov culture’ was critical to Pakistan’s security; by 2003, Mullah Dadullah Lang announced that the Taliban had regrouped. Today, the Taliban control 80 percent of Afghan territory and the drug trade.

This book disturbingly illuminates the disaster lurking in spreading jihadi extremism in a narco-state. At $400 billion annually, the illegal global drug trade today is 8 percent of total trade (legal trade in textiles is 7.5 percent and motor vehicles 5 percent). Terrorist groups earn $500,000 weekly in the drug trade, which is what 9/11 is estimated to have cost them. By 2004, with the world distracted with Iraq, it was noticed that the money flow had reversed, and dollars were flowing out of Afghanistan and Pakistan to unknown destinations. Both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar used to hoard opium to manipulate profits. The heroinopium trade is now pegged at $10 billion, far more than Afghanistan’s budget and about a quarter of Pakistan’s GDP. With a fascinating cast of characters (including sheikhs, Dawood Ibrahim, Victor Bout, Pakistani military and Afghan warlords), Peters takes us through the intrigue of this multinational corporation and its unaccounted billions. In the 1980s, armed drug convoys consisting of specially-equipped Pajeros moved to Iran via Balochistan, and were protected by Afghan tribals armed with Stinger missiles, Kabul’s approval and Islamabad’s cooperation. Consignments would reach Europe via Turkey. The ISI was involved and the CIA knew but didn’t want to investigate. Druglords had patrons both in Nawaz Sharif’s PML and in Benazir Bhutto’s PPP. So no one cared when Mohammad Najibullah begged in March 1992 that “if fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many years”. And so it came to pass, except that it now engulfs both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Any AfPAk policy will fail if it doesn’t control money flows to the terrorists, the drug trade and take on the sanctuaries. Adam Yahiye Gadahn told the author in 2004 that when the next 9/11 comes, “the casualties will be too high to count”. Empty threat? Boastful claim? One wouldn’t want to find out.

Source : Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 39, Dated October 03, 2009