How Globalisation will impact India's Strategic Outlook

India is not a global power and our interests remain essentially regional. The country does have a higher profile than it did a few decades ago but to say that India is a global power or has risen is stretching the truth. India remains a country with a high rate of growth with an enormously large population that lives on the edge of poverty with all the socio-economic problems this poverty and increasing disequilibrium brings. Today, globalisation is the mantra that is supposed to be the panacea for all our problems and the new road to global salvation and prosperity.

Globalisation is supposed to mean the international flow of ideas and knowledge, the sharing of cultures, global civil society and the global environmental movement. Among the benefits of globalisation was the promise that poor countries would have access to overseas markets, allow foreign investment that would make manufacturing cheaper and open borders would allow for free movement of populations for jobs and education.

This is not exactly how it eventually turned out for there has been a downside to this. Economics has been driving globalisation but politics has shaped it. As in the past the rules of the game have been largely set by the advanced industrial countries but these have not been a fair set of rules which is an anachronism when 50 % of the global GDP is now from developing countries. Here lie the seeds of confrontation if not conflict.

There has been evidence that the emerging new world order does not allow for US unilateralism, much less a unipolar system, and the growing evidence of the limitations of military power, the decline of the dollar, the rise of China and India, the rise of technology, information and communication, the world has become more integrated, more trans-national and also more uncertain. This is because the old order does not want to give in to the new. The cold certainty of the Cold War has been replaced by the evolving uncertainty of a new multilateralism. In this uncertain future, India will have to work out its chart according to how we see the evolving world.

As we all know, global security has a much larger meaning for all of us not just in terms of military and political security; it means the security and well being of a country and its people from hunger and want and to ensure a continuous improvement in the way of life; in other words continued prosperity, which a country derives not from its own resources but from outside its borders in this interconnected world.

In the evolving world order and with the US still the most powerful country, it is imperative that India has an abiding relationship with the US. Very often we hear words like parallel interests, natural allies, democratic, multi-ethnic, multi-religious nations and the common beliefs in the liberty of man to describe India-US relations. India has a lot to gain from an association with the US that is deep and mutual. So does the US.

While the past does not have to be a millstone it does provide lessons for India US relations and we all know that it has not always been pleasant. India and the US have often viewed problems and aims from the same prism but it is the means to achieve this that the differences have appeared. Some of these will never disappear given different interpretations of priorities and interests so the two must learn to live with these and work around them. That the two countries have begun to do this in earnest was when President George Bush visited India and the conclusion of the CNE deal. For many of us in India, one touchstone of US interest in India was always whether or not an American President visited India in the first four years of his office or in the last four. In that context alone, President Obama’s visit was satisfying in its important symbolism to many. Since we are not a global power but have strong regional strategic interests we look at US attitudes and moves in the region in particular sometimes with dismay, because even as a friend, the US in pursuit of its larger interests can hurt its friends.

The other aspect that we need to remember when assessing Indian moves is that while the relationship with the US is perhaps of the utmost importance, India’s relationship with China is of immense importance too. China is the resident power in the neighbourhood ultimately with whom we have a boundary problem. It is a thermo-nuclear ICBM power, the second largest standing army in the world and one that has steadily supported Pakistan in every possible way as a hedge against India. The US is, in the final analysis, a distant power with its interests in the region that have been at variance with those of India. And sometimes even today are not congruent, merely remain parallel.

India is situated in a troubled neighbourhood – troubled in various ways. It is poor, unstable, poorly governed and undemocratic. India is surrounded by failing states and sits astride the vital sea lane communications of the Indian Ocean.

We have two nuclear armed neighbours one of whom is openly hostile to us while the other seems in no hurry to settle outstanding issues, like the boundary dispute. We do not see China lowering its profile in Pakistan, we do not see the China-Pakistan nuclear, missile and military collaboration, weakening, with or without North Korea. China will continue to have an abiding interest in Gwadar, the new Pakistani sea port that abuts the Straits of Hormuz, in the strategically relevant and vital Gilgit Baltistan areas under Pak occupation. For China not only is Pakistan a strategically vital piece of real estate, its policies make it a low cost hedge against India. We do not see any US interest in breaking this alliance/dependency.

Yet as India’s economy grows exponentially it needs to reach out not only for a stable neighbourhood but the region beyond from where it needs its resources and markets. It needs to secure the global commons and to protect itself from extraterritorial terrorist attacks trans-border, maritime or even by air and the cyber. It needs investments in education and health to manage a burgeoning young population; it needs technology and it needs state of the art military armament to protect itself.

The last three decades have been epochal in many ways. The Iranian revolution brought a Shia regime in a Sunni Arab neighbourhood which gained further strength after the inexplicable Iraq War. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a gain for the west in its Cold War but the legacy of jehad was ultimately a major setback for the region and the globe. China gained from both. We have since seen collapsing states and the rise of what we now call Non-State Actors spawned, sponsored supported by rogue regimes. Rising economies also seek resources, markets and safe passage across land and sea. We have seen China seeking to achieve this in our neighbourhood. Trade issues, energy issues and climate change, and for the developing world, even water, will be reasons for debate, competition, confrontation and even conflict.

Off shore, India’ interest in the next decade will grow in the areas stretching from the rim of Indian Ocean in the west to the Malacca Straits; on shore it will include Iran, Afghanistan, and up to Myanmar and Indonesia in the east. It will also include the larger Central Asia and Middle East. There would be need for calibrated engagement with Japan, Russia and the EU.

It is often argued that the Chinese are not planning their moves in Asia with India in their mind and that the US is the primary target. This is probably true to an extent but the impact of China’s growth and assertiveness will be felt by us in India more simply because it is the capacity building that is important Intentions can always change depending upon capacities.

There is inevitably that comparison between India and China. The comparisons are inexact and the truth is that India will never catch up with China in GDP or military terms or numbers. Yet together China and India could become the richest countries in the years ahead but with large percentages of their populations still poor and with regions of extreme disparities. In 2010, the break up of the global GDP for some major regions was something like this

US 20% EU 21% China 13% India 5%
In 2020 the figures are expected to be
US 16% EU 15% China 19% India 9%

China would exceed US and EU separately and the combined GDP of India and China be almost on par with the combined GDP of the US and EU. Various estimates from Price Waterhouse and Goldman Sachs predict China will overtake the US between 2020 and 2027. By 2020 China will be a US $ 13 to 15 trillion economy, (will have grown 16 times since 1980) and will be three times the size of the Indian economy of US $ 4 to 5 trillion. China may account for 20% of the GDP by 2020 but it will also account for 20% of the global population so will India as compared to the US which will account for 4% of the population. The disparities between individuals in each country will remain enormous. China has to grow at a certain pace merely to prevent a social upheaval; given the structural imbalances that exist but are rarely acknowledged. In pursuit of a sustained double digit economic growth, the Chinese leadership seeks new areas in Africa and has wielded increasing influence in Iran and Myanmar.

Chinese activities in its periphery have been assertive in recent months as we all know. The target of this is primarily the US and also China’s efforts to strengthen its position in Asia for the next decade and to stake its claim for exclusivity in the Western Pacific. The assumption may have been that the US was a power on the decline and China’s moment may have come.

It is perhaps unwise to over analyse China and assume that every move the Chinese make has some mystique as the entire exercise may have been just a result of miscalculation or underestimation of this US resolve despite pre-occupations elsewhere and the economic problems at home.

China has also pursued a more vigorous policy in highlighting problem areas with India in recent times than in the past as part of this assertiveness and partly perhaps to remind India that China matters in the region as it makes attempts to break into areas where India has been traditionally influential .

Terrorism and extreme radical thought that instigates violence and anarchy is a threat to India and to the rest of the world. The mindset that persists with this policy is a threat to Pakistan itself. It is this that gets reflected into Afghanistan and endangers both countries. It is feared in New Delhi that US policies in Afghanistan being pursued with Pakistan as its main and indispensable ally will not succeed.

We may give a positive spin to a situation to convince ourselves and the rest of the world about a false victory but what is important is the perception such a development has in the region. And the perception this time will be that Islamist radicals (the Taliban) were victorious over the remaining superpower through the force of the faith just as it was convinced that it was the faith of the Mujahedeen, and not the billions and the guns, that had pushed the Soviets out from Afghanistan two decades ago. This perception of victory for a radical belief that wishes to spread its creed globally means that they will not rest with their perceived victory in Afghanistan.

It is imperative, therefore, for an early success that Pakistan’s indispensability to the US aims has to be reduced by relying on other routes and countries that are just as much threatened by the wave of terrorism and radicalism that a Taliban/Al Qaeda success would mean.

Success in Afghanistan is not easy as it is more than just broad ethnic loyalties there are clan and tribal loyalties and rivalries at interplay here. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are on the dole. We may end up with two seriously dysfunctional states in our neighbourhood. We may not want it, we may not like it but if it does happen, then this only means more trouble for us at a point in our evolution as a major state, poised to make the breakthrough.

There are other issues that are important for India, as indeed for all of us. These are terrorism and how to handle this globally; energy and its availability for developing countries; and maritime security, related both to security from terror and energy security and safe passage for trade. Here too we have differing perspectives which are related not only to the issue itself but to other factors.
Take Iran and Myanmar for instance, both of whom are directly related to India’s geo-political and energy security and policies with these two countries differ even though it is agreed that Iran should not be allowed to make the N bomb and that Myanmar should become democratic as soon as possible. We do not believe that sanctions have or can work; if engagement is indeed the policy with Pakistan and China then why not with these two countries?

Unlike the Pakistan rulers, the Myanmar authorities, left to themselves and with an option, would not want to be so close to the Chinese as they are perceived today and this is because the Chinese have stepped into a vacuum that the western world has left there. Besides, sanctions in an authoritarian regimes work against the very people on whose behalf they are imposed. In the next ten years or more, India’s dependence on imported energy (90% by the end of the next two decades) will grow exponentially. Both Iran and Myanmar are potential sources for this - the closest and the most accessible. An isolated Myanmar or Iran, will seek allies elsewhere, as we have seen it happen in the last two decades.

It has been our belief and our conviction that Pakistan with its rulers steeped in their mindset will never be willing to assist fully in the war on terror. Past and present US policies have only strengthened conviction in Pakistan that they are free to do as they please and as long as they make token and timely concessions to the US while they pursue their own agenda in the region.

US predicament in Afghanistan is the most recent proof of this. Past policies, in my opinion, shared by any number of Indians is that the US needs to try new tactics and strategies. There has to be greater interaction between the US and the region’s other powers including Iran and Russia so that Pakistan’s sense of being an indispensable nation to US interests is brought down.

If there can be punishment for Myanmar which has done little to hurt US interests then the logic demands that there should be something similar for Pakistan. If the US is in Pakistan because of the fear that the Chinese would move in then the same logic also applies to Myanmar. It is here that the US and India continue to have differences and I do not see them receding in the near future.

India abuts one of the most vital trade and energy routes by sea. US $ 3 trillion worth of trade and energy passes through the Indian Ocean. With a coast line that is 7500 kilometres, and having faced a sea borne terror attack, maritime security will remain an important priority for India. No matter how much China may want to use continental routes as an offset against the possible uncertainties of the sea lanes controlled by other powers, the critical importance of the sea lanes cannot be negated. It is argued that it is in the global interest to keep all sea lanes open all the time but a powerful country like China which needs assured access to energy and essential raw materials, markets and trade, the need for establishing bases/ports of call/interest has its own logic. India would need to strengthen its maritime capabilities in the decades ahead and more, vital locations like the Andaman Islands need to be strengthened in their tri-service capabilities to meet the challenges of the future.
India will have to continue to strengthen against the growing presence of China in the neighbourhood. India needs to engage with its own periphery with much vigour and determination as it must with China’s periphery. The need to engage India’s periphery more enthusiastically and China’s periphery more energetically will be India’s endeavour in the next decade. Not just to counter China but to ensure our national security in its broadest connotation.

While one may talk of the importance of US and China in India’s strategic considerations, the continuing role of Russia cannot be overlooked in ant such considerations. Russia has been a steady supplier to India’s vital defence requirements and it has done this without any fear in the Indian mind of a stoppage of these for other considerations a fear that invariably lurks in the Indian mind whenever defence deals with the US are discussed. Both these perceptions are borne from experience and the stringent US laws. The Russians have no equivalent to ACSA or EUMA. And Russia is not a force that Indians are willing to write off as a spent power.

The next decade and beyond will see technological changes many of which we still cannot visualise. But quite apparently communication, manufacturing capabilities and military hardware, will be increasingly miniaturised, faster, highly networked, more powerful and cheaper, accessible to friend and foe.

For this alone, apart from the need to have a young growing and socio-economically useful population will be India’s biggest challenge. Quality primary and higher education, along with high quality and accessible health facilities in a country where both of these are inadequate is a big challenge that we often ignore.

It is not so much a direct armed assault that countries like India have to factor in their security preparations but also the terrorist, the cyber terrorist, the demographic pressure from failing states, disease and pandemics that will occur. A strong modernised military power is necessary; but is not enough. Regional security mechanisms are to be created which may belike NATO. However, Afghanistan has also shown that outside its own theatre, NATO remains highly ineffective. as are security mechanisms which Asia unfortunately does not have. NATO was presumed to be one such arrangement. However, Afghanistan has shown that outside its European theatre NATO highly inadequate. In the absence of this, India continue lay emphasis on modernisation of its military force especially the Navy and the Air Force to meet the modern day challenges.

Along with this, India’s voice needs to be heard. By this at least I do not believe it has to be the UNSC. It has to be India’s soft power – economic, cultural education and health facilities, abilities to protect itself and friends or to provide for them in their need , to be their markets and resource base that will make India powerful.

There is a great deal India and the US can do together but it is the first half that has been harder as the democracy bonus that Indians expected never came while the recalcitrant neighbourhood was rewarded. Our interests did or do not converge and if Wikileaks are anything to go by then it will be sometime before this happens. They may never fully converge. We must learn to live with that, work around them and move forward.


Source : Transcript of talk by Vikram Sood at the Heritage Foundation Washington DC on December 8 2010

The Changing face of Asymmetric Warfare

The character of terrorism has changed over time and let me begin by first talking of the

THE ULTIMATE THREAT

I quote from Graham Allison’s “Nuclear Terrorism- the Risks and Consequences of the Ultimate Disaster” where he writes about Tom Clancy’s 1991bestseller The Sum Of All Fears. The novel is about a stolen nuclear weapon planned to be detonated at the Super Bowl in the US. Allison says that the comments Clancy received after this novel was published had left Clancy uneasy so he wrote an afterword in which he said

“All of the material in this novel relating to weapons technology and fabrication is readily available in any of the dozens of books …. I was first bemused, then stunned, as my research revealed just how easy such a project might be today. It is generally known that nuclear secrets are not as secure as we would like – in fact, the situation is worse than even well-informed people appreciate. What required billions of dollars in the 1940’s is much less expensive today. A modern personal computer has far more power and reliability than the first Eniac, and the ‘hydrocodes” which enable a computer to test and validate a weapon’s design are easily duplicated. The exquisite machine tools used to fabricate parts can be had for the asking…. Some highly specialized items designed specifically for bomb manufacture may now be found in stereo speakers. The fact of the matter is that a sufficiently wealthy individual could, over a period of from five to ten years, produce a multistage thermonuclear device. Science is all in the public domain, and allows few secrets.”

I have quoted from the author of a bestseller fiction, but truth is stranger than fiction. Let us remember that Osama bin Laden was/is a billionaire, Al Qaeda’s members were in touch with Pakistani nuclear scientists like Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majeed, while their masters were surreptitiously offering or supplying uranium enrichment technology and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea. State sponsored nuclear terrorism is the best way to describe this.

The five–ten year period that Clancy spoke of is over and there is no way of confirming that the world has become any safer after September 11 2001 or November 2008.

THE DEFINITION

The world has had trouble defining terrorism with the old cliché-- one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Although terrorism had gone global in the 1980s and then further embellished in the next decade, it was not until Sep 11, 2001 that the word and the act evoked any response from the US. Even then, it has been my terrorist first and then, maybe, yours, as we have seen in our neighbourhood.

It has moved from what one may call gentlemen militants/ anarchists/ terrorists of the 19th century and early 20th century who targeted only heads of state, monarchs, prime ministers – even up until 1970s. They operated as romantics and quite often bungled their individual acts of heroism to no great loss to anyone.

In the last three decades, there has been a dramatic shift in terrorist objectives and scale of operations. The range of its effectiveness, its lethality and ability to be catastrophic without the use of WMDs, its instant nature, use of modern technology and communications which give it the ability to strike across frontiers have multiplied many times over. The tactics too have changed; suicide terror is an increasingly common phenomenon. Armed assaults, where death for the terrorist is almost certain, is another phenomenon. We have also seen the use of vehicles, from the cycle bomb to the airplane in terrorist attacks. There are many other ways asymmetric warfare has changed and a considerable amount of this change has been technology driven in the past decade and a half. If the 1980s produced international state sponsored jihad, it also allowed nuclearisation of a rapidly Islamising state.

The revolution of the Internet and the mobile phone has been a quantum jump, the full scope of which has not been realised yet. It is difficult to predict how much, how easy and how cheap this technology will be in the future and what use the terrorist can put this to.

All this is accompanied by an effective use of the media eager for `instant` stories.

In today’s context when we refer to international terrorism, we invariably refer to Islamic/jehadi terrorism. Unfortunately, the response to this, described as the global war on terror, is neither global, nor is it against terror. It seems restricted to handling the problem in only one part of the globe against targets that are unevenly defined. The war either in Afghanistan or in Iraq, is not about defeating terror because both have created more terrorists than it destroyed. An over-militarised response has given it the wrong description of a war on terror whereas one should be thinking in terms of counter-terrorism.

The battle has become globalised-- capitalism versus global Islam. On one side is the affluent, powerful, politically empowered, mainly Christian, States which are running out of resources; ranged against them is a group which is poor, politically un-empowered and Muslim, and resource rich. Both find nationalistic politics an impediment to their progress because nationalism impedes economic domination and theological control. The former wants unhindered access to finance, markets and resources required to retain its primacy while the other strives for an Islamic take over by establishing the supremacy of an overarching Islamic Caliphate.

The present day terrorist considers civilian targets as fair game and suicide terrorism has the most favored method. One could say that this was reflection of how the character of war itself had changed from WWI to WWII and beyond. The indiscriminate targeting of civilians by the combatants during the WWII going on from Hiroshima to Agent Orange was another example where the state led with attacks on civilians.

The ability to perpetrate violence was a state monopoly. But, with the easy availability of small and lethal weapons, easy money, technology and weak failing states willing to wage asymmetric warfare for various reasons, has seen the emergence of non-State actors in destabilising regions by inflicting terrorist violence of even greater magnitude.

From specified ideological or military targets emanating from ideological beliefs, real or perceived oppression or wrong doing, terrorism has moved to punitive, revenge or catastrophic terrorism.

The present day globalization of terror, especially jihadist terror, is the outcome of Cold War, when States had combined to give money, arms and manpower to defeat their Cold War rival. A multi-billion dollar religious terrorist force was created in the name of freedom because of fortuitous confluence of mistakes that one superpower did not learn from the mistakes of the other. It was the first time that Muslims from different countries got together to work against the Infidel. The Ummah had arrived and has since then been spreading its message. The present day radical Islamist terror is the result of global Cold War ambitions and compulsions rather than any intrinsic ability and zeal among the radical Muslims to take this route.

This was the beginning of the internationalization of terror. Yet, throughout the 1990s terrorism and terrorist groups expanded beyond borders of their sanctuaries, threatening the stability of regions. We in India battled our imported demons for decades as the world looked away and concentrated more on violations of human rights by countries tackling the worst kind of terrorism. Terrorism was like a tropical disease that afflicted only the developing world while the rich remained happy together. It was only September 11, 2001, that changed the perception of threat but did very little to change the method of tackling it.

Today there is a genuine and widespread rage against the USA and its allies in the Muslim World. To many in the Islamic world, bin Laden is NOT the evil incarnate as it is made out in the West. Osama would deliver his followers from centuries of insults and humiliation by the West. They believe in him and in his tactics. That is why they are willing to die. And there is no way you can kill a man who is willing to die. Right or wrong this is a perception that has to be corrected.

It is not as if the Muslim world is faultless. A cursory review of wars, civil wars and other contemporary conflicts will show that there is a greater incidence of Muslim involvement--either fighting others or among themselves. 90% of the cases seem to have affected Muslim societies/countries. Of the 22 members of the Arab League or 57 of the OIC, almost all have had major political violence in the last 25 years.

Muslims have a difficult time living as minorities in Non – Muslim countries, as we see in parts of Europe – France, Germany or UK. In the west there is a mutual problem of how to arrive at an amalgam; in India we are increasingly going to face the challenge of preserving the equilibrium which others and some of our own seek to destroy.

ISLAMIST RAGE

There may be Muslim anger at the West, but there has also been considerable state assistance to Islamic terrorism. Saudi Arabia has funneled billions of dollars into West Asia, Pakistan and the rest of the world for over three decades for the propagation of puritan Islam in madrassas. This has made it easier for young minds to accept the cult of violence and be prepared and ready to kill in the name of religion. The other sponsor of jehadi terrorism has been Pakistan. This in fact has been the main weakness of the so-called global war on terror for it accepts the two main sponsors of Sunni Islamic terrorism as partners in the war on terror. Both the countries remain reluctant partners, or even duplicitous partners, yet continue to receive certificates of good behaviour from the US. There has been a lethal mix of Saudi money and Pakistani manpower supplies to jehad. Saudi funding through various trusts like the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Al Rashid Trust, have helped finance madarssas and mosques. Saudi financial contribution to the making of the Pakistani nuclear bomb and contribution to the Afghan jehad has emboldened Pakistani adventurism as well as obduracy.

Post 9/11 and particularly post-Madrid 2004 have led to a hardening of positions in Europe among the majority population and at the same time there are more second and third generation Muslim youth finding their way to jehad. The stereotype of the jehadi coming from the Arab world is changing. Post-September 11, recruits are just as easily to be found in poly-techniques, high schools and university campuses in Europe. Hundreds of European youth, mainly second generation immigrants, have found their way to Iraq to fight in the Sunni triangle. There were reports of a two-way traffic between West Asia and Europe of illegals coming in to Europe and legals going to perform jehad in far away places. Three of the July bombings in London were young second-generation youth of Pakistani parentage. Youth in the UK have been increasingly under the influence of the Deobandhi mosques where al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and Hizbut Tehrir (HT) activists have been active.

In Europe, intelligence and police officials from the UK, Spain, Germany, France and the Netherlands meet in state-of-the-art environments to exchange information and data, reports and wiretaps that would help follow leads in their anti-terror effort. Cooperation on this scale or even at a much lower scale is unthinkable on the Indian sub-continent as this would be counterproductive to policies followed by the Pakistani establishment. Indo-Pak talks on curbing terror are more a dialogue of the deaf than any purposeful discussions.

More dangerous than al Qaeda in the Indian context are the activities of the International Islamic Front established by Osama in February 1998. Five Pakistani terrorist organisations are signatories to this IIF – HuM, LeT, Harkat-ul-Jehadi-ul-Islami (HUJI), JEM and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) – all Sunni, all anti-Christian, anti-Jew and anti-Hindu and continue to exhort the destruction of India and prophecy victory over Jews and Christians.

Another centre is Bangladesh where jehadi organisations propagate jehadi terrorism in India and South-east Asia. The location of the continuing jehad against Christians, Jews and Hindus can be anywhere. It will be where the jehadis feel that it would be easier to operate and have the maximum impact. This obviously makes the US and Europe the most likely targets.

Groups like the al Qaeda and LET cannot be controlled by a purely non-military response because they seek the establishment of Caliphates, through violence if necessary, and which is not acceptable in the modern world. It is necessary to militarily weaken these forces, starve them of funds and bases and then to tackle long-term issues and by providing them better education, employment and so on.

There is a naive assumption that if local grievances or problems are solved, global terrorism will disappear. The belief or the hope that, if tomorrow, Palestine, or Kashmir or Chechnya or wherever else, the issues were settled, terrorism will disappear, is a mistaken belief. There is now enough free floating violence and vested interests that would need this violence to continue. There has been a multifaceted nexus between narcotics, illicit arms smuggling and human trafficking that seeks the continuance of violence and disorder.

GLOBAL JEHAD AND LEADERLESS JIHAD

The last few decades have also seen the largest scale of state sponsored terrorism raging from West Asia to South Asia, where the assistance in all its aspects has been so thinly veiled and the only precaution sponsoring states seem to take is that they do not wish to be caught in the act. It is a misnomer to describe such terrorists as non-state actors. Over time these terrorist organizations either morph on their own or are encouraged by their sponsors to split and re-emerge in their new incarnations.

Marc Sageman in his book Leaderless Jihad which is about terror networks in the 21st century, documents how Islamist terror networks were evolving into more fluid, independent and unpredictable groups than those in the past. He refers to scattered groups and individuals who drift into Internet chat rooms and the various websites of the terrorists that now flood the net and whose protagonists have little or minimal contact with their sponsors, thus making it more difficult for authorities to keep track of such activities till sometimes it is too late.

Until 2004, most of the networks functioned through face to face interactions among friends or controllers (the 1993 World Trade Centre Bombings, the1993 Mumbai serial bombing, the 1998 US embassy bombings in east Africa, the 9/11atttacks, the Indian Parliament attack in December 2001, the 2004 Madrid train bombings). Starting around 2004, communications and inspirations shifted from these interactions at local halal ethnic restaurants or barber shops close to radical Islamist mosques to interaction on the internet. The Madrid bombers were inspired by a document posted on the Global Islamic Front website in December 2003. People involved in the Mumbai 2008 case made use of internet protocols to keep in touch and draw inspiration even during the actual incident.

WMD TERRORISM

The world has not seen WMD terrorism but fears of this taking place are uppermost in the plans of most counter terror and intelligence/security organisations. The nuclear and thermonuclear arsenals of the US and Russia are still so vast that they have individual weapons that have greater destructive power than all the non-nuclear bombs dropped by all the air forces of the world in all the wars in human history, including Iraq war.

Theoretically, the various kinds of some 20000 nuclear bombs would be at risk, but in practice the more realistic fear would be use of a small weapon stolen from one of the nuclear states, or a plutonium or heavily enriched uranium basement type bomb or the theft of material to make a dirty bomb. Weapons of the first kind form part of the inventory of the US and Russian forces. It is possible that weapons of this kind would attract the attention of terrorists. Particularly attractive could be the American W-25 SADM a 25 kilogramme device that can be parachuted into enemy territory to destroy bridges tunnels and other such installations. There is also the 20 kilo Davy Crocket jeep mounted war head originally meant to halt a Soviet blitzkrieg in Europe. The W-82 is a three foot long atomic artillery shell that weighs about 40 kilogrammes, two foot long which can be carried in a back pack. The Soviet arsenal also included suitcase devices, backpack weapons like the Army’s RA 155 and the Navy’s RA-115-01 which is meant for underwater use.

The threat is not just from the terrorists getting hold of a nuclear device in the Islamic world or by jihadis but such small devices could be as attractive as the Stringer missiles were during the campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The issue here is not the large scale disappearance of such weapons but even one will be enough to create a catastrophic terrorist incident. However, experts also believe that it was more likely that that terrorists would prefer to acquire fissile material and make their own bomb rather than try to buy one off the shelf, as it were.

MARITIME TERRORISM

The world has seen terrorism on the ground, in the air but has not seen much of it on the high seas.

The attack on the USS Cole was a relatively small terrorist attack when compared to the sea-borne attack in Mumbai in November 2008. Since each terrorist attack should be seen as the possible precursor to something even bigger, the Mumbai attack has exposed India’s vulnerabilities all along its 7500 km sea boundaries and the scattered islands in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. This remains a major vulnerability in India.

Over 50,000 ships pass through the Malacca Straits each year. A terrorist attack in the in the narrow critical part of the Straits could block the Straits and cripple world trade. This would provide terrorists a large iconic impact that would not be available through a terrorist attack on a ship on the high seas. International threat perceptions of maritime terrorism are high and will continue to remain high in the foreseeable future.

The fact that till now there has been no major terrorist strikes in the high seas should not lead to the conclusion that the international jihadi terrorists feel more comfortable operating on land and would be unlikely to expand their operations to the high seas.

The possible use of oil for causing massive disruptions in the world economy has been receiving increasing attention from the international jihadi terrorist elements. The need for attacks on oil installations is a frequently occurring theme in the messages of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. Till now, the attacks on the oil industry have been in the form of one reported attack on a oil tanker at the Aden port, attacks on the foreign experts working in the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and the blowing-up of oil pipelines in Iraq. The attacks, though spectacular, have not had a sustained effect. The oil industry, like the tourism industry, has shown itself to be resilient despite its vulnerability. Both the tourism and oil industries have so far been able to recover from the sporadic attacks on them fairly quickly. The economic disruption, though considerable, was temporary and did not have a serious effect on the availability and affordability of oil. This should not lead to any feelings of complacency that attacks of a more disastrous nature are unlikely. Counter-terrorism techniques tailor-made for the energy sector need urgent attention.

India's plans for ensuring the supplies of energy to fuel its expanding economy through a network of pipelines from Turkmenistan and Iran via Pakistan and from Myanmar via Bangladesh would remain a pipedream till the already-established international jihadi terrorist infrastructures in the region are not neutralized.

The surviving terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan continues to pose a threat to peace and security and economic prosperity in South, West and Central Asia. The emerging one in Bangladesh has serious implications for South and South-East Asia.

THE ECONOMY OF TERROR

The world has not seen financial terrorism something that would send the dollar into a spin.

Modern terrorism thrives not on just ideology or politics. The main driver is money and the new economy of terror and international crime has been calculated to be worth US $ 1.5 trillion (and growing), which is big enough to challenge Western hegemony. This is higher than the GDP of Britain, ten times the size of General Motors and 17 per cent of the US GDP (1998). Loretta Napoleoni splits this terror and crime GDP into three parts. About one-third constitutes money that has moved illegally from one country to another, another one-third is generated primarily by criminal activities and called the Gross Criminal Product while the remaining is the money produced by terror organisations, from legal businesses and from narcotics and smuggling. Napoleoni refers to this as the New Economy of Terror.

All the illegal businesses of arms and narcotics trading, oil and diamonds smuggling, charitable organisations that front for illegal businesses and the black money operations form part of this burgeoning business. Terror has other reasons to thrive. There are vested interests that seek the wages of terrorism and terrorist war.

Narcotics smuggling generates its own separate business lines, globally connected with arms smuggling and human trafficking, and all dealt within hundred dollar bills. These black dollars have to be laundered, which is yet another distinctive, secretive and complicated transnational occupation closely connected with these illegal activities and is really a crucial infusion of cash into the Western economies.

The nineties were a far cry from the early days of dependence on the Cold War sponsors of violence and terrorism. In the seventies, terrorists began to rely on legal economic activities for raising funds. The buzzword today is globalisation, including in the business of terrorism. Armed groups have linked up internationally, financially and otherwise, have been able to operate across borders with Pakistani jehadis doing service in Chechnya and Kosovo, or Uzbek insurgents taking shelter in Pakistan.

In today’s world of deregulated finance, terrorists have taken full advantage of systems to penetrate legitimate international financial institutions and establish regular business houses. Islamic banks and other charities have helped fund movements, sometimes without the knowledge of the managers of these institutions that the source and destination of the funds is not what has been declared. Both Hamas and the PLO have been flush with funds with Arafat’s secret treasury estimated to be worth US $ 700 million to 2 billion.

It is not easy but the civilised world must counter the scourge of terrorism. In a networked world, where communication and action can be in real time, where boundaries need not be crossed and where terrorist action can take place on the Net and through the Net, the task of countering this is increasingly difficult and intricate. Governments are bound by Geneva Conventions in tackling a terrorist organisation, whatever else Bush’s aides may have told him, but the terrorist is not bound by such regulations in this asymmetric warfare.

THE CHANGING FACE OF TERROR IN PAKISTAN

South Asia, as we all know, is both the battleground and home for these groups, threatening to destabilize political structures and social fabric of the region by acts of terror directed against specific religious and ethnic communities.

There is clear distinction between the groups which existed during the Afghan jihad and today. There are marked differences in composition, objectives, modus operandi, networks, finances and reach. The pre-al Qaida groups, like Harkat-ul Ansar (HuA), Harkat-ul Mujahideen (HM), Hizb-ul Mujahideen (HuM), Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI), Lashkar-e-tayyeba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), were created by state agencies in Pakistan for specific objectives. The objectives were two-fold: help the Americans drive out the Soviets from Afghanistan through guerilla tactics and launch a protracted proxy war in Kashmir. These groups largely depended on the state munificence and funds generously provided by the US and other western nations, and west Asian countries like Saudi Arabia, through a network of newly created banking organisations like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), cowboy methods like currency chests flown into Pakistan, besides guns and ammunition shipped and airlifted in tonnes from different parts of the world.

These groups largely drew the cadre and leadership for jihad from madrasas and extremist religious groups in Pakistan which were amply supported by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate and the Pakistan Army. They relied primarily on the religious ``brotherhood`` both within Pakistan and outside, and their association with the ISI to create a chain of madrasas and training grounds for recruiting, indoctrinating and training the so-called ``freedom fighters``(mujahideen). Their area of operation was pre-determined and they worked strictly under the control of the ISI (and CIA) in Afghanistan.

Terrorism in the Indian sub-continent underwent dramatic changes after the disintegration of Soviet Union and more so, after September 11, 200. Funds, resources and support for the jihadi groups dried up rapidly. Many of the groups died a natural death. Others were given a make-over by the ISI with a new identity and new grounds of training and operation. A large number of the cadre, unemployed, drifted to rabidly Sunni groups like Sipah-e-Saheba of Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), criminal activities like carjacking, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom and smuggling. Others joined newly created groups like JeM and United Jehad Council carved out of old Afghan groups like HuA and HuM.

Unlike Pakistan where religious extremist groups have remained on the fringe of the political spectrum, in Bangladesh such groups have had a decisive role to play. One such group is Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) which owes much of its growth to the Islamization of the country's political institutions initiated by President Zia-ur Rehman in 1977. The present Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina is far more confident and has taken significant steps to curb terrorism aimed at India and also to reign in right wing elements that may be a threat to Bangladesh. However, in the past, both Awami League, led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by current Premier Begum Khaleda Zia, assiduously courted JeI for their own bitter and protracted duel for supremacy. The Awami League, for instance, sought support from the religious party to campaign against the BNP while the latter has co-opted JeI as a coalition partner. JeI, as a result, is today the third largest political party in Bangladesh.

The rise of radical political and religious parties like JeI promoted the growth of madrasas in the country, mostly funded by west Asian countries. These madrasas played host to various terrorist groups anxious to recruit and train young students. One of the more prominent ones is Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI), widely regarded as al-Qaeda's operating arm in south Asia. HuJI has been consolidating its position in Bangladesh where it boasts a membership of more than 15,000 activists, of whom at least 2,000 are "hardcore.

The decimation of the Taliban and the emergence of al Qaida and Osama bin Laden gave a new hue and ideological boost to terrorist groups. The list of enemies expanded to include the US and Israel besides India. New alliances were established. Terrorist groups drew their cadres from religious extremist groups like SSP and LeJ. Drawing upon the resources of the ISI, these groups established sleeper cells in different parts of India and in other parts of the world.

With cumulative bans imposed on their activities by the US State Department, the United Nations and various governments, including that of Pakistan, these groups, particularly LeT, established new networks of finances, tapping into Pakistani diaspora in UK, west Asia, US, Australia and Europe. These groups began relying on transnational smuggling and hawala syndicates to transfer funds and arms. There was a decisive shift in targets, both in terms of location and character, and modus operandi. The targets today range from political leaders to mass transit systems to nuclear stations, with the clear objective of instigating communal violence in India and inflicting heavy damage to the economy. The methodology has shifted from isolated attacks to bombings of public transport systems and market and religious places to spread panic and fear. Kashmir is no longer the operational ground nor the sole target. The groups today live by a pan-India, and at times a pan-global, agenda of establishing the Caliphate.

Pakistan’s duplicity in dealing with terrorist and extremist elements came to haunt the region when Lahore-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) trained jihadis, with the connivance of ISI and Pakistan Army, attacked Mumbai and raised the spectre of another war in the region. Even after suffering several attacks in the past three years, Pakistan Army refuses to give up its support for terrorist groups like LeT or the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan.

LEFT WING EXTREMISM

It is increasingly evident that the menace of Left Wing Extremism has been underestimated by the Government all these years. Not only does it impact in areas which are rich in mineral resources (80% of India’s high grade iron ore, 85% of total coal deposits) are in the so-called red corridor. The insurgency has spread rapidly in the last few years, but has also occupied larger areas as government and governance have receded. 225 districts are affected up from 160 a few years ago; estimated to have Rs 1500-2000 crores through extortion, narcotics and hijacking government development funds; they have an arsenal of about 10000 assorted weapons from AK series to INSAS, LMGs and SLRs to 303 rifles. Originally concentrating in the rural areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal they are now also moving into urban centres of Raipur, Surat, Faridabad, Bastar and other places. Local grievances, exploitation and absence of governance have been the planks for their movement.

Backed by a strong informer system, the terrorists avoid any frontal engagements with the SFs and there is a greater reliance on IEDs. They rely on rapid movement both in attack and escape. There has been a rising trend in the incidents as statistics reveal. In 2006 there were 1509 incidents which rose to 1591 in 2008 and 2258 in 2009. Left Wing Extremists have begun to move into other states like Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Assam, Kerala and Delhi. These are early stages but then every movement has an early stage before it gets out of hand unless tackled early and counter insurgency is not politicised. The tendency to rush in with humanitarian aid as an attempt to solve the crises is invariably a misplaced tactic and does nothing to win over the population or the insurgent. Development assistance without ensuring a semblance of law and order, will always be counter-productive. The entire counter effort has to be fought on a different grid, needs ground humint, quick reaction teams and the development of capacities to clear and hold. None of this will be achieved overnight and needs sustained long term efforts.

Unless all this is done the movement will continue to grow and may well join hands with other ethnic and religious groupings in the country or aided from outside.

TECHNOLOGY AS A FORCE MULTIPLIER FOR TERRORISM
We have all spoken and read about the exponential transformation in technology in the past two decades. From the first text message which was sent in Britain in 1992 and ten years later 100 billion SMS messages were being exchanged every month and today 4.1 billion messages are sent daily -- is just a common day example. Not only is this the manner in which technology is changing; today we talk of gigabytes and terabytes. But another improvement is on its way – petabytes. When this happens, then it would be possible to store the entire Library of Congress -- the world’s largest with 120 million books/journals stored on 850 kilometres of shelves with 10,000 books added daily, and these could be stored in just 0.02 petabytes. In March 2007, the CIA began working on a digital library of national intelligence information that would be have everything from raw data to analytical information which was expected to be bigger that the Library of Congress.
Two years ago the size of the Web was such that Google could search 60 billion pages in a second or less. But there is a Deep Web, that cannot be accessed and it is estimated to be 50 times larger. There is so much information overload that the 16 US intelligence agencies employ 45000 analysts. Of course in India, we don’t have that kind of global threat perceptions or requirements or even the funds but need some scaled down model. There are 1.6 billion people on line today, up from 1 billion two years ago. 60 % of the world’s population of 6.6 billion today uses cell phones up from 12% in 2000. Islamist groups are known to use mini-cameras to post their propaganda films on YouTube. Steganography is commonly used to embed secret messages on the net.
Terrorism is now truly global and as multinational as Microsoft. The US and Al Qaeda are the two that have global reach today. But terrorism is unremittingly lethal and it is cheap. (The ingredients for sirin gas which, when used properly with a spray, could kill anywhere between a few hundred and a few thousand, cost only $ 150). The irony is that the American state spends multi-million dollars in developing state of the art drones, armed with advanced weaponry, can now be hacked into by insurgents with a US $ 26 off the shelf Russian software which highlights the disparity between costs to insurgents and counter insurgents.
There are many players in the field today — the fanatics, the criminals, the drug-traffickers, the human traffickers. The masterminds are not the archetypal villains epitomised by Bollywood, but could be the boy or girl next door in the suburbs of Atlanta or Marseilles or an alumnus from Binori mosque in Karachi. For us in India we have learnt to live with it, having been victims of this for the last three decades and more. It is a problem that will not go away easily, soon or completely.
Future wars are unlikely to engage massive armies locked in prolonged battle for real estate. Attacks could now come by stealth, master-minded by some computer whiz kid along with some science graduate, and the targets are our ways of life. The terrorist of the day wishes to use 21st century tools to push us all back to the 7th century. It is a highly unconventional war that the State hopes to fight only with conventional weapons or tactics. Unless the State learns to be flexible and agile and unless there is full scope cooperation internationally, it will always be an uphill struggle with the peak never really visible.

It is the use of modern technology by the terrorist that has led the counter terrorist to evolve expensive, all pervasive surveillance and counter terrorist techniques in ways that leave the espionage and counter espionage activities of the Cold War years far behind. In the west, especially in the US there has been an upsurge in intelligence activity as the US battles to secure itself in the new global war. Faced with an information overload where every email, every telephone call, every sms, every fax is subject to surveillance apart from the literature floating on the web, intelligence activity has been outsourced in a major fashion. From just being an military-industrial complex it is now an intelligence-industry complex where major players like Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen and Hamilton, CACI International, SAIC and IBM are now active associates of the CIA, NSA and the Pentagon in intelligence activities at home and abroad. Blackwater and Dyncorp as well as others provide the muscle power. Their charter includes covert operations and interrogations of suspects. Privatisation of espionage and authorised privatisation of violence will change societies in ways that will realise only later when the power of these groups may exceed those of the state, especially in weaker or smaller states.

INTELLIGENCE

It is an unending nightmare for intelligence agencies the world over. Who? What? Where? When? And how? In what language will the terrorists communicate and what medium? What code? Will we get to know before they strike? Not all attacks will be preventable. Only finely co-ordinated, transparent and real time co-operation on a global scale will make the task of the terrorist more difficult if not impossible. The terrorist have gone global so must the counter-terrorist.

Despite the rapid development of the technological element, the human element will continue to be the most important factor in determining the outcome of the campaign against terrorism. In spite of the superiority of the State in numbers and material and technological resources, the international jihadi terrorists do not show as yet any signs of withering away. The quality of the human element they have at their disposal would substantially account for this. The quality of the human element available to the security and counter-terrorism agencies should surpass that of the terrorists if the State has to ultimately prevail.

With only mediocre human element, even the best of technological capability cannot produce adequate results. The best of human element can ultimately prevail even if the technological capability is not up to the mark. The human element is very important at every stage of counter-terrorism---intelligence collection and analysis, use of the intelligence for prevention, neutralisation of the capability of the terrorists, investigation of terrorist strikes and successful prosecution. How to develop an unbroken chain of human competence of high quality? That is a question which would continue to need attention in the years to come.
There has to be a revolution in the intelligence culture and tradecraft or operating techniques in order to be able to prevail over the terrorists. The existing tradecraft served adequately the purpose of the penetration of the State adversaries in order to collect human intelligence (HUMINT). It has been found to be inadequate, if not unsuited, for penetrating the set-ups of non-State actors, particularly the terrorists, who operate on the basis of the principle of autonomous cells. The progress towards the evolution of new tradecraft and new techniques has been unsatisfactory.

A revolution in the intelligence culture also calls for effective networking of national and foreign intelligence agencies and the sharing without inhibition of all relevant intelligence. The intelligence and counter-terrorism networking has to be as effective as the networking by the terrorists. Such networking was found difficult even in days when the number of intelligence agencies in each nation was small and manageable. How to ensure this in an era of mushrooming agencies is another question which needs urgent attention.

There has been some progress towards international intelligence co-operation at the bilateral level, but the progress towards multilateral co-operation is still years away. Since the US is and will continue to be a predominant player in all intelligence co-operation networks, suspicions of its real intentions and fears of its using such networks for serving its hegemonistic and strategic interests would continue to dog any progress towards multilateral co-operation.

There is an equally urgent need for a revolution in counter-terrorism training methods with an emphasis on joint training in specialised counter-terrorism schools for the officers and staff handling counter-terrorism in all intelligence and security agencies and police forces and the improvement of language capability. The training should develop in the officers an ability to think and act unconventionally with the help of suitably devised counter-terrorism games similar to the war games.

EFFECTS ON TERRORIST GROUPS IN INDIA.

The emergence of new terrorist groups and coalitions added a disturbing dimension to the terrorist threat to India. While the birth of a new terrorist coalition, which called itself Indian Mujahideen, raised fears about a resurgence of radical elements within the 150-million strong Indian Muslim community, it was the discovery of Hindu extremist group or groups involved in some of the terrorist attacks, till date attributed to Islamic groups, which challenges the earlier Indian claims and adds weight to the protestations made by the Muslim community about painting the entire community with a tar brush every time a bomb explodes anywhere in India.

India thus witnessed the emergence of two clear strands of terrorism, linked in a regrettable sort of way to the State’s inability, and timidity, in tackling terrorist groups and persons firmly and decisively. The Indian Mujahideen (IM) presents the first strand. According to investigations carried out so far, some of it since discredited by the discovery of Hindu brand of terrorism, it is a diffused but highly networked group of terrorists, driven by a dangerous cocktail of extremist ideology and a simmering sense of anguish and revenge. They are mostly young professionals as well as from the blue collar class who are aware of the global jihadi propaganda but are provoked more by actions of the police and rival communities at the domestic level.

THE ROLE OF THE ARMY IN COUNTER TERROR AND COUNTER INSURGENCY

The Indian Army has been required for internal security duties almost from the very beginning when it was called into tackle the communist insurgency in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh from 1949 to 1952. The Indian Army was also pressed into action to deal with a Pakistani guerrilla invasion in Jammu and Kashmir in 1947. Then, was successively involved the North east in the 1950s and 60s, till the present in some cases like the Bodo and Assamese movements. The Army was called in for action in the Punjab in the 1980s and has been in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990.

The Army and security forces have lost 5,962 personnel in the terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir from 1990 to July 5, 2010. This year alone 45 security forces personnel have died in the State fighting terrorists. Elsewhere, as many as 939 officers and men lost their lives in Manipur; 783 in Assam; 81 in Meghalaya and 22 in Mizoram. In addition, 1,226 security forces personnel have died fighting Maoists between 2005 and 2010; this year, till July 5, we have lost 204 men in uniform.

Since 1990, the security forces have faced 1,511 cases of human rights abuse. These were investigated by various agencies, including the National Human Rights Commission, and 1,473 were found to be false and 104 men found guilty have been punished.

Ideally one would not want the Army to be involved in CI activities. The Government and the people have faced insurgencies almost from the beginning and we should have evolved suitable dedicated CI /CT instrumentalities by now. The introduction of the Army into counter-terror/counterinsurgency mode, usually in the case non-availability of the para-military is accompanied by the introduction of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act to provide it legal cover for internal security duties. The Army needs to be protected and empowered but with this empowerment comes accountability. Machil cannot be allowed to repeat. The problem that arises, apart from the fact that the Army is unfamiliar with the terrain it is not supported by adequate intelligence. Added to this, are the problems of civil-military co-ordination and the ownership of various forces that are deployed. The police answer to the local government, the para-military forces to the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi and the Army has its own command structure under the Ministry of Defence. There is also the problem of co-ordination among Central and local intelligence agencies.

In Jammu and Kashmir the concept of Unified Headquarters was introduced in 1994 and later tried in Assam in 1997 and Manipur in 2004 but had limited success because the body lacked statutory authority. Political parties did not take to this structure with any great enthusiasm as it required them to commit to a counterinsurgency plan which was probably at variance with their political plans. The concept of a Unified Headquarters has been a partial success and effective civil-military co-ordination remains a big challenge to evolving any cohesive long term plan that goes beyond containing insurgency to eliminating it.

THE FUTURE

The years ahead will see the following trends in India

The birth of terror coalition.

This implies a tie up between the Pak-based JeM and LeT working with BD based groups like the HUJI (B) and then tied in with Indian groups like the SIMI and other smaller groups. The Indian Mujahedeen is a product of such coalition and they – the IM could become part global jihad.

The spread of a pan-Islamic character across the breadth of the country, with the left wing extremists already talking of coalescing with other groups - Sikh, Islamic or ethnic - would be a cause for concern for the government. This is aggravated if there is the inevitable foreign hand. Be that as it may, it is feared that the NE especially Assam and West Bengal would be increasingly under threat from a mixture of LWE and Islamist terrorism. This is perhaps the most dangerous part of this spectre of terrorism.

Pakistan is not expected to give up this weapon of state sponsored terrorism as a force equaliser against the stronger India. This can happen only if the price of terrorism is more than what Pakistan can afford to pay and Pakistan overcomes its fear psychosis about India. In the decade ahead we should not expect any appreciable change in the level of terrorism. In fact we should be prepared for new kinds of terrorism. Despite having become a victim of its own terrorism, Pakistan is unlikely to be able to reverse this without further trauma.

We should be looking at the many ways terrorism could morph and evolve in the years ahead:

Terrorists groups will be smaller, more lethal and in some cases even have the lone operator.

Terrorists will be networked, mobile, educated, in the younger age group which would give them greater zeal, idealism and greater readiness to take risks.

Similar groups – mercenaries to provide support services – for counterfeiting, funds transfers, arms smuggling, will operate.

The nexus between mafia and terrorists will grow.

The nexus between the terror groups - in whatever form they take in the years ahead - and the military in Pakistan, is not going to change.

Cyber terrorists will abound.

Terrorists, in our region -- whatever their grievance, -- revenge for perceived injustice, to weaken/destroy non-Muslim or anti-Muslim countries, or establishing Caliphates – will target mostly soft, vulnerable and high-profile urban targets, especially mega-metropolis like New Delhi or Mumbai.. This would mean vital infrastructure and communications, hijack of airlines, attacks on embassies, foreign interests, mass transit networks, maritime assets – all that would hurt economic interests.

It has to be accepted that there can be no final victory in any battle against terrorism. Resentments, real or imagined, and exploding expectations, will persist. Since the state no longer has monopoly on instruments of violence, recourse to violence is increasingly a weapon of first resort. Terrorism can be contained and its effects minimised but cannot be eradicated any more than the world can eradicate crime. An over-militaristic response or repeated use of the Armed Forces is fraught with long-term risks for a nation and for the Armed forces. Military action to deter or overcome an immediate threat is often necessary but it cannot ultimately eradicate terrorism. This is as much a political and economic battle and also a battle to be fought long-term by the intelligence and security agencies, and increasingly in cooperation with agencies of other countries.

Ultimately the battle is between democracy and terrorism. The fear is that in order to defeat the latter, we may end up sacrificing some of our democratic values.

Source : Talk delivered by Vikram Sood ( Former RAW Chief) at the USI, New Delhi on September 22, 2010.

Hopeless Solutions

THE DISCOURSE heard most loudly in New Delhi is that it wo­uld be magnanimous to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), as if this were the cause of the trouble, overlooking the fact that it has been the failure of governance both in New Delhi and Srinagar that has led to the present unhappy state. This misplaced grandst­anding establishes an unfortun­a­te equation between terrorists and a sovereign Army by sugge­s­ting that if the AFSPA were withdrawn, i.e. the Army went ba­ck to the barracks, then the terrorists would also withdraw as a quid pro quo. The AFSPA is a legal empowerment given by the nation to the Army to legally pr­o­tect the Army while it physically protects the nation against the kind of elements we have seen in Jammu and Kashmir. True, there have been very bad slippages and an empowered Army must also be accountable and transparent. But to pretend that if the AFSPA were to go away the violence and the political mess in Jammu and Kashmir would ma­g­ically disappear, is being self-delusional. The Army has not fired a single bullet on the streets of Srinagar or at any demonstrators elsewhere during the recent troubles. Let us not blunt our own instruments. On the other ha­nd, any concession that is gi­ven now without bringing the situation under state control might only buy temporary peace without solving anything.

The other expression frequently heard is “the legitimate aspirations of the people of Kashmir”. How are these aspirations different from those of the people of the rest of the country? Surely all of them want for themselves and their families a quality of life — health, education, employment and security — that improves steadily with time, along with the freedoms and equalities guaranteed by our Constitution. Any demand outside the Constitution is, therefore, illegitimate and cannot be entertained by the rest of India. Besides, any demand must also relate to people from Jammu, the Srinagar Valley and Ladakh — to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Gujjars and Bakarwals and not only a section of the Muslims from the Valley. Meanwhile, the Kashmiri Pandits have been pushed into the arid desert of our votebank politics and sacrificed to our secular beliefs. The writings that come out from Jammu and Kashmir are only about the aspirations of the people of the Valley, the Muslim majority and not about the rest of the state. Farooq Abdullah’s recent comment that Jammu and Kashmir was a part of India that did not want to be part of Pakistan has to be repeated, over and over again.

One of the country’s mainline newspapers carried a picture of a young Kashmiri man with two stones in each hand. These sharply jagged pieces of rock hurled at some speed at anyone would be quite lethal. So those whose hearts bleed should understand that this is not the age of innocence. The destruction and burning of a school in Tangmarg in protest against Quran burning in the US which never happened was an opportunity for the likes of Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Massarat Alam to arouse religious-Islamist feelings among the youth and had little to do with political aspirations. Ensuring closure of schools and specialised institutes like the National Institute of Technology for long spells is in itself a tactic. It leaves students uneducated and, therefore, the right material for indoctrination or unemployable for want of qualifications. There is frustration either way.

It is true that there is anger on the streets that will not go away easily. The problem is political but it is one that has been created and nurtured all these years for sectarian and regional gains by one side and allowed to fester through political ineptitude on the other. One mistake has been that we have tried to reach Srinagar through Islamabad without realising that Islamabad will never let a solution be found. We have assumed that peace with Pakistan will get us peace in Jammu and Kashmir. This will never happen because it is in Pakistan’s interest to have India in this impasse. There are signs that Pakistan, beleaguered as it might be with its own existential problems, seeks to impose itself in Jammu and Kashmir once again. Statements emanating from Pakistan foreign office, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Nawaz Sharif and, not to be out done, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the ideological inspiration for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, indicate an overt pattern. The covert pattern is evident from the kind of money being handed over to violent demonstrators and the increased numbers of encounters with infiltrators. One should expect that the situation will be ratcheted further till at least US President Barack Obama’s visit in November.

The question is what to do next. Surely the writ of the state must be seen to be running first. The people of the Valley have to be made to understand that the rest of India will not allow another partition; nor allow any kind of autonomy that the rest of the country does not have. It has to be made clear to the people of India — Jammu and Kashmir included — that no government in the country has the mandate to alter the status of the Valley.

The main demand in the Valley would be to ensure that justice is delivered and seen to be deliver­ed. It is no use throwing in more mo­ney now; the state is not exactly poor with its high rate of subsidy and a nationally competitive per capita income. The youth of Jammu and Kashmir need to be drawn out of their feeling of discrimination and deprivation. Instead, New Delhi should be offering opportunities to them to seek education in the rest of the country which makes them employable and accepted all over where they will get what the rest of the youth in India get nothing more nothing less. This will broaden their horizons and keep them away from the growing influences of bigotry which, in turn, has to be tackled separately.

There will be resistance to all these efforts, even sabotage. It is a long haul but we need to persist. It will take time. Amalgamation always does.

Source ; Asian Age , 22nd September 2010 , Vikram Sood , Former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency

Chinese chequers in PoK

In the context of China’s protestations on Arunachal Pradesh, its hardening attitude on Jammu & Kashmir is reflected in the continuing visa row. This is to remind us that both the western and eastern portions of the India-China border remain disputed. Also, China is making its presence felt in the sub-continent as the next power to reckon with

Farooq Abdullah spoke with the usual fervour and passion when Parliament discussed Jammu & Kashmir on August 26. He pointed out that most Kashmiris wanted to solve their problems within India and not in Pakistan, China or America. This should not surprise anyone because Pakistan today looks a hopeless proposition to many Pakistanis too.

The former Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir made another very valid and important observation when he referred to parts of Kashmir under Pakistan’s occupation. He reminded the House of the Resolution passed several years ago saying that the entire State including Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan were an integral part of India. He demanded that India should seek the return of these territories, including that which Pakistan had illegally handed over to China.

It was, however, disturbing to find that the Treasury benches and even other stalwarts from the Opposition were eloquent in their silence, something that has become part of an ominous trend in the last few years. In February 2007, the US Congressional Research Service put out a thoroughly incongruous map of India which showed Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as parts of Pakistan and Aksai Chin as merely an Indian claim, but we did not protest. When Baroness Emma Nicholson, the EU Rapporteur to Jammu & Kashmir in her report to the EU confirmed from historical evidence dating from 1909 that Gilgit-Baltistan were parts of the Riyasat of Maharaja Hari Singh, we only murmured modestly. It was perhaps awkward for us to assert our right lest Gen Pervez Musharraf, with whom we were working out some unknown deal, got upset. Clearly, we had put aside long term geostrategic interests or simply not read them.

Since the 1970s Pakistan has been nibbling away at Gilgit-Baltistan in an effort to detach it from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to make the region an integral part of the rest of Pakistan. The Karakoram highway is a strategic life line for both China and Pakistan. Ruthless suppression of the Shia Ismaili minority and demographic changes by sending in Sunni Pushtoon was the favoured tactic of the various dictators to tame this remote region that borders Afghanistan and China. Not satisfied with access to Xinjiang through the Khunjerab Pass on the Karakoram Highway, Gen Zia-ul Haq tried to enhance Pakistani and Chinese positions when he moved towards the Karakoram Pass across the Siachen glacier. Had this move succeeded, China would have had an alternative access to Pakistan through Tibet with immense permanent consequences for our security and geostrategic interests.

China has always been interested that Pakistan retains control over Gilgit-Baltistan. This not only ensured its own vital interests in Gwadar overlooking the Persian Gulf and its vital resources but also was another brick in the wall against India’s access to Central Asia. About three years ago, there were reports that China was incorporating the Gilgit-Baltistan area into Xinjiang’s logistic grid by widening the highway and exploring the possibilities of a Pakistan-China rail link, with the ultimate aim of securing a land route for its energy supplies.

Recent reports of the presence of 7,000 to 11,000 PLA troops in the region and a simmering revolt there would suggest that Pakistan has sought Chinese assistance to tackle this crisis. This is an addition to other no-go areas for the Pakistani administration, which include Balochistan and FATA. Besides we must not overlook that there are US bases west of Indus and more than 1,000 US Marines have landed in Pakistan, ostensibly for flood relief.

In the context of Chinese protestations on Arunachal Pradesh, their hardening attitude on Jammu & Kashmir is reflected in the continuing visa issue now that a serving Lt General of the Indian Army has been denied this. China has chosen this period in time to remind us that both the western and eastern portions of the India-China border remain disputed. This is as much a reflection of its unease about growing India-US relations as India’s opposition to the China-Pakistan nuclear deal. China has raised its profile in the Jammu & Kashmir region even though its relations with the US are tense in the South China Sea. All things considered, China is making its presence felt in the sub-continent as the next power to reckon with.

Now, more than any other time, and given the evolving situation to our disadvantage, it is necessary that we address our own problem in the Valley and get out of this endless cycle of protests, sops and promises. Winning hearts and minds does not begin or end with elections. Jammu & Kashmir has far better socio-economic indicators than many other parts of India. Its literacy rate is on par with the rest of the country; the State Government employs more than 35,0000 people while Rajasthan, which is five times the size of Jammu & Kashmir, employs only 60,0000 people; for the Tenth Five-Year-Plan, Jammu & Kashmir got a per capita allocation of Rs 14,399 compared to States like Bihar (Rs 2,536) and Odisha (Rs 5,177); the State’s per capita income of Rs 12,399 a few years ago was lower than the national average but considerably higher than States like Bihar (Rs 5,108) or Odisha (Rs 8,547).

Appeasement is not the answer nor does the route lie via Pakistan. Additional economic or financial sops are not required; what is needed is a sense of fair play and justice seen to be delivered. If we need the Armed Forces Special Powers Act to remain then we must also ensure that the perpetrators of the Machhil monstrosity are brought to public trial soon. Leaders in jammu & Kashmir, across the political spectrum, must learn to accept that the practice of incessant political mismanagement and then blaming New Delhi, when the streets erupt, has to cease.

Jammu & Kashmir has a population of a little more than 10 million; only a section of the population in the Valley talks of self-determination. Surely this cannot hold a billion of us to ransom. As for this constant refrain of political problems, Jammu & Kashmir has its own Constitution, Article 370 and bounty for being troublesome. There is no ‘good boy bonus’ for the other States. When the US floods Pakistan with money and goodies, we complain that this is aiding terrorism. Are we not doing the same thing in Kashmir then?

A state has to be just, not soft; it has to be sympathetic, not indulgent. Jammu & Kashmir needs good governance in all its manifestations; so do we all. For those who talk of azadi, let it be said that we attained our independence in 1947. There is no greater independence than that.



Source : The Pioneer , 31st August 2010 ( Vikram Sood ,Former Secretary, Research & Analysis Wing.)

Intifada or not - Kashmir defies definitions

By Smita Prakash (ANI)


The recent spurt in violence in a few districts of the Kashmir Valley is being termed as an Intifada by many journalists. Perhaps because they perceive that the fight is popular and the street protestors are fighting a repressive regime.

Let us go back to see what exactly is an Intifada. In Arabic, the term means "shaking off". Webster defines the Intifada as an armed uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The first Intifada (1987-1993) and the second Intifada (2000-2004) led to the popularisation of the word and soon any revolt, armed or unarmed, by the Muslim people came to be termed as an Intifada.

The recent protests in the Kashmir Valley were first termed as an 'Intifada ' by The Kashmir Action Committee of Pakistan (KACP). This is a Lahore-based organisation, run by Justice Sharifuddin Bokhari, a retired Chief Justice of the Punjab High Court. Consisting mainly of some retired bureaucrats and ex-army men, it gets support from expatriate Pakistanis, who remain convinced that the so-called liberation of Kashmir is an issue supreme in the minds of ordinary Pakistanis.

This organisation, which though located hundreds of miles away from Srinagar, is miraculously aware of the minutest details of the recent uprising. This organisation decided that it was time to give the stone throwers of the Kashmir Valley an aura of respectability; so Intifada, they labeled it. It is no coincidence that this is a term that foreign journalists and American think tanks and publications are familiar with.

The term was duly picked up by the local media in Indian administered Kashmir and then by foreign correspondents that visited the Valley. Of course, a similar revolt in Balochistan, in Pakistan, has been termed by international media (NYT) as " a nationalist movement led by armed ethnic Baluch groups (that) has long sought greater provincial autonomy."

That the Baloch want secession from Pakistan goes unreported. The reason for the near black out of the civilian uprising in Balochistan is because the foreign media cannot enter the province. Why foreign, even domestic media in Pakistan, faces repression in the economic and backward province where, simmering hatred towards the Pakistani regime is beyond control now.

But it largely goes unreported, as it is much easier to cover the uprising in Srinagar than Balochistan. India allows free access to media, both Indian and foreign, in its part of Kashmir, like it does in any other part of the country. Incidentally, Pakistan administered Kashmir or POK is as inaccessible to media as Balochistan.

Despite the overt similarities in the recent visual images from Kashmir with the images from Palestine --- the stone throwing mobs, use of face masks, women and children being used on the frontlines of these mobs --- there are major differences between the two situations.

The Intifada was against the occupying forces of Israel. Palestinians had been thrown out of their land where they had lived for centuries.

India is not an occupying force in Kashmir, despite the sensational sound bites that are given by the ubiquitous boatman or a teen with a stone.

In 1948, Maharaja Hari Singh, the erstwhile ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, signed the instrument of accession like 500 other rulers, accepting its union with India. The accession to India was also publicly supported by the most popular Kashmiri leader of the time, Sheikh Abdullah.

Unlike the Palestinians, Kashmiris were not asked to vacate their lands so that "occupying forces" could occupy their land and homes. The immediate cause for the first Intifada in December 1987 was the incident in the Jabalya refugee camp when an Israeli army tank ran into a group of refugees, killing four and injuring seven. Do you see tanks ramming into civilians in Kashmir? This, despite the well documented fact that there are militants among stone pelters inciting and threatening them to throw stones and lynch policemen and burn down police stations.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah termed stone pelting as an "industry" saying: "We have, in fact, been able to identify to a couple of big business houses, one in particular, who has used, through his network of dealers, to route money through."

The involvement of women and children in the 2010 uprising in Srinagar is said to be similar to the first Intifada, in which, women provided cover for men who pelted stones and hid behind skirts.

Asiya Andarabi of the Dukhtaran-e-Millat, a women's organisation championing the cause of "freedom", is at the forefront of this so-called women's movement in Kashmir. At her mildest best, Asiya "urges" women and children to abandon the safety of their homes and schools and get on to the streets to fight unarmed against security forces who have shoot-at-sight orders.

Rage has many manifestations, but, women and children coerced to go onto the streets to hurl stones, is the most despicable of them all.

And, the most pathetic, is to see the same women pleading with policemen to release the men who have been arrested, or mourning the dead who were caught in this vicious cross fire.

All this, while the so-called leaders of the "Intifada" sit in air-conditioned homes guarded by state security and travel in bullet proof SUVs.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Hurriyat Conference defended the action of stone pelters, saying: "I have been urging the youth to keep these protests peaceful, but due to the atrocities of the troopers, the situation has taken a serious turn."

But women in Srinagar are not on the streets because they believe in freedom, independence or any such esoteric cause. They are protesting against the overwhelming presence of security personnel on the roads, which is preventing them from walking their children to school or going about their daily chores. They have lost their children, husbands and brothers to bullets. They want the protests and bloodshed to end. This is markedly different from the two Intifadas in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. There, it was an Islamic struggle against a Jewish occupation. Here, in Kashmir, the very thought of throwing out religious minorities from Kashmir is alien to Kashmiris. It is a radical view thrust and shoved into their struggle by Pakistani infiltrators and their agents.

On a recent visit to a Palestine refugee camp, in the West Bank, a group of Indian journalists had the opportunity to meet with people who had witnessed both Intifadas. Most of those we spoke to admit that violence had achieved little. They would have preferred peace talks.

The deputy mayor of Bethlehem, a Fatah leader, said that everyone, from Osama bin Laden to the smallest terror group on earth, has used the Palestinian cause to further their own ends.

This, he admitted, had harmed the cause of the Palestinian people and painted them as a violent race.

The Intifadas gave no respite to ordinary Palestinians. There are electromagnetic fences that divide the Palestinians from the Israelis. The violence shows no signs of abating. We visited the town of Sderot in Israel that lies on the Gaza border.

This town has suffered thousands of rocket attacks. There are bomb shelters every few miles, which are painted in bright welcoming colours so that children are not scared to run to them when the missile warning goes off.

In a Palestinian refugee camp in Bethlehem, we saw a school with no windows. Glass windows could shatter during a missile attack and injure children so they study closeted in window-less classrooms.

Many of us draw parallels with the situation in Kashmir, thinking that the hardships that people face in conflict zones are almost similar. But the politics behind it is not. The Intifadas of Palestine are peculiar to that region. Not to Kashmir.

On 23rd August, shopkeepers at Peerbagh in Budgam district of Central Kashmir confronted separatists who were forcing them to shut shops and join the protests. The shopkeepers said their business was being affected and they could ill afford the daily shut down calls. The brave citizens then filed an FIR at the police station against the separatists who they said were violating the peace and harming their businesses.

The law enforcing agencies operating in the Valley are also now using non-lethal means of crowd control like pumping action shotguns. Tazer guns, rubber bullets and pepper balls will also be used, which should have been done as a matter of procedure right from the start of these protests.

Some commentators who have drawn an analogy between the Kashmir problem and the Palestinian conflict forebode that if the stone pelting incidents peter down or loose steam in the days ahead, it would only be a lull in the storm.

General Shankar Roychowdhury, a former Chief of Army Staff, writes "The Pakistan Army is attempting to co-opt Intifada into its own jihadi playbook, as a tactic of opportunity against India in the Valley. Keeping the history of Intifada in mind, it would be prudent to anticipate and prepare for possible increasing tempo of suicide bombing and fidayeen-type attacks in the country, both within and outside Jammu and Kashmir."

But this is where the separatists and their minders have been innovative. They have already gone through the suicide bombing, hijacking, and hostage taking tactics. It failed to win any public support in the state, in the country and internationally, and did not achieve their goal of "azadi".

Imran Nabi, a professor at the Islamic University of Kashmir recently commented, "We don't know what is Intifida, what is it, we don't have any clue who is running it? You must be knowing better, what you are seeing on the streets of Kashmir is the angry outburst against the indifferent government."

Stones, face masks and women protestors do not make an Intifada alone. Intifada, notwithstanding the superficial and misplaced use of the term to describe the recent protests in Kashmir, is an alien concept to India and will not work. Kashmiris know it. It is now time for commentators to realise it. By Smita Prakash (ANI)

Source : Yahoo News , http://bit.ly/9Pvszw, 25th August 2010

China asserts itself

For decades China pretended to be modest and Deng Xiaoping’s successors followed him as they couched their ambitions in soft idioms. The “sons of heaven”, as the Chinese traditionally consider themselves, also consider those on their periphery as rebellious barbarians who had to be tamed or conquered. So the discourse was: “Tao guang yang hui” — variously translated, but which essentially means “hide brightness, nourish obscurity”. The exhortation was to keep a low profile when in an adverse situation and wait for a suitable opportunity to reverse fortunes. The other advice was “yield on small issues with the long term in mind”. All this has begun to change as China’s influence began to rise and the United States was perceived to be in decline. The US policy predicaments in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran and Western economic crises in contrast to China’s steady growth is probably the reason for this change in attitude. There is an exuberance and global self-confidence accompanied by a global outreach that was not visible earlier.

It is useful to go back to January 20, 2009 — the day Barack Obama was sworn in as US President. This was also the day that the Chinese released their White Paper on National Defence (2008). Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not. The White Paper covers issues like Taiwan, Tibet, the defence budget, diplomatic outreach and gives some details about how China would use its nuclear force. It is important to refer to some portions of the paper which underline the new philosophy. The preface mentions that historic changes were taking place between contemporary China and the rest of the world, and the Chinese had become an important part of the international system. China, it said, “could not develop in isolation from the rest of the world, nor can the world enjoy prosperity and stability without China.” The intention was to portray China as a participatory nation with huge responsibilities and its own indispensability in the new global order.

China’s international behaviour has been a mix of defiance — such as at the Copenhagen climate summit, when it sent junior functionaries to discussions with heads of state, or its dealings on the Iran nuclear issue or the nuclear deal with Pakistan. China has been assertive with India on Arunachal Pradesh by blocking the ADB loan, has been provocative by issuing “plain paper” visas to Indians born in Jammu and Kashmir and routinely shrill about the Dalai Lama, while increased border violations have been noticed in Arunachal Pradesh — which Chinese commentators call “Southern Tibet”. Chinese activities in our neighbourhood, its plans to dam the Brahmaputra and extend the Tibet rail link into Nepal are other aspects of continuing Chinese assertiveness. The Chinese PLA had recently transported combat readiness material to PLA and Air Force units in Tibet by rail for the first time. This would further enhance the military transportation capacity, apart from the construction of more airports in Tibet.

While some American experts like Prof. David Shambaugh describe this Chinese attitude as a sign of defensive nationalism — assertive in form but reactive in essence, the fact is that since about the middle of 2009 the Chinese have talking more and more about their “core interests”. As D.S. Rajan, director of the Centre for China Studies, Chennai, points out, Chinese leader Dai Bingguo said in July 2009 that “the PRC’s first core interest is maintaining its fundamental system and state security, the second is state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the third is the continued stable development of the economy and society”. Translated into specifics, it means protection of its interests in Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiang, the South China Sea and its strategic resources and sea trade routes.

China’s assertiveness about the South China Sea, its umbrage at US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s July 2010 remarks in Hanoi on creating an international mechanism to resolve this issue, has been particularly visible in the past few weeks. Dai Bingguo conveyed to Ms Clinton in May 2010 that China regarded its claims to the South China Sea as a core national interest. The Chinese have closely watched the growing US-Vietnamese ties, which includes an American offer of a civil nuclear deal to Vietnam on lines similar to the India deal. A triangular acrimony between the US, China and Vietnam has been growing for some time.

The Chinese carried out a live ammunition PLA Navy exercise in the South China Sea on July 26, followed by another exercise on August 3 along the Yellow Sea coast — the other area of contention. The Chinese conducted exercises there in April and June this year, and were now asserting that China opposed any foreign ships entering the sea or adjacent waters; they even vehemently opposed joint US-South Korean exercises there.

The message in these demarches to the US was in keeping with protecting China’s core interests in the adjacent seas and telling the US that the western Pacific was China’s sphere of interest and influence. It suggested a division of zones of influence between the Eastern and Western Pacific. The US and China have their own geostrategic rivalries to settle, and the Chinese may have assessed that their moment has come.

Yet China remains concerned with its intricate trade and financial links with the US, and also with the security of its trade and supply routes that transit the Malacca Straits. It has endeavoured to develop extensive land routes through Central Asia, but these are inadequate. It is a matter of time before China will make its presence more visible in the Indian Ocean. It has port facilities in Hambantota and Gwadar, and a presence in the Arabian Sea as it battles Somali pirates. China has expanded its contacts with Iran, more in competition with Russia than the US, it seeks mineral wealth in Afghanistan, its relations with Pakistan need no elucidation and it has developed strong ties with Burma. Thus while we may agonise over challenges across our land frontiers, we would be ignoring the new challenge in the Indian Ocean unless we plan countermeasures now.

Source : Asian Age , 25th August 2010