Kshatriya87
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porkistan needs to split before this delivery happens.
FOREIGN POLICY: New, Strong and Clear Outreach
- Thread starter sorcerer
- Start date
Kshatriya87
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The middle easterns export their oil all over the world. But did you know which oil they use? The oil thats imported from south east asian countries (India, Malaysia, Brunei etc.) as the crude from this region is much better in quality.
Kshatriya87
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LoL. I just checked the results for porkis. Hilarious. Not able to paste here though. Can you the honors please?Read something interesting on WIKIPEDIA, found this worth sharing:
If the BBC survey is to be believed then More Nigerians and Russians than Indians think positively about India.
Supporters of Israel on this forum must take notice. Germany is an interesting case.
View attachment 10227
Kshatriya87
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Is Pakistan Facing Growing International Isolation?
A growing chorus of states, from the United States to China, appears to be shifting away from Islamabad.
By Shawn Snow
September 14, 2016
Pakistan’s support of regional proxies throughout Central and Southwest Asia is at long last sounding alarm bells throughout the international community. With an uptick in violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s support of the Haqqani Network, international actors may finally be saying enough is enough. A growing chorus of states from the United States to China appears to be shifting away from Pakistan, or at a minimum making overtures to pressure Pakistan into ending support of terrorist groups in the region.
This summer the United States blocked sales of F-16 fighter jets to the Pakistani military, and in August ended $300 million in aid to Pakistan’s military that is set aside for allies fighting the war on terror after U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter refused to testify to Congress that Pakistan was combating terror groups inside the country.
Moreover, the United States has started to shift Afghanistan toward India’s sphere of influence, with Ashraf Ghani currently in the country on a two day state visit to conclude bilateral defense agreements that will assist Afghanistan’s fledgling air force.
Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
China appears to be making similar gestures, or at least putting some heat on Pakistan. After the G20 Summit in China last week, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern over the China-Pakistan Economic Cooridor (CPEC), a $46 billion dollar project designed to connect China’s Kashgar to the Pakistani port of Gwadar. The project is also expected to greatly modernize Pakistan’s infrastructure and boost the economy.
Modi expressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping concerns of terrorism “emanating from the region” and underscored that the fight against terror should not be motivated by “ political considerations.”
Promptly following the meeting, China warned of setbacks in the CPEC to Pakistani officials. An editorial in a Chinese newspaper stated, “It is unlikely to be plain sailing for China and Pakistan in their attempts to push forward the CPEC+ due to challenges such as a complex regional environment, and people in the two countries should be prepared for potential setbacks.”
The Global Times ran an article highlighting the importance of the CPEC project to both Paksitan and China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative but underscored the problems and costs associated to security to maintain and develop the project. “It is unlikely that China will change its supportive attitude on the CPEC in the short term, but the increasing cost of security is becoming a big problem in efficiently pushing forward the project,” the paper stated.
Furthermore, the Global Times article indicated China may pivot its attention away from Pakistan toward Southeast Asia, as it tries to amend fears over its activity in the South China Sea. “The CPEC has long been seen as a flagship project in China’s Belt and Road initiative, but the initiative’s strategic focus may need to shift gradually toward Southeast Asia, where there is a wide infrastructure funding gap but a relatively stable regional environment that will enable China to efficiently push forward ventures under the Belt and Road initiative,” the article predicted.
Regional actors appear to be applying pressure on Pakistan to change its behavior with regards to supporting proxy agents throughout Central and Southwest Asia. Pakistan’s response to that pressure in the short run has been to seek out ties with Russia. It was announced this week that Pakistan and Russia will hold their first ever joint military drills later this year. The move comes as Pakistan is also considering buying advanced military equipment from Russia.
A growing chorus of states, from the United States to China, appears to be shifting away from Islamabad.
By Shawn Snow
September 14, 2016
Pakistan’s support of regional proxies throughout Central and Southwest Asia is at long last sounding alarm bells throughout the international community. With an uptick in violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s support of the Haqqani Network, international actors may finally be saying enough is enough. A growing chorus of states from the United States to China appears to be shifting away from Pakistan, or at a minimum making overtures to pressure Pakistan into ending support of terrorist groups in the region.
This summer the United States blocked sales of F-16 fighter jets to the Pakistani military, and in August ended $300 million in aid to Pakistan’s military that is set aside for allies fighting the war on terror after U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter refused to testify to Congress that Pakistan was combating terror groups inside the country.
Moreover, the United States has started to shift Afghanistan toward India’s sphere of influence, with Ashraf Ghani currently in the country on a two day state visit to conclude bilateral defense agreements that will assist Afghanistan’s fledgling air force.
Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
China appears to be making similar gestures, or at least putting some heat on Pakistan. After the G20 Summit in China last week, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern over the China-Pakistan Economic Cooridor (CPEC), a $46 billion dollar project designed to connect China’s Kashgar to the Pakistani port of Gwadar. The project is also expected to greatly modernize Pakistan’s infrastructure and boost the economy.
Modi expressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping concerns of terrorism “emanating from the region” and underscored that the fight against terror should not be motivated by “ political considerations.”
Promptly following the meeting, China warned of setbacks in the CPEC to Pakistani officials. An editorial in a Chinese newspaper stated, “It is unlikely to be plain sailing for China and Pakistan in their attempts to push forward the CPEC+ due to challenges such as a complex regional environment, and people in the two countries should be prepared for potential setbacks.”
The Global Times ran an article highlighting the importance of the CPEC project to both Paksitan and China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative but underscored the problems and costs associated to security to maintain and develop the project. “It is unlikely that China will change its supportive attitude on the CPEC in the short term, but the increasing cost of security is becoming a big problem in efficiently pushing forward the project,” the paper stated.
Furthermore, the Global Times article indicated China may pivot its attention away from Pakistan toward Southeast Asia, as it tries to amend fears over its activity in the South China Sea. “The CPEC has long been seen as a flagship project in China’s Belt and Road initiative, but the initiative’s strategic focus may need to shift gradually toward Southeast Asia, where there is a wide infrastructure funding gap but a relatively stable regional environment that will enable China to efficiently push forward ventures under the Belt and Road initiative,” the article predicted.
Regional actors appear to be applying pressure on Pakistan to change its behavior with regards to supporting proxy agents throughout Central and Southwest Asia. Pakistan’s response to that pressure in the short run has been to seek out ties with Russia. It was announced this week that Pakistan and Russia will hold their first ever joint military drills later this year. The move comes as Pakistan is also considering buying advanced military equipment from Russia.
sorcerer
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Thats the way aha aha I laik it aha aha!
sorcerer
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Stronger India-US Embrace Is Unnerving China And Also Pakistan
by Manik Mehta
If you watched the images at the recent G20 summit in Hangzhou, with Chinese President Xi Jinping playing the role of the impeccable host amid the gaffes committed by Chinese security officials against US President Barack Obama’s delegation, you may have wondered about the strange chemistry between the leaders of the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest communist country which has embraced capitalism without creating democratic institutions.
Let’s also bring in a third character to complete our triangle — India. The world’s largest democracy, as India likes to call itself, is ostensibly turning its back on the Non-Aligned Movement, once the bedrock of its foreign policy, and has become a key player in a strong partnership, short of an alliance, with the United States. India is also, along with China, a member of the Brics group.
Two recent incidents have hardened India’s attitude towards China: China blocked India’s bid to get Pakistan-based Mohammad Azhar on the UN’s terrorist list and, secondly, China objected, prodded by Pakistan, to India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.
However, another thorny issue between India and China is the latter’s ambitious $46 billion (Dh168.8 billion) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The Indian government has criticised this project and asked China to cease such activities.
Washington has its own reasons to stop China’s big-power ambitions, manifested in the East and South China Sea where China is staking claims to islands by creating a fait accompli situation based on its “historical claims”.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter is considered to be one of the chief architects of the growing Indo-US defence relationship – “the defining relationship of the 21st century”, in his words — culminating in the Logistics Service Agreement (LSA) signed in Washington DC during Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s recent visit. The LSA, US sources maintain, allows both militaries to use each other’s land, air and naval bases for replenishment, repair and the rest.
China fears that this will give the US the right to deploy full-spectrum rotational forces anywhere in India on a pre-planned case-by-case basis in order to contain China.
There has been a robust exchange of high-profile visits between India and the US. Before Parrikar arrived in Washington, Secretary of the US Air Force Deborah Kelly James visited Delhi in late August and held talks with India’s senior civilian and military leaders.
James told me in an interview in New York that she would examine the building of “interoperable capabilities and efficiently managed coalitions”.
Technology Acquisition
She confirmed that the US and India are continuing their talks on the joint production of jet fighters and jet engines, and on assembling Lockheed Martin’s F-16 aircraft and producing the Fairchild Republic Warthog-10s in India, conforming to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make-in-India” campaign.
Judging by the critical comments in the controlled Chinese media outlets, which toe the official line, China is worried about the US technology acquisition by India which is now producing sophisticated weapons.
The US wants India to play a greater role in the vast Indo-Pacific geographic expanse. India, which has close defence ties with Vietnam, one of China’s toughest adversaries in the South China Sea, can supply weapons and military equipment to Vietnam to resist China, which is forcing the smaller nations to unify and put up a common stand against China. James emphasised that the US believed in the right to free navigation in international waters, and praised the recent Hague tribunal’s ruling supporting the Philippine position and rejecting China’s “historical claims” to the islands. China has categorically rejected the ruling which is clearly a setback to its ambitions in the region. But China is offering economic sops to some nations in the region in return for foregoing further moves that could hurt China’s claims to the islands.
Maritime trade is the lifeline of China’s growing economy and its global One-Belt-One-Road commercial network. The US, on its part, has been encouraging the Indian navy which as a trans-regional operating force between the Indian Ocean region and the East and South China Sea could become a problem for China in the years ahead.
India is also strengthening its multilateral cooperation with Southeast Asian countries aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation.
Economic Leverage
If China is not happy with the intensifying Indo-US defence cooperation, it needs to reflect on the reasons behind the growing bonhomie between India and the US. China has needled India and pushed the latter into the US’ embrace.
In Southeast Asia, anti-China sentiments are widely prevalent but China’s economic leverage is the reason why China’s neighbours are presently reticent about escalating tensions.
However, China’s economic clout may not always calm the current situation in the region.
Chinese posturing might push together all the affected countries to form a united strategic front against it; China’s image has been already dented as it continues to build artificial islands to create military facilities in the South China Sea in violation of the international law of the sea.
China should take a consensus-based approach with the smaller nations instead of taking an “everything-or-nothing” stand.
Source>>
by Manik Mehta
If you watched the images at the recent G20 summit in Hangzhou, with Chinese President Xi Jinping playing the role of the impeccable host amid the gaffes committed by Chinese security officials against US President Barack Obama’s delegation, you may have wondered about the strange chemistry between the leaders of the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest communist country which has embraced capitalism without creating democratic institutions.
Let’s also bring in a third character to complete our triangle — India. The world’s largest democracy, as India likes to call itself, is ostensibly turning its back on the Non-Aligned Movement, once the bedrock of its foreign policy, and has become a key player in a strong partnership, short of an alliance, with the United States. India is also, along with China, a member of the Brics group.
Two recent incidents have hardened India’s attitude towards China: China blocked India’s bid to get Pakistan-based Mohammad Azhar on the UN’s terrorist list and, secondly, China objected, prodded by Pakistan, to India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.
However, another thorny issue between India and China is the latter’s ambitious $46 billion (Dh168.8 billion) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The Indian government has criticised this project and asked China to cease such activities.
Washington has its own reasons to stop China’s big-power ambitions, manifested in the East and South China Sea where China is staking claims to islands by creating a fait accompli situation based on its “historical claims”.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter is considered to be one of the chief architects of the growing Indo-US defence relationship – “the defining relationship of the 21st century”, in his words — culminating in the Logistics Service Agreement (LSA) signed in Washington DC during Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s recent visit. The LSA, US sources maintain, allows both militaries to use each other’s land, air and naval bases for replenishment, repair and the rest.
China fears that this will give the US the right to deploy full-spectrum rotational forces anywhere in India on a pre-planned case-by-case basis in order to contain China.
There has been a robust exchange of high-profile visits between India and the US. Before Parrikar arrived in Washington, Secretary of the US Air Force Deborah Kelly James visited Delhi in late August and held talks with India’s senior civilian and military leaders.
James told me in an interview in New York that she would examine the building of “interoperable capabilities and efficiently managed coalitions”.
Technology Acquisition
She confirmed that the US and India are continuing their talks on the joint production of jet fighters and jet engines, and on assembling Lockheed Martin’s F-16 aircraft and producing the Fairchild Republic Warthog-10s in India, conforming to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make-in-India” campaign.
Judging by the critical comments in the controlled Chinese media outlets, which toe the official line, China is worried about the US technology acquisition by India which is now producing sophisticated weapons.
The US wants India to play a greater role in the vast Indo-Pacific geographic expanse. India, which has close defence ties with Vietnam, one of China’s toughest adversaries in the South China Sea, can supply weapons and military equipment to Vietnam to resist China, which is forcing the smaller nations to unify and put up a common stand against China. James emphasised that the US believed in the right to free navigation in international waters, and praised the recent Hague tribunal’s ruling supporting the Philippine position and rejecting China’s “historical claims” to the islands. China has categorically rejected the ruling which is clearly a setback to its ambitions in the region. But China is offering economic sops to some nations in the region in return for foregoing further moves that could hurt China’s claims to the islands.
Maritime trade is the lifeline of China’s growing economy and its global One-Belt-One-Road commercial network. The US, on its part, has been encouraging the Indian navy which as a trans-regional operating force between the Indian Ocean region and the East and South China Sea could become a problem for China in the years ahead.
India is also strengthening its multilateral cooperation with Southeast Asian countries aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation.
Economic Leverage
If China is not happy with the intensifying Indo-US defence cooperation, it needs to reflect on the reasons behind the growing bonhomie between India and the US. China has needled India and pushed the latter into the US’ embrace.
In Southeast Asia, anti-China sentiments are widely prevalent but China’s economic leverage is the reason why China’s neighbours are presently reticent about escalating tensions.
However, China’s economic clout may not always calm the current situation in the region.
Chinese posturing might push together all the affected countries to form a united strategic front against it; China’s image has been already dented as it continues to build artificial islands to create military facilities in the South China Sea in violation of the international law of the sea.
China should take a consensus-based approach with the smaller nations instead of taking an “everything-or-nothing” stand.
Source>>
sorcerer
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Iran, India Open New Chapter In Relations
by Mehraveh Kharazmi
(Translated from the Iranian)
Iran and India are going through a new stage in their bilateral relations. The two countries, which have maintained cordial relations characterized by low tension in the past centuries, are now opening a new chapter, whose impact can even transcend the limits of their bilateral ties.
Iran’s relations with India, which had become restricted to import of non-essential goods from India in return for selling Iran’s crude to Indian oil companies due to Anti-Iran sanctions and because Tehran did not have much of an option, have now entered a totally different phase. This is true because following the endorsement and implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran has now more options for the establishment of political and economic relations with various countries of the world. As a result, Tehran has entered a new era in its relations with such countries as India and China on an equal standing and on the basis of the realization of its medium- and long-term economic interests.
However, the role played by a country like India in helping Iran go through conditions, which governed its economy from 2007 to 2013 as a result of international sanctions and pressures exerted by the SWIFT network of bank exchanges, cannot be considered totally ineffective in bringing about the new round of those relations. This is true because economic channels and important companies that had been established among Iran, Russia, China and India in order to help Iran evade sanctions, were greatly effective in raising Iran’s bargaining power during nuclear negotiations and helped change the imposed course of events. As a result, following the implementation of the JCPOA – as put by Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, during his recent trip to India – Iran has been giving priority to cooperation with countries, which stood by it at the time of sanctions and this has been a dominant trend in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic’s eleventh administration.
At any rate, the new round of relations between the two countries started in late May 2016 when India took the first step and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an official visit to Iran. It was the first visit to Iran by an Indian official at this level during the past 15 years. In the meantime, a recent visit to New Delhi by secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and his meetings with the Indian prime minister and his national security advisor, Ajit Doval, were considered as Iran’s response to Modi’s Tehran visit and a sign of deepening relations between the two countries.
During these exchanges, both sides emphasized on the need to promote bilateral relations in political, security, defense and economic fields while the Indian government asked for further strengthening of strategic dialogues among Iran, India, China and Russia over security, political and economic issues. The results of such cooperation and dialogue have been already manifest in certain fields and have a bright prospect in other fields.
Chabahar Agreement, Objective Manifestation of Development-Based Relations
The agreement signed for the development of Iran’s southeastern Chabahar port is an objective manifestation of the new chapter of relations between Iran and India on the basis of development. This agreement, which was signed among Iran, New Delhi and Kabul during a concurrent visit to Iran by the Indian prime minister and President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, is of special importance because it pursues such goals as activating the North-South Corridor and bringing prosperity to transportation plans among the three countries. Remarkable increase in the productivity of marine transport in the Sea of Oman, making many commercial ships needless of entering the Persian Gulf and traveling longer distances, Iran’s position along the transit route that runs from India to Central Asia and – as a medium-term objective – development of one of the most deprived regions of Iran are among major goals, which can be achieved as a result of this trilateral agreement among the three countries. These advantages have become associated with the eleventh administration’s special effort to provide political and economic requirements for the facilitation of this tripartite cooperation. Attracting investment from India in line with this development plan will boost the capacity of Iran’s Chabahar port for onloading and offloading of goods and commodities to 84 million tonnes per year. All these developments will result from the implementation of an agreement, which is hoped not to meet the same fate as the Peace Gas Pipeline project that was supposed to take Iran’s natural gas to Pakistan and India, and would not be obstructed by Western countries, which are bent on blocking development projects that may unite developing countries.
According to what the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said during his visit to India, the two countries have also decided to revive a document of strategic cooperation between the two sides, which was signed by the two countries’ heads of state in 1998. Before that, due to existence of various obstacles and limitations resulting from anti-Iran sanctions, implementation of that document had not been possible and now, following the implementation of the JCPOA, it can be taken as a basis for more cooperation.
In addition to the outlook of future plans to be implemented by Iran and India, what has been observed in the short term is increased volume of the two countries’ trade. According to available statistics, following the conclusion and implementation of the JCPOA, India has increased Iran’s share in its oil market by, at least, 10 percent as a result of which India’s biggest oil importing company bought a daily total of 185,000 barrels of Iran’s crude oil last month.
Cooperation Against Terrorism And Extremism
Having more than 170 million Muslims, who account for about 12 percent of its total population and over 10 percent of all world Muslims, India is potentially capable of turning into one of the effective countries in the fight against extremism and terrorism, which arise from the Takfiri way of thinking. Therefore, reviving joint cooperation among Tehran, New Delhi and Moscow over regional security issues, especially preventing spread of terrorism and helping restoration of stability and security to Afghanistan as a major hub of extremism, have been among the most important topics raised in bilateral consultations between the two countries’ officials. Such cooperation will take the impact of relations between the two countries beyond bilateral ties and may be bolstered or undermined according to the approach that other regional countries would take toward the anti-terrorism front. Of course, in the new chapter of their relations, officials of Iran and India have emphatically noted that they would to their best to prevent these relations from being affected by foreign pressure and obstructionist efforts.
Source>>
by Mehraveh Kharazmi
(Translated from the Iranian)
Iran and India are going through a new stage in their bilateral relations. The two countries, which have maintained cordial relations characterized by low tension in the past centuries, are now opening a new chapter, whose impact can even transcend the limits of their bilateral ties.
Iran’s relations with India, which had become restricted to import of non-essential goods from India in return for selling Iran’s crude to Indian oil companies due to Anti-Iran sanctions and because Tehran did not have much of an option, have now entered a totally different phase. This is true because following the endorsement and implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran has now more options for the establishment of political and economic relations with various countries of the world. As a result, Tehran has entered a new era in its relations with such countries as India and China on an equal standing and on the basis of the realization of its medium- and long-term economic interests.
However, the role played by a country like India in helping Iran go through conditions, which governed its economy from 2007 to 2013 as a result of international sanctions and pressures exerted by the SWIFT network of bank exchanges, cannot be considered totally ineffective in bringing about the new round of those relations. This is true because economic channels and important companies that had been established among Iran, Russia, China and India in order to help Iran evade sanctions, were greatly effective in raising Iran’s bargaining power during nuclear negotiations and helped change the imposed course of events. As a result, following the implementation of the JCPOA – as put by Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, during his recent trip to India – Iran has been giving priority to cooperation with countries, which stood by it at the time of sanctions and this has been a dominant trend in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic’s eleventh administration.
At any rate, the new round of relations between the two countries started in late May 2016 when India took the first step and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an official visit to Iran. It was the first visit to Iran by an Indian official at this level during the past 15 years. In the meantime, a recent visit to New Delhi by secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and his meetings with the Indian prime minister and his national security advisor, Ajit Doval, were considered as Iran’s response to Modi’s Tehran visit and a sign of deepening relations between the two countries.
During these exchanges, both sides emphasized on the need to promote bilateral relations in political, security, defense and economic fields while the Indian government asked for further strengthening of strategic dialogues among Iran, India, China and Russia over security, political and economic issues. The results of such cooperation and dialogue have been already manifest in certain fields and have a bright prospect in other fields.
Chabahar Agreement, Objective Manifestation of Development-Based Relations
The agreement signed for the development of Iran’s southeastern Chabahar port is an objective manifestation of the new chapter of relations between Iran and India on the basis of development. This agreement, which was signed among Iran, New Delhi and Kabul during a concurrent visit to Iran by the Indian prime minister and President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, is of special importance because it pursues such goals as activating the North-South Corridor and bringing prosperity to transportation plans among the three countries. Remarkable increase in the productivity of marine transport in the Sea of Oman, making many commercial ships needless of entering the Persian Gulf and traveling longer distances, Iran’s position along the transit route that runs from India to Central Asia and – as a medium-term objective – development of one of the most deprived regions of Iran are among major goals, which can be achieved as a result of this trilateral agreement among the three countries. These advantages have become associated with the eleventh administration’s special effort to provide political and economic requirements for the facilitation of this tripartite cooperation. Attracting investment from India in line with this development plan will boost the capacity of Iran’s Chabahar port for onloading and offloading of goods and commodities to 84 million tonnes per year. All these developments will result from the implementation of an agreement, which is hoped not to meet the same fate as the Peace Gas Pipeline project that was supposed to take Iran’s natural gas to Pakistan and India, and would not be obstructed by Western countries, which are bent on blocking development projects that may unite developing countries.
According to what the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said during his visit to India, the two countries have also decided to revive a document of strategic cooperation between the two sides, which was signed by the two countries’ heads of state in 1998. Before that, due to existence of various obstacles and limitations resulting from anti-Iran sanctions, implementation of that document had not been possible and now, following the implementation of the JCPOA, it can be taken as a basis for more cooperation.
In addition to the outlook of future plans to be implemented by Iran and India, what has been observed in the short term is increased volume of the two countries’ trade. According to available statistics, following the conclusion and implementation of the JCPOA, India has increased Iran’s share in its oil market by, at least, 10 percent as a result of which India’s biggest oil importing company bought a daily total of 185,000 barrels of Iran’s crude oil last month.
Cooperation Against Terrorism And Extremism
Having more than 170 million Muslims, who account for about 12 percent of its total population and over 10 percent of all world Muslims, India is potentially capable of turning into one of the effective countries in the fight against extremism and terrorism, which arise from the Takfiri way of thinking. Therefore, reviving joint cooperation among Tehran, New Delhi and Moscow over regional security issues, especially preventing spread of terrorism and helping restoration of stability and security to Afghanistan as a major hub of extremism, have been among the most important topics raised in bilateral consultations between the two countries’ officials. Such cooperation will take the impact of relations between the two countries beyond bilateral ties and may be bolstered or undermined according to the approach that other regional countries would take toward the anti-terrorism front. Of course, in the new chapter of their relations, officials of Iran and India have emphatically noted that they would to their best to prevent these relations from being affected by foreign pressure and obstructionist efforts.
Source>>
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- 502
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India Shoring Up Its Defence On The Border With China- Su-30MKI Lands In Agartala
In a fresh attempt to beef up its presence in the Northeast, the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Thursday landed a Sukhoi Su-30MKI at a civilian airport in Agartala. The aircraft- said to be on a routine training mission- departed soon after it landed.
“This is a part of routine peace-time training activity, nothing else,” the Defence Ministry spokesman Group Captain Amit Mahajan was quoted as saying.
Sukhoi Su-30MKI has long been regarded as an important tool to counter Chinese aggression. Apart from deploying Su-30MKI squadrons to the region, the air force has also operationalised various Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs). These ALGs, mostly located along the border with China, will allow the Indian Air Force to strike deeper inside enemy territory in case of a conflict. Modifications to the aircraft were also approved to make it capable of carrying supersonic BrahMos-A cruise missiles.
Experts believe that the mission could have been a part of IAF’s attempt to operationalise more air force bases in the Northeast to balance China’s aggressive posturing across the border. In view of China’s rapid infrastructure development along the border with India, a larger effort has been made by the government and the armed forces to boost military presence and capability in the region.
The mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,030-kilometre unfenced border with China and various Chinese incursions have been reported in the recent past. To upgrade Army’s capability, the government also approved the deployment of a land-based BrahMos regiment to Arunachal Pradesh. Following this move, an article in the People’s Liberation Army’s official mouthpiece warned India of “counter measures” from China.
“India deploying supersonic missiles on the border has exceeded its own needs for self-defence and poses a serious threat to China’s Tibet and Yunnan provinces,” themouthpiece read.
In a fresh attempt to beef up its presence in the Northeast, the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Thursday landed a Sukhoi Su-30MKI at a civilian airport in Agartala. The aircraft- said to be on a routine training mission- departed soon after it landed.
“This is a part of routine peace-time training activity, nothing else,” the Defence Ministry spokesman Group Captain Amit Mahajan was quoted as saying.
Sukhoi Su-30MKI has long been regarded as an important tool to counter Chinese aggression. Apart from deploying Su-30MKI squadrons to the region, the air force has also operationalised various Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs). These ALGs, mostly located along the border with China, will allow the Indian Air Force to strike deeper inside enemy territory in case of a conflict. Modifications to the aircraft were also approved to make it capable of carrying supersonic BrahMos-A cruise missiles.
Experts believe that the mission could have been a part of IAF’s attempt to operationalise more air force bases in the Northeast to balance China’s aggressive posturing across the border. In view of China’s rapid infrastructure development along the border with India, a larger effort has been made by the government and the armed forces to boost military presence and capability in the region.
The mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh shares a 1,030-kilometre unfenced border with China and various Chinese incursions have been reported in the recent past. To upgrade Army’s capability, the government also approved the deployment of a land-based BrahMos regiment to Arunachal Pradesh. Following this move, an article in the People’s Liberation Army’s official mouthpiece warned India of “counter measures” from China.
“India deploying supersonic missiles on the border has exceeded its own needs for self-defence and poses a serious threat to China’s Tibet and Yunnan provinces,” themouthpiece read.
sorcerer
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India’s Five Foreign Policy Goals: Great Strides, Steep Challenges
Two years ago today, Narendra Modi took the oath of office as India’s 14th prime minister. Among his first decisions as head of government – in fact, it was set in motion even before the formal start of his tenure – was an unconventional act of diplomacy: inviting eight foreign leaders of neighbouring countries to attend his inauguration. While many commentators claimed before his election that Modi would be a nationalist hardliner, a foreign affairs novice, or simply more of the same on external affairs, the prime minister instead proved more active and (perhaps less surprisingly) more pragmatic than many had expected. In two years, Modi has displayed an instinctive understanding of power in the conduct of world affairs, and he has also benefited from being less politically hamstrung than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, with whose worldview he in fact shares much in common.
A highlight of Modi’s first year was his outreach to the United States. In September 2014, Washington rolled out the red carpet for a leader it had once publicly shunned, and Modi reciprocated by inviting Barack Obama to India’s Republic Day celebrations, a first for a U.S. president. But beyond normalising and enhancing relations with the US, Modi’s international priorities were quickly made evident. Within his first year, he embarked upon state visits to India’s immediate neighbourhood, three crucial Indian Ocean island countries, important Asia-Pacific powers (China, Japan, and Australia), and eventually Western Europe.
Modi’s second year followed in much the same fashion, with a ground-breaking visit to Bangladesh, a swing through Central Asia, a long overdue visit to Afghanistan, and a renewed focus on the Middle East or West Asia. It also included a surprise stopover in Pakistan, a trip no Indian prime minister had managed since 2004. In addition, Modi has in his first two years played host in India to most of the world’s top leaders, including those of the United States, China, Russia, France, Japan, and Germany. He also hosted a landmark India-Africa Forum Summit last November that involved 41 heads of state and government.
Despite this flurry of activity, several commentators have been left disappointed by Modi’s – and India’s – handling of international relations. My Brookings India colleague W.P.S. Sidhu has pointed to a lack of strategic vision, and describes Modi’s various foreign policy initiatives – such as Neighbourhood First and Act East – as “vacuous.” While commending the prime minister’s sound instincts, initiative, and energy, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran has lamented the lack of an overall national security strategy and criticised the priority granted showmanship over substance. Meanwhile, Rajesh Rajagopalan of Jawaharlal Nehru University has expressed disappointment with the lack of new ideas and synergy and his colleague Happymon Jacob has faulted New Delhi’s bullying and poor imagination for bad relations with its neighbours.
Much of this criticism is perplexing. Ambiguity and deniability have value in foreign affairs. As a consequence, neither this Indian government nor any of its predecessors have ever explicitly spelled out their strategic intentions in a single document, although there are plenty of public statements that offer a good indication of the government’s outlook. These public articulations, combined with the nature, outcomes, and timings of Modi’s diplomatic activities, offer a clear picture of India’s priorities and strategic objectives. They are essentially five-fold:
1. Neighbourhood First: Improving connectivity, mitigating nationalism
The approach called ‘Neighbourhood First’ – a phrase adopted by the Indian government – is meant to indicate four things. The first is New Delhi’s willingness to give political and diplomatic priority to its immediate neighbours and the Indian Ocean island states.
The second is to provide neighbours with support, as needed, in the form of resources, equipment, and training.
The third, and perhaps most important, is greater connectivity and integration, so as to improve the free flow of goods, people, energy, capital, and information.
The fourth is to promote a model of India-led regionalism with which its neighbours are comfortable.
The newfound diplomatic priority on the region is evident in Modi’s visits to all of India’s neighbours – barring The Maldives – as well as regular leadership meetings in India and on the sidelines of multilateral summits.
India has also become more forthcoming in providing support and in capacity building, whether concluding its biggest ever defence sale to Mauritius, or in providing humanitarian assistance to Nepal or Sri Lanka.
With Bangladesh, the completion of the Land Boundary Agreement, improvements in energy connectivity, and steps taken towards accessing the port of Chittagong have all been crucial developments that help to set a positive tone for a region long defined by cross-border suspicion and animosity.
India’s focus on connectivity is also gradually extending outward, whether to Chabahar in Iran or Kaladan in Myanmar. Although India will continue investing in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as an institutional vehicle, it has also expressed a willingness to develop issue-specific groupings that are not held hostage to consensus: a “SAARC minus X” approach. Two examples of this are the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) grouping – meant to advance motor vehicle movement, water power management, and inter-grid connectivity – and the common SAARC Satellite, which India has decided to proceed with despite Pakistan’s objections.
These concerted efforts have so far had mixed results. Bangladesh and Bhutan have clearly been positive stories for India. Ties with Sri Lanka have proved a mixed bag, despite the electoral loss of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had testy relations with New Delhi. However, President Maithripala Sirisena remains well-disposed and personally invested in better relations with India.
The Maldives has proved more difficult. India has continuing concerns about the fate of former president Mohamed Nasheed, although several defence agreements were concluded during the visit to India of the incumbent Abdulla Yameen.
The obvious regional outlier has been Nepal, which has been the most vexing foreign policy problem facing the Indian government over the past year. Despite considerable Indian assistance in the aftermath of last year’s devastating earthquake – that reportedly included over 1,700 tonnes of relief material and medical assistance to thousands – Nepal’s constitutional crisis severely set back relations. The crisis was not of India’s making – it was primarily the product of differences between Nepal’s hill elites and the Madhesis – but New Delhi was confronted with a tough choice. Either it could have welcomed a flawed Nepal constitution, knowing that months – perhaps years – of Madhesi agitation would follow, risking escalation that could have damaged Indian interests. Or it had to take some form of action to urge Kathmandu to revisit the more contentious aspects of the constitution, risking the immense goodwill that it had built up over the previous year. After Indian diplomatic entreaties were dismissed, it opted for the latter. New Delhi was guilty of responding late to fast-moving developments, and despite successfully pressuring Kathmandu to amend some aspects of the contentious constitution, it has not been able to overcome continuing mistrust or resolve the remaining constitutional differences.
With respect to all of its neighbours, including Nepal, India has taken concrete steps over the past two years to promote goodwill and deepen economic and social connectivity. But nationalist sentiments in all these countries – often directed against India as the region’s predominant power – will continue to present a challenge. Anti-Indian sentiments will also, paradoxically, drag India further into these countries’ domestic politics, suggesting that undulating highs and lows in its neighbourhood relationships will now be the norm. Furthermore, for all of India’s neighbours, China is now prepared to step in to provide financial, military, infrastructural, and even political assistance, and act as a potential alternative to India. This new development is something India will have to carefully monitor and appropriately respond to – as it has in recent years – particularly if Indian security interests are seriously compromised. As the status quo power in its neighbourhood, India will have to constantly play defence in its own backyard.
2. Bridging diplomacy and development
A second major objective of India’s foreign relations has been to leverage international partnerships to advance India’s domestic development. This includes improving technological access, sourcing capital, adopting best practices, gaining market access, and securing natural resources. In these respects, a truly accurate assessment will only be possible in the years to come, given the lag time between initial agreements and results. That being said, some of the short-term indicators show promising signs. Greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) has already seen a jump – with India surpassing China – although how much of that can be attributed to diplomatic efforts is uncertain.
Some new international collaborative efforts, such as Japan’s ridiculously low-cost loan for a high-speed rail line, have immense potential and, like high-profile Indian metro and airport projects in the recent past, might be replicable.
The recently amended tax treaty with Mauritius is but one example of how diplomacy can be used to benefit both investors and the government, and potentially increase India’s tax base.
The extension of lines of credit to Africa and Iran promises to increase business opportunities for Indian firms. And securing buy-in from major Silicon Valley corporations in increasing Internet access in India marks another effort at advancing national development.
In this respect, however, the greatest challenge will be in tying international agreements to domestic agents of change, whether specific ministries, the private sector, or local actors. Securing international agreements is hard enough; using that to spur developments at home is an altogether more challenging proposition. Such complications are most obviously manifested in trade policy, which has more immediate implications for domestic constituencies, and in defence, where the government is struggling to balance the desire for defence indigenization, commercial viability, and an under-performing public sector-led defence industrial complex. The overall trajectory for India’s development is certainly positive, and the diplomatic momentum has clearly increased. But India still has a mountain to climb to fully harness external inputs to advance economically, socially, and technologically. This will be a decades-long project.
3. Acting East as China rises
When Modi rhetorically replaced two decades of India’s ‘Look East’ policy with ‘Act East,’ the purpose was to show greater intent in realising what had long been an aspiration for India: to become an integral part of Asia. The greater urgency implicit in the shift in terminology is largely an outgrowth of Indian concerns regarding China’s rise and the upsetting of Asia’s delicate balance of power. In addition to the development of military and dual use Chinese infrastructure in India’s neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean, India’s concerns are three-fold: the risk of Chinese assertiveness on the disputed border, the possibility of Chinese primacy in the Indo-Pacific region, and an uneven economic playing field.
After an ill-timed Chinese incursion during Xi Jinping’s 2014 visit to India, the disputed Sino-Indian border has proved reasonably stable over the past year. China has remained preoccupied in more politically sensitive disputes over the South and East China Seas with the likes of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. India-China border negotiations have been continuing apace, but a breakthrough is highly unlikely. The development of border roads on India’s side remains an uphill task, as is preserving a military balance, particularly in terms of air superiority. The diplomatic conditions are currently favourable for India to retain its military advantage. But while progress on the border has been steady, it has also been slow.
In terms of the broader strategic context in Asia, India’s ‘Act East’ policy has three distinct facets: institutional, commercial, and security-related.
The first has largely been successful – mostly as by-product of two decades of Indian economic growth. Barring the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, India has integrated into Asia’s multilateral networks, most notably the apex East Asia Summit. However, the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the largest trade pact in history, threatens to affect India’s commercial ambitions in the region, possibly costing India as much as 0.1 percent of GDP. Unfortunately, the Indian response to the development of new trade blocs has too often been defensive. Rather than remain in denial, India will have to rethink how to adapt to the new trade order.
Better trade with Southeast Asia will also require developing overland connectivity in India’s northeast, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Expanding India’s port capacities and relaxing constraints on shipping are necessary first steps that are now being taken. But beyond institutional and commercial changes, the greatest departure over the past two years has been on the security side. Not only have India and the United States been able to articulate a Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region, but India has become far less reluctant to embrace “minilateral” or “plurilateral” security arrangements and political consultations.
This includes effectively elevating the Malabar naval exercises into a trilateral India-U.S.-Japan initiative, and commencing an official India-Australia-Japan dialogue. Deepening security partnerships with other Indo-Pacific states that share India’s concerns remains a priority, but is also largely subject to their own vacillations and political processes.
Finally, bilateral economic relations with China offer a contradictory picture. On the one hand, India seeks to be a beneficiary of China’s attempts at rebalancing its economy, and has become a destination for Chinese investment. The last two years saw a significant jump in Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI), from Rs. 767 crores in 2013-2014 to Rs. 3,066 crores a year later. In fact, those two years alone have accounted for over 70% of Chinese FDI ever into India. But China’s old economic habits are proving hard to kick. Barriers to entry for Indian software companies remain, even as China’s high tech sector comes into its own. And India shares continuing international concerns about China’s dumping of goods.
To date, India’s Act East policy has added greater urgency to its earlier aspirations. Certain aspects, such as institutional participation have been more successful over the years, and others such as bilateral and ‘minilateral’ security cooperation have seen discrete recent improvements. India’s primary challenges will lie in preserving the military balance on the disputed border with China, and integrating itself into the region’s commercial networks. This will require placing a greater priority on improving border infrastructure, on overland connectivity to Southeast Asia via Bangladesh and India’s Northeast, on port and shipping infrastructure at home, and on developing an understanding of the implications of " class="glossaryLink ">TPP for India. Only then can India really come into its own as an Asian power.
4. Pakistan: Engagement and isolation
Pakistan’s relative importance for India has waned significantly over the past two years. The development of nuclear weapons by both countries has ensured an uneasy peace, while Pakistan – despite Indian entreaties – has refused to open up economically.
Terrorism by entities based in Pakistan, and supported by the country’s military and intelligence agencies, continues to be directed at India, although certain measures have helped reduced the number of infiltrations and severity of attacks. Nonetheless, Pakistan remains a political hot button issue, and India-Pakistan relations still dominate media coverage and political discourse.
None of the last few Indian governments have been under any illusions about Pakistan. Terrorism emanating against India by entities based in Pakistan and supported by elements of the state remains a top priority; one need only look at every recent statement made by India with Pakistan to see the prominence given to that issue. But India’s options are also limited. For all the talk about retaliating against Pakistan, particularly militarily, such steps risk an escalation to the nuclear level. Containing Pakistan is not a possibility either. India’s economy is not yet large enough, it is limited by geography, and Pakistan continues to find support in the Gulf, the United States, and China. Any suggestion of India’s responding “in the same coin” is also unnecessary; Pakistan is doing a perfectly good job destabilizing itself. Nor can Pakistan be ignored. Indian passiveness is exactly what Pakistan wants, for it would invite third-party intervention, something a rising sovereign India would naturally resent.
After several attempts at setting the terms of engagement over the past two years, India has had to settle upon a two-track policy. The first is to continue keeping lines of engagement open, as long as terrorism tops the agenda and that dialogue is strictly bilateral in nature. This has resulted in a peculiar ping-pong. Inviting Nawaz Sharif to Delhi in 2014 resulted in Pakistan trying to involve the Hurriyat, a coalition of Kashmiri separatists, and Pakistani shelling along the Line of Control with India. The 2015 Ufa Declaration was heavily criticized in Pakistan and led to Islamabad calling off the national security advisor talks under rather farcical circumstances. Modi’s Lahore stopover in December 2015 was followed soon after by the Pathankot attack. And the response to India allowing Pakistani investigators access to the Pathankot site was Pakistan producing an alleged Indian spy, whom India insists is an innocent former Navy officer kidnapped from Iran. The pattern is clear: India has repeatedly tried to renew talks in good faith, only for elements in Pakistan to make brazen attempts at sabotaging the process. While frustrating, the process has created considerable diplomatic space for India – much as Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Lahore trip enabled a bolder response to Pakistan’s 1999 Kargil incursion. More importantly, India’s constant willingness to engage has kept the United States and others from interjecting themselves in the region.
The government has not been content with simple bilateral engagement, but has also had to take countermeasures and steps to delegitimize state support for terrorism. New Delhi’s critical response to the U.S. decision to supply Pakistan with F-16s and prime ministerial visits to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Afghanistan have all been part of an attempt to isolate Pakistan, to slowly compel its deep state to reconsider its priorities. It is unrealistic to expect that the United States or Saudi Arabia will change their Pakistan policies overnight, but both now have the ability to ‘de-hyphenate’ their subcontinental relationships. Of greater concern in this respect is China’s decision to go forward with the ambitious, multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While India has expressed its concerns, dissuading Beijing from this path will be a severe challenge; after all, much of China’s historical support for Pakistan has been driven by its desire to balance against India.
Modi’s efforts with Pakistan have not yet borne results. A stalemate continues. The only difference now is that India’s Pakistan policy has assumed a certain consistency and that it is playing the chessboard with white, rather than black, pieces, seizing control of the momentum and initiative. The process of both engaging and isolating Pakistan despite repeated provocations will be long, frustrating, and politically unpopular at home. But as long as domestic pressures can be navigated, India’s continuing bilateral engagement with Pakistan, its efforts at internationally isolating it, and its offering a viable alternative model of South Asian engagement remain the only real prospect for resolving the Pakistan problem on India’s terms.
5. India as a leading power: Raising ambitions
India is rising in a world system that has been largely favourable to its rise, but one that India was not involved in creating. According to Modi, the present international environment represents a rare opportunity for India, which it must use to “position itself in a leading role, rather than just a balancing force, globally.” India is not yet fully in a position to lead, or set the rules of the international order, but it is taking steps to seek full membership of the most important global governance platforms. India is already a member of the G20, the East Asia Summit, and the BRICS coalition, a testament to its status as a large country with a fast-growing economy. New Delhi also naturally aspires for permanent membership on the UN Security Council. It has also been actively lobbying for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime. These efforts could bear fruit as early as 2016, although there has been opposition from China and – because of the Italian marines controversy – Italy. All the while, India has been trying to bolster its leadership credentials, whether through international relief efforts in Yemen and Libya, reminders of its history of UN peacekeeping, or the public reclamation of its contributions to the World Wars. The successful outcome of the COP21 climate summit in Paris and India’s constructive role have also gone some way towards shedding its reputation as a multilateral ‘naysayer’ and ‘obstructionist’.
India has only just recently embarked upon institution building of its own. The International Solar Alliance represents one such effort, as do the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and BBIN. While India will continue to lobby consistently for inclusion in multilateral security institutions, its presence in the evolving international economic and trade order will still require a clearer articulation of its trade policy, one that gives greater priority to India’s concerns on services, intellectual property, and labour mobility. India has clearly expressed broad comfort with the international order and has actively been lobbying for a seat at the global high table. Learning to lead, however, will be harder. As the prime minister himself has noted, it will require a change in mindsets.
Polarized perspectives
A broad overview of the Indian government’s foreign policy, particularly over the past year, ought to clearly show not just a strategic vision, but progress along every one of India’s major objectives.
It also reveals some of the frustrations and structural limitations that confront the Indian government, and are likely to confront it for many years going forward. They include the twin spectres of nationalism and Chinese inroads in India’s neighbourhood, insufficient commercial integration with Southeast and East Asia, gaps between diplomatic efforts and agents of domestic implementation, political resistance to engagement with Pakistan, and relative inexperience with leading on matters of global governance. India clearly has to do a much better job remaining vigilant in its own neighbourhood, managing or proactively addressing the domestic political fallout of its Pakistan policy, and better coordinating external outcomes with internal development, all the while raising its ambitions and improving its ability to follow through.
What ultimately matters in any assessment, however, is the broad direction or orientation of India’s international relations, and its implementation. This is often at odds with public discourse, which often views developments in isolation and sees facts being used to fit preconceptions.
For the television media in particular, Pakistan bashing has become a full-time preoccupation. Of equal concern is the unnecessary polarisation of much of the foreign policy discourse. Politics ought to end at the water’s edge. Unfortunately, the last decade has witnessed more fractious and self-serving discourse on many areas in which there has in fact been remarkable continuity and consensus. The changing media environment is in part responsible for this, as is the behaviour of the opposition parties – both past and present. Evaluating India’s advancement of its international interests will require a clearer assessment of its objectives, the progress made, and India’s continuing limitations. That challenge will be all the more difficult in a fast-evolving and unpredictable world.
Dhruva Jaishankar is Fellow for Foreign Policy at Brookings India in New Delhi.
http://thewire.in/38708/indias-five-foreign-policy-goals-great-strides-steep-challenges/
Two years ago today, Narendra Modi took the oath of office as India’s 14th prime minister. Among his first decisions as head of government – in fact, it was set in motion even before the formal start of his tenure – was an unconventional act of diplomacy: inviting eight foreign leaders of neighbouring countries to attend his inauguration. While many commentators claimed before his election that Modi would be a nationalist hardliner, a foreign affairs novice, or simply more of the same on external affairs, the prime minister instead proved more active and (perhaps less surprisingly) more pragmatic than many had expected. In two years, Modi has displayed an instinctive understanding of power in the conduct of world affairs, and he has also benefited from being less politically hamstrung than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, with whose worldview he in fact shares much in common.
A highlight of Modi’s first year was his outreach to the United States. In September 2014, Washington rolled out the red carpet for a leader it had once publicly shunned, and Modi reciprocated by inviting Barack Obama to India’s Republic Day celebrations, a first for a U.S. president. But beyond normalising and enhancing relations with the US, Modi’s international priorities were quickly made evident. Within his first year, he embarked upon state visits to India’s immediate neighbourhood, three crucial Indian Ocean island countries, important Asia-Pacific powers (China, Japan, and Australia), and eventually Western Europe.
Modi’s second year followed in much the same fashion, with a ground-breaking visit to Bangladesh, a swing through Central Asia, a long overdue visit to Afghanistan, and a renewed focus on the Middle East or West Asia. It also included a surprise stopover in Pakistan, a trip no Indian prime minister had managed since 2004. In addition, Modi has in his first two years played host in India to most of the world’s top leaders, including those of the United States, China, Russia, France, Japan, and Germany. He also hosted a landmark India-Africa Forum Summit last November that involved 41 heads of state and government.
Despite this flurry of activity, several commentators have been left disappointed by Modi’s – and India’s – handling of international relations. My Brookings India colleague W.P.S. Sidhu has pointed to a lack of strategic vision, and describes Modi’s various foreign policy initiatives – such as Neighbourhood First and Act East – as “vacuous.” While commending the prime minister’s sound instincts, initiative, and energy, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran has lamented the lack of an overall national security strategy and criticised the priority granted showmanship over substance. Meanwhile, Rajesh Rajagopalan of Jawaharlal Nehru University has expressed disappointment with the lack of new ideas and synergy and his colleague Happymon Jacob has faulted New Delhi’s bullying and poor imagination for bad relations with its neighbours.
Much of this criticism is perplexing. Ambiguity and deniability have value in foreign affairs. As a consequence, neither this Indian government nor any of its predecessors have ever explicitly spelled out their strategic intentions in a single document, although there are plenty of public statements that offer a good indication of the government’s outlook. These public articulations, combined with the nature, outcomes, and timings of Modi’s diplomatic activities, offer a clear picture of India’s priorities and strategic objectives. They are essentially five-fold:
- Prioritizing an integrated neighbourhood; “Neighbourhood First.”
- Leveraging international partnerships to promote India’s domestic development.
- Ensuring a stable and multipolar balance of power in the Indo-Pacific; “Act East.”
- Dissuading Pakistan from supporting terrorism.
- Advancing Indian representation and leadership on matters of global governance.
1. Neighbourhood First: Improving connectivity, mitigating nationalism
The approach called ‘Neighbourhood First’ – a phrase adopted by the Indian government – is meant to indicate four things. The first is New Delhi’s willingness to give political and diplomatic priority to its immediate neighbours and the Indian Ocean island states.
The second is to provide neighbours with support, as needed, in the form of resources, equipment, and training.
The third, and perhaps most important, is greater connectivity and integration, so as to improve the free flow of goods, people, energy, capital, and information.
The fourth is to promote a model of India-led regionalism with which its neighbours are comfortable.
The newfound diplomatic priority on the region is evident in Modi’s visits to all of India’s neighbours – barring The Maldives – as well as regular leadership meetings in India and on the sidelines of multilateral summits.
India has also become more forthcoming in providing support and in capacity building, whether concluding its biggest ever defence sale to Mauritius, or in providing humanitarian assistance to Nepal or Sri Lanka.
With Bangladesh, the completion of the Land Boundary Agreement, improvements in energy connectivity, and steps taken towards accessing the port of Chittagong have all been crucial developments that help to set a positive tone for a region long defined by cross-border suspicion and animosity.
India’s focus on connectivity is also gradually extending outward, whether to Chabahar in Iran or Kaladan in Myanmar. Although India will continue investing in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as an institutional vehicle, it has also expressed a willingness to develop issue-specific groupings that are not held hostage to consensus: a “SAARC minus X” approach. Two examples of this are the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) grouping – meant to advance motor vehicle movement, water power management, and inter-grid connectivity – and the common SAARC Satellite, which India has decided to proceed with despite Pakistan’s objections.
These concerted efforts have so far had mixed results. Bangladesh and Bhutan have clearly been positive stories for India. Ties with Sri Lanka have proved a mixed bag, despite the electoral loss of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had testy relations with New Delhi. However, President Maithripala Sirisena remains well-disposed and personally invested in better relations with India.
The Maldives has proved more difficult. India has continuing concerns about the fate of former president Mohamed Nasheed, although several defence agreements were concluded during the visit to India of the incumbent Abdulla Yameen.
The obvious regional outlier has been Nepal, which has been the most vexing foreign policy problem facing the Indian government over the past year. Despite considerable Indian assistance in the aftermath of last year’s devastating earthquake – that reportedly included over 1,700 tonnes of relief material and medical assistance to thousands – Nepal’s constitutional crisis severely set back relations. The crisis was not of India’s making – it was primarily the product of differences between Nepal’s hill elites and the Madhesis – but New Delhi was confronted with a tough choice. Either it could have welcomed a flawed Nepal constitution, knowing that months – perhaps years – of Madhesi agitation would follow, risking escalation that could have damaged Indian interests. Or it had to take some form of action to urge Kathmandu to revisit the more contentious aspects of the constitution, risking the immense goodwill that it had built up over the previous year. After Indian diplomatic entreaties were dismissed, it opted for the latter. New Delhi was guilty of responding late to fast-moving developments, and despite successfully pressuring Kathmandu to amend some aspects of the contentious constitution, it has not been able to overcome continuing mistrust or resolve the remaining constitutional differences.
With respect to all of its neighbours, including Nepal, India has taken concrete steps over the past two years to promote goodwill and deepen economic and social connectivity. But nationalist sentiments in all these countries – often directed against India as the region’s predominant power – will continue to present a challenge. Anti-Indian sentiments will also, paradoxically, drag India further into these countries’ domestic politics, suggesting that undulating highs and lows in its neighbourhood relationships will now be the norm. Furthermore, for all of India’s neighbours, China is now prepared to step in to provide financial, military, infrastructural, and even political assistance, and act as a potential alternative to India. This new development is something India will have to carefully monitor and appropriately respond to – as it has in recent years – particularly if Indian security interests are seriously compromised. As the status quo power in its neighbourhood, India will have to constantly play defence in its own backyard.
2. Bridging diplomacy and development
A second major objective of India’s foreign relations has been to leverage international partnerships to advance India’s domestic development. This includes improving technological access, sourcing capital, adopting best practices, gaining market access, and securing natural resources. In these respects, a truly accurate assessment will only be possible in the years to come, given the lag time between initial agreements and results. That being said, some of the short-term indicators show promising signs. Greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) has already seen a jump – with India surpassing China – although how much of that can be attributed to diplomatic efforts is uncertain.
Some new international collaborative efforts, such as Japan’s ridiculously low-cost loan for a high-speed rail line, have immense potential and, like high-profile Indian metro and airport projects in the recent past, might be replicable.
The recently amended tax treaty with Mauritius is but one example of how diplomacy can be used to benefit both investors and the government, and potentially increase India’s tax base.
The extension of lines of credit to Africa and Iran promises to increase business opportunities for Indian firms. And securing buy-in from major Silicon Valley corporations in increasing Internet access in India marks another effort at advancing national development.
In this respect, however, the greatest challenge will be in tying international agreements to domestic agents of change, whether specific ministries, the private sector, or local actors. Securing international agreements is hard enough; using that to spur developments at home is an altogether more challenging proposition. Such complications are most obviously manifested in trade policy, which has more immediate implications for domestic constituencies, and in defence, where the government is struggling to balance the desire for defence indigenization, commercial viability, and an under-performing public sector-led defence industrial complex. The overall trajectory for India’s development is certainly positive, and the diplomatic momentum has clearly increased. But India still has a mountain to climb to fully harness external inputs to advance economically, socially, and technologically. This will be a decades-long project.
3. Acting East as China rises
When Modi rhetorically replaced two decades of India’s ‘Look East’ policy with ‘Act East,’ the purpose was to show greater intent in realising what had long been an aspiration for India: to become an integral part of Asia. The greater urgency implicit in the shift in terminology is largely an outgrowth of Indian concerns regarding China’s rise and the upsetting of Asia’s delicate balance of power. In addition to the development of military and dual use Chinese infrastructure in India’s neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean, India’s concerns are three-fold: the risk of Chinese assertiveness on the disputed border, the possibility of Chinese primacy in the Indo-Pacific region, and an uneven economic playing field.
After an ill-timed Chinese incursion during Xi Jinping’s 2014 visit to India, the disputed Sino-Indian border has proved reasonably stable over the past year. China has remained preoccupied in more politically sensitive disputes over the South and East China Seas with the likes of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. India-China border negotiations have been continuing apace, but a breakthrough is highly unlikely. The development of border roads on India’s side remains an uphill task, as is preserving a military balance, particularly in terms of air superiority. The diplomatic conditions are currently favourable for India to retain its military advantage. But while progress on the border has been steady, it has also been slow.
In terms of the broader strategic context in Asia, India’s ‘Act East’ policy has three distinct facets: institutional, commercial, and security-related.
The first has largely been successful – mostly as by-product of two decades of Indian economic growth. Barring the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, India has integrated into Asia’s multilateral networks, most notably the apex East Asia Summit. However, the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the largest trade pact in history, threatens to affect India’s commercial ambitions in the region, possibly costing India as much as 0.1 percent of GDP. Unfortunately, the Indian response to the development of new trade blocs has too often been defensive. Rather than remain in denial, India will have to rethink how to adapt to the new trade order.
Better trade with Southeast Asia will also require developing overland connectivity in India’s northeast, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Expanding India’s port capacities and relaxing constraints on shipping are necessary first steps that are now being taken. But beyond institutional and commercial changes, the greatest departure over the past two years has been on the security side. Not only have India and the United States been able to articulate a Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region, but India has become far less reluctant to embrace “minilateral” or “plurilateral” security arrangements and political consultations.
This includes effectively elevating the Malabar naval exercises into a trilateral India-U.S.-Japan initiative, and commencing an official India-Australia-Japan dialogue. Deepening security partnerships with other Indo-Pacific states that share India’s concerns remains a priority, but is also largely subject to their own vacillations and political processes.
Finally, bilateral economic relations with China offer a contradictory picture. On the one hand, India seeks to be a beneficiary of China’s attempts at rebalancing its economy, and has become a destination for Chinese investment. The last two years saw a significant jump in Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI), from Rs. 767 crores in 2013-2014 to Rs. 3,066 crores a year later. In fact, those two years alone have accounted for over 70% of Chinese FDI ever into India. But China’s old economic habits are proving hard to kick. Barriers to entry for Indian software companies remain, even as China’s high tech sector comes into its own. And India shares continuing international concerns about China’s dumping of goods.
To date, India’s Act East policy has added greater urgency to its earlier aspirations. Certain aspects, such as institutional participation have been more successful over the years, and others such as bilateral and ‘minilateral’ security cooperation have seen discrete recent improvements. India’s primary challenges will lie in preserving the military balance on the disputed border with China, and integrating itself into the region’s commercial networks. This will require placing a greater priority on improving border infrastructure, on overland connectivity to Southeast Asia via Bangladesh and India’s Northeast, on port and shipping infrastructure at home, and on developing an understanding of the implications of " class="glossaryLink ">TPP for India. Only then can India really come into its own as an Asian power.
4. Pakistan: Engagement and isolation
Pakistan’s relative importance for India has waned significantly over the past two years. The development of nuclear weapons by both countries has ensured an uneasy peace, while Pakistan – despite Indian entreaties – has refused to open up economically.
Terrorism by entities based in Pakistan, and supported by the country’s military and intelligence agencies, continues to be directed at India, although certain measures have helped reduced the number of infiltrations and severity of attacks. Nonetheless, Pakistan remains a political hot button issue, and India-Pakistan relations still dominate media coverage and political discourse.
None of the last few Indian governments have been under any illusions about Pakistan. Terrorism emanating against India by entities based in Pakistan and supported by elements of the state remains a top priority; one need only look at every recent statement made by India with Pakistan to see the prominence given to that issue. But India’s options are also limited. For all the talk about retaliating against Pakistan, particularly militarily, such steps risk an escalation to the nuclear level. Containing Pakistan is not a possibility either. India’s economy is not yet large enough, it is limited by geography, and Pakistan continues to find support in the Gulf, the United States, and China. Any suggestion of India’s responding “in the same coin” is also unnecessary; Pakistan is doing a perfectly good job destabilizing itself. Nor can Pakistan be ignored. Indian passiveness is exactly what Pakistan wants, for it would invite third-party intervention, something a rising sovereign India would naturally resent.
After several attempts at setting the terms of engagement over the past two years, India has had to settle upon a two-track policy. The first is to continue keeping lines of engagement open, as long as terrorism tops the agenda and that dialogue is strictly bilateral in nature. This has resulted in a peculiar ping-pong. Inviting Nawaz Sharif to Delhi in 2014 resulted in Pakistan trying to involve the Hurriyat, a coalition of Kashmiri separatists, and Pakistani shelling along the Line of Control with India. The 2015 Ufa Declaration was heavily criticized in Pakistan and led to Islamabad calling off the national security advisor talks under rather farcical circumstances. Modi’s Lahore stopover in December 2015 was followed soon after by the Pathankot attack. And the response to India allowing Pakistani investigators access to the Pathankot site was Pakistan producing an alleged Indian spy, whom India insists is an innocent former Navy officer kidnapped from Iran. The pattern is clear: India has repeatedly tried to renew talks in good faith, only for elements in Pakistan to make brazen attempts at sabotaging the process. While frustrating, the process has created considerable diplomatic space for India – much as Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Lahore trip enabled a bolder response to Pakistan’s 1999 Kargil incursion. More importantly, India’s constant willingness to engage has kept the United States and others from interjecting themselves in the region.
The government has not been content with simple bilateral engagement, but has also had to take countermeasures and steps to delegitimize state support for terrorism. New Delhi’s critical response to the U.S. decision to supply Pakistan with F-16s and prime ministerial visits to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Afghanistan have all been part of an attempt to isolate Pakistan, to slowly compel its deep state to reconsider its priorities. It is unrealistic to expect that the United States or Saudi Arabia will change their Pakistan policies overnight, but both now have the ability to ‘de-hyphenate’ their subcontinental relationships. Of greater concern in this respect is China’s decision to go forward with the ambitious, multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While India has expressed its concerns, dissuading Beijing from this path will be a severe challenge; after all, much of China’s historical support for Pakistan has been driven by its desire to balance against India.
Modi’s efforts with Pakistan have not yet borne results. A stalemate continues. The only difference now is that India’s Pakistan policy has assumed a certain consistency and that it is playing the chessboard with white, rather than black, pieces, seizing control of the momentum and initiative. The process of both engaging and isolating Pakistan despite repeated provocations will be long, frustrating, and politically unpopular at home. But as long as domestic pressures can be navigated, India’s continuing bilateral engagement with Pakistan, its efforts at internationally isolating it, and its offering a viable alternative model of South Asian engagement remain the only real prospect for resolving the Pakistan problem on India’s terms.
5. India as a leading power: Raising ambitions
India is rising in a world system that has been largely favourable to its rise, but one that India was not involved in creating. According to Modi, the present international environment represents a rare opportunity for India, which it must use to “position itself in a leading role, rather than just a balancing force, globally.” India is not yet fully in a position to lead, or set the rules of the international order, but it is taking steps to seek full membership of the most important global governance platforms. India is already a member of the G20, the East Asia Summit, and the BRICS coalition, a testament to its status as a large country with a fast-growing economy. New Delhi also naturally aspires for permanent membership on the UN Security Council. It has also been actively lobbying for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as well as the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime. These efforts could bear fruit as early as 2016, although there has been opposition from China and – because of the Italian marines controversy – Italy. All the while, India has been trying to bolster its leadership credentials, whether through international relief efforts in Yemen and Libya, reminders of its history of UN peacekeeping, or the public reclamation of its contributions to the World Wars. The successful outcome of the COP21 climate summit in Paris and India’s constructive role have also gone some way towards shedding its reputation as a multilateral ‘naysayer’ and ‘obstructionist’.
India has only just recently embarked upon institution building of its own. The International Solar Alliance represents one such effort, as do the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and BBIN. While India will continue to lobby consistently for inclusion in multilateral security institutions, its presence in the evolving international economic and trade order will still require a clearer articulation of its trade policy, one that gives greater priority to India’s concerns on services, intellectual property, and labour mobility. India has clearly expressed broad comfort with the international order and has actively been lobbying for a seat at the global high table. Learning to lead, however, will be harder. As the prime minister himself has noted, it will require a change in mindsets.
Polarized perspectives
A broad overview of the Indian government’s foreign policy, particularly over the past year, ought to clearly show not just a strategic vision, but progress along every one of India’s major objectives.
It also reveals some of the frustrations and structural limitations that confront the Indian government, and are likely to confront it for many years going forward. They include the twin spectres of nationalism and Chinese inroads in India’s neighbourhood, insufficient commercial integration with Southeast and East Asia, gaps between diplomatic efforts and agents of domestic implementation, political resistance to engagement with Pakistan, and relative inexperience with leading on matters of global governance. India clearly has to do a much better job remaining vigilant in its own neighbourhood, managing or proactively addressing the domestic political fallout of its Pakistan policy, and better coordinating external outcomes with internal development, all the while raising its ambitions and improving its ability to follow through.
What ultimately matters in any assessment, however, is the broad direction or orientation of India’s international relations, and its implementation. This is often at odds with public discourse, which often views developments in isolation and sees facts being used to fit preconceptions.
For the television media in particular, Pakistan bashing has become a full-time preoccupation. Of equal concern is the unnecessary polarisation of much of the foreign policy discourse. Politics ought to end at the water’s edge. Unfortunately, the last decade has witnessed more fractious and self-serving discourse on many areas in which there has in fact been remarkable continuity and consensus. The changing media environment is in part responsible for this, as is the behaviour of the opposition parties – both past and present. Evaluating India’s advancement of its international interests will require a clearer assessment of its objectives, the progress made, and India’s continuing limitations. That challenge will be all the more difficult in a fast-evolving and unpredictable world.
Dhruva Jaishankar is Fellow for Foreign Policy at Brookings India in New Delhi.
http://thewire.in/38708/indias-five-foreign-policy-goals-great-strides-steep-challenges/
sorcerer
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India's 007, Former Super Spy, Is Shaping Modi's Foreign Policy
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He spent seven years undercover in Pakistan, recruited rebels as informants in disputed Kashmir, and once disguised himself as a rickshaw driver to infiltrate a militant group inside India’s holiest Sikh temple. Now some consider Ajit Doval the most powerful person in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi picked Doval as his National Security Advisor, a position that holds more sway than the ministers of defense and foreign affairs. It puts Doval in charge of talks with arch-rival Pakistan. He visits arms manufacturers to discuss strategic capabilities, and orchestrates the response to militant attacks, liaising daily with Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, the nation’s top diplomat.
Since Doval took the job, he has supported a nationalist agenda while adopting a tougher line against hostile neighbors. That has growing economic ramifications as China funds a $45 billion trade corridor through Pakistan that bypasses India and as both China and India eye resource-rich neighbors in central Asia like Afghanistan.
Ajit Doval leaves the Home Ministry after a high level meeting on Kashmir issue in July 2016.
Photographer: Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
“Every strategic issue in this region involves security in a way that it doesn’t in other regions,” says R. K. Sawhney, a former director general of military intelligence who’s known Doval for nearly two decades. “As the profile of the country grows, the profile of the national security advisor grows.”
Short, trim and bespectacled, Doval shuns the limelight and rarely appears in public. His office said he wasn’t available for an interview. Six people who have known him personally for years—some of whom requested not to be identified because he dislikes publicity—said Doval is overseeing India’s most delicate diplomatic issues.
Shortly after taking office, Modi sent Doval as his special envoy to Afghanistan and brought him on his first foreign trip to Bhutan. He’s also special representative in charge of talks with China over a disputed border, a task made more difficult as China plans to invest millions into transportation links through Kashmir, an area claimed by both India and Pakistan.
In December, Doval flew to Bangkok for a secret meeting with his Pakistani counterpart in an effort to restart peace talks between the two nuclear-armed nations.
‘James Bond’
“He’s known as an Indian James Bond—he has this larger than life persona,” said Sadanand Dhume, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “There are tales and stories and legends attached to him that are very unusual in a national security advisor.”
Among the most famous concerns his part in the 1988 military operation that flushed Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar in northwestern India. According to Karan Kharb, a retired army officer who was one of the National Security Guard commandos involved, Doval posed as a rickshaw puller to gain entry to the temple. He convinced the militants holed up inside he was a Pakistani operative who’d come to help them in their goal of establishing an independent country called Khalistan.
Indian commandos had stormed the temple twice in the previous four years, including an assault in 1984 that left hundreds of soldiers and pilgrims dead, prompting outrage among Sikhs worldwide and triggering the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who ordered the strike.
‘Very Innovative’
This time, police had estimated there were no more than 40 people inside the temple, but Doval revealed there were at least 200, convincing the government to drop plans for a raid and instead cut off the water and electricity amid scorching heat, according to Kharb. Nine days later, the militants surrendered.
“Generally, in India, people are very particular, they’re sticklers to the rules,” said Kharb. “Doval sees the spirit in the rule. That’s where he’s different. He’s very innovative and an out-of-the-box thinker.”
Doval’s influence with Modi has drawn criticism from opposition politicians and fueled discontent inside Modi’s administration.
“The country wants to know who is running foreign policy? A spy called Doval or diplomats?” tweeted Ashutosh, a leader from the anti-graft Aam Aadmi Party, after Modi flew to Lahore to meet Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in a surprise visit that local media said was orchestrated by Doval. “The country is not safe with a spy running diplomacy.”
Ajit Doval, second from left, and other officers inspect the site of a bomb blast in Burdwan, West Bengal, India in October 2014.
Photographer: Prateek Choudhury/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Calls for Doval’s replacement intensified after Home Minister Rajnath Singh suffered a politically embarrassing trip to Pakistan in August that Doval pulled out of at the last minute, according to press reports. A spokesman for the prime minister's office declined to answer questions about Doval.
“The best experts on how to deal with terrorism, how to think about diplomacy and foreign affairs—they are not being consulted,” opposition politician Rahul Gandhi, son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, said in January. Doval’s job is “strategy, not tactics.”
No government website carries Doval’s profile. A biography provided during a lecture he gave in August 2015 in Mumbai stated he was born in 1945 in Garhwal, in a northern region now called Uttarakhand, and graduated with a master’s degree in economics from the University of Agra in 1967 before joining the police force.
In 1972, he moved to the Intelligence Bureau, where he spent three decades, including stints in the restive regions of India’s northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, and the U.K. Doval is fluent in Urdu, the main language used in Pakistan. He told an audience in November 2014 he had lived in Pakistan for seven years, getting plastic surgery to remove signs his ears had been pierced—an indication of his Hindu roots.
“I haven’t seen anyone else at his level who would continue to come into the field,” said S.S. Virk, former director general of police in Punjab who was shot during the Golden Temple operation and says Doval visited him at the hospital. “He was an outstanding operator.”
Those who know him describe him as a heavy smoker with an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge, taking guests at his home in Noida near New Delhi for drinks in a library in the basement lined from floor to ceiling with hundreds of books.
After retiring from the Intelligence Bureau, Doval founded the Vivekananda International Foundation in 2009. In its red sandstone and concrete headquarters in a tony district of Delhi, Doval has courted foreign diplomats and high-ranking defense officials, striking hawkish, nationalist views that resonated with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ajit Doval meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in September 2014.
Photographer: Lintao Zhang/EPA
“Doval wields more influence than previous national security advisers in part because of his credibility and experience in intelligence and security matters,” said Sameer Patil, who served in the prime minister’s national security council secretariat under the previous Congress government. Patil said it was long rumored that Doval advised Modi even before he was elected prime minister in 2014.
In papers published during that time, Doval argued for a more assertive foreign policy and a beefed up military. He warned of India’s “eroding maritime preeminence" in the Indian Ocean, of Pakistan’s attempts to influence Afghanistan and the Taliban, and said China’s development was "not an assured peaceful rise."
“India has a mindset that, where it hits, it punches below its weight,” he said at the August 2015 lecture. “We have to increase our weight and punch proportionately.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...er-super-spy-is-shaping-modi-s-foreign-policy
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He spent seven years undercover in Pakistan, recruited rebels as informants in disputed Kashmir, and once disguised himself as a rickshaw driver to infiltrate a militant group inside India’s holiest Sikh temple. Now some consider Ajit Doval the most powerful person in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi picked Doval as his National Security Advisor, a position that holds more sway than the ministers of defense and foreign affairs. It puts Doval in charge of talks with arch-rival Pakistan. He visits arms manufacturers to discuss strategic capabilities, and orchestrates the response to militant attacks, liaising daily with Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, the nation’s top diplomat.
Since Doval took the job, he has supported a nationalist agenda while adopting a tougher line against hostile neighbors. That has growing economic ramifications as China funds a $45 billion trade corridor through Pakistan that bypasses India and as both China and India eye resource-rich neighbors in central Asia like Afghanistan.
Ajit Doval leaves the Home Ministry after a high level meeting on Kashmir issue in July 2016.
Photographer: Arun Sharma/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
“Every strategic issue in this region involves security in a way that it doesn’t in other regions,” says R. K. Sawhney, a former director general of military intelligence who’s known Doval for nearly two decades. “As the profile of the country grows, the profile of the national security advisor grows.”
Short, trim and bespectacled, Doval shuns the limelight and rarely appears in public. His office said he wasn’t available for an interview. Six people who have known him personally for years—some of whom requested not to be identified because he dislikes publicity—said Doval is overseeing India’s most delicate diplomatic issues.
Shortly after taking office, Modi sent Doval as his special envoy to Afghanistan and brought him on his first foreign trip to Bhutan. He’s also special representative in charge of talks with China over a disputed border, a task made more difficult as China plans to invest millions into transportation links through Kashmir, an area claimed by both India and Pakistan.
In December, Doval flew to Bangkok for a secret meeting with his Pakistani counterpart in an effort to restart peace talks between the two nuclear-armed nations.
‘James Bond’
“He’s known as an Indian James Bond—he has this larger than life persona,” said Sadanand Dhume, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “There are tales and stories and legends attached to him that are very unusual in a national security advisor.”
Among the most famous concerns his part in the 1988 military operation that flushed Sikh separatists from the Golden Temple in Amritsar in northwestern India. According to Karan Kharb, a retired army officer who was one of the National Security Guard commandos involved, Doval posed as a rickshaw puller to gain entry to the temple. He convinced the militants holed up inside he was a Pakistani operative who’d come to help them in their goal of establishing an independent country called Khalistan.
Indian commandos had stormed the temple twice in the previous four years, including an assault in 1984 that left hundreds of soldiers and pilgrims dead, prompting outrage among Sikhs worldwide and triggering the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who ordered the strike.
‘Very Innovative’
This time, police had estimated there were no more than 40 people inside the temple, but Doval revealed there were at least 200, convincing the government to drop plans for a raid and instead cut off the water and electricity amid scorching heat, according to Kharb. Nine days later, the militants surrendered.
“Generally, in India, people are very particular, they’re sticklers to the rules,” said Kharb. “Doval sees the spirit in the rule. That’s where he’s different. He’s very innovative and an out-of-the-box thinker.”
Doval’s influence with Modi has drawn criticism from opposition politicians and fueled discontent inside Modi’s administration.
“The country wants to know who is running foreign policy? A spy called Doval or diplomats?” tweeted Ashutosh, a leader from the anti-graft Aam Aadmi Party, after Modi flew to Lahore to meet Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif in a surprise visit that local media said was orchestrated by Doval. “The country is not safe with a spy running diplomacy.”
Ajit Doval, second from left, and other officers inspect the site of a bomb blast in Burdwan, West Bengal, India in October 2014.
Photographer: Prateek Choudhury/Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Calls for Doval’s replacement intensified after Home Minister Rajnath Singh suffered a politically embarrassing trip to Pakistan in August that Doval pulled out of at the last minute, according to press reports. A spokesman for the prime minister's office declined to answer questions about Doval.
“The best experts on how to deal with terrorism, how to think about diplomacy and foreign affairs—they are not being consulted,” opposition politician Rahul Gandhi, son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, said in January. Doval’s job is “strategy, not tactics.”
No government website carries Doval’s profile. A biography provided during a lecture he gave in August 2015 in Mumbai stated he was born in 1945 in Garhwal, in a northern region now called Uttarakhand, and graduated with a master’s degree in economics from the University of Agra in 1967 before joining the police force.
In 1972, he moved to the Intelligence Bureau, where he spent three decades, including stints in the restive regions of India’s northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, and the U.K. Doval is fluent in Urdu, the main language used in Pakistan. He told an audience in November 2014 he had lived in Pakistan for seven years, getting plastic surgery to remove signs his ears had been pierced—an indication of his Hindu roots.
“I haven’t seen anyone else at his level who would continue to come into the field,” said S.S. Virk, former director general of police in Punjab who was shot during the Golden Temple operation and says Doval visited him at the hospital. “He was an outstanding operator.”
Those who know him describe him as a heavy smoker with an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge, taking guests at his home in Noida near New Delhi for drinks in a library in the basement lined from floor to ceiling with hundreds of books.
After retiring from the Intelligence Bureau, Doval founded the Vivekananda International Foundation in 2009. In its red sandstone and concrete headquarters in a tony district of Delhi, Doval has courted foreign diplomats and high-ranking defense officials, striking hawkish, nationalist views that resonated with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Ajit Doval meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in September 2014.
Photographer: Lintao Zhang/EPA
“Doval wields more influence than previous national security advisers in part because of his credibility and experience in intelligence and security matters,” said Sameer Patil, who served in the prime minister’s national security council secretariat under the previous Congress government. Patil said it was long rumored that Doval advised Modi even before he was elected prime minister in 2014.
In papers published during that time, Doval argued for a more assertive foreign policy and a beefed up military. He warned of India’s “eroding maritime preeminence" in the Indian Ocean, of Pakistan’s attempts to influence Afghanistan and the Taliban, and said China’s development was "not an assured peaceful rise."
“India has a mindset that, where it hits, it punches below its weight,” he said at the August 2015 lecture. “We have to increase our weight and punch proportionately.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...er-super-spy-is-shaping-modi-s-foreign-policy
Kshatriya87
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India steams into Afghan border to counter Pakistan
NEW DELHI: Ditching its long-held worry of feeding into Islamabad’s insecurities by helping Kabul, India will start work on a 500-km-long rail track in the Hajigak region of Afghanistan, giving the country access to the Iranian port of Chabahar, just 72 km west of Pakistan’s Gwadar port that is being built with Chinese help.
Rail tracks from Khaaf in Iran reached zero point at the Afghan border and now the track-laying on Afghan side will begin. “Iran has finished its half. Now the first phase inside Afghan territory to lay 62 km in Ghoriyan district has been launched and will take around four months to complete,” sources said. Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Manpreet Vohra attended the ceremony at the Iran-Afghan border on September 7.
The rail link passing through the mineral rich region of Afghanistan will open a new trade route for India to Central Asia and will reduce Afghanistan’s dependence on Pakistan for trade. The track to Chabahar port will allow exploration of the vast mineral reserves in the region bypassing Pakistan, which has refused New Delhi land access to Kabul. Hajigak, 130 km west of Kabul in Bamiyan province, has iron reserves worth $3 trillion. Twenty-two companies have been shortlisted to mine these, of which 14 are Indian, including a consortium led by Steel Authority of India Limited.
While India has shied away from providing boots on the ground, it has seized the opportunity to provide strategic assistance to Kabul with helicopters and rail tracks to provide sea access to the landlocked country. The network, seen as an answer to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, will be the launchpad for India for greater economic and strategic engagement with oil-rich Central Asia. There are prospects of tie-ups with Iran and Russia to create a network to Central Asia and finally to Europe through the International North-South Transport Corridor.
Pakistan recently rubbed in the influence it wields in Afghanistan’s trade when it closed the Friendship Gate at Chaman Post for over two weeks, crippling Kabul’s exports. Afghan imports through Karachi port declined by more than 40 per cent in February, and Afghan-Indian trade volume could increase four-fold if a trilateral agreement materialises.
Ministry of External Affairs officials have indicated that the three countries have during the 2nd India-Afghanistan-Iran trilateral in Tehran decided to hold meetings between experts on aspects of the project. Recommendations will be discussed in the 3rd Trilateral meeting in Kabul.
NEW DELHI: Ditching its long-held worry of feeding into Islamabad’s insecurities by helping Kabul, India will start work on a 500-km-long rail track in the Hajigak region of Afghanistan, giving the country access to the Iranian port of Chabahar, just 72 km west of Pakistan’s Gwadar port that is being built with Chinese help.
Rail tracks from Khaaf in Iran reached zero point at the Afghan border and now the track-laying on Afghan side will begin. “Iran has finished its half. Now the first phase inside Afghan territory to lay 62 km in Ghoriyan district has been launched and will take around four months to complete,” sources said. Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Manpreet Vohra attended the ceremony at the Iran-Afghan border on September 7.
The rail link passing through the mineral rich region of Afghanistan will open a new trade route for India to Central Asia and will reduce Afghanistan’s dependence on Pakistan for trade. The track to Chabahar port will allow exploration of the vast mineral reserves in the region bypassing Pakistan, which has refused New Delhi land access to Kabul. Hajigak, 130 km west of Kabul in Bamiyan province, has iron reserves worth $3 trillion. Twenty-two companies have been shortlisted to mine these, of which 14 are Indian, including a consortium led by Steel Authority of India Limited.
While India has shied away from providing boots on the ground, it has seized the opportunity to provide strategic assistance to Kabul with helicopters and rail tracks to provide sea access to the landlocked country. The network, seen as an answer to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, will be the launchpad for India for greater economic and strategic engagement with oil-rich Central Asia. There are prospects of tie-ups with Iran and Russia to create a network to Central Asia and finally to Europe through the International North-South Transport Corridor.
Pakistan recently rubbed in the influence it wields in Afghanistan’s trade when it closed the Friendship Gate at Chaman Post for over two weeks, crippling Kabul’s exports. Afghan imports through Karachi port declined by more than 40 per cent in February, and Afghan-Indian trade volume could increase four-fold if a trilateral agreement materialises.
Ministry of External Affairs officials have indicated that the three countries have during the 2nd India-Afghanistan-Iran trilateral in Tehran decided to hold meetings between experts on aspects of the project. Recommendations will be discussed in the 3rd Trilateral meeting in Kabul.
sorcerer
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Navy, Sushma Swaraj collaborate on Twitter to help a sick Indian
NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy today swung into action to help a sick Indian on board a merchant vessel in a Yemeni port after a tweet by one of his relatives to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Tulika Singh tweeted to Swaraj saying that her cousin, an electrical officer on board an India registered ship was not well and at a Yemeni port.
Swaraj tweeted the matter tagging Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and the Indian Navy.
The Navy promptly got in touch with Singh seeking details over Twitter.
Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
NEW DELHI: The Indian Navy today swung into action to help a sick Indian on board a merchant vessel in a Yemeni port after a tweet by one of his relatives to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Tulika Singh tweeted to Swaraj saying that her cousin, an electrical officer on board an India registered ship was not well and at a Yemeni port.
Swaraj tweeted the matter tagging Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and the Indian Navy.
The Navy promptly got in touch with Singh seeking details over Twitter.
Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
sorcerer
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Uri Terror Attack: Pakistan Isolated Globally; US, UK, France, Russia Back India
New Delhi: India has launched a strong diplomatic offensive against Pakistan trying to isolate it internationally over the terror attack at the Army base camp in Uri.
Because of this, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's missives to the US, UK, France, Russia and China urging them to put pressure on India over Kashmir have failed. While the US, UK and France have rejected Pakistan's claims, Russia has gone a step ahead and called off the joint military exercises with Pakistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
.
India has also complained about Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and leader of United Jehad Council Syed Salahuddin at the UN Human Rights Council, saying the terrorists were allowed to roam freely in Pakistan.
In a statement to the UNHRC, India said the fact that terrorists like Saeed and Salahuddin have been able to hold huge rallies in Pakistan's main cities is a reflection of the state of affairs in that country.
It said the active support for Saeed and Salahuddin showed that a blatant disregard for rule of law is the new normal in Pakistan and that instead of internationalising issues with India, Islamabad should cleanse its area of terrorists .
PM Sharif also met US Secretary of State John Kerry at UN and raised the Kashmir issue but Kerry, according to sources, asked him about the Uri attack.
Sharif is said to have told Kerry that the Kashmir issue can't be ignored due to one incident and that from Clinton to Obama, everyone promised a solution to the Kashmir issue. Sharif also implored the US to intervene in Kashmir, going to the extent of saying that the US as a friend of Pakistan must act.
Pakistan is having a tough time in its immediate neighbourhood as well with Bangladesh High Commissioner Syed Muazzem Ali invoking the spirit of 1971 war in pledging support to India.
"It's a sensitive military issue. As close neighbours and ally and friends we will act together. Bangladesh will help India. As a freedom fighter of 1971, we fought with the Indians together during our war of liberation, I want the spirit of 1971 to remain in our relations."
Supporting India in the war against terror, Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Mohd Abdali said, "We condemn this strongly. We fully support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for strong action against those countries that use terrorism as foreign policy."
After India's diplomatic offensive, sources said the Narendra Modi government will not react in a kneejerk fashion but surgical strikes and targeting Pakistan terror bases is an option.
The proof against Pakistan is undeniable as ammunition found on the terrorists in Uri attack have Pakistan markings. They were also carrying food items made in Karachi.
Among the arms and ammunition recovered in Uri were 39 UBGL grenades, five hand grenades, two radio sets, two GPS devices, two maps and "large quantities of food and medicines with Pakistani markings on them", DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh said.
Eighteen soldiers lost their lives in the worst terror attack on an Army camp in a decade.4
http://www.news18.com/news/india/ur...y-us-uk-france-russia-back-india-1293956.html
New Delhi: India has launched a strong diplomatic offensive against Pakistan trying to isolate it internationally over the terror attack at the Army base camp in Uri.
Because of this, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's missives to the US, UK, France, Russia and China urging them to put pressure on India over Kashmir have failed. While the US, UK and France have rejected Pakistan's claims, Russia has gone a step ahead and called off the joint military exercises with Pakistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
.India has also complained about Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed and leader of United Jehad Council Syed Salahuddin at the UN Human Rights Council, saying the terrorists were allowed to roam freely in Pakistan.
In a statement to the UNHRC, India said the fact that terrorists like Saeed and Salahuddin have been able to hold huge rallies in Pakistan's main cities is a reflection of the state of affairs in that country.
It said the active support for Saeed and Salahuddin showed that a blatant disregard for rule of law is the new normal in Pakistan and that instead of internationalising issues with India, Islamabad should cleanse its area of terrorists .
PM Sharif also met US Secretary of State John Kerry at UN and raised the Kashmir issue but Kerry, according to sources, asked him about the Uri attack.
Sharif is said to have told Kerry that the Kashmir issue can't be ignored due to one incident and that from Clinton to Obama, everyone promised a solution to the Kashmir issue. Sharif also implored the US to intervene in Kashmir, going to the extent of saying that the US as a friend of Pakistan must act.
Pakistan is having a tough time in its immediate neighbourhood as well with Bangladesh High Commissioner Syed Muazzem Ali invoking the spirit of 1971 war in pledging support to India.
"It's a sensitive military issue. As close neighbours and ally and friends we will act together. Bangladesh will help India. As a freedom fighter of 1971, we fought with the Indians together during our war of liberation, I want the spirit of 1971 to remain in our relations."
Supporting India in the war against terror, Afghan Ambassador to India Shaida Mohd Abdali said, "We condemn this strongly. We fully support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for strong action against those countries that use terrorism as foreign policy."
After India's diplomatic offensive, sources said the Narendra Modi government will not react in a kneejerk fashion but surgical strikes and targeting Pakistan terror bases is an option.
The proof against Pakistan is undeniable as ammunition found on the terrorists in Uri attack have Pakistan markings. They were also carrying food items made in Karachi.
Among the arms and ammunition recovered in Uri were 39 UBGL grenades, five hand grenades, two radio sets, two GPS devices, two maps and "large quantities of food and medicines with Pakistani markings on them", DGMO Lt General Ranbir Singh said.
Eighteen soldiers lost their lives in the worst terror attack on an Army camp in a decade.4
http://www.news18.com/news/india/ur...y-us-uk-france-russia-back-india-1293956.html
sorcerer
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Keep US close, Russia closer
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/keep-us-close-russia-closer/298778.html
DURING his recent visit to the US, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar signed the LEMOA with his American counterpart, Ashton Carter. The memorandum outlined a framework for the provision of supplies like food, fuel and berthing for visiting naval ships and on overflight and landing facilities for military aircraft. The opposition Congress and the Left cried “foul” and accused the government of mortgaging the country’s sovereignty, the country’s policy of “non-alignment”, and even its “strategic autonomy”.
This, despite the fact that the agreement contained provisions for providing such facilities, only on a case-by-case basis. The present agreement logically follows the remarkable transformation in India-US relations, during the presidency of George Bush, by the actions of the two UPA government stalwarts — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Pranab Mukherjee. It was Mr Mukherjee, as defence minister, who signed a 10-year agreement in June 2005, titled “New Framework for the US India Defence Relationship (NDFR)”, with his American counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld. This framework covered a wide range of activities, including collaboration in multinational operations, when such operations were found to be in “their common interest”. Such cooperation was envisaged in areas like terrorism and curbing nuclear weapons proliferation.
There has been a substantial increase in military-to-military cooperation, arms acquisitions and joint exercises between the two militaries, since then. Negotiations, thereafter, continued for signing three framework agreements in defence cooperation, logistics, communications and information security and geospatial information. The most pathbreaking agreement that India has signed in this century came barely a month later, when PM Manmohan Singh and President Bush agreed that the US would end nuclear sanctions against India. They also agreed to persuade other nuclear suppliers to end global nuclear sanctions imposed on India after its nuclear test in 1974, by the establishment of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. President Bush stood by his word and even personally intervened with then Chinese President Hu Jintao to fall in line. In the meantime, in August 2008, Mr Mukherjee, then external affairs minister, signed an agreement with his counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, for the resumption of bilateral nuclear cooperation.
The question, which remains, is whether India historically ever provided facilities for positioning foreign warships and aircraft on its soil? India has historically shaped its military cooperation with foreign powers, from the days of its first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, based on geopolitical realities, and not ideology. Even before the Sino-Indian border conflict broke out in 1962, the CIA was permitted to position facilities along the border with China, to monitor Chinese nuclear tests. Panicking after the humiliation heaped on India in the 1962 conflict, a desperate Nehru wrote to President Kennedy, appealing him to deploy 12 squadrons of fighters and two squadrons of fighter bombers, together with radar cover, on Indian soil.
The US was permitted to use a staging base in Charbatia, Odisha, for flying its U2 spy planes over China. Strangely, our non-alignment was such in the 1950s that we fought shy of seeking defence equipment from the Soviet Union, despite signs of a growing Sino-Soviet rift! In less than a decade, thereafter, the geopolitical situation turned upside down, with Nixon and Mao embarking on a clandestine love affair, midwifed by Pakistan. This “love affair” came to light when Henry Kissinger flew secretly to China from Pakistan. Indira Gandhi had no hesitation in entering into a defence agreement with the Soviet Union to deal with the emerging US-China-Pakistan axis.
The Soviet Union had proposed a bilateral treaty with India in 1969, when its defence minister Marshal Grechko visited India. The draft treaty proposed by the Soviets gathered dust for two years in South Block. It was spruced up once it became clear that a Sino-US-Pakistan axis was emerging to counter the Soviet Union and, incidentally, India also, even as the Pakistan army proceeded with its genocide in Bangladesh. Once this geopolitical reality was recognised in Moscow and New Delhi, DP Dhar was sent to Moscow to finalise the treaty in the first week of August 1971. Sardar Swaran Singh and Andrei Gromyko signed the treaty on August 21, 1971. Despite our claims of being “non-aligned”, there was a clear military provision in Article 9 of the Indo-Soviet Treaty. It read: “In the event of either party (India and the Soviet Union) being subjected to an attack or a threat thereof, the High Contracting Parties shall immediately enter into mutual consultations, in order to remove the threat and to take appropriate effective measures, to ensure peace and security of their countries.”
I was then a young First Secretary in Moscow and took notes in meetings as events unfolded. When the conflict broke out in December 1971, the Soviets, though isolated, vetoed every effort by the US-China axis to stop us from liberating Bangladesh. According to what the Soviets told us, they had deployed mechanised forces and airpower on their borders with China and warned China of serious consequences if it militarily intervened. A Russian nuclear submarine followed the USS Enterprise, as it crossed the Straits of Malacca.
The world situation has changed drastically since the 1970s. What has, however, continued, is the Sino-Pakistan axis, with a growingly powerful China providing Pakistan with nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities, while enhancing Pakistan’s maritime, air and land power.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is being accompanied with the establishment of a direct fibre optic link between the headquarters of the Western Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army in Kashgar (in China’s Muslim-majority Xinjiang province) and the GHQ of the Pakistan army in Rawalpindi.
Signing defence cooperation agreements with the US does not mean we are compromising our “strategic autonomy”. We will continue to differ with the US on some of its policies; in Syria and elsewhere.
We should understand Russian imperatives in its immediate neighbourhood, in Crimea and elsewhere, while strengthening defence and energy cooperation with Moscow.
We should spare no effort to enhance mutual trust and confidence in the India-Russia relationship.
In the meantime, both India and China hopefully share a common interest in maintaining peace and tranquility along their borders. The 2005 agreement outlining the guidelines for a settlement of the border issue remains the most viable framework for moving forward.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/keep-us-close-russia-closer/298778.html
DURING his recent visit to the US, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar signed the LEMOA with his American counterpart, Ashton Carter. The memorandum outlined a framework for the provision of supplies like food, fuel and berthing for visiting naval ships and on overflight and landing facilities for military aircraft. The opposition Congress and the Left cried “foul” and accused the government of mortgaging the country’s sovereignty, the country’s policy of “non-alignment”, and even its “strategic autonomy”.
This, despite the fact that the agreement contained provisions for providing such facilities, only on a case-by-case basis. The present agreement logically follows the remarkable transformation in India-US relations, during the presidency of George Bush, by the actions of the two UPA government stalwarts — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Pranab Mukherjee. It was Mr Mukherjee, as defence minister, who signed a 10-year agreement in June 2005, titled “New Framework for the US India Defence Relationship (NDFR)”, with his American counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld. This framework covered a wide range of activities, including collaboration in multinational operations, when such operations were found to be in “their common interest”. Such cooperation was envisaged in areas like terrorism and curbing nuclear weapons proliferation.
There has been a substantial increase in military-to-military cooperation, arms acquisitions and joint exercises between the two militaries, since then. Negotiations, thereafter, continued for signing three framework agreements in defence cooperation, logistics, communications and information security and geospatial information. The most pathbreaking agreement that India has signed in this century came barely a month later, when PM Manmohan Singh and President Bush agreed that the US would end nuclear sanctions against India. They also agreed to persuade other nuclear suppliers to end global nuclear sanctions imposed on India after its nuclear test in 1974, by the establishment of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. President Bush stood by his word and even personally intervened with then Chinese President Hu Jintao to fall in line. In the meantime, in August 2008, Mr Mukherjee, then external affairs minister, signed an agreement with his counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, for the resumption of bilateral nuclear cooperation.
The question, which remains, is whether India historically ever provided facilities for positioning foreign warships and aircraft on its soil? India has historically shaped its military cooperation with foreign powers, from the days of its first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, based on geopolitical realities, and not ideology. Even before the Sino-Indian border conflict broke out in 1962, the CIA was permitted to position facilities along the border with China, to monitor Chinese nuclear tests. Panicking after the humiliation heaped on India in the 1962 conflict, a desperate Nehru wrote to President Kennedy, appealing him to deploy 12 squadrons of fighters and two squadrons of fighter bombers, together with radar cover, on Indian soil.
The US was permitted to use a staging base in Charbatia, Odisha, for flying its U2 spy planes over China. Strangely, our non-alignment was such in the 1950s that we fought shy of seeking defence equipment from the Soviet Union, despite signs of a growing Sino-Soviet rift! In less than a decade, thereafter, the geopolitical situation turned upside down, with Nixon and Mao embarking on a clandestine love affair, midwifed by Pakistan. This “love affair” came to light when Henry Kissinger flew secretly to China from Pakistan. Indira Gandhi had no hesitation in entering into a defence agreement with the Soviet Union to deal with the emerging US-China-Pakistan axis.
The Soviet Union had proposed a bilateral treaty with India in 1969, when its defence minister Marshal Grechko visited India. The draft treaty proposed by the Soviets gathered dust for two years in South Block. It was spruced up once it became clear that a Sino-US-Pakistan axis was emerging to counter the Soviet Union and, incidentally, India also, even as the Pakistan army proceeded with its genocide in Bangladesh. Once this geopolitical reality was recognised in Moscow and New Delhi, DP Dhar was sent to Moscow to finalise the treaty in the first week of August 1971. Sardar Swaran Singh and Andrei Gromyko signed the treaty on August 21, 1971. Despite our claims of being “non-aligned”, there was a clear military provision in Article 9 of the Indo-Soviet Treaty. It read: “In the event of either party (India and the Soviet Union) being subjected to an attack or a threat thereof, the High Contracting Parties shall immediately enter into mutual consultations, in order to remove the threat and to take appropriate effective measures, to ensure peace and security of their countries.”
I was then a young First Secretary in Moscow and took notes in meetings as events unfolded. When the conflict broke out in December 1971, the Soviets, though isolated, vetoed every effort by the US-China axis to stop us from liberating Bangladesh. According to what the Soviets told us, they had deployed mechanised forces and airpower on their borders with China and warned China of serious consequences if it militarily intervened. A Russian nuclear submarine followed the USS Enterprise, as it crossed the Straits of Malacca.
The world situation has changed drastically since the 1970s. What has, however, continued, is the Sino-Pakistan axis, with a growingly powerful China providing Pakistan with nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities, while enhancing Pakistan’s maritime, air and land power.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is being accompanied with the establishment of a direct fibre optic link between the headquarters of the Western Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army in Kashgar (in China’s Muslim-majority Xinjiang province) and the GHQ of the Pakistan army in Rawalpindi.
Signing defence cooperation agreements with the US does not mean we are compromising our “strategic autonomy”. We will continue to differ with the US on some of its policies; in Syria and elsewhere.
We should understand Russian imperatives in its immediate neighbourhood, in Crimea and elsewhere, while strengthening defence and energy cooperation with Moscow.
We should spare no effort to enhance mutual trust and confidence in the India-Russia relationship.
In the meantime, both India and China hopefully share a common interest in maintaining peace and tranquility along their borders. The 2005 agreement outlining the guidelines for a settlement of the border issue remains the most viable framework for moving forward.
sorcerer
Senior Member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2013
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‘India is rising and has become a Major Power … Vietnam fully supports India’s Act East Policy’
. Vietnam’s Ambassador to India, Ton Sinh Thanh, spoke with Rudroneel Ghosh about India’s Act East Policy, efforts to balance China in Southeast Asia and its impact on the South China Sea dispute:
How important was PM Modi’s visit to Vietnam?
PM Modi’s visit to Vietnam was the first by an Indian prime minister after 15 years. It took place at a time when the two countries are going to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations and 10 years of a Strategic Partnership next year. During the visit, the two countries decided to elevate the current Strategic Partnership to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This opens a new stage for bilateral relations.
The visit had been billed as a move to balance China’s rise. Your thoughts?
Vietnam and India have always had very close relations. This is a special kind of relationship, not only free from any problems but also firmly based on a convergence of strategic interests. PM Modi’s visit was a successful step in developing Indo-Vietnamese relations to serve the interests of the people of both nations and for the sake of peace, stability and cooperation in the region.
Are there plans to coordinate moves with respect to the South China Sea issue?
Vietnam and India share a convergence of views on various bilateral and international issues, including the regional security situation in Asia. In the joint statement during PM Modi’s visit the two countries recognised that the sea lanes of communication passing through the South China Sea are critical for peace, stability and development. They reiterated their support for freedom of navigation and overflight, and unimpeded commerce in the South China Sea. They also called on all states to resolve disputes through peaceful means, exercise self-restraint, observe the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and to soon finalise the Code of Conduct. Vietnam and India also noted the recent Arbitral Tribunal’s ruling in the South China Sea case and urged all to show utmost respect for United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea.
The two countries have agreed to further enhance cooperation in the oil and gas sector and to actively implement the Agreement signed in 2014 between PetroVietnam (PVN) and ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) on cooperation in new blocks in Vietnam. The Vietnamese side welcomes the long-standing investment and presence of OVL for exploration of oil and gas in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.
What are the key areas of bilateral focus?
During PM Modi’s visit, our leaders emphasised the need to strengthen political relations. They also agreed to strengthen coordination particularly at the UN, Non-Aligned Movement, WTO, Asean and related forums. In fact, Vietnam has reiterated its consistent support to India’s candidature for permanent membership of a reformed UN Security Council.
In defence cooperation, the two sides have shown the desire to continue annual high-level dialogue, service-to-service cooperation, naval ship visits, extensive training and capacity building, defence equipment procurement and related transfer of technology, and cooperation at regional forums such as Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus.
Enhancing bilateral economic engagement is our common strategic objective. Related ministries and agencies on both sides have been told to explore substantive measures to achieve the trade target of $15 billion by 2020. Leaders of business and industry have been urged to explore new opportunities in identified priority areas like hydrocarbons, power generation, textiles, medical and pharmaceuticals, information communication technology and agriculture.
Further, airlines of both sides have been urged to soon open direct flights between our major cities. We are also to accelerate the establishment of direct shipping routes between our sea ports. Both sides have agreed to enhance banking and financial sector linkages for facilitating more intensive economic engagement.
What larger geopolitical role can India play in Southeast and East Asia?
India is rising and has become a major power in the world. Vietnam fully supports India’s Act East Policy and welcomes a greater role for India in the regional and international arena. I think India can act faster and have more engagements and presence in this region. There is also a lot of scope for India to expand its trade and investments in Southeast Asia. In this way, India can play a more active role in maintaining peace, security, stability and development in Southeast and East Asia.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatime...ietnam-fully-supports-indias-act-east-policy/
. Vietnam’s Ambassador to India, Ton Sinh Thanh, spoke with Rudroneel Ghosh about India’s Act East Policy, efforts to balance China in Southeast Asia and its impact on the South China Sea dispute:
How important was PM Modi’s visit to Vietnam?
PM Modi’s visit to Vietnam was the first by an Indian prime minister after 15 years. It took place at a time when the two countries are going to celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations and 10 years of a Strategic Partnership next year. During the visit, the two countries decided to elevate the current Strategic Partnership to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This opens a new stage for bilateral relations.
The visit had been billed as a move to balance China’s rise. Your thoughts?
Vietnam and India have always had very close relations. This is a special kind of relationship, not only free from any problems but also firmly based on a convergence of strategic interests. PM Modi’s visit was a successful step in developing Indo-Vietnamese relations to serve the interests of the people of both nations and for the sake of peace, stability and cooperation in the region.
Are there plans to coordinate moves with respect to the South China Sea issue?
Vietnam and India share a convergence of views on various bilateral and international issues, including the regional security situation in Asia. In the joint statement during PM Modi’s visit the two countries recognised that the sea lanes of communication passing through the South China Sea are critical for peace, stability and development. They reiterated their support for freedom of navigation and overflight, and unimpeded commerce in the South China Sea. They also called on all states to resolve disputes through peaceful means, exercise self-restraint, observe the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and to soon finalise the Code of Conduct. Vietnam and India also noted the recent Arbitral Tribunal’s ruling in the South China Sea case and urged all to show utmost respect for United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea.
The two countries have agreed to further enhance cooperation in the oil and gas sector and to actively implement the Agreement signed in 2014 between PetroVietnam (PVN) and ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) on cooperation in new blocks in Vietnam. The Vietnamese side welcomes the long-standing investment and presence of OVL for exploration of oil and gas in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.
What are the key areas of bilateral focus?
During PM Modi’s visit, our leaders emphasised the need to strengthen political relations. They also agreed to strengthen coordination particularly at the UN, Non-Aligned Movement, WTO, Asean and related forums. In fact, Vietnam has reiterated its consistent support to India’s candidature for permanent membership of a reformed UN Security Council.
In defence cooperation, the two sides have shown the desire to continue annual high-level dialogue, service-to-service cooperation, naval ship visits, extensive training and capacity building, defence equipment procurement and related transfer of technology, and cooperation at regional forums such as Asean Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus.
Enhancing bilateral economic engagement is our common strategic objective. Related ministries and agencies on both sides have been told to explore substantive measures to achieve the trade target of $15 billion by 2020. Leaders of business and industry have been urged to explore new opportunities in identified priority areas like hydrocarbons, power generation, textiles, medical and pharmaceuticals, information communication technology and agriculture.
Further, airlines of both sides have been urged to soon open direct flights between our major cities. We are also to accelerate the establishment of direct shipping routes between our sea ports. Both sides have agreed to enhance banking and financial sector linkages for facilitating more intensive economic engagement.
What larger geopolitical role can India play in Southeast and East Asia?
India is rising and has become a major power in the world. Vietnam fully supports India’s Act East Policy and welcomes a greater role for India in the regional and international arena. I think India can act faster and have more engagements and presence in this region. There is also a lot of scope for India to expand its trade and investments in Southeast Asia. In this way, India can play a more active role in maintaining peace, security, stability and development in Southeast and East Asia.
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatime...ietnam-fully-supports-indias-act-east-policy/
sorcerer
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How Indian Diplomacy Got SAARC Countries To Boycott Summit In Pakistan
On 2 October, the current chair of SAARC, Nepal, urged member states to “ensure that their respective territories are not used by terrorists for cross-border terrorism”, clearly hinting at Pakistan, which was forced to postpone this year’s summit after six members decided to boycott it.
According to this report in the Indian Express , on 27 September, the embassies of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, except Pakistan, were requested by New Delhi to boycott the summit. This request preceded India conducting surgical strikes against terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Pakistan branding Uri attack as stage-managed was the final straw that prompted India to diplomatically boycott Islamabad.
According to the sources mentioned in the IE report, none of the SAARC neighbors were given any briefing about the surgical strikes. Though, with some countries like Sri Lanka, foreign minister-level discussions took place. The Indian diplomats worked the phones with other SAARC countries to bring them on board.
Afghanistan sent the first letter on the boycott to the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu. Kabul’s irritation with Islamabad was conveyed by President Ashraf Ghani, who visited India early September after the talks with Taliban did not make progress. When Ghani called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convey his condolences for Uri attacks, he also announced his unequivocal support to New Delhi. Thereafter, Afghan diplomats and South Block also exchanged notes.
Bhutan, although not affected by the terrorist attacks from Pakistan-backed groups, wanted to show its solidarity with India by not participating in the summit. Getting Bangladesh on board was predictable since Pakistan criticized the war crimes trial introduced by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and censured Dhaka for the hanging of those involved in the 1971 war.
Sri Lanka announced its inability to attend the summit after the surgical strikes, which signaled that there was a “decisive” nature to India’s response. Maldives and Nepal followed the decision of Colombo, completing Pakistan’s isolation. All the member states condemned international terrorism, specifically those originating from outside and said that the summit could only take place with cooperation from all member states.
This is one of the most overt display of India’s shrewd foreign policy as it persuaded all regional states to assist in the diplomatic isolation of Pakistan.
Source>>
On 2 October, the current chair of SAARC, Nepal, urged member states to “ensure that their respective territories are not used by terrorists for cross-border terrorism”, clearly hinting at Pakistan, which was forced to postpone this year’s summit after six members decided to boycott it.
According to this report in the Indian Express , on 27 September, the embassies of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, except Pakistan, were requested by New Delhi to boycott the summit. This request preceded India conducting surgical strikes against terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Pakistan branding Uri attack as stage-managed was the final straw that prompted India to diplomatically boycott Islamabad.
According to the sources mentioned in the IE report, none of the SAARC neighbors were given any briefing about the surgical strikes. Though, with some countries like Sri Lanka, foreign minister-level discussions took place. The Indian diplomats worked the phones with other SAARC countries to bring them on board.
Afghanistan sent the first letter on the boycott to the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu. Kabul’s irritation with Islamabad was conveyed by President Ashraf Ghani, who visited India early September after the talks with Taliban did not make progress. When Ghani called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to convey his condolences for Uri attacks, he also announced his unequivocal support to New Delhi. Thereafter, Afghan diplomats and South Block also exchanged notes.
Bhutan, although not affected by the terrorist attacks from Pakistan-backed groups, wanted to show its solidarity with India by not participating in the summit. Getting Bangladesh on board was predictable since Pakistan criticized the war crimes trial introduced by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and censured Dhaka for the hanging of those involved in the 1971 war.
Sri Lanka announced its inability to attend the summit after the surgical strikes, which signaled that there was a “decisive” nature to India’s response. Maldives and Nepal followed the decision of Colombo, completing Pakistan’s isolation. All the member states condemned international terrorism, specifically those originating from outside and said that the summit could only take place with cooperation from all member states.
This is one of the most overt display of India’s shrewd foreign policy as it persuaded all regional states to assist in the diplomatic isolation of Pakistan.
Source>>
sorcerer
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- Apr 13, 2013
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UNSC Not Discussing India-Pakistan Tensions: Russia
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has not been discussing the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Russia's envoy to the UN and Council president for October said, in a clear snub to Pakistan which had raised the Kashmir issue and surgical strike by India in the world body. 
"I don't want to go there, don't want to go there. No no please, I don't want to go there," Russia's Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said as he quickly interrupted a question on India and Pakistan tensions during a press briefing here yesterday.
Churkin was addressing the media as Russia assumed the Presidency of the 15-nation Council for the month of October.
When asked why he would not comment on the issue, Churkin said "because I am President of the Security Council. The Security Council has not been discussing it (the India-Pakistan situation).
"Sorry sir, I don't want to go there. No comment, no comment, sorry please," Churkin said.
When asked again why he and Russia were "so reluctant" to discuss the India-Pakistan situation, Churkin said, "I'm sure you know. There are so many other things."
Churkin's remarks come as a clear snub to Pakistan, which had approached the Security Council just last week on the surgical strikes
conducted by India to target terror launch pads across the Line of Control as well as on the Kashmir issue.
Earlier in the day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq was asked what the UN position is on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's remarks in her address to the UN General Assembly that Pakistan should "abandon" its Kashmir dream since Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India.
"We have issued a statement on the situation between India and Pakistan. I would refer you back to that," Haq said.
When asked again why the UN did not "say anything" to Swaraj's remarks that Pakistan should stop dreaming about Kashmir, Haq said, "We don't comment on every speech made in the General Assembly, but we have been commenting on the situation on Kashmir, and like I said, we issued a statement on that just last Friday."
Pakistan's envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi had met New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, president of the Council for the month of September, and had raised the issue of the surgical strikes in "informal consultations" of the Council.
She had also met UN Secretary General Ban on the issue but the UN Chief had called on the governments of India and Pakistan to address their outstanding issues, including Kashmir, peacefully through "diplomacy and dialogue".
India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin had last week said that Pakistan approaching the UN Chief and the Security Council over the surgical strikes in PoK has not found any resonance at the world body.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif too had tried to internationalize the Kashmir issue, raising it with almost every world leader he held bilateral talks with on the sidelines of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly last month.
Source>>
Nawaz Shariff begs for money...begs for support..
UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has not been discussing the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Russia's envoy to the UN and Council president for October said, in a clear snub to Pakistan which had raised the Kashmir issue and surgical strike by India in the world body.
"I don't want to go there, don't want to go there. No no please, I don't want to go there," Russia's Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said as he quickly interrupted a question on India and Pakistan tensions during a press briefing here yesterday.
Churkin was addressing the media as Russia assumed the Presidency of the 15-nation Council for the month of October.
When asked why he would not comment on the issue, Churkin said "because I am President of the Security Council. The Security Council has not been discussing it (the India-Pakistan situation).
"Sorry sir, I don't want to go there. No comment, no comment, sorry please," Churkin said.
When asked again why he and Russia were "so reluctant" to discuss the India-Pakistan situation, Churkin said, "I'm sure you know. There are so many other things."
Churkin's remarks come as a clear snub to Pakistan, which had approached the Security Council just last week on the surgical strikes
conducted by India to target terror launch pads across the Line of Control as well as on the Kashmir issue.Earlier in the day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq was asked what the UN position is on External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's remarks in her address to the UN General Assembly that Pakistan should "abandon" its Kashmir dream since Kashmir is and will remain an integral part of India.
"We have issued a statement on the situation between India and Pakistan. I would refer you back to that," Haq said.
When asked again why the UN did not "say anything" to Swaraj's remarks that Pakistan should stop dreaming about Kashmir, Haq said, "We don't comment on every speech made in the General Assembly, but we have been commenting on the situation on Kashmir, and like I said, we issued a statement on that just last Friday."
Pakistan's envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi had met New Zealand's UN Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, president of the Council for the month of September, and had raised the issue of the surgical strikes in "informal consultations" of the Council.
She had also met UN Secretary General Ban on the issue but the UN Chief had called on the governments of India and Pakistan to address their outstanding issues, including Kashmir, peacefully through "diplomacy and dialogue".
India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin had last week said that Pakistan approaching the UN Chief and the Security Council over the surgical strikes in PoK has not found any resonance at the world body.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif too had tried to internationalize the Kashmir issue, raising it with almost every world leader
he held bilateral talks with on the sidelines of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly last month.Source>>
Nawaz Shariff begs for money...begs for support..
sorcerer
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When NSA Ajit Doval Outlined India's New Pak Strategy- Defensive Offense - Perfectly
NEW DELHI: "Do one (more) Mumbai, you may lose Baluchistan," was National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval's near-prophetic message to Pakistan, a little under two years ago.
Little did anyone know then that Doval had just described - in detail - India's changing strategic response to Pakistani terrorism, a response that came to fruition with the Centre's September 29 surgical strikes in Pakistan.
That new response, "defensive offense", was described in lucid detail in a late 2014 speech the NSA delivered at Sastra University.
Was India already considering a change in strategy back then?
India no more playing 'Chowkidar'
For far too long, India's response to Pakistani terror has been defensive, "like chowkidars", just preventive, the NSA said then.
Not any longer.
Unlike a purely chowkidar-like response to engaging with the enemy, and even unlike an all-out offensive response - where nuclear war becomes a possibility - defensive offence is when you go and attack the place where the offense is coming from.
That's what the September 29 surgical strikes by India on terrorist camps+ across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan were - a perfect example of defensive offense.
"There is no nuclear war involved in that. There is no engagement of troops. They know the tricks, we know the tricks better," Doval said at the time.
India did, know the tricks better, that is. In strikes just after midnight September 28-29, India airdropped commandos at the LoC - from where the commandos crossed over 3 kms to the Pakistani side - destroyed 7 terrorist launch pads and killed 38 terrorists. The mission ended in a short four hours.
It was just as Doval described it: "Defensive offense is when you go and attack the place where the offense is coming from." In this case, clearly, it was across the LoC in Pakistan.
"Pakistan's vulnerability is many many times higher than (that of) of India('s). Once they know India has shifted to defensive offense they will find it is unaffordable for them. You can do one Mumbai you may lose Baluchistan," Doval said.
And, sure enough, PM Modi launched India's Balochistan campaign - a little before August 15, and in a blistering speech on Independence Day - after months of continual Pakistani interference in Kashmir.
"The time has come when Pakistan shall have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Balochistan and POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir),"Modi said. The PM also said that when children in Pakistan's Peshawar died in a 2014 terror attack, Indians cried. "This is our nature, but look at the other side. They glorify terrorists," he said, addressing the nation from the Red Fort.
'Pak not our well-wishers'
This shift - both verbal and militarily - Doval had said should have been made a long time ago. If India had gone into even a partial defensive offense, it could have "probably reduced casualties" a lot more over the years.
"Don't buy Pakistan's argument that Pakistanis are well wishers, they are not. They will continue to bleed us with a thousand cuts," Doval had said.
Again, he was right.
Barely a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise friendly visit to Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif+ on Christmas day last year - seen as an act of unprecedented bonhomie on India's part - came the deadly attack on the Pathankot air force base.
On January 2, Pakistan-based Jaish-e Muhammad terrorists - dressed in Indian army fatigues - breached the air force station's perimeter and entered the living quarters' area of the station. They killed 9 soldiers. The gun battle with the terrorists lasted days.
Then another attack on September 18, on a brigade headquarters in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir+ , led to the killing of as many as 19 soldiers.
To any comments that India might be overreacting, Doval said back then that no one should underestimate 'jihadi terrorism.'
"What makes jihadi terrorism a strategic threat? Is it really a long-term strategic threat?" Doval asked rhetorically and answered that it indeed is.
The biggest reason jihadi terrorism is a threat is because "it's sponsored by a country which harbours a compulsive hostility towards India, and right from day of it independence, all its policies have had one objective" Doval explained.
That Pakistani objective, he said, is: India is the enemy, destroy it.
"That is indeed Pakistan's objective, let us make no bones about it."
Source>>
NEW DELHI: "Do one (more) Mumbai, you may lose Baluchistan," was National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval's near-prophetic message to Pakistan, a little under two years ago.
Little did anyone know then that Doval had just described - in detail - India's changing strategic response to Pakistani terrorism, a response that came to fruition with the Centre's September 29 surgical strikes in Pakistan.
That new response, "defensive offense", was described in lucid detail in a late 2014 speech the NSA delivered at Sastra University.
Was India already considering a change in strategy back then?
India no more playing 'Chowkidar'
For far too long, India's response to Pakistani terror has been defensive, "like chowkidars", just preventive, the NSA said then.
Not any longer.
Unlike a purely chowkidar-like response to engaging with the enemy, and even unlike an all-out offensive response - where nuclear war becomes a possibility - defensive offence is when you go and attack the place where the offense is coming from.
That's what the September 29 surgical strikes by India on terrorist camps+ across the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan were - a perfect example of defensive offense.
"There is no nuclear war involved in that. There is no engagement of troops. They know the tricks, we know the tricks better," Doval said at the time.
India did, know the tricks better, that is. In strikes just after midnight September 28-29, India airdropped commandos at the LoC - from where the commandos crossed over 3 kms to the Pakistani side - destroyed 7 terrorist launch pads and killed 38 terrorists. The mission ended in a short four hours.
It was just as Doval described it: "Defensive offense is when you go and attack the place where the offense is coming from." In this case, clearly, it was across the LoC in Pakistan.
"Pakistan's vulnerability is many many times higher than (that of) of India('s). Once they know India has shifted to defensive offense they will find it is unaffordable for them. You can do one Mumbai you may lose Baluchistan," Doval said.
And, sure enough, PM Modi launched India's Balochistan campaign - a little before August 15, and in a blistering speech on Independence Day - after months of continual Pakistani interference in Kashmir.
"The time has come when Pakistan shall have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Balochistan and POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir),"Modi said. The PM also said that when children in Pakistan's Peshawar died in a 2014 terror attack, Indians cried. "This is our nature, but look at the other side. They glorify terrorists," he said, addressing the nation from the Red Fort.
'Pak not our well-wishers'
This shift - both verbal and militarily - Doval had said should have been made a long time ago. If India had gone into even a partial defensive offense, it could have "probably reduced casualties" a lot more over the years.
"Don't buy Pakistan's argument that Pakistanis are well wishers, they are not. They will continue to bleed us with a thousand cuts," Doval had said.
Again, he was right.
Barely a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise friendly visit to Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif+ on Christmas day last year - seen as an act of unprecedented bonhomie on India's part - came the deadly attack on the Pathankot air force base.
On January 2, Pakistan-based Jaish-e Muhammad terrorists - dressed in Indian army fatigues - breached the air force station's perimeter and entered the living quarters' area of the station. They killed 9 soldiers. The gun battle with the terrorists lasted days.
Then another attack on September 18, on a brigade headquarters in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir+ , led to the killing of as many as 19 soldiers.
To any comments that India might be overreacting, Doval said back then that no one should underestimate 'jihadi terrorism.'
"What makes jihadi terrorism a strategic threat? Is it really a long-term strategic threat?" Doval asked rhetorically and answered that it indeed is.
The biggest reason jihadi terrorism is a threat is because "it's sponsored by a country which harbours a compulsive hostility towards India, and right from day of it independence, all its policies have had one objective" Doval explained.
That Pakistani objective, he said, is: India is the enemy, destroy it.
"That is indeed Pakistan's objective, let us make no bones about it."
Source>>
sorcerer
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- Apr 13, 2013
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Diplomatic Victory to India :: UNSC President says council will not discuss Pakistan's Problems [WATCH]
It seems that there is no end to the ongoing snubs that Pakistan is facing internationally! Despite Pakistan repeatedly appealing to the United Nations to take up the issue of Kashmir, Indo-Pakistan tensions and India’s surgical strikes across LoC, the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) has refused to discuss the matter. Vitaly Churkin, the UNSC President for the month the month of October categorically refused to comment on the issue. “I don’t want to go there, don’t want to go there. No no please, I don’t want to go there,” Vitaly Churkin, who is also Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, said.
Churkin swiftly interrupted a question around the escalating problems between India and Pakistan, saying that the security council has not been discussing the issue. Asked why he was choosing not to comment on the the question, Churkin said, “because I am President of the Security Council. The Security Council has not been discussing it (the India-Pakistan situation).” “Sorry sir, I don’t want to go there. No comment, no comment, sorry please,” Churkin said firmly.
Need anyone say anything more……
Telling response says it all.
I rest my case. pic.twitter.com/M4DwLTtmgE
— Syed Akbaruddin (@AkbaruddinIndia) October 5, 2016
Reports suggest that Pakistan’s envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi had in September met Gerard van Bohemen, who had been heading the UNSC for that month. Bohemen is New Zealand’s UN Ambassador, and while he was the head of UNSC, Lodhi had raised the issue of surgical strikes by India in “informal consultations” of the Council. Lodhi had also approached UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon but he had called on the governments of India and Pakistan to address their outstanding issues, including Kashmir, peacefully through “diplomacy and dialogue”.
Also read: How Major Gaurav Arya’s open letter moves to ‘surgically silence’ sympathisers of Pakistani artists
This is not the first time in the last few days that Pakistan has been humiliated in UN on the Kashmir bogey that it keeps raising. Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif had dedicated most of his speech at the UNGA to the topic of Kashmir, a mention that found no resonance and takers. Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj in a strong rebuttal had slammed Sharif and asked him to stop dreaming about the state of Jammu and Kashmir. “My firm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream. Let me state unequivocally that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so,” she had said. Amidst growing tensions after the Uri terror attack, Pakistan finds itself being increasingly isolated internationally with major countries like US and Russia slamming the nation for harbouring terrorists. The SAARC Summit being cancelled a few days ago is yet an another example of the growing anguish among regional allies and neighbours towards Pakistan and its lack of steps to counter terrorism.
http://www.financialexpress.com/ind...nsc-president-snub-kashmir-uri-attack/406376/
It seems that there is no end to the ongoing snubs that Pakistan is facing internationally! Despite Pakistan repeatedly appealing to the United Nations to take up the issue of Kashmir, Indo-Pakistan tensions and India’s surgical strikes across LoC, the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) has refused to discuss the matter. Vitaly Churkin, the UNSC President for the month the month of October categorically refused to comment on the issue. “I don’t want to go there, don’t want to go there. No no please, I don’t want to go there,” Vitaly Churkin, who is also Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, said.
Churkin swiftly interrupted a question around the escalating problems between India and Pakistan, saying that the security council has not been discussing the issue. Asked why he was choosing not to comment on the the question, Churkin said, “because I am President of the Security Council. The Security Council has not been discussing it (the India-Pakistan situation).” “Sorry sir, I don’t want to go there. No comment, no comment, sorry please,” Churkin said firmly.
Need anyone say anything more……
Telling response says it all.
I rest my case. pic.twitter.com/M4DwLTtmgE
— Syed Akbaruddin (@AkbaruddinIndia) October 5, 2016
Reports suggest that Pakistan’s envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi had in September met Gerard van Bohemen, who had been heading the UNSC for that month. Bohemen is New Zealand’s UN Ambassador, and while he was the head of UNSC, Lodhi had raised the issue of surgical strikes by India in “informal consultations” of the Council. Lodhi had also approached UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon but he had called on the governments of India and Pakistan to address their outstanding issues, including Kashmir, peacefully through “diplomacy and dialogue”.
Also read: How Major Gaurav Arya’s open letter moves to ‘surgically silence’ sympathisers of Pakistani artists
This is not the first time in the last few days that Pakistan has been humiliated in UN on the Kashmir bogey that it keeps raising. Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif had dedicated most of his speech at the UNGA to the topic of Kashmir, a mention that found no resonance and takers. Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj in a strong rebuttal had slammed Sharif and asked him to stop dreaming about the state of Jammu and Kashmir. “My firm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream. Let me state unequivocally that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so,” she had said. Amidst growing tensions after the Uri terror attack, Pakistan finds itself being increasingly isolated internationally with major countries like US and Russia slamming the nation for harbouring terrorists. The SAARC Summit being cancelled a few days ago is yet an another example of the growing anguish among regional allies and neighbours towards Pakistan and its lack of steps to counter terrorism.
http://www.financialexpress.com/ind...nsc-president-snub-kashmir-uri-attack/406376/
sorcerer
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Manohar Parrikar Urges ASEAN Countries To 'Cooperate Unreservedly' To Destroy Terror Networks
New Delhi: Terming terrorism as the foremost challenge in the region, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said it should be delegitimised as a State policy and urged ASEAN countries to "cooperate unreservedly" to locate and destroy terror networks.
Security frameworks in ASEAN region still do not give enough attention to terrorism. This must change, he said at the 20th ASEAN Regional Forum Heads of Defence Universities Meet in New Delhi.
"Terrorism remains the foremost challenge to our region.
"We need to oppose terrorism resolutely everywhere, delegitimise it as an instrument of State policy and cooperate unreservedly to locate and destroy terrorist networks," he said
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam as members.
Parrikar's remarks came on a day when terrorists launched another attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir. Three terrorists, believed to be Pakistan backed, were killed in the attack on the army camp north Kashmir's Kupwara district.
19 soldiers were killed in a militant attack on an army camp in Uri on 18 September. The Army had launched surgical strikes targeting terror camps located across the LoC on 28 September night.
Source>>
and Now..ASEAN will be -x
New Delhi: Terming terrorism as the foremost challenge in the region, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said it should be delegitimised as a State policy and urged ASEAN countries to "cooperate unreservedly" to locate and destroy terror networks.
Security frameworks in ASEAN region still do not give enough attention to terrorism. This must change, he said at the 20th ASEAN Regional Forum Heads of Defence Universities Meet in New Delhi.
"Terrorism remains the foremost challenge to our region.
"We need to oppose terrorism resolutely everywhere, delegitimise it as an instrument of State policy and cooperate unreservedly to locate and destroy terrorist networks," he said
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam as members.
Parrikar's remarks came on a day when terrorists launched another attack on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir. Three terrorists, believed to be Pakistan backed, were killed in the attack on the army camp north Kashmir's Kupwara district.
19 soldiers were killed in a militant attack on an army camp in Uri on 18 September. The Army had launched surgical strikes targeting terror camps located across the LoC on 28 September night.
Source>>
and Now..ASEAN will be -x
