India and geostrategy

[ajtr]

Red Storm Rising​

Tiananmen is long past. Right now, it's time to wake up and smell the gunpowder. As the Asian Century unfolds, India must get its act together to prevent its powerful northern neighbour from usurping the country's future


Deng Xiaoping was given to one-liners. "Cross the river by feeling the pebbles," China's former premier famously said on the adoption of market reforms. But the analogy goes well with attempts to bridge the gulf between a belligerent China on the rise and a nail-chewing India on the lookout—and the pebbles are not smooth.

The 20th anniversary of China's brutal suppression of the Tiananmen uprising may have kept democracy wonks occupied across the world last week. Yet, the relationship between China and India, as they emerge from their colonial past to reclaim their economic trajectories and prosperity, could well be the biggest story of the so-called 'Asian Century'. It is a story of new global competition and old mutual suspicion, of economic growth yet diplomatic distance. Of dangerous unsettled borders and a potent arms race. It is a tale of international diplomacy trying to offset regional intrigues.

In other words, a new Great Game is playing out. It is apparent in China's encirclement of India through military aid, diplomatic support and manoeuvres to gain port access in the South Asian region. It is visible in remote oil fields and bauxites mines in Africa, where both compete. It is palpable even in Silicon Valley, as India cedes cyberspace to a newly computer-savvy China. Signs can be seen even on Indian shopshelves, as China storms the market with low-priced factory products on the back of a mighty manufacturing machine and an artificially cheap currency.

What, really, is India's counter plan?

Is there a China strategy at all?

These are worrying questions, and they demand hard answers. The thing is, China does not even consider India in the same league as itself. "India suffers from diplomatic myopia," says Bharat Karnad, national security expert at Delhi think-tank Centre for Policy Research, "China is a nation which recognises only the language of power. After the Pokhran II nuclear blasts, we had a window of opportunity to come level with China. However, we were too timid. India must assess the complexity and scope of Chinese power. The Chinese compete with us on all levels and this has to be recognised."

A recent example of that rivalry was the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver, where China tried till the very end to scupper India's admission to the nuclear club. That its opposition was a surprise reveals complete complacency on India's part. "We fell yet again for the verbal trap," rues a diplomat who was in Vienna for the NSG deal, "The Chinese assurances to our leaders counted for nothing at the table." Déjà vu 1962? As then, the reality now is sobering; it's Kissingerian. Think 'interests'. China has an interest in India's isolation. It would give it command of the Asian Theatre. This new Great Game has four aspects: economic, military, diplomatic and bilateral relations, particularly the vexed border question. India needs to define its options and work out how to calibrate its moves on each.

ECONOMIC DIMENSION
The great leap ahead of India that China has taken is relatively recent. In the late 1970s, both countries were roughly at par—closed and in poverty. They had little integration with the global economy. Controls on capital, investment and trade characterised both their economic profiles. But by 1980, China had initiated tentative reforms, with legitimacy given to once-secret (and successful) private farming, and allowances made for market incentives in other sectors. Investment and exports zoomed, and the country's economic emergence is now spoken of as a historic phenomenon. Never in the world have so many risen out of poverty so fast, ever.

With a 2008 GDP of $4.4 trillion, China is the world's third largest economy, and the fastest growing as well. With an investment rate of an annual 40 per cent of GDP, its growth has sizzled in double digits for two decades or more (dipping to high single digits only these past two years). Foreign direct investment has played a stellar role, a good $90 billion in 2008. And if those gleaming cities, superhighways, maglev trains and other infrastructural marvels aren't enough to boast of, China holds the world's largest cache of foreign currency reserves at $2 trillion.

India's $1.1 trillion economy is modest in comparison on every count. And with the country's GDP growth panting to get anywhere close, global analysts such as Parag Khanna are already saying the race is over. China has pulled itself far ahead, with no hope that India can catch up. To put this in perspective, China's exports alone at $1.4 trillion in 2008 are larger than India's GDP.

Optimists believe that China's success in goods exports to the West, which has spawned regional trade linkages within Asia, could boost India's own trade prospects. True, Sino-India trade has risen from just $2 billion in 2000 to over $35 billion in 2007. Yet, the terms of trade are distinctly neo-colonial, with India shipping raw materials such as iron ore, minerals, cotton and other commodities, and getting value-added products such as machinery and appliances. "The devil is in the details," says Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, "Sino-Indian trade is skewed in China's favour. In the first nine months of 2008, we had a trade deficit with China to the order of $9 billion."

If this were a simple matter of comparative advantage, each country delivering what it is relatively better at, it may still be okay. But Chinese policy distorts economics. It is known to deploy State resources towards export dominance, which gives its export factories a cost structure that's hard to match. Take its subsidy regime. "China is a threat because their legendary productivity has an opaque origin," says Rafeeque Ahmed, managing director of Farida, a Rs 580 crore leather export house, "The Chinese currency is still undervalued, its labour laws are not as restrictive as in India, and they have access to cheap capital as State-owned and quasi-State-owned enterprises there get loan write-offs as a matter of course."

India's commodity exports, meanwhile, "may be a short-term gain but it will result in long-term dependence on China", warns Sahai. What's worse, India is falling behind China in the global race to secure oil, gas and mineral assets overseas to fuel the blistering economic growth. Nowhere is this more in play than Africa. China does $40 billion of trade with the continent, most of it buying raw materials and fossil fuels. In Sudan, India and China have a rare partnership in the Greater Nile Oil Project, an oil venture in which China has 40 per cent stake and India's own ONGC Videsh has 25 per cent. However, China has 4,000 troops and support infrastructure on the ground, with no qualms about exercising its diplomatic clout in shielding the Sudanese regime (and its interests) from Western pressure over the Darfur crisis. China's voice has the backing of a gilt-edged fact: it is the US government's single largest creditor. When Chinese officials discuss the dollar's value, the world listens.

That's a measure of power projection, a concept alien to Indian diplomatic circles. Money talks. "India lacks the ready availability of domestic and foreign capital which is available in China," says Barry Bosworth, an expert of Sino-Indian economic relations at the Brookings Institution, a Washington DC think-tank, "It moves very slowly to strengthen infrastructure, and lags behind in creating opportunities for low-skilled labour. Both services and those parts of manufacturing where India does well tend to rely on high-skilled labour inputs. India needs to expand financial resources. Longer term, there is a need to fix a dysfunctional public education system."

In that, Bosworth touches upon India's great big hope: education. Free democracies tend to generate intellectual capital in large numbers, and so industries that use this as an input ought to spell an advantage for India. Yet, even in infotech exports, China is showing signs of success. It exports only $1 billion of the stuff, compared to India's $46 billion odd, but a 2007 report on the Chinese challenge by Nasscom says, 'IT in China is witnessing growth. Leading Chinese firms have reported above average growth rates of 40-50 per cent over the past few years. Venture capital investors have also announced significant investments demonstrating their conviction in the China IT-BPO story. Chinese firms are beginning to receive a steady stream of business enquiries from Western customers.' Clearly, India needs to get beyond the rhetoric on education.

THE BORDER QUESTION
As flashpoints go, the Sino-Indian border is potentially the most dangerous in the world. It's that one dispute between the two countries that could turn volatile at less than a moment's notice. India and China have held several rounds of high-level border talks, but nothing has come of it. The trouble can be traced to the 1962 war, in which India got a hiding from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). The humiliation has left India scared. So much so that the Government commissioned Henderson-Brooks report on the war is still a State secret. All that's known is what it did to Jawaharlal Nehru's earlier 'Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai' policy—made it a laughing stock.

The current scenario? India claims 10,000 sq km in the northern sector in the region of Aksai Chin, which is under Chinese control. On its part, China lays claim to all of Arunachal Pradesh in the eastern sector (apart from some nooks in the mid sector facing Uttarakhand). For China, Arunachal is 'Southern Tibet', a term increasingly used by Chinese foreign policy think-tanks. China not only refuses to recognise the McMahon Line, a border drawn by the British, it has made some 30 incursions into Indian territory here. It also flouts border decorum by refusing to authenticate the ground positions of its army stationed in the sector.

India had hoped that recognising Tibet as an 'autonomous part of China', during former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee's 2003 visit to Beijing, would cool relations down. If anything, China's position has hardened. "China clearly thinks it is in a position of advantage," says an Indian diplomat, "Its economic growth and military modernisation, as well as the issue with Taiwan, call for buying time on the India border question. This is exactly what it is doing."

In 1962, China had overrun all of Arunachal before it withdrew its forces. India fears a repeat. "India is in a humiliating position," says Karnad, "The more we postpone the border issue, the more ground we lose. Time is on China's side." As a pre-emptive measure, India has a massive development programme underway in Arunachal to minimise any local disaffection. "Make no mistake," says a Planning Commission official, "This is a mini Marshall Plan, a project to make Arunachal modern." Besides turning the state into a hydropower major, it could rouse local support and thus give India a bigger bargaining chip with China in settling the dispute. A comprehensive deal, though, may involve the forfeiture of Aksai Chin. What India wouldn't want is a test of force, since jaw-jaw is always better than war-war, though it would be foolish not to be prepared even for such an eventuality.

MILITARY IMBALANCE
The real asymmetry in the Sino-Indian relationship is the military one. In 2008, China boosted its defence budget by nearly 20 per cent to $57 billion, more than double of India's. And this is just over 1 per cent of the bigger country's GDP, which leaves room for further increases. From India's perspective, three aspects of the Chinese military upgradation are of particular concern. One, the beefing up of the PLA's rapid action forces. Two, the modernisation of the PLA Navy. And three, by far the scariest in this mad, mad, mad world, the deployment of its latest nuclear missiles.

Backed by new technology and railway supply lines, China has scaled up the presence of its rapid action special forces in Tibet that face India (under the PLA's 13th Army in the Chongdu region and augmented by the 52nd Brigade in nearby Linzi). By Indian intelligence estimates, these forces include tank brigades and rapid airlift capabilities as well as paratroopers. "The Chinese rapid action forces capacity has been significantly beefed up," says General VP Malik, former Chief of Army Staff, "It is a clear immediate challenge for our defence planners."

An equally pressing worry—the PLA Navy's designs in the Indian Ocean. Its new fleet of Russian destroyers and rejigged aircraft carriers may be seen as routine additions. But its new Jin-class nuclear submarines carry nuclear weapons, assuring it deterrent sea patrol capability for the first time. With its JL2 missiles, which can be shot off from under the sea, it can nuke any Subcontinental target.

What also makes India hot around the collar is China's plan for a missile base on Hainan Island, which would bring both the Pacific and Indian Ocean within strike range. Nuclear tipped or not, Chinese missiles have reached quite another quantum level. When China blasted a satellite to smithereens in mid-January 2007, for example, it was the US and Russia that sat up—the only two countries that had achieved such precision targeting in space. In the context of America's 'Star Wars' vision and more recent National Missile Defense shield, it signalled a new order of deterrence by China.

The latest in its arsenal is the Dong Feng 31, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 8,000 km, a solid-fueled, three-stage weapon that can hit targets in the US. For India, an even greater concern is the Dong Feng 21, stationed in Delingha near Tibet, that can strike anywhere in India given its 2,500 km range.

India, in contrast, has stumbled in its missile programme. While its test of the Agni III (range: 3,500 km) was a success, it is far from deployment stage. What's more, Indian missiles are designed for kilotonne payloads, while Chinese rockets can carry warheads of up to one megatonne, making the Agni look like a firecracker. To compound matters, military cooperation between China and Pakistan, even Bangladesh, is getting thicker. Myanmar is another question, and Nepal is slipping into Chinese influence. In all, India could find China running rings around it in South Asia. But then, in risk doth lie opportunity...

 

[ajtr]

The People's Republic of China's PLAN in the Indian and Pacific Oceans: The Game is Changing and the US is Now on the Defensive​

publication date: Sep 17, 2010
Previous |
Two warships of the People's Republic of China (PRC) People's Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) docked at a port in Myanmar on August 29, 2010, in the first publicized PLAN ship visit — but not the first actual PLAN visit — to Myanmar.

It was a move designed to help pre-position the PRC in its relations with Myanmar in the lead up to that country's upcoming national elections. The move also ended two decades of discreet PRC approaches to its naval presence in the Indian Ocean. It also follows the open PLAN task force presence in anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, and the now open commitment to use of the Pakistani Baluchistan port of Gwadar, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Significantly, although the PRC maintains itself as both a heartland and maritime power, it is aware that the great challenge to break out from US global strategic dominance is essentially a maritime matter. Given economic and other realities, the US will be forced to rely increasingly on the US Navy — and particularly the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific and Indian Oceans — to project US influence.

But Washington is also working to bolster its strategic relations with the Republic of Korea, the ASEAN states as a whole, and India. The crunch for the US will be in finding the economic resources to boost the US Navy's power projection advantages, particularly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

An Australian analyst, Dr Joel Rathus, of Adelaide University and Japan's Meiji University, has noted (in the East Asia Forum, August 28, 1010): "A re-alignment is steadily underway in East Asia. Increasingly, ASEAN (and Korea) are moving closer to the geographically distant US, while China is becoming more distant from its neighbors."

He also said: "China has seen the US and ASEAN draw closer on issues of major interest, such as the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Clinton's identification of this issue as a 'pivot' of regional security brings the United States back as a player after more than a decade of diplomatic passivity (to China's notable discomfort)."

Building, or re-building, the US Navy in the Pacific and Indian Ocean to its earlier pre-eminence will not be easy for the US, despite the apparent numerical dominance which the USN has in the regions in terms of air and naval striking power.

To begin with, the PLAN has already deployed assets which severely inhibit the US Seventh Fleet: the Kilo- and Improved Kilo-class submarines, and other modern submarines, which can readily penetrate USN anti-submarine warfare (ASW) pickets around carrier battle groups; and the shipborne SS-N-22 Sunburn (P-270 Moskit or 3M-80/-80E) supersonic anti-ship missiles, against which there is as yet no adequate defense.

Now, Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the US Pacific Command, has confirmed during August 2010 discussions in Tokyo, that the PLA was "close to becoming operational" with its anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), based on a variant of the CSS-5 medium-range (1,500 to 2,000 km) ballistic missile (also known as the DF-21).

The DF-21s have maneuverable warheads (MARVs: Maneuverable Re-Entry Vehicles), and the type has undergone testing. The yet-to-be-deployed DF-21D would, most US sources agree, be a game-changer in the Pacific, giving the PRC, not the US, control of the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) high ground. The PRC is highly conscious of the fact that control of the seas is foreseeably being removed from the US.

All of this potentially makes the US-Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan) strategic relationship of greatly renewed importance, but the US has gone out of its way in recent years to downplay this, even to the point of supporting the ROC Army's internal political lobbying to retain control of the ROC defense equation.

Right now, some 80 percent of the ROC's defense spending goes to the Army, which reflects the original "continental army" approach which the ROC had when it left the mainland and was positioning itself to return. That situation no longer prevails: the ROC is now an island, maritime power, which relies on sea transport for some 99 percent of its raw materials.

Despite this, the US — and even the US Naval War College analysts — have gone out of their way to promote a so-called "porcupine strategy" for the ROC, by which it would rely on the Army to repel a PRC invasion. Now, however, the US needs the ROC to develop its maritime and air power resources, which have long been neglected.

Mark Helprin, writing in The Wall Street Journal on August 15, 2010, noted that "If present military trends continue, the correlation of forces will shift much more to Beijing's advantage within the next decade." He continued:

"Lurking about the presidency in the guise of secretary of state, America's chief diplomat has embarked upon a mistake that someday may rival Dean Acheson's exclusion of Korea from the Pacific defense area, or April Glaspie's muddled words to Saddam Hussein.

At a regional meeting in Hanoi in late July, Hillary Clinton unveiled an initiative the effect of which is an attempt to forge a defensive alliance along the maritime perimeter, with nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Like her predecessor Acheson, Mrs. Clinton seems averse or blind to military analysis. Her inevitably stillborn South China Sea initiative is showy diplomacy that may lead either to a military clash with China or, more likely, a ratification of China's aims as the United States lets its implied guarantees die on the vine.

China's assertions in regard to the potentially oil rich and strategically important South China Sea are consistent, clear, and patently absurd. Based upon the questionable ownership of uninhabited rocks and shoals, some which do not rise above water and others roughly the size of a Volkswagen, it claims an area almost as large as the Caribbean Basin and as far as 1,800 miles from its nearest shoreline.

In linking America's national interests to those of the coastal states thus insulted, Mrs. Clinton's recent comments are commendable but insufficiently backed. China above all is sensitive to "paper-tigerism" and ready to challenge it, especially in regard to its essential interests and where the balance of applicable power is swinging in its favor. A naval battle in which China has the upper hand? Do we not have the most powerful military in the world?

We do, but strategic appraisal must not be one-dimensional. Although decisive to some, that this country spends more on defense than the next 14 countries combined is irrelevant to things such as the scope of its commitments, personnel costs, the willingness or reticence of allies, purchasing power parity, force structure, asymmetrical advantage and disadvantage, domestic politics, strategical genius, its absence, and many other factors including not least geography.

China fought us to a draw in Korea more than half a century ago. In Vietnam we stayed our hand for fear of drawing it into the battle, when its primitive navy was not even a tenth the size of ours, it had no nuclear weapons that could threaten us, and the Western Pacific was an American lake with a necklace of massive military installations now largely abandoned and an alliance structure we are at present trying to rebuild with words. Whittled down by successive administrations, the big stick now turns on the Obama lathe as it is pressed against the Gates knife. If present trends merely continue, in five or 10 years, when the U.S. will have to decide whether to challenge China's claims or acquiesce, the correlation of forces will have shifted much more to China's advantage. "

The PRC's anti-fleet capabilities are not the only concern which the US must face in the region. The Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is already deployed with the Indian fleet and the new BrahMos Block II — which is capable of more complex trajectory and maneuver — has now (as of September 5, 2010) been successfully tested. These various missiles, deployed by the PRC and India, have yet to see successful countermeasures deployed by the US Navy.

At present, the US has pursued an aggressive strategic campaign to provide strategic partnership to India, but in reality India cannot afford to abandon its relationship with Russia, even though New Delhi is aware that it must move its relationship with Russia to a new parity, abandoning the old Cold War paternalism with which Moscow treated India.

Moreover, India, while seeing accord with the US on dealing with the PRC, has its own strategic agenda to follow in the Indian Ocean, and this, too, is not necessarily in total accord with the objectives of Washington.

 

[ajtr]

cross-posting.....


Following is the blog of Mr. Rajaram with slideshow...

China's Multi-dimensional threat to India's National Interest​

​

The following is a presentation that I made to a private forum on China's multi-dimensional threat to India's national interests and security.

It takes into account an analysis of the Chinese threat in various dimensions of:

1. Geo Political
2. Military
3. Economic
4. Socio-cultural
5. Science & Technology

The idea is to present a holistic view of the challenges that we face from the inevitable competition between China and India.

The Chinese threat is real. The case for that is built on observable Chinese actions rather than offical or unofficial policy pronouncements. The fact that emerges very clearly is that from a Chinese perspective, India remains a potential threat to their national aspirations. The objective therefore is to box India into a Sub-regional context in South Asia. It is also true that their India policy is also a reflection of their own National Security and National Interest concerns.

The Chinese regime is principally propelled by the need to:

1. Maintain the Communist Party's hold on power
2. Ensure Economic Progress through Stability over all other considerations
3. Ensure the peaceful re-unification of Taiwan and the overall soverignity of the Chinese Nation State

The Indian response to the Chinese challenge is also discussed in this presentation. However, the overall picture that emerges is that we are at best reactive and under prepared. A policy of drift and a self imposed shackle in our minds tends to either over demonize China and over emphasize the Chinese strengths or completely deny the existential threat that China poses by its acitons.

The need of the hour is to get out of this directionless drift, clearly articulate a China policy and actively and assertively pursue our National Objectives. The government and the media have been doing a disservice to the nation by not taking the multi-dimensional threat that China poses seriously and preparing the nation to face this challenge

The country's interest is either being subsumed at the alter of international power politics for questionable gains or being given a very low priority. This must be stopped. This talk was a small effort in bringing in the awareness to concerned nationalistic minded citizens

slideshow​

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

Major saab the present political establishment is more looking for votes and taking care of their vote banks. They don't care about INDIA or the its citizens. Corrution is at its best in every aspect. Mainly in public contracts and even in defence contracts. The babus are filling their pockets and giving degraded materials to the public and defence personals. Until this vote bank politics and corruption comes to an end it is no need for any ohter country to declare war, instead INDIA shall breakdown on its own. Foolish political establishment. They are nothing but paisa babus.:angry_10:.
They don't have guts to defend or offend any enemy trying to bring down INDIA.....

 

[ajtr]

82 page CIA doc.

Global Governance 2025: at a Critical Juncture​

Global governance—the collective management of common problems at the international
level—is at a critical juncture. Although global governance institutions have racked up many
successes since their development after the Second World War, the growing number of issues on
the international agenda, and their complexity, is outpacing the ability of international
organizations and national governments to cope.
With the emergence of rapid globalization, the risks to the international system have grown to
the extent that formerly localized threats are no longer locally containable but are now
potentially dangerous to global security and stability. At the beginning of the century, threats
such as ethnic conflicts, infectious diseases, and terrorism as well as a new generation of global
challenges including climate change, energy security, food and water scarcity, international
migration flows, and new technologies are increasingly taking center stage.
Three effects of rapid globalization are driving demands for more effective global governance.
Interdependence has been a feature of economic globalization for many years, but the rise of
China, India, Brazil, and other fast-growing economies has taken economic interdependence to a
new level. The multiple links among climate change and resources issues; the economic crisis;
and state fragility—"hubs" of risks for the future—illustrate the interconnected nature of the
challenges on the international agenda today. Many of the issues cited above involve interwoven
domestic and foreign challenges. Domestic politics creates tight constraints on international
cooperation and reduces the scope for compromise.
The shift to a multipolar world is complicating the prospects for effective global governance
over the next 10 years. The expanding economic clout of emerging powers increases their
political influence well beyond their borders. Power is not only shifting from established powers
to rising countries and, to some extent, the developing world, but also toward nonstate actors.
Diverse perspectives and suspicions about global governance, which is seen as a Western
concept, will add to the difficulties of effectively mastering the growing number of challenges.
"¢ Brazilians feel there is a need for a redistribution of power from developed to developing
states. Some experts we consulted saw Brazil tending to like state-centered multilateralism.
"¢ Many of our Chinese interlocutors see mounting global challenges and fundamental defects
in the international system but emphasize the need for China to deal with its internal
problems. The Chinese envisage a "bigger structure" pulling together the various institutions
and groups that have been established recently. They see the G-20 as being a step forward
but question whether North-South differences will impede cooperation on issues other than
economics.

"¢ For participants from the Persian Gulf region, the question is what sort of global institutions
are most capable of inclusive power sharing. They bemoaned the lack of strong regional
organizations.
"¢ The Indians thought existing international organizations are "grossly inadequate" and
worried about an "absence of an internal equilibrium in Asia to ensure stability." They felt
that India is not well positioned to help develop regional institutions for Asia given China's
preponderant role in the region.
"¢ Russian experts we consulted see the world in 2025 as still one of great powers but with
more opportunities for transnational cooperation. The Russians worried about the relative
lack of "transpacific security." The United States, Europe, and Russia also have scope for
growing much closer, while China, "with the biggest economy," will be the main factor in
changing the world.
"¢ The South Africans assessed that globalization appears to be strengthening regionalization as
opposed to creating a single global polity. They worried that the losers from globalization
increasingly outnumber the winners.
In addition to the shift to a multipolar world, power is also shifting toward nonstate actors, be
they agents or spoilers of cooperation. On a positive note, transnational nongovernmental
organizations, civil-society groups, churches and faith-based organizations, multinational
corporations, other business bodies, and interest groups have been equally, if not more effective
than states at reframing issues and mobilizing publics—a trend we expect to continue. However,
hostile nonstate actors such as criminal organizations and terrorist networks, all empowered by
existing and new technologies, can pose serious security threats and compound systemic risks.
Many developing countries—which are likely to play an increasing role at the regional and
global level—also suffer from a relative paucity of nonstate actors, that could help newly
emerging states and their governments deal with the growing transnational challenges.
Global governance institutions have adapted to some degree as new issues have emerged, but the
adaptations have not necessarily been intentional or substantial enough to keep up with growing
demand. Rather, they have been spurred as much by outside forces as by the institutions
themselves.
The emergence of informal groupings of leading countries, such as the G-20; the prospects for
further regional cooperation, notably in East Asia; and the multiple contributions of nonstate
actors to international cooperation—although highly useful—are unlikely to serve as permanent
alternatives to rule-based, inclusive multilateral institutions. Multilateral institutions can deliver
public goods that summits, nonstate actors and regional frameworks cannot supply, or cannot do
so in a reliable way. Our foreign interlocutors stressed the need for decisions enjoying universal
legitimacy, norms setting predictable patterns of behavior based on reciprocity, and mutually
agreed instruments to resolve disputes and redress torts, such as in trade matters.
We assess that the multiple and diverse governance frameworks, however flexible, probably are
not going to be sufficient to keep pace with the looming number of transnational and global
challenges absent extensive institutional reforms and innovations. The capacities of the current
cumulate over time. Crises—so long as they are not overwhelming—may actually spur greater
innovation and change in the system. Inaction over the long term increases the risks of a
complete breakdown.
Scenario I: Barely Keeping Afloat
In this scenario, seen as the most likely one over the next several years, no one crisis will be so
overwhelming as to threaten the international system even though collective management
advances slowly. Crises are dealt with ad hoc and temporary frameworks or institutions are
devised to avert the most threatening aspects of them. Formal institutions remain largely
unreformed and Western states probably must shoulder a disproportionate share of "global
governance" as developing countries prevent disruptions at home. This future is not sustainable
over the longer term as it depends on no crisis being so unmanageable as to overwhelm the
international system.
Scenario II: Fragmentation
Powerful states and regions try to wall themselves off from outside threats. Asia builds a
regional order that is economically self-sufficient. Global communications ensure globalization
does not die, but it slows significantly. Europe turns its focus inward as it wrestles with growing
discontent with declining living standards. With a growing work force, the US might be in a
better position but may still be fiscally constrained if its budgetary shortfalls and long-term debt
problems remain unresolved.
Scenario III: Concert of Europe Redux
Under this scenario, severe threats to the international system—possibly a looming
environmental disaster or a conflict that risks spreading—prompt greater cooperation on solving
global problems. Significant reform of the international system becomes possible. Although
less likely than the first two scenarios in the immediate future, such a scenario might prove the
best outcome over the longer term, building a resilient international system that would step up
the level of overall cooperation on an array of problems. The US increasingly shares power
while China and India increase their burden sharing and the EU takes on a bigger global role. A
stable concert could also occur incrementally over a long period in which economic gaps shrink
and per capita income converges.
Scenario IV: Gaming Reality: Conflict Trumps Cooperation
This scenario is among the least likely, but the possibility cannot be dismissed. The international
system becomes threatening owing to domestic disruptions, particularly in emerging powers such
as China. Nationalistic pressures build as middle-class aspirations for the "good life" are
stymied. Tensions build between the United States and China, but also among some of the
BRICs as competition grows for secure resources and clients. A nuclear arms race in the Middle
East could deal an equally destabilizing blow to prospects for continued global growth.
Suspicions and tensions make reforming global institutions impossible; budding regional efforts,
particularly in Asia, also are undermined.

 

[ajtr]

From Third World country to third most powerful nation​

WASHINGTON: Hard as it is to imagine it amid the chaos of Commonwealth Games preparations in New Delhi and a million small mutinies across the country, an official US report has declared India to be the fourth most powerful nation/bloc in the world after the United States, China, and the European Union.

Issued jointly by the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) and the European Union's Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), the report "Global Governance 2025" says the United States remains the world's most powerful country in 2010, accounting for nearly 22 per cent of the global power.

It is followed by China (12 per cent), and India (eight per cent). Japan, Russia and Brazil with less than five per cent each. Taken as a bloc, European Union comes second with 16 per cent of global power.

But an "International Futures model" measuring GDP, defense, spending, population and technology for individual states projects the relative political and economic clout of many countries will shift by 2025. The power of the US, EU, Japan and Russia would decline while that of China, India and Brazil would increase, even though there would be no change in the power list.

By 2025, the United States' share of global power would decline from 22 per cent to 18 per cent, while China would rise up from 12 per cent to 16 per cent to displace EU (down to 14 per cent), making U.S and China as close 1-2. India will remain in third or fourth positions (depending on whether EU bloc is counted in or not) with its share of global power going up to ten per cent.

The 82-page report is the product of research and analysis by the NIC and EUISS following a series of international dialogues co-organized by the Atlantic Council, TPN, and other partner organizations in Beijing, Tokyo, Dubai, New Delhi, Pretoria, Sao Paulo & Brasilia, Moscow, and Paris with unnamed officials and strategic experts.

The report shows growing concern among Indian officials and analysts about China as they worry about an ''absence of an internal equilibrium in Asia to ensure stability.'' India, they concede, is not well positioned to help develop regional institutions for Asia given China's preponderant role in the region.

As a result, the report says, India is primarily interested in transforming global governance institutions. ''The Indians thought existing international organizations are 'grossly inadequate' to deal with mounting challenges...Many hoped the United States would continue to be very much part of the Asian region as a political, economic, and military power,'' the report observes.

It also cites some Indian experts fearing that a system developed by the West, which includes democracy and rule of law, would suffer as the East (read China) becomes more powerful. ''It would be a pity if the West does not hang together to influence the future,'' an Indian interlocutor is quoted as saying.

Read more: From Third World country to third most powerful nation - The Times of India From Third World country to third most powerful nation - The Times of India

 

[Patriot]

Clarifying India's Strategic Doctrine

Ali Ahmed

October 25, 2010

India's strategic doctrine not being available in written form has led to the impression that India lacks one. The next step in the criticism is that this is evidence that India lacks a strategic culture. India's emerging great power status refutes such criticism. The critique has its origin in well-intentioned circles of the strategic community desiring that India do 'more' for security. The dissonance was in evidence during the Golden Jubilee seminar of India's National Defence College on 'The Role of Force in Strategic Affairs'.

Cumulatively, the addresses by Prime Minister, Defence Minister and the National Security Adviser explicated India's strategic doctrine. The strategic doctrine is in keeping with the tenets of defensive realism. Formal speeches are useful for expounding on strategic doctrine, as indeed was the case at the seminar. The doctrine however itself should be available in the form of a National Security Strategy document or white paper as is the case in some other countries. That this is not so in India's case makes for dissonance in understanding what it is exactly, leading to some of the charges eventually sticking.

The advantages of a written doctrine are many. Firstly, it serves as a "First Step", since strategic doctrine informs grand strategy and military doctrine. The latter is central to the military planning and acquisition process. Secondly, it makes a State's actions predictable. This is useful for reassuring neighbours, including adversaries. Thirdly, it lends a center to the strategic debate.

In case strategic doctrine is diffuse, as is the danger in India's case, then the deliberations of the strategic community resemble those of the famous 'blind men of Hindoostan' huddling around an elephant. In other words, the elephant first needs to be identified. Criticism is only useful when well-grounded.

On all three counts, there is scope for improvement. There is also a long-standing and valid position that defence planning suffers in the absence of official articulation of strategic doctrine. The force planning and acquisition process lacks a starting point. It is no wonder that the HQs IDS has listed the formulation of a draft national security strategy, forwarded to the Ministry in 2007, among its achievements. The draft NSS has not exited the apex system as a finished product yet. Successive National Security Advisory Boards, beginning with the first headed by K. Subrahmanyam till the extant one whose period expires this year, have engaged in this exercise. Governments of different hues have declined to place on record exactly where they stand.

The follow-on military doctrinal process suffers, already problematic because of the absence of a CDS. The outcome, as suggested by Ashok Mehta in a piece in the Tribune (13 October 2010), is that 'Each service does its future planning singly and not as an integrated whole to achieve a collective capability. Service Chiefs look out for clues about strategic aspirations from prime ministerial speeches at the combined commanders' conferences and other heady occasions.'

The strategic doctrine, as read into the speeches mentioned, reasonably has as its aim a stable strategic environment in which India can progress its economic trajectory. 'Cold Start' and 'two front' thinking appear to militate against this. If there is dissonance within, it could give rise to "apprehensions" externally, with adversaries being quick to perceive 'threats' and using their 'apprehensions' to further their respective "national security". For instance, Pakistan has used 'Cold Start' as an excuse for not shifting forces to their western border. The Indian Army Chief in an interview has lately had to downplay Cold Start. How much American interlocutors had to do with this is a matter of current speculation.

The second, 'two front' formulation, is understandable in terms of the institutional predilection of militaries in general to prepare for the 'worst case' scenario. A strategic doctrine contained in a Strategic Defence Review has utility in providing an assessment of the probability of such a scenario. The scramble to prepare for the 'two front' scenario would then not end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy in triggering a neighbour's insecurities.

The third point, on dangers of a lack of a center, is best illustrated by the discussions at the seminar on the implications of a policy of defensive realism. Defensive realism posits use of force as the last resort and with a defensive purpose. This is in keeping with India's non-expansionist philosophy and position as a status quo power. This does not imply that once force is resorted to, it would only be on one's own territory and defensively at that. The doctrine does not preclude offensive employment of the military. At the NDC seminar, the spin placed by critics was that the strategic doctrine enunciated implied only a defensive military doctrine. This straw-man was then energetically attacked. Had the strategic doctrine been formally explicated elsewhere, then such attacks could have been avoided. The danger is that the vociferous strategic community could drive the government to over-compensate; fearing criticism that it is not 'doing enough' on defence, it may venture further in a direction than it may originally have intended.

This brings out the last, but most significant issue. India's is a defensible strategic doctrine for an emerging power. It preserves India from becoming a player in the incipient contest between the US and China. It protects prioritization of economic development and stability. It preserves the domestic space from any buffeting from the stand off between the West and Islam. It is in keeping with India's strategic culture of 'resolve and restraint' (VR Raghavan).

However, from India's defence acquisition and doctrinal direction that bespeaks of an extra-territorial military capability, it would appear that India also has a strategic doctrine in incubation for a middle term future in which it sees itself as a player of consequence. The 'professed doctrine' tides India over the interim as it builds up the economic indices of power. The latter - 'incubatory doctrine' - is for preparing for the future in which as a regional player and nascent great power, India would require sharing the global strategic burden. The problem appears to be that the military is taking its cues from India's 'aspirations' (Mehta), rather than its objectives grounded in current reality.

This takes India back by a decade and half when the Standing Committee on Defence queried the government on strategic doctrine. It is surprising that the famous answer given by the defence secretary then remains true today: 'But all the elements of the doctrine are well known and have been incorporated from our constitution downwards. There have been several publications. There have been policy pronouncements by Ministers in Parliament. So, our national security doctrine is well known and the absence of a written document"¦does not create any confusion or lack of clarity in this matter. I however accept that we do not publish it as a document as such.' Post the reforms pursuant to the GOM report, there is little excuse for this. This would certainly have to change by the time India gets to its 'incubatory doctrine'. That it is creating dissonance in its 'professed doctrine' now should be reason for the change to begin today. The NSCS has its task cut out on this score.





http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ClarifyingIndiasStrategicDoctrine_aahmed_251010

 

[ajtr]

Militant China Divides Asia​

Asia's festering Cold War-era territorial and maritime disputes highlight the fact that securing long-term, region-wide peace depends on respect for existing borders. Attempts to disturb Asia's territorial status quo are an invitation to endemic conflict. The recent Sino-Japanese diplomatic spat over disputed islands in the South China Sea-followed, almost instantly, by a Sino-Vietnamese row over similar atolls- has put the spotlight back on China, which is pursuing a more muscular policy on territorial claims against neighbours stretching from Japan to India. Even against tiny Bhutan, China has stepped up its land claims through military incursions.

China's new stridency underscores Asia's central diplomatic challenge: coming to terms with existing boundaries by shedding the baggage of history that burdens all of the region's important inter-state relationships. Even as Asia is becoming more interdependent economically, it is becoming more politically divided.

A number of inter-country wars have been fought in Asia since 1950, the year both the Korean War and the annexation of Tibet started. But whereas Europe's bloody wars in the first half of the 20th century have made war there unthinkable today, the wars in Asia in the second half of the same century, far from settling or ending disputes, only accentuated bitter rivalries.

China, significantly, has been involved in the largest number of military conflicts in Asia. A recent Pentagon report is unsparing: "The history of modern Chinese warfare provides numerous case studies in which China's leaders have claimed military pre-emption as a strategically defensive act. For example, China refers to its intervention in the Korean War (1950-1953) as the "War to Resist the United States and Aid Korea". Similarly, authoritative texts refer to border conflicts against India (1962), the Soviet Union (1969), and Vietnam (1979) as "Self-Defence Counter Attacks". The seizure of the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974 by Chinese forces was another example of offense as defence.

All these cases of pre-emption occurred when China was weak, poor, and internally torn. So the growing power of today's China naturally raises legitimate concerns. Having earlier preached the gospel of its "peaceful rise", China no longer is shy about showcasing its military capabilities and asserting itself on multiple fronts. With the Chinese Communist Party increasingly dependent on the military to maintain its monopoly on power and ensure domestic order, senior military officers are overtly influencing foreign policy. The result is a growing territorial assertiveness, which has become a source of new friction along China's land and sea frontiers. That, in turn, has put China at the centre of Asia's political divides.

Several incidents this year underscore this development, from its inclusion of the South China Sea in its "core" national interests-a move that makes its claims to the disputed Spratly Islands non-negotiable-to its reference to the Yellow Sea as a sort of exclusive Chinese military-operations zone where Washington and Seoul, respecting the new Chinese power, should discontinue holding joint naval exercises.

China also has become more insistent in pressing its territorial claims both to India's Arunachal Pradesh and to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, with Chinese military incursions into India rising and Chinese warships making more frequent forays into Japanese waters. China has found new ways to question Indian sovereignty over the state of Jammu and Kashmir, one-fifth of which it has occupied.

Beijing's 2004 spat with South Korea over the ancient kingdom of Koguryo-triggered by a revised historical claim posted on the Chinese foreign ministry's website that the empire, founded in the Tongge river basin of northern Korea, was Chinese, not Korean-was seen as an attempt to hedge China's options vis-Ã -vis a potentially unified Korea. By signalling that the present China-North Korea border may not be final, Beijing has raised the spectre of potential tensions over frontiers in the future.

Respect for boundaries is a prerequisite to peace. More importantly, a self-touted peaceful rise and unilateral redrawing of frontiers don't mix.

--Chellaney is the author, most recently, of Asian Juggernaut (HarperCollins)

 

[ajtr]

Uncle Sam, energy and peace in Asia​

By M K Bhadrakumar

In the Orient, offspring don't rebuke parents, even if the latter are at fault - especially in the post-Soviet space where Marxian formalism continues to prevail as political culture. The sort of stern public rebuke bordering on short shrift that Ashgabat administered to Moscow is extraordinary.

But then, Moscow tested Turkmen patience by trying to create confusion about Ashgabat's policy of positive "neutrality" - building energy bridges to the West alongside its thriving cooperation with Russia and China.

On Thursday, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry bluntly rejected any role for Russia in the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, commonly known as TAPI. Ashgabat alleged that Moscow is spreading calumnies and



expressed the hope that "future statements by Russian officials will be guided by a sense of responsibility and reality".

The reference was to a friendly and seemingly helpful statement by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (who accompanied President Dmitry Medvedev to the Turkmen capital last weekend) that Russian participation in the TAPI figured in the latest Russian-Turkmen summit talks and "Gazprom may participate in this project in any capacity - builder, designer, participant, etc ... If Gazprom becomes a participant, then we will study possibilities of working in gas sales."

The Turkmen Foreign Ministry said, "Turkmenistan views such statements as an attempt to hamper the normal course of our country's cooperation in the energy sector and call into question its obligations to its partners." It added that there was "no agreement whatsoever" regarding Russian participation in the TAPI.

The TAPI presents a knot of paradoxes and the Russians who hold the pulse of the Central Asian energy scene would have sensed by now that Uncle Sam is close to untying the knot, finally, after a decade-and-a-half of sheer perseverance. The TAPI falls within the first circle of the Caspian great game. When it appears that Russia all but checkmated the United States and the European Union's plans to advance trans-Caspian energy projects bypassing Russia, a thrust appears from the south and east opening up stunning possibilities for the West.

Russia promptly began slouching toward the TAPI - which, incidentally, was originally a Soviet idea but was appropriated by the United States no sooner than the USSR disintegrated - against the backdrop of renewed interest in the project recently among regional powers amid the growing possibility that Afghan peace talks might reconcile the Taliban and that despite the Kashmir problem, Pakistan and India wouldn't mind tangoing.

The TAPI pipeline runs on a roughly 1,600-kilometer route along the ancient Silk Road from Turkmenistan's fabulous Dauletabad gas fields on the Afghan border to Herat in western Afghanistan, then onto Helmand and Kandahar, entering Pakistan's Quetta and turning east toward Multan, and ending up in Fazilka on the Indian side of Pakistan's eastern border. An updated Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimate of 2008 put the project cost for the pipeline with an output of 33 bcm annually at $7.6 billion.

The signals from Ashgabat, Kabul, Islamabad and New Delhi in recent weeks uniformly underscored that the TAPI is in the final stage of take-off. India unambiguously signed up in August. On Wednesday, the Pakistan government gave approval to the project at a cabinet meeting in Islamabad. The ADB is open to financing the project and is expected to be the project's "secretariat".

As things stand, there could be a meeting of the political leaderships of the four participating countries in December to formally kick-start the TAPI.

The commencement of the TAPI is undoubtedly a defining moment for Turkmenistan (which is keen to diversify export routes), for Afghanistan (which hopes to get $300 million as transit fee annually and an all-round economic spin-off) and for Pakistan and India (which face energy shortages).

However, the geopolitics trumps everything else. For the first time in six decades, India and Pakistan are becoming stakeholders in each other's development and growth - and it is taking place under American watch. The rapprochement would positively impact the Afghan chessboard where Pakistan and India are locked in a futile, utterly wasteful zero-sum game.

NATO enters energy business
The most important geopolitical factor, perhaps, is that the US is the "ideologue" of the project and its Great Central Asia strategy - aiming at rolling back Russian and Chinese influence in the region and forging the region's links with South Asia - is set to take a big step forward.

India and Pakistan, traditional allies of Russia and China, are in essence endorsing the Great Central Asia strategy. It signifies a tectonic shift in the geopolitics and immensely strengthens the US's regional policies. India and Pakistan are becoming stakeholders in a long-term US presence in the region.

Equally, NATO is set to take on the role of the provider of security for the TAPI, providing the alliance an added raison d'etre for its long-term presence in Central Asia. NATO's role in energy security has been under discussion for some time. Russia used to robustly contest the concept, but its thoughts are mellowing as the reset with the US gains traction.

Broadly, the NATO position was outlined by the alliance's former secretary general Jaap de Hoop Schaffer in January last year when he said:
Protecting pipelines is first and foremost a national priority. And it should stay like that. NATO is not in the business of protecting pipelines. But when there's a crisis, or if a certain nation asks for assistance, NATO could, I think, be instrumental in protecting pipelines on land.
Clearly, the long-term "strategic cooperation" agreement between NATO and Karzai's government which is expected to be signed at the alliance's summit in Lisbon on November 19 now assumes an altogether profound meaning.

Besides, the TAPI is also a "Western" project, as several NATO countries involved in Afghanistan's stabilization - the US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Norway - are also members of the ADB and TAPI is piloted by the US and Japan, two major shareholders in the ADB.

More important, the BP Statistical Review 2009 puts Turkmenistan's known gas reserves so far at a staggering 7.94 trillion cubic meters (TCM). A 2008 audit of the gigantic South Yolotan-Osman field in western Turkmenistan by the UK firm Gaffney, Cline & Associates estimated the reserves of this field alone at anywhere between 4 to 14 TCM of gas. Many more fields in Turkmenistan are yet to be audited. Without doubt, the propaganda that Turkmenistan lacks gas reserves to supply markets beyond Russia and China stands exposed.

And the curious part is that South Yolotan-Osman - and the gas reserves in Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan - can be linked to the TAPI and a TAPI branch line can be very easily extended from Quetta to the Pakistani port of Gwadar, in which case Europe can finally tap Central Asian energy reserves directly, dispensing with the Russian middleman.

Obama has style
Quite obviously, the TAPI meshes well with the Afghan endgame. Karzai used to work for Unocal before he surfaced in Kabul as a statesman in 2001, and Unocal originally promoted TAPI in the mid-1990s. "Good" Taliban were all along enthusiastic about the TAPI project provided the US traded with them as Afghan interlocutors.

The US initially warmed up to the Taliban in the early 1990s as a stabilizing factor that could put an end to the chaotic mujahideen era and help facilitate the transportation of the Caspian and Central Asian energy to the world market via Pakistani ports. Senior Taliban officials were hosted by the US State Department and things were indeed going spectacularly well until militant "Arab fighters" began influencing the Taliban leadership and spoiled everything.

The Americans dithered far too long in according recognition to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden grabbed the window of opportunity. Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that the contacts continued all the way up to the eve of the al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks.

The "good" Taliban are in business again. NATO aircraft ferry them to Kabul so that they can urgently talk peace.

From the beginning, the US saw the TAPI's potential to bring Pakistan and India together and also bind the two South Asian adversaries to it, thus providing an underpinning to its overall Asian strategy. Moscow and Beijing would have a sense of unease about what is unfolding. The recent Moscow commentaries display some irritation with New Delhi. Last weekend there was an unusually preachy opinion-piece on India's "Chechnya" - Kashmir.

The plain truth is that the TAPI revives the Silk Road, which can also unlock Afghanistan's multi-trillion dollar untold mineral wealth and transport the hidden treasures to Gwadar port for shipment to faraway lands.

If George W Bush were handling Barack Obama's job today, he would probably thread into his forthcoming November visit to New Delhi a regional summit where the TAPI gets formalized as a historic American initiative in regional cooperation.

But that isn't Obama's style - descending from the skies wearing a windbreaker and proclaiming premature victory from the deck of an aircraft carrier. He trusts "smart power".

Obama would intellectualize the TAPI as the harbinger of peace in one of the most destitute regions on the planet - which it indeed is. He would then probably sit down and explain that what seems a setback in the Caspian great game is ultimately for China's and Russia's larger good. A "stable" Afghanistan is in their interests, after all.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

 

[ajtr]

China Fears Spark Indo-US Courting​

Defence co-operation between India and the United States is growing. But delays on two military deals could put the brakes on.

When the US Navy and Indian forces held their annual bilateral amphibious training exercise in late September, it got little attention from the international media. It was, after all, a relatively small, joint tabletop exercise between the two nations.

But the interesting thing about Exercise Habu Nag was not in the manoeuvres that were being executed, nor their size. It was all about the location—in the waters off Japan's Okinawa, just as Sino-Japanese tensions were rising over a maritime territorial dispute.

Indeed, it's fitting that the issue of China again loomed so large over the exercises, because it has been Chinese criticism that in the past couple of years has deterred India from engaging fully with the United States in this way.

Habu Nag is only one of the 35 joint exercises conducted by the Indian and the US armed forces over the past five years. But it marked a noticeable shift even from last year, when the Indian Ministry of Defence refused to grant permission for similar participation by an Indian contingent in an exercise with the United States.

India's hesitation in 2009 partly stemmed from Beijing's very vocal protest in 2007 after the US, Indian, Australian, Japanese and Singaporean navies staged the unprecedented Malabar Exercise in the Bay of Bengal, manoeuvres that China saw as part of an attempt at encirclement.

But with India deciding this year to set such concerns aside, Habu Nag saw a week's worth of training that involved the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2). As part of the exercise, officers from the Indian Army's lone amphibious brigade and Indian Navy embarked on the ship to observe the US Marine Corps in action, with a view to enhancing bilateral interoperability, including humanitarian assistance and disaster response between US and Indian officers.

'A key aspect is that the US has Marines embedded with Navy staff, doing jobs for the Navy that are Marine Corps oriented and vice versa,' Lt Col Evan Holt, a US Marine liaison officer who worked with the Indian officers, was quoted as saying. 'We want to demonstrate how two different services with two different goals mesh their operations and personnel to complete those goals.'

Cmdr Gagan Kaushal, of the Indian Navy, noted for his part that the exercise gave India the chance to see for itself up close how the US military works.
So what prompted the Indian change of heart this year?

For a start, Beijing and New Delhi aren't exactly on the best of terms right now, despite exponentially rising bilateral trade between the two. Military exchanges between the two countries are currently on hold following Beijing's refusal to allow a top Indian Army general to visit China. Beijing cited his posting in Jammu and Kashmir, an area China deems disputed territory between India and Pakistan, as the reason for its decision. Meanwhile, China has also refused to abandon its policy of issuing paper visas to citizens of Jammu and Kashmir, despite vociferous Indian protests.

Against this backdrop, the long border between the two countries remains unsettled and prone to misunderstandings, accidents and standoffs. Yet any confrontation between India and China isn't likely to come on land—it is much more likely to occur in the Indian Ocean Region and South China Sea. For, while Beijing doesn't even accept Indian pre-eminence in the Indian Ocean region, New Delhi is itself pushing its way into the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea—an area Beijing regards as a core interest.

Understanding Sino-India tensions is essential if trying to make sense of Indo-US defence ties. Washington, still the dominant naval power in the Asia-Pacific, understands that its primacy will sooner or later be challenged by an increasingly assertive China. The United States is therefore looking at a rising India as a stable, reliable partner to provide strategic balance in Asia.

The signs of co-operation between India and the United States, both in the present and for the future, are increasingly evident. Currently, more than 100 officers from India train in various higher defence institutions in the United States each year, while the US typically sends dozens of officers to India to get a sense of Indian operational philosophy and counter-insurgency strategies.

For the past half a decade, India's famed Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare (CIJW) School has been a favoured stop for various US infantry battalions going into operations in Afghanistan, and before that in Iraq. India, which has more than five decades' experience tackling internal insurgencies, has much to offer in terms of tactical advice.

But defence co-operation has been extending past training and war games. The United States' gigantic military-industrial complex, actively supported by the Pentagon, is aggressively trying to sell several new and not-so-new military platforms to the Indian armed forces.

The USS Trenton, a decrepit amphibious ship, was the first such platform bought by the Indian Navy, in 2007, for the 'throwaway' price of $50 million.

But that was just a start.

In the past three years, India has placed orders for six heavy-lift military transport planes C-130J, the first of which are to be handed over to the Indian Air Force next month. Additionally, India has also contracted Boeing to supply eight 737-derivative P-8i Poseidon long range maritime patrol aircraft. The contract, concluded in January 2009, was originally worth $2.1 billion.

And now, on the eve of President Barack Obama's visit to India, Washington has been pressing India to purchase US military hardware worth in excess of $13 billion. Who gets a piece of this Indian pie will largely depend on which fighter aircraft the Indian Air Force decides to buy to shore up its fast depleting combat jet strength—US firms Lockheed Martin and Boeing are among six foreign companies that have bid for the $11 billion fighter jet deal.

Another deal hanging in the balance is $3.5 billion worth 10 C-17 Globemaster planes for the Indian Air Force.

Between the combat jets bid and the C-17 offer, the latter is likely to be concluded faster, since India's defence minister, AK Antony, reportedly prefers government-to-government military sales under the 'Foreign Military Sales' programme that the US often offers friendly countries. Antony, a careful, probity-obsessed politician, is known to prefer this route to avoid any hint of the corruption that's so often a staple of multi-vendor bids for large military contracts.

That said, he has so far resisted US pressure to sign what the Americans called two 'enabling' agreements: the Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA). CISMOA entails the laying down of protocols for interoperability and assuring the security of communication between the armed forces of the two countries, while the LSA would allow the armed forces of the two countries to procure fuel and supplies from each other's facilities.

India's refusal to sign them has been an ongoing frustration for the Americans, while India for its part is annoyed that failure to do so would mean the platforms would have to be divested of cutting-edge electronics.

The question now is whether Obama's visit will be able to help resolve what are, in strategic terms, 'minor' irritants in Indo-US defence cooperation. If some path to a solution is found, it will allow the two countries to build on the defence friendship they've rekindled, and allow them the scope to create an effective counter-balance to an increasingly assertive China.

Nitin Gokhale is Security and Strategic Affairs Editor for NDTV, one of India's leading broadcasters.