International Relations
in THE AGE OF EMPIRE
India Grapples with the Obama
Era
M K Bhadrakumar
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.
Courtesy Asia Times,21 February
2009
"...a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's
elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W
Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that
the US regarded India as the preponderant power in
South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape
up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily.
..Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush
administration encouraged India to put faith in a
quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US,
Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set
the rules for China's behavior in the region. According
to reports, State Department officials had originally
proposed that India be included in the itinerary of
Hillary Clinton's current first official tour abroad,
but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant
every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign
Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China
will be the most important bilateral relationship in
the world in this century". In a major speech at the
Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking
on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the
United States and China can benefit from and contribute
to each other's successes. It is in our interests to
work harder to build on areas of common concern and
shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive
dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with
China."
[see also Nadesan Satyendra on US -
India - China: Changing Dynamics & an Emerging Bi
Polar World - a 10 minute read ]
What prompted the spokesman of India's
ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat
Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W
Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its
highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of
whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a
balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the
air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who
formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic
partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation
was setting out from the United States for India to pay
homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of
non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in
turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US
President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special
ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a
reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice
has always been and continues to be a global mission; it
knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing
India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way.
Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first
American delegation to visit India after Obama took
office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama
"demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation?
"Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India
relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent
years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises
with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New
Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George
W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that
the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South
Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be
a viable counterweight to China militarily. The
expectation was that the US would extricate India from
the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by
arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush
administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the
country's emergence as a global player. They began
working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as
Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find
themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's
nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency.
First, Indian strategists seriously
underestimated the military stalemate that was
developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent
acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation.
This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan
affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian
strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of
the global financial crisis that erupted last year.
They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would
fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed
Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New
American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what
Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian
skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies
remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment
concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work
within the box, hemmed in by America's political,
foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to
see that the US's capacity to sustain its global
dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated
radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week
offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed
US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard
Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's
support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become
critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it
appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the
political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached
beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan.
Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no
choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period,
as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading
to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation
increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones
operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely
Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's
acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great
latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian
strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's
preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly,
India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for
the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a
troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining
moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line.
From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can
well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he
gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still
in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a
crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General
Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to
Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to
antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to
keep tensions under check in its relations with
Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's
new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's
China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic
calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly
two to three years ago, the Bush administration
encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance
of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India
- that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior
in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had
originally proposed that India be included in the
itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour
abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton
meant every word of what she wrote last year in her
Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with
China will be the most important bilateral relationship
in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last
Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton
said, "We believe that the United States and China can
benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It
is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of
common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for
a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with
China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as
saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the
first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely
focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is
easily comprehensible.
The US needs to have new opportunities to
export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to
accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it
should convince China to keep investing its money in
America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story
insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent
relationship is commencing where the two countries become
equal partners in crisis. This was simply
unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national
intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate
intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine
balance when he said,
While the United States must understand China's military
buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication
and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the
intelligence community also needs to support policymakers
who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese
leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of
us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit
as well as contribute to the common good. However, this
is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In
the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean
just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese
President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on
Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa.
Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid
package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded
as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No
doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a
country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are
people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces
an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40
million migrant workers may lose their jobs this
year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added
platform between China and Africa from where its
entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has
convinced the Indian strategic community about China's
"encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian
right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything
but ordinary .. It underscores Beijing's relentless
thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the
western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come
at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the
principal external security partner of Mauritius all
these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the
shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the
Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of
adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India
needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the
India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of
growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both
countries that the relationship is in each other's vital
interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in
the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given
the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama
administration will be constrained to correct the Bush
administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when
rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include
the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian
sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to
curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to
seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions
in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater
attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of
course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more
flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling
that India took unilateral advantage from the relative
four-year calm in their relationship without conceding
anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television
personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's
former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed
what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through
back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had
reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such
as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two
years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan
to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side
apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer
bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum
dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come
when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have
actually signed it, and that would have created the right
atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly
the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the
right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at
some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem
by way of addressing the core issues of regional
security. The Bush administration had been kept
constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel
discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting
from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes
problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing
so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such
highly delicate discussions involving joint
India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have
reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival
in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on
the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount
pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward
on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall
interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to
New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media
fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush
administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under
quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New
Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and
predictability of the Bush era.
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