Review of Bharat Karnad, Why India is not a great powerr (yet)

Book: Why India is not a Great Power (Yet)
Author: Bharat Karnad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 552 
Price: 875

 

Among Indians writing on strategic affairs, Bharat Karnad occupies a distinct position, one that he has carved out for himself, by being an offensive realist. In his scheme of things, the international system is an anarchic entity where each state relentlessly pursues its national interests and big powers are locked in a struggle to be number one.

Karnad wants India to be number one, but as the title of the book suggests, we are some way from getting there. The purpose of this book is to explore the reasons for India’s weaknesses and suggest ways it can become a truly great power. In the first stage, Karnad wants India to become the great disruptor of the international system, much in the way China has been in the last two decades. Whether his remedies will be worse than the disease, of course, only history will tell, but first I would advise you to read this important and cogently argued book.

India has never known Napoleons and Alexanders, though it has been the object of their desire. The reason is that the famous diversity of the Indian people has ensured that anyone who established his empire in this country had to constantly fight to preserve his gains, rather than export military power. The British, of course, were an exception, but don’t forget when they left, the country was divided into two. Consistent with his analysis, Karnad argues that India must follow a policy of trying to co-opt Pakistan into its subcontinental strategy and focus on the real adversary — China.

The book provides a pitiless analysis of how things have gone wrong with independent India. Karnad’s analysis of Nehru’s long era is more subtle than the crude critiques we are used to these days. But he is quite unforgiving of Indira Gandhi who hobbled the country through her economic policies and undermined Nehru’s clever non-alignment. His principal villains are bureaucrats and policymakers, several of whom he cites and has interviewed.

At the heart of the problem, and he states it repeatedly, is the lack of an Indian “great power” vision and the strategy to achieve it. I would argue that along with this, there is an acute lack of political leadership which can outline this vision, as contrasted with the fantastic ways it is being articulated by Narendra Modi and his acolytes. Hindutva politicians who have come to power with Modi are functionally literate, but uneducated and probably uneducatable.

Sure, they have views on the greatness of Bharatvarsha and its stupendous achievements, but their problem is that they cannot separate myth from reality. They have a steady eye on the half-mythical past which reduces their vision of the future to crude assertion rather than analytical fact.

Looking back is not the answer, looking ahead is. Many of Karnad’s nostrums such as a more focused strategic policy, a more expansive and intensive Indian Ocean posture, uniting the subcontinent under Indian economic leadership, are well taken, though trying to undo the failed thermonuclear test could be a costly distraction. Karnad has his point of view and he has articulated it with great vigour. He has for long swum against the tide in the Indian context and deserves credit for the intellectual rigour of his writings.

A checklist he provides seems to suggest that India’s path to being a great power will be overly militaristic — the assertion of an Indian Monroe doctrine, the resumption of thermonuclear testing, establishing military bases abroad, arming Vietnam, building a military-industrial complex, enhancing cooperation with the US and its allies and so on. He believes that India has the resources to be an outward thrusting power, but this is questionable. Whether it is Central or South-east Asia or Africa, India’s investment and trade volume is a fraction of that of China.

Then, there is the challenge in demanding the attention of all the resources we have. The 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) revealed the shocking extent of poverty in India. In nearly 75 per cent of the rural households, the main earning member earns less than Rs 5,000 a month; over half of the rural households’ main income is from casual manual labour and a third of rural India remains illiterate. Military power must always be a function of national economic power, not the other way around. Not for nothing was military modernisation the last of the “Four Modernisations” in China.

Before India becomes a great power, it must be a nation of Indians. Even now, the politics of the country revolves around religious, ethnic, caste and linguistic identities, which may be natural but are also dangerously divisive. It is not just communal or caste violence: states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka war over water, and Telangana and Andhra over history. Without an emphatic national identity, asserting a greater Indian vision and strategy will not be easy.

The basic premise of Karnad’s book is that Modi is the leader who can lead the transformation. But some of Modi’s confused policy lines are no different from those of his predecessors whom Karnad so harshly criticises. Take China, Modi has led India into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, even as he has articulated a common Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean vision with Japan and the US.

Karnad’s bottom line is that India’s policies are correctable and he is probably right. But they cannot be corrected by a set of bureaucrats. For that the country requires not just an inspired prime minister, but a dozen good ministers and chief ministers who will systematically transform their respective ministries and states. The first big weaknesses of the Modi system is its reliance on the bureaucracy, which is good for carrying out the tasks it has been set, but is not capable of leading a transformation. Besides, there is the question of national stamina. We need at least three decades of sustained transformative effort, and given our challenges, things do not look easy. But, at least, we could make a beginning.

Indian Express November 21 2015

Book: Why India is not a Great Power (Yet)
Author: Bharat Karnad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 552 
Price: 875
Among Indians writing on strategic affairs, Bharat Karnad occupies a distinct position, one that he has carved out for himself, by being an offensive realist. In his scheme of things, the international system is an anarchic entity where each state relentlessly pursues its national interests and big powers are locked in a struggle to be number one.

Karnad wants India to be number one, but as the title of the book suggests, we are some way from getting there. The purpose of this book is to explore the reasons for India’s weaknesses and suggest ways it can become a truly great power. In the first stage, Karnad wants India to become the great disruptor of the international system, much in the way China has been in the last two decades. Whether his remedies will be worse than the disease, of course, only history will tell, but first I would advise you to read this important and cogently argued book.
India has never known Napoleons and Alexanders, though it has been the object of their desire. The reason is that the famous diversity of the Indian people has ensured that anyone who established his empire in this country had to constantly fight to preserve his gains, rather than export military power. The British, of course, were an exception, but don’t forget when they left, the country was divided into two. Consistent with his analysis, Karnad argues that India must follow a policy of trying to co-opt Pakistan into its subcontinental strategy and focus on the real adversary — China.
The book provides a pitiless analysis of how things have gone wrong with independent India. Karnad’s analysis of Nehru’s long era is more subtle than the crude critiques we are used to these days. But he is quite unforgiving of Indira Gandhi who hobbled the country through her economic policies and undermined Nehru’s clever non-alignment. His principal villains are bureaucrats and policymakers, several of whom he cites and has interviewed.
At the heart of the problem, and he states it repeatedly, is the lack of an Indian “great power” vision and the strategy to achieve it. I would argue that along with this, there is an acute lack of political leadership which can outline this vision, as contrasted with the fantastic ways it is being articulated by Narendra Modi and his acolytes. Hindutva politicians who have come to power with Modi are functionally literate, but uneducated and probably uneducatable.
Sure, they have views on the greatness of Bharatvarsha and its stupendous achievements, but their problem is that they cannot separate myth from reality. They have a steady eye on the half-mythical past which reduces their vision of the future to crude assertion rather than analytical fact.
Looking back is not the answer, looking ahead is. Many of Karnad’s nostrums such as a more focused strategic policy, a more expansive and intensive Indian Ocean posture, uniting the subcontinent under Indian economic leadership, are well taken, though trying to undo the failed thermonuclear test could be a costly distraction. Karnad has his point of view and he has articulated it with great vigour. He has for long swum against the tide in the Indian context and deserves credit for the intellectual rigour of his writings.
A checklist he provides seems to suggest that India’s path to being a great power will be overly militaristic — the assertion of an Indian Monroe doctrine, the resumption of thermonuclear testing, establishing military bases abroad, arming Vietnam, building a military-industrial complex, enhancing cooperation with the US and its allies and so on. He believes that India has the resources to be an outward thrusting power, but this is questionable. Whether it is Central or South-east Asia or Africa, India’s investment and trade volume is a fraction of that of China.
Then, there is the challenge in demanding the attention of all the resources we have. The 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) revealed the shocking extent of poverty in India. In nearly 75 per cent of the rural households, the main earning member earns less than Rs 5,000 a month; over half of the rural households’ main income is from casual manual labour and a third of rural India remains illiterate. Military power must always be a function of national economic power, not the other way around. Not for nothing was military modernisation the last of the “Four Modernisations” in China.
Before India becomes a great power, it must be a nation of Indians. Even now, the politics of the country revolves around religious, ethnic, caste and linguistic identities, which may be natural but are also dangerously divisive. It is not just communal or caste violence: states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka war over water, and Telangana and Andhra over history. Without an emphatic national identity, asserting a greater Indian vision and strategy will not be easy.
The basic premise of Karnad’s book is that Modi is the leader who can lead the transformation. But some of Modi’s confused policy lines are no different from those of his predecessors whom Karnad so harshly criticises. Take China, Modi has led India into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, even as he has articulated a common Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean vision with Japan and the US.
Karnad’s bottom line is that India’s policies are correctable and he is probably right. But they cannot be corrected by a set of bureaucrats. For that the country requires not just an inspired prime minister, but a dozen good ministers and chief ministers who will systematically transform their respective ministries and states. The first big weaknesses of the Modi system is its reliance on the bureaucracy, which is good for carrying out the tasks it has been set, but is not capable of leading a transformation. Besides, there is the question of national stamina. We need at least three decades of sustained transformative effort, and given our challenges, things do not look easy. But, at least, we could make a beginning.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/the-case-for-greatness/#sthash.ENHYX3Xe.dpuf

Book: Why India is not a Great Power (Yet)
Author: Bharat Karnad
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 552 
Price: 875
Among Indians writing on strategic affairs, Bharat Karnad occupies a distinct position, one that he has carved out for himself, by being an offensive realist. In his scheme of things, the international system is an anarchic entity where each state relentlessly pursues its national interests and big powers are locked in a struggle to be number one.

Karnad wants India to be number one, but as the title of the book suggests, we are some way from getting there. The purpose of this book is to explore the reasons for India’s weaknesses and suggest ways it can become a truly great power. In the first stage, Karnad wants India to become the great disruptor of the international system, much in the way China has been in the last two decades. Whether his remedies will be worse than the disease, of course, only history will tell, but first I would advise you to read this important and cogently argued book.
India has never known Napoleons and Alexanders, though it has been the object of their desire. The reason is that the famous diversity of the Indian people has ensured that anyone who established his empire in this country had to constantly fight to preserve his gains, rather than export military power. The British, of course, were an exception, but don’t forget when they left, the country was divided into two. Consistent with his analysis, Karnad argues that India must follow a policy of trying to co-opt Pakistan into its subcontinental strategy and focus on the real adversary — China.
The book provides a pitiless analysis of how things have gone wrong with independent India. Karnad’s analysis of Nehru’s long era is more subtle than the crude critiques we are used to these days. But he is quite unforgiving of Indira Gandhi who hobbled the country through her economic policies and undermined Nehru’s clever non-alignment. His principal villains are bureaucrats and policymakers, several of whom he cites and has interviewed.
At the heart of the problem, and he states it repeatedly, is the lack of an Indian “great power” vision and the strategy to achieve it. I would argue that along with this, there is an acute lack of political leadership which can outline this vision, as contrasted with the fantastic ways it is being articulated by Narendra Modi and his acolytes. Hindutva politicians who have come to power with Modi are functionally literate, but uneducated and probably uneducatable.
Sure, they have views on the greatness of Bharatvarsha and its stupendous achievements, but their problem is that they cannot separate myth from reality. They have a steady eye on the half-mythical past which reduces their vision of the future to crude assertion rather than analytical fact.
Looking back is not the answer, looking ahead is. Many of Karnad’s nostrums such as a more focused strategic policy, a more expansive and intensive Indian Ocean posture, uniting the subcontinent under Indian economic leadership, are well taken, though trying to undo the failed thermonuclear test could be a costly distraction. Karnad has his point of view and he has articulated it with great vigour. He has for long swum against the tide in the Indian context and deserves credit for the intellectual rigour of his writings.
A checklist he provides seems to suggest that India’s path to being a great power will be overly militaristic — the assertion of an Indian Monroe doctrine, the resumption of thermonuclear testing, establishing military bases abroad, arming Vietnam, building a military-industrial complex, enhancing cooperation with the US and its allies and so on. He believes that India has the resources to be an outward thrusting power, but this is questionable. Whether it is Central or South-east Asia or Africa, India’s investment and trade volume is a fraction of that of China.
Then, there is the challenge in demanding the attention of all the resources we have. The 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) revealed the shocking extent of poverty in India. In nearly 75 per cent of the rural households, the main earning member earns less than Rs 5,000 a month; over half of the rural households’ main income is from casual manual labour and a third of rural India remains illiterate. Military power must always be a function of national economic power, not the other way around. Not for nothing was military modernisation the last of the “Four Modernisations” in China.
Before India becomes a great power, it must be a nation of Indians. Even now, the politics of the country revolves around religious, ethnic, caste and linguistic identities, which may be natural but are also dangerously divisive. It is not just communal or caste violence: states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka war over water, and Telangana and Andhra over history. Without an emphatic national identity, asserting a greater Indian vision and strategy will not be easy.
The basic premise of Karnad’s book is that Modi is the leader who can lead the transformation. But some of Modi’s confused policy lines are no different from those of his predecessors whom Karnad so harshly criticises. Take China, Modi has led India into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, even as he has articulated a common Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean vision with Japan and the US.
Karnad’s bottom line is that India’s policies are correctable and he is probably right. But they cannot be corrected by a set of bureaucrats. For that the country requires not just an inspired prime minister, but a dozen good ministers and chief ministers who will systematically transform their respective ministries and states. The first big weaknesses of the Modi system is its reliance on the bureaucracy, which is good for carrying out the tasks it has been set, but is not capable of leading a transformation. Besides, there is the question of national stamina. We need at least three decades of sustained transformative effort, and given our challenges, things do not look easy. But, at least, we could make a beginning.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/the-case-for-greatness/#sthash.ENHYX3Xe.dpuf

Dealing with Daesh

The Paris attack has focused the attention of the world on the Daesh. 

Earlier, the impact of the outfit, also known as the Islamic State or the ISIS, was confined to the geographical region it controls - eastern Syria and northern Iraq. Now it seems to be everywhere.

Every day Indian newspapers are giving us details of the organisation’s alleged Indian adherents and our intelligence agencies, through deep background briefings, warn darkly about the IS threat.

Focus 

Just why Daesh decided to change its focus from the “near enemy” - Syrian and Iraqi forces, the Kurdish and Iranian militias - for the “far enemy” is difficult to determine. Perhaps Paris, as well as the Russian airliner, were targets of opportunity. 

However, as Bernard Haykel pointed out in a recent article, it has to do with the adverse ground situation in Syria and Iraq where the Daesh has lost ground, and the punishment it is receiving from the aerial bombardment. It now faces a hardening of the Turkish stand since the bombing of the Opposition rally in Ankara in October, resulting in a choking of foreign recruits. 

 

This should not lead to any slackening of effort to destroy this monstrosity - a medieval state functioning in the 21st century. 

There are four steps that need to be taken to that end. First, containing the ISIS in the badlands of Syria and Iraq. Invading these areas would be counter-productive. Daesh would actually welcome a western attack because as per their theology, the end of days battle will begin from Dabiq and will actually see the “crusaders” victorious in the beginning, followed by their final destruction. 

Using Shia on non-Sunni forces would harden the resistance in the Sunni-dominated ISIS areas. Instead, a tight cordon sanitaire should be maintained by the Kurds, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi forces aided by western surveillance systems. 

The second effort needs to be made to choke the ISIS finances. It is well known that even now oil continues to be smuggled out of areas under ISIS control. Obviously some influential parties are involved in this. 

Actually it was only last week that for the first time US warplanes attacked an oil convoy coming out of the ISIS area, this was followed by attacks by the Russian Air Force as well. The question to be asked is why this was not done earlier, since these convoys are several kilometres long. However, indiscriminate bombing should be avoided because it will kill non-combatants. 

The big issue to be thrashed out here is the future of Bashar al Assad, as well as the attitude of countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, which have backed rebels against the Syrian regime. The Americans remain insistent on his removal, but so far, their efforts have led to the strengthening of ISIS, rather than weakening it. 

Complex 

The third is a more complex, longer-term task, though it does not brook much delay. This is to undermine the Daesh’s ideological appeal. This appeal arises from its claim that life in the Caliphate is lived as it was in the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). 

The enslavement of non-believers, beheading of defeated enemies, and other such medieval measures are indeed mentioned in the Muslim holy book which is considered as the word of God, but which was written up in the medieval times. 

The Old Testament of the Christians and the holy books of the Jews, too, say that God’s law demands death for, say, cursing your parents, pre-marital sex, and adultery. Slaughtering enemies and massacring the defeated is also sanctioned by divine law. But the practice of the application of the scriptures has changed, and in Christian lands no one seriously argues that practices which may have been the norm in Biblical times should be reinstituted today. 

Most Muslims, too, do not believe that it is a good idea to enslave non-believers or to stone adulterers. But many remain in the thrall of preachers who say that “innovation” or bidaa is the path to apostasy, which itself is punishable by death. 

In such circumstances, reformation or modernisation of the message of the Quran becomes moot. 

But clearly this is something that only the Muslims can work out. The one positive outcome of the Daesh literalism is that it is compelling Muslims to think and debate these issues. 

Traction 

As for India, the good news remains that the ISIS phenomenon has very little traction here. If a couple of people have been in ISIS-related chatrooms or have been trying to travel to Syria, it means little. 

As of now Indian Muslims have their feet on the ground and show no signs of being attracted to the Daesh ideology. However, we should not lower our guard, because as the Paris incident has shown, that with its back to the wall, the Daesh is striking out wherever it can. 

Mail Today November 22, 2015

To Be Not Talking is Dumb:  India's fixation on Pak terrorism is odd at a time when it's at its lowest

What are we to make of India-Pakistan rela tions? On one side of the ledger we have the elevating story of how Geeta, an abandoned deaf-and-mute girl who had strayed into Pakistan and was brought up by the Edhi Foundation of Karachi, returned this week to India after 13 years, triggering an India-Pakistan love-fest. On the other side is the continuing stand-off in official relations accompanied by bouts of sabre-rattling and gunfire across the Jammu border. The icing on this unsavoury cake this week was of former President Pervez Musharraf acknowledging in a Pakistani television interview that terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Hafiz Saeed were honed by the Pakistani military .
With this backdrop, the Narendra Modi government appears to have abandoned the multi-pronged policy of its predecessor of simultaneously engaging Islamabad and dealing with cross-border terrorism. This government made a surprise beginning with the idea of promoting South Asian unity . But since then it has been fixated on countering terrorism at the cost of everything else.
 This is somewhat puzzling because, by any count, Pakistani covert activity in India has seen a sharp decline since 2008, even as Kashmir alone has seen a slight rise in recent years. The home ministry figures speak for themselves. Over 20032005, 314, 281 and 189 security force personnel died in J&K, and 1,494, 976 and 917 terrorists were killed. In the last three years, 2012-2014, the corresponding figures have been 38, 53 and 47 security personnel and 50, 67 and 110 terrorists, respectively .

Unaffordable War
Delivering the Nagendra Singh Memorial Lecture recently , National Security Advisor Ajit Doval spoke of the importance of convincing Pakistan that “covert action is not a cost effective option.“ He went on to add that Islamabad would soon realise that the “cost involved is much heavier and that will be unaffordable“.
 The warning seems to be quite reasonable. But the subtext seems to suggest that India could take steps, possibly covert, to convince Islamabad of the “unaffordable“ price.Were that to happen, we could well see the situation in South Asia deteriorate further as any covert war is likely to spill over into Nepal and Bangladesh, as it has in the past.
It is not clear why the Modi government sees terrorism as its main enemy today when its high-point was in the early-mid 2000s, and is a declining trend today . One reason could be that New Delhi is worried about another 26/11-scale attack, which could seriously dent the government's image. Or, more likely , it feels that attacking terrorism and Pakistan plays well with its constituency . But let's be clear, terrorist strikes by themselves are hardly an existential threat to this country .
The Modi government's one-dimensional approach will not work and could actually deteriorate the South Asian situation. Wars and campaigns are won as much by skill ful diplomacy as by the military force.
Pakistan may be a failing state, but it is a tough nut and unlikely to succumb to Indian covert ops or military pressure. It has a growing nuclear arsenal and has a well-trained and equipped military . Contrary to what Doval has argued, its covert war against India has proved to be quite cost-effective. Indeed, if anything, Indian efforts to coerce Islamabad are likely to unite people behind the hardliners.

Pak's Importance
India also cannot ignore Islamabad's ability to win friends and influence big powers. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif 's visit to Washington last week has shown that, despite evidence of its past duplicity, Pakistan retains its importance there. It is simply too well situated in relation to Afghanistan and Iran to be punished, let alone abandoned.
 In recent times, we have seen our old friend Russia soften towards Islamabad. And as for China, it is actually strengthening its commitment to Pakistan by putting down serious money under the rubric of the Belt Road Initiative.
The biggest strategic threat India confronts is the hostile China-Pakistan proto-alliance. Yet we have been able to do little to dent it. But 2004-2007 experience has shown that it was possible to change things through deft diplomacy . Unfortunately , that opportunity was missed and is no longer being sought again.
But the course that we are undertaking now -seeking to `convince' Pakistan about the high price it will have to pay for its covert war against India -is fraught with danger. Given the numerous faultlines in Pakistan, it is not difficult to turn up the heat there. The question is whether that is the best course to take. It is easy to begin a war, but very difficult to predict the course it will take.
India's agenda with Pakistan goes beyond terrorism. Yes, it includes Kashmir . It also includes the need to manage the dangerous nuclear competition between the two countries. Beyond this, is the need to promote the development agenda, which cannot happen without acting on the above problems.
The Economic Times October 31, 2015

China-UK: A strategic friendship

In the coming days or weeks, American warships plan to conduct what is now called FONOP (freedom of navigation operations) in the South China Sea. This will involve sailing closer than 12 nautical miles to the artificial  islands created by China and could lead to a direct clash between the US and China with potentially portentous consequences.

In such a confrontation, governments will be compelled to take sides. It remains to be seen as to just how the UK, one of US’s closest allies will react. In the old days, you could expect London to line up with Washington, but there are changes blowing in the wind.

These are best brought out by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Britain and his grand reception there. While at one level this was  yet another manifestation  China’s economic power, it was also, at the political level, a move to break out of a subtle US-led containment strategy. Chinese media exulted over the “redder than red carpet” welcome and analysts spoke of the strategic shift in British attitudes towards China as a result of the first visit in a decade by a Chinese president.  

British Prime Minister David Cameron was criticized by many in Britain for kowtowing to Beijing. His former strategy adviser Steve Hilton who teaches in Stanford University declared the visit to be a  “national humiliation” and excoriated UK for not “standing up” to China. Sinologist Francesco Sisci has pointed out, studying the Chinese version of the UK-China joint statement, that this is the first time China has committed itself to a “complete and global strategic partnership for the 21^st century.” More significantly, the Chinese have got a commitment from the UK to “recognize the importance each side attaches to its own political system.”

The first order of business for UK is business, and, as Chancellor George Osborne noted, it is “China’s best partner in the West”. The UK, it may be recalled, broke ranks with the US and became the first western country to become a member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Currently, UK is China’s second largest trading partner among EU countries, while China is the UK’s main investment destination in Asia.

During the visit deals worth more than $60 billion  were signed and as Osborne and Cameron emphasized, this was just the beginning. Among the important signs of the future were Chinese commitments to take a one-third stake in  a $28 billion nuclear power plant in UK and participate in other nuclear power projects as well. BP signed a deal to supply a Chinese company 1 million tonnes of LNG for the next 20 years in a deal worth $ 10 billion. Coinciding with the visit was the issuance of an offshore renminbi note worth $800 million  in London by the Chinese Central Bank. This is the first time such a note has been issued outside China and it is aimed at taking advantage of London’s status as a global financial centre to make the yuan an international currency. Separately, China announced a direct flight between Manchester and Beijing, as well as a $ 130 million commitment to a China cluster in a business development area of the city.

Xi’s visit was not about trade and investment only. It has an important strategic component viz. shaping China as a truly global power. Recall that the end station of both the land and maritime components of the Belt Road Initiative is Europe. As China shifts its economy towards high end manufacturing and services, it is targeting the European market where its two largest partners are Germany and UK.

 There is another angle to the UK ties.  Xi is hoping is that as China’s relations with the US go north, the UK, an old mentor of the US could play the role as a bridge to what remains the world’s foremost economic and military power. For UK, the China gambit is important as well. In recent times it has been buffeted by the Scots threatening to leave the union, the pressures from within the Conservative Party for a Brexit or exit from the European Union, an action that will inevitably lead to many banks and fund managers decamping to the Eurozone. Incidentally during the visit, Xi went out of his way to urge Britain  to remain in the EU.

Inevitably, there will be comparisons between Xi’s visit and the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Modi to UK. Not being head of state, Modi will not be accorded the glitter of a royal welcome, but he will make it up with a massive rally of overseas Indians at the Wembley Stadium. While that is good for the ego of the diaspora and the PM, it will not have lasting consequences. India cannot match China in terms of economic deals; we have the potential of becoming an economic player, but we are not one as yet. For the present, we will have to be satisfied with patting ourselves on the back rather than have someone kowtowing to us. As for South China Sea, having steered clear from America’s Asian pivot, the UK can remain a bystander, while India has already made moved closer to the US a position which could bring us into a confrontation with China. 

Mid Day October 27, 2015

What saves India from suicide attacks

Earlier this month, Radio Free Asia revealed that nearly 80 people were killed by Uighur separatists in a September attack in a coalmine in the Xinjiang province of China.Beijing has yet to officially acknowledge the attack, which was carried out by terrorists armed with knives. 

There have been similar attacks linked to Uighurs in recent years. On June 18, people had died in a similar attack with knives and bombs at a traffic checkpoint in the city of Kashgar. In March 2014, an attack at the railway station of Kunming left 29 people and 4 attackers dead. 

Knife attacks 

In recent months, the trend has manifested itself in similar Palestinian attacks on Israelis. 

Given the strict policing, in China and Israel, the Uighurs and Palestinians have no access to either bomb-making material or guns, and so the use of primitive weapons like knives has become the weapon of choice. 

The knife may be primitive, but it is deadly. However, its use does require a certain nerve, physical strength and training on the part of the attacker. In comparison, a suicide bomber merely has to approach the target and pull a trigger to cause mayhem. 

There have been instances of suicide squads and attacks through history in almost all cultures in the military sphere. But something as primal as a knife has emerged as a new terrorist tactic which has rapidly spread in today’s wired world, just as suicide bombing did in the 1980s. 

It became a tactic of choice in Lebanon, compelling the US to pull out from Lebanon. In a parallel, the LTTE perfected the cult of suicide as it became prominent in the Sri Lankan civil war. Among the prominent targets of the LTTE were former prime minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and a slew of top Sri Lankan politicians, including president R Premadasa. 

The key role in suicide attacks is played by motivators - mainly seasoned political operatives and in the case of Muslims, mullahs who use precepts of Islam to persuade young and impressionable people to go through the horror of a suicide attack. They create an ethos where the attacker is hailed as a martyr and his/her family is raised in status among its peers. 

Acts of terror 

Attacks on non-combatants, regardless of motive, are acts of terrorism and deserve the highest condemnation. But attacks that target troops and police personnel of countries who are involved in military operations in the attackers’ country or region are different. 

There is a species of analysis which argues that there can be no ‘root cause’ of terrorism. Regardless of what a perpetrator does, retaliation using terrorist tactics is condemnable. 

This does not quite work in the real world, where unresolved grievances are often the template on which terrorist attacks are built. As a first step towards countering terrorism, an effort must be made to understand this and tackle grievances relating to political and human rights in places like Xinjiang, Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Kashmir. 

In many cases, the issue is related to fears of a minority community that it will be swamped by the majority. Beliefs, often in economically-backward regions, that modernisation itself is an existential threat, cannot be tackled through military campaigns. 

What the knifing campaign brings out is that harsh counter-terrorist tactics and total and intrusive surveillance cannot by themselves put an end to terrorist attacks. 

Israel’s dilemma is the most manifest on this score. Relentless ferocity against Palestinian violence has not brought Israel the peace it has been looking for and is unlikely to do so. 

In contrast, look at India. Some Muslims have a sense of deep grievance against the state on account of communal violence, in Jammu & Kashmir, many are motivated by separatism. Yet, India has not seen the kind of suicide bombing and desperate knife attacks that have motivated Muslim radicals elsewhere. 

Terrorist violence that has rocked the country has often been motivated, directed and perpetrated by Pakistan. In any case, it peaked in 2008 and for the present it is at a low ebb, whether in Jammu & Kashmir, or elsewhere. 

Alienation 

The reason is that Indian Muslims have a strong sense of Indian identity. In both their grievances and aspirations they think like their fellow Indian citizens, rather through any religious or sectarian prism. 

That critical point of alienation which separates them from the mainstream and persuades them to wield a knife or a bomb has not been reached. At least, not as of now. 

Mail Today October 25, 2015

All's fair in love and geopolitics

The report that the US was contemplating a nuclear deal with Pakistan, similar to the one it has with India, is yet another confirmation of the salience of geopolitics in international relations.

America’s relations with Pakistan have had their decadal ups and downs. Not surprisingly, these have often mirrored the geopolitical interests of Washington. In the 1950s, it was the contest with the Soviet Union, and so Pakistan, located strategically in what was called the “northern tier”, was privileged over the much larger India, which wanted to avoid getting entangled in superpower competition.

Of course, as is well known, Pakistan was not motivated by any anti-communist ideology, but its own contest with India. This was evident as early as 1962, when it befriended communist China, because it offered a more consistent anti-Indian stage.

After a hiatus, in which the US was preoccupied by the Vietnam war, Pakistan’s importance was recognised by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon as a key to their “China pivot” aimed at outflanking the Soviets. The monstrous price for this was the support that the Kissinger-Nixon duo gave to Islamabad in prosecuting its genocidal war against the liberation movement in Bangladesh.

A decade later came the final contest with the Soviet Union and this time Pakistan was not wanting. It provided Washington the platform needed to bleed the Soviets, never mind the price for that — the curse of jihadism, with which we are still grappling. The bonus for Islamabad was that Washington turned a Nelson’s eye on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme.

Roughly, a decade later, the Americans were back, this time to fight the jihadists their earlier intervention had bred. The price this time has been in dollars — the $31 billion that has come by way of Islamabad as military and economic aid between 2002-2015 — and in the blood and treasure that the US has expended in Afghanistan, in considerable measure because of Pakistani duplicity.

So, what motivates the US this time to offer Islamabad the hand of friendship ? No doubt, geopolitical considerations relating to jihadism and Afghanistan are important elements. But, the emerging Sino-Pak alliance is an added factor. Inter-mixed are legacy concerns of the Obama administration which has ambitiously articulated a vision of a nuclear weapons free world.

From the time of the Indo-US nuclear deal, Pakistan has sought a similar arrangement for itself. It is using its time tested tactic of holding a gun to its own. head to achieve its goal. First, it has blocked all efforts to finalise the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT). Second, it sharply ramped up its production of nuclear weapons, abandoning all pretenses of maintaining a “credible minimum deterrence” and moving to what it calls “full spectrum” deterrence.

However, given Islamabad’s terrible proliferation record, most experts initially laughed off the possibility. At the time, many of us argued that the Indo-US nuclear deal arose out of the desire of the US to build closer, strategic ties with India as a means of offsetting China’s rise. Now, it would appear that the American motives are more complex.

Islamabad has been insistently pushing for a nuclear deal, most recently in the seventh round of the US-Pakistan Security, Strategic Stability, and Nonproliferation (SSS&NP) working group in June. The press release, following the talks held under the auspices of the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue, says it all, “The US delegation welcomed Pakistan’s efforts to harmonise its strategic trade controls with those of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and other multilateral export control regimes. Both sides emphasised the desirability of continued outreach to integrate Pakistan into the international nonproliferation regime. Pakistan stressed the need for access to peaceful nuclear technology as a socio-economic imperative.”

A Pakistani nuclear deal would suggest that the US is determined, as it has always been to maintain good ties with both India and Pakistan. Those in India, who expected that Washington’s unhappiness with Islamabad would result in undivided attention to New Delhi, will be disappointed. But, the US is following the logic of its geopolitical interests.

So, sooner, rather than later, Pakistan will get what it wants. India’s best option is to let things ride. Opposing the deal, for the sake of opposing it, is a fool’s errand not unlike the hysteria that India unleashed when the US decided to supply F-16s to Pakistan in 1981-82.

What we need to do is to learn yet another lesson on the relentlessness with which big powers pursue their interests, and move ahead on the project that will give us geopolitical heft in Asia: The economic transformation that will enable us to straddle the region from the Middle East to South-East Asia.

Mid Day October 13, 2015

The report that the US was contemplating a nuclear deal with Pakistan, similar to the one it has with India, is yet another confirmation of the salience of geopolitics in international relations. - See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/alls-fair-in-love-and-geopolitics/16603160#sthash.OxkAXY2j.dpuf