-Caveat Lector- http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CL14Df01.html
Afghanistan shadow over Indo-US ties By Sultan Shahin NEW DELHI - Indian-Pakistan rivalry in Afghanistan is beginning to cast a shadow over newly revitalized Indo-US relations. Diplomatic observers in New Delhi, like senior US administration officials in Washington, are concerned. Influential voices within the ruling establishment are asking if it is wise for India, with its 200-million strong Muslim population and important ties with the Muslim world, to join hands with the US in what is clearly emerging, in view of its blind support for Israel, as its continuing war against Islam. Doubts also persist, despite US rhetoric, about its sincerity in the war against terror. Unfortunately, for India, all this is happening at a time when several meetings between top leaders of the two countries have infused a new life in their relations and India seems to need the US more than the other way round. An Indo-Pak sideshow has been clearly going on in Afghanistan and it is making the US worried. "As version two of the Great Game is being played out in the killing fields of Afghanistan, Western analysts are watching with great interest the India-Pakistan sideshow that has all the trappings of a regional rivalry," reports The Times of India from Washington. India is making rapid diplomatic inroads into Kabul through the Northern Alliance leadership. Ministers-designate of both interior and foreign affairs in the transitional government have already visited India and been assured of a burgeoning relationship between the two countries in the days ahead. The defense minister-designate is scheduled to visit next week. Pakistan, meanwhile, is making a beeline for the Pashtun command of Hamid Karzai, the leader-designate of Afghanistan's provisional council, in Kandahar. Incidentally, Karzai, too, has an India connection. He acquired his education in India and has close relatives that live in the country. "India, by virtue of its secular ideology, consistency, and size is finally walking tall," writes the Times of India correspondent in Washington Chidanand Rajghatta. "Pakistan, unsure and adrift, is trying hard to play catch-up. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Afghanistan itself, where for years the two countries backed rival factions. Now, with the fall of the Taliban, it is New Delhi's day as its Northern Alliance proteges are swept into power. But Islamabad is not giving up without a fight. As deftly as it ditched the Taliban, Pakistan is now cottoned on to the newly-chosen Pashtun leader Hamid Karzai, hoping to arrest Kabul's tilt towards India. Attempts are also afoot to drive a wedge between Karzai and the alliance leaders by suggesting that the former is unhappy with the visits and the utterances of the designated ministers. Karzai has himself not said a word." In an apparent reversal of fortune, while Pakistan is still trying to get a diplomatic toehold in Kandahar, India has already established a foothold in Kabul, where it is poised to be among the first countries to re-open its diplomatic mission. Not to be outdone, Pakistan has said that it will re-open its embassy in Kabul, although given the public hostility against the supporters of the Taliban it will not be an easy task. An Indo-Pak rivalry in Afghanistan is the last thing that the US wants while the war against terrorism is still incomplete and the world is faced with the enormous task of the Central Asian country's reconstruction, say senior US administration officials. But they are also deeply appreciative, according to The Times of India, of New Delhi's humanitarian aid to Kabul, including the dispatch of medical personnel and supplies. Rajghatta comments, "Pakistani mandarins, instructed in the same diplomatic school as their Indian counterparts, have long won praise for their quicksilver thinking and deft responses. But they are now fighting an uphill battle. Not only has Islamabad had to reverse course over the Taliban, whom President [General Pervez] Musharraf continued to praise and defend even after September 11, but it has also has had to reach out to Iran and Russia, among the countries it antagonized with its backing of the fundamentalist regime. But the biggest blow to Pakistan has come from the country expected to be its chief patron - the United States. "Almost every assumption that Pakistan's military regime made while reversing its diplomatic course - protecting its nuclear assets, its position on Kashmir, and reviving its economy among others - is coming unstuck. Relentless exposure in the Western media about the links of Pakistani nuclear scientists with terrorists has now brought its nuclear program under the inevitable scrutiny of the Americans. Washington has also shown no inclination of backing Islamabad's position on Kashmir and has instead pointedly refused to endorse the 'they are freedom fighters not terrorists' line." All this is good news for Indo-US bilateral relations. The world has changed, says veteran defense analyst Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, "and we need to recognize that US is increasingly important for our defense capability. The recently concluded bilateral meetings promise to infuse new life into Indo-US defense cooperation. Barring the short-lived honeymoon after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, defense cooperation between the two countries had been virtually absent till the mid-1980s." It may sound curious, but at the height of the second Cold War and with the Soviets in Afghanistan, the two countries signed an MoU in 1984 for the transfer of sensitive military technology to India, recalls Singh, who headed until recently the semi-governmental think tank Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses. "The later agreement for the supply of the GE 404 engine for the LCA [Light Combat Aircraft] was one of the effects. The United States no doubt saw an opportunity to reduce Soviet influence in India; and India, having only recently purchased a large range of arms from the Soviet Union, sought to pursue its traditional policy of self-reliance in defense. However, US commitment to the MoU appeared to fade away with the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union. "The US pressed for military-to-military contacts [first proposed in 1984], now in the shape of Kicklighter proposals. While India agreed to this, the asymmetry and limitations of such a process were obvious. It is to overcome these that the 'Agreed Minutes' of January 1995 set up the Defense Policy Group [DPG] as an intergovernmental body between the two ministries of defense with a Joint Technical Group to coordinate technology issues. Unfortunately the DPG had just started to find its feet with discussions on peacekeeping, etc, when the process was stalled by New Delhi, possibly since little of value was seen to emerge. The service-to-service contacts and limited technical cooperation continued till the nuclear tests in May 1998 and the consequent sanctions put a stop to even that and put a question mark on programs like the LCA. "The basic paradigm of Indo-US relations, on the other hand, has been changing since then. In some ways the non-proliferation issue was laid to rest and greater pragmatism emerged to the extent that both countries have now declared that 'joint counter-proliferation efforts' would be important elements of defense cooperation. The roots of the change go back to the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbot talks of 1998-1999 and their importance in that the US for the first time was discussing strategic-security issues with a country which was neither an ally nor an enemy; and it was also the first time India was sharing in some detail its strategic and security perspectives with a superpower," says Singh. He continues: "Increasing cooperation, especially on counterterrorism, helped move the relationship forward of the trade and economic dimensions, although they must remain central. At the fundamental level, we need to recognize that the United States is becoming increasingly important for our defense capability. The defense industry is shrinking worldwide, while weapon systems of ever-higher technology are crucial to war fighting. This also means higher costs of armament and military equipment, made more expensive by the devaluation of the rupee against the US dollar during the last decade. The Soviet Union was our major supplier of weapon systems for nearly three decades while Western Europe provided the remaining 15-20 percent of weapons systems. Most of the Soviet systems were manufactured under license in India, providing for greater self-reliance. "But the logical goal of defense cooperation must be centered on the defense industry, especially collaboration in design, development and production of systems and sub-systems," advises Singh. "We need not be over-ambitious and seek only frontier technology, for which natural hesitations will remain. But there is a vast area in low-end and middle-level military technology where Indian defense industry infrastructure and capabilities could be used [and further built] to mutual advantage by both sides. India's expanding private sector now has the ability to play a vital role in this process. Our strength in information technology also has tremendous potential to deepen cooperation." It would be a pity, however, if the burgeoning Indo-US relations were to be scuppered by India-Pakistan one-upmanship in Afghanistan. Talking about Indo-US relations, US Ambassador in India Robert D Blackwill recently said, "Washington has also decided to remove the hyphen in its South Asia policy. The US is determined to treat South Asia in a non-hyphenated way. We are treating US-India relations separate from any other relations. What we are seeing in US-India relations is not connected to events occurring in Pakistan." Singh adds, "It would be wise for the mandarins running India's foreign policy not to force the US to hyphenate Indo-US relations again as Indo-Pakistan-US relations. Afghanistan is important. So is our need to reduce Pakistani influence in Kabul, so that it is not used again to motivate and train terrorists. But we should not jeopardize our growing relations with the US in the process of securing our legitimate interests in Afghanistan." Some analysts decry India seeking entry into the new Great Game on moral grounds. They also think that it is against India's long-term interests. Achin Vanayak, for instance, writes in the influential Hindu newspaper, "India is seeking entry into a game where it is at best a very minor player, where its role, whatever else it does, will certainly exacerbate its relations with Pakistan. That Pakistan, ruled by the same kind of realpolitik thinking about 'outflanking' or 'undermining' its rival, is also acting in ways detrimental to its longer-term security considerations can hardly be much of a consolation. "The truth of the matter is that in South Asia, as in West Asia, there is only one way to try and establish an enduring stability and security. In West Asia it can only come about through a just settlement of the Palestine issue, ie, one which is ultimately acceptable to the people of Palestine and therefore not acceptable to today's Israel. In South Asia, there will have to be a just settlement of the Kashmir issue, that is, one that is acceptable to Kashmiris on both sides of the border and therefore one that will not be acceptable to the Indian and Pakistani governments of today. But there will also be no stability if priority is not given to the interests of the Afghan people themselves rather than to surrounding national interests," the newspaper said. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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