Polaris  

Fears in Europe of a rising Asian monolith are not just misplaced, but also hazardous.

A recent article by four wise men of the German foreign policy and security establishment (’It’s Time to Invite Russia to Join NATO,’ Der Spiegel) has been the subject of a spirited and insightful exchange among some of my colleagues in Washington. The article’s authors—who include one former defence minister and one former ambassador to India—make an argument not often heard in New Delhi:

Europe’s security…remains a constant task, and new challenges require different responses than in the past. The Euro-Atlantic region needs peace and stability at home, but it also needs protection against external threats. Ultimately, the emergence of a multi-polar world requires finding a way to offset the political, economic and strategic dynamics of the large Asian powers.

NATO, in its current form, is not up to these tasks. In the future, the alliance should see itself as a strategic framework for the three centers of power: North America, Europe and Russia. This trio has common interests that are threatened by the same challenges, and which require the same responses. If the alliance intends to be the primary forum for addressing all crises—because it is the only forum where North America, Europe and Russia sit at the same table—then it must now establish the requisite institutional framework for that to happen. The door to NATO membership should be opened for Russia.

Their argument, as was pointed out to me, is remarkable because it appears driven by neither a realist nor an ideological logic, but rather by a cultural one. The authors discuss rising Asian powers—which, one must assume, includes both China and India—as a monolith, and as a combined security threat to a system traditionally dominated by the Euro-Atlantic world, which, in the broadest reading includes what is today the United States, the European Union and Russia. In this sense, it is not all that dissimilar to a persistent but, thankfully, ineffectual strain of pan-Asianism found in several states—India included.

But this is 2010. Not 1984.

The major assumptions implicit in the German argument are questionable in and of themselves: that Russia might be willing to acquiesce to NATO membership on American and European terms, and that China and India are indeed a monolithic threat to the Euro-Atlantic system.  For India, the overlooking of both strategic and ideological considerations by respected members of the German establishment is a double whammy. And, arguably, Germany, and Europe, cannot afford yet to discount the potential of a strategic partner in India.

The insufficiency of the authors’ proposed solution to NATO’s perceived problems were highlighted just yesterday, during NATO commander Adm. James Stavridis’ Congressional testimony. His statement served as a timely reminder that NATO is not embroiled in a contest with rising Asian powers, but with a far more immediate and virulent threat in Afghanistan, and that its likely partners in this endeavour may not be determined by cultural affinity but by strategic and ideological confluence with NATO’s original mission.

Here’s a great interview by Ed Luce of the Financial Times with Richard Holbooke. It’s worth watching in full, since Luce touches upon most of the tough questions, although perhaps a little too delicately. While Holbrooke naturally dodges a lot, he is quite candid on a couple of points.

First, he expresses scepticism about whether Pakistan has turned a corner. Mullah Baradar’s arrest, it seems, has not dramatically altered U.S. calculations. Nor do his comments appear to justify the hysteria following the London Conference, when many felt that India was being deliberately left out in the cold.

Everyone is asking the same question…have we turned the corner? Has there been a change in Pakistani policy? I’m not prepared to make those judgements…But I’m an agnostic at this point…I want to underscore that as President Obama has said, [while] Pakistan has legitimate interests in what happens in Afghanistan, they’re not the only country that has a legitimate security need. Every one of the neighbours, including Iran, has a legitimate security interest in Afghanistan, and countries that don’t have continuous borders like India and Russia, and the United States for that matter, also [have] legitimate security interests in what happens in that area. [From 09:30.]

Second, while he appears pleased at the resumption of dialogue between India and Pakistan he wisely avoids discussion of any U.S. involvement. I was particularly struck by his use of the word “interference.”

We would encourage any dialogue between India and Pakistan but these talks are being conducted between the two parties without American interference…Talks between India and Pakistan are always helpful. Always. [From 11:20.]

Here is the man set to become the president of the International Cricket Council in two years:

Bowling very, very wrong ‘uns may not have got him the job, but as a retired statesman, there are plenty of things that former Aussie PM John Howard can bring to highest levels of cricket adminstration.  A few humble suggestions for how the old boy can successfully make use of his background in international politics as ICC president:

1. Make Australia a bridging power. While India may be the center of cricket now, the rest of the world—particularly outside South Asia—is somewhat conflicted about how much to bandwagon against it and how much to balance it. Australia under Howard was faced with a similar dilemma. Was Australia an extension of the West, as proudly proclaimed by Robert Menzies, or was it primarily a regional player in the Asia-Pacific, as Paul Keating envisioned it? “Well, why not both?” Howard seemed to ask when he assumed the Prime Ministership. Under Howard’s leadership of the ICC, Australia can position itself as an actor that takes full advantage of Indian financial and administrative dominance in cricket  while keeping England, South Africa, New Zealand and the West Indies actively engaged.

2. Don’t be a lemming. Just because the big man says something ought to be done, doesn’t mean it should be. While he himself may disagree with this assessment, Lalit Modi is not God. And neither was George W. Bush. It may have won Howard serious brownie points in Washington committing his country to the Iraq cause, but it came back to bite him in the end. Similarly, he shouldn’t be afraid to push back against the BCCI’s more outrageous demands, rather than just going with the flow.

3.  Adopt institutional Darwinism. Like the multinational architecture of the Asia-Pacific region, the international cricket calendar is a jumble, a mishmash, a mess. Rather than let it try to do everything (badly), Howard should force the ICC to focus on the events that bring out the best of cricket, and create windows for them. Prioritise and standardize the IPL, the ODI World Cup, the World Twenty20, regular Test series, and domestic First Class and Twenty20 competitions. Scrap the Champions Trophy, the bevy of minor ODI tournaments, and series over five matches. Create a two-tiered Test structure. Overhaul the Future Tours Program, even if that proves more daunting than UNSC reforms.

4.  Enforce norms. Cheating—Shahid Afridi style—is not controversial. It’s just plain wrong. But what about discrepancies over pitches, umpiring or power plays? There’s plenty to do still to ensure that everyone—players, officials, coaches, commentators and fans—are on the same page.

5. Save Pakistan. Pakistani diplomats regularly argue that Pakistan is too important to fail. Bad rhetoric, perhaps, given the negative connotations, but with only ten Test-playing nations around, this is undeniably true for cricket. Giving billions of dollars of aid may be a waste, and selling conventional weaponry may be downright dangerous, but keeping Pakistan—and Pakistanis—involved in cricket is worth every penny.

What is your name? What is your quest? And what is your favourite colour? If only international relations were that easy.

I was fortunate to spend last weekend in London, where an eclectic grouping of government officials, scholars and journalists from Europe, the United States and India spent two days discussing issues of mutual concern. As the gathering was under the Chatham House Rule, I cannot recount discussions in their entirety. However, I felt that three inter-related questions stood out for keen followers of India.

One. Could India sustain its high rates of economic growth without another wave of reforms? Optimists contended that reforms would give India sizeable advantages over the long-run as the latent growth potential remained immense, but that the absence of reforms would still allow for moderate growth. Anecdotal evidence clearly favoured this standpoint. At the same time, pessimists continued to make a compelling case for why India could not yet afford to rest on its laurels.

Two. Would India be limited by the inherent impediments of its region, or would it successfully escape them? Here, the pessimistic scenario appeared to prevail: despite India’s best efforts to improve itself, regional instability would limit its rise, influence, and power projection capabilities.

Three. On global issues, will India choose to present itself primarily as a leader of the developing world or as a key player on various high tables? In other words, as Evan Feigenbaum nicely puts it in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, would India choose to be a G-77 or G-20 power? (Or might it be some combination of both?) The assumption—based on a fair amount of mirror-imaging by India-watchers in the West—was that it would be the latter. I personally think that will be the case given recent trend lines. But the jury is still very much out.

Aaye kahaan se? Jaaye kahaan re? The case for not sending Indian combat troops to Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the London Conference on Afghanistan, it is easy to be underwhelmed. The resulting joint communique has a whole lot of agreement, but sift through the diplomatic pablum, and it reveals few serious efforts to address critical areas of divergence amongst the parties. Only Islamabad interpreted events as some sort of miraculous breakthrough. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, typically brazen, treated the whole affair as the end of “Af-Pak,” a successful attempt at keeping out meddlesome India,  and a unanimous decision to reconcile with the Taliban. That’s all a bit of a stretch, even by the Foreign Minister’s lofty standards.

But leaving aside the bad comedy, two outcomes are of some significance: the rough timetable for a phased transition to Afghan security forces and the reintegration plan for militants, the so-called (cringe) “good Taliban.” Both throw up their own sets of problems. First, the transition to ANSF is still predicated in large part on success in training initiatives. It’s unclear what—if any—progress has emerged there. The communique calls upon the community of concerned parties (which includes India) to “meet outstanding requirements for trainers and mentoring teams,” but leaves out the messy details.

The second challenge involves continuing disagreement over whether to reintegrate Taliban-allied militants and whether to reconcile with the Taliban leadership. ”We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks,” said President Hamid Karzai, specifically, those “who accept the Afghan Constitution.” Fair enough. Yet it’s his calls for a jirga featuring the Taliban leadership, as well as the role he has articulated for Saudi King Abdullah, that are particularly disconcerting.

On this second question, there are—in some respects—three views. In a nutshell, Karzai wants both reconciliation and reintegration, Washington wants reintegration only, and New Delhi (ideally) wants neither. Newsweek’s Ron Moreau shares this view; the Taliban can’t be bought, and may not want to be reintegrated. India’s grudging acceptance of a reintegration policy represents, to a great extent, the inability to further its objectives unilaterally. If  its desire is to keep the Taliban—and ex-Taliban—out of Kabul at all costs, it has to back up its words with action, to stand up or shut up.

Which brings us to the vibrant debate underway on what role, if any, India should assume in Afghanistan, a debate for which my colleagues Nitin Pai and Rohit Pradhan deserve much credit for instigating in an article in January’s Pragati. Nitin and Rohit’s logic is compelling. If U.S. troops need to be involved, to the greatest extent possible, along the frontier with Pakistan, India should step up to the plate by deploying troops in the north and west. This is in India’s national security interests. This is in no way anti-Muslim, as many opponents of such a policy have construed it, and this is fundamentally different from India’s intervention in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. The political logic is also compelling, they argue, as the electorate rewards risk-taking, as with last year’s Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.

While I too am critical of some of the reasons regularly forwarded in India for ruling out the possibility of Indian deployment—the supposed subjugation of India to the United States, the lack of logistic support, the so-called ‘Graveyard of Empires’ thesis—I harbour another set of reservations about both the feasibility and wisdom of Nitin and Rohit’s strategy.

Are Pakistan’s demands for U.S. drone technology intended to advance its cruise missile program?

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Army Chief Ashfaq Kayani are not often in agreement. They’ve contradicted one another on control over the ISI and on Kerry-Lugar aid. But acquiring drones from the United States? They’re both in favour of that, and they’ve been working at it for over a year now. Appearing on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN show last May, Zardari was asked, “Do you need American help?” The president’s response: “I need drones.” Elsewhere, he has been a bit more specific: Pakistan needs “drone technology. (Emphasis mine.)

This consistent demand is, to say the least, peculiar. The American UCAV program has been successful in taking out Pakistan’s most wanted man, Baitullah Mehsud. It affords the United States a considerable amount of plausible deniability, and in that sense is preferable to hot pursuit from the Pakistani leadership’s standpoint. And most strikingly, it turns out that Pakistani officers are often working closely with their American counterparts on drone missions, occasionally even piloting the unmanned vehicles. The leadership’s particular emphasis on technology is even stranger. Pakistan lacks the indigenous military-industrial base to produce drones en masse, and even if it could, attaining licensing rights from the United States would be unprecedented.

But it looks like Islamabad and Pindi finally got their wish, at least partly. During Secretary of Defense Bob Gates’ recent visit to Pakistan, details were finalised for the transfer of tactical Shadow drones. Have the recipients been grateful? Not at all. According to a Dawn report,  Pakistan expected a “better offer” in the form of larger Predators or Reapers. It’s all the more cheeky because Pakistan only recently swore off offensive operations against militants for the entire year and still refuses to divulge its military plans to its American partners.

Amid all of this reporting, the reasons for the consistent, often strident, Pakistani demands for American drone technology have not been adequately investigated. One hypothesis: Pakistan intends to use the latest drone technology the United States has to offer to not only potentially deploy UAVs against regional adversaries (read: India), but also to develop its nascent land attack cruise missile (LACM) capabilities.

This should not sound far-fetched. After all, the same propellent and guidance technology that go towards developing drones can as easily be put towards LACMs. India’s attempts at missile defense make LACMs an attractive alternative to Pakistan’s already-robust ballistic missile program, or at least nicely complement it. If nothing else, this represents a brilliant plan for circumventing restrictions on missile technology exports from the United States to Pakistan.

This may not be the first time that Pakistan has tried to use American technology to advance its cruise missile program. According to Ted Postol, its Babur missile resulted from reverse-engineering American Tomahawks  that had been launched at Afghanistan in 1998.

Lessons from Nixon’s frostiness.

A running theme on Polaris has been India’s reluctance to clearly signal its strategic objectives. This has often had detrimental effects on our foreign policy. It has lost us potential friends and allies and allowed adversaries to freely misrepresent Indian intentions. Coomi Kapoor, drawing upon Kalyani Shankar’s book on Richard Nixon and Mrs. Gandhi, reminds us that both effects have long marred our foreign relations (HT Pragmatic):

A memorandum of conversations between Chinese Premiere (sic) Chou En-Lai and Nixon in February 1972 in Beijing shows that Chou shared Nixon’s intense dislike of the Nehru family. It is interesting that our enemies view Nehru book Discovery of India as evidence of Nehru’s expansionist ambitions, whereas Indians see Nehru as a flag bearer for pacifism.

Chou said to Nixon ” It is also a great pity that the daughter has taken as her legacy the philosophy of her father embodied in the book “Discovery of India”. The Chinese premiere seemed to feel that Nehru had visualized a greater Indian empire including Malaysia, Ceylon, etc “It would probably also include our Tibet”, Chou added resentfully. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was to voice a similar sentiment while talking to Nixon in 1973. “Pakistan is not the only neighbour of India which has suffered–Nepal, Sikkim, Burma and China have all suffered similarly. Living in peace with India does not mean Indian hegemony in South Asia.”

There are several reasons why Pakistan has generally had better relations with the USA than India. Apart from strategic considerations, the fact is that Pakistanis knows how to roll out the red carpet and pull out all the stops for important guests from abroad. Charlie Wilson’s War gives a riveting account of US Congressmen Charlie Wilson being wined, dined, entertained and showered with gifts in Pakistan. Wilson returned the favour sanctioning doubling of the diversion of secret funds to the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviets. Pakistan has been very successful in its strategy to woo influential friends in important place (sic). We Indians, by contrast, have budget restrictions, a bureaucratic approach and an attitude problem.

Even before he became president Nixon had a soft corner for Pakistan. When he was out of power he had visited the country five times and all sorts of courtesies were extended to him. In contrast Nixon visited India twice as a private citizen and each time he received “a minimum of appropriate protocol.” In fact on a visit to Prime Minister Gandhi’s office after 20 minutes Gandhi became impatient and asked the accompanying official from the MEA in Hindi how long was her guest going to stay. [Indian Express]

Despite recent improvements—which are certainly not inconsequential—both our insistence on basic protocol and ambiguity of intention continue to restrain us. One American official based in Washington put it to me bluntly: ”The Pakistanis have long known how to run circles around you guys in this town.”

The player auction represented the tragic blurring of two distinct spheres of experience: politics and cricket.

If one sought to imagine how India might act as a superpower, one could do worse than follow the world of cricket, where it already is one. The last decade has witnessed not just a resurgence of India as a top international side, but also its complete domination of the administrative and financial levers of the sport. 

With power comes privilege. After 96 years of being based in London, the International Cricket Council moved its headquarters eastwards, to Dubai, to be closer to the new centre of power. The ‘liberal’ entente regarding the rotation of World Cup hosting rights between continents was done away with, the subcontinent demanding a second helping over Australia and New Zealand’s protestations. And now, the world’s richest and most high-profile league is based in India, attracting the best international talent. Rich, brash, ruthless and unforgiving, Indian cricket has acted much like a hegemon might have been expected to act in international politics.

The dynamics of this parallel world order,  however, rarely matched those of the international political system. The other poles of power in cricket have been Australia, South Africa and England, none of whom would count themselves among India’s chief political competitors. Along with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, India formed a powerful subcontinental bloc, despite constant political friction with its neighbours. While perhaps ‘unnatural,’ the parallel universes could exist in relative harmony, their distinction, in fact, proving mutually invigorating. Cricket could always thrive, while helping to overcome and dilute political conflict.

But the third IPL player auction, held today in Mumbai, represents a tragic blurring of the two spheres of experience. Several star Pakistani players on the auction block were painfully, publicly passed over by Indian franchises. The cricketing logic for this collective decision on the part of IPL teams is certainly questionable. On present form and future potential, there is no reason that Umar Akmal and Mohammed Aamer should have been passed over. Shahid Afridi may arguably be past his destructive prime, but few non-Indian players are bigger draws for Indian cricket fans. And Sohail Tanvir and Umar Gul already proved themselves Twenty20 superstars in the 2008 edition of the IPL, with the former finishing top wicket-taker. Added insult to their snub came in the form of players who were picked instead: the long-ordinary Mohammad Kaif, retired stroke-maker Damien Martyn, and the chronically unfit Yusuf Abdulla.

The publicly-stated reason for the snub was unsatisfactory: teams were simply unwilling to deal with the added security and uncertainty that Pakistani players would bring with them. Given the security necessary to hold the IPL (the absence of which forced a move of last year’s edition to South Africa) and the draw their inclusion would bring the tournament in Pakistan, these excuses ring hollow.

Worst, the manner in which this was done (the Pakistani players were reportedly included in the auction following demonstrations of interest by teams), renders irrelevant all the cloying calls for peace, understanding and Track IV dialogue being made by the Indian and Pakistani media in recent weeks and months. If cricket—perhaps the last bastion of Indian popular culture left untainted by the worst aspects of international politics—is to be tarnished in this manner, it is a sad day indeed.

Further reading: INI alumnus Offstumped provides another reason for outrage: the franchises’ tacit collusion is suggestive of cartelisation—in other words, bad business practices.

Why are we always so ready to play the racism card?

As a people, we Indians are swift to take umbrage. A film shows Indian boys running around mounds of trash. Must be anti-Indian. An airline passenger reports that attempted bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was accompanied by “a well-dressed man who appeared to be of Indian descent.” Must be racially-motivated. It appears the elephant analogy associated with our country is woefully misplaced: our collective skin is just too thin.

There is no doubt that reflexive anti-Indianism persists in the West, as does bigotry grounded in ignorance.  American television host Glenn Beck’s comparison of the river Ganga to a disease is clearly offensive, but it is a bigger blot on the American conservative movement—of which Beck, rather remarkably, is a leading ideological spokesperson—demonstrating the depths to which it has descended intellectually. The danger, however, is as soon as anti-Indianism becomes the default cry against any and all criticism of the country and its people, legitimate or otherwise, it begins to wear out its effectiveness.

Take a recent rant article by Professor Vamsee Juluri in The Huffington Post. Responding to an equally unreasonable piece by Barbara Crossette in Foreign Policy, Professor Juluri decries her use of “obnoxious cliches that have come to characterize Western discourse about the colonies for decades now,” concluding that “after a brief decade or so of somewhat unexpected “India Rising” stories, India-bashing is once again becoming fashionable.”

“India-bashing” is a term I had not seen in print for a long time.  Not that criticism of India has dissipated at all. In addition to Crossette’s piece, The Daily Telegraph’s South Asia correspondent recently felt obliged to write a blog post titled “The Smelly Truth of India’s Incredible Growth.” His motivation appears to have derived from stepping on dog turd during a romantic walk on Mahabalipuram beach. Now the correct response would not be denying that there are dog droppings in Mahabalipuram—as many self-proclaimed defenders of India might instinctively do—but to gently remind the writer that we have all stepped on animal feces before, in my personal experience while strolling on both Trafalgar and Times Squares. Also, to point out that filth, slums and creaking buildings can as easily be associated with Victorian Britain, pre-War America or Soviet Russia as contemporary India. All three—for the benefit of the historically-challenged—happened to be undergoing incredible growth stories of their own during those periods. So rather than Prof. Juluri’s tirade against Indophobia, it is much better to follow the example of the methodical repudiative treatment given Crossette’s piece by fellow INI blogger Nitin Pai.

The perils of instant umbrage are not limited to public debates, but also to policy ones. American officials have seen enough of India’s reactions over the past few years to be deterred from mentioning Kashmir in public fora—the “K word,” it has come to be known in State Department circles. But has anyone sat down to explain to them why its use is so damaging? Then again, why should we? Must be anti-Indian.

Addendum: I’m not sure how to interpret this, though: 8% growth by India, and it’s overheating; 8% growth by China, and it’s the saviour of the world economy.

The Best—and Worst—of 2009

It has been almost one year since I started blogging at Polaris. I have decided to celebrate by reviewing the hundreds of articles I linked to in 2009, and compiling a list of greatest hits and misses (after all, who can resist digging up the misses?). The nominees are:

The Barack H. Obama Award for Speech of the Year

• Stanley McChrystal on COIN mathematics
• Shyam Saran on geopolitical consequences of the economic crisis
• Dave Kilcullen: “Crunch Time in Afghanistan-Pakistan“
• Honorary Mention: P. Chidambaram on restructuring India’s security architecture.

The Kautilya Award for Best Writing on Education

• Amitabh Mattoo on the study of international relations
• “Living in HRD Times” by R.P. Singh
• Joseph Nye on scholarly irrelevance

The Gen. James Jones Award for ”Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”-Inducing Moment of the Year

• “India and Climate Change,” in The Wall Street Journal
• Roger Bate on Baseball and Cricket
• Pankaj Mishra on Af-Pak in The Hindu
• Stratfor on the imminent failure of the Indian dream
• “Time of the Underdog” in The Hindu

The Nitin Pai Prize for Fisking of the Year

• B. Raman on David Miliband’s excuses
• Suhasini Haider, also on Miliband’s excuses

 The Asif Ali Zardari Award for Bizarre Writing by a World Leader

• Yukio Hatoyama’s “A New Path for Japan“
• Asif Ali Zardari: “Partnering with Pakistan“
• Muammar Gaddafi: “The One-State Solution“

The Hidden Gems of the Year, brought to you (more often than not) by aldaily.com

• Brink Lindsey, “Nostalgianomics“
• Christopher Hitchens, “Assassins of the Mind“

The Tom Friedman Award for Moment of Hyperventilation

• R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick on the South Asian arms race
• Bush and Singh as soulmates in Reuters India

The Steve Coll Prize for Best Reporting on U.S. Afghan Policy

• Peter Baker et al. on the Afghan ’surge’
• George Packer on Richard Holbrooke

Cast your ballots in the comment box. Voting concludes at midnight on January 10. Honorary awards go out to:

 The Swapan Dasgupta Honorary Award for Self-Criticism

• “Local Militancy” in Dawn

The Nouriel Roubini Award for Prescience

•  R. Hariharan, “Looks Like Prabakaran’s Last Battle” in The Hindu

Icarus Award for High Flyers Brought Down to Earth

• Kilcullen and Exum, “Death from Above, Outrage Down Below“