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zohaib · #2 Saturday, July 09, 2005

India’s defence ties with US
By Ghayoor Ahmed (Dawn ,7 july)

THE United States and India have signed a defence pact which charts a course for defence cooperation between the two countries during the next ten years and will be an element of their broader strategic partnership based on shared strategic interests.

President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would hold a historic summit in Washington on July 18 that would reflect the emerging global partnership between the United States and India.

The defence pact, which is basically aimed at upgrading military ties between Washington and New Delhi, marks a new phase in defence relationship between the two countries. The US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukerjee, have also said that the two countries have “entered a new era” in their bilateral relationship. Nicholas Bruns, Assistant Secretary of State, during his visit to New Delhi last week, said that “developing a strategic partnership between the US and India is one of the highest priorities for our president. We see India as a rising power in the world, as a democratic power and as a friendly country”.

It may be recalled that during her visit to New Delhi in March this year, the US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, had also said that “the president very much values the enhanced relationship between the United States and India, the fact that we are becoming in many ways important global as well as regional partners”. This statement testifies that Washington recognizes the vitality and importance of India to its long-term interests in South Asia and beyond and is, therefore, keen to develop a strong relationship with that country. Washington also believes that Asia is poised to become strategic centre of gravity in international politics.

Alan Kronstadt of the Congressional Research Centre has also confirmed this assertion, saying that “the US appears to be placing a bigger bet on India”. He has also said that according to many analysts, “India and Pakistan are no longer perceived as equals in Washington. Pakistan is viewed as a middle power and India has the much greater potential down the road. You won’t hear ‘strategic partner’ being used much with Pakistan but you will hear it with India”. It is thus clear that Washington’s foreign policy has now changed in India’s favour and that the doctrine of parity between the two nations of South Asia has been abandoned.

The US-India framework for defence cooperation stipulates an expansion of defence cooperation between the two countries to strengthen their security, reinforcement of their strategic partnership and greater interaction and understanding between their armed forces and defence establishments. Joint exercises, collaboration in multinational operations, when it is in their common interest, expanding collaboration in missile defence, technology transfer and co-production are also envisaged as part of defence cooperation between the two countries.

Washington and New Delhi have also established a defence policy group to serve as the primary mechanism to guide the bilateral strategic defence relationship and to ensure advancement of the US-India defence cooperation. A defence procurement and production group has also been set up to oversee the defence trade and look for technology collaboration between the two sides.

Analysts believe that the US-India defence pact is designed to help India become a “major world power in the 21st century” to contain China which, according to a recent Pentagon report, might emerge as a strategic rival to the United States. It may be interesting to note that when President George W Bush came to power in 2001, he called China a “strategic competitor” rather than a “strategic partner”, the term that was used by the Clinton administration.

It is also worth mentioning that in recent months senior US officials, including the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and director, CIA, Porter Goss, have also voiced their concern about the growing Chinese economic and military power. Washington, therefore, fears that its vital interests, particularly in South East and South Asia, could be threatened by China, making it necessary to contain it.

In a statement issued on June 30, a spokesman of the Pakistan foreign office expressed concern over the US-India defence pact, saying that Pakistan had already conveyed its concern to Washington over its negative consequences, in particular, over the induction of new weapons system such as missile defence that would destabilize the strategic balance in the region and may trigger an arms race here. Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri has also spoken in a similar vein.

These statements were, however, rhetorical and not sufficient to match the gravity of the situation and therefore a deeper evaluation of the implications the US-India defence pact for Pakistan’s security is called for, with a view to drawing a strategy to meet this daunting challenge. Washington needs to be told, in clear terms, that its defence collaboration with India, which it has justified on grounds of meeting the global security threats and its perceived strategic interests in South Asia, may not only have a perilous effect on Pakistan, but in the long run, its consequences may turn out to be harmful to the United States itself.

It is rather intriguing that the successive governments in Pakistan blissfully remained unaware of the fact that during the last many years a fundamental transformation in relations between the United States and India has taken place. The US-India defence pact was, in fact, in the offing since January 1995 when the two countries had signed the “Agreed Minute on Defence Relations”.

The defence pact, signed on June 28, only marks the culmination of the process that had been initiated ten years ago and allowed sufficient time to Pakistan to persuade the United States to abandon it. Apparently, this opportunity was lost for some inexplicable reasons which the nation has every right to know.

The writer is a former ambassador.