All posts by admin

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

India may not be a U.S. ally, but it may become the best partner we have in Asia

1 Comment

Guest post by Manish Thakur

In terms of symbolism, the President has done a splendid job when it comes to India. His first state dinner was for the Indian Prime Minister. And now, his longest overseas trip to date is to India. So why then does India feel slighted? Simple: after the heady days of Clinton and Bush, the substance of the relationship has stalled. Early naievite by the Administration on Beijing’s good intentions left India (and much of Free Asia) feeling abandoned. More problematic is our our “alliance” with Pakistan, something that is bound to raise concerns in Delhi. Indians like to explain all the downsides of our working with Pakistan. The problem is not that we don’t already know this, but that we don’t have a choice but to placate Pakistan while our troops are still fighting a war in Afghanistan. As long as we are reliant on Pakistan, we will have to expect suspicions about our intentions in Delhi.

For its part, India is also a tough party to deal with. Its obsession with strategic autonomy makes it too difficult to fit into the usual U.S. “ally” relationship, even though that may be in its interests. Furthermore, there is still an anti-U.S. reflexiveness in part of the Indian establishment. The U.S. tore apart global rules to allow India to engage in nuclear trade with the world, and yet it looks like U.S. companies will lose out to French and Russian firms in the fierce race for nuclear trade. The same may happen in India’s choice of defense purchases, where Europe and Russia still are formidable competitors. None of this will engender warm feelings in Washington. India wants U.S. support for a permanent seat on the Security Council, but ignores the fact that it has voted with the U.S. only 30% of the time, hardly giving Washington confidence to support its bid.

Longer term, however, India’s rising economy, common democratic system of government and the general popularity of the U.S. in India will see the two countries through. Also, the threat from China and jihadi terrorism will pull them ever closer, even though quite what that means is still unclear. Even on Pakistan, the U.S. can improve joint intelligence cooperation, and put pressure on Pakistan’s Generals to act against the terror groups that they themselves created.

India and the U.S. are natural partners in Asia, and the relationship certainly has the potential to become one of the defining ones of the 21st Century. I don’t know whether India will be able to join a U.S.-led Asia-Pacific NATO, something that I’ve been advocating for a while. In fact, India has begun its own security dialog with such U.S. allies as Japan and South Korea, making it a possible lynch-pin in a regional security partnership (but its absence is not a reason not to go forward). As the focus of world economic activity and military rivalry moves to the Western Pacific-Indian Ocean region, India will become increasingly central to America’s global security interests. It behooves us, therefore, to afford this relationship the importance it deserves, and not just engage in symbolism.

(This post originally appeared in www.dailyexception.com)

India-US Relations Blog

Obama’s visit: India’s red lines

1 Comment

Guest post by Raja Karthikeya

The briefing books are ready. The red carpet has been laid out. Indian leaders have made up their mind on the talking points with Obama. However, for what promises to be a historic occasion, U.S. President Obama’s visit has been hailed with surprisingly down-to-earth expectations. But understanding India’s concerns on one element that concerns the U.S. equally – terrorism – may still change the outcome of this visit and this factor goes far beyond David Headley.

Veteran South Asia analyst Ashley Tellis recently wrote that it is ironic that the key issues that pre-occupy policymakers in the U.S. and India alike – Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China have become irritants in bilateral relations. Indeed, there are yet things that Obama can do to converge U.S. and Indian strategy, particularly on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama can start by addressing the red lines that India has vis-à-vis specific non-state actors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Red lines, in diplomatic parlance, are points that are non-negotiable. But they can also represent the bare minimum demands that a negotiating side expects to have fulfilled, in order to call the discussion a success.

On Afghanistan, India has its reservations on the pace and potential outcome of the Karzai government’s negotiations with the Taliban. Irrespective of how much distance the U.S. puts between itself and the negotiations, Indians continue to believe that the talks could not happen without an implicit U.S. nod. While India closely watches the talks, it has one red line that it expects the U.S. to respect: no negotiation with the Haqqani network. This group, which has most notably been behind the 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, represents everything that worries India about the future of the region. And India’s sentiments towards the Haqqani network are not very different from what the U.S. feels about Hezbollah for the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon or Al Qaeda for the attacks on embassies in East Africa.

When it comes to non-state actors based in Pakistan, the red lines are clear as well. The U.S. should push Pakistan to act against one group’s leadership more than anything else: Lashkar-e-Taiba. It is no surprise that in the latest Pew opinion poll, Indians cited Lashkar-e-Taiba as the greatest threat to their country. And it is hardly reassuring when despite Pakistan’s claims of crackdown on the group, as cited in Bob Woodward’s Obama Wars, the U.S. National Security Advisor finds Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi directing the group’s operations from inside a Pakistani prison.

Obama is likely to ask what would inspire trust in India that Pakistan’s establishment is serious about acting against terrorism. Some very tangible measures by Islamabad would help: 1. Disallow police permission to any public gatherings or rallies by the Jamat-ud-Dawa, an organization proscribed by the UN, particularly in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi. 2. List Jamat-ud-Dawa as a banned organization under the Anti-Terrorism Acts. The absence of this measure led to Hafiz Saeed being released by the courts after arrest more than once 3. Put Hafiz Saeed away for good. His speeches themselves have led to murder and mayhem. And the fingerprints of the organization he leads, Jamat-ud-Dawa, and of LeT’s alumni have been found on several major international terrorist plots from the Mumbai attacks to the 7/7 London bombings to the 2006 transatlantic airliner “liquid bomb” plot. Again, putting a man in prison is not enough if prison turns into a mere retreat from where one can tele-commute. Take the case of Omar Sheikh, the man released in the 1999 Indian airliner hijacking who was later imprisoned in Pakistan for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl. Just after the Mumbai attacks, safe in the confines of his prison, Omar Sheikh called Pakistani President Zardari pretending to be the Indian foreign minister and raised tempers enough for Pakistan to scramble its jets and for the two nations to almost go to war. To avoid the repetition of such events, the red line on Hafiz Saeed would be that his imprisonment should imply he would not be heard from anymore.

There are those on Obama’s team who believe that the key to peace between India and Pakistan lies in resolution of differences over Kashmir. But if the Zardari government seeks to pick up the thread of the back-channel process that was aborted in 2007, a good start would be to disallow meetings of the “United Jihad Council” – the consortium of violent terrorist groups that strike in Jammu & Kashmir. This consortium holds its annual meetings in Muzaffarabad in full media spotlight where its members, carrying arms, call for violent attacks in India.

If President Obama can assure India of using his influence and sees that these red lines are addressed and that these tangible concerns are met, then this visit would not just be a success – it would be the beginning of a whole new era of trust in India-US relations.

(Raja Karthikeya is a foreign policy researcher.)

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

US-India Strategic Partnership: Irritants Cast a Shadow

1 Comment

The U.S-India strategic partnership is moving on an upward trajectory, though not a predictably smooth one. In fact, after the euphoric “indispensable partners” phase of the second administration of President George W. Bush when the Civil Nuclear Energy Cooperation Agreement was successfully concluded in July 2005, the pace of growth has slowed down.

Though President Bill Clinton had realised the potential of engaging India and had begun the process to get India out of the nuclear dog house, it was President Bush who made it a key foreign policy initiative. India was recognised as a state with nuclear weapons outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), given an NSG waiver to import nuclear technology and fuel, and allowed to sign an Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Additional Protocol only placed  India’s civilian nuclear reactors under international safeguards while keeping strategic facilities out of the scope of the safeguards. India was also permitted to reprocess uranium under safeguards for its pressurized heavy water reactors leading to the development of the three-stage thorium fuel cycle.

Under the Next Steps for Strategic Partnership and the Defence Framework Agreement of June 2005 signed under the Bush administration, the technology denial regime is being gradually eased and defense cooperation considerably enhanced. For both the countries, the growing partnership is a hedging strategy against Chinese hegemony in Asia and will prove to be mutually beneficial in case China implodes due to its internal contradictions.

Another crucial area of cooperation between India and the U.S. includes enhanced counter-terrorism cooperation. The CIA has not only given India substantial evidence about the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008, but also allowed Indian agencies to interrogate its key plotter David Coleman Headley. The sale of U.S. defense equipment to India has also gained momentum. Besides the P8I Poseidon maritime reconnaissance aircraft, C-130J Super Hercules aircraft for Special Forces, C-17 Globemaster strategic airlift aircraft and the USS Trenton, an amphibious warfare ship, many other defense acquisitions are in the pipeline. India is likely to spend up to $ 100 billion on defense purchases over the next 10 years. However, India would like to move away from a buyer-seller relationship towards transfer of technology and joint development, joint production and joint marketing of latest weapons and technology.

In the midst of this flourishing defense relationship, India feels slighted at being left out of negotiations for the resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan despite its obvious strategic stakes, and immense contribution to the development effort. The sale of conventional arms to Pakistan, including F-16 aircraft and 155mm artillery, ostensibly for counter-insurgency operations, also rankles with India as U.S. arms have emboldened Pakistan to launch both covert and overt military operations against India in the past.

While the End User Monitoring Agreement was signed recently, the U.S. would like to see early progress on the Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) and the two technology and information safeguards agreements – the Communications Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA).

There is no doubt that the growing U.S.-India strategic partnership will define the contours of the geo-politics of the 21st century. However, expectations from president Obama’s forthcoming visit to India are rather low as he has so far not provided the type of leadership and impetus to the relationship that his predecessor had. At best, the two countries might sign a free trade agreement, which in itself will be a good step forward for bilateral trade.

(Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.)

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Terrorism, Financial Collapse and China

Leave a comment

Guest post by Manish Thakur

America stands at the crossroads of a number of critical security challenges, none of which can be tackled in isolation. Terrorism, a struggling economy and a resurgent China all require urgent focus. We do not have a choice in dealing with one problem to the exclusion of the others. It will take strong but “cool and collected” leadership over the coming years balancing and prioritizing between them if we are to secure the future. It will also take reinvigorated alliances and new partners, particularly outside of Europe, the traditional focus of most of our security efforts.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States has been in locked in a far-reaching struggle with jihadi terrorism, whether against the Taliban in Afghanistan or against insurgents following the invasion of Iraq. Our military and security services constantly guard against very real threats of further attacks, particularly from radicalized populations in failing countries such as Pakistan and Somalia, or among disaffected members of immigrant communities in Western Europe. But even as our troops fight abroad, the broader American society has not changed its bad habits of over-consumption at home.  Our ability to borrow cheap foreign money and spend it on cheap foreign goods has resulted in staggering debt, both at the household and at the national level, threatening the integrity of our entire financial system. If the collapse of the Twin Towers signaled an end to the post-Cold War peace dividend, the collapse of Lehman signaled an end to the post-War period of overwhelming American economic preeminence.

Between the fighting and the spending, we nearly miss the really big news of the decade: the remarkable return of China to its historical place as a world leader. Building on a global trading system underwritten by the U.S. military, and buoyed by an undervalued currency, Beijing has quietly amassed massive foreign exchange resources, and now looks to secure its economic rise with a growing military and expanding ties across the Persian Gulf, Africa, Central Asia and Latin America. It is not being alarmist to say that China’s sudden rise could be as destabilizing in the early decades of the 21st Century as Germany’s was at the start of the 20th Century. At best, a mercantile China will co-exist uncomfortably with the U.S. as a trading partner and sometimes rival. At worst, a militaristic China will seek to eject the U.S. altogether from Asia, undermine it in the Gulf, and fashion itself globally as an alternate form of government to liberal democracy.

We face a dangerous world where our “unipolar moment” to project power has truly passed and yet our challenges have multiplied. We must therefore reengage and expect more from our traditional allies even as we seek new ones, particularly those espousing or aspiring to liberal democratic ideals. Our NATO alliance, though vital, is no longer sufficient as America’s primary security alliance given that Europe punches below its weight in world affairs.  Our Middle Eastern alliances are critical in our efforts against jihadi terrorism but will always be compromised by the undemocratic nature of the governments behind them. Our Asian alliances grow ever more important but we need to urgently reengage with them, particularly as China replaces us as the number one trading partner for country after country in the region.

Beyond our traditional partners, we need to establish substantive ties with new countries that can further enhance our security. Among these, no country is more important than India. Its rapidly expanding economy makes it an inevitable player in world affairs. Its democratic polity makes it an enduring partner. Its concerns over the same issues of jihadi terror and an assertive China make it a natural ally.  I believe in this not simply because I am co-Chair of USINPAC’s National Security Committee or because I am an Indian-American. I believe in a meaningful U.S.-India partnership because of its inherent logic for both countries.  I look forward to commencing this National Security blog for USINPAC at this challenging time in our nation’s history, and I welcome your comments.

(Manish Thakur is co-Chair of USINPAC’s National Security Committee, with a focus on America’s strategic relationships, particularly with AfPak and China. All views expressed here are his personal opinions and do that reflect those of USINPAC.)

India-US Relations Blog

Did U.S. authorities know about Headley’s terrorist connections?

1 Comment

The U.S. federal authorities had been warned of David Coleman Headley’s links to Lashkar-e-Taiba by his wives on various occasions before the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, according to media reports today. The New York Times reports that about a year before the attacks, Headley’s Moroccan wife warned U.S. authorities in Pakistan about her husband’s intentions to attack. In 2005, his American wife had complained to authorities about her husband’s potential links with Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, these warnings did not lead to any arrests and Headley continued to make training and reconnaissance trip to Pakistan and India in preparation of the attacks.

An important point to note in David Headley’s relationship with the U.S. authorities is that he was a longtime informer in Pakistan for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Questions are being raised if this connection made U.S. authorities neglect complaints against him. Authorities however, maintained that the complaints by Headley’s wives were followed upon but did not reveal enough for any arrests to take place. Questions are also been raised in India about why India was not sufficiently informed about the matter, if the U.S. had prior information in the case.

During his interrogation by Indian authorities in Washington D.C, Headley revealed plans to attack various other cities including Delhi and the Prime Minister’s residence. He is also said to have revealed links between the ISI and the 26/11 attacks.

David Coleman Headley was arrested last year in Chicago with another co-conspirator, Tahawwur Hussain Rana. He had pleaded guilty to planning the Mumbai attacks and entered into a plea bargain with U.S. authorities which prevent his extradition to any country.