Clintonite Indian Tilt

Columnist Dr S M RAHMAN examines the US tilt towards our hostile neighbour.

It is generally held that US foreign policy is not chameleon - like to change colours with the change of administration and that there is an element of continuity, irrespective of who is at the helm of affairs. This may be true but not entirely. The Democrats and the Republicans very often do not share the same weltanschauung - the world view, which shapes foreign policy. It is, therefore, essential that Clinton’s world-view must be taken into account and to see how is it different from that of a Republican contender for power. In other words, how would Al Gore or Bush pursue their policy orientations towards India in the event one or the other walks into the White House as the forty fourth President of USA.

American strategists face an existential dilemma - what future holds for USA? Will the unipolar moment, the strategic gift of the Post-Cold-War era, which came in the wake of USSR’s ouster from the global power arena, continue to bolster the US ego to be at the apex of power - a blend of both military and economic ‘macho’ image. Or will unipolarity dissolve under the seething pressure of multipolarity. The Democrats and the Republicans part company on this contentious issue. The Clinton administration has more or less reconciled to the inevitable march of history towards power diffusion, and accept what Shalikashville - Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff made as a geopolitical prophecy: “rise of regional power is leading to multipolar world.” Implicit in this is the assumption that a rival power is in the offing, which would not let USA wield absolute power over the world. It is, however, conjectural as to how long would it take for this eventuality to emerge. It is generally assumed that a decade and a half - i.e., 2015 would be the optimum period, when USA’s “lone power status” would become a fact of history. The balancing counter power, in order to be effective has to be at least of the level of former USSR - the Cold War challenger. It could either be a regional great power or “global peer-competitor”. Russia and China could qualify, but according to Hoffman, in the final analysis it would be “less dependent upon the considerable US diplomatic or other actions that are being undertaken to shape the international order and more dependent upon internal developments and attitudes within those countries and in their surrounding regions. Moreover, “whether regional opponent of the US becomes an effective military challenger also depends atleast partly on variables that US cannot ultimately control. Among them are wider international access to advanced technology along with modern weaponry including weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the requisite skills to maintain and employ it.” In other words, USA cannot entirely construct ‘multipolarity’ of its own choosing. It has to wait and see whether China becomes a great regional power or Russia phoenix like rises from its own ashes to regain the global clout. Clinton’s administration is tuned towards coping up with both the eventualities.

For Russia, all efforts are geared to Europeanize its identity under the pervasive influence of “NATO”. In his book, The Grand Chessboard (1997), by Zbigniew Brzezinski, which reflects the American geostrategic move towards “integrated Europe, reinforced by a widened NATO and rendered even more secure by a constructive security relationship with Russia. “Hence, America’s central geostrategic goal”, he says, “can be summed up quite simply: it is to consolidate through a more genuine transatlantic partnership the US bridgehead on the Eurasian Continent so that an enlarged Europe can become a more viable spring-board for projecting into Eurasia, the international democratic and cooperative order. For Russia, therefore, the policy is that it remains a peer with clipped wings, never to regain its cold war clout. For China, a viable power especially in Eurasias far east. Brzezinski, contends that America would not have a political foothold on the Asian mainland unless an American Chinese geostrategic consensus is successfully mustered. But engagement, is a two-edged weapon. Pressures on China would be mounted through the periodic propaganda whip of human rights violations, creating internal dissensions for democratic values and playing up Taiwan or Tibet cards on opportune moments. Just as Russia would be contained in the overall NATO orbit, China would be counter-balanced by building up India as a potent regional power with a vibrant economy and stabilized democracy on the southern fringe of Eurasia. In the multipolar world order, therefore, Brzezinski’s prescription is based on the assumption that America’s unprecedented power is bound to diminish, over time, the priority must be the rise of other regional powers in ways that do not threaten America’s global primacy.

In the multipolar firmament, there may be a constellation of power stars, but USA, must remain the most luminous one. Tilt towards India is a logical derivative of the emerging geo-structure scenario in the world, as conceived by Clinton administration. With formidable power centres like Germany in Europe, and Japan already in the US orbit of influence and if India too is lured into becoming US strategic ally, only two powers remain problematic - Russia and China. They have to be so manoeuvred that USA remains the global arbiter. Thus with grand geostrategic design, overarching Atlantic and Pacific, the countries like Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, North Korea etc., falling in the crushed zone, will have to bear the strategic brunt, for which they have to evolve pragmatic options; India, on the other hand will have a very coveted position, as USA would like to wean it from Russia - its cold war ally - and the latter would compete for not letting it go completely in the strategic lap of USA. India is a very tempting market for Russia’s military hardware. Sizing the imperative of the sensitive situation India would like to extract maximum benefits from both - a game at which it is a past master. USA, sooner or later will itself realize how dependable is this ally, endowed with its own unbriddled hegemonic ambitions. USA’s Assistant Secretary of State Inderfurth’s recent statement that US overtures towards India is not at the cost of Pakistan, appears to be a strategic correction as a sequel to this realization.

The Republicans, while they do nourish the same primacy role for USA, but in a different way. Any threat of replacement of unipolarity, with multipolarity is considered a haemorrhage of US foreign policy, which they contend must remain glued to the perseverance of unipolar world - a hard earned strategic achievement. During the Republican President George Bush’s tenure in the early 1990s, Defence Planning Guidance (DFG), was drafted, which highlighted USA’s Post Cold War strategy. This gave a very clear cut direction. No rival super power be allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union. Even Germany and Japan as a corollary to the policy, be forbidden to become super powers. Although this draft was subsequently stripped off its overly aggressive stance the Republican mind-set remains, what Robert Dole - a 1996 Republican Presidential candidate said: Leadership does not consist of posing questions for international debate; leadership consists of proposing and achieving solutions..Leadership is also saying what you mean, meaning what you say, and sticking to it. That includes a willingness to use American force when required...Diplomacy without force is empty, and force without diplomacy is irresponsible. The fundamental relationship between diplomacy and force is not understood by the current administration...This administration has displayed a basic discomfort with American military power...An unfortunate precedent has been set in seeking prior United Nations support for what an American president proclaimed was in Americas interests - interests that should not be second-guessed, modified, or subject to the approval of international organizations. (Foreign Policy Journal, Spring 1995).

The Republican agenda is excessively militant to the extent of bypassing UNO for the sake of US interests and achieving no-proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction through brute force. While Republicans would like to pursue a relatively tough policy towards China, it would not be a very benign one with respect to India either-Ledeen representing Republican strategic thought, blames United States for India’s Nukes: India’s nuclear capacity benefited enormously from Clinton administration’s 1995 decision permitting India to purchase American nuclear technology for use in unsafeguarded facilities. He makes it quite explicit: We cannot blithely arm the world’s most populous nation [China] without causing tremors throughout the globe. We cannot assume that nations [like China and India] will act in accordance with the highest moral principles. History shows that war and the preparation for war, is the most common human activity. If we truly want peace, we must deprive potential enemies of powerful weapons. Ledeen exhibits a typical blindspot of USA’s ruthless murder of moral principles, in targetting Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons, there appears a strategic compulsion to augment security through Ballistic Missile Defence System.

Clinton’s administration, under the influence of the Republicans, who were utterly critical of cutting of US defence spending too far, too fast has, in order to blunt the opposition bite, resolved to construct the security environment, with greater reinforcement of defence ties with Japan and pursuing Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) and National Missile Defence (NMD) programmes. These are bound to create strategic reverberations and may induce China and Russia to come closer, the indications of which were very explicit in the Shanghai Accord in 1996 between China, Russia and three states of Central Asia - Kazakistan, Kirgyzstan and Tajikistan. The Republicans may strive to put frictions towards China’s pace of rapid development in economic and security dimensions, but it is unlikely that it would be intimidated by any such design, as it has built up the resilience to withstand any strategic shock. India on the other hand will certainly not have a smooth sailing under the Republican administration as the strategic romance initiated by Clinton and rather crudely demonstrated during his recent visit to the Sub-continent, would prove ephemeral and pass off as sheer infatuation. The Republican mind will not support India’s wild-spree for amassing conventional as well as nuclear weapons and their obsession for nuclearism so manifest in its grandiose nuclear doctrine.

Pakistan has nothing to worry about as it is neither nuclear proliferator nor a competitor in arms race. Its defence orientation is only towards making minimal adjustments to India’s out-of-proportion defence expenditure to give an unequivocal signal that it will not compromise on its honour and dignity. Lord Russell rightly said: If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace.