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Pomp and substance
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Dr Maleeha Lodhi
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the
UK, and a former editor of The News.
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Washington did not produce any big-ticket agreement or show-stopping announcement. But it reinforced the growing strategic relationship between the two countries.
In the first state visit of the Obama presidency, symbolism seemed as important as substance. Some saw pomp and diplomatic pageantry take precedence over content during the four-day trip. In contrast to Prime Minister Singhs 2005 trip, which saw the signing of the civilian nuclear deal that became the emblem of a new strategic relationship, the Nov 24 visit was not able to resolve the sticking points under the 123 agreement to make that deal operational.
The visit was preceded by the expression of great Indian anxiety over Washingtons growing ties with Beijing as well as the ostensible importance accorded to Pakistan by Americas regional strategy.
If proof was needed of Delhis zero-sum mindset in relation to Washingtons ties with China and with Pakistan, it was provided by the stance taken by Indian officials in the run-up to the Singh visit a demonstration of small-mindedness at odds with Delhis big-power aspirations.
What is being characterised as an era of the G-2 partnership (an alliance of US and Chinese interests) triggered panic attacks in Delhi. Indian officials used the recent rise in Sino-Indian tensions, provoked mainly by Indian border movements and escalation in Indian rhetoric, to raise the spectre of a threat from China. This was designed to elicit a positive response from the US to the Indian desire to serve as a strategic counterweight to China.
Indian officials complained that President Obamas Asian tour ignored India. What also rattled Delhi was the formulation in the Sino-US joint statement of Nov 17, which committed the two nations to work together to promote peace, stability and development in South Asia.
By projecting this as a slight Delhi betrayed a deeper insecurity driven by the fear of a re-hyphenation with Pakistan and expanding Sino-US ties posing a threat to its global ambitions.
This unease was articulated by a number of commentators, including Fareed Zakaria, the Indian-American editor of Newsweek, who urged the US not to relegate India to regional status while pursuing its global partnership with China.
These analysts overlooked the reality that India is in a different league from China. The symbiotic relationship between the US and China is today the pivot of the global economy. The financial crisis has only reinforced American dependence on Chinese lending. Despite the US-Indian confluence on many issues their relations are on a different plane reflecting the vast power asymmetry between India and China.
On Pakistan, the Indian effort ahead of the visit was to warn Washington not to subordinate US-Indian ties to the US-Pakistan relationship. The focus on Pakistan to the exclusion of Indias emerged as a common complaint in officially inspired media comment.
An editorial in The Indian Express illustrated this: The Obama administration has tended to use Pakistan as the fulcrum of South Asia, and see India as one knotty strand in the Afghanistan tangle.
Prime Minister Singh made repeated mention in pre-visit interviews of his expectation that the US should pressure Islamabad to change course, while questioning the wisdom of Americas ties with Islamabad and accusing Pakistan of using terror as an instrument of policy. The aim was to malign Pakistan and elicit a critical public position on Pakistan from the Obama administration.
The signing during the Singh visit of a number of memorandums (six MOUs and two MOIs), a glitzy White House state dinner and a wide-ranging joint statement, all served to indicate a deepening relationship.
But any Indian expectation that the visit would operationalise the civilian nuclear deal and open the way to rapid technology access failed to materialise. This was due to persisting differences over a reprocessing agreement. These relate to safeguards to ensure that low enriched uranium supplied by American companies are not reprocessed as weapons-grade fuel and rules for the handling of enriched uranium. Another obstacle is a law yet to be enacted by India to limit the liability of foreign firms in the event of a nuclear accident.
While these issues have delayed the execution of the nuclear deal, this does little to reassure Islamabad that once implemented the agreement will enable India to enhance its nuclear-weapons capability as its ability to purchase nuclear fuel from outside will free up indigenous fuel to be diverted to its weapons programme. This has strategic ramifications that will urge Pakistan to take appropriate countermeasures to address the rising asymmetry in fissile material stocks, and to consider ways to ensure that nuclear deterrence is not eroded.
As for US affirmation of Indias global role, officials in Delhi were apparently satisfied that their partnership has been acknowledged as indispensable for global peace and security. Indian concerns that a Democratic administration would be less enthusiastic on this score than the Bush administration (which was more willing to embrace the notion of India as a counterweight to China) were evidently allayed by the joint statements recognition of India playing an increasingly important role in world affairs.
But any hope that this would translate into US support for Indias quest for a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council would have been dashed. The joint statement did not go beyond recording a mutual desire for unspecified UN reform.
Significant from Pakistans perspective was the recognition accorded to Indias role in Afghanistan. The joint statement appreciated Indias role in reconstruction and rebuilding efforts and hoped for its enhancement. This struck a very different note from that by General Stanley McChrystal in his Afghanistan review, where he referred to Indian activism in Afghanistan exacerbating regional tensions.
Islamabad would view this part of the joint statement with sharp concern. This will likely strengthen suspicions in Pakistans security establishment of a Delhi-Kabul-Washington nexus, which in turn could heighten fears of Pakistans strategic encirclement. This might urge Islamabad to consider ways of neutralising the effects of such a nexus for its security.
During the press conference with Prime Minister Singh, President Obama studiously avoided being drawn into openly criticising Pakistan. Instead, he found a tactful way of voicing Washingtons desire to see a de-escalation of Pakistan-India tensions. But in passing up the opportunity to call for a resolution of their disputes, he signalled US reticence to play any significant peacemaking role. This reflects a US stance that is more responsive to the Indian position of freezing rather than settling disputes.
This will not preclude Washington from privately urging the two countries to revive the diplomatic backchannel to address Kashmir and other disputes. But US reluctance to use any political capital to promote a process of conflict resolution will not be lost on Islamabad.
What will also figure in Islamabads security calculations are the implications flowing from formulations on terrorist safe havens in Pakistan contained in the Indo-US joint statement. Injected at Delhis behest these gratuitous sentences provide a sharp contrast to the unexceptionable language on countering terrorism contained in the US-China joint declaration.
Islamabad will also have to weigh the likely impact on regional stability of US military sales to India, especially in the context of aggressive pronouncements by Indian military leaders about cold start and limited war doctrines.
The Singh visit may not have yielded all that the Indians wanted from it because of their unrealistic set of expectations. But several aspects of solidifying US-India ties have ramifications for Pakistan that will need to be carefully evaluated.
A hard-headed appraisal must be conducted in the context of renewed American requests for Islamabads cooperation to implement Obamas new strategy in Afghanistan. It must also be undertaken from the perspective of the countrys broader strategic vision, especially future relations with its abiding strategic partner, China.
Pomp and substance
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Dr Maleeha Lodhi
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the
UK, and a former editor of The News.
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Washington did not produce any big-ticket agreement or show-stopping announcement. But it reinforced the growing strategic relationship between the two countries.
In the first state visit of the Obama presidency, symbolism seemed as important as substance. Some saw pomp and diplomatic pageantry take precedence over content during the four-day trip. In contrast to Prime Minister Singhs 2005 trip, which saw the signing of the civilian nuclear deal that became the emblem of a new strategic relationship, the Nov 24 visit was not able to resolve the sticking points under the 123 agreement to make that deal operational.
The visit was preceded by the expression of great Indian anxiety over Washingtons growing ties with Beijing as well as the ostensible importance accorded to Pakistan by Americas regional strategy.
If proof was needed of Delhis zero-sum mindset in relation to Washingtons ties with China and with Pakistan, it was provided by the stance taken by Indian officials in the run-up to the Singh visit a demonstration of small-mindedness at odds with Delhis big-power aspirations.
What is being characterised as an era of the G-2 partnership (an alliance of US and Chinese interests) triggered panic attacks in Delhi. Indian officials used the recent rise in Sino-Indian tensions, provoked mainly by Indian border movements and escalation in Indian rhetoric, to raise the spectre of a threat from China. This was designed to elicit a positive response from the US to the Indian desire to serve as a strategic counterweight to China.
Indian officials complained that President Obamas Asian tour ignored India. What also rattled Delhi was the formulation in the Sino-US joint statement of Nov 17, which committed the two nations to work together to promote peace, stability and development in South Asia.
By projecting this as a slight Delhi betrayed a deeper insecurity driven by the fear of a re-hyphenation with Pakistan and expanding Sino-US ties posing a threat to its global ambitions.
This unease was articulated by a number of commentators, including Fareed Zakaria, the Indian-American editor of Newsweek, who urged the US not to relegate India to regional status while pursuing its global partnership with China.
These analysts overlooked the reality that India is in a different league from China. The symbiotic relationship between the US and China is today the pivot of the global economy. The financial crisis has only reinforced American dependence on Chinese lending. Despite the US-Indian confluence on many issues their relations are on a different plane reflecting the vast power asymmetry between India and China.
On Pakistan, the Indian effort ahead of the visit was to warn Washington not to subordinate US-Indian ties to the US-Pakistan relationship. The focus on Pakistan to the exclusion of Indias emerged as a common complaint in officially inspired media comment.
An editorial in The Indian Express illustrated this: The Obama administration has tended to use Pakistan as the fulcrum of South Asia, and see India as one knotty strand in the Afghanistan tangle.
Prime Minister Singh made repeated mention in pre-visit interviews of his expectation that the US should pressure Islamabad to change course, while questioning the wisdom of Americas ties with Islamabad and accusing Pakistan of using terror as an instrument of policy. The aim was to malign Pakistan and elicit a critical public position on Pakistan from the Obama administration.
The signing during the Singh visit of a number of memorandums (six MOUs and two MOIs), a glitzy White House state dinner and a wide-ranging joint statement, all served to indicate a deepening relationship.
But any Indian expectation that the visit would operationalise the civilian nuclear deal and open the way to rapid technology access failed to materialise. This was due to persisting differences over a reprocessing agreement. These relate to safeguards to ensure that low enriched uranium supplied by American companies are not reprocessed as weapons-grade fuel and rules for the handling of enriched uranium. Another obstacle is a law yet to be enacted by India to limit the liability of foreign firms in the event of a nuclear accident.
While these issues have delayed the execution of the nuclear deal, this does little to reassure Islamabad that once implemented the agreement will enable India to enhance its nuclear-weapons capability as its ability to purchase nuclear fuel from outside will free up indigenous fuel to be diverted to its weapons programme. This has strategic ramifications that will urge Pakistan to take appropriate countermeasures to address the rising asymmetry in fissile material stocks, and to consider ways to ensure that nuclear deterrence is not eroded.
As for US affirmation of Indias global role, officials in Delhi were apparently satisfied that their partnership has been acknowledged as indispensable for global peace and security. Indian concerns that a Democratic administration would be less enthusiastic on this score than the Bush administration (which was more willing to embrace the notion of India as a counterweight to China) were evidently allayed by the joint statements recognition of India playing an increasingly important role in world affairs.
But any hope that this would translate into US support for Indias quest for a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council would have been dashed. The joint statement did not go beyond recording a mutual desire for unspecified UN reform.
Significant from Pakistans perspective was the recognition accorded to Indias role in Afghanistan. The joint statement appreciated Indias role in reconstruction and rebuilding efforts and hoped for its enhancement. This struck a very different note from that by General Stanley McChrystal in his Afghanistan review, where he referred to Indian activism in Afghanistan exacerbating regional tensions.
Islamabad would view this part of the joint statement with sharp concern. This will likely strengthen suspicions in Pakistans security establishment of a Delhi-Kabul-Washington nexus, which in turn could heighten fears of Pakistans strategic encirclement. This might urge Islamabad to consider ways of neutralising the effects of such a nexus for its security.
During the press conference with Prime Minister Singh, President Obama studiously avoided being drawn into openly criticising Pakistan. Instead, he found a tactful way of voicing Washingtons desire to see a de-escalation of Pakistan-India tensions. But in passing up the opportunity to call for a resolution of their disputes, he signalled US reticence to play any significant peacemaking role. This reflects a US stance that is more responsive to the Indian position of freezing rather than settling disputes.
This will not preclude Washington from privately urging the two countries to revive the diplomatic backchannel to address Kashmir and other disputes. But US reluctance to use any political capital to promote a process of conflict resolution will not be lost on Islamabad.
What will also figure in Islamabads security calculations are the implications flowing from formulations on terrorist safe havens in Pakistan contained in the Indo-US joint statement. Injected at Delhis behest these gratuitous sentences provide a sharp contrast to the unexceptionable language on countering terrorism contained in the US-China joint declaration.
Islamabad will also have to weigh the likely impact on regional stability of US military sales to India, especially in the context of aggressive pronouncements by Indian military leaders about cold start and limited war doctrines.
The Singh visit may not have yielded all that the Indians wanted from it because of their unrealistic set of expectations. But several aspects of solidifying US-India ties have ramifications for Pakistan that will need to be carefully evaluated.
A hard-headed appraisal must be conducted in the context of renewed American requests for Islamabads cooperation to implement Obamas new strategy in Afghanistan. It must also be undertaken from the perspective of the countrys broader strategic vision, especially future relations with its abiding strategic partner, China.
Pomp and substance
