India News Online » News Analysis » Security Issues » 

F-16s for Pakistan : Is US policy shift in Indian interest ?

	April 04, 2005

While there is understandable disappointment in India about the Proposed American sale of F-16 warplanes to Pakistan there was not adequate grasp of the far-reaching global implications of the American offer to sell top-line combat aircraft to India with co-production possibilities and civilian nuclear reactors, writes well-known security analyst K. Subrahmanyam.

The US State Department gave a deep background briefing to American presspersons on March 25, explaining President George W. Bush’s new strategy for South Asia. The new strategy was so startling to the American presspersons that in the open press briefing the Department’s Deputy spokesman Adam Ereli was asked to state it on record and he did - the new US goal and strategy is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century.

In the deep background briefing it was mentioned that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during her visit to Delhi, had presented the outline of this strategy to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The sale of F-16s to Pakistan and the offers of civilian nuclear reactors and co-production of aircraft to India are all part of this strategy. The US will be offering to India command and control, early warning and missile defence systems.

The US has made a judgement that the NSSP (Next Steps in Strategic Partnership) was not broad enough to really encompass the kind of things it needed to do, to take the Indo-US relationship where it needed to go and so President Bush and Secretary Rice had developed the outline of a decisively broader strategic relationship.

Why are the Americans doing this? This was explained - “The future of this region as a whole is simply vital to the future of the United States. You have got India, which is the most populous democracy on earth and it is soon to surpass China as the most populous country on earth. You have a region that if you see it from India through Afghanistan is going to be critical both in the world’s future demographically and economically and also with China on one side, Iran and Middle East on the other and as we can see a turbulent Central Asian region to the north. “

In India, in view of the history of relationship with the US over the last 58 years there is bound to be a lot of cynicism about this declared US plan. While that cynicism is understandable, that attitude may also be rooted in profound ignorance of the evolution of international relations over the last five decades.

After fighting the Second World War, in which millions of casualties occurred, the US, the analyst says, rebuilt the entire Western Europe through the Marshall Plan and Japan. Though Churchill called the Marshall Plan “the most unsordid act in history” the US did it also out of consideration of its own self-interest. The US reconstruction built up Germany and Japan, the former enemies, into world-class powers. At the same time, those countries were able to resist communism and become US allies in the Cold War.

Thereafter, the US strategy focussed on Southeast Asia, helping countries of the region strategically and economically to become the Asian Tigers. China’s rapid growth and its advance towards the status of the second largest economy of the world and becoming the United States’ largest trade partner could not have been possible without American help and investments.

Compared to the intensity of hostility that prevailed between America on one side and Germany, Japan and China on the other, the US relationship with India was one of indifference rather than hostility.

According to the analyst, Pakistanis advertised themselves as great fighters while they projected the Hindus as non-martial. The debacle at Sela-Bomdila in the 1962 India-China war convinced the Americans about Indian military weakness. In 1965, the US Defence Department played a wargame along with Harvard University and concluded that in an India-Pakistan war, India would be defeated.

Those were days when India had to depend on PL-480 food imports from the US to feed its population. A book called ‘Famine 1975’ appeared in the US in 1965 predicting a major famine in India and arguing that India was not worth saving.

The 1971 victory of India over Pakistan, the 1974 Pokhran nuclear test and the Rohini satellite launch revised India’s image in US eyes. But the US was keen to avenge its defeat in Vietnam by inflicting a similar defeat on the USSR in Afghanistan.

The US allied itself with Pakistan and initiated a low intensity conflict in that country in June 1979 and lured the Soviet forces into Afghanistan. As a price for Pakistani cooperation the US looked away from the Chinese nuclear proliferation to Islamabad. The US also collected a vast Islamic jehadi force, from Indonesia to Morocco, for use in the jehadi operations against the Soviet forces. The result of this was not only the Soviet forces being compelled to evacuate Afghanistan but the creation of the Taliban and Al Qaeda directed against the United States.

As the Cold War ended and the 21st century dawned, the US, the analyst says, faced a major threat from jehadi terrorism and a challenge from a rising China. The US also changed its perception about India with the economic reforms, the high growth trajectory of the 90s, the nuclear tests, the achievements in the IT field and the contribution of the Indian community to science and technology in the US.

As US policy makers made long term assessments they saw China catching up with the US in aggregate GDP and attempting to overtake the US in science and technology and the European Union becoming a potential commercial rival.

India had no clash of national interest with the US and India was an English-speaking democracy with enormous brainpower, which could be imported into the US. In the 21st century, China is likely to be a rival for the US as well as India. Consequently there is a mutuality of strategic interests between the two. Military power will no longer be the currency of power while knowledge will be.

It is this assessment that led to the original Clinton-Vajpayee Vision Statement, Bush’s national security doctrine recognising India’s strategic role and the new strategy of Indo-US cooperation underlying the new Bush-Rice strategy for South Asia.

Unfortunately this new understanding of the 21st century has not been understood by those conditioned by the Cold War, Marxist ideology and the Clausewitzian maxim of war being politics by other means.

The US has not changed from the days it built up Germany, Japan, East Asia and China and broke up Communism. But the circumstances have changed. In order to meet the rising Chinese challenge to overtake the US as the foremost power in a world where knowledge will be the currency of power, the US needs India as its ally. Its main threat is jehadi terrorism.

In these circumstances it has concluded that building India as a world power is in its own interest and so also bringing about conditions which will compel Islamic autocracies to progress towards democracy.

Therefore, it is futile to ask the question whether the US has changed. The right question is whether the present circumstances, which have compelled the US to develop the new strategy, will last long and whether it suits Indian interests. The answer to both questions is a strong affirmation.



US to help India become ‘major world power’

The United States is seeking a decisively broad strategic relationship with India, including in the military field, “to help India become a major world power”.

Senior Administration officials told journalists in a background briefing at Washington that the Bush Administration had concluded that the future of South Asia is “simply vital to the future of the US” and that countries like India, Pakistan and Afghanistan will play a pivotal role in Washington’s strategic perspective.

They said President George W. Bush is inviting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Washington in July while he himself would visit India later this year or early next year.

The officials said the strategic dialogue with India would be on levels “you would discuss with a world power” and would include regional security issues and “things like the tsunami situation or Nepal”.

India’s defence requirements, high-tech cooperation, expanding the current High technology Cooperation Group and manufacturing licences and even working towards US-India defence co-production would be part of the dialogue.

The officials said the US will “respond positively” to the Indian request for information on next generation multi-role combat aircraft and will work with American companies that seek to sell this to India.

“That’s not just F-16s. It could be F-18s. But beyond that, the US is ready to discuss even more fundamental issues of defence transformation with India, including transformative systems in areas such as command and control, early warning and missile defence.

“Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I think for those of you who follow defence issues you’ll appreciate the significance,” one official said.

The officials said the Administration had made a judgement that the ongoing dialogue on Next Steps in Strategic Partnership with India with its focus on cooperation in civilian space and nuclear technology, high technology trade and missile defence, “wasn’t broad enough to really encompass the kind of things we needed to do to take this relationship where it needed to go”.

It was in that context the President and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice developed the outline for a “decisively broader strategic relationship”, they said.

They said Rice, during her visit to India last month, had presented that outline to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century. We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement.

The energy dialogue would include conventional and nuclear power and nuclear safety issues and a working group on space, they said and added: “India is very much a player in the issue of space launch vehicles, satellites and so on.”

The officials said though the US and India have an economic dialogue, “it needs to get a little more juice.”

So the economic dialogue is going to be revitalised with the discussion of energy, trade, commerce, environment and finance, they said and added that the president’s Chief Economic Adviser Al Hubbard, Treasury Secretary John Snow and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta would all be visiting India this year.



Analysts differ on US F-16 sales to Pakistan, India

A former State Department official has criticized the US decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan while another South Asia expert says Indians found Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice “ill informed” about their country.

“Regionally, I think it is not wise to fuel an arms race. All things considered I would not have approved a sale of F-16s to Pakistan,” said Dennis Kux, author of several books on India and Pakistan and a former State Department official.

“It is understandable the Administration did what it did. But I wouldn’t have,” he added.

According to Prof. Ainslie Embree, who was advisor to former US Ambassador to India Frank Wisner, the Bush Administration was trying to satisfy both India and Pakistan.

This, he contended, was “an impossible ideal and I suspect that they don’t really care as much about either as they pretend”.

Embree, who was in India when Rice visited the region, said: “Despite the American reporting, Rice did not impress people I have talked to. They found her curiously ill-informed about India and remarkably patronizing.”

Prof. Stephen Philip Cohen of the Brookings Institution, however, supported the decision to sell F-16s to Pakistan and to India. Officials in New Delhi have indicated that they may not go for the American planes.

Cohen said the sale should be “on condition that we use the leverage to get good things done. Particularly with Pakistan, the sale should be based on excellent performance on nuclear and terrorism issues”.

He added: “With India it is a long-term strategic relationship. Clearly this is a break from the past, not because of any problem in India but rather it was mainly a problem with bureaucracy here.

“Now the Administration has recognised that India is a responsible nuclear country, so also Pakistan.”

Kux went on to say that trying to sell the same fighter aircraft to both India and Pakistan was “walking both sides of the street at the same time”.

“Indeed they are doing what they said - separating the two - a Pakistan policy - rewarding Pakistan for its help. And an India policy - to work to have a broader relationship with a rising power.”

He contended that in contrast to the time last year when Washington without warning declared Pakistan a “non-NATO ally” much to India’s surprise and dismay, this time around the F-16 sales to Pakistan were discussed beforehand with New Delhi.

From the Indian perspective, Kux noted, the sale to Pakistan was offset with the US promise to open up military exchanges and technology with India.

Referring to media reports that Washington had indicated that it would help India with civilian nuclear plants technology, he said: “I don’t think that ... is accurate. I think there are legal limits to what the US can do. I think it was sloppy reporting.

“The Administration really wants to broaden and continue relations with India quite apart from Pakistan,” he said.