Envisioning India's Strategic Positioning in the Future Afghan Arena.

(This is a piece I wrote for an Indian think tank-link will be up soon)


The Indo-Pakistani Silent War in Afghanistan:

On the 7th of July 2008, a suicide bomber rammed a car crammed with explosives into the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 41 people, and injuring close to 150.
Amongst the victims of the blast were the Indian defence attaché, Brigadier RD Mehta, and a senior Indian External Affairs official, Counsellor V Rao. The attack, subsequently traced back to Pakistan’s notorious ISI, or Inter-services Intelligence Agency, was only the latest episode of a covert war that India and Pakistan have been waging over Afghanistan for decades, and that has been gradually escalating in its grisly intensity.

Pakist Pakistani strategists have traditionally viewed the establishment of strategic ties with Afghanistan as a way of obtaining 'strategic depth' in the event of an all-out war with India. This notion of ‘strategic depth’ is most popular amongst the Pakistani military establishment, and predicates the following core concept: when confronted with a far stronger and larger neighbour, it is necessary for Pakistan, a far smaller and narrower country, to be able to counter an eventual Indian invasion by retreating into the Afghan hinterlands, and call on allied friendly forces and airspace in order to continue the fight.

The Taliban were thus aided and abetted by Pashtun field officers of the ISI in their rise to prominence over other warring factions in the 90s. Meanwhile, India, along with other regional powers such as Iran and Russia, attempted to dilute Pakistani influence in the region by bankrolling the Northern Alliance, led at the time by the charismatic Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

While the fall of the Taliban in 2001 was a catastrophe in the eyes of many in the Pakistani intelligence community, it was perceived as a wonderful window of opportunity by their Indian counterparts to regain Delhi's lost footing in the region. This was greatly facilitated by the fact that many of the highest ranking members of the Karzai regime, such as Ismael Khan, are former Northern Alliance warlords.

India’s diplomacy towards Afghanistan, however, is far more multi-vectored than simply barring Pakistan from transforming it into its subservient backyard. Establishing a durable strategic presence in Central Asia is considered to be a vital component of India’s ‘Look West Policy’ and quest for global influence. Afghanistan is viewed as a potential ‘energy corridor’ leading to the oil and gas rich Central Asian republics, and, as potentially one of the country’s future security outposts on China’s western borders. These long and short term calculations have led Delhi to pour more than 1.2 billion dollars into Afghanistan, and in so doing, to become the beleaguered state’s fifth largest bilateral donor.

Four consulates have been opened, in Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar, and funds have flooded into education, food aid, and health services. Afghan diplomats, police officers, nurses and judges have received free training and Indian NGOs have been active throughout the country, often in conflict-ridden areas where their Western counterparts fear to venture. More than 4 000 Indian citizens are currently working on large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the Salman dam in Heart province, or the new national Parliament building, which is set for completion in 2011. The Power Grid Corporation of India is erecting power lines across the snow-swept Hindu Kush, and in January 2009, construction was finally completed on the Zaranj-Delaram highway. This 220km road runs from the town of Delaram in the south-western province of Nimroz to reach Zarang, on the Iranian border, which then connects it to the Iranian port of Chahbahar, nestled in the bay of Oman.

New Delhi has been helping Teheran revamp the port’s infrastructure, in the hope that access to its installations will allow it to gain better trading access to Afghanistan by completely bypassing Pakistan, thus alleviating the latter’s stranglehold over the Afghan economy. (Currently, most of Afghanistan's trade has to pass through the Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Karachi, and Pakistan only allows Afghan transit rights for its exports to India, consistently refusing to let Indian goods enter Afghanistan via its territory.)

With its focus on infrastructure and development projects, India has come to be well viewed by most Afghans. An unseen ramification of India’s growing soft power in the region has been the growing success of Bollywood, which has become wildly popular in Afghan households. When the Indian TV soap opera ‘Kynunki Saas Bhi’ was dubbed in Dari and aired on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV it was such an astounding success that it became a national obsession. 90% of television-owning Afghan families would follow the show, sometimes incurring the wrath of mullahs who viewed it as being responsible for the desertion of mosques during evening prayers.

Pakistan, naturally, has been infuriated with what it has come to view as an elaborate ‘hearts and minds’ campaign conducted in order to wean the fragile country permanently away from Islamabad’s influence. Over the past few years, Indian workers have been repeatedly abducted, and sometimes murdered; and grenades have been lobbed at the Indian consulates in Herat and Jalalabad. Although each time the Taliban were accused of the misdeeds, several members of the Indian security establishment harbour the suspicion that Adam Khan, the shadowy Kabul station head of the ISI, may be involved in the attacks.


On the other side, Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused Indian RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agents of establishing training camps in southern Afghanistan and the Panjshir Valley for the rebels of the Baloch Liberation Army, who are waging a separatist insurgency in Pakistan's troubled Baluchistan province. The Indian consulates have also frequently been charged with circulating counterfeit Pakistani currency.
Recent PakArmy propaganda videos detailing operations led by the Pakistani Army in Waziristan depict Pakistani soldiers brandishing what they claim is Indian made ammunition provided to the Pakistani Taliban. Despite the evidently far fetched and somewhat contradictory nature of these accusations it is widely believed in Pakistan that Indian intelligence operatives are using Afghanistan as a base from which they supposedly foment plots to dismember Pakistan.

Convergences and Divergences in Washington and New Delhi’s Approaches to Afghanistan:

Meanwhile American officials have been observing the effects of India’s growing presence in Afghanistan with a certain ambivalence, which can best be summarized by NATO ISAF Commander General Stanley McChrystal’s remarks in his Initial Assessment, in August 2009:

“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development projects and financial investment. In addition the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India.”

In short, Washington is concerned that its actions in Afghanistan will fall increasingly hostage to Indo-Pakistani rivalry in the region. This explains why the Obama Administration has been so intent over the past few months in attempting to convince Pakistan that its main threat is homegrown extremism rather than India.

Unfortunately these endeavours to modify the Pakistani Armed Force’s mindset are nothing more than an exercise in futility. The Pakistani Military has invested so much in its perennial conflict with India that is has become its main raison d’être. It would lose all justification for its disproportionate political and economic clout were it ever to concede that India no longer posed an existential threat to Pakistan.

Recent reports indicate that Islamabad shows no sign of abandoning its double-track policy of maintaining the Afghan Taliban as a strategic reserve force, while attempting to placate Western Intelligence Agencies by periodically handing over Arab Al Qaeda operatives. Its operations against the so-called ‘Pakistani Taliban’ in the Swat Valley or in Waziristan were wars of necessity against groups that refused to tacitly comply with Pakistan’s terms, which, to grossly summarize, implied that safe haven would be provided in exchange of a redirection of their militant fervour towards Afghanistan and/or Kashmir. Those who abide by Pakistan’s terms, such as the members of the Afghan Taliban Shura, are thus alive and well in Quetta, the capital of the Baluchistan province. Likewise, recent demands by US officials to crack down on the Haqqani network, which has as of yet limited its attacks to NATO troops in Afghanistan, have been repeatedly rebuffed.

Much of this Pakistani imperviousness to American demands can be linked to the fact that ISI operatives have a long term vision of Pakistan's national interest, and do not believe that the United States will maintain a permanent presence in the region. These convictions have only been compounded by the Obama Administration’s latest declarations regarding its Afghan strategy. After three months of often painstaking deliberation, Barack Obama finally announced in November his intention to commit 30, 000 more troops to Afghanistan. This troop surge, he declared, would take place over eighteen months before leading to a gradually staged American exit beginning in mid 2011. While the announcement of the troop surge was welcomed, the seemingly correlated exit strategy was greeted, especially in India, with consternation. It appeared to many that in attempting to assuage American domestic opinion’s fears over a seemingly intractable conflict, the President had in fact advised the Taliban to return to the Pakistani badlands to rest and reconsolidate for eighteen months. Obama administration officials subsequently swerved into damage control mode, both Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates stating that July 2011, was “not an exit strategy or a drop-dead deadline”, and that if any withdrawal did occur it would be “over an extended period of time”. It is unlikely however, that these backpedalling statements will be able to repair the damage that has been wrought. Pakistan and India are undoubtedly already gearing up for a possible regional realignment in eighteen months.

Another issue of divergence India has with the US regarding NATO’s Afghan strategy concerns the Afghan Reconciliation Plan, which involves bringing back low to mid ranking Taliban fighters into the government fold. The Afghan Reconciliation Plan is loosely modelled on the Awakening Movement, or ‘Sons of Iraq Program’, which stemmed the tide in Iraq by turning Sunni tribal militias against Al Qaeda and other Salafist outfits. A key architect of the Iraqi initiative, British Lt. General Graeme Lamb, has been recruited by General McChrystal to help bring its Afghan version into being, and the US Congress recently approved a defence appropriations bill of more than 1.3 billion dollars, known as CERP, and which provides discretionary funds for American officers in Afghanistan. The bill stipulates that the funds can be used not only for reconstruction projects but also to “reintegrate fighters into Afghan society.” It is hoped that via wads of cash handed out by Special Ops Officers or, more ideally, by offering jobs in development projects that Afghan tribal leaders help choose, NATO forces will be able to lure local fighters and petty chieftains away from the Taliban and thus bring back a semblance of stability in Afghanistan’s more war-torn provinces. Preliminary reports seem to show that in some regions this approach has started to bear fruit.

India, however, views what it has described as a ‘Good Taliban, Bad Taliban’ approach as a misguided fallacy, that may have a short term impact, but that ultimately will allow Pakistan to reassert its control over Afghanistan’s Pashtun areas as soon as NATO forces have packed their bags. India has consistently argued for a more hardline approach, which focuses solely on the Taliban’s eradication rather than on their fragmentation.

Imagining the Worst-Case Scenario:

The Obama Administration’s Afghan Strategy calls for a temporary surge in the hope that, by knocking the Taliban back on their toes, the troop influx will give the Afghan military and police services the time and breathing space they need in order to build a force capable of providing its own security. It is likely that in eighteen months, with the provision of new equipment and NATO trainers, the Afghan security services will have made strides in terms of both material capability and technical proficiency. An abiding concern, however, is the creeping ‘Tajikisation’ of the ANA. In 2003, General Karl Eikenberry (then chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Afghanistan, now the US Ambassador) issued the “Eikenberry Guidelines”, which sought to ensure an ethnic balance in the Afghan National Army in strict accordance with that of the country as a whole. The latest data, however, reveals a rather more depressing reality. The Tajik minority now accounts for more troops than the Pashtuns, which form the country’s largest ethnic group.


Furthermore, the ANA’s officer corps is almost exclusively composed of Tajiks, who often refuse to recruit Pashtuns, invariably regarding them as Taliban sympathisers. This evolution, if unchecked, will continue to breed resentment.

Faced with such an environment, and under pressure from domestic populations tired with the costs of a seemingly endless war, NATO will most probably begin to transition from a large-scale counter-insurgency campaign to a more limited form of engagement. This will in turn morph into what the US military jargon terms as an FID, or Foreign Internal Defence Operation,and will rely on a combination of Special Forces Teams, Predator Strikes, and Bombing Raids.

One can venture that absent the social and political reintegration of disenfranchised Pashtun communities; an unchecked Tajikisation of the ANA, combined with the departure of NATO troops will undoubtedly lead to a full-blown civil war with ethnic undertones, similar to that waged during much of the 90s. And just like during the 90s, regional powers will wade into the Afghan mire in order to back various factions, warlords, and ethnicities. Iran, India, and Russia will combine their efforts in a bid to support the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazara against the Pashtuns, who will stream from Pakistan’s border regions, flush with funds provided by Pakistani and Gulf State intelligence services. India’s massive financial investments in Afghanistan will be lost forever as the country lapses back into an unending cycle of destruction. Terrorists reared and groomed by the ISI in Afghan training camps will lash out at India’s soft underbelly, striking with ever increasing efficiency at its crowded markets, train stations and hotels. Emboldened by its reacquired strategic depth, the Pakistani military will stage ever more incursions into Indian territory, and Indian public opinion will clamour for retribution.

India’s Strategic Options:

What can India do in order to prevent such a nightmare scenario from unfolding? Is military intervention a viable strategic option? Already in 2006, the government took the decision to deploy 500 paramilitary troops from the China Border Security Force to protect the 4000 Indian citizens working in Afghanistan. In the wake of the 2008 embassy bombing, the debate over whether India should combine ‘hard power’ with ‘soft power’ in Afghanistan was renewed. Notwithstanding the opinions of some of India’s more hawkish security analysts, the consensus still remained solidly in favour of non-intervention.


It was concluded that any further deployment of troops, be they military, or even paramilitary, would run the risk of irretrievably aggravating tensions with a Pakistan consumed by a paranoid fear of encirclement and therefore of simultaneously encountering staunch US opposition.

Furthermore, if India intends to establish a permanent strategic beachhead in Central Asia, it must also rely on the good will of another regional power broker, Russia. An Indian military intervention in Afghanistan alongside that of NATO would be viewed by Moscow as a form of alignment, and would, unquestionably, have consequences. Only last year, Russia almost permanently denied India military access to the airfield at Ayni, in Tajikistan, that Delhi had spent over a million dollars renovating. Although no official explanation was given, it would appear that Russia had been irritated by Delhi’s growing proximity to Washington.

Direct military options having been ruled out, India should focus on strengthening the ANA. Earlier this year, it was announced that the Indian Army would train Afghan troops in counter-insurgency operations, and that help would be provided in the maintenance of Soviet-era helicopter gunships. These are steps in the right direction. Delhi should also consider establishing biannual training exercises and joint operations on Indian territory, and providing the Afghan army with spare parts for its Soviet-era tanks and artillery. Pressure should be put on the ANA leadership to open up its ranks to more Pashtun recruits in order to prevent the resurgence of ethnic warfare. Delhi could suggest to NATO the possibility of a national draft, which would send every Afghan male from 18-21, regardless of his religious or ethnic affiliation, to spend a year in an Afghan National Guard. This would deprive the Taliban of a prime recruiting source (the young uneducated male) and help forge a much needed sense of Afghan nationhood. Reading and writing courses could be made compulsory during the year of national service, thus helping fight illiteracy.

On a more socio-political level, everything must be done to durably reintegrate disenfranchised Pashtun communities and to prise them away from the Taliban.

Proper jobs must be privileged over cash handouts, and traditional Pashtun tribal structures must be erected as ‘counter-models’ to the Taliban movement. This will not be easy, however, as the traditional Pashtun tribal structure has been decimated throughout thirty years of war, tribal elders having been singled out and slaughtered by the Soviets, rival mujahedeen groups or the Taliban.

As long as Pakistan views India as its existential threat, India’s presence in Afghanistan will be viewed as an encroachment on Pakistan’s natural sphere of influence and hotly contested. Delhi must strive to convince Washington and its NATO allies that its goals in the region are not to be viewed solely through a Pakistani lens, but befit those of a truly global power, whose strategic preoccupations extend far beyond a long-standing neighbourhood squabble. In order to do so, India must continue to focus on winning over the Afghans themselves through its highly visible soft power initiatives, and must avoid falling into the pitfall of appearing to exclusively back one ethnicity as it has in the past. India has the advantage of enjoying good relations not only with NATO states, but also with Moscow, and the almost universally reviled regime in Teheran. It is through the savvy use of those ties, as well as through the continued implementation of its hearts and minds campaign that India will finally gain the international recognition it deserves for its role in Afghanistan.

BBC World: Franco-Vietnamese Relations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/2009/11/091118_france_vietnam_ties.shtml

A Long-standing History:

France’s relationship with Vietnam is both long and complex.
Long, because one could argue that Franco-Vietnamese relations begun as early as the 17th century, with the mission of the renowned Jesuit scholar Alexandre de Rhodes, who took it upon himself to publish the first Portuguese-Latin-Vietnamese dictionary. This dictionary later served as a template for Vietnamese scholars when they decided to create the new Vietnamese writing system, Quoc Ngu, which is still used to this day. French forces were also involved in Vietnamese political disputes as early as the 18th century, when Pigneau de Behaine’s French troops intervened in favour of the establishment of the Nguyen Dynasty in 1787.

The relationship is also complex, as it still bears the legacy of 150 years of ruthless colonial exploitation, as well as the memory of one of the most catastrophic defeats of a Western army at the hands of a third world army, at Dien Bien Phu, which subsequently led to Vietnam’s proclamation of independence in 1954. Franco-Vietnamese ties did not remain acrimonious for long, however, despite their bloodstained history. Indeed, when communism caved in on itself in Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Vietnamese leadership discovered that France was the one of the few Western states with whom it had maintained diplomatic channels. Throughout much of the Cold War, successive French governments served as mediators in-between Vietnam and the Western bloc, playing host to the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 and to the negotiations to bring the American-led war in Vietnam to a close. Paris was also where the peace talks destined to bring the Cambodia war to an end unfurled in 1991.




Waning Economic and Cultural Ties:


Since the end of World War II and the loss of most of its overseas territories, France has struggled to safeguard its position on the global stage, largely by attempting to maintain a degree of economic and cultural influence over its ex colonies. In Vietnam, as in other countries, this has taken the shape of hefty aid packages, as well as zealous attempts by a government-funded organization, the “Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie” to revive target populations’ flagging interest in French language and culture. France, which has donated more than 2 billion euros or 3 billion dollars for local Vietnamese programs, has thus become over the years the second largest aid donor to Vietnam after Japan. In 1993, it was a French bank that organised the bridging loan at advantageous rates that helped repay Vietnam’s crippling debt. France is also the European Union’s number one investor in Vietnam, and over 180, 000 French tourists visit Vietnam every year.

Despite all this, there are signs that French influence in Vietnam is waning. This is most visible on the cultural front-where France’s ongoing struggle to promote “francophonie” has become something of a lost battle. From 1996 to 2006 vast sums of money were injected into the creation of French language courses and bilingual study groups. It soon became apparent that Vietnamese students and officials tended to view such initiatives as mere opportunities for career advancement-unless grants and scholarships were attached to the French courses they would immediately abandon them in favour of languages deemed to be more useful in today’s world, such as English or Chinese. As a result, today only a minute minority of Vietnamese speak French.

France’s economic presence in Vietnam is also on the decline. American investment and trade has surged past that of the French over the past few years, with the French embassy in Hanoi reporting a 4% decrease in Franco-Vietnamese general trade figures for 2008. France’s exports to Vietnam in 2008, estimated at 392 million euros, were 14.6% lower than in 2007.


A renewed emphasis on economic cooperation:


It is in this light that one must view the French Prime Minister’s visit to Vietnam last week. Accompanied by 45 representatives of France’s most high profile companies, as well as three government ministers, Francois Fillon declared on several occasions that the main purpose of his visit was to inject a new vigour into Franco-Vietnamese ties by stymieing the ongoing decline in bilateral trade. French companies and investors have been ogling Vietnam’s almost insolent rate of growth (5.5% in 2009, 6.5% projected for 2010) at a time when France, as well as most of its Western trading partners, are floundering in the wake of the global financial turndown. Several major business deals were thus clinched during the French Prime Minister’s three day visit.



Most notable amongst these were the announcements that Vietnam Airlines had decided to purchase four A-380s each estimated at approximately 300 million euros each (the deal should be finalized by the first trimester of 2010) and the awarding of a 200 million euro contract to the French engineering firm Vinci, which will be entrusted with the construction of Ho Chi Minh’s projected state of the art tramway system, which should spread out over 12 to 15km.

The single most significant result of Prime Minister Fillon’s visit, however, was undoubtedly the signing of a landmark nuclear cooperation pact between both countries. With an electricity growth rate expected to be more than double that of its GDP growth rate over the next decade, Vietnam has been contemplating the construction of a nuclear power plant for years. During this period, French nuclear energy firms such as Areva have been lurking in the background, biding their time, discreetly providing expertise in nuclear energy related matters, and lobbying in favour of a nuclear law. The French Nuclear Energy Research Agency has also undertaken cooperation programmes with the Vietnam Nuclear Energy Institute since 2002.

In June 2008, the Vietnamese Communist Party legalized civilian nuclear energy and declared its intention to erect by 2020 a 2 000 MW nuclear plant capable of generating at least 14 to 15 billion kWh of power a year. Feasibility plans are scheduled to commence next year, and the Ninh Phuoc District in southern Ninh Thuan has been cited as its most likely location. Areva stated immediately after the signing of the cooperation deal that the latter would most likely pave the way for a French-built reactor, in the face of strong Japanese and Chinese competition. Vietnamese lawmakers will then have to validate the decision to award the juicy 3.4 billion dollar contract in the course of 2010.


The outlining of a future strategic partnership?


The strategic aspect of Franco-Vietnamese ties has traditionally been neglected in favour of economic cooperation. A strategic dialogue, rather vaguely described as “sessions in which the participants can discuss diverse regional and international matters in an informal manner” has been in place for the past four years but seems singularly lacking in substance-there have been no bilateral exercises or joint training programmes for example. This is largely due to the fact that for Paris, Southeast Asia and East Asia do not loom large on its strategic radar. Unlike India or Singapore, who have considerably upped their defence ties with Vietnam over the past few years, there is no resurgent China pushing at France's borders. Vietnam has also traditionally relied on Russian and Chinese weapon systems when it comes to arms acquisitions, and there is therefore no history of Franco-Vietnamese arms trade and defence cooperation to build upon.





Recent developments, however, show that this may be about to change. Both countries pledged to enhance the scope and ambit of their strategic partnership, and on the 13th of November, the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) signed an agreement with Astrium (EADS Space) to acquire a microsatellite worth 56 million euros in order to keep a closer eye on its coastline and Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ. The satellite should be put into orbit via Ariane, France’s launching site in Guyana, and came in the wake of an intergovernmental space-cooperation accord signed in Hanoi. Another maritime surveillance protocol, worth approximately 14 million euros, could also well be awarded to the French satellite company CLS in the not-too-distant future.

In private, French arms dealers do not hide that they hope that the deepening of Paris and Hanoi’s strategic ties will lead to the eventual acquisition by Vietnam of French weapons system. An individual working at the French weapons firm Thales recently confided to me in Paris that it was hoped that Vietnam’s recent efforts in acquiring a conventional submarine arm in the face of increasingly assertive Chinese claims over the Spratly Islands would lead it to consider certain hi-tech submarine and anti-submarine warfare systems in which the French are known to be at the cutting edge; such as passive ranging sonars, obstacle avoidance navigation sonars, lightweight torpedoes and torpedo countermeasure systems. The acquisition of such systems could act as a great boon to Vietnam’s strategy of sea denial vis a vis China’s growing flotilla of both conventional and nuclear submarines.


All in all, the French Prime Minister’s visit can be viewed as a positive development in Franco-Vietnamese ties. Taking into consideration the depth of both countries’ historical and cultural ties over the centuries, it would be regrettable if their current bilateral relationship reduced itself to little more than an impersonal and large-scale business meeting taking place every two to three years.

India's Naval Ambitions: Interview of Vice Admiral Premvir Das

While in Delhi last month, I had the good fortune to meet Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd.), and seized the opportunity ask him a few questions pertaining to India's growing naval prowess, as well as to its ambitious maritime strategy. Here is the transcript of our conversation, held at his private residence in Noida, on the 12th of October.

One could argue that overall, historically, India's strategic thought has been largely under the sway of a continental or himalayan mindset. over the past ten to fifteen years however, India has been slowly but surely building up its blue-water navy. The Navy's share of the defense budget has steadily risen from 11.2% in 1992-1993 to 18.3% in 2007-2008. What in your opinion, has prompted the shift in Indian strategic thought towards seapower?

I agree with you when you say that throughout history India's strategic mindset has been mostly continental. I would disagree, however, when you state the focus on maritime power as being a relatively recent evolution. If one looks at the history of India's Navy since independence, one can see that the strategic conceptualisation of a blue-water navy has been there from the get-go, and this was undoubtedly a direct heritage from the traditional British emphasis on seapower.
The Indian Navy was already a blue-water force in many regards in the late 50s. In 1961, the Indian Navy could deploy its first aircraft carrier, the Vikrant, as well as a dozen destroyers and two cruisers.



Yes but the overall share of the defence budget remained low.

Yes, granted, at about 10 %, but one still cannot deny that the IN already had an expeditionary capability.

So what happened in the 1960s? How can one explain the subsequent neglect of seapower?

After its humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962, India's main priorities were to strengthen its land borders, and build up its army and airforce, which were the primary actors in the event of a conflict with China or Pakistan along the Himalayas. The Indian Navy, no longer considered as strategically relevant, was relegated to the backseat and its share in the defence budget plummeted to about 3%. Nevertheless the strategic 'blueprint' for a blue-water navy remained, which explains the regain of activity in terms of procurement and funding later on during the Indira Gandhi era, when the budget rose once again to about 10%.
I'd say that the main difference now is that the IN has grown in self-confidence after the success of such high profile operations as Operation Sukoon or the 2004 tsunami relief effort.

Do you think that the Indian Navy's share of the defence budget will continue to rise in years to come?

Yes, I think that there are high chances that it will rise to about 20%.

Don't you think that there's a risk however that in the wake of the spate of terrorist attacks last year and when confronted with the growing Naxal insurgency, the government will be compelled to focus more on issues of domestic and internal security rather than on power projection and on its corollaries such as naval power?

There is always that risk, of course, but I doubt it. The IN has become very adept at arguing its case-it is no longer considered just as a branch of the military-it has become a vital diplomatic tool in India's attempts to project its soft power in the region and beyond. Also, the attacks you refer to have sometimes directly benefitted the Navy. After the Mumbai attacks for example, the Coast Guard underwent a massive restructuring.

(Indian Marine Commandos in action during the Mumbai terrorist attacks)

James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, two professors at the US Naval War College, have given three possible 'models' of what the future IN may look like: the Free Rider Navy, the Constable Navy, and finally the Strongman Navy. The Free Rider Navy would contain one deployable carrier task force, the Constable two or more, and the Strongman three or more. For them "the fitful progress of Indian shipbuilding and acquisition efforts casts doubts on the navy's chances of assembling a Constable fleet by 2022, the national date by which Admiral Mehta's 160 ship fleets should be at sea".
They believe that the most realistic model is the Free Rider model, with New Delhi accepting, for the time being, American maritime power as an outside guarantor of security in Asia, and as a temporary expedient that serves India's current purposes, while posing little threat to its immediate interests. The only thing that could move India towards a Constable model would be a sustained forward deployment of Chinese naval forces in the Indian Ocean- do you agree?

There have of course been some frustrating delays in India's most recent naval acquistions. It is in the nature of things, however, for ships to get laid off faster than they are inducted. If you look at the American fleet, for example, it has declined over the past few years from 279 combatant ships to 260. Even though the pace of India's naval expansion and modernization hasn't always been as fast as people would like it to be, by 2020 India should have at least two to three aircraft carriers, as well as 16 to 20 destroyers and frigates.
America is, for the time being at least, the only other really credible naval presence in the region. India will not be happy if any other country establishes a strong naval presence in the Indian Ocean.



I suppose that you are referring to China and to its so-called String of Pearls Strategy?

Yes, although, I can't help thinking that the String of Pearls has been overhyped by the press. Gwadar is the only port whose infrastructure is anywhere close to completion. And even the stationing of Chinese submarines in Gwadar could reveal itself complicated for Beijing-the Americans and other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia will be watching from across the Persian Gulf.


Now for a more technical question: how does India's most recent class of Kolkata destroyers compare with its Chinese Sovremenny design counterpart?

When it comes to destroyers and frigates China still suffers the consequences of the arms embargo. Whereas India can have access to high-tech Israeli, American and French equipment, China can only really rely on Russia. I would say that in terms of weapons sensors, the Kolkata destroyers are 25 to 30% more sophisticated.


(The design for the latest Kolkata class of guided missile destroyer)

In terms of Air Defence systems for example?

Yes, for example.

Moving onto the Pakistani Navy: I am finding it somewhat arduous to obtain any detailed studies on the matter. It would seem though that Pakistan, with the acquisition of Agosta class submarines and maritime surveillance planes fitted with anti-ship missiles, is moving towards a sea denial strategy with regard to India. Would you say that this is the case?

Yes, Pakistan's entire maritime doctrine revolves around the use of submarines in order to effect sea denial.

Pakistan just inducted the first of four Chinese-designed Sword-class (F-22P) frigates. What role do these ships hold in Pakistan's strategic calculus?

I still believe that Pakistan's primary goal is sea denial. These new ships have more of a peacetime role, and are there for prestige purposes. They will be probably be used for naval diplomacy via port calls, joint naval exercices etc.

Final question: what strategy should India adopt in order to counter Chinese naval expansion? Should India focus more on ASW (Anti-submarine warfare) rather than on carrier-based force projection? Isn't there a risk that Indian carriers will become increasingly vulnerable to China's anti-ship ballistic missiles and ASCMs?

Carriers bring an essential element to the table in the event of a high-seas conflict in the form of airpower. As for anti-ship missiles, one has to hope that the IN's anti-missile and air-defence systems will be up to the task.
When it comes to China, it is inevitable that the PLAN will extend its presence into the Indian Ocean region in order to secure their energy supplies and the sea lanes of communication. This can be viewed as legitimate in many regards. India must thus enter into a two-pronged strategy vis-a-vis China- more must be done in terms of maritime cooperation versus non-conventional threats such as piracy and terrorism in order to build up trust in-between the two navies. At the same time, the Indian Navy must continue to strengthen its presence in the Indian Ocean, as well as its capabilites, and must remain watchful.

My thanks to the Vice Admiral for his time.

BBC World:Of Deference and Defiance: Vietnam’s historically ambivalent attitude towards China.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/world/2009/10/091027_china_vietnam_commentary.shtml

I'm starting to think this blog should be entitled, India, Vietnam and the World.



A CRACKDOWN ON CYBERSPACE’S NATIONALISTS:

There was a time in Vietnam when only the arrests of pro-democracy activists or important figures of the Catholic Church dominated the headlines. Now a new, more unlikely group has joined the serried ranks of those persecuted by Vietnam’s authoritarian regime. Over the past few months a growing number of nationalists critical of Hanoi’s perceived softness towards Beijing have been bearing the brunt of the latest state-led crackdown on journalists and bloggers. With more than 21 million internet users in a country of 87 million inhabitants and an estimated 3 to 4 million blogs, the Vietnamese state is finding it increasingly arduous to police the internet, which has become a major medium of expression for those critical of its policies. Over the past year and a half China has been at the centre of a number of fierce online discussions, and has attracted the ire of Vietnam’s army of online patriots, whether it be due to its upped naval assertiveness around the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands, or to the controversial decision by Nguyen Tam Dung’s government in 2007 to allow the Chinese company Chinalco to exploit Vietnam’s Central Highlands’ massive reserves of bauxite ore. This decision has given way over the past year to a barrage of criticisms from all sorts of individuals and groups, from the revered war hero General Vo Nguyen Giap to leaders of the Buddhist and Catholic religious communities. Attention has been drawn to China’s disastrous track record in terms of environmental degradation, and to the fact that Chinalco, like many other Chinese multinationals, imports everything “from its workers to the toilet seats they use”, thus rendering little service to local communities. Most interestingly, the announcement that US aluminum giant Alcon was also planning to mine two sites in the Dak Nong province of the Central Highlands garnered hardly any attention. Amongst other issues of concern raised by Vietnamese bloggers was the continued heavy damming by China of the Mekong River, which is the lifeblood of large swathes of Vietnam’s south but which originates in China.
Whereas in the past, the Party actively encouraged grassroots nationalism, it would seem now that for segments of the Vietnamese leadership, the blogosphere’s increasingly strident Sinophobia has become more of a diplomatic liability than a strength to draw upon. The recent clampdown appears to be spearheaded by a shadowy military intelligence organization called GD II (General Department II), or, in Vietnamese, Tong Cuc II.
General Department II, reportedly first founded in the early 1980s, is now run by arch-conservative and China sympathizer Vice Defense Minister Nguyen Chi Vinh, and has become the favoured weapon of the Conservative faction in its struggle for power prior to the XIth Party Congress, due to take place in 2011.



POLITICAL JOCKEYING AMONGST THE PARTY LEADERSHIP PRIOR TO THE XIth CONGRESS:

The XIth Congress is of major importance as it will determine key leadership positions and the political power structure for years to come. In the absence of genuine ideological disputes, Hanoi’s China policy seems to have now become the principal dividing line in-between the liberal and conservative factions. GD II’s repression of nationalist bloggers, say most experts, can be interpreted as a demonstration of power by the conservatives, who, with the recent elevation of their leader To Ruy Ha to the Politburo, appear to be gaining a certain ascendancy. It is of course, extremely difficult for anyone outside of the Party leadership to predict the course that Vietnam’s byzantine and opaque factional in-fighting will take. It is well known however, that Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s liberal economic policies have irked a fair number of the more traditional-minded Party members, who fear that economic liberalization will gradually lead to a desire for greater political freedom, thus putting the Party’s hold over society in jeopardy. Although Tan Dung can still draw on the younger, less ideological members of the party that are resolutely in favour of his outwards looking economic reforms, Vietnam’s recent financial woes have also made it ever more reliant on its northern neighbour for investments. Indeed, there are persistent but as yet unconfirmed rumours that this spring, as Vietnam teetered on the brink of a currency crisis and fiscal collapse, it resorted to asking China for a financial bailout package. This growing dependence on Beijing has thus been savvily instrumentalized by the conservative fringe to their political advantage. Already ugly rumours, presumably launched by GD II, have started to surface, accusing Prime Minister Dung of embezzlement in the government-tendered Chinalco bauxite project. This would not be the first time that GD II has been used by the China faction to interfere in party politics before a national Congress. Indeed, this recent swell of rumours bears strong resemblances with the smear campaign that GD II was also suspected of triggering before the 10th national Congress, in 2006, known as the ‘T-4 Scandal’, which accused several current and prior Communist leaders of being on the CIA’s payroll. Amongst those accused was the General Vo Nguyen Giap, who had already drawn attention to GD II’s troublesome habit of political meddling in 2004 after it was discovered that a wire-tapping section of the organization had been used to spy on political rivals. The rising influence of GD II is a troubling development, and has fostered fears among some members of the Party leadership that if military intelligence services are not reined in sooner or later, Vietnam could be heading towards a configuration similar to that of Pakistan, where segments of the ISI, Pakistan’s notoriously powerful military intelligence agency, have formed alternative power structures that follow their own private agendas. For the time being, however, and despite a law on National Security adopted by the National Assembly in 2004 defining the responsibilities and limitations of security agencies, GD II does not seem to have been successfully restrained.

VIETNAM’S SEEMINGLY SCHIZOID CHINA POLICY:

This recent bout of labyrinthine politicking has only added to the complexity of Vietnam’s relationship towards China, which to the outsider can sometimes appear unfathomable, if not downright schizoid in nature.
Indeed, the same year that GD II’s grunts were swooping down on nationalist bloggers, the VPA finalized a 1.8 billion dollar deal with Russia for six state of the art Kilo Class submarines. With an annual defense budget estimated by Jane’s Intelligence Review to be at barely 3.6 billion dollars, the purchase of the flotilla is a substantial investment, and is a clear sign to Beijing that Hanoi is intent on developing an effective sea denial strategy in order to protect its maritime territorial claims. Veteran Vietnam watcher Carlyle Thayer has defined Vietnam’s China policy in the following terms; “Vietnam is not pursuing a balance of power strategy in relation to China’s rise. Nor is Vietnam bandwagoning with China in an effort to ward off possible coercion or to gain economic advantage.” Vietnam’s leadership, he claims, are “pursuing a mix of engagement, omni-enmeshment and hedging strategies towards China”.
While this may seem at first glance to be both impossibly multi-faceted and strategically nonsensical, one could argue that this ambivalence towards China, which oscillates in-between deference and defiance, is hardly a recent development. It is in fact historically ingrained in Vietnam’s strategic perception of its neighbour.




PARALLELS AND LESSONS DRAWN FROM HISTORY:

In his book entitled China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry, published in 2006, American Professor Brantly Womack states that “The Sino-Vietnamese relationship presents an interesting case of a long-term asymmetric relationship that has moved through a full gamut of possible variations.” Indeed, Vietnamese identity is unique in that it has formed itself both through and in opposition to Chinese influence. After Vietnam was forcibly incorporated into the Han Empire in 111 BC, it was occupied by China for almost a thousand years, until it finally achieved its independence at the sunset of the Tang Dynasty in 939 AD. For the next 900 years, Vietnam enjoyed an almost uninterrupted period of self-rule, accepting grudgingly to enter into a tributary relationship with China, but successfully repelling waves of numerically superior invading armies during the Yuan and Ming dynasty eras.
Inevitably, during the thousand years of Chinese rule, Vietnam was influenced by its occupiers. Chinese agricultural practices and military methods of organization were adopted and much of the Vietnamese language’s political, literary and military vocabulary to this day comes from Chinese. While the process of Sinicization or Hanwa was intensive among the Vietnamese aristocracy and elites (even after the departure of the Chinese, the Chinese civil service examination system remained the official method of selection of government officials, and young Vietnamese aristocrats were schooled in Confucian classics), the peasantry remained wedded to its traditional ways, and unlike the nobility, refused to abandon Buddhism in favour of Confucianism.
One could almost draw a parallel with current events unfolding in Vietnam : segments of the new aristocracy (i.e. the party elite) are tilting towards China, whereas the common people, represented by the country’s ever more numerous bloggers and cyberactivists are the staunch defenders of Vietnamese national identity and interests.



When it comes to evaluating the cultural imprint left on Vietnam’s diplomacy with China, it has been claimed that the Sino-Vietnamese relationship is rooted in the Confucian concept of pupil-teacher, and that if tensions have occasionally flared in-between the two states over the past forty years it is due to the fact that as Vietnam consolidated itself as a modern nation after the Indo-China war, it has sought to replace the traditionally demeaning tutelary relationship with a more equal one. This was no easy task, as Brantly Womack explains; “With such a neighbour, Vietnam is caught in a standing dilemma. It needs peace with China more than China needs peace with it, but if it allows China to push it around, to move the boundary stone, it loses its national substance and autonomy.”

It is this seemingly imponderable dilemma that Vietnam’s leadership will therefore have to overcome in the following years. One thing is certain however; by cracking down on its nationalist bloggers and journalists, the Party runs the risk of exacerbating the historical divide in-between the Vietnamese peasantry and elites with regard to China, and in so doing, of depriving itself from what Ho Chi Minh once called Vietnam’s most potent “secret weapon”- its people’s fierce patriotism.

India's Soft Power Advantage.

The meteoric rise of both India and China must have become the most discussed geopolitical trend of the past decade. And now, at a time when most economies are still floundering in the wake of the global economic crisis and both Asian states project almost insolent growth rates of 7 to 8 % for the coming fiscal year; at a time when a steady stream of media reports indicate an upsurge in Sino-Indian border tensions along the Himalayas, it appears ever more obvious that the XXIst century will be increasingly defined not only by how Delhi and Beijing interact with the rest of the world, but also by how they choose to interact with each other.

All too often, India and China are somewhat summarily lumped together as Asia’s “rising powers”. In reality, however, India and China are at two very different stages in their development and are quite simply not yet boxing in the same category. In terms of pure hard, conventional military power, China is leagues ahead of its transhimalayan neighbor. This is due, in no small part to the fact that India’s steadily growing military budget, which accounted for 26.8 billion dollars in 2008-2009, is still nowhere near that of the PRC, which some Pentagon analysts estimate to be close to 140 billion dollars.
(China is notoriously opaque when it comes to the detailing of its military budget) Diplomatically speaking, China is a permanent member of the UNSC, India, despite all its lobbying in favor of a reform of the Security Council, is not. Finally, in terms of economic power, China which reaps the rewards of a 20 years head start over India in the domain of economic liberalization, can boast a GDP, which, at 4.2 trillion dollars, is about three times and a half that of India (1.2 trillion dollars).

There is however one area where the playing field is more level: Soft Power.
Soft power is frequently simply conflated with economic power. If that was the case, Beijing would once again be far ahead. In reality though, as Joseph Nye famously pointed out, a nation’s soft power is far more than a simple panorama of its achievements in terms of exports, FTAs and sustained growth rates. Soft power, he says, is “the influence and attractiveness a nation acquires when others are drawn to its culture and ideas.” In the information world we live in, the “image branding” of nations, as well as their “likeability factor” have acquired greater significance, especially so for two states that are not only countries, but also civilizational states struggling to let the rest of the world come to terms with their relatively recent rise.

While both states are acutely aware of the importance of soft power and cultural attractivity, India seems to hold a sizeable advantage in that, unlike China, it needs to do little to render its culture appealing to the rest of the world. The process is natural, almost organic. This is consistent with India’s long history as both a birthplace of ideas, and of peaceful cultural diffusion. Whereas China invaded and occupied Vietnam for more than a thousand years, India spread Buddhism and the Hindu concept of sacred kingship to Southeast Asia not by sword and flame, but via trade and itinerant missionaries. The fact that ancient India never engaged in long-term occupation or widespread forcible conversion in Southeast Asia is not without significance. The peaceful propagation of Buddhism is a multi-millennia old bond that India shares with the rest of the Asian continent that acts as a testament to the power of its civilizational pull. In stark contrast, Chinese Confucianism, deemed too elitist and Sino-centric, was only adopted by certain other countries’ leading classes (as in Vietnam) but never by their peasantry.



When it comes to defining India’s more modern ‘soft power’ Bollywood is often cited, and with reason, as a prime example. The glittering, flamboyant films churned out by Mumbai’s gargantuan film industry have long been popular in certain regions of the world such as the Middle East. Over the past decade, however, Bollywood has been making inroads elsewhere. One of the most popular current viral videos in India shows a man in the depths of Tajikistan passionately humming and singing a Bollywood theme song to his bemused Indian visitors-all in perfectly memorized Hindi. When the Indian TV soap opera ‘Kynunki Saas Bhi’ was dubbed in Dari and aired on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV it was such an astounding success that it became a national obsession. 90% of television-owning Afghan families would follow the show, sometimes incurring the wrath of mullahs who viewed it as being responsible for the desertion of mosques during evening prayers. In certain African countries, such as Senegal and Mali, villagers often trek out miles to the closest projection room just to be able to watch one of the latest Bollywood films. Little does it matter that they do not understand the dialogue or that it is set in a distant land; the themes of love, family and marriage they evoke are universal, and the sparkling opulence of the dances, costumes and songs have the gift of enchanting the minds of moviegoers far less jaded than those in the West.


(An Arab Cable TV advert advertising Bollywood films)

India’s cultural influence is not only being felt in the developing world, however. Books by Indian English-speaking writers such as Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and Arundhati Roy have wooed critics across the world and become instant modern classics. Films by progressive female Indian directors such as Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta have revealed that Indian films are more than escapist fantasies, and can be simultaneously contemplative and entertaining. The triumph of Slumdog Millionnaire at last year’s Academy Awards was not only that of a slick, elegantly crafted melodrama, but also that of a certain depiction of contemporary India, warts and all, which nevertheless swayed the hearts of the jury.



This positive image of India is actively reinforced in the West by the increasingly affluent and politically self-confident Indian diaspora. This is particularly the case in the US, where families of Indian origin earn on average twice as much as their standard American counterparts, and where the Indian business lobby has gained such political clout that Hillary Clinton was derisively nicknamed the ‘Senator from Punjab’ during the 2008 election. In contrast, Chinese overseas communities, traditionally wealthy in Southeast Asia, do not fare as well in the West. While the average revenue of a Chinese American family is above that of their White American counterparts, the Chinese community registers very strong income disparities, and its members tend to be overqualified for their jobs. They also have not, as yet, manifested the same political activism in Congress as their South Asian counterparts.
In Great Britain, curry has now replaced fish and chips as the national dish of choice, and it is said that curry houses in the UK now employ more people than the mining and shipbuilding industries combined. Mumbai has now become one of the fashion capitals of the world, and fashion aficionados of the world no longer only stalk the runways of Milan, Paris and New York.

All this seems to indicate that the flow of information in-between India and the world is no longer unidirectional, as in the past, when India would only attract pampered Western youths trawling the subcontinent in search of a hypothetical spiritual redemption. India is gradually regaining its place as a historical trendsetter, and the influence it is having on the rest of the world, and particularly on the West, is far more profound and extends beyond simple pop subculture.



What now of China? As the perfectly choreographed spectacles of the 2008 Olympics and the recent 60th anniversary of the PLA seem to display, no other country in the world devotes as much time and energy into projecting a positive image as China. Why then, does it not seem to be catching on?
Part of the reason may be that China’s cultural diplomacy, unlike India’s, is more didactic than dialectic, and focuses more on an officially sanctioned discourse than on an open exchange of ideas. Take China’s growing global network of Confucius Institutes, which are designed to provide instruction in Chinese language and culture, and which work to create partnerships in-between Chinese universities and foreign universities in their host countries. The Institutes also operate under the tutelage of the ‘Chinese Language Council’ a government body, which has issued strict guidelines stipulating that the Institutes, as well as their host universities, must comply with political directives on issues deemed by Beijing to be ‘sensitive’, such as the international status of Taiwan or Tibet, or any form of historical investigation pertaining to ethnic minorities.

All in all, Chinese public diplomacy has been highly selective in nature. If cultural diplomacy is, as some have claimed, a form of ‘elaborate storytelling to the world’, then China is only telling half the story. One interesting case study is that of the famous mariner Zheng He who plied the waters of the South China Sea and of the Indian Ocean, and maybe even beyond with a fleet of 28 000 men, and who is now being held up as an emblem of China’s great seafaring past, as well as a symbol of the PRC’s supposedly peaceful maritime intent. Conveniently left out of the historically sanctioned narrative is the fact that Zheng He’s expeditions, were not only economic and pacifist in nature, as it is claimed, but were also a political extension of the Imperial tributary system. When a ruler, such as the Sri Lankan king Alakeswara, refused to pay tribute and thus recognize himself as the Chinese Emperor’s vassal, he was promptly deposed and ferried back to the Ming Court in chains. (Another fact that is frequently glossed over is that Zheng He was a Hui Muslim, and could probably never have risen to such preeminence in today’s Han dominated China)
Even Chinese international blockbusters, such as ‘Hero’ or ‘House of Flying Daggers’, while entertaining and often beautifully shot, invariably deal with a recurring theme: the photogenic and ethnically Han heroes, battling through pristine landscapes, end up by sacrificing themselves for the good of the nation. This may explain why such films, which have known some success in Western movie theatres, leave audiences in the developing world cold. An African villager or Central Asian goat tender has little time for the lofty ideal of national self-preservation in the face of fissiparous tendencies. He wants to watch something he can relate to, and whistle a catchy tune on his way home.



The main reason underlying India’s Soft Power Advantage over China, however, is undoubtedly related to the nature of their respective regimes and societies. India’s tradition of tolerance for diversity and of religious syncretism, when combined with its pluralist democratic system, vibrant mass media, and English-speaking elite, render it an infinitely more inspiring model. China’s slightly Orwellian PR efforts cannot hide the deeply unattractive nature of its regime. Its soothing discourses on its harmonious society collapse in on themselves each time a blood-soaked repression of Tibetan or Uighur protestors is caught on film, and its insistence on its peaceful rise is put into doubt when reports surface of Chinese warships harassing US vessels in international waters. Beijing’s habit of nurturing close ties with unsavory regimes such as Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea does little to improve matters. Indeed, while China’s non-interference policy in the domestic affairs of human right trampling states may earn it some degree of appreciation abroad, of a state respectful of national sovereignty; it only adds to its image, particularly in democratic societies, of an unscrupulous, amoralistic entity.

This is something that China, for all its flawlessly orchestrated displays and declarations of good intent, is powerless to prevent. India, for its part, is far from perfect. Its relations with its neighbors in South Asia, who tend to view it as a regional bully, are deplorable, and in its quest for energy security and its need to hedge against either Pakistan or China it has been forced to cozy up to some pretty shady regimes as well, thus running the risk in the long term of casting a shadow over its shiny democratic visage. The Bollywood films that have elicited such an enthusiastic response abroad showcase all too often a clean, pale-skinned bourgeois India disconnected from everyday reality. But as far as Rising Asia’s PR war is concerned, for India the battle is already won.