Round The World
New Delhi, 2 November 2017
US’ Asia Policy
AF-INDIA & TERRORISM
By Dr DK. Giri
(Prof. International Politics, JMI)
New Delhi hosted three important foreign
dignitaries last week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, followed by US Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. All three
had their respective agendas, but India, interestingly, focused on cross-border
terrorism as its principal concern.
Ghani came for a day-long working visit to
review ongoing ties, Tillerson attempted to impress upon India to play a bigger
role in Asia, in particular Afghanistan, and Gentiloni was here to mend
relations, after the infamous marines’ case. The relations between New Delhi
and Rome had plummeted since, but thawed with Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj’s
visit to the Vatican for canonisation of Mother Teresa, and Gentiloni’s visit
after 10 years since former PM Romand Prodi visited India. Gentiloni and Modi signed
six treaties on various trades, discussed FTA negotiations between India and
EU, shared mutual concerns on terrorism and promised cooperation in fighting
it.
However, of more strategic importance were
the visits of Ghani and Tillerson. Ghani was on the same page as India on
Pakistan sponsoring terrorism against both countries. He sought India’s help in
building and training its military and police in the wake of gradual withdrawal
of American and NATO forces from Afghan soil. India is by far the biggest
development-donor of Afghanistan in the region with $3 billion aid so far. But
New Delhi has refused to send soldiers to Afghanistan not to antagonize
Pakistan, Kabul feels that India’s distancing militarily is not helping the
situation.
Kabul has warned Islamabad that unless it
opens Wagha and Attari borders for India-Afghanistan trade to transit through
Pakistan, it will deny access to Pakistan to Central Asia. As an alternate
route, New Delhi and Kabul broke new grounds by using Chabahar port in Iran.,
by sending the first consignment of wheat from Kandla port to Chabahar, and
from there it was to be sent by trucks to land-locked Afghanistan. A project to
build rail route is underway from Chabahar to Zahedan, Afghan border, by New
Delhi and Teheran for over $1 billion.
Furthermore, an India-Afghanistan airfreight corridor has been set up.
This covers the full spectrum of connectivity between the two.
Ghani also sought to invoke the provision in
Special Partnership Agreement (SPA) for military support. India has supplied
four combat helicopters Mi-25 in 2015 which were “life-savers” according to
Afghan military. It needs ammunition and engineers to maintain the aircrafts.
India is mulling over it.
The SPA signed in 2011 between the two will
be upgraded to a New Development partnership. It should be noted that India has
been heavily engaged in reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan and has so far built
over 200 public and private schools, sponsored 1000 scholarships and hosts over
16,000 Afghan students. It has built a state-of-the-art Parliament building and
its past projects covered, education, health, infrastructure, etc. India would implement some important new
projects – Shatoon Dam and Drinking Water Project, low cost housing for
refugees returning to Naharpar province, gypsum manufacturing plant in Kabul,
poly-clinic in Mazhar-e-Sharif, etc. India will also undertake 116 high impact projects
in 31 provinces. All in all, the development programme would continue till 2022.
However, Kabul’s biggest worry is the Taliban
and would want all support it can garner to combat it. In the recent past, the Quadrilateral
group of US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan met in Qatar to resolve the
conflict between Afghan government and Taliban. Kabul felt Pakistan was trying
to impose a solution in favour of Taliban, as it did in the past by installing
a pro-Pakistan Taliban government. Kabul wants a solution “initiated,
controlled, and managed by Afghanistan”. In his speech here, Ghani stated: “with
India we have alignment of interests”. It would like India to play a greater,
high-profile role including military engagement. Will New Delhi bite the
bullet?
Likewise, Tillerson would like to nudge India
to play a pivotal role in Asia, and the Indo-Pacific region. Obviously, America
wants to counter China, which aims to gradually replace the US as the super power.
On the eve of his visit to S Asia, Tillersen made a forceful case for US-India
partnership in his speech at Centre for Strategic and International Studies,
Washington DC titled “Defining our Relationship with India for the Next
Century”.
“India and the US share common values and
vision” and are natural allies, he said and blamed China, in no uncertain
terms, for destabilising the global order, as he promised to deepen
co-operation with India. He observed: “China, while rising alongside India, has
done so less responsibly, at times, undermining the international rule-based
order, even as countries like India operate within a framework that protects
other nations’ sovereignty”. Beijing was further blamed for subverting the
sovereignty of neighbouring countries by pursuing “predatory economics” and
extending “bad debt.”
A more powerful pro-India statement by
Tillerson was: “security issues that concern India are concerns of the US too.”
The speech was music to South Block in Delhi as it came after the ‘New Afghan
Policy’ and South Asia Strategy announced by the US earlier this year, which
charged Pakistan for sponsoring terrorism. It said: “Pakistan provides safe
haven to agents of chaos, violence and terror. Pakistan should stop it.” The
strategy singled out India for greater engagement in Afghanistan.
On India-Pakistan relations, both New Delhi
and Washington agree as it was reiterated during Tillerson’s visit, “that
renunciation of violence and terror, and closure of cross-border safe havens
and sanctuaries were essential for any meaningful progress and lasting peace”.
It is evident that Islamabad’s unfettered support to terror groups is
destablising the entire region. Ghani was clear on Pakistan’s negative and
vicious role, but US tries to balance India and Pakistan. A section in US
External Relations want condition-based relations with Pakistan, not to isolate
it totally, while others want India in, and Pakistan out of the equation. Many
observers would say that the US’ New Afghan Policy is a ‘game-changer’.
Undeniably, the US wants to sketch out an
important role for India in S Asia and Indo-Pacific region. We may recall that it
has been nudging India to rise to counter China. In 2012, the then Defence
Secretary Leon Panetta had underlined: “India is linchpin of the US pivot to
Asia strategy.” Even under Obama leadership, preceded by Bush Administration,
the attempt was to deepen Indo-US ties -- economic, cultural and diplomatic.
But the UPA government declined to play that role for US in Asia.
India is perhaps wary of Trump’s
inconsistency, US ambivalence on Pakistan, its mixed approach to China, attitude
to Iran, and nearer home, the issue of H1B visa for Indian-IT professionals.
Although there are frequent allusions to India and US being two big democracies
and multi-cultural politics, foreign policies are based on self-interest and what
John J. Mearsheimer called the ‘offensive realism’ in his book Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
It is self interest that counts in the
ultimate analysis. So does India’s self-interest align with US policy or should
it continue to play an autonomous world role, a throw-back to the days of
non-alignment? Realists would advocate that India should sign a defence pact
with US to counter China and Pakistan. It may be too soon to do so. But playing
an active and engaging role in Asia alongside, US, Japan and Australia to
combat the menace of terror, to promote peace and prosperity, democracy and
freedom etc, is a role India should be ready to embrace. The world is watching
as we too keep a watchful eye. ---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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