Bharat Rakshak

A Pakistan that is squarely in China’s orbit could contribute to a dramatic rise in security competition and an increased risk of great power conflict in South Asia. It is in America’s best interest to repair its relationship with Pakistan to prevent such a scenario from coming to pass. In recent years, Pakistan has been accused of harboring members of the Haqqani network, a Taliban-affiliated organization with multiple safe havens in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of northern Pakistan. Additionally, the Trump administration successfully lobbied for Pakistan to be placed on a watch list of international terror financiers, while the president tweeted in January that Pakistan has, “given us nothing but lies & deceit,” throughout the duration of the alliance.America’s growing distrust of Pakistan’s commitment to the War on Terror has led many American policymakers to propose even stronger measures to punish Islamabad. Over the past year, proposals have been floated to sanction senior Pakistani government officials with ties to terror groups, designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism, and even eliminate Pakistan’s status as an American ally. If enacted, these proposals could further deteriorate America’s increasingly fragile relationship with Pakistan, and would cement the existing perception among Pakistan’s leadership that the United States views it as a subordinate as opposed to a partner in the fight against terrorism.America’s relationship with Pakistan is further complicated by its strong and growing partnership with India, a country with whom Pakistan has fought four wars since 1947. Historic tensions over the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir have resulted in numerous cross-border skirmishes in recent years, and the acquisition of nuclear weapons by both states further upped the stakes of the dispute. India has significantly increased its military, economic, and diplomatic ties to the United States over the past decade, culminating in a landmark defense cooperation agreement between the two nations signed in 2016. Pakistan, which has historically fared poorly in its conflicts against India, views these deepening ties with great suspicion. Much of Pakistan’s motivation to harbor the Haqqani network stems from its desire to cultivate it as a “strategic militant asset,” to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan, particularly in light of President Trump’s calls for India to increase its political and military involvement in the war-torn country in 2017.While the United States has seen its relationship with Pakistan fracture in recent years, China has aggressively courted Pakistan as a potential ally. Through the promotion of economic initiatives such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Gwadar Economic Free Zone, China has sought to create strong, durable economic ties between the two nations. China has also been more than willing to fill the gap left by American military support, and has become the largest seller of arms to Pakistan, while also laying the groundwork for greater levels of defense cooperation to protect their mutual economic and security interests. China has even initiated trilateral talks between Pakistan, Afghanistan, and itself, helping to provide Pakistan with the political inroad to Afghanistan that it has long sought.

T. India’s fears of Chinese encirclement, which are heightened by China’s increased naval presence in the Indian Ocean, have caused it to view China’s deepening partnership with India’s western neighbor Pakistan with suspicion, especially since China’s One Belt One Road Initiative is set to encompass territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir that India has long claimed as its own.China has long been projected as the country most likely to emerge as a peer competitor to the United States in the coming decades, and such an ascension would only serve to strengthen the growing ties between both China and Pakistan and the United States and India. Fearing that China’s rise could threaten its own, India would likely seek closer ties with the United States to reduce the risks posed by Chinese encirclement, which would further drive a wedge between the United States and Pakistan and draw Islamabad deeper into China’s orbit. This divide would be made greater still should President Trump, or any subsequent presidential administration, take additional action to alienate Pakistan and incentivize it to move closer to China for foreign support.Security competition tends to incentivize great powers to form coalitions against their potential rivals, as evidenced by the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War. Should India pursue a more formal alliance with the United States, then the strengthening of Pakistan’s relationship with China could result in the Islamic Republic completely breaking with America in favor of a similar arrangement with the revisionist Chinese power. The formation of such alliances inherently heightens geopolitical tensions, but these particular coalitions could prove uniquely conflict-prone considering the states that compose them. Given the lengthy history of conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, it is not difficult to imagine a fifth Indo-Pak war quickly escalating into a proxy conflict between the United States and China, resulting in four nuclear-armed nations at one another’s throats.

ramana wrote:The interesting thing is US wants to push old F-16s/F-18s with newer equipment even thought IAF is not keen.
and despite IAF already acquiring French Rafale costing same as F-35s. (~ > @$100M)

ramana wrote:Gautam,
Did the case ever come up before the Indian Supreme Court/
I don't think so.
This is one of those activist funded cases.

Have sounded the tocsin time and again in my books and other writings since the post-1998 tests when the Indian government under the Vajpayee-Brijesh Mishra-duo began the country’s tilt America-wards about getting too close to the United States. A whole chapter in my last book — ‘Why India is Not a Great Power (Yet)’, was devoted to Washington’s awful record of hurting and trying to harm India’s interests, and why the US is the most feckless of friends and unreliable strategic partner, and a whole host of substantial reasons why it is advisable for this country to keep its distance from Uncle Sam. I have been arguing that Washington’s main agenda point is to somehow and by any means to replace Russia as the premier supplier of military goods to India believing, perhaps, incorrectly, that this is the vantage point that Moscow gained in the early 1960s when it jumped in with the offer of licensed production of MiG-21s at a time when the US rejected India’s demand of the F-104, and has never vacated since. What the US has never appreciated is just why the Indo-Russian relationship grew, despite initial mutual suspicions, into a solid edifice that will not easily be shaken built as it is not just on the sale of hardware but, more importantly, on the transfer of military technology of the kind that the US cannot even contemplate. This extraordinary access to technology afforded India is crowned by nearly unstinted help and assistance in the most sensitive and strategic indigenous programmes that resulted in an array of effective Agni missiles, the Arihant-class SSBN.

It is another matter that India did not use this access to technology to build up an innovation-centered defence industrial base of the kind China managed to do with exactly the same sort of resources available to India when in 1979 Dengxiaoping started the ‘Four Modernizations’ Programme. Nearly 40 years later the Chinese military has advanced to a state where it is giving Washington the willies, while India wallows in the shallows screwdrivering items of foreign origin — which mode is likely to be formalized by Modi’s Make in India policy with defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman giving the armed services the license to import whatever they wished from wherever they wished, ensuring India remains an arms dependency for the next 100 years. Or, forever.

So what was the difference — why did China rocket into the stratosphere even as India stumbled with one wrong decision after another. There’s one and only one decisive factor: Deng and the Chinese leadership had the POLITICAL WILL and the aim to best the best (the US) by being disruptive as hell — it was the Chinese bull in a Western china shop. The Indian government was led by a succession of small-minded, null-visioned, pygmies who have been content to be patted on their backs by the West and happy to join Western clubs and technology cartels (NSG, Wassenar, MTCR, etc) on their terms, and to crow about this as some singular achievement.

But why did this happen? Who or what are the enablers in the Indian system? The fact is Indian leaders and those manning the apparatus of the Indian state — the horde of civil servants, military brass, and DRDO elite all are afflicted by one fatal weakness — their desire for their progeny and family members to have a better life in the US and Western Europe. It is the promise of the ‘promised land’ (green card, H1B or work visa, permanent resident status) laced with scholarship to average sons/daughters of secretaries to GOI, senior diplomats, top military and civilian officers, to Ivy League and similar institutions of higher learning, discretely dangled before the country’s interlocuters when interacting with their American and West European counterparts, that lubricates the passage of US-tilting policies through the byzantine bureaucratic maze that is GOI.

To add to this are similar aspirations of the upwardly mobile political class and what we have is a policy environment so bending over backwards to accommodate Washington it is surprising there’s still something left in the Indian cupboard to be sold! This entire milieu is helmed by the Delhi chapters of Washington thinktanks — Carnegie and Brookings, set up in the last decade with financial contributions by Indian corporates. Thus, not only is GOI willing to put India’s neck in the noose but Indian financiers in the private sector are willing to buy the rope! This is in brief the US-leaning policy eco-system that I have detailed and analysed in my forthcoming book — Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and India’s Global Ambition, and which system cannot easily be thwarted.

If one were to critically assess the relationships the US has forged with its European and Asian allies, one thing is clear — America’s friends have to fall in line, toe the US line, or get punished as any adversary would. Thus, when the visiting chairman of the House armed services committee of the US Congress, William Thornberry, asks Delhi to desist from buying the Russian S-400 air defence system, the “or else” is par for the course. And when, as is now demanded, that India sign on the dotted line of COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security) Agreement and BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation) — the remaining two “foundational accords”, the Logistics Support Agreement being already in America’s bag, it is with the accompanying threat that otherwise the CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) will come down hard on India because of its ongoing ties with Russia and Iran — two policy pillars of India’s independent stance. CAATSA in any case will hang over India’s head as long as Delhi wants to do business with Moscow and Tehran and anybody else Washington doesn’t want India to transact with. This mind you despite the anxieties in the more nationalist quarters of the military — yes, these still survive! — that COMCASA will assist the US to penetrate — horizontally and vertically –the most secret communications links, including the command and control net involving the strategic forces!

So, it isn’t really about the S-400 — a damn good air defence system that can bring down any aircraft now flying. It is about Washington seeking to impose its will on the Modi government. If Modi bends on this issue, India has to be prepared to concede more and more on everything hereafter, and will indicate the direction in which India is headed. Up or down.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, in remarks following meetings with top Iranian leaders, vowed to ignore U.S. sanctions. "India follows only [United Nations] sanctions and not unilateral sanctions by any country," Swaraj was quoted as saying, emphasizing that India remains "independent" and immune to "pressure."

"India is going out of its way to alienate members of Congress, including many who have been sympathetic and trying to help them," said one senior congressional official who works on the issue and has discussed the matter with the administration.

"They're almost certainly violating the sanctions against Russia that overwhelmingly passed Congress last summer," said the source, who would only speak on background about these efforts. "Now they're bragging about violating Iran sanctions too. They keep telling us they want a new relationship with America but then they act in these destructive ways. It's very troubling."

Rana wrote:Iran Plotting With U.S. Allies to Skirt Trump’s New Sanctions
http://freebeacon.com/national-security ... sanctions/

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, in remarks following meetings with top Iranian leaders, vowed to ignore U.S. sanctions. "India follows only [United Nations] sanctions and not unilateral sanctions by any country," Swaraj was quoted as saying, emphasizing that India remains "independent" and immune to "pressure."

"India is going out of its way to alienate members of Congress, including many who have been sympathetic and trying to help them," said one senior congressional official who works on the issue and has discussed the matter with the administration.

"They're almost certainly violating the sanctions against Russia that overwhelmingly passed Congress last summer," said the source, who would only speak on background about these efforts. "Now they're bragging about violating Iran sanctions too. They keep telling us they want a new relationship with America but then they act in these destructive ways. It's very troubling."

Cain Marko wrote:Wow are these guys real? You can't possibly be so cocooned and display such arrogance in an era of so much open communication. Unbelievable.

As India and US get ready for a ‘2+2’ dialogue in early July between the foreign and defence ministers, US’ linkage of sanctions on Russia with India may bring the two countries to a very uncomfortable place, making the first high-level interaction potentially difficult. Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitharaman are expected to travel to Washington for the first such dialogue, which has been postponed a couple of times.

While India can hope to negotiate a carve-out for Chahbahar port in forthcoming Iran sanctions, using the precedent of the previous sanctions regime, the extreme nature of the CAATSA sanctions regime would make it impossible for India to follow. Recent reports said India and Russia had completed price negotiations for the Rs 40,000 crore S-400 Triumf anti-missile defense system, and were likely to announce it before the official summit in October.

But for the deal to go through may require finding a way around CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) which mandates the Trump administration to punish entities engaging in a significant transaction with the defence or intelligence sectors of Russia. As per Indian officials, the sanctions regime could kick in on any defence buys above $15 million, which is really small change in defence transactions.

Indian officials also said they were talking to Russia to explore ways around the US sanctions and this was one of the points of discussion during the recent informal summit in Sochi.

In the early days after the nuclear tests of 1998, when a series of sanctions were slapped on India, the first conversations between US and Indian officials entailed making exceptions for India, especially in the area of technology exports. So among the ideas doing the rounds is to obtain an exception for S-400. Officials point to the fact that US allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey are both close to signing deals for S-400, and any sanctions planned for India would apply to these countries, drawing comfort from the fact that India is not alone.

Although the economy czars of both countries are not going to be at the dialogue, India and US are preparing for some friction on that front, with the US threatening to remove preferential trade privileges for India.

SSridhar wrote:

Cain Marko wrote:Wow are these guys real? You can't possibly be so cocooned and display such arrogance in an era of so much open communication. Unbelievable.

And that too when the US stock all over the world is so down and it needs to have friends, especially a country like India ! Nobody considers the US as a reliable partner, especially in Asia.

Neshant wrote:Shelve the anti-missile purchase for now.

Trump is impulsive and it won't be a good idea to cross him.

More important issues like trade and access to markets are at stake so shelve the purchase for now.

Philip wrote:Simple.India should tell the US that any attempt to curtail its defence purchases from Russia by CAASTA blackmail, would mean curtains for all Future US arms sales to India.In addition, the "Quad " would now be reduced to that of a ( non- Chin) Triad, with India free to choose her friends without Aany US harassment.What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!

Neshant wrote:Shelve the anti-missile purchase for now.

Trump is impulsive and it won't be a good idea to cross him.

More important issues like trade and access to markets are at stake so shelve the purchase for now.

nvishal wrote:The US doesn't have any leverages left on India. It already excercises defence and technology restrictions on india.

The Americans can instruct the Arabs to halt sale of oil to India but it is pointless as we can get it from Iran, Russia, south America or Africa.

The Americans also can instruct NATO states and its allies to restrict sale of current generation military hardware to India but that is also pointless as we get what we can from the Russians. The post cold war US-russia ceasefire agreements restrict the russians from selling any game changing hardware to India but we have a local missile program(along with a space program) to fill this need.

There is one leverage(pressure) which the Americans can put on India - क / श्मी / र - which cannot be discussed on an open forum. Although this is an eventuality which we know is coming and are preparing for it.

habal wrote:If USA doesn't budge from its position even after we tell them to bugger off with comcasa & caatsa and they proceed to impose the fullest extent of these sanctions on India, then it means that USA doesn't want us to have an effective missile defence system or in other words they are in advanced stages of planning where they can ignite a war between Ind-China or Ind-TSPA and are planning a limited nuclear exchange which results in depopulation of subcontinent and a strategic weakening of India's position of strength to a more manageable dominion status.

Austin wrote:What they are giving us with comcasa is a proprietary communication system like a black box which we assume is safe secure and interoperable with their communication system but like with any proprietary commercial system it can have a back door on the hardware side which end user i.e Indian Armed forces may not be aware off.

ramana wrote:Philip and Chetak, US want to use IN as their Indian Ocean Gungadin.
All this COMCASA etc. are for them to use IN as waterboys.
They would even hope to wear out IN ships patrolling the Pacific so as to not pose a threat to Pakistan.

The peaceful military purchases (transport etc.) after IUCNA were baksheesh to US for the deal.
Once it got approved both went separate ways.
Except the lifafa Chatteratti in Delhi.

ramana wrote:Philip and Chetak, US want to use IN as their Indian Ocean Gungadin.
All this COMCASA etc. are for them to use IN as waterboys.
They would even hope to wear out IN ships patrolling the Pacific so as to not pose a threat to Pakistan.

The peaceful military purchases (transport etc.) after IUCNA were baksheesh to US for the deal.
Once it got approved both went separate ways.
Except the lifafa Chatteratti in Delhi.

Rudradev wrote: Trump has upended this calculus. I don't know whether he is a master-strategist or a baboon, and frankly at this point I don't care. I only care about the repercussions for us. We are seeing, for the first time since Parakram days, Congressional Committee members standing up and making threats against India.

If we stand firm (and I think NaMo will), a lot of the other pressure channels that some of us remember well could be reactivated in time for the 2019 election campaign. Not that they aren't active now, but they will be ramped up to a much more open and voluble scale. Including Cash-mere, "Religious Freedoms", "Human Rights", you name it. The pro-INC Church in India has been just waiting for this moment.

We are seeing, for the first time since Parakram days, Congressional Committee members standing up and making threats against India.

Mort Walker wrote:

We are seeing, for the first time since Parakram days, Congressional Committee members standing up and making threats against India.

Neshant wrote:Shelve the anti-missile purchase for now.

Trump is impulsive and it won't be a good idea to cross him.

More important issues like trade and access to markets are at stake so shelve the purchase for now.

Amber G. wrote:Few are running this headline...
US Pacific Command renamed US Indo-Pacific Command
Nice!