Bharat Rakshak

Security Challenges in Central Asia and India's Role
written by
Mohammad Samir Hussain
http://www.turkishweekly.net/op-ed/2897 ... -role.html
Thursday, 20 October 2011

India’s interests and concerns in Central Asia are very well reflected in one of the Ministry of Defense reports that, “due to its strategic proximity to the Middle East and South Asia, Central Asia has emerged as a distinct geo-political entity stimulating global attention and interest. The region has vast untapped potential of oil and gas and other strategic minerals. Engagement of the CARs is thus an essential component of our security.”[1] Closer engagement with Central Asian republics is of national security significance for our country.

Central Asia’s security environment continued to be influenced by developments within and its immediate neighborhood where rising instability remains a matter of deep concern. This has no doubt attracted the attention of the major powers of the world and in particular India owing to its close proximity. Instability and insecurity in the Central Asian region pose serious challenges to India's security. If Central Asia is known for its resources, then it is not without its security challenges. The security of this region is highly important for Asian security in general and India in particular. This is based on the concept of ‘Common Security.’ Common security means a state cannot seek security at the expense of another. Any insecurity in this region will have its implications on India. New Delhi cannot ignore the major security challenges facing Central Asia. Based on the concept of common security, India’s security lies in ensuring the security of Central Asian states.

The main security challenges facing the Central Asian regions are terrorism, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, organized crime, separatism, ethnic conflicts, etc. The issue of terrorism has been the major problem affecting all of the Central Asian states. It has brought about social and political disorder, chaos, and instability in the region. The issue has become a critical one owing to their shared borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Central Asia is concerned about these two countries that have become the launching pads for terrorism.[2]

Among the Central Asian states, Uzbekistan has accused Pakistani organizations such as Mezb-e-Harkat-e-Jihad and Ducdas-ul-Ershad for providing training to hundreds of Central Asian people at various training centers in Pakistan with the task of carrying out terrorist attacks, and thereby destabilizing the country by overthrowing the governments. Uzbekistan is fighting with more than hundreds of rebels in the south, near its own frontier with war-torn Afghanistan.[3]

Having close links with the problem of terrorism, the issue of drug trafficking has also been one of the serious concerns facing the Central Asian states. It also has the capability to create instability in the region. How serious the problem of drug trafficking is can be reflected from the fact that Kyrgyzstan has succeeded Myanmar and Thailand as the major importer of drugs. More than four million people from Kyrgyzstan are engaged in the dealing, moving, growing, and processing of raw materials.[4] According to a source in Uzbekistan, there was an eleven percent increase in drugs being transported from Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime.[5] Overall, the security challenges facing the Central Asian republics have their link to the weakness of the state. All of these states are so weak that they lack commitment to deal with the growing security challenges. This makes the region highly vulnerable to terrorist violence, ethnic crisis, and rampant corruption, leading to economic problems in the region.[6]

India’s Role in Central Asia

What can India do to help meet the challenges posed to the countries of the region? India’s role, it is argued, should focus on protecting the oil-rich Central Asian states from both internal and external threats. This would require strengthening security and defense cooperation with these countries. Central Asia still considers India a potential partner in fighting the menace of terrorism. India has developed enough stakes that it has signed a number of agreements with Central Asian countries on the issue of terrorism. Both sides understand the need for closer cooperation to meet the challenges of terrorism. Central Asia in particular is looking for help from India in combating this menace. India can help Central Asian states to tackle the problem by:

a. Establishing a joint working group on terrorism with the CARs.

b. Developing mechanisms for the sharing of information and intelligence cooperation.

c. Providing the training to forces of CARs and equipping them with advanced arms and equipment.

d. Helping them address the root causes of terrorism by fighting unemployment, economic underdevelopment, poverty, etc.[7]

e. Developing an understanding with the CARs over stability in Afghanistan that would definitely have positive implications on the issue of terrorism. Security and stability in Afghanistan holds the key to peace, security, and stability in Central Asian republics.[8]

India took the initiative of establishing the Joint Working Group with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan for the sharing of intelligence, information, and regular consultations. This step is very crucial for future defense cooperation between India and Central Asian states. The most possible aspects of cooperation between the two sides would be the exchange of arms and equipment needed to deal with the problem of terrorism and its related issues, and conducting regular exercises that could help strengthen the present understanding of the security concerns. India can also be an important partner when it comes to assisting paramilitary forces of Central Asian states.[9]


*Dr. Mohammad Samir Hussain is a Research Associate in the Yashwantrao Chavan National Centre of International Security and Defence Analysis, University of Pune, Pune. He can be reached at [email protected].

Indian Military’s Modernisation: A Threat To Strategic Stability Of South Asia – Analysis
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... -analysis/
Written by: Masood-Ur-Rehman Khattak

March 26, 2011


India is on course to revamp its military machine in next few years to compete with China and coerce Pakistan. India is spending about 2.5 percent of its GDP on defense, which is a huge amount as compared to the other South Asian states. India’s defence budget for the year 2010-11 is $32 billion, and which shows its ambitious designs in the region. This article assesses some of the Indian Military’s modernisation programmes and their implications for the region.

According to a report, India may spend about $120 billion in the next five years to refurbish its military. India has floated a tender to add almost 126 combat aircraft. This is the first time in the history of India that it has concluded a contract of this magnitude. Many international companies including Dassault Aviation SA, Chicago-based Boeing Co, Lockheed Martin Corp. Saab AB, Russia’s United Aircraft Corp. and the European Aeronautic, Defense & Space Co are competing to get the contract. Moreover, India will spend approximately $48 billion through 2017 on purchases of combat jets, helicopters, transport and trainer aircraft. Indian navy may also buy fighter jets and helicopters worth $7.5 billion through 2022. So it could be analysed that the next decade would seemingly bring revolutionary change in the Indian military.

India

Europe’s largest defense contractor BAE Systems Plc expects that India will to become their second-biggest market after the U.S. in the next decade. This company has already won $803 million contract with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. for 57 Hawk jet trainers. Such collaboration would improve Indian defense industry. India is also modernizing its fleet of helicopters; the Indian Air Force recently announced that it would acquire more than 230 choppers in the near future. Lockheed is also in talks with the Indian government to sell its Sniper advanced targeting pods for fixed-wing aircraft. All these contracts involve transfer of technology to India. Such development will give boost to India’s fading defense industry.

Indian military is also in negotiations with the U.S company to supply Hellfire Romeo missile and Longbow radar as part of a bid by Boeing to sell 22 Apache AH-64 helicopters to India. Lockheed is already implementing an order for supplying six Super Hercules planes in a deal worth about $1 billion. The company sealed the order in February 2008. The first plane was delivered to the Indian Air Force late last year and was inducted into the Indian Air Force on Feb. 7, remaining planes will also be inducted in the IAF in coming years. India is also heading towards the induction of Ballistic Missile Defence system, such system would destabilise the region and may provoke arms race in South Asia. The Indian government is in dialogue with Lockheed Martin Corp, for sale of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile systems.

The Indian Navy will add a few Scorpene submarines with the help of France’s state-owned DCNS for an estimated total cost of $4.6 billion. These subs can stay sunken for about a week, making difficult for enemy radars to track and giving more room to the Indian navy in the Indian Ocean. India has also purchased eight maritime-reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft from Boeing Co. for $2.1 billion in 2009, and the Indian government recently approved an order for another four. Such inductions would upgrade India’s prying capabilities; it would also give Indian navy strategic outreach in the Indian Ocean. In order to add more teeth to its amphibious warfare capabilities, the Indian Navy is planning to induct four Landing Platform Docks to join the fleet alongside INS Jalashwa. These ships will be of 200 meters long and to be able to transport Main Battle tanks, heavy trucks, Armoured Personnel Vehicles and other heavy machinery. It would also be able to carry out operations of heavy-lift helicopters of the Navy. The four LPDs will also have a point missile defence system and a close-in weapon system to protect itself from enemy firing and aircraft.

WASHINGTON — The US Navy views the Asia-Pacific region as a top strategic priority even as it faces possible budget cuts that could curtail other global missions, the naval chief said Wednesday.

With China’s clout rising and its military might expanding, President Barack Obama’s deputies and military commanders increasingly portray Asia as a key to American national security.

The new chief of naval operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, echoed that view and suggested growing pressure on the US defense budget would not derail plans to focus on the Pacific region.

“Asia will be clearly a priority and we will adjust our operations accordingly,” Greenert told reporters in a teleconference.

The Navy now constantly maintains an aircraft carrier — the USS George Washington — in the Pacific, compared to 10 years ago when a carrier was available only 70 percent of the time, he said.

US officials have vowed to expand the American naval presence in Southeast Asia and to uphold “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea, despite China’s territorial claims in the area.

Apart from Asia, the Navy also needs to ensure a presence around the world but budget pressures will require having to make “trade-offs” when it comes to operations and joint exercises with partners, the admiral said.

“If you’re not in some areas of the world at all, then things can fester there and become a bigger problem later,” he said.

“The trade-offs become how we distribute our Navy around the world both from the perspective of security operations and also exercises with allies,” he said.

With the Pentagon preparing to cut $450 billion over the next decade, the Navy will have to find “innovative ways” to maintain its commitments partly by stationing ships and crews in ports closer to strategic “choke points,” he said.

Greenert cited a new agreement to station four US destroyers in the Spanish port of Rota for NATO’s new missile defense system as an example of more efficient “forward” deployments, which are designed to save time, fuel and personnel costs.

But compared to 10 years ago, the Navy has fewer ships and personnel at its disposal even as the pace of operations has accelerated, Greenert said.

In 2001, the Navy had 320 ships in its fleet compared to 284 vessels now, and had 375,000 personnel compared to the current force of 325,000, according to the Navy.

The pace of operations has increased in the past decade due to the new missile defense mission using Aegis ships, counter-piracy and counter-proliferation efforts and a decision to keep two aircraft carrier groups in the Arabian Sea at all times as well as amphibious ship groups, according to Greenert.

US officials have yet to make a decision about whether to withdraw one of the aircraft carriers in coming years once American forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan as planned by 2015, he said.

Some analysts, including retired army general David Barno, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, have raised the possibility of cutting one of the country’s 11 aircraft carriers to absorb budget cutbacks.

“Everything is on the table,” Greenert said when asked about cutting carriers or aircraft.

He described budget discussions as “a clear-eyed, open look at the future at what the nation needs.”

Greenert, who took over as naval chief last month, spoke to reporters from Newport, Rhode Island, where he addressed an international conference on sea power.

India's growing interests in central Asia are well-recognised. There is a growing convergence between the US and Indian interests, especially their reluctance to see the region fall under the exclusive influence of Russia or China. India was worried in the 1990s when the Russian influence in central Asia weakened substantially with a commensurate rise in the Chinese influence. This negatively impacted upon Indian threat perceptions which stabilised only after the growing US presence in the region since 2001.

India views itself as a stabiliser and security provider in the region and with its growing economic clout, an attractive economic power. India's interest in securing reliable energy supplies and trade through central Asia remains substantial. There is a seamless logical web from the objective of ensuring central Asian stability and India's voice there to the conclusion that India must also ensure reliable energy access to oil and gas sources originating in central Asia.

The requirements of energy security also postulate not only a continuing positive relationship with Moscow [ Images ], even had the past 60 years not been one of unbroken friendship, and second, friendly ties to all the central Asian states.

India must create firm ties among the energy exporting states of central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and, if possible, Turkmenistan. It should be no surprise then that India's ties with the regional states are growing. Moreover the imperatives of getting Afghanistan right are stronger than ever today when the situation is rapidly deteriorating.

India had opened an air base in Ayni, Tajikistan in 2002 to guard against growing instability in the region though nothing much has happened on that front for long. India's ties with regional states are growing and moderate Islam of the region makes it imperative for India to engage the region more substantively. Other powers, barring China, have recognised this reality and have sought to harness India towards achieving common goals.

Russia, for example, supports Indian membership in the SCO and has talked about the possibility of India participating in the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.

A great power competition in central Asia will make it harder for India to pursue its interests. As such it becomes imperative for Indian diplomacy to work towards major power cooperation to bring some measure of stability to Afghanistan as well as the larger central Asian region.

The prime minister has made a good start by visiting Kazakhstan but the region should not now slip off India's radar.

Harsh V Pant

Guest speaker Toby Dalton, Deputy Director of the Nuclear Policy Programme at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expressed concern over the future of strategic stability in South Asia and strongly felt that “strategic stability was weakening.”
“Conventional wisdom on South Asian stability among American analysts is that the region’s stability has been weakening since Pakistan and India went nuclear in 1998,” he said in his opening remarks, adding that “Pakistani officials plan against worst-case assumptions about Indian intentions and capabilities.”
The discussion that followed strongly challenged the American perception and “discriminatory policy” over nuclear stability in the region.

Adil Sultan called the Indo-US nuclear deal a disaster.
He said that the “Pakistan specific” Fissile Material Control Treaty (FMCT) was meant to restrain only Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities.

Professor Nazir Hussain was of the view that the resolution of the Kashmir issue would solve half the problem. He said that on the one hand, the US was defending the Indo-US nuclear deal and on the other, it was blaming Pakistan on nuclear issues, which was a blatant contradiction of American policies towards South Asia.
Asif Ezdi, former ambassador to Germany, suggested that the US offer Pakistan a nuclear energy deal similar to the Indo-US deal. In his opinion, the US had meted out a discriminatory attitude to Pakistan by indirectly legitimizing India’s nuclear programme in the form of the civil-nuclear deal.
Dr Shaheen Akhtar was of the view that America’s strategic backing to India would create further strategic imbalance in South Asia.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 2nd, 2011.

Foreign Minister Rudd said the strategic presence of the United States in the region has provided “the underpinnings” of the dynamic economic growth seen recently in East and South Asia by providing stability to the region, and he said that stability is still needed for the region’s long-term prosperity.

“This region will be the center of gravity for global economic growth, for global security for the half century to come. And it is in our combined interest, therefore, to ensure that this Pacific century is indeed a Pacific century,” Rudd said.


A senior Obama administration official who asked not to be identified told reporters September 15 that the United States and Australia want to engage India as a Pacific partner, acknowledge Indonesia’s increasing importance and maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

This demonstrates that “not only does the U.S.-Australian relationship punch far beyond and above its weight, we are working together in a global context now that reflects the fact that the United States and Australia really appreciate and understand … the stake that we have in a variety of areas,” the official said.
U.S. officials are also interested in Australia’s insights into Chinese political developments as China prepares for its 2012 party congress.

“Our discussion is across the board, understanding what’s transpiring in China, what motivates Chinese foreign policy and how best to work with like-minded countries on a shared objective, which is to see China as a strong, stable, secure, contributing partner to the Asia-Pacific region,” the official said.


Read more: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/engl ... z1bRqOQAkR

India, China face off in the East
Vietnam, Burma visits may herald new Indian influence in Asia-Pacific

Jason OverdorfOctober 12, 2011 09:38

Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang (L) meets with Indian Prime Minister Manmmohan Singh in New Delhi. (Raveendran/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW DELHI, India — Despite its burgeoning economic importance and million-man army, India has long punched below its weight when it comes to international relations.


But a new boldness this week suggests New Delhi might finally be coming into its own — not in Afghanistan or the Indian Ocean, but in Asia-Pacific.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an energy accord with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang on Wednesday that flies in the face of recent Chinese opposition to Indo-Vietnamese oil exploration in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

China has said it considers those waters sovereign territory.

New Delhi and Hanoi also agreed to launch a joint security dialogue, held twice a year, to expand a burgeoning strategic partnership.

"A strong India-Vietnam relationship is a factor of peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region,” Singh said at a joint press conference with Sang following their meeting.

“It stands on its own merits. The president's visit has given a new thrust and direction to this partnership.”

This week, Singh will also meet with Burma’s President Thein Sein, marking a significant opportunity for India to continue to transform its decades-old “Look East” policy from a modest trade initiative into a full-fledged strategy to extend India's influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Of course, both Burma and Vietnam need to remain friends with China as much or more than they need to build better ties with India, just as New Delhi needs to improve relations with Beijing despite their differences over China's support of Pakistan. But recent events in Burma and Vietnam have opened a window to the east that India has so far only been looking through. New Delhi now appears ready to make its move.


“Most major powers today are preoccupied with their own domestic problems,” Singh said Tuesday in a speech before the leader of the three branches of India's armed forces at the Combined Commanders' Conference, according to the Indian Express. He added, “We must therefore consolidate our own strategic autonomy and independence of thought and action.”

India's Look East policy was crafted by then-Prime Minister Narasinha Rao in 1991 to boost trade at a time when India desperately needed foreign-exchange reserves. Aiming to emulate China's success in courting investors, India targeted the so-called Asian tigers as the key to shoring up its finances, according to Srikanth Kondapalli, a professor in Chinese Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The policy paved the way for economic agreements with Japan and South Korea, and a free-trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional economic bloc, Kondapalli said.

Asian nations now account for 60 percent of India's foreign trade and a hefty portion of foreign-direct investment, he said.

Although in recent years, India has sought to transform the Look East policy into a strategic response to China's growing influence with its South Asian neighbors in Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, New Delhi has often seemed at a loss as to how to deal with Beijing.

Hawks here have long asserted that Beijing build Islamabad's nuclear weapons program and continues to turn a blinde eye to Pakistan's use of terrorist groups to launch attacks on India. Yet none seemed to know how to deal with China's provocative border incursions in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, or the reported presence of Chinese troops in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. And so India waffled.

But in the dispute over the South China Sea, India reacted to the latest bellicose rhetoric from Beijing, and the reported “buzzing” of India's INS Airavat by the Chinese navy in July, with remarkable savvy.

It neither backed down nor allowed itself to be drawn into the broader South China Sea dispute.

Instead, New Delhi emphasized that those territorial questions will have to be resolved by the ongoing multilateral negotiations between Beijing and the Southeast Asian regional bloc, in a “prompt and emphatic reaction” that former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal called
“refreshing.”

The accords signed Wednesday in New Delhi, along with a deal signed by Vietnam and China in Beijing recently to ease tensions over the South China Sea dispute, suggest that the new approach may pay off.

“[China is] not interested in escalating, but they are certainly interested in putting us off balance,” said Jabin Jacob, assistant director of India's Institute of Chinese Studies. “If we bend over backwards, that's exactly what they'll do. They'll push us over backwards.”

Meanwhile, Burma's slow edging toward reform through the loosening of restrictions on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, this week's release of some two-dozen political prisoners, and last year's election of a civilian government — however questionable — leave it in a state of flux that could also play to India's advantage when Singh meets Thein on Friday.

India was criticized at home and abroad throughout this decade for its support of the military regime. But now, as Burma’s sole democratic ally, New Delhi is now poised to benefit from the new civilian government's seemingly greater interest in courting international approval.

And, as suggested by Yangon's recent shelving of a controversial $3.6 billion, Chinese-led dam project that Suu Kyi and her supporters had opposed, those same domestic political developments may well simultaneously reduce Beijing's influence.

“[Burma] wants to remain fiercely independent in its foreign policy,” said Kondapalli. “So they would like to balance China with other countries.”

According to P.M. Heblikar, who was until recently a high-level bureaucrat in India's cabinet secretariat, this also offers India the chance to secure Burma's efforts to expel various insurgent groups that attack India from its borders — as Bangladesh has done recently, and Pakistan has notoriously refused to do, apparently with China's stamp of approval.

And though sabers may rattle, New Delhi's new backbone reflects India's understanding of how far Beijing is willing to go.

“In the South China Sea and elsewhere, will [the Look East policy] lead to a conflict between India and China? I don't see that happening,” said Kondapalli, who believes only a narrow section of China's military sees India's activities as an encroachment. “During globalization you cannot simply say something is your sphere of influence. That's a Cold War mentality.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news ... looks-east

http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs ... ategic.pdf

Strategic Environment in Central Asia and India

Defense stressed Central Asia as an area of vital importance to India, not on- .... in a political environment like Central Asia

Strategic Environment in Central Asia and India
Arun Sahgal & Vinod Anand
Emerging strategic trends in Central Asia are part of an overarching strategic
construct that has been evolving since the end of the Cold War. The appearance of sovereign Central Asian republics after the demise of the Soviet Union and the weakness of the Russian state in the immediate aftermath of the
Soviet collapse led to a strategic vacuum in the region. Many major and regional powers sought to fill it. Meanwhile, Central Asians endeavored to associate themselves with as many multilateral organizations and foreign powers as possible in order to define their newfound independence and national
identity. Movement away from the Russian bear-hug and engagement with
the U.S. and the Western countries were considered to be a way to address
their concerns about security and economic issues, in addition to emphasizing their newly acquired sovereignty. At the same time it was not easy for
the Central Asian Republics to break their umbilical link with Russia

The U.S. and European nations sought to absorb the Central Asian states
into their orbit of influence through economic engagement and security cooperation (via NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program). China, too, embarked on a similar path to enhance its strategic presence in the Central
Asian states, after having first solved boundary issues with Russia and its
Central Asian neighbors. By the early 1990s, such regional powers as Turkey,
Iran and Pakistan were also in the fray in the Central Asian arena. With the
end of Boris Yeltsin’s decade and emergence of a more assertive Russia under
President Putin, the Kremlin, too, began reorienting its policies towards reclaiming what it considered its ‘strategic backyard.’
Conclusions
Developments in Central Asia in the last several years indicate the direction
in which the strategic winds are blowing. U.S. influence has already peaked,
and both Russia and China are cementing their political, military and economic relationship with the Central Asian nations.

Meanwhile, India has
been endeavoring to improve its profile in the region in order to exploit its
energy reserves and to establish a mutually beneficial security and economic
relationship. The Central Asian states, while exploiting the competition between the different players for their own national interests, have many conflicts among themselves and are still in the process of moving towards regional harmony. Political processes are yet to mature and the threat of terrorism remains real, especially because of the unstable situation in Afghanistan
and the resurgence of the Taliban.


There are complex strategic equations evolving at both the global and regional levels, with each nation attempting to pursue its own national objectives. There are calls on India to join one bandwagon or another in an arena
where the end game is yet to be defined.

Russia is attempting to reassert its
influence in Central Asia. China is also fiercely pursuing its interests in the
region, and has been gaining ground. Apparently, their bilateral cooperation
is a tactical one with a view to offset the American influence. Even though
the U.S. and E.U. influence has been on the decline, the Central Asian states
continue to be attracted to them because engagement with U.S. and NATO
is a defining feature of their sovereignty and independence.

India, with its
civilizational and cultural links to the region, combined with its approach
based on soft power, can play the role of a balancer. Further, integrating
South and Central Asia would result in vast economic benefits to all the
stakeholders involved, leading to a positive outcome for stability and security
in the region. However, looking at the scenario in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
such integration is unlikely to take place in the near to medium term

After the traditional bread and honey welcome ceremony at the airport, he discussed future uses of Ayni, a former Soviet airbase that India has quietly renovated to the tune of $70 million.
Two weeks later, Pakistan announced relief for “landlocked Tajikistan.” A $25 million, 220 kilometer road would be built north from Gilgit, Pakistan. It would follow river valleys bounded by 7,000 meter high peaks, cross Afghanistan’s Wakhan corridor, and reach the soaring Pamir Mountains of eastern Tajikistan.
The Chinese, who recently built roads to Tajikistan from the east, told Dushanbe there is no hurry to pay off their $1 billion foreign debt to Beijing. After Tajikistan earlier this year signed over to China about 1 percent of its eastern mountains, Beijing dropped its claim to 20 percent of Tajik territory.
Within months, Tajik and Chinese soldiers were participating in a joint anti-terror drill in Western China. And, as Russian-language skills wither among a new generation of Tajiks, China has opened a Confucius Institute in Dushanbe to promote the study of Mandarin.

Not to be left behind, Russian leaders visited Dushanbe. At a joint press appearance with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, President Dmitry Medvedev announced that the two countries had agreed to a 49-year renewal on leases for three bases that house Moscow’s 201st Motorized Division.

Not to be outdone, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also flew into Dushanbe last month, inaugurated a new hydroelectric plant and signed accords for Iran to build a second one. Iran’s defense minister, Sherli Khairulloyev, said that if Tajikistan ever has any security problems, their Persian big brother is only a two-hour flight away.

Hmm, am I forgetting a player here? Of course, my country, the United States!

Marc Grossman, U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was due to come to Dushanbe on Oct. 6 on a whistle-stop 12-nation tour. But, an “Afghan,” a massive dust storm blew in from the south, blanketing Dushanbe in dust, and shutting down the airport.

No worries. Grossman’s staff tore up his schedule, and found time for him fly into Dushanbe the following day. Since 2003, the U.S. has built border posts, barracks, bridges and now a special forces training center in Tajikistan.

vsudhir wrote:x-posted.

1. Britain, a tiny island ruled India - the richest and most advanced of the ancient civilizations, and reduced it to beggary. India's and Indians' faults in allowing this sorry episode to occur cannot be excused or overlooked. The Brits though, had every reason to believe their proxy in the region - TSP - could just as well and just as smoothly dominate free India post 1947. India in any case was a wounded civilization and it wasn't then clear it could rise again.

2. The Brits learnt well that a potential power whose energies were not diverted into unwinnable feuds would soon learn to weild and project power. So a feud/feuds had to be fanned if extant, excerbated if dormant and created if nonexistant. The example carries over to how the Brits handled the defeated Ottomans and carved up the caliphate. The seeds of that SNAFU proved propitious down the line post WWII. The Arab-Jewish feud provided lasting fuel decade after decade for the West in general and the Brits in particular to egg on two regional rival sides against each other (so beautifully worded in the post above as 'exhaust power potential fighting against itself'). Of course, one side (typically, the bigger one) winning the feud would do the great-gamers no good. So The balance was sought to mainted decade after decade through changing times, climes and governments by supporting the weaker side just enough to counter balance the other.

3. Is PRC a power rising uncomfortably rapidly and at peace? Perhaps. But what exists to dissipate PRC energies inwards preferably or within Asia? Tibet? India? The recognition that the balance of power in Asia is wellon its way to being lost may have prompted, perhaps, a belated desire to support India for 'feuding/feudal balance' to be restored? Possibly. Too bad India refused to bite the plain bait - preferring not to be counted upon to balance PRC, officially. Did the game change then? Possibly, again.

4. Of course, really large, continental sized powers need extra divertions to be kept preoccuppied. So one TSP against an India can't possibly be sufficient. Faultlines inside India can and will be exploited where extant, created where not. Rumor mongering? Consipratorial? Maybe, maybe not. But the weight of great gaming history, the will to power, the amorality of and the incentive of powerplay all point to one inference only. India's faultlines too are nothing to brush away. The issue of 'dailts'/indigenous peoples/tribals etc, the influence of the church in NE insurgencies, the aiding and abetting of Maoist insurgencies (Yup, the Purulia arms drop among countless others was carried out by UK spooks), the influence peddling vis-a-vis media and work-permits/greencards, univ education abroad etcare cogs in the wheel. Every other violent insurgency, organised criminality, and outright fugitives from our justice system ahve been given asylum in UK - from Isaac Muiviah to musician Nadeem. Brazenly and openly. And yet, the Brits manage to claim a desire for friendship with India with a straight face. For now.

5. The US, UK's inheritor of the global empire didn't quite inherit the great game tendencies to the same extent. After the SU's demise, it was but a matter of time before the inevitable would be attempted, regardless of official spin. Niall Ferguson's lessons in Empire were warmly received by the neocon project. Where it stands now remains unclear. But the creation of Kosovo as an independent state, trouble sown in Burma, Iran, Nepal, Ceylon - all point to the same old strategy in play.

5. The law of unintended consequences and the weight of accumulated bad karma cannot be underestimated. The gamble that saw the west back the wahabi horse has metastasized into the radical islam genie and come back to haunt the world and their home countries also. The truth getting out and the elites in these countries recognising the same are serious risks for the USUQ tagteam. Similarly, if a PRC and India were indeed to normalize relations, if a TSP were to collapse despite the best efforts of its sponsors, what reason or chance does UQ have to continue to smile and claim friendship with these civilzations?

JMTs etc.

Acharya wrote:http://maritimesecurity.asia/free-2/mar ... admiral-0/

WASHINGTON — The US Navy views the Asia-Pacific region as a top strategic priority even as it faces possible budget cuts that could curtail other global missions, the naval chief said Wednesday.

....
....
The pace of operations has increased in the past decade due to the new missile defense mission using Aegis ships, counter-piracy and counter-proliferation efforts and a decision to keep two aircraft carrier groups in the Arabian Sea at all times as well as amphibious ship groups, according to Greenert.

US officials have yet to make a decision about whether to withdraw one of the aircraft carriers in coming years once American forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan as planned by 2015, he said.

Some analysts, including retired army general David Barno, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, have raised the possibility of cutting one of the country’s 11 aircraft carriers to absorb budget cutbacks.

“Everything is on the table,” Greenert said when asked about cutting carriers or aircraft.

He described budget discussions as “a clear-eyed, open look at the future at what the nation needs.”

Greenert, who took over as naval chief last month, spoke to reporters from Newport, Rhode Island, where he addressed an international conference on sea power.

By the end of World War II, strategists in Washington and London looked ahead to a new era in which the United States shouldered global responsibilities and Britain concentrated its regional interests more narrowly. The two powers also viewed the Muslim world through very different lenses. Mapping the End of Empire reveals how Anglo-American perceptions of geography shaped postcolonial futures from the Middle East to South Asia.

Aiyaz Husain shows that American and British postwar strategy drew on popular notions of geography as well as academic and military knowledge. Once codified in maps and memoranda, these perspectives became foundations of foreign policy. In South Asia, American officials envisioned an independent Pakistan blocking Soviet influence, an objective that outweighed other considerations in the contested Kashmir region. Shoring up Pakistan meshed perfectly with British hopes for a quiescent Indian subcontinent once partition became inevitable. But serious differences with Britain arose over America's support for the new state of Israel. Viewing the Mediterranean as a European lake of sorts, U.S. officials--even in parts of the State Department--linked Palestine with Europe, deeming it a perfectly logical destination for Jewish refugees. But British strategists feared that the installation of a Jewish state in Palestine could incite Muslim ire from one corner of the Islamic world to the other.

As Husain makes clear, these perspectives also influenced the Dumbarton Oaks Conference and blueprints for the UN Security Council and shaped French and Dutch colonial fortunes in the Levant and the East Indies.

Duqm is a completely artificial development that aims to be not a media, cultural or entertainment center like Doha or Dubai, but a sterile and artificially engineered logistical supply chain city of the 21st century, whose basis of existence will be purely geographical and geopolitical. Duqm has little history behind it; it will be all about trade and business. If you look at the map, Duqm lies safely outside the increasingly vulnerable and conflict-prone Persian Gulf, but close enough to take advantage of the Gulf's energy logistics trail. It is also midway across the Arabian Sea, between the growing middle classes of India and East Africa.

Nato's action plan in Ukraine is right out of Dr Strangelove
From China to Ukraine, the US is pursuing its longstanding ambition to dominate the Eurasian landmass

Men wearing military fatigues in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk
'What is certain is that Barack Obama’s rapacious coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap.' Photograph: Anatoliy Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

I watched Dr Strangelove the other day. I have seen it perhaps a dozen times; it makes sense of senseless news. When Major TJ "King" Kong goes "toe to toe with the Rooskies" and flies his rogue B52 nuclear bomber to a target in Russia, it's left to General "Buck" Turgidson to reassure the president. Strike first, says the general, and "you got no more than 10-20 million killed, tops". President Merkin Muffley: "I will not go down in history as the greatest mass murderer since Adolf Hitler." General Turgidson: "Perhaps it might be better, Mr President, if you were more concerned with the American people than with your image in the history books."

The genius of Stanley Kubrick's film is that it accurately represents the cold war's lunacy and dangers. Most of the characters are based on real people and real maniacs. There is no equivalent to Strangelove today because popular culture is directed almost entirely at our interior lives, as if identity is the moral zeitgeist and true satire is redundant, yet the dangers are the same. The nuclear clock has remained at five minutes to midnight; the same false flags are hoisted above the same targets by the same "invisible government", as Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations, described modern propaganda.

In 1964, the year Dr Strangelove was made, "the missile gap" was the false flag. To build more and bigger nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination, President John F Kennedy approved the CIA's propaganda that the Soviet Union was well ahead of the US in the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This filled front pages as the "Russian threat". In fact, the Americans were so far ahead in production of the missiles, the Russians never approached them. The cold war was based largely on this lie.
Strategic nuclear missiles Cold War National Museum of the US Air Force Strategic nuclear missiles from the cold war. Photograph: Alamy

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its Nato enlargement project. Reneging on the Reagan administration's promise to the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that Nato would not expand "one inch to the east", Nato has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato's military build-up is the most extensive since the second world war.

In February, the US mounted one of its proxy "colour" coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly antisemitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler's Nazis, who were supported by the infamous Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the UPA) which was responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, of which the UPA was the military wing, inspires today's Svoboda party.

Since Washington's putsch in Kiev – and Moscow's inevitable response in Russian Crimea to protect its Black Sea fleet – the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news to the "Russian threat". This is fossilised propaganda. The US air force general who runs Nato forces in Europe – General Philip Breedlove, no less – claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000 Russian troops "massing" on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin Powell claim to have pictures proving there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is certain is that Barack Obama's rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap.

Following a 13-year rampage that began in stricken Afghanistan well after Osama bin Laden had fled, then destroyed Iraq beneath a false flag, invented a "nuclear rogue" in Iran, dispatched Libya to a Hobbesian anarchy and backed jihadists in Syria, the US finally has a new cold war to supplement its worldwide campaign of murder and terror by drone.

A Nato membership action plan – straight from the war room of Dr Strangelove – is General Breedlove's gift to the new dictatorship in Ukraine. "Rapid Trident" will put US troops on Ukraine's Russian border and "Sea Breeze" will put US warships within sight of Russian ports. At the same time, Nato war games in eastern Europe are designed to intimidate Russia. Imagine the response if this madness was reversed and happened on the US's borders. Cue General Turgidson.

And there is China. On 23 April, Obama will begin a tour of Asia to promote his "pivot" to China. The aim is to convince his "allies" in the region, principally Japan, to rearm and prepare for the possibility of war with China. By 2020, almost two-thirds of all US naval forces in the world will be transferred to the Asia-Pacific area. This is the greatest military concentration in that vast region since the second world war.

In an arc extending from Australia to Japan, China will face US missiles and nuclear-armed bombers. A strategic naval base is being built on the Korean island of Jeju, less than 400 miles from Shanghai and the industrial heartland of the only country whose economic power is likely to surpass that of the US. Obama's "pivot" is designed to undermine China's influence in its region. It is as if a world war has begun by other means.

This is not a Dr Strangelove fantasy. Obama's defence secretary, Charles "Chuck" Hagel, was in Beijing last week to deliver a warning that China, like Russia, could face isolation and war if it did not bow to US demands. He compared the annexation of Crimea to China's complex territorial dispute with Japan over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. "You cannot go around the world," said Hagel with a straight face, "and violate the sovereignty of nations by force, coercion or intimidation." As for America's massive movement of naval forces and nuclear weapons to Asia, that is "a sign of the humanitarian assistance the US military can provide".

Obama is seeking a bigger budget for nuclear weapons than the historical peak during the cold war, the era of Dr Strangelove. The US is pursuing its longstanding ambition to dominate the Eurasian landmass, stretching from China to Europe: a "manifest destiny" made right by might.

ShauryaT wrote:
As the US looks to move out of the persian gulf, India should look to move in. Double down on Chabahar.

The signing of the 2006 civilian nuclear deal was supposed to be emblematic of a burgeoning strategic relationship between India and the United States. After some forty or so years of frosty relations, the beginning of the 21st Century saw leaders in Washington and Delhi touting a grand strategic partnership. To realize this, the George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh administrations courted great political risk in taking on the entrenched mindsets opposed to the nuclear agreement.

In Washington, opposition from the non-proliferation community nearly sank the deal during negotiations. In Delhi, the signing of the deal was so controversial it almost brought down the Congress Party’s coalition government in the 2008 vote in parliament. An upside to the tortuous negotiations was supposedly the empathy and understanding Indian and U.S. diplomats developed for the political constraints the other side operates under.

The Indian policy establishment and strategic community were therefore taken aback when Nicholas Burns, former undersecretary of state and the chief American negotiator on the nuclear deal, slammed India for its Iran policy in The Diplomat. Having reaffirmed India’s “immense strategic importance to the United States” in the Boston Globe a mere 10 days prior, Burns now argued that Delhi’s unwillingness to support U.S.-led sanctions amounted to a failure “to meet its obvious potential to lead globally,” thereby equating, in a spurious sort of way, India’s leadership ambitions with toeing the American line. Despite recognizing some of India’s votes against Iran at the U.N., Ambassador Burns went further in accusing India of “actively impeding the construction of the strategic relationship it says it wants with the United States.”

In actuality, it’s Washington’s unbending attitude towards accommodating India’s vital interests in Iran that potentially threatens the Indo-U.S. bilateral relationship. Burns and others U.S. critics of India’s Iran policy are, in effect, forcing Indo-U.S. relations back into a version of the old, inappropriate, and eminently discardable, “If you are not with us, you are against us” policy mold. By framing the issue in dichotomous terms, critics in Washington ignore the economic and domestic context in which India’s Iran policy is made.

In downplaying Delhi’s economic interests in Iran, Burns dismisses the fact that India gets 12 percent of its oil from Iran as a “weak defense” of its policy, because Delhi has had many years to find new suppliers. This ignores the fact that many of India’s government-owned refineries are geared to processing Iranian crude. If India were to switch to other sources, this would require a substantial upfront investment to retrofit its refineries to process other types of crude. Already facing a budget shortfall that is equal to 5.6 percent of GDP, the Singh administration is in no mood to incur these costs.

Moreover, it’s not at all clear that India could procure enough oil from other sources to make up for its loss of Iranian crude. Many suggest Saudi Arabia as both willing and able to make up the gap. But Riyadh’s spare capacity has come under severe strain after a decade of global supply interruptions elsewhere, and the rapid increase in demand caused by rising powers like India and China. Meanwhile, Saudi oil production is already at historically unprecedented levels, and it was unable to supplement the loss of Libya’s rather insignificant oil exports last summer, forcing Western nations to tap into their strategic reserves. Furthermore, both the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration see Riyadh’s spare capacity continuing to diminish throughout 2012.

In addition, if India stopped buying Iranian oil, there’s little reason to believe China would follow suit. Beijing is yet to pay a price for being, as Bruce Loudon pointed out in The Australian early this month, “the constant contrarian on the global scene.” Washington has demonstrated time and time again that it has no leverage worth the name vis-a-vis Beijing. Although China has recently been cutting back on its purchase of Iranian oil, it continues to be a major customer. Beijing would possibly increase the amount of Iranian crude it uses were Iran to further reduce prices after India announced its exit from the market. Thus, Tehran will only be slightly discomforted by the sanctions. India, meanwhile, would have surrendered much.

Oil isn’t India’s only economic interest in Iran. In the wake of an official Indian delegation’s visit to Tehran, the Associated Chambers of Commerce announced that two-way trade reached $13.7 billion in 2010-2011 and will likely increase to $30 billion by 2015. In response to China’s infrastructure projects in Central Asia progressing at breakneck speed, India has fast-forwarded its plans for a “north-south corridor”linking the Iranian port of Chabahar on the North Arabian Sea with a railway line to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia via Hajigak, a mineral-rich area in Afghanistan where an Indian consortium has secured mining concessions. In parallel, India is helping build a highway connecting Chabahar to Milak and Zaranj, which has a road link to Dilaram in Afghanistan, a 213 kilometer stretch constructed by the Indian Border Roads Organization. The Chabahar port has been enlarged with Indian assistance and is now capable of annually handling 6 million tons of cargo and will serve as the entrepôt for Indian business. This route has a strategic element too; namely, India uses it as a conduit to sustain ties with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and to firm up goodwill with the Afghan people generally and the Hamid Karzai regime in particular. In the past year, for instance, India has shipped over 100,000 metric tons of food grain to Kabul from Chabahar. More significantly, Chabahar allows India to outflank the Chinese presence in the Pakistani port of Gwadar, 72 kilometers to the east.

There’s an important domestic political rationale to India’s Iran policy, which the self-consciously “secular” Indian government is loath to admit. India’s Shi’a population is the second largest in the world after only Iran itself. In contrast to Sunni Islam in the subcontinent, which has evolved around local seminaries with distinct schools of thought, India’s Shi’a community maintains strong links with their Iranian counterparts. This is especially true among the clergy who closely monitor theological developments and pronouncements emanating from the Iranian religious center in Qom. The Iranian government has carefully cultivated these cultural ties with the Indian Shi’a religious institutions, politicians, and intelligentsia, and translates them into political clout to deter any Indian government from prosecuting unfavorable policies towards it. This is democracy at work, something Washington can surely appreciate.

The Obama administration’s foreign policy pivot to the Asia-Pacific and India is meant to contain China, a goal that is served by India’s strong and growing relations with Iran. As India and the United States discovered in Burma, leaving a vacuum for China to fill is an act of high strategic folly. India is unwilling to repeat that mistake in Iran.

Israel and Iran will thrash out their problems in their own way and it makes no sense to hold the Indo-U.S. partnership hostage to that situation, even less, to Iran’s proliferation status. By creating friction over Indo-Iranian ties, America is in danger of achieving the smaller, regional, objective at the expense of the larger, overarching, strategic goal.

Bharat Karnad is a Professor in National Security Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and a former member of the Indian government’s National Security Advisory Board, National Security Council. His books include ‘India’s Nuclear Policy’ and the forthcoming ‘India’s Rise: Why India is Not a Great Power.’ He blogs at http://www.bharatkarnad.com.

May 14, 2013 16:42 IST

A close examination of the Indian-Iranian relationship reveals an underdeveloped relationship despite all the spin attached to it. India would like to increase its presence in the Iranian energy sector because of its rapidly rising energy needs, and is rightfully feeling restless about its own marginalisation in Iran, says Harsh V Pant.

The recent visit of Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid to Iran has once again brought to focus India’s changing role in West Asia where it has significant stakes which are rising by the day. India made known its desire to enhance its energy engagement with Iran as it sought joint exploration and joint investment in infrastructure.

Tehran has reportedly made offers with regard to joint exploration and production sharing agreement in an oil block which New Delhi has indicated will be of interest. There are also plans to bring together some countries like Iran, Indonesia and India under the rubric of the Non-Aligned Movement to manage the deteriorating situation in Syria. But the biggest splash was created by India’s decision to participate in the upgradation of the strategically crucial Chahbahar port and invest around $100 million in the project in the initial stage.

It is another matter as to why New Delhi could not have taken this decision earlier, especially as it helped in the initial setting up of this port almost a decade back. Whether China’s proactive role in Gwadar now is one of the reasons why India is taking this decision is a moot point. But Chahbahar was important for India’s Afghanistan and larger Central Asian policy in 2002 and it is even more important now as regional realities evolve at a rapid pace.

India’s relationship with West Asia as a region is dramatically different than a generation ago, when from 1947-1990, India was too ideological toward the region, as was reflected in its subdued ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Today, however, it is these three states around which India is developing its new West Asian strategy, with New Delhi recently taking special care to nurture all these relationships and pursue its substantial regional interests. And now with a democratic Egypt emerging as a new player in the region, India is re-negotiating the terms of its engagement with the region.

India’s policy toward West Asia has often been viewed through the prism of Indian-Iranian relations. The international community, and the west in particular, has been obsessed with New Delhi’s ties to Tehran, which are actually largely underdeveloped, while missing India’s much more substantive simultaneous engagement with Arab Gulf states and Israel.

A close examination of the Indian-Iranian relationship, however, reveals an underdeveloped relationship despite all the spin attached to it. India would like to increase its presence in the Iranian energy sector because of its rapidly rising energy needs, and is rightfully feeling restless about its own marginalisation in Iran. Not only has Pakistan moved ahead with the pipeline deal with Tehran, but China also is starting to make its presence felt. China is now Iran’s largest trading partner and is undertaking massive investments in the country, rapidly occupying the space vacated by western firms.

Where Beijing’s economic engagement with Iran is growing, India’s presence is shrinking, as firms such as Reliance Industries have, partially under western pressure, withdrawn from Iran and others have shelved their plans to make investments.

Moreover, there is little evidence so far that Iran would be a reliable partner in India’s search for energy security. A number of important projects with Indian businesses and Indian governmenthave either been rejected by Iran or have yet to be finalised due to last minute changes in the terms and conditions by Tehran. To date, Iran accounts for only about eight percent of Indian oil imports and that too is declining under pressure from western sanctions. Moreover, both of the major energy deals recently signed with great fanfare, and raising concerns in the west, are now in limbo.

India’s position on the Iranian nuclear question is relatively straightforward. Although India believes that Iran has the right to pursue civilian nuclear energy, it has insisted that Iran should clarify the doubts raised by the IAEA regarding Iran’s compliance with the NPT.

India has long maintained that it does not see further nuclear proliferation as being in its interests. This position has as much to do with India’s desire to project itself as a responsible nuclear state as with the very real danger that further proliferation in its extended neighbourhood could endanger its security.

India has continued to affirm its commitment to enforce all sanctions against Iran as mandated since 2006 by the UN Security Council, when the first set of sanctions was imposed. However, much like Beijing and Moscow, New Delhi has argued that such sanctions should not hurt the Iranian populace and has expressed its disapproval of sanctions by individual countries that restrict investments by third countries in Iran's energy sector.

The crucial regional issue where India and Iran need each other is the evolving security situation in Afghanistan. If Washington were to abandon the goals of establishing a functioning Afghan state and seeing a moderate Pakistan emerge, that would put greater pressure on Indian security.To preserve its interests in case such a strategic milieu evolves, India has reason to coordinate more closely with states such as Russia and Iran as a contingency.

And this brings us to Chahbahar where after a decade of neglect, India will be once again focusing its energies as it becomes clear with every passing day that post-2014 regional environment for India would be extremely troublesome unless New Delhi takes immediate ameliorative measures. But not much should be expected of a government beset with domestic contradictions so profound that for the last four years foreign policy has been left to a risk-averse bureaucracy with the result that not only has India’s stature taken a nose-dive around the world but the country has found it difficult to protect its vital national interests.
Harsh V Pant

While Iran and India have always been potential alternatives for Afghanistan, it is only in the past few months that Kabul seems to have been getting traction on this option. The Iran nuclear deal has perhaps unshackled some of the constraints India may have felt seeking Iran’s support in finding an optimal solution for Afghanistan. The meeting of Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on February 1 at the Munich Conference to discuss recent developments in Afghanistan was significant. Discussion centered on India-Iran cooperation in dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, especially in the context of the rift between Washington and Karzai. Iranian President Rouhani is likely to dispatch the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, to Delhi soon to discuss the issue. Reports of direct talks between Karzai and the Taliban have also evoked a positive response in India, leading to the likelihood of India’s foreign minister vising Kabul in March 2014. With India as its most trusted ally and an “all-weather friend” and Iran as an immediate neighbor and part of its political and cultural history, Afghanistan is clearly working on a simultaneous plan to secure its post-2014 future, with or without a BSA with the U.S. With their strategic interests and cordial relations with Kabul, India and Iran will be critical to a peaceful transition for Afghanistan post 2014 and could well be that country’s Plan B.

Rajeev Agarwal is a Research Fellow at IDSA, New Delhi. His specializations include West Asia and Afghanistan.

NEW DELHI: India is contemplating energy pipelines from the Gulf again — this time running under the sea, rather than traversing Pakistan. With international sanctions on Iran fading as a result of a nuclear agreement, an energy pipeline may be the most positive regional consequence.

The new plan proposes to transport oil and natural gas through deep sea pipelines via Oman in a process where Iran, and even Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan energy can feed the pipeline for an ever-growing Indian market. Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Oman’s foreign minister, raised the possibility with Salman Khurshid during their meeting on Friday.

Iran has reportedly jumped at the idea. Oman is India’s most trusted partner in the Gulf, therefore comfort levels are high between New Delhi and Muscat, more than even with Iran. Zarif added to the Omani proposal __ Iran was negotiating separately with Turkmenistan for an overland pipeline to carry its gas to an Iranian terminal and thence to markets like India. If these negotiations succeed, Iran could be a beachhead for gas not only from its fields but from other Gulf suppliers, even Qatar, which is India’s largest supplier of LNG.

“An undersea pipeline from Iran to India could be completed as quickly as 3-4 years. Our feasibility studies show they would cost in the region of $5 billion,” said Subodh Jain, whose company, Sage is the best known Indian entity to acquire technology for such pipelines. Jain has proposed building an under-sea energy infrastructure corridor, which could be used by major gas suppliers to connect to terminals in India’s west coast. Any such pipeline could transport about 31 million cubic meters of gas a day.

“India relies on LNG, but it’s the equivalent of relying on champagne. If we stick to LNG, we will become addicted to expensive energy imports. Therefore, a gas pipeline particularly for the power sector, makes eminent sense,” said a senior official. “Very soon, almost 20,000MW of gas-fueled power plants will go idle in India due to gas shortage. Pipelines are overdue here.”

If energy trade is to resume between Iran and India, the Chahbahar port acquires greater important. Zarif and Khurshid agreed to get the final agreement on investment. India is putting in an affordable $100 million before the Nauroz holidays. The shipping ministry has already completed its studies and price estimates, so officials working on the project said this should not be a stretch.

The Iranian government has been flipping back and forth on this project, so officials reckon a deadline would focus attention in New Delhi and Tehran.

Once complete, Chahbahar would also be the entry point for Indian goods travelling to Central Asia and beyond through the international north-south transport corridor. In their conversation, Zarif made a determined pitch for the INSTC, though it has been Iranian tardiness that has delayed a project like this. In 2012, Turkey officially offered to join the north-south corridor, though with their recent troubles with Iran, no one is quite sure whether that still holds true.

In a related decision, India will conduct a dry run study in March on the INSTC, through Nhava Sheva (Mumbai)- Bandar Abbas (Iran)- Tehran-Bandar Anzali (Iran)-Astrakhan(Russia). This was agreed between India and Azerbaijan during the recent visit of Huseyngulu Baghirov, natural resources minister. Iran and Azerbaijan have to build Gazvin-Rasht-Astara (Iran)-Astara (Azerbaijan) railway route for connecting the railway lines of the INSTC.

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) -- Turkmenistan's president has demanded that construction work begin in 2015 on a pipeline that will carry natural gas from his energy-rich country to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov said all the agreements required for the project's launch should be completed this year, state media in the Central Asian nation reported Friday. A memorandum of understanding between the four countries linked by the TAPI pipeline was signed in 2010 and a supply deal was completed in 2012. According to the project specifications, the 1,735-kilometer (1,140-mile) pipeline will cost around $8 billion to complete and have an annual capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of gas. The pipeline will cross the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar and end in the Indian-Pakistani border town of Fazilka. .

ussia, India Planning $30 Billion Oil Pipeline Through Xinjiang
The recent unease in both the U.S. and Europe over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s March 17 annexation of Crimea has added to Moscow’s efforts to diversify its markets beyond Europe.


Threat Of Tough Western Sanctions On Russia Unnerves U.S., EU Energy Firms
Russia's Arctic Prize Won't Be As Big As Many Think
Russia is changing its energy export policy vector as strong demand for hydrocarbons in both in China and in India continues to grow. The recent unease in both the U.S. and Europe over Russian President Vladimir Putin's March 17 annexation of Crimea has only added to Moscow's efforts to diversify its markets beyond Europe.

Now Russia and India are planning to construct a $30 billion oil pipeline through China's restive Xinjiang province. If successful, the pipeline will be the most expensive in the world.

The groundwork for the project was laid on October 21, 2013, during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Moscow for the 14th India-Russia Annual Summit. Singh and Putin issued a joint statement that said, "Russia and India have agreed to establish a joint group to study the possibility of direct ground transportation of hydrocarbons."

That announcement reaffirmed the two countries' joint commitment to implement the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of India on the Enhancement of Cooperation in Oil and Gas Sector, which was concluded on December 21, 2010.

The project has been on the drawing boards for nearly a decade, as Russia and India first began discussing it in 2005.

Four years later, in 2009, the foreign ministers of Russia, India and China agreed to enhance energy cooperation. Sergei Lavrov, S.M. Krishna and Yang Jiechi met in Bangalore to discuss energy security, the fight against terrorism and climate change. In a joint declaration, the diplomats said, "India, Russia and China are seeking to intensify international energy cooperation on a new basis to help make the energy market more open, transparent and competitive and reflect the common interests of all the parties involved."

At the end of last year, India's biggest oil and gas company, Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) confirmed its interest in the pipeline project, saying, "The pipeline from Russia seems appropriate. The details of the project will be clarified with the Russian partners."

India currently buys very little crude oil from Russia. According to the Indian Embassy in Moscow, fuel and oil imports from Russia in 2012 were only $176 million even as bilateral trade increased by 24.5 percent to $11 billion. Indian exports accounted for $3 billion while Russian exports, primarily weaponry, were valued at $8 billion.

Political support in Russia for the Xinjiang pipeline project has increased in the wake of worsening relations with the U.S. and EU over Crimea. On February 26, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin observed, "This is one of the major infrastructure projects that can be implemented." But he also added, "I think it has a right to exist, but we should make calculations to see how profitable it can be."

The pipeline also has political support in China. China's Center for Strategic Studies in Energy Director Xia Yishan recently said, "The project is beneficial for both India and China, as it would allow China to become an oil transit in addition to its 'status' of recipient of the Russian oil."

The pipeline project will strengthen India's intention to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Russia and China are charter members.

The pipeline still faces substantial impediments, aside from its astronomical price tag. Up to 35 percent of its route runs through mountainous terrain, a factor that has set back completion schedules to 2020-2022.

Any pipeline to India through China would also become subject to the two states' complex relationship, which is fraught with border disputes and mutual suspicion.

As Russian Center for Current Politics expert Dmitry Abzalov observed, "If a significant portion of the pipeline passes through the Middle Kingdom, there is a risk that it could be used to exert pressure on India."

But evolving political relations may yet hasten the pipeline's development. Russia is seeking to broaden its energy markets, India remains a major energy exporter, and China would strengthen its relations with both countries should the pipeline be built. While the last couple of years have seen major pipeline projects such as Nabucco abandoned, rising political and security considerations in this case may trump costs and end up propelling the project forward.

Paul wrote:http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... -thro.aspx

Russia, India Planning $30 Billion Oil Pipeline Through Xinjiang

Rather than “nuclear deals” and stuff, Modi should propound the logic of geopolitics and military cooperation. It pays. For instance, Modi’s reference in Tokyo to the 18th century-style imperialistic tendencies of China to grab land and sea territories, and Tokyo’s agreeing to sell 15 US-2 amphibious aircraft along with transfer of technology (ToT) that will result in a US-2i version tailored for Indian needs to be designed with Indian military’s inputs, and the talk of the Soryu-class conventional hunter-killer submarine in the Indian fleet, have made an Indo-Japanese pincer real. Beijing has reacted with reports suggesting that Xi Jinping is preparing to match Abe’s ante and to up it with even more attractive investment and other deals. To maximise geostrategic gains, Modi should maintain pressure by announcing the sale/transfer of Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian states in the run-up to Xi Jinping’s visit.

Beijing is worried. The Islamic insurgency is taking hold in the Uyghur Muslim-majority Xinjiang, and Tibet continues to seethe with people angry with the Chinese policy of rubbing out Tibetan cultural identity. In this context, Modi should respond to Xi Jinping’s pleas for restricting the Tibetan exile community’s activities by suggesting the restoration of genuine “autonomy” for Tibet and as buffer zone devoid of the Peoples Liberation Army presence as the foundation for lasting peace.

Australia is ready to sell uranium in order to balance the exports of the same commodity to China and as a hedge against Beijing cornering the market on Australian natural resources, whence Canberra’s encouragement to Indian industrial houses, such as the Adanis, to invest in the Australian coal and minerals extraction sector. But a strategically more potent issue requires to be broached by Modi. Abbott should be sounded out about permitting Indian SSBNs (nuclear-powered ballistic missile-firing submarines) to stage out of a deep water port on the northern Australian coast as a means of increasing the strategic reach and deterrence impact of the Arihant-class boats. Such a basing-option will also enhance the “theatre-switching” maritime riposte preferred by New Delhi to Chinese aggression across the land border. An agreement on such basing would be welcomed by an Australia itching to be part of the evolving Asian security architecture rather than remaining a Western outpost.

Unable to form a new government, the new president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, settled for the next best thing on Sunday: He fired the old one.

As Mr. Ghani dismissed most of the ministers, another important Afghan official was on the verge of being ousted. The Kabul police chief offered his resignation amid an escalating pattern of Taliban suicide attacks in the capital.
Afghanistan’s recently inaugurated leaders — a president, a chief executive, and two vice presidents — have struggled to make basic decisions as the security situation has deteriorated here. The underlying problem, which various factions in the government point to, is the power-sharing agreement that followed this year’s disputed presidential election. It makes Mr. Ghani president and his election rival, Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive.

Since the deal was struck in September, Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah have been unable to agree on a new cabinet, leaving the government in the lurch and raising questions about the long-term chances of the power-sharing deal.

Lately, optimistic reports in the local news media have suggested that the two sides were close to a breakthrough in selecting a new cabinet. That optimism was dispelled Sunday night, when Mr. Ghani said in a televised address that the selection of a new cabinet was still a number of weeks away.

In the meantime, he said, he was dismissing most of the current ministers, all holdovers from the previous administration. Their deputy ministers would take charge, pending new appointments, he said.
On Sunday, as news circulated that the Kabul police chief, Gen. Zahir Zahir, was about to resign, the Taliban said a series of suicide bombings in the capital was responsible for the ouster.

The spate of bombings began three weeks ago with an assassination attempt against General Zahir, who has been Kabul’s police chief since last year. A suicide bomber infiltrated Police Headquarters and blew himself up as he tried to reach General Zahir’s office.

Since then the targets of the insurgent attacks have been varied: a female lawmaker, a British Embassy vehicle and a foreign development group, among others. The most recent attack in Kabul was on Saturday, when three insurgents stormed the guesthouse of a small aid organization in Kabul, killing an Afghan as well as a South African minister and his two teenage children, according to The Mail & Guardian, a South African newspaper, which identified the victims.

The explosions have left Afghans in the capital on edge, and a number of Kabul institutions are reconsidering their security measures. C. Michael Smith, the president of the American University of Afghanistan, said that classes were canceled on Sunday, a school day here, and would be canceled on Monday as well. The decision was made, he said, because some of the faculty housing is not far from the site of Saturday’s attack.

At a news conference earlier on Sunday, in which the police urged the public to report suspicious behavior to the authorities, General Zahir played down the significance of the attacks.
“The sporadic attacks only worry people,” he said, adding that his police force had a good record of protecting civilians against insurgents.

Not long after the news conference, reports began circulating about General Zahir’s resignation. A senior government official said that the new administration had sought the general’s resignation for some time now and that it was not directly related to the most recent attacks. However, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, posted a message on Twitter claiming that Taliban attacks had “forced him to resign and flee.”
But General Zahir’s job status was not entirely clear on Sunday night. A spokesman for the Kabul police, Hashmatullah Stanikzai, said General Zahir had offered his resignation, but had not yet heard whether his offer would be accepted. For the moment, General Zahir still held his job, Mr. Stanikzai said. “We are waiting to hear,” he said.

Britain will set up a permanent military base in the Middle East for the first time in more than four decades.Four minesweepers have operated from the Mina Salmon port in Bahrain, but the new facility will also be a base for much larger ships including destroyers and aircraft carriers.

Foreign secretary Philip Hammond said the deal with Bahrain would guarantee the Royal Navy’s presence in Bahrain well into the future. He said: “The expansion of Britain’s footprint builds upon our 30-year track record of Gulf patrols and is just one example of our growing partnership with Gulf partners to tackle shared strategic and regional threats.”

Defence secretary Michael Fallon said Britain would now be based in the Gulf again for the long term. The rise of Islamic State, fears over Iran and ongoing instability in the region contributed to the decision to establish the new naval base, which is adjacent to a more substantial US facility, home to the fifth fleet. Bahrain will contribute most of the £15m cost of construction, with the UK picking up the ongoing costs.

Chief of the defence staff, general Sir Nicholas Houghton, said the deal was symbolic and strategically important. “Rather than just being seen as a temporary deployment to an area for a specific operational purpose, this is more symbolic of the fact that Britain does enjoy interests in the stability of this region,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“And the fact that the Bahraini authorities and government agreed to fund infrastructure within the country to base our maritime capability forward, both is a recognition from their perspective of the quality of the relationship with the United Kingdom, but also of our interest over time in maintaining the stability of this very important area.”

Bahrain’s foreign minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa said the agreement underlined its commitment to work with the UK and other countries to address threats to regional security.

Lobby groups including Human Rights Watch have criticised Bahrain’s record on human rights. Despite the Arab spring uprisings, Britain, the US and Saudi Arabia have supported the government following widepsread public protests in March 2011. The uprising led to the cancellation of a Formula One race due to take place in Bahrain that year.

John Horne of Bahrain Watch said in May: “There is growing frustration about the UK government’s increasingly visible support for Bahrain; [it] has a long, dark history of enabling state violence in Bahrain and protecting both British and Bahraini officials responsible.”

In 2012 King Hamad pledged to implement the recommendations of an independent commission to examine the roots of the country’s crisis, but reform has been slow.

Britain moved its main regional naval base from Aden, the seaport in Yemen, to Bahrain on the Persian Gulf in 1967. The following year the government said it would close UK military bases east of the Suez canal by 1971.

Bahrain declared independence from Britain in 1971 and signed a new treaty of friendship with the UK. It also struck an agreement with the US that permitted it to maintain military and naval facilities in the kingdom.

Is China Bidding for the Heartland?
Beijing doesn’t have to choose between land and sea predominance. It could have both.

By Francis P. Sempa

In his 1919 masterpiece, Democratic Ideals and Reality, the great British geographer Halford Mackinder identified the northern-central core of the Eurasian landmass as the “Heartland” – a geopolitical region from which a sufficiently populated, armed and organized great power could bid for a world empire. Mackinder’s Heartland stretched from central Europe east of the Black and Baltic Seas to eastern Siberia, Mongolia, a small part of northeastern China, and included all of Central Asia. A Heartland-based power could expand in all directions and was inaccessible to sea power. Mackinder warned that a land empire that controlled the Heartland could use its vast natural resources and central geographical position to dominate Eurasia and build a powerful navy to threaten the insular powers of England, Japan, and the United States.

Most of China occupied a portion of what Mackinder called the “inner crescent,” a semicircular territory bordering the Heartland, but which had access to the sea. Mackinder advised the strategists of his day to “no longer think of Europe apart from Asia and Africa.” “The Old World,” he wrote, “has become insular, or in other words a unit, incomparably the largest geographical unit on our globe.” He called that geographical unit the “World-Island” and “Great Continent,” and warned the insular powers that they must “reckon with the possibility that a large part of the Great Continent might some day be united under a single sway, and that an invincible sea-power might be based upon it.” When 31 years later the Soviet Union in control of Eastern Europe allied itself to China (the Sino-Soviet bloc), it was no wonder that the great French writer Raymond Aron in The Century of Total War worried that “Russia has in fact nearly achieved the ‘world island’ which Mackinder considered the necessary and almost sufficient condition for universal empire.”

Consciously or not, China today has embarked on policies that raise the specter of a Eurasian-based great power striving for predominance both on land and at sea. Landward, China is using financial and transportation resources to penetrate the resource-rich lands of southeastern Russia and Central Asia, effectively constructing a modern day Silk Road to extend its reach into Central Asia and beyond. Seaward, China is combining naval power with aggressive diplomacy in an effort to dominate the marginal seas along its lengthy eastern coast and become the predominant power in the Asia-Pacific region.

Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes have noted that while Chinese strategists who look toward its interests in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have turned to Alfred Thayer Mahan for inspiration, their colleagues who look toward Central Asia invoke Mackinder and his geopolitical concepts. Writing in Survival, Lanxin Xiang argued for a shift in China’s strategic focus from the Pacific to Central Asia. “China,” he wrote, “needs Mackinder’s ‘heartland’” to achieve its strategic goals on the Eurasian continent. Similarly, Liu Haiying called upon Chinese leaders to increase China’s “land power in the global geopolitical power structure” by controlling the eastern portion of the Eurasian continent. Two other Chinese analysts, Hou Songling and Chi Diantang, wrote that Central Asia was the “joint and strategic convergence of the Eurasian continent,” serving as a strategic passageway linking the Far East to Europe.

China, however, does not necessarily have to choose between a maritime and continental strategy. Indeed, all signs point to China pursuing a foreign policy that looks to achieve both maritime and continental interests. China, in the words of two of its strategists, is both a “continental and oceanic country.” China must not only seek to protect its maritime interests, they explained, it must also safeguard its interests in Central Asia, “the Eurasian continent’s thoroughfare.”

The Mahan-Mackinder strategic dichotomy has always been overdrawn. As early as 1902, in Britain and the British Seas, Mackinder wrote that “[t]he unity of the ocean is the simple physical fact underlying the dominant value of sea-power in the modern globe-wide world.” In his subsequent writings, he never viewed international rivalries in strictly land power vs. sea power terms. Instead, he warned about the possibility of a dominant land power also becoming a dominant sea power. Mackinder’s Heartland was a strategic base of manpower and resources that could be used to acquire dominant sea power and thereby threaten the global balance of power.

To be sure, China’s aggressive moves in the marginal seas to her east have produced opposition from the United States, Japan and lesser regional powers. Likewise, in Central Asia, China has powerful strategic competitors, including Russia and India. China, in other words, is not now and may never be in a position to control the Heartland or dominate Eurasia.

Nevertheless, China today sits at the gates of the Heartland and has access to the sea. Its foreign policy has both maritime and continental components and it is projecting power and influence at sea and on land. It would be wise, therefore, for the world’s statesmen to reflect upon Mackinder’s warning in 1919: “What if the Great Continent, the whole World Island or a large part of it, were at some future time to become a single and united base of sea power? Would not the other insular bases be out built as regards ships and out manned as regards seamen? Their fleets would no doubt fight with all the heroism begotten of their histories, but the end would be fated.”

Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century (Transaction Books) and America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics, and War (University Press of America). He has written articles and reviews on historical and foreign policy topics for Strategic Review,American Diplomacy, Joint Force Quarterly, the University Bookman, the Washington Times, the Claremont Review of Books, and other publications. He is an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.

Why We Should Study China's Machiavelli
The similarities and differences between Niccolo Machiavelli and Han Feizi are illuminating.

L1001025
By Franz-Stefan Gady
January 22, 2015

Ryan Mitchell wrote a fascinating piece for The Diplomat entitled “Is ‘China’s Machiavelli’ Now its Most Important Philosopher?,” outlining the role the ancient philosopher Han Feizi plays in shaping President Xi Jinping’s political agenda. For example, Xi Jinping quoted Han Feizi’s dictum “when those who uphold the law are strong, the state is strong. When they are weak, the state is weak” to justify his tough anti-corruption campaign and his allegedly more authoritarian style of government. Xi Jinping’s quote of Han Feizi was subsequently reprinted thousands of times in state-owned and party-controlled media outlets.

Xi’s citation of Han Feizi is an instance of ruling political men relying on and defending their actions per the authority of recognized political thinkers. It is curious to me the way in which public figures use philosophical elites to empower and elevate, or at least attempt to justify, controversial praxis and principle. It provides them with a mantle of legitimacy by continuing an apparent tradition already established a long time ago. Mitchell also seems to indicate that Han Feizi’s ambiguous reputation is analogous to the controversial rap on Machiavelli in the West.

What I found interesting to ponder over is the public reaction if a European or American president cited Machiavelli in a speech (e.g., “Politics have no relations to morals,” or “Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.”). Of course, there are ontological and philosophical differences between Machiavelli and Han Feizi and their respective philosophies, and any quote, by definition, is taken out of context, which is especially problematic for philosophical texts.

However, what makes the comparison to Machiavelli more interesting is not so much the obvious similarities in the authoritarian streak of both philosophers and their amoral counsel on how rulers ought to run their affairs (by the way, I strongly suspect that Machiavelli’s core political philosophy is buried in his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy rather than the Prince), but in how the fundamentals underlying their political thought have evidently much more in common than the Italian thinker has with other great European philosophers. This makes Han Feizi’s work more “European,” and Machiavelli’s philosophy more “Chinese.”

Plato, for example, argues in his Republic that the best regime happens by chance, the unlikely coming together of political philosophy and political power. This is based on the ancient Greek understanding of human nature and in a sense cautions against social engineering or the attempt to make utopia, the ideal state, a reality. However, Machiavelli broke with this tradition publicly by pronouncing that chance (fortuna) can be influenced: “For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly.”

“Beating and ill-using” chance is the foundation of any radical political reform and has openly been part of Chinese political tradition if one studies writings from Han Feizi to Mao Zedong. The big question to ask is what is in the water in China that allows a world leader to cite an evidently infamous or, at least, somewhat disreputable source to defend authoritarian policy?

I believe Mitchell’s essay calls for a greater understanding of Han Feizi and his relative status in the popular and pundit thinking in China. There’s an interesting study there regarding the use of philosophical (and/or ancient) intellectual reputation to defend political behavior and the perhaps unique cultural applications of this practice in China regarding Han Feizi.

Why We Should Study China's Machiavelli
The similarities and differences between Niccolo Machiavelli and Han Feizi are illuminating.

L1001025
By Franz-Stefan Gady
January 22, 2015

Ryan Mitchell wrote a fascinating piece for The Diplomat entitled “Is ‘China’s Machiavelli’ Now its Most Important Philosopher?,” outlining the role the ancient philosopher Han Feizi plays in shaping President Xi Jinping’s political agenda. For example, Xi Jinping quoted Han Feizi’s dictum “when those who uphold the law are strong, the state is strong. When they are weak, the state is weak” to justify his tough anti-corruption campaign and his allegedly more authoritarian style of government. Xi Jinping’s quote of Han Feizi was subsequently reprinted thousands of times in state-owned and party-controlled media outlets.

Xi’s citation of Han Feizi is an instance of ruling political men relying on and defending their actions per the authority of recognized political thinkers. It is curious to me the way in which public figures use philosophical elites to empower and elevate, or at least attempt to justify, controversial praxis and principle. It provides them with a mantle of legitimacy by continuing an apparent tradition already established a long time ago. Mitchell also seems to indicate that Han Feizi’s ambiguous reputation is analogous to the controversial rap on Machiavelli in the West.

What I found interesting to ponder over is the public reaction if a European or American president cited Machiavelli in a speech (e.g., “Politics have no relations to morals,” or “Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.”). Of course, there are ontological and philosophical differences between Machiavelli and Han Feizi and their respective philosophies, and any quote, by definition, is taken out of context, which is especially problematic for philosophical texts.

However, what makes the comparison to Machiavelli more interesting is not so much the obvious similarities in the authoritarian streak of both philosophers and their amoral counsel on how rulers ought to run their affairs (by the way, I strongly suspect that Machiavelli’s core political philosophy is buried in his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy rather than the Prince), but in how the fundamentals underlying their political thought have evidently much more in common than the Italian thinker has with other great European philosophers. This makes Han Feizi’s work more “European,” and Machiavelli’s philosophy more “Chinese.”

Plato, for example, argues in his Republic that the best regime happens by chance, the unlikely coming together of political philosophy and political power. This is based on the ancient Greek understanding of human nature and in a sense cautions against social engineering or the attempt to make utopia, the ideal state, a reality. However, Machiavelli broke with this tradition publicly by pronouncing that chance (fortuna) can be influenced: “For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly.”

“Beating and ill-using” chance is the foundation of any radical political reform and has openly been part of Chinese political tradition if one studies writings from Han Feizi to Mao Zedong. The big question to ask is what is in the water in China that allows a world leader to cite an evidently infamous or, at least, somewhat disreputable source to defend authoritarian policy?

I believe Mitchell’s essay calls for a greater understanding of Han Feizi and his relative status in the popular and pundit thinking in China. There’s an interesting study there regarding the use of philosophical (and/or ancient) intellectual reputation to defend political behavior and the perhaps unique cultural applications of this practice in China regarding Han Feizi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked Indian diplomats to “shed old mindsets” and help the country position itself in a leading role, rather than just a balancing force globally. Noting that there were new “actors” and new “threats” to global peace and prosperity, he told India’s top diplomats from nearly 120 missions that India had a great responsibility in helping the world counter these challenges.

“The present global environment represents a rare opportunity, when the world is keen to embrace India, and India is moving forward with confidence,” Modi said and asked them to use this unique opportunity to help India position itself in a leading role, rather than just a balancing force, globally.

The New Great Game

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington has had media outlets abuzz about cybertheft and sandcastles rising out of the South China Sea. But in many ways, these issues are side plots to a larger story: the New Great Game for influence in the Indo-Pacific, which has arisen at the confluence of three strategies, China’s Maritime Silk Road, India’s Act East Policy, and the United States’ Rebalance to Asia. It is possible for all three strategies to work together, but it won’t be easy—particularly for the United States.


India and China might struggle for political and commercial influence in the Indo-Pacific region, but both would do better to coordinate their policies, since as neighbors, their economic and political success depends on deepening engagement with each other and other countries in the region. At the moment, both recognize that there is little to be gained from proxy wars and have instead favored soft power diplomacy.

Huge stakes are involved. Trade, energy, and geostrategic imperatives are driving both Chinese and Indian ambitions. Between the Indian and Pacific Oceans lies the main choke point of world commerce, the Malacca Strait. Today, more than half of the world’s container traffic and one-third of all maritime traffic crosses the Indian Ocean and passes through this point and into the South China Sea. To understand the scale, consider that roughly two-thirds of South Korea’s energy supplies, nearly 60 percent of Japan’s energy supplies, and 80 percent of China’s crude oil imports arrive over this maritime route. Meanwhile, 75 percent of India’s energy supplies cross the Indian Ocean.

Sunrise over the Straits of Malacca, one of the world's most important shipping lanes, July 20, 2004.
Sunrise over the Straits of Malacca, July 20, 2004.

China has long felt trapped by what national strategists have termed the “Malacca Dilemma”—that China’s access to the greater Indo-Pacific is limited to one main pass and that, to reach that pass, its ships have to travel over the South China Sea, which is a mess of overlapping territorial claims from countries in the region. And so over the last decade, China has sought to secure its access to the critical sea lanes, including by creating artificial islands with airfields in the South China Sea and declaring an expansive and novel Exclusive Economic Zone—one that is far larger and includes far more prerogatives than permitted under The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—over the area. From this perspective, Chinese Vice Admiral Yuan Yubai’s recent, and rather incendiary, declaration that the South China Sea “belongs to China” makes strategic sense: It is after all their path to the greater Indo-Pacific.
Plenty of ink has been spilled over the South China Sea, and appropriately so. But the South China Sea is just an example of a larger game that is already underway.

Along with creating routes to and around Malacca, China has provided soft loans to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar (also called Burma), and Sri Lanka for everything from highways, to power plants, to seaports. All of this has been part of China’s Maritime Silk Road strategy, which is meant to bind countries in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean closer to the Chinese economy as well as to build trade routes from China through their territory to the Indian Ocean, which would allow China to avoid the Malacca bottleneck. Yet this approach has been hurt by China’s more muscular activities in the South China Sea, which have scared the country’s smaller neighbors into closer alliances with India, Japan, and the United States.

India, which was the largest recipient of global foreign aid until the early 1990s, has started to dole money out. As China has become more assertive, India has focused on its own rapidly growing need for access to critical sea lines and opportunities for trade and investment. In 2011, maritime trade constituted close to 41 percent of India’s overall GDP; the figure reached 45 percent in 2015. India now imports about three-fourths of its oil through the Indian Ocean. India fears that China, relying on its alliance with Pakistan, might encircle India on land and at sea. For Indian strategists, it doesn’t seem far-fetched that China would use its increased maritime capability to create a zone of naval exclusion that stretches from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf.

To counter such encroachment, India, which was the largest recipient of global foreign aid until the early 1990s, has started to dole money out. The country now has more than $12 billion in open lines of credit and dozens of major development projects in foreign countries. Although Indian aid equals just a fraction of Chinese aid in the region, India hopes to use its funding, increased trade focus, military diplomacy, and cultural ties—its so-called Act East policy—to maintain and expand its leverage over the Indian Ocean Rim states to preclude a more permanent Chinese presence in those waters.

This, in a nutshell, is the New Great Game.

ramana wrote:Mackinder's Map detailing Heartland and rimland.

ShauryaT wrote:The New Great Game

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington has had media outlets abuzz about cybertheft and sandcastles rising out of the South China Sea. But in many ways, these issues are side plots to a larger story: the New Great Game for influence in the Indo-Pacific, which has arisen at the confluence of three strategies, China’s Maritime Silk Road, India’s Act East Policy, and the United States’ Rebalance to Asia. It is possible for all three strategies to work together, but it won’t be easy—particularly for the United States.

Agnimitra wrote:

ramana wrote:Mackinder's Map detailing Heartland and rimland.

I wonder if this theory is still valid. Appears to be based on the old danger & preoccupation the classical civilizations of China, Persia, Europe and India felt from the nomadic hordes that roamed the steppe - and not just resource-perspective.

What is the modern equivalent of that mobile, warlike, parasitic nomadism that looks for hosts?

OARN:
Despite Shrinking Populations, Eastern Europe Resists Accepting Migrants
...but especially Turkish Islamists continue to target E. Europe, mostly via marriage and/or immigration jihad.