Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Deeper Indo-US Ties, Dual-Use Tech from US
US SecDef Leon Panetta was in New Delhi, inaugurating deeper Indo-US defence ties, and announcing that India will at last be allowed access to previously restricted dual-use technologies, as part of a new strategic alignment between the 2 countries. The more Pakistan digs in its heels in supporting Taliban, and the more China continues to throw its weight around its region, then the more the Americans will shift towards India as the more reliable partner.
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Two things are very clear:
• The US has finally realized that the only thing on offer that the sole superpower can provide is military technology. The US politicians have messed up US manufacturing by outsourcing and the West is now competitive only in defence. That too, on technology, not price. All other manufacturing is outsourced.
• On the other hand, our politicians have buggered the nation by making us the world’s largest arms importer. We do not have the capability to manufacture a decent field gun now. Hats off to our politicians.
So how does the situation pan out?
• India: Unless we firmly decide that we manufacture our arms on our own soil, the US will use us against China, forever playing on our fears. Come what may, we need to take a 20 year window and upgrade all our defence technology. With focus and single handedly. As regards the US, we should handle them with the maturity of an old civilization talking to an upstart 250 year old kid on the block. It is not in our interest to be seen as the US poodle in the region, whatever the consequences. The US needs us more than we need them. Their corporates needs our markets, their pharma companies need our guinea pig population, their military industrial complex needs our wealth and so on. After the end of the Cold War, there are no big buyers of arms. Spending on arms, itself is hugely wasteful, besides. We need to internalize that nobody can be a power unless there is self-sufficiency in matters of arms. In any case, what can the West sell to us that we can’t develop on our own? There will be some pain but for a generation or two. We only need to play for peace. Any military confrontation can ruin our chances. Salesman Panetta should be made to wait at the door.
• Pakistan: A beggar with nuclear weapons (Pakistan) is far more dangerous than a millionaire with nuclear weapons (The West). Pakistan’s nuclear blackmail has already begun: if you don’t pay, we will kill us both (http://dawn.com/2012/05/27/shame-in-chicago/). The West will do nothing to help India’s cause. If Pakistan is obliterated, all those weapon sales will vanish. So in the medium term, Pakistan will exist. What should India do? Nothing. Talk peace, negotiate, play cricket, exchange musicians, but make no concessions.Pakistan is an irritant, not an existential threat. Our Islamic neighbour has lost it on a grand scale. Strengthen your Western defences, seal your borders and keep growing. Within a generation, Pakistan will implode. All this talk of a stable Pakistan being in India’s interest is a load of dung. Secure your borders. Let that nation decide the course it wants to take. It does not have any in any case. (continued)
...• China: China is waiting for the West to come to oblivion. It will happen sooner than later, probably within the next three generations. That is a typical Chinese strategy-wait, watch, do nothing till things are in your favour and then close in for the kill. It loses nothing by waiting. If exports fall, it should develop internal markets to keep it’s economic engine from sputtering. There will be some pain for the population, but it can be slowly accomplished. Unlike the cowboy West which has impulsively done all it could to obtain a short term advantage, China has played the game to its advantage so far. It’s only Achilles Heel is its Communist governance framework. The West too needs to keep its supermarkets full with cheap stuff, so the real threat is only economic- one of falling Western markets. Slowly, China will move out of the Dollar, that’s a given. It knows that it does not have enough economic leverage to make its own currency the standard, and hence, it will wait and watch.
China waiting for a fuller role in Afghanistan is to secure its cordon sanitaire. The West will always try to deny China this. Hence the newfound love for India. So far as India is concerned, China is a better friend than the West. After all, India and China together can re-orient the World Order. India in the Western orbit heads for ruin due to military insecurity and economic subservience. Increased Western FDI will transfer huge wealth out of India to the bankrupt West. For all the border animosity, China cannot invade and hold-on to India. Its hold on Tibet itself is tenuous. So we may have border skirmishes, not full-fledged invasions. India also, is not the India of 1962. Neither is the world, the same as that in 1962.
... continued
• The West: Given their economic woes, the West realizes that it can’t play the game and set the rules, simultaneously, for long. It’s financial system is in a shambles and it would be really interesting to see how it pulls the chestnuts out of the fire. A lot of pain is in store for the West. They manufacture nothing, thrive on services. It’s like paying a clerk Rs 1 lakh a month. He pays his barber Rs. 2000 for an hair-cut and Rs. 5000 for the week-end dinner. Sooner, rather than later, there has to be deflation setting in. To add, social security financing is the time bomb on public finances waiting to explode. Governments are not equipped to meet these costs. Sputtering economies, too, offer no hope for raising taxes. The future is indeed bleak.
An option is endless wars to loot all the gold, the way it was done in Libya. But there is only so much gold to loot. Fiat currencies can no longer be propped for long by war. The device has pretty much run it’s course. It would be interesting to see how things evolve.
...continued
• Afghanistan: How long can the West prop up Karzai? Post the US/NATO withdrawal, whenever that happens, there will be a power vacuum that will be filled by any of China/Russia/India/Iran/Pakistan. The first four of these will fight it out. The strongest contenders are China and Russia.
• The US: Still a military power, though the use of such power is much in doubt. It is yet to realise the futility of a pure military approach to global power. It is being bit by a dog called Pakistan who is on leash only till the next big bone drops. You can hardly call yourself a superpower when you are in such a predicament. You can’t snap back at the dog because all along, the mad dog was your best friend and you look foolish to the world.
Unless US deals with Pakistan with a firm hand, it cannot find an easy exit from Af-Pak. It can’t do so because it needs the mad dog to foam against its eastern neighbour. At the end of the day, Pakistan is no one’s poodle and sooner, even China will realise this.
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