India-US relations: cooling and warming up (merged thread)

[Jedburgh]

...another RAND pub: War and Escalation in South Asia

The advent of two nuclear powers in South Asia, discoveries of nuclear trafficking, and insurgencies and terrorism that threaten important U.S. interests and objectives directly have transformed the region from a strategic backwater into a primary theater of concern for the United States. The United States, to a great extent free of the restrictions of earlier sanction regimes and attentive to the region’s central role in the global war on terrorism (GWOT), has engaged the states of South Asia aggressively with a wide variety of policy initiatives. Despite the diversity of policy instruments, few are very powerful; indeed, only the U.S. military seems to offer many options for Washington to intensify further its security cooperation and influence in the region. This monograph highlights key factors in the region that imperil U.S. interests, and suggests how and where the U.S. military might play an expanded, influential role. The report notes that the current U.S. military force posture, disposition, and lines of command may not be optimal, given South Asia’s new status in the U.S. strategic calculus, and suggests seven key steps the military might take to improve its ability to advance and defend U.S. interests, not only in South Asia, but beyond it, including the Middle East and Asia at large. Beyond the specifics, however, the broader message arising from this analysis is straightforward: the region’s salience for U.S. policy interests has increased dramatically. It is therefore prudent to intensify Washington’s involvement in the region and to devote the resources necessary to become more influential with the governments within the region. Given the area’s potential for violence, it is also prudent to shape a part of the U.S. military to meet the potential crises emanating from South Asia, just as the United States once shaped its military presence in Western Europe for the contingencies of the Cold War.

[Ray]

U.S.-India Engagement: Laying the Foundations for a New Asian Security Architecture

http://www.heritage.org/Events/2011/...dia-Engagement

[Ray]

WHY INDIA IS CRUCIAL TO USA IN ASIA-PACIFIC

By Leon E. Panetta*
IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint
NEW DELHI (IDN) - America is at a turning point. After a decade of war, we are developing a new defence strategy – a central feature of which is a "rebalancing" toward the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, we will expand our military partnerships and our presence in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia.
Defence cooperation with India is a linchpin in this strategy. India is one of the largest and most dynamic countries in the region and the world, with one of the most capable militaries. India also shares with the United States a strong commitment to a set of principles that help maintain international security and prosperity......

http://www.indepthnews.info/index.ph...n-asia-pacific

[Ray]

Growing Indo-US partnership
Need to look at domestic, regional realities

he writer is associated with the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi.

Finally, it may be noted that despite having shared values and shared interests because of the different state of domestic and regional environments, India and the US sometimes may appear to be taking different positions and postures on certain issues which should not be interpreted that they are working against each other.

http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/f...tml#post515076

[Fuchs]

... a new defence strategy – a central feature of which is a "rebalancing" toward the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, we will expand our military partnerships and our presence in ...

This is quite some nonsense.

increased entanglement = increased probability of war = no defence strategy

increased presence in distant places = greater incentives for first strike, greater entanglement = no defence strategy


Panetta and others don't actually do or talk about defence, they do and talk about great power games. It's a small club's favourite leisure and of little use but great cost to the rest of their nation.

[Ray]

Politics is all about power and games!

[Dayuhan]

Panetta and others don't actually do or talk about defence, they do and talk about great power games. It's a small club's favourite leisure and of little use but great cost to the rest of their nation.

The US government habitually classifies all military affairs under "defence"... witness, for example, Panetta's job title. It's a fairly transparent artifice, but the tradition is so well implanted that the incongruity is seldom noticed.

[omarali50]

Any thoughts on maid-gate or whatever they are calling the brouhaha about the Indian diplomat strip-searched in NYC?

[Madhu]

Omar:

Maidgate is the desi Bonfire of the Vanities:

Wolfe deliberately set out to make The Bonfire of the Vanities capture the essence of New York City in the 1980s. Wall Street in the 1980s was newly resurgent after almost the whole of the 1970s had been bad for stocks. The excesses of Wall Street were at the forefront of the popular imagination, captured in films like Oliver Stone's Wall Street and in non-fiction books like Liar's Poker, Den of Thieves, and Barbarians at the Gate.
Beneath Wall Street's success, the city was a hot-bed of racial and cultural tension. Homelessness and crime in the city were growing. Several high-profile racial incidents polarized the city, particularly two black men who were murdered in white neighborhoods: Willie Turks, who was murdered in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn in 1982 and Michael Griffith in Howard Beach, Queens, in 1986. In another episode that became a subject of much media attention, Bernhard Goetz became something of a folk-hero in the city for shooting a group of black men who tried to rob him in the subway.
Burton B. Roberts, a Bronx judge known for his no-nonsense imperious handling of cases in his courtroom, became the model for the character of Myron Kovitsky in the book.[1]

1. Class (not caste, non-desis, get this straight for a change).
2. Diplomatic ineptitude, Indian and American.
3. Corruption (A desi fiddling with visa paperwork? Say it ain't so).
4. Cops treating an upper or middle class person like they treat the poor or minorities? Hey, the upper and middle class only care about police behavior when it affects them, okay? Everyone else is going to get treated like cattle, that's the Homeland Security-ization of America!
5. Election season in India.
6. Indian politicians thinking, "hey, this might get the unhappy electorate off our backs for a change. Don't look at us, look at them!"
7. Desi thin-skinnedness: "we will give them such a slap on their faces, they will never know what stings!"
8. Cable news screws up everything everywhere, you know?

And so on. I will know that the American Desi community has reached full maturity when it can satirize its own faults as well as others. And there are plenty of faults on both sides. Oh, wait, we are so beyond that. You know someone like Anna John will have a field day with this....

Maybe I should try and write the novel....haha, like I could stick to anything for that long with my ADHD....

Journalists read this site sometimes, amiright? Please use my Bonfire of the Vanities line. Please....

[Ray]

If by 'maidgate' it means he case of Devyani Khobargade the Indian Deputy Consul, then in so far as the case of the Deputy Counsel in NY is concerned , it is not so much for breaking of law, as it is for the 'handling' of the case, where the lady diplomat was p[ublicly handcuffed, strip searched and jailed with common criminals.

On the issue of breaking US law, there are US diplomats in India who have same sex 'companions' and that is against the Indian law.

Should India arrest them?

What would the US reaction be?

The US is notorious for 'saving' US citizens on foreign land who have broken local laws.

Take the case of Raymond Davis, the former United States Army soldier, private security firm employee, and contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who killed two Pakistanis. The US asserted that Davis was protected under the principle of diplomatic immunity due to his role as an "administrative and technical official" attached to the Lahore consulate.The U.S. government claimed that Davis was protected under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and demanded he be released from custody immediately. President Barack Obama asked Pakistan not to prosecute Davis and recognize him as a diplomat, stating, "There's a broader principle at stake that I think we have to uphold."

In the case of Devyani, she was a genuine consular diplomat.

Consular staff have lower diplomatic immunity, but are to be treated with dignity as per the Vienna Convention on Consular Staff.

May see:
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/13121...a-returns-kind

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/27488890.cms

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...a-83c921795618

[Madhu]

You are correct Ray, US policing has ugly aspects to it that the poor and less connected are very aware of but others don't see.

Same too with the treatment of poorer migrant Indians abroad at the hands of well-to-do Indians which sometimes raises the ire of locals back home in India but often doesn't.

What you may not realize from a distance is that there is a certain amount of corruption among the Indian community living in the US that goes down very badly with long term Indian Americans. We are aware of this behavior and it is not pleasant to watch. It very much hurts some people living abroad, just as much as the bad treatment of Indians in, say, the Gulf. Some people justify anything. Perhaps this is overly coloring our perception.

But you are correct that this was handled badly and India has a complaint. But Indians are not the only people arrested for this, Saudi diplomats and others have been arrested too for abusing domestic help stateside but their cases did not get as much attention.

I just don't see how two wrongs make a right or how ###-for-tat diplomacy makes the situation any better. There are other ways to show displeasure and mete out punishment for ignoring diplomatic protocol. Others are watching both the US and India and likely making a negative judgement.

[Ray]

NEW DELHI: Veteran US Diplomat and Pakistan expert Robin L Raphel, whose is currently being probed on espionage charges by American security agencies, encouraged creation of separatist Hurriyat Conference in Kashmir and often forced Delhi to hold dialogue with Islamabad even when bilateral ties were low, according to Indian officials who worked with her during the past two decades.

Raphel (67), remained Americas advisor on Pakistan, even after she left US State Department's South Asia Department's South Asia Department in June 1997 and also her retirement. However, it was during the turbulent nineties when insurgency was at it's height in Jammu and Kashmir that Raphel made headlines here as a India baiter.

Government officials, who dealt with Raphel in 1990s and also in past decade but did not wish to named, told ET that she was responsible for creation of Hurriyat Conference in Kashmir in 1993 whereby making them as a stakeholders even as India has always maintained that it was bilateral issue between Delhi and Islamabad.
Indian government officials no doubt are elated in private about the action against Raphel. "This is an interesting development. She has been extremely close to Pakistan. Her links in Kashmir runs deep," remarked a senior Indian official who did not wish to be named.

Another former Indian official who dealt with Raphel in 1990s and also during the decade of 2000, alleged that she was close to all separatist groups in Kashmir. "She went on to question the instrument of succession of J & kwith India and had stated that insurgency in the state was self sustaining. She was also close to Ghulam Mohammed Fai in US, an ISI conduit from Kashmir," the official recalled.

Raphel, former officials said, is known to maintain close links with Yasin Malik, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. Besides, she is close to Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the most prominent face of Hurriyat Conference. A former official, who was testimony to one such incident told ET that in 2005 Raphel accompanied then US Deputy Chief of Mission in Delhi for a meeting with the Indian government and tried to cajole the government to talk to Mirwaiz. The role of that US Deputy Chief of Mission in this episode also finds a mention in Wikileaks. The Modi government made it clear that it does not consider Hurriyat Conference as a stakeholder after Pakistani High Commissioner met the leaders ahead of the Foreign Secretary level talks.

Earlier when relations between Delhi and Islamabad had touched a low following the attack on Parliament in 2001 and both sides had lowered level of diplomatic engagement, it was Raphel who tried to force India to talk to the Pervez Musharraf government, another official recalled. T "She would go that extra mile for Pakistan often sidestepping our concerns," the official said, adding Raphel remained State Department's Pakistan adviser even after she retired from the State Department.

Few also took notice that Raphel was in Delhi in 2012 at the invitation of then US envoy to Nancy Powell. The former US ambassador, who herself made an unceremonious exit from Delhi this year, introduced Raphel as a personal friend of hers to the some of the officials in Delhi. In fact Powell had fixed meetings of Raphel in Delhi, an official well versed with the developments informed ET.

It was her characterization of Kashmir as "disputed territory", a first in the annals of U.S. diplomacy, made her quick friends in Pakistan. She in fact contributed in internationalising Kashmir issue, much to India's discomfiture. Her stance on Kashmir made her the bane of the Indian establishment that did not favour any interference of outside powers in a domestic matter.Kashmir was raised on the agenda in Bhutto's first state visit to Washington in April 1995.

Kashmir would remain a key topic of regional and bilateral discussions with both India and Pakistan throughout President Bill Clinton's two terms in office. Raphel was also close to Bill Clinton who pulled her out from post of Counsellor she was holding in the US Embassy in Delhi to make her Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, a former diplomat recalled. She remained one of the most senior adverse of State Department on South Asia and Pakistan and was working with the State Department on renewable contracts. ..

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...campaign=cppst

After the collapse of USSR, India's relationship with the US, in quite a few fields, had blossomed and were being nurtured.

India clung to the Nehruvian socialism but it was the vision of Prime Minister Narashimha Rao that the shackles of socialism started being shown the door including the Nehruvian philosophy of Non Alignment.

While non Alignment was not discarded, Narashima Rao with great vision balanced the foreign equation by Looking East, befriending Israel openly and yet ensuring that the Arab nations were not displeased. He gave, a greater meaning to the US India relationship in a subdued way so as to not upset the apple cart in India drenched with Nehru's idea of the world.

Rao also loosened the stranglehold of socialism and the 'Licence Raj' by liberalisation and globalisation and that brought foreign capital into India, even if in a modest way.

Practical manifestation of US India Friendship and non hyphenation of India and Pakistan was set in motion by Clinton after the Kargil War. The Bush Administration gave it a real robust meaning to the Indo US strategic partnership with closer defence cooperation and getting the 'Nuclear deal' through the Congress, prompting a gushing PM of India to say - Mr Bush Indian love you!

Sadly, under Obama, the US India relationship has floundered and possibly has became a footnote in many ways.

The natural affinity and identification of Indian psyche with the US and democracy seems to have blurred thanks to the lacklustre attitude of the last Indian Govt under Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi and the esoteric dabbling of the Obama Administration mindset; almost as unproductive as Nehru's high faluting morality that had no strategic meaning excepting isolating India from the global realities.

Yet, the worm turned through the triumphant visit of the new PM Modi to the US that has raised hope that the US India relationship would once again be on even keel and be more stronger.

India and the US have common strategic concerns. To that extent, Modi's visit to Japan indicates a commitment to the US Asia Pivot plan, though it is still to fructify in concrete terms. And the Obama Administrations pussyfooting and vacillations bring no hope.

Worthy of note is that India on it own terms is facing China. It is no longer kowtowing to the Chinese demands. The latest being the brush off of China's protest to India for developing the infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control and going ahead in equipping and training the Vietnamese Armed Forces and exploiting in South China Sea that is of Vietnam, even if it is disingenuously claimed by China with its conjured nine dashes line.

There is no doubt that India or the neighbouring nations of China cannot solely contest China solely on its own even though India is capable of holding China and stopping it in its track. Such is the might and such is the resolve of new India under Modi.Yet, it is in interest of the US to assist those who can help the US to keep her own and their strategic interest going and healthy.

However, the moot point is that the US has to build confidence that it means business.

None can complain that the US has to balance her interests by engaging all countries that affect her national interests as she cannot complain about the same of others.

However, one cannot be double faced. It ruins the confidence of the actuality of intent.

No country will forgive any other extending the hand of friendship and working behind the back to encourage its chaos.

Raphael and Nancy Powell symbolises that duplicity as can be gleaned from the article.

US strategic interest should be of prime concern to the US, which still clings to the status as the leading power. In today's change geopolitical and geostrategic environment, it is amply clear that it cannot do it alone as before, as was evidently proved during the Iraq War II.

Therefore, US cannot afford to lose friends and well wishers.

If the US thwarts India, then Russia maybe willing to step into the void since it is already beleaguered and is desperately trying to find its place in the sun.

That would surely not be in the best interests of the US.