Posted on 05/22/2002 1:08:53 PM PDT by swarthyguy
WASHINGTON: In what may count as one of the more remarkable chapters in the checkered history of Indo-US relations, New Delhi and Washington are engaged in a serious long-term military tie-up in the shadow of an immediate war in the sub-continent that the Bush administration is trying to prevent.
Defence delegations from the two sides met all day long at the Pentagon on Tuesday to discuss prospective military cooperation, including expanding the scope, size and frequency of joint exercises between their armed forces that have already penciled in engagements in Agra and Alaska.
The two teams discussed even bigger exercises involving their respective air force, navy, and even the marines, but held back from any immediate announcement given the tense situation in the sub-continent.
Led by India’s Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain and the US Under Secretary for Defence Douglas Feith, the two teams, meeting under the rubric of Defence Policy Group (DPG), also bandied ideas and concepts including a session on developments in the missile defence area.
In a rather incongruous but significant spectacle given the immediate fears of a nuclear war on the sub-continent, an Indian team was invited to Colorado Springs ahead of the DPG meeting for a table-top presentation of developments US has made in the missile defense area.
The intense engagement between the two sides at the height of the crisis has exhilarated the two parties involved, startled others, and rankled some countries who see it directed against them.
"Ordinarily, at any other time, the tense border situation would have simply sidelined the DPG meeting," one Indian official who took part in the deliberations told this correspondent. "But it is a measure of how far we have come that discussions moved ahead even during this crisis." A US official agreed that the dynamics had changed and there was an element of trust between the two sides that was absent before.
Some of that was reflected in comments Tuesday by National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice who, despite the steady military build-up in the region, invested New Delhi with a sense of responsibility saying the US expected the Indian government to recognise that war will help no one.
"We recognise the statesman-like stance that India has taken in recent months, starting with the attack on Indian Parliament. And the president had a chance to communicate that to Prime Minister Vajpayee just a few days ago," Rice told newsmen amid war talk in the media and the seemingly slow pace of US engagement in the crisis.
But away from the war hysteria, the defence teams on Tuesday calmly discussed the nuts and bolts of future tie-ups, including the list of arms and military supplies India is seeking from the United States.
Not that the engagement is without any hiccups. For instance, the Indian team arrived here chafing at what they saw as a very restrictive interpretation of the relaxed sanctions legislation that requires the State Department to review individually each application made by New Delhi.
State Department legal eagles stood by their narrow interpretation of the law even though the Pentagon signaled it was not averse to a more broad reading. The Indian side even approached Senator Sam Brownback, who wrote the law, to send a letter to the State Department informing it that he did not mean his legislation to be interpreted so tightly.
The two sides then joked about which bureaucracy — Indian or American — is more cussed.
Then there was what is called the "Bolton-Libya" episode. One morning this month, the Indians rubbed their eyes in disbelief when they read that a US official in charge of arms control and disarmament had accused New Delhi of selling ballistic missile technology to Libya.
For mandarins who grew up on the legend of Mrs Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai rejecting billions in Gaddafi oil money while declining to sell nuclear technology, the allegation came as a shock. They approached the official, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton, to clarify the charges.
Bolton cited CIA reports. Not enough to refer to CIA, the Indians said (the matter was also taken up in New Delhi), where’s the specific proof? Washington then backed off, saying the suspicions centered around private entities and did the Indians have to take it so seriously?
The Indians too eased off from their prickliness, attributing the episode to what they jokingly refer to in private as Washington’s "arms control ayotollahs", — US officials and think-tankers whose business it is to express and expound on proliferation fears.
On the other hand, the US private sector is raring to go — or give. For instance, General Electric, which India has contracted to supply its GE-404 jet engines for its Light Combat Aircraft, recently offered upgraded GE-414 engines in its place if it was okayed by the administration.
The offer surprised the Indians, who mulled over it, and then declined it because it would not only involve recasting all the work done in Bangalore with the 404 in sight, but also applying for licenses afresh.
The intense engagement and exchanges is driving the Pakistanis ballistic. "Given that Indian forces were amassed on the Pakistan border, why was there a need for the US to hold these exercises in India?," Pakistani commentator Shireen Mazari wrote in The News on Tuesday in a diatribe against the defence cooperation between the two sides. "What was the message the US was sending to Pakistan other than one in which the US wished to show its approval for Indian belligerency towards Pakistan?"
In fact, Mazari argued, the present Indian moves towards a military encounter with Pakistan 'could not have happened without at least a tacit US approval".
Indian and US analysts dismiss the idea, saying the engagement is clearly long-term and is not connected to the ongoing crisis.
"The Republican administration has attempted to situate its policy toward South Asia within the framework of its overall conception of Asia. It perceives the region to be a vital locus for economic and technological dynamism for at least the next two decades, and also a zone with unsettled security equations amongst the major players, including China, Russia, Japan and India," says University of Georgia’s Anupam Srivastava.
Therefore, he says, the Republicans have sought a wider engagement with India, and a more limited agenda of engagement with Pakistan.
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