|
|
|
|
CIAO DATE: 2/00
India’s 13th Parliamentary Elections: A Vote of Confidence?
Panel III: International Relations
Marshall M. Bouton, Radha Kumar, Lieutenant General V.R. Raghavan, Frank G. Wisner
November 2, 1999, New York
Marshall Bouton : ... to the extraordinary standard that was set by our earlier panelists, we will do our best. I’m privileged to play two roles, as my predecessors Joydeep Mukherji and Phil Oldenburg have, in this panel and that is first to moderate and to start out first with some of my own remarks. We have three very highly qualified insightful individuals with us today, we’re very fortunate to, apart from myself to share their thoughts with you on foreign and security policies under this new government. Their bios and in the materials you have, Radha Kumar, Senior Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations will speak on India’s relations with its neighbors and the policies of the new government in that direction. General Raghavan, former Director General of the Military Operations, Indian Army and now Director of the Delhi Policy Group will focus on security pollicies under the new government. And Frank Wisner, of course known to you all, our former U.S. Ambassador to India, now Vice Chairman at AIG, will focus on India-U.S. relations.
I want to share with you a few thoughts very briefly, a kind of overview, at least in my estimation of the compulsions, the goals and the themes of Indian foreign security and foreign and security policies under the new government. Many of these of course were evident under the previous government because it was, for all intents and purposes, the same government, as has returned to power now in Delhi. And these came very forcefully to us during that time because that government, as we all know, was preoccupied with foreign and security policy issues, the nuclear tests of May ’98, the Lahore Summit and of course the response to the Pakistani incursion in Kargil. And, now the four key senior officials in this government dealing with foreign and security policy are the same individuals, of course the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Defense Minister and the National Security Advisor. So we, at one level, can expect a high degree of continuity. But I would argue at the same time that there are fresh challenges facing this government, or at least challenges of a different order. This government must deal with the aftermath of the events which occurred on its last watch. How to respond to the international pressures to restrain or shape in a particular direction its nuclear weapons development? How to revive the peace process with Pakistan after Kargil? Secondly, it must, as in the economic sphere, build a national consensus and therefore sustain key policy directions. The initiatives under the last government that I’ve described were preferred secret or reactive. Now controversial key decisions will have to be made in the glare of public opinion, on CTBT, on relations with the U.S. and on resuming the Lahore process. And finally this government must deal again as an economic policy with the challenge of integrating its national, its foreign and security policy goals with its domestic goals and constraints These two sets of goals and issues come together of course in the budgetary realm as we’ve heard in the discussion this morning on the fiscal defect, the defense expenditure is going to be going up and that itself will bring these issues to a head and in the political realm, while I think it’s unlikely that this government will be under strong proactive pressures on the part of its coalition partners on foreign and security policy, most of the coalition partners its fair to say are not particularly interested in foreign and security matters and their other concerns will inevitably be at a minimum distractions for a government which is going to need to focus on a lot of very pressing issues.
Now that said, I think we can at the same time articulate a broad over-arching goal that this government is likely to pursue in the foreign and national security arenas. And it is, and this will sound like stating the obvious, to strengthen India’s position in the international community. It bears stating, I believe, because both Prime Minister Vajpayee and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh have since the election and prior to the election publicly acknowledged that India has not kept pace with the rapid geo-political and economic change that’s occurred since the end of the cold war. And that in their perception, India has lost strategic economic and political ground relative to other key players. It must therefore now play serious catch-up ball in the international arena if it is to play the roles that they believe its size, its civilization background, its political achievements and its economic potential warrant. On the strategic front, for instance, India’s new leaders certainly believe that the end of the Cold War left India relatively isolated without its long-time super power protector. Its relationship with the U.S. emerged from that long period deeply strained. And about the same time, the United States was engaged in the process of improving quite dramatically, attempting to in somewhat up and down fashion, as we all know, its relations with China, India’s long-term natural rival in Asia. Therefore, as Jaswant Singh has suggested, India’s strategic space has shrunk during this period. And he has been quite explicit in saying that India’s decision to test nuclear weapons last year was part of a larger effort to enlarge that strategic space. One can argue, many people have, that it would not accomplish that, but that was the objective. On the economic front, rapid global economic change during the 1990’s has also left India relatively behind. Unlike many other formerly socialist economies which opened their markets quite rapidly during this period, India’s liberalization as we heard earlier this morning was relatively slow and hesitant and while growth was higher than in the 1980’s and certainly earlier than that, it has lagged the performance of other countries, particularly in east Asia. China surged ahead in the FDI wars and India’s failure to reduce poverty rapidly attracted increasing negative comparisons with China and other countries, comparisons which stung in Delhi and elsewhere and which I believe are a powerful motivation as this government looks to improving India’s position in the world community. On the political front, we have also seen in the last decade a host of new political formations and regions around the world with economic and security agenda. APEC and ARF in East Asia, the European Union of course, NAFTA in North America. India is for all intents and purposes left out of this series of developments and for some time this was a particular source of concern to India that it would wind up being the only major nation in the world without a tie-in to any of these new regional bodies. And talk of security council expansion in the 1990s, while it has just been that talk for the most part, has not included India as a probably candidate for permanent membership in the security council. All of these compulsions I believe will lead this government to pursue an activist, engagement-oriented, sometimes muscular set of policies aimed at three key objectives.
First and foremost, of course to ensure India’s sovereignty and autonomy in the international sphere. While seeking partnerships with other major powers, India will avoid becoming too dependent on any one relationship. Second, it will seek to project an India which is to be included, respected and consulted in international forum. India seeks at least de facto recognition of its emerging great power status. Third, this government will seek through its foreign international security policies to create space in another sense for India to pursue more rapid economic growth along the lines we’ve just heard. Leaders of this government recognize, I think recognize very sincerely that India must improve its standards of living and reduce poverty if the nation’s claim to international power and prestige are to be taken seriously.
These goals in turn will imply several themes. First, I think this government will focus on projecting itself and acting as a good neighbor in its own region. The last BJP led government prided itself on its improvements in relations with Bangladesh and Napal and of course, on the effort to begin a peace process in Pakistan, Prime Minister Vajpayee took significant political risks to embark on that process. I’m convinced that despite the wound if you will and the wide sense of public betrayal that’s still evident in India following Kargil, this government will seek to continue that overall good neighbor policy and in particular to focus on improving relations with Pakistan, despite the coup and the greater difficulty of dealing with the military government. I will be interested to see whether Radha Kumar agrees or not with that assessment. It will also seek to keep its relations with China positive and in fact to make them more positive to continue the effort to repair the rupture, small rupture I would argue, that resulted from Defense Minister George Fernandez’s statements at the time of the nuclear tests. Second, second theme will be the importance of relationship with the United States, we heard that articulated very thoughtfully in the economic panel. This government is in my estimation clear in its mind about the importance of that objective. Prime Minister Vajpayee a year ago in a speech in this building described for the first time U.S. and India as natural allies. Third, India will project that it has and wants the rest of the world to recognize that it has important interests well beyond its own region. Jaswant Singh has compared India’s sphere of interests to be similar to that of British India, stretching from the gulf to central Asia and down to Southeast Asia. And India’s interest in those regions is engaged by a variety of issues: energy, terrorism, protecting sea lines of communication and a number of other factors. Fourth, it will project India, this government will project India as a force for stability in the world. It will argue and has in fact already that India is not an expansionist or regressive power. The emphasis in the emerging nuclear doctrine on no first use and minimal credible deterrent is part of that overall stance. The draft doctrine statement which emerged from the security advisory board seemed to step back from that but I am quite sure that it will be reigned back in the debate which follows. Second, it will project itself as a balancer in Asia as part of this contribution to world stability, with an implied reference to the potential for an unstable China. It will project itself as a responsible power, one that will not export weapons of mast destruction, their know-how or their technology. And finally it will point to it’s own domestic stability, deeply rooted in the democratic process we heard so well described this morning as another factor, making India a force for stability in the world. So these will be the major themes, there are a variety of constraints which this government will face in implementing these goals and themes, but this is the overall picture that I think the new government will attempt to paint. Let me turn now to Radha Kumar.
Radha Kumar : Thank you. The 1990s actually saw quite an interesting change in India’s foreign policy which was the thrust towards the neighbors first policy which Marshall also referred to. That was, that change was really introduced by, the Janata governments and it was, I think, given some degree of momentum perhaps by overall changes in the post Cold War world and the interest in Southeast Asia which was developing and which led India again to try to think in terms of the wider role within Asia. The neighbors first policy which is often called the Gujral Doctrine actually focused on trying to settle problems which related to India’s closest neighbors, that is to say problems with Sri Lanka, problems with Bangladesh and problems with Pakistan. The improvement in relations with Sri Lanka and with Bangladesh was quite considerable. Both, all three sets of countries were able to sit down and work towards a gradual de-escalation of conflict and to try to set up negotiating relationships that would have a continuity. I would argue that that continuity remained and in fact was inherited by the BJP government.
While looking at the neighbors first policy, I think there were two elements that were quite important in it. The first was the regional role that was played, thus for example, the improvements in relationships with Bangladesh came as the fruit of work over a ten-year long period between the West Bengal government and the Bangladesh government, which was aided and supported by India’s central federal government. Similarly, the improvement in relations with Sri Lanka could only really substantially come about when there was a change of public opinion with (INAUDIBLE). Which followed on Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, when there was for the first time and across the board sense that the diasporic sympathy and support that Tamil Nadu and its various governments had given to the Tamil Eelam movement was actually not only counter-productive but in fact morally wrong in many ways.
Interestingly, that regional thrust has never been able to even emerge in relations with Pakistan. The Indo-Pakistan relationship has long remained dominated by fairly narrow political rivalries and considerations and it has been very difficult indeed to find a space to break that open. The, what to my mind was quite significant about the whole process was in fact that Prime Minster Vajpayee did take the chief minister of Panjab with him and that there were in fact some quite marked gestures of solidarity between the two Panjab chief ministers, including discussion on cattle breeds and presence of, but that was a very, very small initiative and as we know now, the whole process seems to have hit a slump of indefinite extension.
To that extent, it may be worth looking again at whether the present BJP governments will in fact conform to the earlier neighbors first policies that they appeared to follow in that previous government.
I think that as far as all the neighbors, with the exception of Pakistan are concerned, we will seek (INAUDIBLE). As far as Pakistan is concerned, however, I think there are some rather dangerous signals that we need to look at. I do believe that Prime Minister Vajpayee would be interested in reaching whatever level of set of agreements are possible to be reached at different points in time. I think that he’s committed to this process, however, that is not something I can say with confidence about his government. I think that there are, there’s a serious failure to understand the relationship between internal policies and external policies as regards Pakistan and in particular, Kashmir, within this new government. I think that the fact that we had a measure of international support during the Kargil incursions, which to my mind was a very positive breakthrough, has however been interpreted by many within the present government as meaning that we have a license to follow a fairly unilateral policy of suppression of militancy within the valley. My fear is that one-sided and unilateral policy of suppressing of elimination if you like of militancy without any support in policies of discussions with the different leaderships of the region, discussions about devolution, attempts to curb human rights violations, attempts to restore law and order in the region, attempts to aid with development in the region, if none of these attempts are made at all, then we are facing a situation in which conditions within the valley are going to worsen and inevitably that would put more pressure internally on Pakistan to respond by reviving the training of militants and the support to militancy. So we may be in danger of setting up a spiral in which we will lose the opportunity we have in present following Kargil. And that I think is something that is a serious foreign policy concern for the government to address.
Two further points. If this concern is not addressed, what is again likely to happen is that over time, the kind of rather old guard international constituencies which are traditionally regarded as being hostile to India will again gain strength, that will again mean further government attention having to be paid to account or deal with positions and opinions that ought to be marginal or not very important to India’s estate.
The second point which I think is more important for us to consider is that as far as India’s aspirations to be regarded as a power for the good in Asia or in international relations at large is concerned, the, it’s important for the country to be able to show that she can find peaceful means of resolving quite intractable conflicts and as we see, she has been able to show that in limited ways in certain regions. Again, for example, Atens and Assam would come to mind, but is not able to bring them to bear, to Kashmir. Countries which are not able to stabilize their relationships with their neighbors will always be at a disadvantage when it comes to a wider forum. They themselves feel an Achilles heel which they overcompensated for. This again would be one of the problems for India in relation to her neighbors.
Thirdly of course, we are still at a time when our neighborhood trade relations are at a sort of beginnings. It is going to be very difficult to develop them unless we are able to simultaneously able to deliver them across the board, in the entire neighborhood. That again requires understanding that we have to reform some of our internal domestic practices if we wish to have an impact in the neighborhood.
Marshall Bouton : Thank you very much, Radha. General Raghavan.
V.R. Raghavan : Thank you Mr. Buoton. After the two foreign policy presentations, let me focus on the security dimension of India’s future policy. What are the determinants of policy for the future in terms of (INAUDIBLE)? I believe that we see a clear sign of India having moved in foreign policy term from an idealistic position to a pragmatist, if not a realist position. In identifying national interests and in identifying the compulsion to engage with the wider world. In one of the first interviews which Prime Minster Vajpaye gave, after the elections, he termed his priorities in two phrases or two words: economy and security. Rarely has this formulation been presented by a Prime Minster in such stark terms. How do we interpret this usage, economy and security. What I see happening in the Indian security outlook is from my point of view as a military man’s point of view, who spent a lifetime implementing policies, security policy, which is an isolated policy focusing on security alone. Well I see a heartening change by combing of security and economy. I think that’s a major shift which has been missed. So whether we call it the economics of security or security of economics, the compulsion to synergize the two is a significant new development. The relationship between these two elements of foreign policy as to (INAUDIBLE) of the state, the economic and the security damage is I think a significant overlook.
To that extent, Lahore and Kargil should be viewed as some important milestones. They may not be defining moments, some feel they are defining moments, but they are important milestones because they brought home to the Indian public and the Indian leadership across the board, their trust and good relations, must also be predicated on checks and balances, on circumspection, on carefully nuance progress towards good relationship. And Kargil is a milestone because for the first time in such a short time and at such intense cumulation it brought forth the necessity to combine foreign policy with military operations. Kargil would’ve been a much longer, much more bloodier, much more traumatic business if diplomacy had not hastened the outcome that finally came about. But I also believe that diplomacy by itself could not achieve what the final outcome without a substantial military guarantee that failing diplomatically, the military objectives would still reach.
It happened in ’71 in some way. Mrs. Gandhi made a terrific effort lasting over a year to get world opinion on her side. But this was different, it was very intense, it was very sudden, it had to be wrapped up quickly.
The limits to military usage, I think, was very cleverly underscored and utilized in Kargil, that’s another milestone. The voluntary dissent that India will not cross the line of control much against quite a lot of public outcry even from Former Generals who said that these are not the way to fight as battle you must get behind the enemy, etc. The firm decision not to cross the line of control is evidence of an understanding of the relationship, the linkage between diplomacy and military power as instruments of progress. And therefore this greater synergy between foreign policy and military policy and economic policy is I think the new dimension to be watched. And if the linkage between economic and defense economy on one side and difference preparedness on the other side is so strong, is so fundamental, then serious questions arise for the future. Kargil itself is expected to cost anywhere between five to ten thousand crores. There is talk of increasing the defense budget. There’s no doubt that expenditure will have to go up. Where does the money come from? One can make an exception in one year’s budget, I don’t think it can be sustained for five years. And these are crucial questions which requires a synergy between economic growth and difference (INAUDIBLE). At 2.5% of the national GDP going to defense was in perfect harmony with global trends, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s being said that we need maybe up to 3 or 4%. Mr. Vaghul mentioned that one of the desires is that 1% of the GDP will be increased in education every year, where is it going to come from, if it has to go to defense? So there are serious constraints on the economic boost that can make a difference. And then you add to it the nuclear plan, I see serious problems ahead. The claim to the national pie is so severe from the states, and I’m delighted I’m coming off of the economic discussion that took place in the previous session, it just shows how critical the state’s claim on the center. So raising defense is no longer easy.
So if the defense portion of the national GDP has to go up, my conclusion is that it can only go up if the national GDP goes up. You can’t just take part of the cake from here and put it there. It will be at calamitous cost. And the national GDP, unless it goes to seven or nine or maybe higher percent, over a long period of time, cannot sustain increased defense standard. These are the new dimensions with which the new government would have to struggle.
And economic growth and GDP growth will only come up by better capital investment, better capital flows, better growth pattern and that will not come unless there is a strong push to reform. So there is a wonderful linkage in the cycle, which has now become everything. It was theoretically already there, but the black snake, to use that wonderful phrase, is there somewhere as a shadow. And therefore economic policies, fiscal deficits, you name it, the whole monopoly of problems, which are linked to political economy because it costs elections, has an impact on defense preparedness. But if a positive spiral has to evolve, between economy and military and both have to synergize, then the compulsions to economic reforms, faster growth and self-evident and I don’t think this government can buck that. And neither...[TAPE ENDS] ...increasing strategic space. Wonderful phrase. Raises great deal of fears. The skill there will lie in obtaining that space without raising anxieties. On that this government will be seriously challenged to ignore that balancing act.
To sum up therefore, I think a strong push on security cannot come about without even a stronger push on economy. And I think that will be the guarantor of security in India and the sub-continent. Thank you.
Frank Wisner : Ladies and gentlemen, Marshall, Radha and General Raghavan, it’s a pleasure to be with you and to have been asked to summarize or bring to a conclusion the presentations that have been made during the course of the morning, the latter course of the morning on foreign policy and to look particularly at the question of United States and India where we are, where we could go in the time ahead. I believe very deeply that much of what you heard during the course of this morning is true and that is that the United States and India during the course of the 1990s and with accelerating speed as the decade has come to an end have found themselves in turning points in the relationship, on a path where their interests are increasingly perceived as converging. There are a number of reasons for this convergence of American and Indian interest, notably on the American side, born of the fact that with the end of the Cold War, we were unshackled from a number of our perceptions of India, her association with the erstwhile Soviet Union, the threat that seemed to come to us from South Asia particularly in the latter part of the Cold War when Afghanistan was invaded. On India’s side, the end of the Cold War was not without importance, at the same time, India had cast her foreign policy with an eye towards a protective relationship with the Soviet Union which disappeared at the same time India was faced with the economic challenges of dealing with an enormous burden of poverty, of moving forward and changing her position in the world, strengthening her ability as a nation, reasserting her sovereignty and strengthening its purposes by building her economic muscles. I find therefore as the decade comes to an end, both the United States’ increasing economic interest in a global functioning economy, functioning global economy and India’s interest in the same economy is of course international strength, bring us on an economic front as politics are increasingly bringing us to a point of convergence. I also believe that as the first panel this morning pointed out, with a strengthening of the political center, with the emergence of a coalition that will last for the next several years, that India’s own government will feel emboldened to step forward and be more assertive, clearer in her definitions of her foreign policy objectives and stronger in her assertion of the need to pursue a relationship with the United States, a relationship that she need feel no apologies about. I’m delighted that as the decade comes to an end, we have seen another important fact, and that is the emergence of truly practical diplomacy between the United States and India, Strobe Talbott Jaswant Singh are world class diplomats, they’ve been hard at work over the past eighteen months finding common ground, perhaps not always agreeing, but sustaining the longest period of high-level, American and Indian diplomacy in the history of the past fifty years of the relationship.
But as we step forward and look over the edge into the time ahead with India’s new government, our own coming to an end as the electoral season comes on us in facing thereafter a new administration, it’s worth keeping very careful score of where we and India converge and where the divergence exists. In very interesting ways, we have similar views of the world: both of us are powers rooted with an interest in stability, neither of us favor revolutionary or harsh change, neither of us have territorial ambitions. But on the other side, India has an inheritance of prickly feelings about her independence. A sense that her sovereignty is very much at stake, a sense that she cannot be overly dependent on any power, even a power that she concludes has similar interests or even similar principals. And a desire to be consulted, to be recognized, to be taken into account.
Second in the field of non-proliferation, there is also an area of convergence. India sees no advantage in a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or the componentry that goes into those. But on a divergent note, we and India have not yet found common ground in deciding what will be the basis of our understanding over India’s nuclear posture. How India will conform or decide to conform herself to international norms on the one hand, and how India will posture her nuclear arsenal and her delivery vehicles on the other.
In the field of terrorism, there is clearly a convergence as well. Neither of us have any advantage to be drawn from the habits of terror that are afoot around the world. We have much to do to work together in collaboration to put those to an end and we have to a degree found ways to collaborate in quiet ways and that’s the way we should continue to collaborate. On the other hand, we do have divergent views on what are the sources of terrorism, what are the origins of it, who are the main players, how does it function? There’s great space for further talk and discussion. On the trade front, India and the United States also have convergent views, we both are interested in a functioning global economy, we both see advantages in a substantial degree of world-trade openness, information technology offers a special field of promise to the two nations, but at the same time, there are problem areas that have to be treated. India’s has strong feelings about American anti-dumping procedures, about the effect of our sanctions, about the access to our marketplaces just as we have about India’s views on patent protection, the speed with which tariff barriers will be lowered.
And on the broadest framework of all, the world stage, we believe that at critical moments, when the UN system cannot function, democracies are left no choice but to intervene, to preserve the peace and crises, preserve basic human rights. India’s view is more nuances, India sees real threats to international stability. If there aren’t rules set around the way intervention takes place, if the UN and her security council are not the final arbiters of exactly when nations should be involved and what forms their troops should be in intervening.
And so there are points for us to talk and think about, but I emphasize there is convergence as I emphasized divergence. For if the dialogue can be framed in the time ahead to separate the two and deal with the two managing the points of divergence, building on convergence, I think there is a way ahead for our two nations. But it is tough to shift views, notably in democracies. We find ourselves writing, talking, thinking into boxes and breaking out of those boxes is not entirely easy and therefore, I think the time ahead, while full of promise, one must face with caution. The most interesting moment on the horizon is the president’s trip to India, not that president’s trips aren’t largely symbolic, they are. But it is the very symbolism of the President of the United States visiting India, the first president to do so since President Carter visited decades ago, that we have a context within which we can take the facts that are bringing us together and actually making it show it will work. If the President’s visit is focused properly, we can begin a process of consultation, of how two leaders will talk to each other with the frequency, regularity, the candor that typified the discussions between leaders of other great nations with whom the United States has dialogue. If we can second address issues of substance and figure out how we can talk about the shape of Asia, the problems of terrorism, the other issues of particular importance to our national security, including the nuclear issue and how to think through the dynamic, for our own national debate in the United States is evolving over the nuclear issue, just as India’s coming to terms with defining her nuclear posture.
And we have lots to think about in a presidential visit as we face the forthcoming, we face the aftermath of the forthcoming WTO session in Seattle. For here India and the United States have a truly special opportunity, to argue for an open international trading system in electronic trade and in electronic commerce.
India and the United States, therefore, have a special opportunity when the President and the Prime Minster meet, an opportunity that goes well beyond the problems we’ve known in the past that can set a stage in the future. For the kind of collaborative relationship, the two nations with so much promise and so much at stake can enjoy. But let me close and borrow a leaf from Bo Cutter’s presentation before the economic panel. And say that as much as I look to Americans to think fresh about the relationship with India, I think it is also a superb time for India to take and redraft and denounce her own vision of herself as an actor on the world stage. For if she’s as clear in her purposes as she can and needs to be, she then is a much more logical partner for the United States or other members of the international community. General Raghavan pointed out emerging trends in Indian foreign policy, that extraordinary synergy between foreign policy, economic and defense policy. I agree. And therefore isn’t it right that the time has come for India to define herself as a power, what she stands for and where she’s headed in the world and how she will use accruing national power to preserve world peace and stability? What effect that will have within the region? How she perceives herself in balance with the other stages in the South Asian region and particularly with Pakistan? Reflecting as well that beyond the immediate region, India is a key factor in the balance of power in Asia, how does she see her relationship with China and in that peculiarly important balance with Russia, Japan and the United States? What sort of relationship will India stand for, what will she promote and what will she oppose if violence is used to de-stabilize the Asian context?
And finally as we look on the world scene, what role would India play as a world citizen? What will be her trading policy of the future in the WTO and her view on critical global norms, like the question of environmental protocols? Where will India be headed in terms of the security council, to which she aspires to membership, or the regional context of APEC?
A clearer vision, in a word, of India, what she’s about and where she’s going will serve her well, will serve all of us well and will be one of the critical underpinnings of a new possibility of a U.S./Indian collaboration on the world stage. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.
Marshall Bouton : Thank you very much, Frank. We have about, I’m sorry to say, only about fifteen minutes for your questions or comments. Let me ask, as we did earlier in the morning that if you have a question or a comment, please wait for the mike to arrive and identify yourself and if you wish to do so, address your question or your comment to a particular member of the panel.
Sanjib Baruah : I am from Bard College. My question is mainly to Frank Wisner and also to Radha Kumar. I like that whole convergence, divergence framework and I was very interested in the fact that Mr. Wisner made a distinction between the convergence on the issue of international terrorism and possible divergence on the question of sources of terrorism. There’s so, apparently there’s so much argument, but what I’m wondering about is that India also agrees with Russia about terrorism. So if I bring Russia in, I wonder clearly, Russia’s position on Chechnya and Dagestan are rather different from the attitude of terrorism than say many of the other statements made about terrorism in India, so I guess what I’m wondering if I could get you to spell it out a little bit further about whether indeed there is an argument between Indian views on international terrorism and the U.S.
Frank Wisner : Well if I could, I’d also like to share this with General Raghavan, I know he’s thought about the subject, but let me say that India and the United States approach the issue of terrorism really from quite different perspectives. The United States has been principally concerned about terrorism that flowed from the western part of Asia, from that Middle East and the consequences of course of the Palestinian problem of the issues of radical Islamic militancy as it has been seen mainly in the middle-eastern context. Of course we haven’t been unmindful of narco-terrorism that has flowed from South America, but our real focus has been in that neighborhood. India’s of course having been the recipient of terrorist pressure over the last decade and even longer sees the flow of terrorism more on the eastern side as coming out of Pakistan, coming out of Afghanistan. The United States tended to walk away from Afghanistan, lose hold of what was going on there in the period after, the end of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, so we’ve come from divergent perspectives and now the time is right I think to very simply put our thoughts together, understand what are the motor forces and come up with a much clearer consensus about what works, what’s going on in international terrorism. If you take not-expert opinion in India, but if you take street opinion, there is a tendency to jumble things, to conceive of terrorism that India faces is all spawned from a kind of centralized, Islamic fundamentalist movement. I don’t think Americans think of it that way, we see much variety and difference, much more nuance in the pattern of radical Islamic political behavior, much more national caused by local phenomena, though fed with interconnections. There are differences. We also see the pluses and minuses of our relationship with Saudi Arabia, many Indians, on the ordinary sort, look at Saudi Arabia as a fountain of Wahabi militancy and therefore a center, so there is some differences at the public level of the view of what causes terrorism. I think what I would appeal for in the relationship between the two governments is a much more focused discussion of what the situation is, both sides bringing its evidence to the table, comparing notes, thinking through, developing a deeper sense of what causes problems in Chechnya or Dagestan or in and around Israel or in Pakistan and in Afghanistan and Kashmir to come to more common points of view and where the exchange of information is at a very quiet level. For we don’t want to inherit India’s enemies any more than India wants to inherit ours. To see the two sides come together and take those quiet, effective actions, that sensible, civilized governments around the world need to take to deal with the problem of terror.
Radha Kumar : I think that the interesting point is that the United States understanding of terrorism is really linked to its role as a great power, it’s an external understanding where as India’s understanding of terrorism is actually of a third, another country aiding and abetting domestic insurgencies. So I think that’s quite a major point of difference. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a point of any kind of conflict between the two countries, it just means that the emphases are different.
V.R. Raghavan : I would add is that one part, which is high in Indian policy planner’s minds is not so much the divergences on the origins, that’s a very nice way to split the two issues, what are the origins and the problems themselves, is but what are the targets. We believe that the greatest convergence between India and the United States is that the most vulnerable to terrorism are liberal societies. They’re open societies, they’re open systems, they’re poorest countries, terrorism can be spawned and operated with greater effect. There are other countries, right now, tanks and guns are blazing away as a response to terrorist acts in Moscow and some other part of world. That cannot be the response of liberal societies. And therefore it puts very serious concerns on us. We believe that that’s the convergence which has not been emphasized enough.
Marshall Bouton : I just want to, just a footnote on what Radha’s point about the great power versus perspective on terrorism versus India’s as a threat to domestic stability. I actually think there’s some convergence going on there, security planners in the United States are increasingly concerned about the possibility of international terrorism coming home to root, so to speak, in American communities in the years and decades ahead. Former Secretary Perry’s recent book on preventive defense makes quite a point of this. It may be an area in which there’s growing convergence. Yes, please.
Arte Paser : This is to General Raghavan, considering that India has had considerable success with insurgencies that let’s say started in the mid 50s in the northeast which were also aided and abetted by Pakistan, China and so on, what if anything that might have been learned today could be applied to the situation in Kashmir?
V.R. Raghavan : It is already being applied. It’s been applied for four decades. The greatest lesson is that the military can only solve this problem up to a point. Military is an instrument which can cap violence, it can bring the terrorist or incident or secessionist groups to negotiating table by putting pressures on them of a kind which they can no longer bear, but ultimately these have to be political solutions. So one argument can be if we lick the problem in the northeast, there’s less violence, but in strategic terms, violence is contagious. Every bus which gets blown up, every ambush that occurs, has an impact. Forget about the military, on economy, on investments, on government, the rising costs of police and para-military, now these make serious inroads in the economic capacity of the state towards growth and that’s a big lesson. So how can it be done in Kashmir? If Kashmir was clear and free as the northeast became, initially there were involvement of Chinese, etc., but once it becomes clear of that involvement, an economic dimension to the security problem in northeast went a long way in sorting that out. But that luxury, India does not have in Kashmir, because there is a substantial other side involvement and that’s why the attempt constantly to get that de-linked so that we can get on to growth, we can cut cost, we can transfer funds to other terribly important requirement, but that’s essential lesson and knowing the lesson doesn’t necessarily solve the problem, there’s a big problem of political economy, international relations, etc.
Marshall Bouton : I’m going have one more question from Rajiv Chaudhry in a moment, but I just wanted to note if we had more time I would ask at this point to ask Professor Sanjib Baruah to say something about, he’s just written a very fine book on the northeast which many of you I hope saw reviewed and which I urge on you and we will hopefully soon have a program soon with Sanjib on these issues, but we’re running very short on time and so I’m gonna have to ask Mr. Chaudhry.
Mr. Chaudhry : My question is actually directed both at General Raghavan and at the Ambassador. Typically policy planners and strategists in governments end up doing what I will call incrementalist thinking and that is good because 90% of the time, that’s what you need to do, but what it also means is that from time to time, you miss out on predicting very big events, like for example, the fall of the Soviet Union. One big event that could happen in the sub-continent in the next five years is the fall of Pakistan. What if Pakistan is already showing signs of being a failed and a collapsed state and that evidence accumulates and we end up with a problem country of 120 million people. The question is, is the U.S. thinking about that as a possibility? Is the Indian government thinking about that as a possibility and is that a possible basis for convergence and interests and views and policy-making?
Marshall Bouton : Can you handle that in thirty seconds each, please?
Frank Wisner : General, would you like to go first?
V.R. Raghavan : Can’t say no to a good friend of India. I think the convergence is not on a collapsing state. Truly the strategic convergence should be, that a state like that of great significance in population terms and skill terms, should not be allowed to collapse, that’s the greatest strategic convergence. But, there has to be a quid pro quo, a give and take. What is happening now is being viewed, I think quite correctly from Indian policy, policy community, is that it’s being propped up without regard to it’s responsibilities, without regard to it’s need to abide by international norms of peace and stability. So there is convergence, but the divergence is, what are you propping it for, to continue to carry on the same route? Which is disastrous for everybody. Or should there be some linkage. Now that question presumes very special meaning in the changed system of governments that has come about in Pakistan and that’s a whole new chapter.
Frank Wisner : Let me assure you that to the best of my knowledge and from my not infrequent visits to Washington that the subject of Pakistan, her stability in the future, is very, very much on the mind of American policy-makers. From the simple level of maintaining the integrity and responsibility, responsible institutions of the Pakistani state precisely so that those institutions can then ensure a, set a working, functioning, modern government where human rights and other civil liberties are respected, where the economy is reasonably strong and where Pakistan lives at peace with their neighbors, notably with India. These remain matters of very deep concern to the United States.
I think it’s hard to say the term a collapse of Pakistan, I don’t think anyone’s thought quite through the thousands of permutations and combinations that surround that rather awesome expression. One can imagine many, many forms in which an increasingly weakened Pakistan can take. Without going so far as to deal with the nightmare scenario of total collapse which almost defies an ability to manage in policy terms, the third point I would make is that I think, I personally believe there are more sinews in the Pakistani system then it is being given credit for despite its weakened economy and its broken society and the level of violence and the breakdown of the democratic regime, albeit a modified one, given the fact that democracy in Pakistan has shared stage with the military intermittently during the course of Pakistan’s history.
I think that in the end, the United States and India have much more to think about together in the management of the problem of Pakistan than we do good by entering into sort of finger-pointing, be in in private or in public. We are not responsible for Pakistan in the sense that we can call the shots, we can have some influence, but it’s always going to be on the margin, it’s always going to be on the edges of much more fundamental dynamics that exist inside of Pakistani society. We must exercise that influence, India, too has a role to play in her posture in the way she looks at the problem, the way she encourages others to look, the framework that is set for South Asia. Both of us must be very cautious not to accept easy solutions for the problems we face are very, very deep fundamental questions of stability, fundamental questions of who’s going to be running Pakistan increasingly, the role of Islamic political extremists, so I think that when I imagine that conversation that will take place sometime early next year between Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Clinton that I hope very much the two of them will put aside the habit of the past of finding Pakistan a bone of contention between the United States and India and rather find it a dramatically important issue we have to think through together and learn to have a common perspective about and work in our own ways to try to address what is potentially a very real problem.
Marshall Bouton : Thank you. On that note, I’m afraid we have to close this panel and the morning. I want to thank on behalf of the Asia Society all of our speakers this morning. I want to thank again all those who have helped with their financial support helped us to organize this and other programs, the Star Foundation, Sreedhar Menon and Anand and Aabha Kumar for their generosity and I want to thank all of you for coming. Good afternoon.
Email this citation