New Book

I and Atul Mishra are proud to announce that our book Nuclear South Asia: Keywords and Concepts has now been published by Routledge.  This was several years in the works and at one point, I had even given up on completing it, until Atul came on board to rescue it.  The project started as a dictionary series, which I agreed to join with considerable reluctance and with good reason: a project like this requires great discipline and I wasn't sure I was up to it.  After some initial work, I realized that my original doubts were well founded: I would not be able to do this on my own and I was ready to junk it.  That was when Atul agreed to join the project and breathed fresh life into it.  This was a huge burden for Atul because he was still writing his PhD thesis and this was a subject way beyond his PhD thesis topic. Nevertheless he not only agreed to join but gave me sufficient hope that I could get back to working on it.  Once we were finished with our initial draft came the next obstacle: because most of the other authors contracted to write dictionaries on other topics in the same series failed to finish their manuscripts, the entire series was shelved by the publisher.  We understood the publisher's point of view -- you cannot have a series with just one manuscript, after all -- but this left us with a more or less complete manuscript and no publisher.  We had some interest from at least one other publisher, but they required significant additions and both I and Atul were too exhausted to consider it.  Eventually, after more than a year of sitting on the shelf, Routledge finally expressed an interest but because a couple of years had passed since we wrote the manuscript, it required significant updating.  After this long journey, I think it would be fair to say that both of us are at least as much relieved as excited that it is now out.

Handling Great Power Relations

The Asian security situation is slowly deteriorating, the consequence of both China's rise as well Washington's seeming fickleness that is sending its allies such as Japan looking for new allies in the region.  But its not just Japan that is feeling the effect of insecurity: Vietnam (where Indian President just completed a state visit) and Australia (whose Prime Minister Tony Abbot also was in Delhi recently) are also worried, as are others which have territorial disputes with China, such as the Philippines.  But China is taking efforts to prevent these Asian powers from coming together, primarily focusing on India and Australia.  That is smart and prudent strategy.  President Xi visit to India this week has to be seen in this light.

But from India's perspective, it has to be clear-eyed about how the game is played.  There is no reason to unnecessarily antagonize China by trying to create an Asian alliance against it, but neither should New Delhi let Beijing dictate how it plays the game.  In the long-term, India's strategic interests are not compatible with China.  Once this simple strategic truth is accepted, all else should fall into place. The reason why India's strategic interest are not compatible with China is because India, like other Asian and global powers, has no interest in seeing any one Asian power dominate the continent.  This becomes even more important if China's relative power continues to grow.  India, of course, has other serious disputes too with China, ranging for territorial issues to China's support for Pakistan. None of this means India should not talk to China or engage in trade or frequently exaggerate border incidents.  It does mean that India needs to both engage and balance.

President Xi's visit to India provided a good opportunity to write on some of these issues.  My essay was published in Economic Times, and reproduced below.


India needs to deftly deal with multiple strategic partners, and with China

Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US will cap a very busy three months for India's foreign policy. It has also been a heady period, with India being wooed by multiple strategic partners.

So, India faces a unique problem of plenty in strategic partners. This is a nice problem to have, but it's still a problem. While it is understandable that New Delhi might want to simply celebrate its newfound importance in the international arena, what it needs even more is clear and calculated longterm thinking to navigate this pitfall of opportunities.

Superb Essay on Obama, Bush and US National Security Decision-Making

President Obama's foolish foreign policy choices are finally coming home to roost.  The old saying about a stitch in time saving nine applies very well here: if Obama had provided better levels of support to more moderate Syrian rebels, the Islamic State terrorist might never have become the kind of threat it has in the region, which now requires much harder responses.  There is a lesson in here for Obama's larger foreign policy strategy of disengagement, which is that such disengagement can create conditions that are a lot more dangerous than engagement.  This is not to suggest that levels of engagement should not be carefully thought out, and disengagement might be appropriate under some circumstances, but that disengagement cannot be a doctrine -- especially for the world's most powerful state.

David Rothkopf, editor of the Foreign Policy group, has excellent essay on the decision-making styles of the Bush and Obama White House, which provides a very nuanced picture of the process in both White Houses and which, incidentally, is more objective in examining the Bush foreign policy especially in the second term.

The Strategic Consequences of Russi-Chini Bhai Bhai

The continuing tragedy of the MH-17 shoot-down shows no sign of abating.  But there are deeper strategic consequences too of pushing Russia too hard, forcing it into Beijing's hands.  The point has been made before: Dr. C. Raja Mohan had an essay in the Indian Express in the context of Prime Minister Modi at the BRICS summit.  In a slightly different context in the National Interest, Dimitry K. Simes made a similar point but castigating President Obama's policies.

I wrote in the Economic Times that this might have direct consequences for India.  The essay is reproduced in full below

Sino-Russian Bonhomie Brewing; India Should Be Wary

The tragic shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine is likely to lead to further American pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The increasing US-Russia antagonism will have consequences and they will undoubtedly impact India.

There is enough blame to go around for the slow escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Putin's attempt to control Russia's so-called "near abroad" and prevent the expansion of Western influence towards the Russian border has been one element. This is an objective that Russia has pushed with little finesse. The reckless support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine, including the supply of heavy arms and equipment and Russian military forces, was no doubt the immediate cause of the tragic shooting down of the Malaysian airliner (even if it was unintended).

The Absurd UNHRC Resolution on Israel -- And the Equally Absurd Indian Position

The UNHRC, that great defender of global human rights, has once again criticized Israel for the on-going war in Gaza, despite the fact that Israel has repeatedly accepted various ceasefires, while Hamas refuses to, even today.  But considering the general record of the UNHRC on Israel-related issues, this does not comes as much of a surprise.  And supporting the condemnation of Israel were some of the great defenders of human rights such as China, Cuba, Russia and Pakistan.  What was surprising, however, was the Indian position on the issue.  Though it was highly unlikely that India would have supported Israel directly by voting against the resolution -- such moral courage had long disappeared from our 'moral' foreign policy -- the hope was that there would be some adult supervision at the MEA under a Modi government and our diplomacy would not simply be about regurgitating our 1970s third worldist nonsense.  But the Indian statement does not even mention Hamas or the rockets raining down on Israel, hiding behind euphemisms such as 'non-state actors' who are supposedly 'creating obstacles to the peace process'.  Really?? Hamas rockets are just 'obstacles to the peace process'?  What was the 26/11 Mumbai attack? A traffic jam?? Even Navy Pillay -- no great supporter of Israel -- mentioned the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel in her statement.  India's spineless stand at Geneva has already come in for justified criticism.  The argument that the Modi government has not had sufficient time to revise policies is beginning to look increasingly thin.

The US-led Israel-Palestine Peace Process (2013-14) -- How (and Why) It Failed

Apropos my recent essay (previous post) on the war in Gaza, I had argued that Israel should do more to push the peace process with Palestinians, though I also argue that Israel is blamed disproportionately for the failure to reach a final peace agreement.  Now, in New Republic, Ben Birnbaum and Amir Tibon have written an excellent and fairly detailed account of last year's peace process in which US Secretary of State John Kerry tried hard to get the Israeli's and Palestinians to hash out a settlement.  They failed but once again there was plenty of blame to go around and I am sure partisans on all sides will argue for long about who was more to blame.  But they did seem to have come close and that makes the current situation even more tragic.  But this essay is essential reading for those who take simplistic positions on the crisis.

India, Israel and the newest Gaza War

The latest conflagration in Gaza has been accompanied by the predictable one-sided analyses of what is a very complicated problem.  Israel clearly has to do more to push the peace process but the reason why the process has not so far achieved a solution cannot all be laid at Israel's door either.  In this latest escalation in particular, Israel has been far, far more sinned against by any stretch of the imagination.  But those blaming Israel, including an essay in the Hindu by Vijay Prashad, are not above twisting the facts to make their case.  Prashad defends the terrorists of Hamas, writing that "[I]ts rockets fired after Israel began its aerial bombing of Gaza", a blatant distortion that even cursory research will disprove.

My essay on the crisis was posted on the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) website a few hours back. Posted below in full.  

India, Israel and the Gaza War

As the fighting in Gaza threatens to escalate further, the Indian government has taken the prudent and correct approach by refusing to be stampeded into foolish parliamentary resolutions that will do nothing to either help in resolving the crisis nor in advancing India's interests.

The Ministry of External Affairs had already stated that India was concerned about the situation, pointing to both the civilian casualties in Gaza and also the rocket attacks on Israel. Politicians might want to grandstand in the parliament for the benefit of domestic audiences by blaming Israel entirely for the current crisis. But
that would neither help Indian interests nor be accurate.

India and BRICS: Looking for Love . . . .

As Prime Minister Modi departs for the BRICS summit, I could not help recalling this old Johnny Lee country western song when thinking of Indian policy on BRICS . . .

But jokes aside, I was impressed that the Prime Minister's departure statement notably ignores some of the nonsense that usually finds its way into Indian foreign policy statements such as the mantra-like call for multipolarity.  The statement focused largely on economic issues, largely unobjectionable.
Now we need to see if PM Modi will push that pragmatism in the course of the actual discussions at BRICS, especially with Russia and China.  Both Moscow and Beijing have their own axe to grind with the US.  There is little reason why India should become part of their agenda.

Chris Ogden on Hindu nationalism and Indian security policy

The Book Review has just published my review of Chris Ogden's recent book on Hindu nationalism an Indian security policy.  The subject is under-researched though I know of at least two PhD's theses underway (including one of my students) on related issues and at least one other book also on a related topic in the works by a colleague in an Australian university.  Though I am somewhat critical of the manner in Ogden has used some of the concepts in his study, I do think that there needs to be more work on the substantive aspects of Indian foreign policy, both the making of it and in terms of explaining it.