China Containment Strategy against India

This was published in Economic Times on June 12, 2016.

As India's Power Grows, China's Containment Strategy Will Get Frenetic

China's decision in Vienna to object to India entering the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) should not come as too much of a surprise. China has been uncharacteristically open about opposing India's membership. This also makes it unlikely that it will change its view in the next 10 days, before the NSG meets in plenary in Seoul on June 24.

China's action has little to do with NSG, but is simply the latest indication of China's containment strategy against India. Understanding this reality is the first step to finding an appropriate strategy to managing India's relations with China.    

The NSG membership is important for India but not so much for any material gain. Its importance is mostly that it strengthens the legitimacy of India's nuclear programme and permits India to have some say in making the rules of the global nuclear order, all without joining the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Since the NSG, under American pressure, had in 2008 already permitted India to engage in nuclear commerce with other countries, what China's veto does mostly is hurt India's pride but not much more.

Considering Trump and New Delhi

C. Raja Mohan wrote a typical thoughtful and thought-provoking essay yesterday in the Indian Express on why New Delhi should take Donald Trump seriously, despite his contradictions.  Now that Trump looks like the presumptive Republican nominee after his impressive win in the Indiana primary, Raja Mohan's points are even more critical.  He is a typical populist politician, one whose support is based on ideas or ideology or even simple consistency but on just the strength of his personality. Raja Mohan is right to point to Trump's larger worldview rather than the specific policy points regarding India.  As he put it: "The significance of Trump for Delhi’s diplomacy may not necessarily lie in the few stray comments he has made about India. Nor do his occasional remarks on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons suggest a definitive shift. Although Trump’s overall attitude towards India has been positive, it’s his larger worldview that will have a great bearing on India’s strategic choices."

I think this is a point that not just New Delhi needs to keep in mind but most of US allies -- and US adversaries.  Even if Trump does not win the Presidency -- this is by no means certain, as some Democrats like the political commentator Van Jones is trying desperately to tell their party -- he is quite likely to move the entire conversation to the Left on critical issues such as (as Raja Mohan pointed out, correctly) on trade, but also on US commitment to its allies because, as Trump has pointed out, US allies don't pay their fair share of the burden of the common defense.  This is an old issue within US alliances, but what Trump forgets is that old Spiderman quote: with great power comes great responsibility. Or may be it is greater responsibility.  Still, Trump's focus is likely shift domestic argument, and Hillary Clinton -- assuming she is the Democratic nominee -- is also likely to agree that burden-sharing needs to be revisited.  This should be serious worry for all US allies -- and for countries like India which, though not a formal US ally, depends on the US to help balance China in Asia.  Much of the discussion of unipolarity and the post cold war international system has focused on calculations of material power to assess polarity.  But they have rarely considered the willingness of the US to carry the burden of managing and maintaining global order.  And Defensive Realists, who have repeatedly called for the US to reduce its global footprint with an off-shore balancing strategy, do not consider the consequences of such a posture for regional stability and its consequent impact on global order.  If Trump wins in November, and if he carries through with his promise, India and other Asian powers will find that the biggest problem will be to convince the US that it has to play a role as a balancer in Asia.  This raises unpalatable choices for India and other Asian states -- either acquiesce in a China-dominated Asia or expend a lot more effort in trying to balance China.  It might become difficult to find a hedge to perch on then. 

US and India: Moving Towards A Transactional Relationship

A brief essay, published in Economic Times (Januaty 26, 2015) on the Obama visit to India and US-India strategic ties, which I am posting rather late.  My original title is the post title, but the ET title is given below.

Obama in India: Both Countries Should Focus on Areas of Mutual Interest

Barack Obama is the first US president to visit India twice and the first to be chief guest at the Republic Day parade. Thus, the hyperbole that normally accompanies such state visits being a notch higher this time, as was evident in PM Narendra Modi’s and Obama’s joint media address on Sunday.

Being democracies, both India and the US would prefer to base their foreign policies on something larger and nobler than narrow self-interest. And Modi’s developmental agenda means that American investment and smart cities may garner a lot of attention. But without strategic understanding, economic ties themselves will suffer.

The Year Ends But the Chaos May Just be Beginning

As a long year ends, there is greater uncertainty than ever about the direction of world politics.  My end-of-the-year analysis was published on the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) website on the last day of the year, and reproduced below in full.

The Year Ends But the Chaos May Just be Beginning

This year by far has been the most chaotic year in international politics, since the end of the Cold War. The depredations of the so called Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East threaten to upturn borders that have been settled for close to a century. Europe is in the throes of an unexpected tussle with Moscow, with former Soviet President Gorbachev characterising the state of relationship between Russia and the West as being on the brink of a new Cold War. In the South and East China seas, China's aggressiveness, too clear now to be ignored, is leading to a reluctant quasi-alliance with some strange bedfellows. And as the year winds to a close, the weird North Korean regime is back on the front pages, demonstrating that generational change in no solution for preposterousness.

Though a certain amount of turmoil was always present in international affairs, the general sense of a gathering disorder and uncertainty in international affairs today is much deeper.  One indicator is that this in itself has become an issue of debate. Concerns about an emerging global disorder, such as predicted by Gorbachev, have been disputed by Steven Pinker and Andrew Mack, who argued recently that statistically speaking, violence is coming down and "the world is not falling apart". They argue that homicide rates have fallen, crime against women and children are decreasing, a majority of the world's countries are now democracies, and that genocide and mass civilian killings are trending down.

Mehta's essay on Pakistan: A brief critique

I generally enjoy reading Pratap Bhanu Mehta's essays, specially his always trenchant analysis of Indian politics.  His essay last week is a fine exemplar, outlining the deeper institutional difficulties that face Prime Minister Modi, which Modi unfortunately does not seem to be paying much attention to.  Mehta's position is always that of a true Liberal, and he appears not to take a position first and let the analysis follow, but decide on his position based on his analysis.  Such analytical commitment and honesty is rare anywhere but especially in India.

But Liberalism has serious flaws when it comes to understanding international politics. I had earlier posted a brief comment on another essay of his where I disagreed with his view of Indian policy on Pakistan, which he characterized as Realism.  His latest essay gives me another chance to provide a brief Realist critique of the Liberal view of India-Pakistan relations.

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.

World War-1 and Asian Stability

In late June, SWP (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation jointly organized their annual conference on Asian security, the Berlin Conference on Asian Security.  The theme this time was if the conditions that led to the First World War a hundred years ago are being replicated in Asia today.  The discussions were under the Chatham House rule, but Amitav Acharya, who was also present, wrote an essay in Economic Times on the same issue.  I wrote an essay in Economic Times too which appeared a couple of days after Amitav's piece.  We obviously disagree.  My essay is reproduced below.

There has, of course been a debate a long debate, ever since the early 1990s, whether Asian multipolarity was going to lead to conflict.  Aaron Friedberg fired the first shot arguing that Asia does not even have some of the advantages that Europe had to ameliorate potential conflicts and that it was therefore 'ripe for rivalry'.  Other including David Kang and Amitav Acharya disagreed, suggesting different reasons why Asia was unlikely to replicate European patterns.  While much of the evidence appeared to support the anti-Realist case so far, I would think that the developments over the past few years definitely support the Realist case for pessimism about the prospects for stability in the region.

Is Asia Heading Towards World War-like Conditions?

On June 28, 1914, the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian empire Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, starting a chain of events that directly led to the First World War a month later. The war had dramatic consequences, killing almost ten million, destroying several great powers, remaking the  global map, heralding the general decline of Europe and leading eventually to the rise of the US and the Soviet Union.

International Politics and Security After Nuclear Disarmament

The Geneva Centre for Security Policy convened a conference last year looking at 'Security in A World Without Nuclear Weapons'.  One meeting was held in Glion, Switzerland last summer and the report is now out.  I contributed a chapter on "Power Balances and the Prospects for a Stable Post-Nuclear Weapons World."  I suggested that a post-nuclear weapons world will not be very different for most states because they were not really affected one way or another by nuclear weapons, except indirectly if a nuclear war took place which would affect everybody.  But nuclear disarmament would create issues for countries that were defended either directly or indirectly (i.e., with extended deterrence) with nuclear weapons.  In some cases, especially for states such as Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, all of which perceive significant conventional threats and for whom nuclear weapons represent the great equalizer, nuclear abolition would create serious problems.  I predict that they would be the ones most resistant to nuclear disarmament, should that become a serious possibility.  GCSP organized a public discussion in Geneva to launch the report in which I participated.

The Limitations of an India-Japan Partnership

India invited Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to be the Chief Guest at India's Republic Day celebrations, signalling a new closeness in their ties.  Most of the commentary in India and around the world noted the strategic significance of the invitation, and the Indian commentariat was uniformly positive.  I am somewhat skeptical but not because I don't see the strategic value in the relationship, especially in balancing China.  It has to do more with my sense that both governments -- like democracies in general -- tend to look for short-term buck-passing solutions rather than real balancing, which requires a certain clarity, consistency and commitment.  A short essay that I wrote on this was posted a couple of days back on the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) website, and is reproduced in full below.   

The Limitations of India-Japan Partnership

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's short visit was high on symbolism but both countries need to carefully assess the utility as well as the limits of their partnership. While trade between the two countries have grown dramatically, the primary driver in the relationship has been strategic necessity, their shared concern about an increasingly strong but aggressive China. 

The 'Manmohan Singh Doctrine'

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a speech recently to the annual conclave of Indian Ambassadors in New Delhi.  It was notable because it set out the principles of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's foreign policy doctrine.  His speech was commented on by Sanjaya Baru in Indian Express but outside of that, it seems to have passed without notice.  That's a shame because there are important pointers to the underlying assumptions of India's foreign policy in the speech.  And I would suggest that these are assumptions shared broadly in New Delhi, which makes it all the more important.  My critique of these basic principles was published by Economic Times last Monday (November 11).  I am posting it below.

The snag in the Manmohan Singh’s Panchsheel Doctrine

One of the central problems with the Indian foreign policy has been its refusal to understand the role of power in international politics. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's speech at the meeting of Indian ambassadors about the five principles of India's foreign policy shows that this unfortunate tendency continues.The PM correctly pointed out that the "single most important objective of Indian foreign policy has to be to create a global environment conducive to the well-being of our great country". The problem, of course, is how we go about creating it. The prescription from the prime minister was economic integration at the global and the regional level.  

Atul Mishra's comments on Pakistan and Syria

Atul Mishra, who teaches at Central University of Gujarat, (blogs here) responded by email to a couple of my essays in Economic Times which I had posted here.  [Full disclosure: We are academic collaborators and currently have a jointly-authored book manuscript under review].  With his permission, I am posting both his comments/questions and my responses.

Atul:

About Pakistan. Don't our guys do the same thing across the LoC? They must be fools to not do it. And if they do, does it really matter whether our deterrence works or not? After all, we get our revenge. We can be seen to be doing more, having a strategy, but largely for domestic eyes; no? What is the point of going into PoK if not to recover it and cause Pakistan deep damage (read, break up)? 

More on 'Soft Alliances'

In my latest essay in EconomicTimes (see also my previous post), I argued that the US and India need to develop a ‘soft alliance’ in order to have a steady relationship that is not bogged down every time there is an election campaign in either country or whenever political attention flags and the bureaucrats take over.  Since I could not define the concept in an opinion piece, I am outlining my view of the concept here.  By ‘soft alliance’, I mean a partnership short of a formal military alliance but one of long-term strategic empathy in which the partners act to support each other other militarily, diplomatically and politically, both in direct confrontations with other states as well as in other circumstances. 

There are a number of examples of such soft alliances.  Because most people in Delhi would be most familiar with it, I cited the Indo-Soviet/Russian partnership as an example.  Going back to the early 1960s, and continuing in a thinner form even today, Moscow and New Delhi have supported each other almost instinctively.  And they supported each other even when they disagreed with each other, keeping their disagreements to their private dialogue rather than outlining it in public.  For example, the Soviet Union was embarrassed about having to repeatedly cast vetoes on behalf of India during the 1971 India-Pakistan war because much of the rest of the world wanted a ceasefire, but they did it.  Similarly, the Soviets were strong supporters of nuclear non-proliferation but they muted their criticism (at least in public) when it came to India’s refusal to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  India returned the favour, repeatedly supporting Moscow on issues such as its invasion of Afghanistan even while New Delhi expressed its displeasure privately.  We did have a ‘Friendship Treaty’, of course, but most of the support they gave each other was almost instinctive rather than contractual, which is what I mean by strategic empathy.  And this relationship remains one of India’s most valuable even today, though Russia’s dalliance with Beijing (being driven by foolish American policies – but more on this later) might unfortunately end this in the coming decade. 

My essay on an India-US soft alliance

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is on a visit to India, and the state of U.S. India relations is again being debated.  C. Raja Mohan has a typically insightful essay in Indian Express which he outlines five guidelines to make the relationship robust and enduring.  Ashley Tellis argues that it is not such a bad thing if the relationship has reached a plateau if it means stability and predictability.  Kanwal Sibal, India's former foreign secretary, wrote last week in the Hindu that despite some convergences, there are still "significant divergences emanating from huge disparity in power, different priorities, conflicting regional interests and differing views on structures of global governance."

My own take was published in the Economic Times today.  I argue that India and the US should aim to create a relationship similar to what India and Soviet Union had during the cold war, which I characterize as a 'soft alliance'.  I will shortly post another essay on what I mean by the concept, which, for obvious reason could not be included in the ET essay.  Below I have posted my essay as it appeared today.  

Why India-US should look at developing a soft alliance

Rajesh Rajagopalan

If high-level visits were a positive indicator of the state of bilateral ties, India-US relations would be in fine shape.

American Vice-President Joe Biden arrives in India on Monday and it comes barely a month after Secretary of State John Kerry came for the India-US Strategic Dialogue. Last week Finance Minister P Chidambaram was in Washington, and in September Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will travel there. Moreover, both sides have set an ambitious agenda for themselves, including untangling the nuclear commercial issues by the time the prime minister goes to Washington.

Democracy on the Net?

Hardeep S. Puri, India's former Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, has an interesting essay in the Indian Express today on the need to democratize the internet.  He argues that the "US is clearly determined to continue its relentless pursuit of the current model of global internet governance, for preserving its economic and strategic interests. It is unlikely that there will be any change in its policy even after the Snowden disclosures."  

Much of the backbone of the current global internet system is based in the US and this does give the US some control, though many other states have shown that they have the ability to tightly monitor and control the net within their own territories.  Even India has shown, on occasion, that it can control internet majors.  But Puri's argument is about giving all states some control over the governance of the Net.  He writes:

"We need a dedicated group of people — within the establishment, industry, technical and scientific community, academia, civil society and media — who can reflect upon and define India's long-term interests in advancing the cause of democratising global internet governance and free ourselves from the current model where the space for discussion is arrogated by apologists for the current model of unilateral control.

The UN has launched a process for observing the 10th anniversary of WSIS in 2015. This provides an opportunity for India to work with other leading democratic countries like Brazil and South Africa within the IBSA platform and with other like-minded countries in the UN for democratising global internet governance to make it truly "multilateral, transparent and democratic", as envisioned in the Tunis Agenda."

The problem with this is not sentiment about democratizing the Net, but the lack of realism about how international politics works.  India has for long championed such efforts at democratizing global governance: remember the New International Economic Order (NIEO) or the New International Information Order (NIIO)?  There is little to show for such efforts because global politics are determined by power, not by justice or democracy.  Indian foreign policy mandarins only occasionally recognize this, and they mostly do not even understand the contradictions here.  For example, India has been campaigning assiduously for a permanent seat in UN Security Council.  (Indeed, Puri --who was then PR at the UN -- was quoted by Headlines Today (part of the India Today news group) in 2011 as saying that he expected India to be a Permanent Member of the UNSC by December 2012, latest.  Obviously, a Realist he's not).  The only basis for Indian claim is that it is a rising great power and that the UNSC should recognize the changed realities from when the UNSC was formed in 1945.  No talk about democratizing global governance here!  The point is that the US controls the internet because it is the prevailing global power.  May be someday this will change, and then so will control over the internet.  Until then, no amount of money-wasting UN conferencing will change who controls the internet.  Unfortunately, Indian foreign policy-makers continue to believe that they can talk their way to getting what they want.  Krishna Menon, after all, still holds the record for the longest speech ever at the UN (not that that worked either!).

Remembering Kenneth Waltz . . .

More tributes to Kenneth Waltz (here, here, here and here).  This latest set is from Foreign Policy and includes a number of his former students, all of whom are distinguished academics themselves.  

Updated:
And a couple more, one by Robert Murray in e-IR and another by Robert Powell in the Indian Express.

Kenneth Waltz

As published on the IDSA website:

Kenneth Waltz R.I.P. (1924-2013)

Rajesh Rajagopalan

May 15, 2013

Kenneth Waltz, probably the most influential international relations theorist since the late 1950s, died on May 13, 2013. I did not know Waltz personally and I only saw him once, when he was given an award for his achievements at the International Studies Annual Convention in 2010 at New Orleans. As the tributes to his life and contributions pour in, I wanted to set down a few thoughts about how much his work has influenced the field as well as my own intellectual development and ideas.

What I find most fascinating is how little Waltz has written when compared to the enormous impact he has had on the field. He has only three full-length books, spread over three decades and the last of these, Theory of International Politics, was written almost thirty-five years ago. Two of these books became classics and are still widely read, including Man, the State and War, the book that grew out of his PhD thesis.

Sixth India Trilateral Forum, Stockholm

Jyoti Malhotra, Abraham Denmark, Dan Twining, me and Francois Godement at the 6th India Trilateral Forum, Stockholm

I attended the 6^th India Trilateral Forum in Stockholm recently (April 12-13, 2013).  The India Trilateral Forum’s are organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, with support from the Swedish, US and Indian governments.  I had attended the previous two meetings too and it is the only meeting that brings together such a diverse group: scholars, practitioners and some business people.  Since most of the academic meetings I attend include only the first category (and a sprinkling of retired members of the second group), this was an interesting change.  In previous meetings, I found business leaders more optimistic and somewhat less cynical than academics, and it was no different this time. 

Not exactly IR, more RM . . .

Another interesting essay I just read, by way of The Browser . . . 

I usually say something about the whole 'dark matter' controversy in my Research Methodology (RM) class.  I am no theoretical or astrophysicist, and any of you who know more on this (or not!!) are welcome to correct me or comment.  (Here's the Wikipedia link on dark matter).  But in simple terms, there is way more gravitational pull in space than is accounted for by the amount of matter available.  Since no one knows where the excess gravity is coming from, they simply call it 'dark matter' (. . . and they sneer at social 'science'!).  The problem is that no instrument has so far detected it.  But scientists who question the theory are cast out into the netherworld.  As Fry points out, "Astrophysicists who try to trifle with the fundamentals of dark matter tend to find themselves cut off from the mainstream."  Remember Kuhn's 'normal science'?  As Fry suggests, no one wants to say there is something wrong with the theory, because it will be too "drastic".  "Physicists could take non-detection as a hint to give up, but there is always the teasing possibility that we just need a better experiment."  I wonder how they would do in the social sciences!! 

Here's the link:

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/nature-and-cosmos/alexander-b-fry-dark-matter/

Hope you enjoy it.

Updated on May 2, 2013:

After I emailed some of my graduate students this essay, I had an exchange with one of them, Kasturi Moitra.  I am pasting the relevant part of our email discussion (with her permission) because it carries the discussion forward.

On Reinhold Niebuhr

Will Inboden has a nice blog entry over at Shadow Government on Reinhold Niebuhr, the American Realist, a summary of the points he made at the recent International Studies Association convention.  I have not read enough of Neibuhr to make a critique of Inboden's points but I was curious about his final point about Neibuhr's opposition to pragmatism.  I had always identified Realism with pragmatism and as a key Realist, I would have assumed that this was a value that Neibuhr supported.  The essential point is that I need to read more Niebuhr to fully understand the relationship.

I would also particularly recommend one of the links in Inboden's essay to an essay by Paul Elie in the Atlantic a few years back on the Niebuhr.

Review of Gilboy and Heginbotham's book on Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior

My book review of George J. Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham's Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior: Growing Power and Alarm has just been published by Contemporary Security Policy.  I liked the methodology and rigor of their research but it was let down by what I felt was their preconception about how China is blamed for behaviour that India gets away with, such as in military spending.  I felt that while they were not wrong about the similarity in Indian and Chinese strategic behaviour, the difference in the US attitudes towards the two is easily understandable because China is a much more powerful state and more likely to have adversarial relations with the US.