The Trayvon Martin Case

It is impossible to get away from the Trayvon Martin case, even sitting in India.  Trayvon Martin, an African-American teenager, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a 'Neighborhood Watch' volunteer in Sanford, a small town in the US state of Florida.  It was apparently a rainy night and there was no single witness who saw the entire event clearly.  We have only Zimmerman's word and forensic evidence, and the latter is open to interpretation.  Zimmerman claims self-defense from an aggressive Martin.  Protests from African-American political leaders (even Obama sympathized with the Martin family, which gave the case added publicity) and others have made the case a supposed example of continuing racism in the US.  In all the hyperbole, it is easy to forget the essence of the case: two individuals, who were both scared of each other but equally apparently unnecessarily aggressive (and one had a gun) for different reasons, got into an unnecessary confrontation and one ended up shot and killed.

Ice cream sale and crime

Whenever I am lecturing on or discussing Waltz's chapter on 'Laws and Theories' (in Theory of International Politics) in an IR theory class or my part of the methodology course, I am fond of repeating an example a Professor of mine mentioned (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far way) of the correlation between ice cream and violent crime.  The punch line is of course that correlation is not causation and that correlation requires an explanation before pure correlations make any sense.  I didn't realize that this particular example was very popular, nor that it had any basis in any real study.  I used it assuming it was just a social science equivalent of an urban myth.  Apparently, the example is quite popular and even has some empirical support.  Nice story in Slate.  

The China-India Talks

Another round of China-India talks have taken place along with a meeting between the Indian and Chinese defence ministers.  Doesn't seem to have stopped the occasional eruptions at the border, though.  My take on the issue was published by the Economic Times yesterday.

Look At What Lies Beyond the McMahon: China and Russia Getting Cozier

The back-to-back talks between India and China appear to have satisfied both sides. Coming after the Depsang incident, the talks focused on border management mechanisms in the form of a Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA). Though the talks reportedly made good progress, the BDCA has not yet been signed. There are already existing mechanisms for management of issues relating to Indian and Chinese forces on the border, but these clearly failed in the case of the Depsang intrusion. A new agreement might help avoid future crises of this nature. 

More on India's response to Snowden

I should have included these in my last post.  More Indian reactions on External Affairs Minister Khurshid's characterization of what NSA has been doing as 'not snooping'.  Khurshid is wrong.  It obviously is snooping.  That is the NSA's job, just as it is the job of all intelligence agencies around the world to snoop on all important players, friends and enemies.  Intelligence agencies motto might be a slight modification of the Godfather's dictum to keep friends close but enemies closer:  keep both friends and enemies close.  If anyone needed any example of how unrealistic a lot of commentary is about this whole affair, two examples from The Hindu should suffice, in addition to their editorial.

More on the NSA's Snooping

India's Minister for External Affairs (EAM) Salman Khurshid has set off a small domestic storm with his comments that the US surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA), much in the news after Edward Snowden's exposure, is not really snooping.  It is difficult to make out what the Indian government is up to in this whole episode because, as usual, different ministers are speaking in different voices.  But the Indian government has refused Snowden's request for asylum.  Rightly so, because there is little reason why India should antagonize other powers when there is little that New Delhi stands to gain.  Not surprisingly, the communist parties are livid.  I had earlier written in the Economic Times about this whole ludicrous story and how all governments spy.  Now, here are a couple of nice (and humorous) essays from the Foreign Policy blog that make more or less the same point.  One, by Denis MacShane, is on European spying activities.  Another, by Gareth Harding, asks what is one of the most pertinent question in these stories: why, oh why, would anyone bother snooping on the EU offices?

India at the Conference on Disarmament

Meant to post this earlier but better late than never: Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai made a speech at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) which set out India's position on some of the key issues facing the CD and global multilateral arms control and disarmament agenda.  There were no major surprises here but still an important and authoritative statement of India's views.  The key bits that struck me had to do with the debate about the CD as a forum (India supports the current format) and on the FMCT (India does not want any change in the mandate for FMCT negotiations).  Below are some quotes from the the speech on these two issues.  You can read the full speech here.

On the CD forum:

The CD fulfils a unique function by bringing together all the militarily significant states. It is also a forum that brings together all states possessing nuclear weapons. (Para 1)

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!).

Perspectives on the Kerry Visit and US-India Ties

Secretary of State John Kerry's visit has led to a good number of assessments of the state of US-India ties.  Now that I have posted my views (rather, my essay in the Economic Times), its time to post some of the other perspectives.  Several analysts who are sympathetic to improved US-India ties acknowledge that the relationship is not where it should be.  C. Raja Mohan calls on the Prime Minister to do what he did in his first term, to rely on his own judgement, in order to improve the ties:

". . . sections of the Indian establishment have deliberately sought to create some political distance between Delhi and Washington and sell discredited ideas from the Cold War past as great strategic insights. Singh nearly bought the crazy proposition that a bird in the hand was worth a lot less than two in the bush. The belief in Delhi that going slow with America might convince China to offer India a boundary deal now stands discredited, thanks to the Chinese military intrusion into Ladakh during April-May.Singh must rely on common sense rather than the overly clever theories that have derailed India's diplomacy in the second tenure of the UPA."

India and the US Must Return to What is Truly 'Strategic' in their Ties

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in India for the US-India Strategic Dialogue.  US-India relationship is going through one of those periods of drift and lethargy.  My take on the relations was published in the Economic Times and reproduced below.  

India-US must revisit what is truly strategic in their ties

By Rajesh Rajagopalan

Whatever adjectives are being used to describe the state of India-US ties — as Secretary of State John Kerry comes visiting —it is clear that the relationship is not where it should be or where it was expected to be. New Delhi has to share a significant part of the blame because in the years after the India-US nuclear deal, it has seemed much more uncertain about what it wants from the relationship and much more sceptical about its benefits.

These opinions are now being echoed in Washington. As the US withdraws from Afghanistan next year and the national election campaign kicks off in India, the prospects for any immediate improvement are dimming. It is time both sides returned to what is truly strategic in their relationship.