A pedestrian carrying an umbrella walks through a Memorial Day display of United States flags on the Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts May 23, 2013. According to the Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund, the flags are planted on the Common for fallen Massachusetts service members at the Memorial Day holiday, which will be celebrated May 27 in the U.S.
REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Russian Spy Games
By Edward Lucas
Foreign Affairs

The Cold War may have officially ended and the rest may be the new policy, but Russia and the U.S. are still adversaries, says Lucas. While Ryan Fogle’s, the 29-year-old third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, gamble may seem absurd, the extraordinary thing about the case is actually that the Russians made it such a public scandle, which are by convention not published. But with Putin’s regime facing a recession and a decline in popularity, renewing anti-Westernism with a spy scandle should come as no surprise.

Tocqueville in China
By Rebecca Liao
Dissent

Tocqueville’s been imported to China, and after a plug by China’s anti-corruption czar, has become one of the best-selling titles in the last few months. Liao examines China’s fascination with Tocqueville and the relevance of the text to the modern Chinese government.

A Day in the DRC
By Armin Rosen
The Atlantic

Goma, a city of roughly one million inhabitants in the province of North Kivu, DRC, is a city “built by conflict” but not defined by it. A thoughtful piece on a trip through this city in the “conflict-prone” province of North Kivu.

An ‘Epic’ Mess in Iran
By Abbas Milani
The New Republic

With a list of vetted candidates due to be announced on Tuesday, Khamenei’s so-called “epic election” seems like it might be on the rocks. Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who announced his candidacy at the last minute and who has been shunned by the mouthpieces of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, has put Khamenei in a lose-lose situation: Throw him out and lose the “epic election” or allow him to run, thereby failing in his eight-year mission to discredit him.

Pulp Liberation Army
By Isaac Stone Fish and Helen Gao
Foreign Policy

Military fantasy novels are far from new — as Fish and Gao note, Tom Clancy can imagine a situation where the U.S. attacks Beijing all he wants. In China, however, facing strict censorship and unforgiving review boards, these fantasies of foreign wars and invasion are not permitted to be published, forcing authors online. In the process, these novels have become vehicles of self-reflection, exploring Chinese identity through imagined conflicts.

Blogs:

A Candid Discussion with Eric Trager by Reza Akhlaghi
Somalia and the Slippery Slope of ‘Jubbaland’ by Abukar Arman
India, Pakistan and China: The importance of regional powers in a post-U.S. Afghanistan by Tyler Hooper
Beyond the Amended Arab Peace Initiative by Justin Scott Finkelstein
Analysis: The Arctic Council’s Kiruna Vision by Mia Bennett

SOURCE: AP/Saurabh Das

By Tyler Hooper

With U.S., NATO and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel set to withdraw the bulk of their military personnel from Afghanistan in 2014, regional powers such as China, India and Pakistan will have the opportunity to play an influential role in the country’s future. Both India and Pakistan have historically been involved in Afghan affairs, and lately China has begun to show interest in expanding its Central Asian influence. With an Afghan election set for April of 2014, in which President Hamid Karzai will have to cede power, U.S. policymakers hope that the next Afghan leader will continue to combat Islamic extremism and the Taliban. Although the U.S. has plans to keep some of its military bases in the country, U.S. foreign policy interests are bound to shift away from Afghanistan towards other regions, such as Africa and the South China Sea. Ultimately, as western powers scale down their military forces, regional powers will be forced to play a greater role in Afghanistan’s future, and in terms of U.S. interests, India’s actions will be of vital importance.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and subsequent withdrawal ten years later, a civil war between the Taliban, Northern Alliance and local warlords broke out across Afghanistan. The civil war and Taliban presence, supported by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), during the 1990s made Afghanistan a regional threat to India, which caused Indian leaders to support the Northern Alliance, the Taliban’s chief rival. Since 9/11 and the U.S.-led invasion, India has played an important role providing aid to Afghanistan and its people and has continued to support international efforts to eliminate the Taliban. As a result, the U.S. has recognized India’s economic and strategic importance to the country, and lately U.S. policymakers have publicly praised India for its role in Afghanistan.

Recently, Robert Blake, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, stated during a Congressional hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that “any discussion of South Asia has to start with India.” Blake also highlighted the economic impact India has had on the Afghan economy: “We appreciate very much the significant role that India is playing in Afghanistan. In fact, we see India as kind of the economic linchpin for the future.” Blake was correct in calling India an “economic linchpin” as India is the largest regional contributor of aid to Afghanistan, having provided approximately $800 million in aid so far. The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has pledged to provide more than a billion dollars of foreign aid and has also put a sizable amount of cash into foreign investments, primarily in ore deposits like the one in Hajigak.

Unlike ISAF and the U.S., India has taken a “soft-power” approach when it comes to dealing with Afghanistan: instead of strictly providing military assets, India has invested in relief aid for the country, which goes towards building proper infrastructure, agricultural development and improving security. Because of this, relations between India and Afghanistan have been relatively good; Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who studied in India and speaks Hindi, has a good relationship with Prime Minister Singh, and the Afghan people have been known to get along with Indian workers and even embrace aspects of India’s culture. However, some U.S. officials worry that India’s hostilities with Pakistan are the primary motivator for India’s interest in Afghanistan.

In 2011, Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s newly appointed U.S. Defense Secretary, commented that India was using Afghanistan as a “second-front” in its feud with Pakistan. Although India publicly refutes these claims, there appears to be some truth behind Hagel’s comments. Both Indian and Pakistani officials have blamed each other for attacks in and outside of Afghanistan. Pakistan claims that India has funded rebel groups who target the ISI and the Pakistani military. Similarly, Indian officials accuse the ISI of being involved in the planning of the 2008 and 2009 attacks against the Indian embassy in Kabul in which India accused the Pakistan based al-Qaeda Haqqani network for planning the attacks, something Islamabad and Pakistani officials strongly deny. Relations became especially tense after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, in which the Pakistani based jihadist group Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT) — allegedly funded by the ISI – killed more than a 160 people and wounded almost 300.

But Pakistan and India are not the only regional powers to show interest in Afghanistan. China, who has invested in Afghan mineral and oil deposits, has expressed concern over the security with its Afghan border. The two countries share a very small border between Tajikistan and the Jammu and Kashmir region and recently China has become increasingly worried about the increase of Islamic extremist activity in its Xianjing province. Consequently, newly elected President Xi Jinping has taken interest in what a post 2014 Afghanistan will look like, and has even planned to meet with an Indian delegation to discuss the Taliban and the threat of Islamic extremism to the border regions.  However, a recent land grab by the Chinese military, which saw Chinese forces penetrate and build a camp more than 700 kilometers into India’s territory, has threatened to create a rift between the two countries, a rift that could bring more instability to the region and stall any discussions on Afghanistan.

Some speculate that China may have other reasons for being interested in Afghanistan. For instance, some argue that China may wish to use Afghanistan to expand its Central Asian pipeline, which already runs through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Dr. Alexandros Peterson recently wrote a very interesting article in Foreign Policy magazine in which he asked, “Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have grown wealthy and centralized partly due to Chinese energy investment. Could the same be true for Afghanistan in the future?” A pipeline built through Afghanistan would greatly expand Chinese influence in South and Central Asia. In addition, such a large project could be extremely helpful to the Afghan people, creating potential jobs and bringing foreign business and investment to the country. However, a pipeline is highly unlikely until Afghanistan becomes less of a security risk for foreign investors, and given Afghanistan’s current state, the outcome doesn’t look promising.

Afghanistan’s fate rests largely on what kind of role regional powers will play after the U.S. and other foreign troops withdraw the bulk of their forces in 2014. Currently, interest in Afghanistan remains high; both India and China have foreign investments in the country (China’s largest investment is a copper mine in Mes Aynak) and both would like to capitalize on the plethora of untapped natural resources. Moreover, Pakistan also has a heightened interest in the future of Afghanistan and recently Pakistani and Afghan forces have skirmished among the Afghan-Pakistani borders, creating tension between the two countries. Given the ISI’s history of involvement with the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups, Pakistan will not let its influence in the country wane easily. As previously mentioned, 2014 will present more opportunities for regional powers to play a substantial role in Afghanistan’s future. In terms of U.S. interests, India’s involvement in both foreign aid and security aspects will be of vital importance. As western attention begins to turn elsewhere, particularly to Africa and Asia, other countries will need to pick where the U.S. left off.

Tyler Hooper is a freelance writer and journalist from Ottawa, Ontario. He has a Master’s degree in history from the University of Waterloo, in which his studies primarily evolved around Western and South Asian diplomatic relations during the Cold War. Tyler writes on a variety of subjects including politics and technology, but his passion lies in U.S. foreign policy, particularly U.S. policy in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He has a blog and website at http://tyhooperw.wordpress.com/ where you can check out the rest of his work. You can also follow him on Twitter @thooper8.

Closing the meeting in Kiruna. Photo: U.S. Government Work.

Asia in, EU not yet

China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Italy have all been admitted as permanent observer states to the Arctic Council, while the EU will have to wait. Though technically admitted, it still must work out its differences with Canada. Countries are admitted as permanent observer states by consensus between the eight member states and six permanent participants. A consensus was not yet completely reached on the EU’s application because of Canada’s objection to the organization’s ban on the import of seal furs, which has disproportionately harmed indigenous livelihoods in northern Canada. The Arctic Council’s Kiruna Declaration (PDF) welcome the new permanent observer states under the section, “Strengthening the Arctic Council.”

In a joint statement issued by HR/VP Catherine Ashton and EU Commissioner Maria Damanaki, the representatives stated, “The EU welcomes the Arctic Council’s decision on the EU’s application for permanent observership. The EU considers the Arctic Council a primary international forum for Arctic cooperation and looks forward to stepping up its engagement with the Arctic partners in tackling the challenges faced by this region of increasing importance. Further to previous exchanges with the Canadian authorities the EU will now work expeditiously with them to address the outstanding issue of their concern.”

Greenland’s boycott

The controversy demonstrates that indigenous affairs can and do have a real impact on international relations. The new chairperson of the Arctic Council, Leona Agglukaq, is of indigenous heritage herself — a first for someone in this position. Yet a major indigenous voice was missing from the ministerial meeting in Kiruna: that of Greenland, which boycotted the summit.

Nunatsiaq News stated that Denmark used to have three chairs at meetings until Sweden took over the chairmanship. Now, Greenland and the Faroe Islands are forced to sit behind, which newly elected Greenlandic Premier Aleqa Hammond finds unfair.

In a May 14 interview in Danish with the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq, Hammond expressed: “We believe it is of great importance for the population of Greenland and Greenlandic society that we are directly involved in the negotiations on conditions in Greenland. The work of the Arctic Council is very important to us, and we will not settle for being on the sidelines.”

Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal noted, “We hope that there will soon be basis for Greenland to fully resume its place in the Arctic Council’s work and we will be working actively to achieve that.” Denmark was successful in its request for two chairs in Kiruna. The second went to the Faroe Islands as Greenland sat out the meetings, a decision which former Premier Kuupik Kleist called “unwise.” “You must be present if you want to be heard in a case,” he opined to Sermitsiaq. It is ironic that whereas countries like China, Japan, and Korea were angling for so long to merely be granted permanent observer status – and therefore ensure their presence at meetings and discussions — Greenland has willingly turned its back on the chance to be heard. But maybe the boycott — and the lack of presence — speaks more loudly than anything Hammond could have said. After all, when the Kremlin shut down RAIPON, the Russian indigenous peoples’ organization and permanent participant in the Arctic Council, the media paid it more attention than at any other time I can remember. Absence, then, is just as notable as presence, but in a different way. So now, the debate turns from the question of which countries will obtain permanent observer status to whether Greenland and the Faroe Islands should be according representation on an equal level as the other Arctic states, or at the very least, get back their individual chairs during meetings.

No such thing as a free lunch

The chairmanship has now passed to Canada, marking a new era for the Arctic Council, and for Arctic affairs more broadly construed. The chairmanship has now rotated through all eight member states, and Canada will hold the position it held at the start of the Arctic Council from 1996-1998. With all of the Asian applicants admitted, plus Italy, to permanent observer status, it will be interesting to see what types of projects the Arctic Council will pursue. China, Japan, and Korea are already quite involved in climate change research, so perhaps the Arctic Council will do even more in this area (though keeping in mind that funding from an observer state can never outstrip that of a permanent member). As Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide stated, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch…By becoming an observer you’re also signing up to the principles embodied by this organization, and that is why we have been working hard to make that happen.”

The Kiruna Declaration made note of the new Observer Manual adopted by the Senior Arctic Officials, which I haven’t seen yet but hopefully will be posted soon. The manual will outline the logistics and roles to be played by permanent observer states.

North American absence and presence

The other notable absence from the Arctic Council was that of the Canadian Foreign Minister, John Baird. As the Globe and Mail somewhat humorously points out, it seems there might be a bit of confusion in Ottawa as to who really is in charge of foreign affairs: John Baird or the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney. Possibly, it was ultimately decided that Health Minister and Arctic Council chairperson Leona Agglukaq might be the clearest choice to represent Canadian interests in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, for the second time, the United States sent its secretary of state to the Arctic Council. In a speech that was more notably focused on climate change than any other representative’s, John Kerry gravely called attention to record-high carbon dioxide levels, melting sea ice caps, and Arctic wildfires. The BBC notes that he held one of the first Senate hearings on climate change in the 1980s with then-Senator Al Gore. Will Kerry be able to turn his interest and rhetoric on the urgency of climate change into real action?

I don’t have an exact transcript of Kerry’s speech, but he did argue that the Arctic is shared not just by the nations that touch it. Instead, the Arctic states have a responsibility to execute stewardship in the region, which “touches every person around the world and our way of life.” Whereas Canada tends to emphasize a more proprietary Arctic, with development benefiting northern peoples and residents, Kerry’s geopolitical framing of the Arctic reflected a vision more often promoted by Chinese officials, who occasionally talk about the region as a global commons. Both the U.S. and China, with their massive economies and reliance on shipping, have an interest in maintaing freedom of the seas. So while they might disagree on strategic issues in the Pacific, they might be able to agree on commercial and transportation issues in the Arctic. In that case, so much for talk of conflict in the Arctic. The circumpolar north might actually be able to cool tensions in other parts of the globe.

News reporting on India, more specifically news regarding women in India, has recently been somewhat unsettling. Horrific cases of sexual abuse, some fatal, have made their way from the Indian media to a global stage. In terms of raising awareness, the impact has been powerful. Yet tarring all of India with the same brush would be a mistake, as should be obvious.

An article published online in The Hindu mirrors this sentiment, beginning, “In an atmosphere where every morning, our newspapers greet us with stories of girls being tormented, raped, killed or treated like a doormat in one way or another.”

The article however brings some positive news, reporting on the practice of a village in southern Rajasthan where 111 trees are planted each time a baby girl is welcomed into the community – a stark contrast to other places around the world where female infanticide is still an unfortunate reality. The village, Piplantri, also encourages parents to sign a document stating that their daughter will not be married off before she is legally of age, and that she will attend school regularly. One commenter below the piece says “it almost borders fiction” that such positive action is being taken, while another notes that introducing a financial incentive (a fund is set up for the baby girl) isn’t exactly the same as changing the ingrained mindset that girls are somehow inferior — a salient point.

The author makes a link to ecofeminism, one of the perhaps lesser-known contenders in the feminist arena. Ecofeminism, in the words of Rosemary Radford Reuther, “represents the union of the radical ecology movement, or what has been called ‘deep ecology’, and feminism.” A connection is made between humans’ subjugation of nature (and the prevalent idea that humans are superior to animals and plants) and society’s subjugation of women. Planting trees in honor of the girls born in Piplantri, villagers are sustaining their environment while also making a physical statement about life.

This ten-minute TEDx video provides a brief introduction to ecofeminism, should you wish to find out more:

Ecofeminist views and arguments should, however, be read with a critical eye when it comes to India and other countries of the Global South, argues Sowmya Dechamma in an essay available here. She contends that India’s caste system and its influence on daily life should not be ignored within the context of ecofeminist thought:

“Ritualistic hierarchy of caste, and patriarchy within the caste system that has been internalized over centuries has been largely responsible for construction of images, values, perceptions and representations of women and nature. And because relations with nature vary with the occupation (again directly related to caste), women of different castes have different relations with nature.”

Everyone’s relationship with the environment is inherently personal, and for each baby girl in Piplantri, especially so. While perhaps not adopting the practice on such a grand scale, maybe all parents should consider planting a tree in honor of their children to encourage a connection with nature for future generations. Will you be planting one?

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Diplomats of the member states of the United Nations have gathered in New York at the organization’s headquarters tasked to hash out an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The potential ATT would set standards for the global conventional arms trade, a $70 billion industry. It recognizes that arms trade is a lawful business with friendly partners, but proper global standards are necessary to prevent weapons from getting into the wrong hands. Questioning the lack of an ATT, which could prevent the perpetrating of heinous crimes, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stated, “There are common standards for global trade in arm chairs but not the global trade in arms.”

The current diplomatic conference to formulate an ATT, scheduled to continue till March 28, has resumed negotiations from the first such meeting in July 2012. After weeks of negotiating in July, the United States, the largest global arms trader controlling a plurality of the market, as well as other major arm traders Russia and China, stated more time was needed to come to consensus on the draft text. British Foreign Secretary William Hague summed up the efforts by saying, “We have made huge progress. But to be fully effective…more time is needed to reach the widest possible agreement.”

Different sources believe the United States’ decisions was the result of President Obama campaigning for re-election and he did not want to risk losing votes – gun rights advocate groups, such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), oppose the ATT, stating it would lead to the path of infringing on citizens “right to bear arms” that is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. However, arms control advocates state international treaties are designed not to usurp domestic law, and there is specific language in the proposed ATT text reaffirming the sovereign right for states to domestically regulate arms within its territory. Moreover, The American Bar Association (ABA) released a white paper that discussed the proposed treaty and the Second Amendment that concluded, “U.S. ratification of the treaty would not infringe upon rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”

In December of 2012 (after the U.S. elections), the U.N. General Assembly voted to restart negotiations for this week. Due to the complexities of the text, the divergent opinions of member states, and the need to comb over the minute legalese of every word, clause, and correct placement of punctuation – one example is the U.S. stating the term “overriding risk” must be kept countering other countries that instead want the treaty to say “substantial risk” or the U.S. will not be party of the treaty – many believe the scheduled end of the conference will be extended.

Pushing along the process, numerous civil society organizations (CSOs) have been leading efforts for years to end the illegal trade in arms, and this conference is no different. Control Arms, which is a coalition of 102 civil society organizations, is advocating for a strong ATT that is free of loopholes. The organization believes that a treaty with loopholes could provide grounds for an even grimmer situation than the status quo by providing conduits to states to opt out of certain obligations. Control Arms also voices the need for the inclusion of ammunition and components in the ATT, but those aspects have been lobbied against by various nations.

Humanitarian Campaigner from Control Arms Lorey Campese holds the view that “it is necessary for an Arms Trade Treaty to also include regulation of munitions and all arms components.” Mr. Campese continued, “human rights must also be a central focus to protect lives of those at risk.” Overall, CSOs consider a successful ATT will provide the ability to stem the flow of weapons and accompanying supplies that could be deployed in violent intractable conflicts that kill and maim thousands of innocent people, including women and children.

However, after the president’s (of the conference, Ambassador Peter Woolcott [pictured above] of Australia) Non-Paper was released March 22 (Second Draft ATT), it has left CSOs and other parties disheartened with the content. It is the view that much of the text has been constructed to favor powerful countries, mostly weapon exporters, instead of representing the opinions voiced by the vast majority of member states. In fact, a joint statement was issued by 118 U.N. member states expressing their support for stronger provisions on issues of controlling ammunition, the prevention of diversion, and clear language around the application of comprehensive criteria for assessing whether to authorize an arms transfer.

As currently constituted, the ATT would regulate the international trade of battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arcs and light weapons. It includes the export, import, transit, trans-shipment and brokering of these weapons. Ammunition and parts/components are not adequately covered, though. And the loopholes identified over the first week of discussions and negotiations remain in the new text largely unchanged.

Other countries, such as India which is a major arms importer, are committed to coming together on an ATT with balanced obligations for importers and exporters. Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament Sujata Mehta believes a treaty needs specific wording to prevent, combat, and stop illicit trafficking in conventional arms and their illicit use especially by terrorists and other unauthorized and unlawful non-State actors. It must conform to meet continuity with other U.N. Security Council resolutions and anti-terrorism conventions.

CSOs are redoubling their efforts in the last few days to try to influence changes for the third and final draft to achieve a thorough and balanced ATT that will provide a means to save lives and livelihoods.

Work is tumultuous when the largest arms dealer will not commit to full support. The U.S. can only be party to international treaties if two-thirds of senators concur. However, just this past Saturday the Senate passed an amendment 53-46 to a budget bill that prevents the U.S. from joining an ATT citing infringement on the Second Amendment. Also, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced tepid support saying, “The U.S. is steadfast in its commitment to achieve a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty that helps address the adverse effects of the international arms trade on global peace and stability.” Secretary Kerry couched the comments in regards to the Second Amendment issue as well.

Actors from many levels are calling on President Obama to lead on this issue and to nudge other nations to formulate needed language and demands in the text, but thus far the president’s voice has been conspicuously absent from the proceedings.

The following post is based on an address I delivered at the Shanghai Maritime Strategy Research Center two weeks ago.

The punditry gods were smiling when Beijing and New Delhi declared 2012 as the Year of Sino-Indian Friendship.  After all, it was a most curious designation, and not just because 2006 had received the same appellation with little to show for it.  Indeed, the Chinese that year revived their territorial claims over all of Arunachal Pradesh, a state in India’s remote northeast that lies along their long-contested Himalayan border and which Beijing now insists on calling “South Tibet.”  Even more striking was that the Chinese chose to make this an issue on the eve of President Hu Jintao’s visit to New Delhi in November 2006, the first such visit by a Chinese head of state in more than a decade and one that was meant to highlight growing bilateral cooperation.

Given this track record, the 2012 designation was all the more peculiar, especially since it coincided with the 50^th anniversary of the 1962 border war between the two countries.  The event, mostly ignored in China, reanimated bruised memories in India and two former foreign secretaries, Shyam Saran and Kanwal Singh, took to the opinion pages to warn (here and here) about China’s aggressive designs.  Representative of the media reaction was the Deccan Herald, a Bangalore-based newspaper, which cautioned its readers that “China is a hydra-headed monster with massive expansionist plans across South Asia.”

The uneasy juxtaposition of the dates neatly encapsulated the contending factors – increasing economic cooperation mixed with ulcerating historical animosities and an intensifying strategic rivalry – that tug at New Delhi’s relations with Beijing.

True, the friendship year began in congenial enough fashion.  A week into 2012, Shivshankar Menon, India’s national security advisor, delivered an address at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, rejecting the notion that the countries “are bound to be strategic adversaries.  Instead, he emphasized the opportunity for the two “to work with others to shape benign international outcomes.”  And in an opinion piece published in the Hindu newspaper a few days later, Dai Bingguo, Beijing’s foreign policy czar, proclaimed “China’s tremendous sentiment of friendship towards India” and predicted a coming “golden period” in bilateral affairs.

But as 2012 drew to a close, four events aptly illustrated the contradictory impulses in the relationship.  The first was in November when high-level delegations from both governments convened in New Delhi for the second session of their recently established strategic economic dialogue.  In 2010, China became India’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade now totaling some $75 billion and both sides have plans to elevate trade flows to the $100-billion mark by 2015.  And if a recent report by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry is right, Beijing and New Delhi could well form the world’s largest trading combination by 2030.

The Indian side used the economic dialogue to reiterate calls for greater Chinese investment in Indian infrastructure projects and a number of deals amounting to some $5 billion were struck between Chinese and Indian companies.  The dialogue’s Indian co-chair stressed how his country can “certainly benefit by studying the Chinese experience in the building of infrastructure and handling of urbanization.”  Since Indian capacity for funding infrastructure on its own is so deficient, New Delhi is looking for help from China.  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made this pitch to Premier Jiabao Wen at the Rio +20 summit in June, and he repeated the plea at the ASEAN Summit meeting in Phnom Penh in November.  The Indian government also is encouraging Chinese participation in the new manufacturing zones it is setting up throughout the country.  For its part, Beijing has mooted an interest in jointly working with New Delhi to expand regional development in South Asia, one of the world’s least economically integrated areas.

All of this followed indications that Beijing may be looking to reset its relations with New Delhi.  During a visit to the Chinese capital last summer, then-Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang made a point of telling Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna that the Sino-Indian equation would be the important bilateral relationship in the 21^st century.  Li’s phrase is a virtual echo of the Obama administration’s regular formulation about Washington and New Delhi constituting “an indispensable partnership for the 21^st century.”  Beijing has also upgraded its ambassador in New Delhi to vice-ministerial status, and there is increased speculation that China is dumping its policy of maintaining “strategic equilibrium” between India and Pakistan in favor of giving greater emphasis to New Delhi.

Yet just three weeks after the conclusion of the economic dialogue, another prominent gathering in New Delhi highlighted the growing geopolitical competition between the two countries.  With an eye on Beijing’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea, Southeast Asian leaders used an unprecedented summit meeting with Indian officials to call for a greater Indian role in the region.  The meeting produced plans for a new “strategic partnership” aimed at enhanced diplomatic, economic and security cooperation between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  Indeed, in the run-up to the meeting, the chief of the Indian navy proclaimed New Delhi’s readiness to use military force to protect its oil-exploration interests in an area off the coast of Vietnam that China claims as its own.

These events illustrate how East Asia has emerged over the past few years as a new arena for strategic rivalry between New Delhi and Beijing.  Most striking in this regard is the growing intensity of Indian security and economic cooperation with Japan.  The two countries conducted their first bilateral naval exercises last year off the Japanese coast and held an inaugural dialogue on maritime security earlier this year.  With Shinzo Abe, now ensconced for a second time as prime minister in Tokyo, putting special emphasis on collaboration with India, this bilateral equation is starting to become an important feature of the Asian regional balance.

New Delhi also has moved to solidify security relations with Hanoi, including the possible provision of military assistance, and to strengthen its influence in Myanmar, which China and India have long regarded as an arena for geopolitical jousting.  And concerned about the growing profile of the Chinese navy, India has started a formal dialogue with Australia and Indonesia on regional security.

At the same time ASEAN leaders were gathering in New Delhi, a third event – regarding a dispute between an Indian company and the Maldives government over the management of the airport in Male – reinforced concerns about Beijing’s encroachment in its own neighborhood.  A coup in February 2012 ousted a pro-Indian leadership in the strategically-placed archipelago nation and New Delhi is reported to believe that the new regime abruptly terminated the lucrative airport contract at the behest of the Chinese, who want to bulk up their presence in the Indian Ocean in order to guard oil shipments coming from the Middle East.  Just weeks before the termination of the $500-milllion contract, which represented India’s largest investment project in the Maldives, Beijing pledged a $500-million economic assistance package for the country.  And a week after the contract was voided, China and the Maldives announced plans to strengthen military ties. All of this follows renewed concerns over Beijing’s increasing influence in Sri Lanka and Nepal, and were amplified yet again in early 2013 when Pakistan turned over management of Gwadar, a strategic port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, to a Chinese company.

The growing contests for power and influence in East Asia and the Indian Ocean amply demonstrate how India and China will bump into each other as they grow in power and aspiration.  But a fourth event in late 2012 illustrates that the true fault line in bilateral relations remains the 60 year-old acrimony over the Indo-Tibetan frontier. Beijing’s issuance of new passports displaying a map showing a range of contested territories throughout Asia (including Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin) as belonging solely to the People’s China brought forth Indian accusations of “cartographic aggression.”  New Delhi retaliated by stamping its own map into the passports of Chinese nationals applying for Indian visas.  On the surface, the consular contretemps was a trivial bit of gamesmanship.  But coming just as Indians were recounting the lessons of the 1962 war, it also underscored how the border area is the only place where the outbreak of armed conflict is a realistic possibility, as well as the focus for much of India’s expansive plans for military modernization.

The Chinese threat in the border area has dominated Indian security thinking over the past few years.  Consider the celebratory reception in India of the test launch last April of the Agni V, a long-range missile capable of striking Shanghai and Beijing that the Indian media quickly dubbed the “China killer” or New Delhi’s announcement this January that it will equip a follow-on missile, the Agni VI, with multiple warheads so as to have greater coverage of Chinese targets.  New Delhi has also decided to station the supersonic BrahMos cruise missile in Arunachal Pradesh, the first deployment of offensive tactical missiles against China.

The border area was the site for the month-long war between the countries in 1962, as well as serious military crises in 1967 and 1987.  And the chances are good that the frictions here will only intensify in the years ahead since the border dispute is not simply a matter of contested claims over real estate but is bound up with the increasingly volatile issue of Tibetan nationalism.  It is no coincidence that Beijing in recent years has turned up the volume about its territorial claims on the northeastern Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh at the same moment that the ethnic Tibetan population inside China has become more restive.

Adding to the combustible mix is the location of Tawang Monastery, a revered site in Tibetan Buddhism that is just inside the Indian side of the contested border and which is likely to play an important role in the selection of the next Dalai Lama.  Noting the Sino-Indian tussle over it, a New York Times report a few years ago called Tawang “perhaps the most militarized Buddhist enclave in the world.”

Given the volatility of the Tibetan issue, one could envision without much imagination scenarios that result in a military confrontation along the frontier. One might involve the outbreak of serious unrest within Tibet, leading to a Chinese crackdown that spills into India. Beijing could bring economic or military pressure on New Delhi to clamp down on the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan exile community in northern India, setting off a dangerous spiral of misperception and miscalculation. Alternatively, the passing of the Dalai Lama, who is now 77, could spark a tumultuous search for his successor, leading China to seize Tawang so it can control the outcome.

Unfortunately, there is ample historical precedent for such scenarios. Indian support of the abortive Tibetan uprising in 1959, for example, colored Beijing’s perceptions in the lead-up to the 1962 border war. And in the mid-1980s, an isolated incident in the Sumdurong Chu Valley in Arunachal Pradesh led to a serious military stand-off in early 1987. As one of the WikiLeaks dispatches from the U.S. embassy in Beijing reported, some Chinese observers believe that policy on Tibet is even more inflexible than toward Taiwan, where Beijing at least tolerates some U.S. interference.  And with memories still fresh about how ethnic unrest in Xinjiang forced President Hu to fly home earlier from the July 2009 G-8 summit in Italy, Beijing’s spending on internal security now tops even its rising outlays on defense.

Indeed, neuralgia on the Tibet issue has impelled the People’s Republic, officially an atheistic party-state, to entangle itself in deeply into the affairs of Tibetan religious institutions, including absurdly banning the current Dalai Lama from being reborn anywhere but inside China and insisting that it alone has the definitive word on the selection of his successor. It drove Beijing in 1995 to kidnap a six year-old Tibetan boy who the Dalai Lama proclaimed as the Panchen Lama, the second-ranking figure in Tibetan Buddhism. The boy’s fate remains unknown; Beijing has promoted its own candidate as the true Panchen Lama. While many Tibetans see this person as a pretender, he provides Beijing a key opening to manipulate the selection for the next Dalai Lama, since the Panchen Lama traditionally has a central part in the process.

The future direction of India’s relations with China will most likely come to mirror the present composition of U.S.-China relations.  That is, cooperative impulses emanating from deepening economic engagement will moderate the likelihood of outright military hostilities.  Moreover, just like in Beijing, leaders in New Delhi will continue to place priority on the imperatives of internal economic development.  Added factors acting to stabilize things are the profound sense of restraint embedded in Indian strategic culture, as well as New Delhi’s realization that China continues to see the United States as its principal strategic competitor.

Yet it is clear that some fundamental geopolitical forces are at work in spurring India-China strategic frictions.  Instead of being the fraternal titans that drive the Asian Century forward, as envisioned in the “Chindia” chimera, it is more likely that their relationship in the coming years will be marked by increased suspicion and rivalry.

The cross-currents affecting New Delhi’s approach toward Beijing are on display in a high-profile report issued a year ago by prominent members of the Indian foreign policy establishment.  Seeking to chart out a set of basic principles to guide national security policy over the next decade, the report emphasizes that strategic independence remains “the core of India’s global engagements even today.”  Yet it surprisingly had much more to say about China than about the United States.  Noting that India cannot “entirely dismiss the possibility of a major military offensive” along the Himalayan border, the report argued that:

China will, for the foreseeable future, remain a significant foreign policy and security challenge for India.  It is the one major power which impinges directly on India’s geopolitical space.  As its economic and military capabilities expand, its power differential with India is likely to widen….

….The challenge for Indian diplomacy will be to develop a diversified network of relations with several major powers to compel China to exercise restraint in its dealings with India, while simultaneously avoiding relationships that go beyond conveying a certain threat threshold in Chinese perceptions. [Emphasis added.]

In a subsequent newspaper piece, Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary who was involved in the report, elaborated on these themes.  He argued that it would be best, at least for the time being, to avoid the encumbrances of an alliance with Washington.  Yet he also acknowledged that:

Given the challenge that China’s apparently relentless rise poses to India, the pursuit of a ‘non-aligned’ policy appears unwise.  The US has greater affinity and empathy with India.  It supports India’s acquisition of economic and technological capabilities and has convergent concerns over Chinese hegemony.

The key question in all of this is how the U.S.-China and China-India rivalries will intersect.  Much of Washington’s policy toward New Delhi over the past decade is predicated on the belief that the China-India rivalry will inevitably deepen in coming years as both countries expand in power and aspiration, causing India in turn to move into ever closer strategic collaboration with the United States.  From this premise, U.S. policymakers reason that it is in America’s geopolitical interest to bolster the development of India’s power resources.  Although U.S. and Indian officials are quick to deny that their quickening relationship has an anti-China motive, a former Bush administration official sums up U.S. thinking this way: “China is a central element in our effort to encourage India’s emergence as a world power.  But we don’t need to talk about the containment of China.  It will take care of itself as India rises.”

The visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to New Delhi last summer illustrates how the Obama administration has now resumed its predecessors’ practice of engaging the country on high-profile security initiatives.   Panetta stopped in India as part of an eight-day swing through Asia designed to fill in the details about Washington’s new military buildup in the Asia-Pacific region that is plainly directed against China even if no one in Washington cares to admit it publicly.  As part of the strategy, the United States will shift the bulk of its naval combat power to the Pacific in the coming years as well as deepen military and economic ties with regional allies and friends.

In an important address in New Delhi, Panetta made clear that the Obama administration sees India as a “linchpin” in this strategy.  Stating that the United States “views India as a net provider of security from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan and beyond,” Panetta proposed the formation of a long-term strategic partnership, one that featured greater Indian access to the latest U.S. military technology and a defense trade relationship that went beyond a focus on one-off transactions to include joint research and co-production efforts.

The Panetta trip, followed one month later with a visit by Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, underscores how the Obama administration is committed to organizing a regional balance of power against China and desires India’s key assistance toward that goal.  New Delhi’s response to this overture will undoubtedly be halting, more than occasionally causing frustration in Washington.  But over time its strategic imperatives vis-à-vis China will ineluctably draw it into a closer geopolitical affiliation with the United States.

This commentary is cross-posted on Chanakya’s Notebook. I invite you to connect with me via Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit: Al Jazeera English

My last post focused on the domestic implications in Pakistan of the latest revelations about the 1999 Kargil mini-war.  Since the crisis is a key point of contention – a sort of Rorschach test, really – in the debate over whether the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia has stabilized or aggravated the India-Pakistan rivalry, it’s also worth taking another look at two important points regarding Kargil’s nuclear dimensions:

• Did Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May 1998 embolden the Kargil planners, especially Pervez Musharraf, the newly-appointed chief of army staff, to undertaken the ill-advised operation just a few months later?
• Did the perceived success of Pakistan’s small nuclear arsenal in deterring fulsome Indian retaliation during the crisis give Musharraf the security confidence to embark upon an intensive back-channel peace process in 2004-07 that reportedly was on the verge of defusing the perennially-inflamed dispute over Kashmir?

Although the fighting remained confined to a relatively small front in northern Kashmir, the Kargil crisis represents the most serious instance of actual military conflict between nuclear-armed belligerents in history.  Many experts call it the fourth Indo-Pakistani war and its seriousness has been likened to that of the Cuban missile crisis.  Proliferation pessimists regard Pakistan’s role in sparking the confrontation as exemplifying the crisis-stability fragilities emanating from the spread of nuclear weapons and worry that war was only averted by factors outside the nuclear realm.  Optimists, on the other hand, view the absence of general hostilities, as well as the evident signs of Indian restraint, as compelling evidence that the caution-inducing properties of nuclear deterrence simply overwhelm the surfeit of powerful and interlocking factors that have generated military conflict between the two countries in the past.

As noted in the previous post, the new disclosures (here and here) about the crisis largely corroborate the points advanced in a 2009 book, Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict, that is the most authoritative study of the crisis to emerge to date.  One of the book’s major findings is that there was little causal connection between Islamabad’s attainment of an overt nuclear posture in mid-1998 and its actions at Kargil in the opening weeks of 1999.  As one of the volume’s authors put it:

The post-1998 nuclear reality did not make Pakistan change its strategy.  The reality is quite the opposite: the architects of the Kargil land grab utterly failed to think through the implications of nuclear weapons on the behavior of both their adversary and the international community, the latter of which fundamentally changed its posture toward South Asia after the 1998 nuclear tests.

This judgment is at sharp odds with the Indian consensus that nuclear weapons facilitated Pakistan’s aggressive behavior at Kargil.  New Delhi’s official inquiry into the conflict, for example, deduced that Pakistan’s use of proxy jihadi forces in Kashmir in the 1990s and its Kargil venture were rooted in a belief that its nuclear arsenal negated India’s advantage in the conventional balance of power.  The inquiry concluded:

Otherwise, it is inconceivable that [Pakistan] could sustain its proxy war against India, inflicting thousands of casualties, without being unduly concerned about India’s ‘conventional superiority.’

General V.P. Malik, India’s army chief during the crisis, likewise avers that nuclear weapons:

played an important role in shaping Pakistan’s military strategy for the Kargil episode….The Pakistani military believed then, as it still does, that it could safely conduct a low-intensity conflict or a limited war in Jammu and Kashmir and that its nuclear capability would prevent a conventional Indian attack.

It is striking that the new revelations, which are quite critical of Musharraf’s thinking in provoking the crisis, are altogether silent about this issue.  This absence leads one to conclude that the book’s judgment is substantially correct: Pakistan’s nascent nuclear force had no bearing on the Kargil decision-making.

But the avoidance of all-out war in the crisis prompts a second, more speculative, question: After Kargil, did Musharraf absorb what is an article of faith in the optimist canon: That even a modest nuclear force generates outsized deterrence benefits, thus ensuring to an unprecedented degree Pakistan’s external security vis-à-vis Indian military superiority.  Further, did this confidence embolden him to jump into the 2004-07 détente process?

An affirmative answer to these questions would help explain what otherwise appears perplexing: How did Musharraf evolve in a period of a few years from instigating the Kargil crisis to being the prime mover behind the diplomatic negotiations?  The evidence on this issue is quite sparse.  Optimists can point to the historical parallel of Lavrentiy Beria during the brief interregnum between Josef Stalin’s death in early 1953 and when Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the undisputed Kremlin leader more than a year later.  As the brutal chief of the secret police, Beria supervised the Soviet atomic bomb project, which came to fruition in 1949.  In the weeks following Stalin’s passing, he urged his Politburo colleagues to pursue a more conciliatory line vis-à-vis the United States.  Some historians believe he did so because his intimate knowledge of the nuclear weapons program led him to understand that it, despite its then quite limited size, had decisively shored up Moscow’s security position in the Cold War.

One could plausibly – but far from definitively, given the sharp limits of the empirical record – apply the Beria analogy to Musharraf.  But the real problem with this thesis is that the post-Musharraf leadership of the Pakistani army, judging from the on-going buildup of tactical nuclear forces, seems to put little faith in the optimists’ belief that the revolutionary character of nuclear weapons renders territorial conquest much more difficult.  While the military establishment has been supportive of the détente process with New Delhi (here and here) over the last two years, it is driven by concerns about rising internal security threats and the precarious condition of the domestic economy.   A more fundamental rethinking of Pakistan’s strategic calculus has yet to occur.

More rigorous inquiry into Kargil’s nuclear aspects is surely necessary before more conclusive judgments can be rendered.  But it could well be that proliferation pessimists and optimists have both gotten some things wrong.  After all, if the nuclear factor had no effect on Kargil decision-making, perhaps it is only natural that its impact is likewise absent on Islamabad’s broader security calculations.

This commentary was originally posted on Chanakya’s Notebook.  I invite you to connect with me via Facebook and Twitter.

A Malian soldier fires an AK-47 during fighting with Islamists in Gao, Mali, February 21, 2013.
[REUTERS/Joe Penney]

Be sure to check out some new reviews of “Great Decisions in Foreign Policy” on PBS by Foreign Policy Blog’s Gail Harris, Scott Bleiweis and Jason Anderson.

A Ground-Level View of the U.S.’s Drone Campaign
By Christopher Swift
The Atlantic

From the ground in Yemen, the complexities of the country’s fractured politics make Washington’s drone debate seems shallow. Perhaps, too, it’s Washington’s practice of “targeted killings” that’s keeping Yemen in a unstable state, undermining its efforts to stabilize the country’s political and economic environment.

L’Étranger
By Lauren Collins
New Yorker

Gérard Depardieu, the French actor gone Russian, handed back his French passport in December of 2012 and nested in Russia after being granted citizenship by Putin’s executive order. Collins tells the story of how he ended up there in the first place after the drama of France’s “supertax.”

Capitalism and Inequality
By Jerry Z. Muller
Foreign Affairs

Arguing that both the left and the right are wrong about the origins — and how to deal with — inequality, Muller postulates that “inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity,” not a matter of politics. Each end of the spectrum, furthermore, minimizes the concerns of the other when in fact, as Muller claims, both are wrong.

To Fight India, We Fought Ourselves
By Mohsin Hamid
The New York Times

Pakistan’s problem is it celebrates the militants, elevating them to a heroic status. Yet to squash the rise of militancy in the country, Pakistan must normalize relations with India, avoiding confrontations where the militant is viewed as an “equalizer.”

Hillary Clinton, State Feminist?
Tara McKelvey
The Nation

Hillary Clinton came into the State Department vowing to make women’s rights a core part of U.S. foreign policy. So what does her record look like?

Blogs

A Candid Discussion with David Crist by Reza Akhlaghi
Censoring Speech in Haiti’s Most Celebrated Agora (part one) – Haiti by Chris Celius
Cybersecurity: Top Challenges and Six Big Policy Action Ideas by Franz-Stefan Gady
North Korean Nuclear Test: What Is the Nature of the Threat? by William Sweet
Thoughts on Zero Dark Thirty by Michael Crowley

Documentary exposes Pakistan gender biases
A documentary film screened at the Sundance Film Festival chronicles the fallout in Pakistan after a 13-year-old girl, gang-raped by four men, took her attackers to court and was nearly put to death by village elders. The case of Kainat Soomro reveals gender biases in the country that make laws ineffective, rights groups say.

U.N. report claims hundreds of Afghan children killed in U.S. airstrikes
A Mogadishu court has sentenced an alleged rape victim and a Somali journalist who interviewed her to one year in prison each, court officials say, in a decision that has enraged press freedom groups. Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, the freelance journalist, and the 27-year old unidentified woman who claimed to have been raped by security forces, faced charges including insulting a government body, making false accusations and seeking to profit from the allegations. Human rights groups said the trial was politically motivated, designed to cover up rampant sexual abuse of women by Somali security forces.

Murders of polio workers a setback in Nigeria
Health workers in Nigeria who survived the deadly attack by gunmen that killed nine women say they pretended to be dead while the attackers doused fallen workers with gasoline, then set them on fire. The incident is seen as a setback in the country’s bid to eliminate new polio cases by June.

South Africa radio responds to rape
Rape is a problem rarely discussed in South Africa, but the rape and murder of a teenage girl in the Western Cape has prompted several radio stations to broadcast beeps every four minutes to remind listeners of the country’s reported frequency of rape.

Loans give cookstove project new lease on life
Loans totaling $4 million have been extended to a Seattle-area company that plans to build and sell 3.5 million efficient cookstoves in East Africa by 2020. Burn Manufacturing’s project has garnered the support of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who announced the financing deal on her last day at the State Department.

Tweaking vaccination programs to ensure transparency
Vaccine programs are saving and improving the lives of children across the developing world. But Médecins sans Frontières says that some of the initiatives are unsustainable and effectively serve to subsidize Big Pharma.

Malaria deaths down, but so is funding
The global fight against malaria could soon be locally driven rather than internationally, said Ray Chambers, the United Nations special envoy for malaria, at a recent gathering of the Harvard Malaria Forum. Even as global fatalities from the disease have fallen by 26% over the past decade, funding, too, has been falling, according to a report by the World Health Organization.

Malala announces fund to promote girls’ education
Malala Yousafzai, who is recovering from two surgeries to repair damage to her skull from an attack October by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan, announced in a video Monday that she wanted to “serve the people” — including through the creation of the Malala Fund, an effort promoting the education and empowerment of girls, and supported by Vital Voices, the United Nations Foundation and Girl Up.

Gender issues at forefront of U.N. development talks
The well-being of women and girls is likely to be key to the global development agenda that replaces the Millennium Development Goals after 2015, officials said. Women’s rights were a topic at a recent United Nations panel discussion.

Plan to slow cervical cancer to begin in Africa
The GAVI Alliance will roll out pilot projects in seven African countries as part of its program to vaccinate 180,000 girls ages 9 to 13 against human papillomavirus, the leading cause of most cervical cancers.

To this day, the 1962 war is seen as a national humiliation in India.  Scanning the op-ed sections of newspapers while I was in New Delhi in October this year, the general consensus of commentators and political analysts appeared to be that the war, like no other event in post-colonial Indian history, was a unifying force in bringing the country together. It led to the modernization of the Indian Army, and made India temporarily abandon its isolationist, non-aligned foreign policy outlook, and forced it to accept military aid from Western Powers and the Soviet Union, ultimately setting the stage for a more assertive Indian foreign policy.

Diplomatic historians may mark the 1962 war as the beginning of India’s slow ascent to great power status and a force to be reckoned with in 21st century Asian power politics. Yet, to this day, India’s foreign policy is – more than most other emerging titans – constrained by a quest for internal security and a deep introspection — making it a reluctant power and conducting a more or less “introverted foreign policy.”

The United States is trying to change India’s reluctant stance and is attempting to forge closer ties with New Delhi. During his visit in June 2012, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, called India a “lynchpin” in the United States’ strategic pivot to Asia. Behind all of this is the United States’ desire to check the growth of Chinese power in the region.  As the former U.S. Envoy to India, Robert D. Blackwill, pointed out in a speech in New Delhi in 2009: “President George W. Bush based his transformation of US-India Relations on the core strategic principle of democratic India as a key factor in balancing the rise of Chinese power.” Also he noted that: “[W]ithout this China factor at the fore in Washington, in my view the Bush Administration would not have negotiated the Civil Nuclear Agreement and the Congress would not have approved it.”

Yet the United States should heed the maxim “be careful what you wish for.” For closer military and diplomatic ties between India and the United States may embolden India’s foreign policy, which could potentially destabilize the entire region of South Asia.  As history teaches us, multicultural great powers often have a need to define their national identities by overarching national “exertions” such as a war.

The current Indian National Security Advisor referred to India as a “bridging power” during an interview with Robert D. Kaplan  for his book, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power. Kaplan describes Menon’s rationale behind this statement: “[India]…is something between America and China, between a global power and a regional power, between a hard and soft power, between the emerging power of its economy and navy, and the poverty of its people and its weak borders.” Substitute India for Austria in the early 20th century and you have a historical case study of what the unintentional consequences of closer diplomatic ties with the supreme military of its time could entail.

The Austrian Empire, like India, was considered to be a bridging power between East and West for much of its existence. It was a multinational empire, more concerned with its internal security and stability than with great power politics, and after humiliating defeats in 1859 and 1866, reluctant to use military power to achieve its political objectives (for most of the late 19th century-early 20th period it spent comparatively little on military defense). As in the Sino-Indian war of 1962, these defeats lead to various military and political reforms culminating in the Austro-Hungarian compromise of 1867 and the establishment of a dual monarchy. Also, like India, Austria-Hungary was held together by an omnipotent, if slightly inefficient, bureaucracy.

Austria’s “Pakistan” in the 20th century was Serbia, a small state in the Balkans trying to lure the South Slavic subjects of the empire to revolt through subversive means (as with Pakistan there was a clandestine connection between government circles and radical elements in the Serbian intelligence community). Most importantly, Austria’s stance vis-à-vis Serbia was emboldened by its dual alliance with the German Empire, which in 1914 , after the assassination, gave Austria a diplomatic carte blanche, to deal once and for all with the “Serbian problem.”

Before this dual alliance, Austria always had to play a rather careful diplomatic game between East and West. The great protector power of Serbia was Russia, Austria’s powerful eastern neighbor (cf. the Russian, Count Vronsky, who in the novel Anna Karenina departs for Serbia to participate in the Orthodox Serbian revolt against the Turks) threatening Austria’s exposed eastern borders. As the years progressed and tensions between the great powers mounted and the dual alliance solidified, Austria took an increasingly more aggressive stance against Serbia’s agitations.

In 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Austria’s Chief of Staff, Conrad von Hoetzendorf’s, repeated request for preventive war with Serbia was finally granted.  Not before Austria, however, thought it had secured Germany’s guarantee to help defend its eastern borders, plunging all of Europe into the First World War.

India today faces many similar problems as Austria did in the early 20th century. A powerful peer competitor in the East conducting a relatively subtle anti-Indian South Asian policy and a smaller, but more real subversive threat coming from Pakistan (notwithstanding the nuclear component of this equation) and continuing internal unrest. Add the world’s strongest military power to this mix and the results could be explosive. According to various foreign policy experts in New Delhi, India is very aware of the delicate situation it occupies.

The United States would do well not to foster too close of a tie with India in the next few years of its strategic re-alignment to Asia. India has cautiously positioned herself between both parties in U.S.-China competition. China has made it clear in numerous statements that it is not a threat to India, whereas India’s defense ministry clearly stated that India is not interested in containing China.

India’s diplomacy of peace and non-alignment is deeply felt and comes more naturally to it than war.  In the near term the much bigger danger of an emboldened India may well be an increase in crypto-nationalism and inter-communal extremism.

The Obama Administration should nevertheless carefully evaluate its relationship with India in the next four years and beware of the unintentional but often hazardous consequences of Great Power politics.

Franz-Stefan Gady is a Senior Fellow at the EastWest Institute. A version of this article has appeared on China-US Focus.

Indian woman at protest in New Dehli (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

In retrospect, it wasn’t that unusual of an event but would be one that finally broke the silence surrounding violence against women in the world’s second largest country.

On December 16, a 23-year-old medical student travelling with a male companion on a bus in New Delhi was beaten and gang raped by a group of 6 men for over an hour as the bus traveled across the city. When they were done, they threw her from the bus onto the road leaving her in critical condition. On December 30, she died from her injuries in a Singapore hospital, leaving a country to grapple with an entrenched political and social culture that does little to prevent other women from suffering the same fate.

That is because this incident is increasingly common in India. Less than two weeks after this rape, a 17 year old girl committed suicide after receiving police pressure to marry one of her attackers after she was gang raped in November. In 2011, a 16 year old Dalit girl was gang raped by 8 men who then circulated pictures of the crime throughout her village. In that case, none of the men involved were arrested for their crime but the girl’s father eventually committed suicide out of shame. Just a few days ago, a 15 year old Dalit girl was “released” by 3 men that kidnapped and raped her while holding her hostage for 15 days. This is just a small offering of the thousands of cases that occur throughout the country. Far from media headlines, women suffer the consequences of violence and sexual harassment every day in India. According to government figures, 228,650 of the 256,329 violent crimes committed in India last year were committed against women, a rate of nearly 90%. And those are only the crimes that are officially reported and logged by police, meaning the total number is likely much higher.

The culture of violence against women is so prevalent that it begins even before birth. India has one of the worst imbalances of women to men, currently standing at 914 women to every 1000 men. The imbalance is the result of gender-selective abortions called femicides where parents determine the baby’s gender via ultrasound and then terminate the pregnancy if the baby is a girl. In a country where sons bring prestige and money while daughters are viewed as a burden with their dowries and low income prospects, rather than work to change the gender inequalities that fuel this system, expecting parents from the affluent neighborhoods of Mumbai and New Delhi to the poor rural communities in the countryside turn to femicide to ensure that only sons will be added to their family. The resulting imbalance encourages trafficking and abuse, making things even worse for those girls who are born. Looking at the daily struggles women face throughout the country, it is no wonder that earlier this year India was voted as the worst place for women among the G20 by gender specialists, even beating out Saudi Arabia for the top spot.

Against this backdrop, it would seem unlikely that another rape would change the general code of silence against violence against women. But the attack in New Delhi ignited protests throughout the country and calls for reform of police attitudes towards sexual crimes. The protests, ranging from candlelight vigils to violent confrontations with police, all share the same anger and frustration towards the nation’s politicians and security sector for their refusal to take the safety of women seriously, time and time again. Even after protests broke out, the government was slow in their response, appearing unsure of how to handle the protesters’ complaints or really understanding why they were protesting. The entrenchment of this paternalistic view was seen just says after the protests started when the Association for Democratic Reform, an Indian think tank, released a new report detailing hundreds of politicians standing for elections that have been accused of sexual violence, including formal charges of rape. As Raj M. Desai and Shareen Joshi of the Brookings Institute noted, the protests are just as much about bad governance and rising crime rates as they are about the persistent gender inequality that defines most aspects of life in India.

But the persistence of gender inequality is what makes real progress in this area so difficult. Several NGOs such as the Centre for Social Research and Smile Foundation work on empowering girls and women and addressing the key issues that affect them. Not surprisingly, personal security is a major concern of many Indian women but it is far from the only one. Human trafficking, forced labor, forced marriages and rampant discrimination are daily realities for millions of women across the country. There are many suggestions for why this is the case – economic inequality, conservative cultural constraints, envy, greed, or just plainly too many people with too little opportunity. Regardless, with such an entrenched culture of inequality in a country of more than a billion people, any action seems small in light of the daunting task of progressive change.

However, what the recent protests in India demonstrate though is that change is necessary. Violence against women is always a public health issue, but in India it is clear that the inequality that underlines such violence is also a drag on economic growth and development, two things India needs. In the wake of the New Delhi gang rape, the culture of silence around the issue of violence against women may have been broken, but whether this most recent tragedy will mark a true wake-up call for the Indian elite remains to be seen. One hopes that it will, not just so a woman’s brutal death can mean something but also because without real change the lives of millions of women will continue to be defined by suffering for their birth in the world’s largest democracy as the rest of Indian society will continue to suffer the social and economic consequences of inaction.

South Africa will host the fifth BRICS Summit from 26 to 27 March 2013 at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC), photo courtesy of brics5.co.za

It’s that time of year again. Another 12 months has flown by. Companies and organizations are celebrating their 2012 achievements and are looking for areas of improvement in 2013. Offices, malls and schools are filled with holiday music and lights. South Africa is no different, but there is some stress, as they prepare to host the 5th Annual BRICS Summit in Durban on 26-27 March 2013.

The big talk at the 2013 Summit is expected to be Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa creating a BRICS development bank designed to complement existing global financial institutions like the World Bank. The idea of the bank is already agreed, but now the five countries need to iron out the finer details such as its legal status, how it will run, and its exact purpose.

Jim O’Neill wrote this week that he expects all the BRIC countries (leaving out South Africa) will perform better in 2013 than 2012, although it might not be dramatically better than expectations. “Collectively, we are expecting the BRIC countries to grow by 6.9 per cent up from a probable 6.1 per cent in 2012,” the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management stated.

As the BRICS countries continue to grow economically and politically, they also continue to struggle with the issue of corruption. Last year I gave out the First Annual Most Corrupt BRICS Country Award after analyzing Transparency International’s (TI) Bribe Payers Index (BPI) and its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Unfortunately there is no BPI this year, but the show must go on, and TI recently released its results for the 2012 CPI.

The 2011 CPI scored 183 countries and territories from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean) based on survey factors such as enforcement of anti-corruption laws, access to information and conflicts of interest. South Africa was the 2011 leader of the BRICS, meaning least corrupt with a 4.1 out of the 10, putting them 64th out of 183. This was followed by Brazil (3.8/10 = 73rd out of 182 countries), China (3.6/10- 75th out of 182), India- (3.1/10 = 95th out of 182) 
and last but not least, Russia- (2.4/10 =143rd out of 182).

We see some change in 2012. Firstly, the survey was of 176 countries, and the figures changed slightly from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Rounding the 2012 figures down to out of 10 for comparison sake, all of the BRICS counties have shown improvement. South Africa is now at 4.3, up from 4.1 in 2011. However, Brazil made an even larger leap from a score of 3.8 to 4.3. This means Brazil and South Africa are now tied for the least corrupt BRICS country, both ranking 69 out of 176. China and India remain in their third and forth place positions with a 3.9 and 3.6.

Therefore, for the second year running…drum roll…the winner of my internationally acclaimed and prestigious award as the most corrupt BRICS country goes to…the Russian Federation! Once again, nostrovia!

2012 BRICS TI CPI Results

Brazil- rank 69th, score 43/100

Russia- rank 133^rd, score 28/100

India- rank 94th, score 36/100

China- rank 80^th, score 39/100

South Africa- rank 69th, score 43/100

Opaque reasoning behind Chinese actions raise potential for difficult intra regional relations in Asia (Image: azoomwithaview)

Two moves by Chinese authorities over the past few weeks have raised concerns amongst China’s neighbors. In late November, China issued a new passport that includes a nine-dashed line incorporating most of the South China Sea — the same lines that are depicted on many official Chinese maps. This move has drawn strong condemnation from others in the region, namely Vietnam and the Philippines, who are two of six claimants to territories in the South China Sea that China claims solely as its own. The new passports also claim disputed territory along the unresolved Sino-India border. The other move involves an initial report by Reuters that authorities from Hainan Island,  as of January 1, will intercept and board foreign vessels that they deem to be operating illegally in Chinese sovereign waters. Later reports by Reuters explain the situation thus: “Police in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan will board and search ships which illegally enter what China considers its territory in the disputed South China Sea, state media said on Thursday, a move likely to add to tensions.”

Page view of new Chinese Passport (Image: Reuters/Wall Street Journal)

Both of these moves captured attention in the region and here in the United States. Vietnam refused to stamp the new passports as has the Philippines, and India called the passport map “unacceptable.” It is worth noting that India and China are scheduled to continue negotiations this month regarding their unresolved border and no doubt the passport issue will be raised, at a time of the 50^th anniversary of the war. Other countries in the region have also expressed concerns, including Southeast Asia’s largest economy Indonesia, and Taiwan. ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan warned of the South China Sea becoming Asia’s “Palestine” and that “Asia was entering its most ‘contentious’ period” in an interview with the Financial Times. However, Thailand, a treaty ally of the United States, has not expressed misgivings about the new passports, and Thailand is a not a claimant to territories in the South China Sea. Victoria Nuland, U.S. Department of State spokeswoman, said on Thursday said that the United States had already raised the passport issue with Chinese counterparts, and, to date, was seeking further clarification on the Hainan declaration at “the Deputy Assistant Secretary level, and today at the level of Assistant Secretary Campbell.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry, on the issue of the Hainan authorities, stated that “Every country has the right to carry out maritime management according to law.”

Unfortunately, it is often all too easy to jump from 1 to a 100, omitting to connect the numbers in between. Initial readings of Chinese authorities’ intentions to board vessels in the South China Sea could lead one to assume that it is only a matter of time before such an incident leads to a major international confrontation. However, analysis by Taylor Fravel from MIT presents a more nuanced and detailed picture of what may be actually unfolding regarding the South China Sea. It appears that the Hainan announcement only pertains to twelve nautical miles around Hainan Island, not the entire South China Sea and similar decrees have been released by local authorizes in Zhejiang and Hebei. The Fravel article concludes that “In sum, although the regulations establish a legal basis for Hainan’s public security border defense units to board or seize foreign vessels on or near disputed islands, they are unlikely to result in a major change in China’s behavior in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.” James Fallows writing in The Atlantic has a similar position. Regarding the passport issue, the United States is accepting the new versions, but this story is another in a long list of what many in the region regard as Chinese unilateral actions at the expense of others.

It appears that the fundamental problem is the opaqueness behind China’s actions. As outlined above there is a lot of speculation, but with no clear Chinese clarification on these issues. This year there was a stand-off lasting more than two months between China and the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, today China and Japan continue a tense “cat and mouse” interaction in the East China Sea over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. The long-term outcome of Chinese unilateral actions like the two highlighted above remain to be seen. It is clear that they do unnerve other states in the region. Looking ahead much depends on how governments, policy makers and public opinions across the region respond. However, there does appear to be a potential for stormy waters ahead on the horizon.

The promise of humanitarian assistance has encouraged thousands of Somali families affected by drought and conflict to converge on Mogadishu. But while the capital’s refugee camps appear to offer a safe haven, the reality for mothers and daughters is markedly different, with many living in fear of rape by armed bandits. Photographer Kate Holt travelled to Mogadishu to document their plight

For girls, Somali refugee camps are unsafe
Violence against women and girls is rife in Somalia, especially in the refugee camps in and around the capital, Mogadishu, where many fear rape by armed bands. “The other night a bandit came into my house and raped my little girl. I tried to fight but I couldn’t, and he escaped,” says one woman, Mayeda, in an audio slideshow that features several women.

More is needed to help children subjected to child labor
A report warns that child labor is projected to rise in sub-Saharan Africa even as rates decline worldwide. The scale of child labor — notably in agriculture and mining — could mean that Millennium Development Goal efforts will fail to ensure that all children complete primary school by 2015, said Gordon Brown, United Nations special envoy on education.

Getting poor expectant mothers to hospitals
Getting women to medical clinics to give birth instead of at-home births with midwives reportedly can help save lives in the developing world. The benefits are seen even if a nurse or doctor exam a baby within two days of birth. The non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement has won a $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to devise ways for more Ghanaian women to have their babies delivered in hospitals

Malala attack emblematic of wider schools crisis
More than two schools each week, on average, have been destroyed or damaged this year by militants in Pakistan, according to Human Rights Watch. While the gun attack on schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai has drawn attention to the Taliban campaign against secular government education, hundreds of thousands of Pakistani children are being forced to miss one school year or more.

Saudi move to curb religious police could ease lives of women
The Saudi Arabia cleric in charge of the country’s religious police — notorious for harassing women in public for behaviors and dress they believe to be in violation of Islamic law — intends to distribute guidelines re-iterating that police are not empowered to make arrests or interrogate citizens. The force “was created as a guidance body and we want to make sure it is just a guidance authority,” said Sheik Abdulatif al-Sheikh, whose remarks are seen as an effort by the monarchy to improve the position of women.

Going mobile, and green, to deliver education
Some developing countries in Asia and Africa have undertaken novel approaches to provide educations to their poorest children. The community of Chitradurga in India uses a solar-powered bus, while communities across Bangladesh are being visited by solar-powered floating schools. Shipping containers are being converted into solar-powered classrooms and delivered to rural communities in five countries in Africa, while SUVs are serving as mobile solar computer classrooms in Uganda.

Sexual violence in India’s Haryana is a social stain
For the past month and a half, police have been deployed across the village of Dobra in the northern state of Haryana, India, to protect a 16-year-old who was abducted by a dozen men while walking, then raped by seven of them while the others kept watch — some filming the episode on their mobile phones. Last year, 733 rapes — or two a day — were reported in Haryana, but officials say most incidents are never reported.

Children are a neglected casualty of Pakistan conflicts
Nearly 1,000 schools have been destroyed since 2006 in the tribal regions of Pakistan, displacing families and tens of thousands of children, dozens of whom died last year from “landmine explosions, roadside bombs, shelling and targeted attacks,” the BBC reports. Pakistan has ratified three conventions related to children, but compliance has been slow ahead of a review at the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Seizing the chance to eradicate polio
India could export the lessons it learned eradicating polio to the world’s three remaining countries where the disease is still endemic, writes Siddharth Chatterjee, of the Red Cross, on World Polio Day. The Shot@Life campaign of the United Nations Foundation is leading awareness of this global effort, writes Paralympian Dennis Ogbe, who contracted polio as a child. “UNICEF and others are doing amazing work delivering polio immunizations, including in hard-to-reach places where the fight against polio will be won or lost. They need our support,” he writes.

Where is the outcry over plight of Afghan women?
Prominent Afghan women are seeking to use the global outcry over the shooting of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai to draw attention to the situation faced by women and girls in their country. “Every day an Afghan girl is abused, raped, has acid thrown on her face and mutilated. Yet no one remembers or acknowledges these girls,” said Elay Ershad, a female member of parliament, adding that Afghan officials are more outraged over the attack on Malala than similar incidents against Afghan girls.

Helping women overcome poor educations
The term “education widows” is being applied to young women in northern Ghana who have attended school so poor that they are unqualified for most jobs. UNESCO reports that most women ages 15 to 29 cannot read even one sentence after six years of schooling. The organization Camfed is trying to remedy this.

Channi Anand/AP – Ragpicker children rest at a yard on the outskirts of Jammu, India on Aug. 29, 2012. The Indian cabinet has cleared a proposal that makes employment of children below 14 years a cognizable offence with a maximum three years imprisonment or fine up to rupees 50,000.

Ending illiteracy could also mean ending poverty, hopelessness
An estimated 775 million adults and 122 million children are unable to read or write, missing out on the positives of globalization while disproportionately bearing its negatives, write Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, and Laura Bush, an honorary ambassador with the U.N. agency, in recognition of International Literacy Day last week. While most of the world’s illiterate live in developing countries, many adults remain functionally illiterate in the developed world too.

Pakistani women are risking lives for love
More Pakistani women have been risking their lives to marry men of their choosing ever since so-called freewill marriages — unions entered without requiring a guardian’s signoff — were legalized in 2003. “They know that they will be killed, but even then they are taking these steps because they can’t conform to the values of their parents. They are the girls of this modern age,” says women’s rights advocate Mahnaz Rahman.

Action needed to prevent food price catastrophe-UN
United Nations food agencies recently warned that swift action is needed to avert a catastrophic food crisis that could affect tens of millions of the world’s poor. Nestlé is lobbying the U.S. and EU to reduce their biofuel quotas, while three U.N. agencies — the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization and International Fund for Agricultural Development — urged governments of developing countries to increase assistance to small-scale farmers, women and children.

India to punish employment of children under 14
Proposed changes to India’s child labor laws would mete out prison terms of up to three years, in addition to substantial fines, to anyone who employs children under 14. About 28 million children under 14 are working, chiefly in agriculture, according to UNICEF. The government has “recognized that the long-term benefits of education are far more consequential than the short-term gains of child labor,” said A.K. Shiva Kumar, an economist with the National Advisory Council.

Pakistan arrests aimed at ending polio vaccine refusals
Authorities in Mardan, Pakistan, have arrested six people who allegedly had harassed polio vaccination teams and refused to allow their children to be immunized against the virus. Meanwhile, health officials detected traces of polio in sewage lines in the city of Hyderabad.

In photos, an infant’s burial in S. Sudan
Photographs by Nichole Sobecki chronicle the hours after the death of 9-month-old Hassan Mahmour, who died of severe acute malnutrition in the Batil refugee camp in South Sudan. “As many as four young children die at Batil camp every day, according to Doctors Without Borders: more than double the established emergency threshold,” she writes.

Domestic violence remains top Timorese crime
Two years after the government of Timor-Leste passed a law making domestic violence a crime, such assaults against women remain the newly independent country’s top crime. Changing the culture of violence remains difficult in a country where nearly one-third of all women 15 and older have been assaulted or experienced some form of violence.

Traumatized children are casualties of Syria crisis
A 24-hour spike in the number of Syrians arriving in Turkey has refocused attention on the refugee crisis that has seen numbers nearly quadruple between April and August, according to the United Nations. About three-quarters of refugees — registered in camps in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq — are women and children. Organizers and volunteers are trying to assist children who have witnessed horrors.