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New
Delhi, 22 December 2004
This
article has inputs from Jake Terpstra, former
head of Children's Services for the USA, and our
friend Ben Boothe. President Putin’s visit to
India in December had some very clever innuendoes
between the short announcements, as the parleys were
very secret. It seems that on the pillars of oil,
military exports, help from China, India, Osama and
Iran –– Putin is attempting to bring USA down a
shade or two in the next decade and a simple game
plan seems to be unfolding. Bush’s ‘yes men’
team may not notice it. Revenge is always sweet and
Russia has Osama's and China's tacit support. India
can gain in the bargain and emerge stronger as USA
needs India, and we can play the game too. Maybe we
are playing it unwittingly?
In
Russia Yukos Oil was sold to an unnamed bidder
–– oil prices will play a great part in the
future ––
now Putin will have greater control over oil in his
country. He appears to have fobbed off US interests
in this deal. India and Russia are tied in the
Sakalin oil fields and India is looking for more
inroads there. Putin told Indian leaders when he was
here that they should stick to their friend Russia
for major defence, oil and nuclear needs or else he
may not cooperate. He knows India's FFE reserves are
bubbling over and so trade is the next step. He
offered to support India for a seat in the UNSC with
Veto powers, knowing very well that USA would never
agree and he scored brownie points.
He
also said he wished to see joint projects in all
sectors including the advanced joint fighter,
transporter and ships (both civil and
military). He Larsen and Tubro advertisement tells
the story. That India is now tied with Russia for
its nuclear submarine ambitions and missiles led by
the Brahmos. He stated that he would not give source
codes for ballistic missile defence if India decided
to unilaterally marry Russian and western
technology. Indian leaders better listen, as the
dollar retreats and our FFE reserves of $129 billion
also deplete alongside.
India
must note a recent report from USA, which portrayed
Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to be bigger than
India’s and more ready to fire. We have no
reason to doubt the report. Also after meeting
the India Pakistan Soldiers Initiative team of
senior retired officers including a former Air Chief
who came from Pakistan, it was clear that they
too considered Pakistan's nuclear potential to be a
potent one. It could harm all of us in the region
who seek peace and prosperity.
We
recall a detailed presentation made in the late 80s
in the hallowed halls of the South block to the
Strategic heads of India. The subject was
Afghanistan, the theme simple –– USA was pumping
in weapons and money of $1 billion per year into
Mujahideen hands, including Osama bin Laden,
Hekmatyar Gulubudin and others via Pakistan, to
bleed USSR who were spending $8 billion per year and
losing lives and equipment in Afghanistan. Full
financial details were provided in the presentations
and touts even offered India Stinger missiles from
there. It was analyzed that the morale of the
Russians would sag, and USSR would go broke in the
bargain.
Playing
to the gallery the analysis was scoffed at, as the
Indian strategic heads were more inclined to heed
India's RAW, which had good contacts in Afghanistan
and they said Russia was winning and USA was losing.
India bet on the wrong horse as Russia went broke.
Pakistan
bet on the other horses till the Taliban was found
out. Today Osama who knows that game well is singing
the same tune against USA –– China, Russia and
Iran are enjoying the fun. We must watch Iran
closely and can say it has the bomb in the basement,
whatever this means. US troops have no cause in
Iraq, and so morale is bound to sag in the coming
years especially if casualties mount.
Osama
is hell bent to bring Saudi Arabia to the boil to
add to the oil mess and incidentally the British
actually played such a war game for the UN in the
Diplomatic Enclave in Delhi recently and our IDC rep
was one of the Judges.
Russian
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's four-day visit to
China last week was substantial, with an agreement
to hold 'substantial military exercises on Chinese
territory in 2005'.This was Ivanov's second trip to
Beijing this year, and Chinese President Hu Jintao
used the occasion to assert, 'Sino–Russian
strategic coordination has attained an unprecedented
high level.' The agreement to hold joint exercises
was, in fact, unprecedented, and Hu went on to
express satisfaction at the growth in relations
between the two armies. But most U.S. print media
–– The Washington Post, for example ––
ignored the story like RAW did in the
Afghanistan’s case. The New York Times cut it down
to two sentences tucked onto the end of a roundup
titled World Briefing on page A6.
Nevertheless,
it is a significant development, pointing out how
China and Russia are reacting to the actions of what
they perceive to be the world's big bully. The
announcement of the military exercises planned for
next year comes after Soviet President Vladimir
Putin, while visiting Beijing in October, said
bilateral relations had reached 'unparalleled
heights”. During his visit, Putin signed an
agreement that settled the last of the disputes
along the 7,500-kilometer border between the two
countries with accommodation, and trade has
increased.
Most
important, China has become the Russian arms
industry's premier customer closely followed by
India. This year, the Chinese are buying about $2
billion in weapons, many of them top of the line.
For Russia, these sales are an important source of
earnings and keep key segments of its defense
industry afloat. Cut off from arms sales from the
West, Beijing has come to rely on Russia more and
more for sophisticated arms and technology. For
those familiar with the acerbic nature of
Russia–China relations over the years, the
announcement of joint military exercises should be
an indication of ganging up. The switch from extreme
hostility to rapprochement is a sea change in the
broader strategic equation. NATO's bombing of
Yugoslavia over Kosovo in 1999 had already
heightened the need felt by China and Russia to
buttress mutual security ties. Pre-9/11 progress in
political, economic and military relations reached a
highpoint with the conclusion of a Sino–Russian
treaty signed by Presidents Putin and Jiang Zemin in
Moscow in July 2001. The invasion of Iraq in March
2003 greatly increased the incentive for such
collaboration, which is what we wish to highlight.
The
Russians and Chinese like Osama look at the
quicksand in which U.S. forces are trying to stay
afloat in Iraq with mixed feelings –– alarm at
what they see as unconstrained, unpredictable U.S.
behavior, and Schadenfreude at the fiasco brought
about by ineptitude on the part of senior civilian
defense officials and careerism among the generals,
many of whom know better but have not the spine to
tell their superiors that the war in Iraq cannot be
won. What seems clear is that because of the
U.S./U.K. attack on Iraq, China and Russia intend to
give each other meaningful political support if
Washington embarks on a new military adventure
–– against Iran, for example.
That
same assurance of mutual support and cooperation
could also serve to embolden the Russians or Chinese
for adventurism of their own-vis-à-vis Taiwan, for
example, or Ukraine –– taking advantage of the
fact that the United States is pinned down and
preoccupied in Iraq.
The
lid is now off Pandora's preventive box. Just before
leaving for Beijing, Defense Minister Ivanov made it
clear that Russia 'reserves the right to carry out
preventive strikes with conventional weaponry on
terror bases anywhere they are found in the world.'
This is a warning to Osama. Indeed, it may be a
short step to applying the 'terrorist' label to
those wearing orange in Kiev. Like subterranean
geological plates that shift imperceptibly, changes
with immense political repercussions can occur so
gradually as to be imperceptible –– until the
earthquake. Over the past several years, there has
been rather broad consensus among specialists that,
despite the gradual rapprochement between Russia and
China, both remain more interested in developing
good relations with the United States than with each
other. This may no longer be the case and the
Russia–China–Osama game plan may work!
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