Now that the visit by Obama is over - and given all the hoopla about
the visit by the media - it is pertinent to ask the question: what has been
achieved during the visit that warrants so much praise and the extraordinary
coverage? In one short sentence: not much. Both sides are still far apart on
the many issues – ranging from intellectual property rights to geopolitical
ones. But it is the geopolitical arena where there are going to be significant
differences and if India does not play its own geopolitical game correctly,
then what happens is anybody's guess.
USA's great pivot to Asia is nothing but an attempt to circle and effectively contain the rise of china from challenging its supremacy in East Asia. There are numerous reasons why both the countries are flexing muscles in South China Sea on which I will not dwell here. But USA is trying to gather as many allies as it can to counter China's increasing military growth and its territorial ambitions.
But, is it in India's interest to join such an alliance? India does
have a big festering territorial problem with china. Both sides are aware that
it needs to be solved only through peaceful diplomatic negotiations and any
other way would simply be disastrous to both of them. Besides the economic ties
between both nations are increasing rapidly with china having surpassed USA as
India's number one trading partner.
Despite the lingering issue, Chinese President Xi, during his visit to
India in September 2014, agreed to increase cooperation in wide ranging areas
from economy to infrastructure, etc.
And, more important, China has now fully backed elevation of India from
observer status in Shanghai Cooperation Organization to that of full member
along with Pakistan and Iran. Both India and China seem to have realized that
USA is trying to play them against each other to the detriment of mutual
interests of both the nations. The only winner of such play will be USA and its
hegemonic ambitions.
Then there is another issue of BRICS – an alliance rivaling and capable
of dethroning IMF and petrodollar – with its own development bank and possibly
having Yuan and a basket of currencies as trading currency among themselves.
One of the biggest mechanism being developed by BRICS is the bilateral mutual
currency swap agreement which would effectively take king dollar
completely out of picture and thereby deprive the US Government and its justice
department from having any leverage – a leverage that allows them to ride rough-shod
over the sovereignty of nations in the world – and thereby influence the
policies of the nations to the desires of USA.
USA would like nothing more than to pry apart the alliance which it
sees as a threat to its global dominance and, in particular, to the dollar as
the world reserve currency. India certainly would not like to be the factor
that would friction in the alliance – an alliance that promises to break the
stranglehold of IMF and dollar as a world reserve currency – which many nations
are looking forward to in an attempt to break free from the neo-imperialism of
IMF and breathe freedom.
Another issue is of Russia. It has long been America's goal to kick
Russia out of Indian arms market. But can USA do so? The answer is ‘no’. The
strategic ties between Russia and India stretch back more than 50 years and
have withstood all the challenges. (Look at this compilation by Rediff about all the US President's who have comecalling to India and what was the high and low point of each visit. Quiteinteresting.)
In fact, Russia has provided India with state of the art technologies
in all three wings of the military – army, navy and air-force. The pride of
Indian military – Brahmos missile which has no known counter measure – is jointly
developed by Russia and India. The new fifth generation fighter aircraft, PAKFA
T-50 – which has stealth technology – is being jointly developed by India and
Russia. On a lighter side it was quite an ironical and interesting to watch
Obama viewing all the Russian made armaments during the parade. It will be very difficult for USA to match
this type of commitment. Neither US congress nor their military industrial
complex would allow that.
Knowing India's special relationship with Russia, Obama tried to put a
wrench in it by criticizing Russia over its alleged – only alleged and unproven
– role in Ukraine. In fact, the opposite is true. USA and its stooges in the EU
and NATO are far more actively involved in Ukrainian affairs. India's studied
silence over this speaks volumes. It is not going to abandon Russia.
The supposedly high points of the visit – waiving the
requirements by Obama of tracking of nuclear material and nuclear suppliers’
liability issue – have been trumpeted loudly by the media from every rooftop.
Though the first issue has been quite easy to tackle, it is the second issue of
the liability that still needs to be thrashed out in clear details. It is being
said that an insurance pool to the tune of 120 million dollars would be setup
to cover any liability claim that might arise if there is an accident. But what
happens after the 120 million dollar limit is reached and who will be responsible
for any claim that might go beyond this limit is not yet decided.
Under such circumstances, it would be hard to imagine the comfort level
of the suppliers' lawyers and the comfort levels of the Wall Street and the
shareholders of the suppliers. Nobody likes to see a corporation getting wiped
out due to insurance claims. It is bad for the investment of the share holders
and bad for the stock market. Since nothing has been put into words, it is far
too early to trumpet about this breakthrough.
A curious thing that comes to mind: the deal happened right after the
visit of Putin and his signing of deal to supply 12 reactors to India in
December. Does this have any bearing on Obama waiving the requirements? I don't
know. But, I certainly find it quite interesting.
Well considering all these things, it is hard to imagine where India
and US agree. One country has hegemonic ambitions and to the other, they are
repulsive. The few areas that they agree on are like terrorism, investment,
infrastructure etc. i. e. the normal things that the heads of state do when
they are on visit to another country. Deepen the commercial ties and that's it.
Nothing more. But here again, the country – China – which USA is trying to
contain, has taken over as India's largest trading partner and is on course to
increase the economic ties substantially more.
Given all the ideological differences that are present and the
likelihood of them getting bridged in the near future seem improbable – well if
they do, then it would be a greatest geopolitical alignment of the 21st century
– the visit seems to be just a visit that is blown out of proportion by the media.
In short, the Obama visit was just optics, nothing else.
PS:
Just a sampling of headlines that make it clear that the triumvirate of
Russia, India and China are forging new alliance and leadership for the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment