It is a somewhat odd time to begin a serious and wide-ranging dialogue between India and the United States. Neither side is in a position just now to define precisely its long-term policy on the key issue of dealing with China.
This is not just a normal election year in the United States. The whole country is in turmoil and it can safely be assumed that whoever is elected the next President he would thoroughly revamp his country’s Asia policy. Even President Johnson would have found it necessary to do so if he had been re-elected for a second term.
The commitment in Viet Nam is likely to be scaled down and finally terminated as and when that becomes possible without loss of face and without running the risk of attracting the charge of a “sell-out” and of undermining American positions in other countries of South- East Asia. But in a deeper sense Viet Nam is only the result of extensive miscalculations over two decades. As such the whole of US policy in Asia would have to be reviewed by the next Administration.
In the ‘fifties American policy was based on the assumption that the communist movement was a monolith with its headquarters in Moscow, that direct military action by the Soviet Union could not be ruled out, that Communist China was a Soviet satellite (Mr Dean Rusk called it a Slavic Manchukuo on a larger scale) and that it would not survive for long because it offended China’s national interests. Mr Rusk, in 1951 even accused it of “losing its great northern areas” to the Soviet Union. It is hardly necessary to point out that each of these assumptions has turned out to be wholly off the mark.
Stakes Raised
In the wake of the detente with the Soviet Union after the Cuban crisis in October 1962, the United States gradually shifted the centre of its military power to the Pacific. After August 1964 it steadily raised its stakes in Viet Nam in the belief that China represented the greatest threat to Washington’s version of world order and that the establishment of American military power on the South-East Asian mainland would effectively deter Chinese expansionism.
The objective of stabilising US military presence in South Viet Nam has clearly proved untenable and few share the official American view that the effort in Viet Nam has any direct bearing on the problem of China. The war in Viet Nam has already cost Washington over $65 billion, a sum that could have revolutionised the economies of the whole region and thus vastly strengthened its defence against internal subversion and external pressure.
Finally, it is even doubtful if Washington would adhere for long to the view that China was the gravest menace to world peace and America’s national interests and that the current policy of isolating it from the world community must be relentlessly pursued.
There is no dearth of signs that American leaders and policy makers are having second thoughts regarding China. In the two hearings on China and Viet Nam before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1966 most leading Sinologists took the view that Peking had, contrary to the popular impression, pursued a fairly cautious policy. The slogan “containment without isolation” has since become fairly popular. Senator McCarthy has been calling for a reappraisal of the USA’s China policy for months. Now even Mr Hubert Humphrey has advocated the end of US embargo on trade with China because “it is no longer relevant in the kind of world in which we live.”
Greater Care
The Vice-President has also said that the United States had no business to act as the world’s policeman and to protect everybody from violence. This means abandonment of the mission to defeat the Maoist concept of wars of national liberation. Mr Humphrey has called for greater care in taking on treaty obligations and in making certain that the obligations had a genuine relationship to American security.
Barring some totally unexpected development, Mr Humphrey is sure to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for presidency and the latest Harris opinion poll puts the Democrats ahead of the Republicans. His views must therefore be taken seriously.
This is not to suggest that the next US Administration would scuttle commitments in Asia and withdraw the Seventh Fleet to Honolulu if not to San Francisco. All that is suggested is that a fairly thorough reappraisal of American policy appears unavoidable and that fruitful and wide-ranging Indo-US talks should therefore begin more appropriately with the installation of the new Administration in Washington next year.
New Delhi also needs time to sort out its China and related policies. Till recently it generally took up the position that it was too preoccupied in the Himalayas to be able to take a live interest in developments in South-East Asia. This position has clearly been reversed. Mrs Gandhi’s recent visit to Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand illustrates the change. But it will be some time before the implications of the change are properly worked out.
Moreover it is only in the last two weeks that the outlines of the strategy the Chinese intend to pursue regarding this country has begun to become intelligible. That China has decided to train and arm extremist Naga rebels is now indisputable. It also appears that Peking has decided to persuade the Nagas to co-ordinate their activities with disaffected Mizos and Kukis in India and Kachins in Burma. The White Flag Communist rebellion in Northern Burma is being intensified and it is possible that a sizeable group of Nagas may be kept there. The magnitude of the new challenge will have become clear by the time the presidential election concludes in the United States.
Meanwhile it will be in the fitness of things that President Johnson should leave the decision on the question of arms for Pakistan to his successor. In America’s own interest the issue should be decided within the framework of an over-all and long-term policy and not in an ad hoc manner.
It would be idle for Washington to pretend that it has not been reviewing its previous decision regarding arms for India and Pakistan. It has in fact tended for over a year to favour the supply of military hardware to Rawalpindi even if through third parties. In the case of the West German sale of 90 F-86s to Pakistan through Iran it was possible to take the charitable view that Washington was not privy to the deal, though one could not altogether ignore the fact that in the recent past Bonn had been used by Washington to deliver arms to Israel. But in the case of the proposed sale of 100 or more Pattons to Pakistan by Italy which itself has acquired or would acquire the tanks from West Germany and then recondition and re-equip them, Washington has openly given its consent.
Broadly three sets of arguments are being used by. American officials to justify the decision:
First, it is necessary to prevent Pakistan getting closer to China and that can be done only if Rawalpindi does not have to depend on Peking as its principal source of arms supply.
Apprehension
Secondly, the Indian purchases from the Soviet Union have caused apprehension in Pakistan and that these fears would tend to undermine the moderate Ayub regime and promote extremism among the people as well as the armed forces. This point has come to be emphasised by Washington since President Ayub Khan suffered a mild stroke earlier this year.
Finally, the Soviet Union may soon agree to sell hardware to Pakistan and thus supplant America in Rawalpindi as it has already done in the case of New Delhi.
The Chinese arguments have clearly been overworked by Washington. It strains credulity to believe that Rawalpindi can be weaned away from the policy of friendship with China unless it begins to comprehend that its efforts to weaken India’s’ security could in the long run hurt its interests in East Pakistan.
In the past American and British spokesmen often took the line that Pakistan stood guard on the invasion route to India and therefore deserved support. They should have the honesty to recognise that in the new situation in defending itself India is defending East Pakistan as well. Yet the United States does not have a policy which aims at strengthening India’s defence capacity. On the contrary it has been trying to persuade the Soviet Union not to sell arms to this country. The evidence of Pentagon officials before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last April contains an admission to this effect.
Washington is interested in being able to influence the outcome of the struggle for succession to President Ayub Khan. In this context it apparently finds it necessary to revive old links with the army officer corps. It is more than likely that Washington is not reconciled to the closure of the spy base outside Peshawar and wants to humour Rawalpindi. Indications that Moscow intends to sell hardware to Pakistan has helped to weaken US inhibitions. All the same it is ironical that the Americans who in 1965 expected the Pakistani tanks to roll into Delhi and who maintained after the 21-day war that neither side had won a decisive victory, should now suggest that Rawalpindi has learnt the bitter lesson and would never again seek a military solution of its disputes with New Delhi. They should realise that the Indian polity and defence structure are under considerable strain and the least they can do is not to add to the burden.
The Times of India, 26 June 1968