The United States has long been reconciled to a steady increase in Soviet influence in India and Pakistan. Ever since the Indo-Pakistan war in 1965 it has recognised that Moscow is trying to create an area of stability on its southern borders and to counter Chinese expansionism and has therefore done little to challenge or weaken the growing Russian influence.
It now appears that the US has also gradually veered round to the view that China’s close relations with Pakistan do not threaten either its own interests or the stability of the region and can therefore be accepted as legitimate. So far as India is concerned, this is perhaps the most important point in Mr Nixon’s State of the World message to Congress.
End Of Era
The American chief executive has said: “We will try to keep our activities in the area (South Asia) in balance with those of the other major powers concerned… we will do nothing to harm legitimate Soviet and Chinese interests in the area. We are equally clear, however, that no outside power has a claim to a preponderant influence, and that each can serve its own interests and the interests of South Asia by conducting its activities in the region accordingly.”
If this paragraph is read in the context of Mr Nixon’s statement that his decision to sell “a limited amount of military equipment” to Pakistan is a one-time exception, it will appear that the present administration has given up the view that it is desirable for it to offer arms to India or Pakistan or both for the sake of weaning away either or both from the Soviet Union and China. An era in US policy which began in 1954 with the mutual security pact with Pakistan is thus finally drawing to a close. Those in India who still think in terms of the cold war will do well to read Mr. Nixon’s address with care.
It may be premature and even rash to draw any sweeping conclusions from his Statement on South Asia. It is vague inasmuch as it does not define the concept of the “legitimate interests” of external powers in the sub-continent. But it is difficult to resist the inference that the US on its part is prepared to accept the present position under which the Soviet Union maintains specially close relations with India and China with Pakistan. It will seek to preserve whatever influence it has more or less exclusively on the basis of economic assistance.
Mr. Nixon and his advisers may or may not be trying to promote competition between Moscow and Peking. The point is they seem to have convinced themselves that their rivalry will prevent either of them from winning preponderant influence in the sub-continent and that this fact, together with the economic aid that the US can offer, will suffice to protect America’s “legitimate interests” in the area.
The change in the US posture towards China is not unexpected. It is a logical consequence of its recognition that the Sino-Soviet breach cannot be healed and that it is more basic in both ideological and national terms than America’s own dispute with either the Soviet Union or China. The change would have perhaps come about a long time ago if the US had not been involved in the Viet Nam war and had not found it necessary to explain this involvement in terms of containing China. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by Peking has accelerated the process of reappraisal on the part of Washington. It wants to treat China in future not as a pariah but as a great power worthy of being courted and accommodated in the international system on honourable terms.
It is also not surprising that the concept of an autonomous regional balance free from external interference does not find even a passing reference in Mr. Nixon’s message. Partly the explanation is that the men around him, specially Mr. Kissinger, his principal foreign policy adviser and mentor, are so obsessed with the establishment and maintenance of a stable world order that they regard the aspirations of weaker powers as a nuisance.
The United States has always been allergic to regional powers like India, Indonesia and Egypt which have at one time or other nursed the ambition of establishing a regional balance in their areas under their leadership. It has in the past armed Pakistan, opposed Egypt’s bid to unite the Arabs and looked askance at Indonesia’s bid to establish itself as the biggest power in South-East Asia
Compulsions
The circumstances have changed greatly in that the United States is no longer seeking hegemony in this part of the world and has in fact openly proclaimed the doctrine of accommodation with both the Soviet Union and China. But the compulsions which have led it to lower its sights have not persuaded it to show greater deference to the susceptibilities of countries like India and Egypt. Indonesia is currently in a different category. But it is doubtful if the US will ever endorse Jakarta’s ambitions, should these reappear, for decisive influence in South-East Asia.
In West Asia, as in the case of India and Pakistan, the US has no interest in promoting a regional balance which is independent of the great powers. Mr. Nixon has indeed said that “the nations of the Middle East must come to terms on various levels with the technological, capital, political and military presence of the US with a new projection of Soviet power; and with a new Europe establishing economic associations through the Common Market with a number of nations in the area.” He would have included China in the list if it had succeeded in establishing itself in the area.
Mr Nixon does not approve of “excessive Arab dependence on Soviet support,” Mr Kosygin’s refusal to accept his proposal to “limit the arms race in the Middle East on a reciprocal basis,” the presence of several thousand Russians in Egypt to man sophisticated equipment, specially Sam-2 and Sam-3 missiles, and Moscow’s insistence that the four great powers compel Israel to withdraw from occupied territories. He also suspects that the Soviet Union is trying to acquire a dominant position in this region of vital importance, economically and militarily, to America’s West European allies.
But unlike his predecessors he does not talk indiscriminately of Soviet expansionism. On the contrary, he recognises that Russia has “important interests” in the region which must be respected. His prescription is: “The stability of the Middle East requires establishing a balance in the activities of the outside powers there. Each must be free to pursue its own legitimate interests but within the limits imposed by respect for the legitimate interests of others and the sovereignty of the nations of the area.”
An Eye-Wash
The last provision is an eyewash. In Mr. Nixon’s view the sovereignty of weaker nations has to be subordinated to the “legitimate interests” of the great powers. In effect he is proposing a Russo-American condominium for West Asia. Perhaps he would not have hesitated in suggesting a similar arrangement for India and Pakistan with China thrown in if he regarded the sub-continent equally important which he apparently does not.
The trouble is that a condominium does not work for any length of time. As Mr. George Liska has noted in his Imperial America (The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore): “Commonly, a condominial arrangement fails over the impossibility lastingly to pool functions while differentiating them and to divide territorial spheres of preponderant influence while coordinating them. Since it is inspired by reciprocal and shared security fears and suspicions rather than by concord, a condominial arrangement must be complete between the two powers before it can be implemented even half-heartedly against a third; it reverts to intensified hostility at the slightest suspicion of foul play or infidelity. Moreover agreements to divide and partition – always difficult – will be virtually impossible to perpetuate between empires for which universality of dominion and function are a necessity and a vocation”.
There are three additional difficulties. First, China is not yet so strong as to compel America and Russia to recognise that they have no choice but to come together. If and when China becomes a superpower, America and Russia will seek to deal with it rather than gang up against it. Secondly the Soviet Union has yet to achieve parity with the United States on the high seas and it is apt to seek compensation for its economic lag in other fields. Finally, the two super-powers are not paying sufficient attention to the strength of nationalism in the third world.
But right now the issue is not so much whether a condominium can work as whether Mr. Nixon is in earnest about it and whether a broad consensus exists in its favour in the US. On the available evidence this is clearly the case. This cannot but create a wide gulf between America and the smaller nations which are jealous of their sovereignty. They cannot accept the proposition that the great powers have a “legitimate” right to interfere in their affairs. The Soviet approach may in effect not be very different as far as they are concerned. But the men in the Kremlin have at least the sense not to say that the great powers are entitled to abridge the sovereignty of the smaller nations, apart from those in East Europe which come under the Brezhnev Doctrine.
The Times of India 3 March 1971