Judging from the nature of the questions that were put to Dr Kissinger during his visit to New Delhi, there is less than adequate appreciation here of the big changes that have taken place in the international scene and the compulsions which have persuaded the two governments to mend their fences. This can complicate New Delhi’s task in developing the kind of mature and realistic relationship it seeks with the United States.
Most people here discuss America’s past policy of extending military assistance to Pakistan and of placing Islamabad on a par with New Delhi as if it was an isolated phenomenon or merely the result of a desire to embarrass a country committed to non-alignment. In reality, it was an offshoot of the level of military technology in the early ‘fifties and the US perception of the nature of the Sino-Soviet threat. Since both have changed beyond recognition, the old compulsions no longer operate.
Today, the Americans just do not need the kind of communications and other facilities they enjoyed in the ‘fifties and the ‘sixties at the Peshawar base, and will have no use for them even if Pakistan were willing to provide them – an inconceivable proposition for Mr Bhutto. The satellites fill the role admirably. And which American believes today that the Russians need to send their tanks through Afghanistan and Iran to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf? They are already there as a result of the remarkable expansion of their navy and the influence they command in West Asia. Needless to add that they are there to stay.
Concern
The Persian Gulf was the crux of the matter even in the early ‘fifties both for Sir Olaf Caroe, who first commended the northern tier concept, and the American officials who negotiated the alliances with Iran and Pakistan and helped the British push through the Baghdad Pact in the face of opposition by President Nasser. Today it is a matter of utmost concern for the United States not so much because its dependence on oil from there has considerably increased in recent years as because the very survival of its West European and Japanese allies depends on uninterrupted oil supplies from that source.
At some sacrifice, America can do without the Persian Gulf crude but not its friends. It follows that if Washington had stuck to the previous assessment that the security of the Gulf was dependent on its alliance with Pakistan and Islamabad’s alliance with Teheran, it would have rearmed Pakistan, irrespective of the state of its relations with India. But fortunately for India and Indo-American relations, the United States has drastically revised its assessment in the post-1971 period and acted accordingly.
It cannot be a mere coincidence that the United States began to pour arms into Iran on an unprecedented scale in the wake of the break-up of Pakistan and the resulting uncertainty regarding the future of that country. The Shah was, of course, in a position to pay, though on a deferred basis, for the weapons even before the four-fold increase in the prices of crude last winter placed enormous financial resources at his disposal. Also, his perception of the consequences for his country of the Soviet Union’s naval presence in the Indian Ocean and treaties with India and Iraq persuaded him to step up vastly the military build-up. But Washington, too, encouraged him to go ahead, apparently because it had concluded that Iran had to ensure stability in the Gulf without much assistance from Pakistan. The change in Teheran’s stance towards Islamabad since 1972 cannot have gone unnoticed in New Delhi.
Foresight
It is not quite clear whether at that stage American policy-makers anticipated the concern the Iranian build-up would cause India and whether they had thought of promoting Indo-Iranian co-operation as a way out of the dilemma this would pose for them. At least the American professors who descended on New Delhi in 1972 and 1973 to tell Indians that their country did not matter to the United States, did not show any such foresight. Be that as it may, once Mr Nixon and Dr Kissinger became aware of the problem, they could have thought, whatever their prejudices and predilections, of solving it only in one way, that is by encouraging Iran to disarm Indian fears.
This inference is based on three factors. First, Pakistan could not be of much help to Iran for ensuring the security of the Gulf region. Secondly, in view of America’s deep interest in detente with the Soviet Union, specially in the oil-rich and explosive West Asia, it was inadvisable to polarise the area between India and Iran. Finally, Mr Kissinger could not possibly miss the point that friendly ties with New Delhi would give the Shah a new stature in the region.
The material point in the present context is not whether in renewing the invitation to the then external affairs minister, Mr Swaran Singh, last July, Teheran took the initiative independently or in consultation with America but that once Indo-Iranian entente became a practical proposition, Islamabad was automatically relegated to a place below New Delhi in the US calculations. Logically, Washington’s interest henceforth would be not in enabling Pakistan to rock the boat of Indo-Iranian friendship but in ensuring that it finds an honourable place in the new arrangement and accepts it. Mr Kissinger’s utterances in New Delhi should be examined in this context.
Those who sought a categorical assurance from him regarding the supply of arms to Pakistan, might, therefore, have been trying to push an open door. For, it is more than likely that the decision to adhere to the present policy was taken in Washington last summer at about the same time that the Shah first gave a public assurance to India that he would not transfer US or any other military equipment, new or old, to Pakistan provided, of course, he remained convinced that New Delhi did not seek to bring about its disintegration.
The problem India may face is quite different. Though it is not yet on the cards, it is not inconceivable that Pakistan may gain access to the vast armoury which Saudi Arabia has decided to build with purchases largely from the United States. But whatever one’s assessment of the problem, it is best met by extending co-operation with Riyadh and strengthening the ties with Washington, and normalising relations with Pakistan to the point where it no longer has the psychological impetus to work for a disruption of the system which New Delhi and Teheran are trying to build.
India’s motivation and compulsions in mending fences with the United States and working for an entente cordiale with Iran are less complicated. But it is a gross simplification to suggest, as is widely done here, that the Indian government has been guided solely by the need to seek assistance. India is doubtless placed in a fairly difficult position. But two other points deserve to be noted.
Luxury
First, while India would have had no choice but to respond as best it could if the United States and Iran had continued with the old approach, it had nothing to gain by setting out a collision course with them. Indeed, by the middle of 1973 it was clear to all but some of the ideologues that it just could not afford the luxury of bad relations with them because by then China, too, had indicated its readiness to underwrite an anti-India axis centred on Teheran and the earlier optimism regarding the food position had disappeared.
Secondly, irrespective of the volume of assistance the United States is prepared and able to provide, this country needs a balanced relationship with the two superpowers for the simple reason that it will lose a great deal of its importance and bargaining position with its Russian friends as well if it does not have reasonable relations with Washington.
The world has doubtless ceased to be bipolar if it was ever so and India has for some years received and is likely to continue to receive more direct aid from Britain and West Germany than from the United States. But America alone can balance Russia. Even the Chinese must know by now that the West Europeans and the Japanese cannot fill this role. The rise in energy costs has worsened the power imbalance to their disadvantage and to the advantage of Moscow and Washington.
The Times of India, 1 November 1975