It is tempting to dismiss the forthcoming visit of the US Vice President, Mr. Bush, to New Delhi as a consolation prize in view of President Reagan’s trip to China. But it will be patently wrong to do so. We are not in competition with the Chinese for the friendship and favours of the United States.
For one thing, we are not that way inclined; our policy of non-alignment matches our natural inclination in this regard. For another, the United States does not see us as possible partners in its anti-Soviet struggle. So it cannot seek with us the kind of “strategic consensus” it has been trying to achieve with the Chinese since Mr. Kissinger’s momentous visit to Beijing in 1971.
It is now futile to recall that once the United States looked upon democratic India as a counterweight to communist China in Asia. Two points may be made in this connection. First, American policy makers never lived up to the implications of this formulation. They in fact never engaged in a meaningful discussion with us, a discussion which would have involved a proper recognition of our interests and perceptions. Secondly, they finally disposed of this view for whatever it was worth as an input in their Asia policy in the summer of 1971 when they decided to normalise relations with China in the interest of the common struggle against Soviet “expansionism” and “hegemonism”.
For all we know, the Americans may be pursuing a mirage in their dealings with the Chinese. The present US policy can turn out to be as ill-conceived as the previous one which mistakenly treated Beijing first as a Soviet satellite and then as new communist headquarters for inspiring, promoting and financing so called wars of national liberation in different parts of Asia and Africa. The Americans then took the Chinese rhetoric too seriously and they might be repeating the blunder. That is obviously a matter of concern for us and raises problems we have to cope with as best we can. We cannot just plead helplessness and wait on events as idle spectators.
Maintain Relations
As in the past, our pro-Soviet compatriots would want the government to take up a tough anti-US stance and our less vocal and far less numerous pro-US friends would urge it to prove its bona fides by putting pressure on the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. And, of course, as in the past, both the propositions will be rejected, as they deserve to be. The only choice open to New Delhi now, as in the past, is to keep the relations with the United States in reasonably good shape so that we can hope to settle bilateral issues as and when they arise, as in the case of the supply of enriched uranium and spares for Tarapur, and influence to some extent the larger American policy.
Since the installation of Mr. Reagan as president in Washington in 1981, some of the sweeteners which helped us swallow some of the US-administered bitter pills such as military assistance to Pakistan have disappeared. America no longer provides us much aid; it plays no role in mobilising multilateral assistance for us from members of the aid-India consortium; it has, on the contrary, been, wanting to “graduate” us out of subsidised aid from the International Development Agency, the World Bank’s soft-lending window, and oblige us to take loans from international banks on the prevailing commercial rates of interest; and, indeed, it has seen to it that our share of IDA aid is reduced from 40 to 28 per cent. Indeed, it can effectively be argued that the United States has come to behave like a rogue elephant in international relations.
This is a new development. While America has since the end of World War II sought to impose its will on the rest of the world and has in the process committed crimes as in Indo-China, there was a strong beneficent aspect to its policy before the rise to power of Mr. Reagan. That beneficent aspect has greatly declined in the past three years. But the United States remains the world’s most powerful country and the health of the world economy continues to depend on the health of its economy in view of the size of its market for other nations. One will, therefore, be out of one’s mind to miss whatever opportunity arises whenever to mend fences with it. The Soviet Union will certainly never miss such an opportunity. Even the faithful cannot miss the point that if there has been no progress in Soviet-US negotiations, it is primarily because the Americans have not been sufficiently interested.
Security Interests
But while we cannot ignore or wish to slight US power, we must simultaneously recognise that there are limits to what we can achieve in our relations with that country. As far as we can see into the future, Washington will continue to provide sophisticated military hardware to Pakistan, ignore its nuclear programme which is designed specifically to help it produce weapons in the course of the next few years and in the process complicate our security problems.
In fact, we have to keep two other factors in mind this time. First, the United States might now not be in a position to ensure that Pakistan will not misuse weapons supplied by it to attack this country It failed to live up to its assurances in 1965 as well but only because it so chose. It could have enforced its will then if it was so inclined which for some obscure reason it was not. Today it is a different story. President Zia-ul-Haq has defied the US on so sensitive an issue as Pakistan’s nuclear programme and got away with it. Washington is just in no position to discipline him even if it were interested in doing so.
This is a complicated issue which cannot be discussed meaningfully in this article. A couple of points may, however, be made. We all know that the Americans have mesmerised themselves into believing that a militarily strong Pakistan is vital for their security interests in this region, especially in view of the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. We are also aware that Washington has come to equate Pakistan’s stability and dependability on the survival of President Zia in office. It would also be surprising if US policy planners were not aware of the possibility of an anti-US wave sweeping the country in the event of an attempt on their part to impose their will on President Zia. We have only to put these and other relevant points together to draw the inference that General Zia enjoys considerable room for manoeuvre in his dealings with the Americans and that this increases the danger to our security.
Soviet Power
Secondly, Washington is keen to assist China augment its military capability in disregard of the fact that it cannot but impinge on our security. And while there is not much evidence to show that the Americans are encouraging the Chinese and the Pakistanis to step up their military cooperation, no one need be surprised if it turns out that they have been doing so. Americans are inclined to think in such “logical” abstract terms, Sino-Pakistan military cooperation would fit neatly into the US anti- Soviet crusade.
Our security concerns arising out of US actions cannot but influence our view of, and approach towards, the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. In plain terms, we cannot join the anti-Soviet chorus on Afghanistan in order to please the Americans.
This too is a complicated issue. We can have no interest in the expansion of Soviet power beyond the Khyber because that will weaken one of the essential preconditions for Indo-Soviet friendship – the existence of a viable buffer between the two countries. So we have a stake in the integrity of Pakistan. But the same Pakistan can constitute a threat to our security with the help of US equipment and with Chinese encouragement and assistance.
That also is not all. The consolidation of Soviet power in Afghanistan at some distant date can, on the one hand, increase Moscow’s leverage vis-a-vis Pakistan and, on the other, persuade Islamabad to accept its overtures. That will inevitably affect Indo- Soviet ties. No policy can, however, provide for all possible contingencies. For the time being we have to stick to our present position on Afghanistan even if the US administration abuses it to justify military assistance to Pakistan. We must also be aware that Afghanistan is only a talking point with US policy makers. Their principal interests lie elsewhere – in the Gulf – and they regard Pakistan as being relevant to its concerns there. This is in all probability an illusion. But we cannot hope to shake them out of it.
The Times of India, 26 April 1984