By M H Ahssan
Modernity was greatly celebrated during colonial days of 19th century throughout the world, especially in African and Asian countries colonized by European countries. It was hallmark of superiority of west over east. West was considered most modern, rational in its approach and technologically far more superior whereas Asian and African countries superstitious, irrational and ignorant and backward.
Most of the intellectuals, mainly product of western colonial education felt ashamed of their ignorance and backwardness and lack of rationality and science and tried to reform their societies by spreading modern approach among their people. However, there was vertical division in these societies between those who refused to modernize and preferred their orthodoxy and those who considered modernization a must and celebrated modernity.
Almost all religious communities in colonized countries faced this vertical divide but more particularly the Muslims. We are more concerned here with Muslim communities in the colonized countries. Muslims were comparatively slow and more resistant to modernization as the Muslim societies were deeply embedded in feudal values and religious orthodoxy.
Muslim intellectuals who came under the influence of western education and modernism, welcomed modernity but had to adopt cautious approach between religious orthodoxy and western modernism. They had to rely more on their religious text to keep pace with their societies. But those societies which took to industrialization and modern business and commerce found modernity more easily acceptable.
Muslim societies, deeply embedded in feudalism and feudal values, as pointed out above, could not go for modern industrialization, business and commerce and hence modernity did not appeal to them or beneficial to them. Muslims were often criticized for refusing to change and modernize and even their religion Islam was blamed for it. Muslims still face this criticism though we have gone into post-modern era.
Modernity, however, did not prove to be unmixed blessing for western countries, let alone for eastern countries of Asia and Africa thanks to the powerful vested interests who used modernity for their own benefit. Modernity generally came with the capitalist system. In fact modernity was product of industrial system based on capitalism. It was Marx who developed great insights into functioning of modern capitalist system and wrote powerful critique of capitalism.
Capitalism was based on profiteering on one hand, and on cutthroat competition, on the other. The Western countries colonized Asian and African countries in search of raw materials and markets for their product. Modern machines produced on mass scale and for that their domestic markets were not enough and also they did not have all the raw materials they needed. Thus colonial countries became rich source of raw material on one hand, and provided huge markets for their industrial products.
It was this competition for markets which led to two World Wars resulting in killings of millions of people. These wars gave great impetus to armament industry so much so that in the post 2nd World War era no American government could defy what came to be known as military-industrial complex. All American policies were fundamentally influenced by this military-industrial complex. This unholy alliance depended mainly on sale of armaments on huge scale and for this wars had to be promoted in Asian and African countries.
This is not to say that modernization itself was responsible for all this but what is true to entire modernization project was hijacked by powerful interests whose only concern was accumulating profits. That is why I maintain that modernity was not an unmixed blessing for humanity. It has its darker side too. Here we are discussing modernity, not as values, but as an instrument to promote certain interests.
Modernity essentially represents important values like rationality, objectivity, respect for human reason and human values and conformity with fact. It was this respect for reason, and not authority, that led to progress of science and technology through which west acquired superiority over Asian and African countries. The modern bourgeoisie in the West challenged the authority of the Church and succeeded in establishing superiority of reason, the hallmark of modernity.
Reason is the highest value in modernity. It relies solely on reason and has no respect for any tradition. The Afro-Asian societies were based, on the other hand, mainly on respect for tradition whether they conformed to tradition or not. However, sole reliance on reason without wedding it to values and without making reason and values two sides of a coin, reason can and does become problematic.
Reason is a two edged sword without values and this is what happened with modernity when powerful vested interests, mainly capitalists hijacked modernity for their own purposes. Modern weapons and modern technology developed by the western countries were used for enslaving Afro-Asian countries and these countries were reduced to mere sources of raw materials and markets.
Reason could be used for promoting science, technology and deeper understanding of universe but also for developing disastrous weapons which cause great destruction. Humanity saw this destruction in the two World Wars. But it was reason again which developed pure science and we could understand infinite vastness of our universe and how it evolved and our extremely limited understanding of our universe changed. Qur’an says it is the ‘Ulama i.e. those who know, those who are scientists, who deeply reflect on the creation of Allah who can really worship Him.
But problem is rationalists disregard importance of faith and values and begin to worship reason. They do not appreciate limits of reason. This attitude developed among rationalists as reason was totally disregarded and devalued in traditional societies and those who accepted reason and challenged superstitions or traditional authority were severely persecuted.
Also, unscrupulous elements had exploited faith for their own benefits, rationalists came to reject faith as blind and irrational. Thus as modernity solely relied on reason and ridiculed faith, traditionalists totally elide on faith in the traditional authority and rejected reason. Thus both rationalists and faithful became exclusive categories. There was no meeting point. Thus faithful became blind and derided reason and rationalists dubbed faith as blind.
This mutual exclusivity caused much greater problems. Sole reliance on reason can give birth to discontents as sole reliance on faith. We find interesting debate in Islamic history between Imam Ghazzali and Ibn Rushd (known as Averros to the western world). Ghazzali was also a rationalist at one time. He even became atheist at one stage of his development. However, he soon discovered reason does not lead to inner peace and meaning and significance of life. He turned then to faith (though as is evident from his writings retained elements of reason too) and attacked philosophers like Ibn Rushed. He wrote a book Tahafut al-Falasifa (Bewilderment of Philosophers).
Ibn Rushd replied to Ghazzali’s Tahafut al-Falasifa by writing Tahafat Tahafut al-Falasifa i.e. Bewilderment of Bewilderment of philosophers. Thus this lack of mutual understanding lead to exclusivistic attitudes. Ghazzali was in search of inner peace and reason creates more doubts and raises more questions and leads to discontentment. Faith which depends on authority, gives inner contentment.
Modernity has thus led to discontentment in two ways: one, since it has been hijacked by capitalists it leads to more inner discontentment as it is hell-bent upon selling its products and creates illusion of ‘material happiness’ but fails to create one as more consumption leads to still more consumption; two, rationality lacks faith and for inner peace one needs faith which provides ‘final’ answers and hence inner contentment.
Thus neither rationality (i.e. modernity) nor faith alone can be without problems. For centuries faith in authority created total stagnation and superstition. No change or progress became possible. Human beings entertained so many superstitions about creation and about our universe. Diseases thrived and mortality became high.
Similarly reason too failed to satisfy many questions though it too became absolute and wanted to displace faith altogether. Thus many questions about meaning and significance of our universe could not be answered by reason alone. Reason, in a way, gave rise to its own superstitions. Reason claimed all the space which so far faith had occupied. Blind faith also led to exploitation of ignorant human beings and now modernity too, in the form of emphasis on material happiness which also led to discontentment.
Thus either way dilemma remains and there is no solution in sight. But discontentment of modernity has far acceded that of faith. As religion has been hijacked by priesthood (reducing it to mere rituals devoid of values) and other vested interests like politicians with which priesthood often (though not always) collaborated, in case of modernity too it has been hijacked by powerful vested interests and it has become almost a part of capitalist system.
Capitalism is highly exploitative and reason has been made a powerful instrument for exploitation to promote profiteering. Today modernity cannot stand on its own and has become almost an adjunct of capitalist system. Capitalism in our own times is promoting limitless consumerism. It has used reason to promote consumerism in various ways which leads to more and more violence.
Colonial violence was also part of capitalist expansion and led to wars and bloodshed. The colonized countries had to struggle hard, in most cases violently (India was an exception to a great extent) to free themselves from colonial bondage. However, in several newly freed countries western capitalist powers managed to install puppet governments and thus people could not enjoy fruits of freedom.
Thus on one hand ritualized religion and capitalist-based modernity created more discontent in the modern world. Democracy, though very necessary for ensuring freedom to common people, has also been hijacked by vested interests. In most of the countries in Asia and Africa we find today one ethnic group or one religious group at the throat of the other. Ethnic, caste and communal violence is rampant in most of the democratic countries in Asia and Africa today.
All modern means are being used to exacerbate these differences including means of modern mass communications. Mass communication with its most modern techniques is a powerful instrument to promote prejudices and misinformation. Twenty-first century has already witnessed unprecedented violence. Attack on New York towers and resultant wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and consequent terrorist attacks has already killed millions of people during the first decade itself.
Modern technology, again a part of hijacked modernity, has produced weapons of mass destruction. During medieval ages a sword could kill one person at a time. Today modern technology has produced such weapons which can kill thousands at a time merely by pressing just a button. Whole cities can be blasted out of existence. America invaded Iraq (to grab its oil) and tried all its latest weaponry on the poor people of that unfortunate country. More than half a million people perished.
Terrorists, not product of Islam as usually propagated, but a violent response to much greater violence being perpetrated by the Super Power, is also killing thousands of innocent human beings. These killings, it appears, has no end. Communally and ethnic violence within a nation states and wars internationally has robbed out modern world of peace and tranquility.
Most important question is can we free religion on one hand, and modernity on the other hand, from clutches of vested interests? It looks very difficult and complex problem. What we need is a creative synthesis of religion and modernity but to get it accepted is itself very difficult. Religion in its spiritual sense and modernity with emphasis on reason can be very liberative for human beings.
Islam, many people would not believe, was such a creative blend of the two but unfortunately it lost its liberative thrust in the hands of vested interests, particularly the feudal ruling class and medieval values. It was very difficult for Islam to escape this fate. However, now is the time to rediscover the Qur’anic Islam though, as pointed out, it would be make it very difficult to make it acceptable.
Islam today is so encumbered with medieval practices and web of cultural and traditional practices that it is very difficult to disentangle it from this complex web of medieval culture and ruling class interests. I would like to throw some light as to why the Qur’anic Islam could be really so liberative. I do not think war against terror can ever succeed without rediscovering this Islam and also without disentangling modernity too from the clutches of capitalist interests.
Qur’an, through the Prophet (PBUH) first of all addressed itself to rid the society of its ills. Mecca was in the primitive stage of capitalist accumulation and so Qur’an strongly denounced accumulation of wealth and luxurious living. It created sensitivity towards suffering weaker sections of society. It gave the ideal, considered most modern, of human dignity. No human being should be disrespected or robbed of dignity given by Allah.
It also gave awareness to its addresses that when it comes to human dignity both men and women are equal and one has no right over the other. Qur’an even avoided use of the word husband and wife but called them zawjain (couples) so that man cannot claim superiority over his wife. It also sensitized believers to indignity a slave suffers though he/she is also human person and hence enjoys equal dignity.
Thus freeing slaves was considered most meritorious act and also exhorted believers that if they cannot immediately emancipate their slave immediately (though they should), until such time they should treat them as their equal in every respect. It was for this reason that many slaves were attracted initially to Islam and Bilal Habshi (an Ethiopian slave emancipated by his master after accepting Islam) became icon of these slaves.
Also, like in modernity it tried to do away discrimination between one ethnic or linguistic or national group from the other and declared colour, race, languages and nations are Allah’s signs (Surah:Rum Verse: 22). Basic humanity and human dignity is above all these considerations. No superiority for one group, race, color or language to any other one and declared that only distinction could be on the basis of taqwa (i.e. purity of actions and God-consciousness).
These were revolutionary declarations and humanity has failed to realize these ideals even in post-modern period. The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) faced stiff resistance from Meccan tribal chiefs because they were not prepared to accept such a revolutionary transformation of their society which will fell in one swoop their status, their pride of wealth, their superiority of Arabic language and their belonging to tribe of Quraysh.
All this was not acceptable to them at all. They identified their ancestral religion with all their privileges and would not accept new religion as it was truly universal believing in human unity beyond all tribal, linguistic and ethnic boundaries and what was worse for them, believing in socio-economic justice. In this new religion neither language, nor race, nor colour of skin nor wealth was guarantee to nearness of Allah but only once piety, ethical and moral conduct. They did not mind demolishing physical idols kept in Ka’aba but were not prepared for demolishing idols of social, economic, linguistic, and ethnic pride. These idols were real object of worship which put them above others.
Modernity in this sense with due role of reason is hallmark of Islam from the beginning. But Muslims brought back all these idols installed in their hearts and never removed them. History of Islam shows with passage of time these idols carved out deeper and deeper niches. Ka’aba was purified of physical idols but hearts of Muslims were never purified.
Even today many Muslims have accepted modernity in superficial sense by accepting modern technology and like western countries, have instrumentalized role of reason but never accepted role of reason in fundamental and philosophical sense. Modern Western civilization is wholly materialistic and soulless and hence modernity has created more discontents. Its hallmark is more and more consumption, material standards of life and hence fighting for others’ resources leading to wars and bloodshed. America though apparently modern and civilized but most barbarious in waging wars on others territories with its ultra-modern weaponry.
Real modernity as expounded in Qur’an and also in other scriptures, does not use reason in instrumental sense but in fundamental and philosophical sense. It encourages cooperation, not destructive competition. It does not chase illusory goal of happiness based on consumption but promotes social justice, unconditional equality, inviolable human dignity and balanced approach to inner and outer happiness. Modernity cannot be judged through material progress alone. It is necessary but not sufficient.
Spiritual joy and material happiness must go together. Reason should not be devoid of values. Reason without higher goals, meaning and significance of life, is two-edged sword. Truth should not be mere conformity with facts but also beyond and above it, transcendent and all inclusive. Otherwise modernity will remain handmaiden of powerful vested interests which is what it is today and will generate more and more discontents.
Monday, February 23, 2009
India grapples with the Obama era
By M H Ahssan
What prompted the spokesman of India's ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama "demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation? "Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country's emergence as a global player. They began working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America's political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US's capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said,
While the United States must understand China's military buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.
However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China's "encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything but ordinary ... It underscores Beijing's relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other's vital interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.
What prompted the spokesman of India's ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama "demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation? "Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country's emergence as a global player. They began working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America's political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US's capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said,
While the United States must understand China's military buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.
However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China's "encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything but ordinary ... It underscores Beijing's relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other's vital interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.
India grapples with the Obama era
By M H Ahssan
What prompted the spokesman of India's ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama "demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation? "Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country's emergence as a global player. They began working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America's political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US's capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said,
While the United States must understand China's military buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.
However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China's "encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything but ordinary ... It underscores Beijing's relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other's vital interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.
What prompted the spokesman of India's ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama "demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation? "Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country's emergence as a global player. They began working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America's political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US's capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said,
While the United States must understand China's military buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.
However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China's "encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything but ordinary ... It underscores Beijing's relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other's vital interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.
Friday, February 20, 2009
What will Obama do with KBR?
By M H Ahssan
President Barack Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a United States military base or two.
Should he stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight chow with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root and once a subsidiary of Halliburton.
If Obama takes the Rhino Runner armor-plated bus from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone, or travels by Catfish Air's Blackhawk helicopters (the way mere mortals like diplomats and journalists do), instead of by presidential chopper, he will be assigned a seat by US civilian workers easily identified by the red KBR lanyards they wear around their necks.
Even if Obama gets the ultra-red carpet treatment, he will still tread on walkways and enter buildings that have been constructed over the last six years by an army of some 50,000 workers in the employ of KBR. And should Obama chose to order the troops in Iraq home tomorrow, he will effectively sign a blank check for billions of dollars in withdrawal logistics contracts that will largely be carried out by a company once overseen by former vice-president Dick Cheney.
Questions for the Pentagon If Obama wants to find out why KBR civilian workers can be found in every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, he might be better off visiting the Rock Island Arsenal in western Illinois. It's located on the biggest island in the Mississippi River, the place where Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk nation was once born.
The arsenal's modern stone buildings house the offices of the US Army Materiel Command from which KBR's multibillion dollar Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program contract (LOGCAP) have been managed for the last seven years. This is the mega-contract that has, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, generated more than $25 billion for KBR to set up and manage military bases overseas (and resulted, of course, in thousands of pages of controversial news stories about the company's alleged war profiteering).
Even more conveniently, Obama could pop over to KBR's Crystal City government operations headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just a mile south of the Pentagon and five miles from the White House. On Crystal City Drive just before Ronald Reagan National Airport, it's hard to miss the KBR corporate logo, those gigantic red letters on the 11-story building at the far corner of Crystal Park.
Many people who know something about KBR's role in Iraq and Afghanistan might want Obama to question the military commanders at Rock Island and the corporate executives in Arlington about the shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KBR employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, million-dollar alleged bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among a slew of other complaints that have received wide publicity over the last five years.
But those would be the wrong questions.
Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the US military he has now inherited do anything without KBR?
And the answer will certainly be a resounding "no".
Keeping a Volunteer Army Happy
Tim Horton is the head of public relations for Logistical Supply Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, the biggest US base in that country. He was a transportation officer for 20 years and has a simple explanation for why the army relies so heavily on contractors to operate facilities today: What we have today is an all-volunteer army, unlike in a conscription army when they had to be here. In the old army, the standard of living was low, the pay scale was dismal; it wasn't fun; it wasn't intended to be fun. But today we have to appeal, we have to recruit, just like any corporation, we have to recruit off the street. And after we get them to come in, it behooves us to give them a reason to stay in.
Even in 2003, the US military was incredibly overstretched. For the Bush administration to go to war then, it needed an army of cheap labor to feed and clean up after the combat troops it sent into battle. Those troops, of course, were young US citizens raised in a world of creature comforts. Unlike American soldiers from their parents' or grandparents' generations who were drafted into the military in the Korean or Vietnam eras and ordered to peel potatoes or clean latrines, the modern teenager can choose not to sign up at all.
As Horton points out, the average soldier gets an average of $100,000 worth of military training in four years; if he or she then doesn't re-enlist, the military has to spend another $100,000 to train a replacement.
"What if we spend an extra $6,000 to get them to stay and save the loss of talent and experience?" Horton asks. "What does it take to keep the people? There are some creature comforts in this Wal-Mart and McDonald's society that we live in that soldiers have come to expect. They expect to play an Xbox, to keep in touch by e-mail. They expect to eat a variety of foods."
A quarter-century ago, when Horton joined the US Army, all they got was a 14-day rotational menu. "We had chili-mac every two weeks, for crying out loud. What is that? Unstrained, low-grade hamburger mixed with macaroni. Lot of calories, lots of fat, lots of starch, that's what a soldier needs to do his job. When you were done, you had a heart attack."
Today, says Horton, expectations are different. "Our soldiers need to feel and believe that we care about them, or they will leave. The army cannot afford to allow the soldier to be disenfranchised."
When I visited with him in April 2008, Horton took me to meet Michael St John of the Pennsylvania National Guard, the chief warrant officer at one of Anaconda's dining facilities. St John led me on a tour of the facility, pointing out little details of which he was justly proud - like the fresh romaine lettuce brought up from Kuwait by Public Warehousing Corporation truck drivers who make the dangerous 12-hour journey across the desert, so that KBR cooks have fresh and familiar food for the troops.
Stopping at the dessert bar St John explained, "We added blenders to make milkshakes, microwaves to heat up apple pie, and waffle bars with ice cream." The "healthy bar" was the next stop. "Here," he pointed out, "we offer baked fish or chicken breast, crab legs, or lobster claws or tails."
"Contractors here do all the work," St John added. He explained that he had about 25 soldiers and six to eight KBR supervisors to oversee 175 workers from a Saudi company named Tamimi, feeding 10,000 people a day and providing take-away food for another thousand.
"They do everything from unloading the food deliveries to taking out the trash. We are hands off. Our responsibility is military oversight: overseeing the headcount, ensuring that the contractors are providing nutritional meals and making sure there are no food-borne illnesses. It's the only sustainable way to get things done, given the number of soldiers we have to feed."
Horton chimes in: "I treat myself to an ice-cream cone once a week. You know what that is? It's a touch of home, a touch of sanity, a touch of civilization. The soldiers here do not have bars; all that is gone. You've taken the candy away from the baby. What do you have to give him? What's wrong with giving him a little bit of pizza or ice cream?"
Between a chili-mac military and a pizza-and-ice-cream military, the difference shows - around the waistline. Sarah Stillman, a freelance journalist with the website TruthDig, tells a story she heard about a PowerPoint slide that's becoming popular in Army briefings: "Back in 2003, the average soldier lost fifteen pounds during his tour of Iraq. Now, he gains ten."
Stillman says that the first warning many US troops receive here in Baghdad isn't about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), or even EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It's about PCPs: "pervasive combat paunches".
Privatizing the US Army
KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply US troops in combat situations around the world. As of April 2008, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice for those troops. These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in former president George W Bush's "global war on terror".
And in the first days of the new Obama administration, the company continues to win contracts. On January 28, 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The center will include a power plant, an electrical distribution center, a water purification and distribution system, a waste-water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads, all to be built by KBR.
How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company? Well, this change has been a long time coming. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, a consortium of four companies led by the Texas construction company Brown & Root (the B and R in KBR) built almost every military base in South Vietnam.
That, of course, was when Lyndon B Johnson, a Texan with close ties to the Brown brothers, was president. In 1982, two years into Ronald Reagan's presidency, Brown & Root struck gold again. It won lucrative contracts to build a giant US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a former British colony.
In 1985, General John A Wickham drew up plans to streamline logistics work on military bases under what he dubbed the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), but his ideas would remain in a back drawer for several years. In the meantime, Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the administration of the elder George Bush, loosed the American military on Iraq in the First Gulf War in 1991, and hired hundreds of separate contractors to provide logistics support.
The uneven results of this early privatizing effort left military planners frustrated. By the time Cheney left office, he had asked Brown & Root to dust off the Wickham LOGCAP plan and figure out how to consolidate and expand the contracting system.
President Bill Clinton's commanders took a harder look at the new plan that Brown & Root had drawn up and liked what they saw. In 1994, that company was hired to build bases in Bosnia and later in Kosovo, as well as to take over the day-to-day running of those bases in the middle of a war zone.
By the time Donald Rumsfeld took over as secretary of defense under the younger George Bush, he had embraced the revolution that Wickham had begun, and Clinton and Cheney had implemented. At a Pentagon event on the morning of September 10, 2001, one day before three aircraft struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld identified the crucial enemy force his assembled senior staff would take on in the coming years: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world's last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. The adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy.
We must ask tough questions. Why is DOD [Department of Defense] one of the last organizations around that still cuts its own checks? When an entire industry exists to run warehouses efficiently, why do we own and operate so many of our own? At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors, rather than contracting services out, as many businesses do?
He outlined a series of steps to slash headquarter staffs by 15% in the two years to come and promised even more dramatic changes to follow. While the invasion of Afghanistan the following month was conducted by military personnel, Rumsfeld's ideas started to be implemented in the spring of 2002. Indeed, the building of bases in Kuwait in the fall of 2002 for the coming invasion of Iraq was handled almost entirely by KBR.
Today, there is one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq - and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life - making sure that soldiers are fed, their clothes washed, and their showers and toilets kept clean.
While many stories have been written about the $80,000 annual salaries earned by KBR truck drivers, most of the company's workers make far less, mainly because they are hired from countries like India and the Philippines where starting salaries of $300 a month are considered a fortune.
Outsourcing the kitchen patrol
The majority of KBR's labor force, some 40,000 workers (the equivalent of about 80 military battalions), are "third country nationals" drawn largely from the poorer parts of Asia. In April 2008, I flew to Kuwait city where I spent time with a group of Fijian truck drivers who worked for a local company, PWC, doing subcontracting work for KBR.
My host was Titoko Savuwati from Totoya Lau, one of the Moala Islands in Fiji. He picked me up one evening in a small white Toyota Corolla rental car. The cranked-up sound system was playing American country favorites and oldies. Six-feet-tall with broad, rangy shoulders, short-cropped hair, and a goatee, Savuwati had been a police officer in Fiji. He was 50 years old and had left at home six children he hadn't seen in four years. When he got out of his car, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp and dragged one foot ever so slightly behind him.
We joined his friends at his apartment for a simple Anglican prayer service. Deep baritone voices filled the tiny living room with Fijian hymns before they sat down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken parts and began to tell me their stories.
Each had made at least 100 dangerous trips, driving large 18-wheeler refrigeration trucks that carry all manner of goodies destined for US soldiers from Kuwaiti ports to bases like LSA Anaconda. They slept in their trucks, not being allowed to sleep in military tents or trailers along the way.
Savuwati had arrived in Kuwait on January 14, 2005, as one of 400 drivers, hoping to earn $3,000 a month. Instead, his real pay, he discovered, was 175 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) a month (US$640), out of which he had to pay for all his food and sundries, even on the road, as well as rent. Drivers were given an extra 50 dinar ($183) allowance on each trip to Iraq.
"I came to Iraq because of the large amount of money they promised me," he said, sighing. "But they give us very little money. We've been crying for more money for many months. Do you think my family can survive on fifty KWD?" He sends at least 100 dinars ($365) home a month and has no savings that would pay for a ticket home at a round-trip price of roughly $2,500.
I did a quick calculation. For every trip, if they worked the 12-hour shifts expected of them, the Fijians earned about $30 a day, or $2.50 an hour. I asked Savuwati about his limp. On a trip to Nasariyah in 2005, he told me, his truck flipped over, injuring his leg. Did he get paid sick leave? Savuwati looked incredulous. "The company didn't give me any money. When we are injured, the company gives us nothing." But, he assured me, he had been lucky - a number of fellow drivers had been killed on the job.
The next day, I stopped by to see the Fijians again, and Savuwati gave me a ride home. I offered to pay for gasoline and, after first waving me away, he quickly acquiesced. As he dropped me off, he looked at me sheepishly and said, "I've run out of money. Do you think you could give me one KWD [$3.65] for lunch?" I dug into my pocket and handed the money over. As I walked away, I thought about how ironic it was that the men who drove across a battle zone, dodging stones, bullets, and IEDs to bring ice cream, steak, lobster tails, and ammunition to US soldiers, had to beg for food themselves.
This, of course, is the real face of the American military today, though it's never seen by Americans.
Obama's Army
Pentagon commanders often speak of a "revolution in military affairs" when summing up the technological advances that allow them to stalk enemies by satellite, fire missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles, and protect US soldiers with night-vision goggles, but they rarely explain the social and logistical changes that have accompanied this revolution.
Today, US soldiers are drawn from a video-game culture that embraces computers on the battlefield, even as the US Army bears ever less relation to the draft armies that did the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II or fought jungle battles in Vietnam. Indeed, the personnel that Obama will soon visit in Iraq and Afghanistan is generally supplied with hot food and showers around the clock in combat zones in the same way they might be on a Stateside base - by workers like Savuwati.
Undoubtedly, an Obama administration could begin to cut some of the notorious fat out of the contracts that make that possible, including multi-million dollar overcharges. Obama's potential budget trimmers could, for example, take whistleblowers inside KBR and the Pentagon seriously when they report malfeasance and waste.
But could Obama dismiss KBR's army, even if he wanted to? Will Obama really be willing to ask American volunteer soldiers to give up the bacon, romaine lettuce, and roast turkey that they have come to expect in a war zone? And even if he could do so, those are only the luxuries.
Keep in mind that, on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, every single item, from beans to bullets, is shipped using contractors like PWC of Kuwait and Maersk of Denmark. In the last two decades, the US military has even divested itself of the hardware and people that would allow it to move tanks around the world, relying instead on contractors to do such work.
The White House website states that "Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families."
As part of the same policy statement, the site claims the new administration will reform contracting by creating "transparency for military contractors," as well as restoring "honesty, openness, and commonsense to contracting and procurement" by "rebuilding our contract officer corps".
Nowhere, however, does that website suggest that the new administration will work toward ending, or even radically cutting back, the use of contractors on the battlefield, or that those 92,000 new soldiers and Marines are going to fill logistics battalions that have been decimated in the last two decades.
What we already know of the military policies of the new administration suggests instead that President Obama wants to expand US military might. So don't be surprised if the new LOGCAP contract, a $150 billion 10-year program that began on September 20, 2008, remains in place, with some minor tinkering around the edges to provide value for taxpayer money.
KBR's army, it seems, will remain on the march.
President Barack Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a United States military base or two.
Should he stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight chow with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root and once a subsidiary of Halliburton.
If Obama takes the Rhino Runner armor-plated bus from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone, or travels by Catfish Air's Blackhawk helicopters (the way mere mortals like diplomats and journalists do), instead of by presidential chopper, he will be assigned a seat by US civilian workers easily identified by the red KBR lanyards they wear around their necks.
Even if Obama gets the ultra-red carpet treatment, he will still tread on walkways and enter buildings that have been constructed over the last six years by an army of some 50,000 workers in the employ of KBR. And should Obama chose to order the troops in Iraq home tomorrow, he will effectively sign a blank check for billions of dollars in withdrawal logistics contracts that will largely be carried out by a company once overseen by former vice-president Dick Cheney.
Questions for the Pentagon If Obama wants to find out why KBR civilian workers can be found in every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, he might be better off visiting the Rock Island Arsenal in western Illinois. It's located on the biggest island in the Mississippi River, the place where Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk nation was once born.
The arsenal's modern stone buildings house the offices of the US Army Materiel Command from which KBR's multibillion dollar Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program contract (LOGCAP) have been managed for the last seven years. This is the mega-contract that has, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, generated more than $25 billion for KBR to set up and manage military bases overseas (and resulted, of course, in thousands of pages of controversial news stories about the company's alleged war profiteering).
Even more conveniently, Obama could pop over to KBR's Crystal City government operations headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just a mile south of the Pentagon and five miles from the White House. On Crystal City Drive just before Ronald Reagan National Airport, it's hard to miss the KBR corporate logo, those gigantic red letters on the 11-story building at the far corner of Crystal Park.
Many people who know something about KBR's role in Iraq and Afghanistan might want Obama to question the military commanders at Rock Island and the corporate executives in Arlington about the shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KBR employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, million-dollar alleged bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among a slew of other complaints that have received wide publicity over the last five years.
But those would be the wrong questions.
Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the US military he has now inherited do anything without KBR?
And the answer will certainly be a resounding "no".
Keeping a Volunteer Army Happy
Tim Horton is the head of public relations for Logistical Supply Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, the biggest US base in that country. He was a transportation officer for 20 years and has a simple explanation for why the army relies so heavily on contractors to operate facilities today: What we have today is an all-volunteer army, unlike in a conscription army when they had to be here. In the old army, the standard of living was low, the pay scale was dismal; it wasn't fun; it wasn't intended to be fun. But today we have to appeal, we have to recruit, just like any corporation, we have to recruit off the street. And after we get them to come in, it behooves us to give them a reason to stay in.
Even in 2003, the US military was incredibly overstretched. For the Bush administration to go to war then, it needed an army of cheap labor to feed and clean up after the combat troops it sent into battle. Those troops, of course, were young US citizens raised in a world of creature comforts. Unlike American soldiers from their parents' or grandparents' generations who were drafted into the military in the Korean or Vietnam eras and ordered to peel potatoes or clean latrines, the modern teenager can choose not to sign up at all.
As Horton points out, the average soldier gets an average of $100,000 worth of military training in four years; if he or she then doesn't re-enlist, the military has to spend another $100,000 to train a replacement.
"What if we spend an extra $6,000 to get them to stay and save the loss of talent and experience?" Horton asks. "What does it take to keep the people? There are some creature comforts in this Wal-Mart and McDonald's society that we live in that soldiers have come to expect. They expect to play an Xbox, to keep in touch by e-mail. They expect to eat a variety of foods."
A quarter-century ago, when Horton joined the US Army, all they got was a 14-day rotational menu. "We had chili-mac every two weeks, for crying out loud. What is that? Unstrained, low-grade hamburger mixed with macaroni. Lot of calories, lots of fat, lots of starch, that's what a soldier needs to do his job. When you were done, you had a heart attack."
Today, says Horton, expectations are different. "Our soldiers need to feel and believe that we care about them, or they will leave. The army cannot afford to allow the soldier to be disenfranchised."
When I visited with him in April 2008, Horton took me to meet Michael St John of the Pennsylvania National Guard, the chief warrant officer at one of Anaconda's dining facilities. St John led me on a tour of the facility, pointing out little details of which he was justly proud - like the fresh romaine lettuce brought up from Kuwait by Public Warehousing Corporation truck drivers who make the dangerous 12-hour journey across the desert, so that KBR cooks have fresh and familiar food for the troops.
Stopping at the dessert bar St John explained, "We added blenders to make milkshakes, microwaves to heat up apple pie, and waffle bars with ice cream." The "healthy bar" was the next stop. "Here," he pointed out, "we offer baked fish or chicken breast, crab legs, or lobster claws or tails."
"Contractors here do all the work," St John added. He explained that he had about 25 soldiers and six to eight KBR supervisors to oversee 175 workers from a Saudi company named Tamimi, feeding 10,000 people a day and providing take-away food for another thousand.
"They do everything from unloading the food deliveries to taking out the trash. We are hands off. Our responsibility is military oversight: overseeing the headcount, ensuring that the contractors are providing nutritional meals and making sure there are no food-borne illnesses. It's the only sustainable way to get things done, given the number of soldiers we have to feed."
Horton chimes in: "I treat myself to an ice-cream cone once a week. You know what that is? It's a touch of home, a touch of sanity, a touch of civilization. The soldiers here do not have bars; all that is gone. You've taken the candy away from the baby. What do you have to give him? What's wrong with giving him a little bit of pizza or ice cream?"
Between a chili-mac military and a pizza-and-ice-cream military, the difference shows - around the waistline. Sarah Stillman, a freelance journalist with the website TruthDig, tells a story she heard about a PowerPoint slide that's becoming popular in Army briefings: "Back in 2003, the average soldier lost fifteen pounds during his tour of Iraq. Now, he gains ten."
Stillman says that the first warning many US troops receive here in Baghdad isn't about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), or even EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It's about PCPs: "pervasive combat paunches".
Privatizing the US Army
KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply US troops in combat situations around the world. As of April 2008, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice for those troops. These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in former president George W Bush's "global war on terror".
And in the first days of the new Obama administration, the company continues to win contracts. On January 28, 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The center will include a power plant, an electrical distribution center, a water purification and distribution system, a waste-water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads, all to be built by KBR.
How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company? Well, this change has been a long time coming. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, a consortium of four companies led by the Texas construction company Brown & Root (the B and R in KBR) built almost every military base in South Vietnam.
That, of course, was when Lyndon B Johnson, a Texan with close ties to the Brown brothers, was president. In 1982, two years into Ronald Reagan's presidency, Brown & Root struck gold again. It won lucrative contracts to build a giant US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a former British colony.
In 1985, General John A Wickham drew up plans to streamline logistics work on military bases under what he dubbed the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), but his ideas would remain in a back drawer for several years. In the meantime, Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the administration of the elder George Bush, loosed the American military on Iraq in the First Gulf War in 1991, and hired hundreds of separate contractors to provide logistics support.
The uneven results of this early privatizing effort left military planners frustrated. By the time Cheney left office, he had asked Brown & Root to dust off the Wickham LOGCAP plan and figure out how to consolidate and expand the contracting system.
President Bill Clinton's commanders took a harder look at the new plan that Brown & Root had drawn up and liked what they saw. In 1994, that company was hired to build bases in Bosnia and later in Kosovo, as well as to take over the day-to-day running of those bases in the middle of a war zone.
By the time Donald Rumsfeld took over as secretary of defense under the younger George Bush, he had embraced the revolution that Wickham had begun, and Clinton and Cheney had implemented. At a Pentagon event on the morning of September 10, 2001, one day before three aircraft struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld identified the crucial enemy force his assembled senior staff would take on in the coming years: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world's last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. The adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy.
We must ask tough questions. Why is DOD [Department of Defense] one of the last organizations around that still cuts its own checks? When an entire industry exists to run warehouses efficiently, why do we own and operate so many of our own? At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors, rather than contracting services out, as many businesses do?
He outlined a series of steps to slash headquarter staffs by 15% in the two years to come and promised even more dramatic changes to follow. While the invasion of Afghanistan the following month was conducted by military personnel, Rumsfeld's ideas started to be implemented in the spring of 2002. Indeed, the building of bases in Kuwait in the fall of 2002 for the coming invasion of Iraq was handled almost entirely by KBR.
Today, there is one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq - and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life - making sure that soldiers are fed, their clothes washed, and their showers and toilets kept clean.
While many stories have been written about the $80,000 annual salaries earned by KBR truck drivers, most of the company's workers make far less, mainly because they are hired from countries like India and the Philippines where starting salaries of $300 a month are considered a fortune.
Outsourcing the kitchen patrol
The majority of KBR's labor force, some 40,000 workers (the equivalent of about 80 military battalions), are "third country nationals" drawn largely from the poorer parts of Asia. In April 2008, I flew to Kuwait city where I spent time with a group of Fijian truck drivers who worked for a local company, PWC, doing subcontracting work for KBR.
My host was Titoko Savuwati from Totoya Lau, one of the Moala Islands in Fiji. He picked me up one evening in a small white Toyota Corolla rental car. The cranked-up sound system was playing American country favorites and oldies. Six-feet-tall with broad, rangy shoulders, short-cropped hair, and a goatee, Savuwati had been a police officer in Fiji. He was 50 years old and had left at home six children he hadn't seen in four years. When he got out of his car, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp and dragged one foot ever so slightly behind him.
We joined his friends at his apartment for a simple Anglican prayer service. Deep baritone voices filled the tiny living room with Fijian hymns before they sat down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken parts and began to tell me their stories.
Each had made at least 100 dangerous trips, driving large 18-wheeler refrigeration trucks that carry all manner of goodies destined for US soldiers from Kuwaiti ports to bases like LSA Anaconda. They slept in their trucks, not being allowed to sleep in military tents or trailers along the way.
Savuwati had arrived in Kuwait on January 14, 2005, as one of 400 drivers, hoping to earn $3,000 a month. Instead, his real pay, he discovered, was 175 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) a month (US$640), out of which he had to pay for all his food and sundries, even on the road, as well as rent. Drivers were given an extra 50 dinar ($183) allowance on each trip to Iraq.
"I came to Iraq because of the large amount of money they promised me," he said, sighing. "But they give us very little money. We've been crying for more money for many months. Do you think my family can survive on fifty KWD?" He sends at least 100 dinars ($365) home a month and has no savings that would pay for a ticket home at a round-trip price of roughly $2,500.
I did a quick calculation. For every trip, if they worked the 12-hour shifts expected of them, the Fijians earned about $30 a day, or $2.50 an hour. I asked Savuwati about his limp. On a trip to Nasariyah in 2005, he told me, his truck flipped over, injuring his leg. Did he get paid sick leave? Savuwati looked incredulous. "The company didn't give me any money. When we are injured, the company gives us nothing." But, he assured me, he had been lucky - a number of fellow drivers had been killed on the job.
The next day, I stopped by to see the Fijians again, and Savuwati gave me a ride home. I offered to pay for gasoline and, after first waving me away, he quickly acquiesced. As he dropped me off, he looked at me sheepishly and said, "I've run out of money. Do you think you could give me one KWD [$3.65] for lunch?" I dug into my pocket and handed the money over. As I walked away, I thought about how ironic it was that the men who drove across a battle zone, dodging stones, bullets, and IEDs to bring ice cream, steak, lobster tails, and ammunition to US soldiers, had to beg for food themselves.
This, of course, is the real face of the American military today, though it's never seen by Americans.
Obama's Army
Pentagon commanders often speak of a "revolution in military affairs" when summing up the technological advances that allow them to stalk enemies by satellite, fire missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles, and protect US soldiers with night-vision goggles, but they rarely explain the social and logistical changes that have accompanied this revolution.
Today, US soldiers are drawn from a video-game culture that embraces computers on the battlefield, even as the US Army bears ever less relation to the draft armies that did the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II or fought jungle battles in Vietnam. Indeed, the personnel that Obama will soon visit in Iraq and Afghanistan is generally supplied with hot food and showers around the clock in combat zones in the same way they might be on a Stateside base - by workers like Savuwati.
Undoubtedly, an Obama administration could begin to cut some of the notorious fat out of the contracts that make that possible, including multi-million dollar overcharges. Obama's potential budget trimmers could, for example, take whistleblowers inside KBR and the Pentagon seriously when they report malfeasance and waste.
But could Obama dismiss KBR's army, even if he wanted to? Will Obama really be willing to ask American volunteer soldiers to give up the bacon, romaine lettuce, and roast turkey that they have come to expect in a war zone? And even if he could do so, those are only the luxuries.
Keep in mind that, on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, every single item, from beans to bullets, is shipped using contractors like PWC of Kuwait and Maersk of Denmark. In the last two decades, the US military has even divested itself of the hardware and people that would allow it to move tanks around the world, relying instead on contractors to do such work.
The White House website states that "Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families."
As part of the same policy statement, the site claims the new administration will reform contracting by creating "transparency for military contractors," as well as restoring "honesty, openness, and commonsense to contracting and procurement" by "rebuilding our contract officer corps".
Nowhere, however, does that website suggest that the new administration will work toward ending, or even radically cutting back, the use of contractors on the battlefield, or that those 92,000 new soldiers and Marines are going to fill logistics battalions that have been decimated in the last two decades.
What we already know of the military policies of the new administration suggests instead that President Obama wants to expand US military might. So don't be surprised if the new LOGCAP contract, a $150 billion 10-year program that began on September 20, 2008, remains in place, with some minor tinkering around the edges to provide value for taxpayer money.
KBR's army, it seems, will remain on the march.
India grapples with the Obama era
By M H Ahssan
What prompted the spokesman of India's ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama "demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation? "Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country's emergence as a global player. They began working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America's political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US's capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said, while the United States must understand China's military buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.
However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China's "encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything but ordinary ... It underscores Beijing's relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other's vital interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.
What prompted the spokesman of India's ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna - the "Jewel of India" - be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.
The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi's elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US "strategic partnership" in the Bush era.
Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.
The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, "India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders."
The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India's policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a "Gandhian" delegation. Is Obama "demilitarizing" India-US strategic cooperation? "Mil-to-mil" cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.
All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi's elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.
Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country's emergence as a global player. They began working "shoulder to shoulder" with the US, just as Bush's officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed - all dressed-up but there's nowhere right now for them to go.
Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan's cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.
Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn't comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the "New American Century" project.
Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of "change". The Indian skepticism about Obama's capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America's political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US's capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama's policies.
From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad's support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.
More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot "pressure" Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan's cooperation increases further.
Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US's acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan's concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington's preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.
Looking ahead, Obama's decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama's war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.
The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.
Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama's new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama's China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies - the US, Japan, Australia and India - that would strive to set the rules for China's behavior in the region.
According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton's current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that "our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century".
In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, "We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other's successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities". She argued for a "comprehensive dialogue" and a "broader agenda" with China.
The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, "It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia". The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.
Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said, while the United States must understand China's military buildup - its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities - in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.
However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren't "big enough" for India and China.
Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its "sphere of influence" in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin - at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.
Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China's "encirclement" policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu's visit was "anything but ordinary ... It underscores Beijing's relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean ... That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades".
It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration's new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a "bipartisan" consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other's vital interests. But the US's current strategic priorities in the region and India's expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration's "tilt" towards India.
Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke's mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.
In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.
In a sensational interview with India's top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan's former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.
The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is "sheer bad luck", as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.
To quote Kasuri, "If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere."
In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.
At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.
Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke's arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.
And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke's visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi's elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.
Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors
By M H Ahssan
Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.
“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.
According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.
Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.
“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.
Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.
Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.
Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.
“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.
According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.
Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.
“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.
Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.
Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.
Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors
By M H Ahssan
Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.
“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.
According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.
Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.
“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.
Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.
Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.
Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.
“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.
According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.
Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.
“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.
Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.
Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.
Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors
By M H Ahssan
Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.
“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.
According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.
Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.
“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.
Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.
Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.
Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.
“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.
According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.
Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.
“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.
Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.
Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.
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