In the mid-1990s our U.S. Army strategic military intelligence Detachment (STRAT MID) received a new commander. One of the first things he did was
convene a round table of all the unit members to get to know us and pick our
brains. When he came to me he asked me what I thought was the most dangerous
part of the world. I immediately responded the India and Pakistan. He looked
puzzled and he asked me why I thought that way. I told him here were two
nations that absolutely hated each other religiously (Hindus and Muslims) and both possessed nuclear
weapons and were willing to use them on each other.
Indeed, many people forget that in December 2001 India had its own 9-11 when Islamic terrorists attacked India’s
parliament and over 200 MPs were pinned down and surrounded by the terrorists. Now imagine what would happen if a large number of Muslim terrorists attacked Congressional Hill!
The Indians and Pakistanis began moving their nuclear weapons towards their mutual border and both nations went on a war alert. The Indians sent in their special operating forces, the Black Cats, to relieve
the siege on the Parliament and kill the Islamic terrorists. Subsequently, the Indians claimed that the terrorists came from and were supported by Pakistan.
The United States intervened in the crisis and
asked the Indians and Pakistanis to stand down, fortunately for the world both sides
stood down and the world moved away from the brink of a regional nuclear weapon.
Now, fast forward to today.
With the world focused on the
scary possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula, not many people paid much
attention to a series of naval exercises this past July in the Malacca Strait, a naval choke point, a 550-mile long passage between
Sumatra and Malaysia through which pass over 50,000 ships a year.
With
President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un exchanging threats and
insults, why would the media bother with something innocuously labeled “Malabar
17”?
They
should have.
Malabar
17 brought together the US, Japanese, and Indian navies to practice shutting
down a waterway through which 80 percent of China’s energy supplies travel and
to war game closing off the Indian Ocean to Chinese submarines. If
Korea keeps you up at night, try imagining the outcome of choking off fuel for
the world’s second largest economy.
This is exactly what the U.S. did to Japan in 1941 and it precipatated Pearl Harbor and WWII for the U.S.
While
Korea certainly represents the most acute crisis in Asia, the diplomatic
maneuvers behind Malabar 17 may be more dangerous in the long run. The exercise
elevates the possibility of a confrontation not only between China, the US, and
India, but also between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed countries that
have fought three wars in the past 70 years.
A
Wedge Against China
This
tale begins more than a decade and a half ago, when then Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, a neo con, one of the most hawkish
members of the George W. Bush administration – convened a meeting in May 2002
of the U.S.-India Defense Policy Group and the government of India.
As
one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement, India traditionally
avoided being pulled into the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. But
the Bush administration had a plan for roping India into an alliance aimed at
containing China, with a twist on an old diplomatic strategy: no stick, lots of
carrots.
At
the time India was banned from purchasing uranium on the international market
because it had detonated a nuclear weapon in 1974 and refused to sign the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). There was a fear that if India had
nuclear weapons, eventually so would Pakistan, a fear that turned real in 1998
when Islamabad tested its first nuclear device. By the way, Pakistan
also refused to sign the NPT.
Under
the rules of the treaty, both countries were excluded from the 45-member
Nuclear Suppliers Group. While the ban was not a serious problem for Pakistan –
it has significant uranium deposits – it was for India. With few domestic
resources, India had to balance between using its uranium for weapons or to
fuel nuclear power plants. Given that India is energy poor, that was a
difficult choice.
When
the Bush administration took over in 2001, it immediately changed the
designation of China from ” strategic partner” to “strategic competitor.” It
also resumed arms sales to New Delhi despite India’s 1998 violation of the NPT
with a new round of tests.
Then
Washington offered a very big carrot called the 1-2-3 Agreement that allow
India to bypass the NPT and buy uranium so long as it’s not used for weapons.
This, however, would allow India to shift all of its domestic fuel into weapons
production.
At
the time, Pakistan, which asked for the same deal and was rebuffed, warned
that the agreement would ignite a nuclear arms race in Asia, which is precisely
what has happened. India and Pakistan are busily adding to their nuclear weapons
stocks – as is China and, of course, North Korea.
The 1-2-3 Agreement went into effect in 2008,
although it has not been fully implemented.
Cold
Start, Hot War
Complicating
this whole matter are ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan in Kashmir,
over which the two have fought three wars, the last of which came close to
going nuclear. Rather than trying to defuse a very dangerous conflict, however,
the Bush administration ignored Kashmir. So did the Obama administration, in
spite of a pre-election promise by Barack Obama to
deal with the ongoing crisis.
It
would appear that a quid pro quo for India moving closer to the US is
Washington’s silence on Kashmir.
In
2016, the Obama administration designated India a “Major Defense
Partner,” made Japan a permanent member of the Malabar exercises, and began
training Indian pilots in “advanced aerial combat” at Nellis Air Force Base in
Nevada.
The
Trump administration has added to the tensions between India and Pakistan by
encouraging New Delhi to deploy troops in Afghanistan. While India already has
paramilitary road building units in southern Afghanistan, it does not have
regular armed forces in the country. From Islamabad’s point of view, Indian
troops in Afghanistan will effectively sandwich Pakistan, north and south........ah, the Great Game being played in Asia.
So
far, India has resisted the request. But it’s hardly sending reassuring signals
to Pakistan.
The
government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rolled out a new military
strategy called “Cold Start,” which allows the Indian
military to attack and pursue “terrorists” as deep as 30 kilometers into
Pakistani territory.
The
danger is that a “Cold Start” operation could be misinterpreted by Islamabad as
a major attack by the far larger Indian army. Faced with defeat, Pakistan might
resort to tactical nuclear weapons, a decision that Pakistan has recently
delegated to front-line commanders. Since India cannot
respond in kind – it has no tactical nukes – New Delhi would either use its
high yield strategic nuclear weapons or accept defeat. That is not going happen cow pokes, the war could quickly escalate into a general nuclear exchange. Such
an exchange, according to a recent study by Scientific American, would kill tens of millions of people in both countries and probably cause worldwide nuclear fallout that would adversely impact agriculture in both hemispheres.
In terms of impact, as scary as the Korea crisis is, a nuclear war between
Pakistan and India is far worse.
Glimmers
of Diplomacy
During
his recent Asia tour, Trump used the term “Indo-Pacific” on a number of
occasions, a term that was originally coined by the right-wing Prime Minister
of Japan, Shinzo Abe. Japan is currently in a tense standoff with China over
several uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and Abe is trying to dismantle Japan’s
post-World War II “peace constitution” that restricts Japanese armed forces to
“self-defense” operations.
Abe
is also closely associated with a section of the Japanese political spectrum that argues that
Japan was simply resisting western imperialism in World War II and denies or
downplays its own colonial role and the massive atrocities committed by the
Japanese army in China and Korea.
Asia
looks like a pretty scary place these days. A right-wing Hindu fundamentalist
government in India and a revanchist Japanese prime minister are allied with an administration in Washington that seeks to surround and contain the
second largest economy in the world.
There
are some hopeful developments, however. For
one, following the recent Communist Party Congress, China seems to be looking
for a way to turn down the heat in the region. After initially threatening
South Korea for deploying a US antimissile system, the THAAD, Beijing has stepped back and cut a deal: no additional
THAAD systems, no boycott of South Korean goods.
The
Chinese also dialed down tensions with India in the mountainous
Doldam region on the border of China and Bhutan with an agreement for a mutual
withdrawal of troops. There has been some progress as well in finding a
non-confrontational solution to China’s illegal claims in the South China Sea,
although Beijing is not likely to abandon its artificial islands until there is
a downsizing of US naval forces in the region.
And
in spite of the tensions between the two, India and Pakistan formally joined
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this
past summer, a security grouping largely dominated by Russia and China.
The
danger here is that someone does something stupid and things get out of hand.
There are those who point out that in spite of similar tensions during the Cold
War, all concerned survived those dark times. That, however, ignores the fact
that the world came very close to nuclear war, once by design, the Cuban
missile crisis, and several times by accident.
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