Edited by W. Joseph Stroupe with the mission of explaining world events correctly via strategic analysis & forecasting
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| ►►►December 20, 2006 ►►►W. Joseph Stroupe |
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Where Does Rising India Actually Fit into the Geopolitical Order? |
►►►The recent signing by President Bush of the new US-India nuclear deal has most observers in the West proclaiming India to be a true strategic partner of the US. While the newly signed deal will indeed facilitate a greatly increased flow of high-tech transfers from the US to India if the deal ever fully comes to fruition, it most certainly does not signify India's becoming a strategic partner of the US. Additionally, the deal still faces a number of significant hurdles, any one of which could kill it before its final emergence on the world stage.
►►►Unfortunately, that term "strategic partner" is almost indiscriminately tossed about by today's leaders, experts and media. Based on the fundamental facts, rather than on the ill-founded assumption and wishful thinking that abounds in the West, India fits ever more solidly into the rising multifarious East, not into the declining West, as respects its true orientation within the geopolitical order. What are the fundamental facts?
►The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) must approve the deal before it is actually enacted. The NSG is charged with preventing nuclear proliferation and it cannot modify its export controls unless all its 45 members agree on modified rules and regulations. The US led the creation of the NSG in 1974 after India's 'rogue' nuclear test, and it was formed specifically to prevent another India-type 'rogue' state from going nuclear. For the NSG to approve the US-India deal now, with a state that has not signed the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), would represent a complete turnaround from its steadfast non-proliferation position held for more than 3 decades. The US has not lined up the support of the NSG's 45 members.
►India has firmly rejected requirements for inspections of its military nuclear sites, permitting only civilian site inspections. That position is likely to encounter deal-breaking stiff opposition within both the NSG and the IAEA.
►The new deal as modified by the US Congress prevents India from conducting nuclear testing. Indian officials have stated that provision would be a deal-breaker if enforced. President Bush has recently sought to calm Indian fears by saying he views many such provisions as advisory-only, but the Indians will almost assuredly want to get that in writing. This issue will be a very hot one going forward as institutions dedicated to non-proliferation become increasingly uncomfortable with the deal's many exceptions made just for India, exceptions no one can be assured will remain just for India alone or that India itself won't abuse down the road.
►The US has attempted to oblige India under the new deal to support the US position on Iran. However, India steadfastly refuses to come under such a provision. Indian leaders have stated they support Iran's nuclear rights and India continues to develop ever deeper energy ties with Iran. While it tries (for obvious reasons) to avoid a political/policy clash with the US, India refuses to support US policies on Iran, policies that are becoming ever more militarized and destabilizing across the crucial Middle East region and far beyond.
►►►Consequently, talk of the concluding of a new strategic nuclear deal between the US and India is still premature. Additionally, even if the deal is finally concluded, it will be mostly on India's favorite terms, obliging it to do little, if anything, to either come under, or else align with, US geopolitical leverage, goals and policies. No Indian leader can afford to be seen as subjugating, or remotely risking even the partial forfeiture of, Indian strategic national interests to the US. To do so would be to risk imminent and assured political suicide for that Indian leader or leaders.
►►►India steadfastly refuses to genuinely align with the US in a geopolitical sense, to become a US instrument in the game to contain China's rise, or to otherwise subjugate itself to US or Western strategies and policies. However, Indian leaders, fully aware of US nervousness over China's unchecked rise, and eager themselves to keep up with China, are happy to leverage that US anxiety in India's own favor by reminding US leaders that a more heavily nuclear-armed India could serve as a constraint upon China.
►India firmly rejects the "inequitable" US-led unipolar world order and its inherent US unilateralism and seeks the genuine establishment of the so-called "multipolar" world order.
Indian leaders have many times proclaimed their dissatisfaction with the current US-dominated unipolar order and US-style unilateralist policies and have actively worked to achieve a "more equitable" distribution of global power among the so-called emerging economic/geopolitical poles, of which India itself is one. India has promoted enlargement of the UN security council and a more even distribution of power within it, and the further empowering of the UN as a multilateral international institution.
As such, India has been careful not to cooperate in any meaningful way in US efforts to further consolidate its own global power. Instead, India has moved to facilitate the progressive empowerment of the rest of the world's states, especially along economic, diplomatic and geopolitical lines. In all this activity India has maintained its economic and political independence from US domination and control and has served to weaken rather than strengthen the foundations of the unipolar order. In its irrevocable vision of a new "multipolar" world order India is fundamentally, and without reservation, aligned firmly with the rising East.
►India and Russia are longtime strategic allies that will not drift apart anytime soon.
India has already purchased more than three wings of the Russian SU-30 fighter planes and is negotiating to purchase many more. It has passed over the US offer of its own fighter plans in the aftermath of a US deal to sell its advanced fighters to Pakistan. India has jointly developed a number of advanced weapons systems with Russia and plans additional joint ventures. It has purchased large numbers of weapons systems of all kinds from Russia. Indian-Russian relations go back many decades and constitute a genuine strategic partnership that shows no signs of weakening as India adroitly and pragmatically courts the US largely for acquisition of advanced technologies to aid in its accelerated rise on the world stage.
India pays little attention to the internal political issues of its strategic partners, meaning that Russia's domestic course, labeled by the US as increasingly un-democratic, does not affect its relations with India. Hence, even though India is a democracy, it refuses to serve as a US instrument in its destabilizing effort to spread democracy from without in crucial regions of the world. India and Russia genuinely see eye-to-eye on virtually the full range of important issues, such as how to fight terrorism, how to achieve international energy security, unipolarity vs multipolarity, the Iran issue, the stance and growing power of the SCO, continued NATO expansion, the clandestine and overt spread of "democratic" colored revolutions, and many more issues, whereas India and the US differ greatly on virtually all of the same issues. As relations between Russia and the US continue to deteriorate, India will most certainly not damage its relations with Russia by siding in any meaningful ways with the US. Instead, it will stay close to its longtime strategic partner with whom it shares so many fundamental interests in common.
►►►The subject of "strategic partnership" has become one fraught with hyperbole, unfounded assumption and wishful thinking. In the period of 1999 to just recently, most observers inanely kept proclaiming the existence of a US-Russia strategic partnership, despite the fact that all the relevant evidence proved no such strategic partnership ever actually existed. Statements by Presidents Bush and Putin along such lines were foolishly taken as more than they actually were - mere propaganda. At present, most observers realize their profound mistake in characterizing the two powers as "strategic partners".
►►►Conversely, during the same period, the vast majority of observers denied the development of a full-blown Russia-China strategic axis, in spite of the fact that all the relevant evidence established its genuine existence beyond any reasonable doubt. At present, most observers realize their mistake here as well.
►►►Currently, most observers are proclaiming the existence of a US-India "strategic partnership" in spite of the gross lack of evidence of its actual existence and the overwhelming evidence that India is firmly oriented in the rising multifarious East. Only when acutely "unexpected" developments on the world stage debunk their unfounded assumptions will such persons realize they have made yet another strategic error in their "analysis".
| Note: This Gold version of the analysis is significantly condensed as compared to the full text Platinum version available only to subscribers. The Platinum version addresses head-on 4 additional, profoundly powerful and irrefutable reasons why India is irreversibly aligned with the rising East rather than with the US. |
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