India-Pakistan: The old alliances ain't what they used to be

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

It was no accident, as the Communists used to say, Russian President Putin’s visit to New Delhi coincided with Pakistan President Musharraf’s visit to Washington.

For the plethora of Indian bureaucrats who luxuriated in New Delhi’s 35-year Cold War alliance with Moscow swept back into office earlier this year, it was pure nostalgia. And however much Pakistan had wandered off the path in recent decades, the revival of Washington-Islamabad collaboration was familiar territory at the White House and the Pentagon.

But the world has moved on. And there is something of Engels’ old cliché in the new scene [history does repeat itself, the first time as drama, the second time as farce].

Style has something to do with it. Old Ras had no more endorsed India for a Security Council permanent seat without a veto, then he had to backtrack, explaining he didn’t mean it: membership without a veto would create a second-class member and erode the whole UN concept.

Musharraf, the world’s No. 1 juggler, was persuaded by his Machiavellian foreign office to make a Hail Mary pass through Latin America. There, feigning a trade rationale, he plotted to link opponents of Brazil getting “the” proposed Latin American UN permanent seat with Pakistan’s own opposition to India’s bid. [A reminder of why there has been no “UN reform” for 50 years.] And, as a little old afterthought, why not offer to drop in on the newly reelected US president to get a few ringing accolades?

But the ambiguities and contradictions of a post-9/11 world are not the clean lines of the Cold War apposition. The Indians are trying to climb out of the “Hindu rate of growth”, a product of Soviet planning they adopted in the 1950s. Their regional hegemonic ambitions not only requires the continuing trade boom with the US [including the miraculous IT offshore surge] but access to Western weaponry to compensate for Russian technological decline. India’s recent multi-billion dollar mothballed Russian aircraft carrier purchase recalls white elephant “public sector” projects during their Soviet infatuation.

Musharraf not only has to balance his Moslem politicians against the secular feudals he ousted and worry about Islamicists infiltrating his armed forces, but he has an international juggling act. When he later dropped in on Tony Blair, it was to get help to get the Commonwealth NGOs off his back over his now disavowed promise to either take off his uniform or quit the presidency. His commitment to the U.S. war on terrorists [including dodging their effort to knock him off] is compromised by continuing Pakistan-assisted violence in disputed Kashmir, the nub of any settlement with India -- the beginning and end of all Pakistani calculations. And at some point, he has to worry about Pakistan’s longtime China alliance against India colliding with U.S.’ interests. [Next spring when Chinese submarines begin to use Gwadar, the port Beijing has built at the entrance to the Persian Gulf?]

In India Putin stirred old Nehruvian dreams with his call for an alliance against American dictates, what he called unilateralism in Iraq. He proposed a Russian-China-India entente against Washington. But back in Moscow he found his intervention in Ukraine trashed. Beijing’s backing for Russia’s candidate hadn’t helped. His Japan ambassador announced Moscow would go with Tokyo’s proposal for a pipeline from west Siberian reserves to the Pacific, reneging on earlier promises to the Chinese. And it did not go unnoticed in New Delhi Moscow had talked about MIG engines for Pakistan, a possible followup on earlier helicopter sales. Indian offers to bid for parts of Russia’s largest and most efficient hydrocarbons producer was only cover for Ras’ bankrupting grab of Yukos. Nor will planted Indians in the auction reassure foreign investors now questioning further Russian hydrocarbon investment and transfer of technology. No, Moscow is unlikely to fulfill the Indian energy minister’s paen that Moscow “having preserved Indian independence for 50 years” should now insure its energy sufficiency.

Musharraf sloughed off new reports Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan had sold nuclear weapons technology to Iran. And Washington worries about Tehran’s ambitions won’t be assuaged with Musharraf’s reminders the West also had had its traitorous scientists. He was frank enough to acknowledge, however, because Khan headed Pakistan’s successful nuclear weapons response to India, he was a national hero and untouchable. He denied his army was pulling back after meeting bitter resistance in pursuit of Osama Ben Ladin in the semi-independent tribal areas on the Afghanistan border where no Pakistani military had gone before. But it was handing Islamicist politicians a weapon. Washington, whatever its druthers, seemed to endorse that move, not wanting to add that last straw to the regime’s troubles.

Welcome to the post-9/11 world of America’s hyperpower – as the French unlovingly call it – hemmed in nevertheless by the complexity of issues, not excluding asymmetrical warfare.