Different Strokes - Relevance of Asymmetrical Responses

(Originally appeared in the 1990s in the Times of India, as published in M. D. Nalapat's book "Indutva", Har-Anand Publications, 1999)

Just as a houseperson takes a while before getting a new recipe

right, the Indian voter may need to experiment with four or five

Lok Sabha polls before settling on a stable mixture. This election

is the fourth general election since 1989. Hopefully, there will not

be another round before 2000 to craft a political structure that

does not crumble midway through its term.

Even while political leaders inhale the dust of the campaign 

trail, the problems confronting the country remain: weak

infrastructure, excessive regulation combined with inadequate

checks on official corruption, a tendency towards ”populism"

and, finally, security, defined as defense against subversion and

blackmail.

In the melee of issues projected by the political parties,

security has been almost forgotten. This is not surprising in a

political culture which believes that piping hot servings of mooli

paratha and sarson ka saag are enough to deter Islamabad from

its policy of trying once again to vivisect India on religious

grounds. As the two Robins (Cook and Raphel) illustrate, such

a policy has strong support in countries that should normally be

expected to back democracy against extremism.

Twin-track Policy

The Pakistan army, whose actual strategic objective is the

maintenance of the domination of one province over the other

three, can be expected to trigger the break-up of its host country

within a decade, thanks to its indulgence of extremist and

regional interests and the money it is raking in from the legitimate,

i.e., non-drugs trade, budget. Thus, as far as Pakistan is concerned,

all that needs to be done is to ignore the bleatings of the Hurriyat

lovers and operate a twin-track policy of strong action against

subversion combined with offers of expanding trade and cultural

contacts with a population that has been distanced from its

Hanafi traditions since 1947.

Non-democratic China is the main strategic challenge India

needs to tackle in the coming decade. And in working out

doctrines capable of self-defense against hegemonism and

blackmail, this country needs to avoid the mistake made by some

western powers in implicitly presuming an equivalence in the

response by China and by them to different situations.

Thus, while on computer screens China may have the

capability merely to destroy two west coast US cities by 2005

while Washington can pulverize the emerging superpower in

retaliation, the fact is that a two-city capability is enough to deter

a US response in all except a direct attack on itself. In effect,

therefore, the US will cease to have an effective retaliatory

capability against Beijing’s hegemonic moves in Asia by that

year. This means that within the next seven years, New Delhi

will need to actualise enough retaliatory capability against

communist China to deter any attempt at blackmail.

Casualty Rate

A second divergence between thresholds is the casualty rate.

While Beijing can sustain fairly high levels of bloodletting,

Washington will need to reconsider its options once the body

bags move into the thousands. The Vietnam standard is no

longer acceptable to US voters and legislators. Thus, once the

Chinese regime crosses a minimum retaliatory capability in a

few years time, US troops in Asia will have mostly a ceremonial

function, just as the US fleet movements in the Taiwan straits

looked good on television but would have been unable to deter

a sustained missile attack.

Fortunately, this country has a much higher casualty threshold

than Washington, at least in Asian theatres. This has been

demonstrated not just in Kashmir but in external theatres such

as Somalia and northem Sri Lanka. Unless there is a fusion

between the different strokes of India and the other major

democratic powers, it will not be possible to patch together a

credible defense against putative hegemonism in Asia.

Just as New Delhi should adopt a two-step strategy towards

Islamabad, it needs to do so vis-a-vis the US and the EU. Within

the latter grouping, France has moved the farthest from the

standard British position of seeking to equate India with Pakistan

in all security matters. Hopefully Germany will follow. However,

overt development of India’s deterrent will lead to sanctions

from many countries. This is not as negative as it sounds, in view

of the reality that near-maximal technological sanctions have

already been imposed on New Delhi by the US and the EU, even

while the China window ensures that other "target" countries

such as Pakistan escape the effects.

While refusing to accept the Neville Chamberlain option of

unilateral disarmament in a developing threat scenario, New

Delhi needs to adopt business-friendly policies to ensure that

lobbies are created against the indiscriminate extension of

technological sanctions against business. While the insurance

sector needs to be opened to Indian players, infrastructure

projects can be made friendly to foreign investment. Also, while

speculation needs to be protected against in the equity and

currency markets, genuine overseas investors need to be given

incentives on par with domestic interests.

While the Narasimha Rao government made significant

progress in dismantling the legacy of colonial restrictions, it

implicitly accepted the Pollyanna scenario of the Raphels on

external threats. As a result, it continued the underfunding of

strategic programmes that were begun in 1984, and almost

crippled work on Agni and its warhead. The impact of this will

become evident only in the coming years, once Beijing puts in

place sufficient retaliatory capacity to ignore the US in the Asian

theatre. From that point, India, APEC and ASEAN will be at risk

to putative hegemonism, unless New Delhi has by then created

an adequate defensive capability.

Security Issues

New Delhi needs to follow policies that promote the expansion

of its pitiful per capita economic base. Sadly, too many politicians

are succumbing to the 1947-89 mantra of abusing and restricting

those with initiative and enterprise, rather than encouraging

them. Externally, while continuing bridge-building efforts with

other major democracies, work on missile and warhead

programmes needs to be accelerated. This should go parallel

with efforts at promoting trade and cultural links even with

Islamabad.

Hopefully, the new government will begin the process of

institutionalising security policies, not just by setting up boards

that are, in effect, sinecures, but by encouraging the web of think-

tanks and institutional interfaces that this country needs to

generate and getting defensive measures implemented.

Otherwise, 2005 may repeat the shock of 1962.