M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Unlike in the West, where
couples meet, mate and then decide on marriage, in India it is parents, family
and friends that substitute for Cupid. Not accidentally, few such pairings are
driven by romantic considerations. Instead, an assessment is made of how the
two families can benefit from the match, rather than simply the individuals on
whose behalf a decision on pairing is being taken.
Unsurprisingly, the choice of Mom, Dad,
Uncle and Family Friend is seldom that which either the groom or the bride
would have selected, had they the right to do so. Interestingly, most such
marriages work, usually much better than in societies where personal choice is
given precedence over family needs.
Over the past five years the United States
and Indian militaries have been discovering each other, much like a couple
brought together under family pressure. Fresh from their interaction with
counterparts in Pakistan -- whose military goes ape at the prospect of a
U.S.-India alliance -- and loaded with tales originating from the time of the
Indian-phobic Winston Churchill about the " unreliable" Indians,
those within the U.S. military that began dealing with the Indian army, navy
and air force came prepared to dislike their new contacts.
If the Americans were distant, the Indians
were paranoid, and several promising careers within the three services were
blighted on the charge of "fraternization" with a U.S. officer,
usually female. Not merely more private actions, but even an exchange of
"inappropriate" emails was cause for retribution. Only very recently
has the Indian establishment come to accept that a consensual relationship
between two adults, each of whom may wear the uniform of what is today an
allied country, need not be treated as a security disaster.
These days, the now regular and increasing
interaction between selected units of the two militaries is characterized by a
bonhomie that resembles the settling down of a pair who has had to go through
an "arranged" match but discovered, once together, that neither
partner has horns, and is in fact great to be with.
Despite the efforts of the communist
parties to generate public sentiment against the recent visit of a
nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier to an Indian port, only a few dozen of
the faithful gathered to protest. Finally, from declaiming against this sign of
an "immoral military alliance" between India and the United States,
critics of the visit were forced to play on fears of radiation to get support,
a ploy that failed. Small wonder, as the United States enjoys as positive an
image in India as it does in Israel, a country with which Washington's links
are numerous and long-standing.
It is taken as a given by the Indian public
that the United States and India are on the way to becoming military allies,
despite five decades of mistrust caused by their respective alliances with
China and Pakistan in the case of the United States, and the Soviet Union in
India's case. By now, China has long ceased to be the "strategic
ally" praised by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1998, and is perceived as
a threat to U.S. positions in Asia, and now in Africa and South America as
well. As for Pakistan, the steady implosion of that country has made even
architects of Pakistan policy such as the CIA and the State Department aware of
the need to look elsewhere for a reliable partner in the region.
Well before President George W. Bush steps
down from office in 2009, three developments are likely to have taken place
that will have a transformational effect on India-U.S. ties. This does not
include the nuclear deal -- a poorly thought out construct that is dear only to
the two bureaucracies -- but the signing of an agreement that would allow the
U.S. and Indian militaries to use each other's facilities for maintenance and
replenishing, the purchase of 126 U.S.-made fighters for the Indian Air Force
and the setting up of campuses of U.S. universities in India.
The first is scheduled to be signed by the
end of this year, and the multiplication of contacts this will result in would
enable the two militaries to understand each other's reflexes and chemistry,
prerequisites for a successful battlefield alliance. While the United States
has devastating air- and sea-based capabilities, the army -- as well as the
much-hyped Marine Corps -- suffers from severe limitations in its ability to
hold on to territory without alienating local populations.
The U.S. army is about as welcome as a
swarm of locusts, once it has settled in an alien environment, as first Vietnam
and now Iraq have demonstrated. The close combat that warfare in significantly
populated areas entails predicates a strategy that is willing to accept manpower
losses in order to prevent loss of civilian lives and infrastructure. In
contrast, force protection is at the core of U.S. army tactics, a fact that
results in tactics being adopted that severely damage infrastructure, inflict
collateral damage routinely, and create hatred within the affected population.
In contrast, the Indian army has, over
decades of conflict in Kashmir and the country's northeast, perfected ways of
fighting that accept higher troop losses rather than adopt the tactics of the
U.S. army in Iraq. As a result, as Somalia and other theatres have
demonstrated, Indian troops have been much more successful in holding populated
areas in manner that does not provoke resistance. A link-up between the U.S.
Air Force and Navy with the Indian Army would be a world beater with the
capacity to not simply subdue but pacify, and the soon-to-be-signed pact on
mutual access to facilities will bring such a partnership closer.
As for the purchase of fighter aircraft, it
is a no brainer that U.S.-made aircraft would result in much better
interoperability than the Russian or French models now favored. However, for
this to happen, the United States will need to be willing to sell aircraft
types more advanced than the obsolescent F-16, and ensure that the disruptions
in supply of spares that is such a ubiquitous feature of U.S. purchases is
avoided by legislative and executive commitments. Should Washington be able to
satisfy New Delhi on these two counts, the United States could very soon
displace Russia as the biggest supplier of defense equipment to India.
Important though such steps are, the
biggest long-term impact will be when U.S. universities surmount the resistance
of the Indian bureaucracy and the communist allies of the Manmohan Singh
government to set up campuses in India that can give U.S. education and degrees
to not simply the 40,000 Indian students who for various reasons could not
complete the lengthy visa procedures for study in the United States, but the
much larger number of those coming from families with the ability to pay
U.S.-level fees but unwilling to send their charges abroad for an education.
In addition, students would come from the
Middle East and from Southeast Asia, for the same reasons, to study in the
Indian campuses of known U.S. universities. While these would make money, India
would both save foreign exchange as well as subject its dysfunctional higher
education system to a competition that could transform it in the way
globalization has Indian businesses.
While the Indian system of education has
been effective in churning out literally millions of trained doctors, engineers
and other professionals each year, it has totally failed to nurture the
"peaks" of excellence -- exceptional students -- that the more
flexible U.S. system is best at.
Should Manmohan Singh and George W. Bush pay
more attention to such an educational partnership between the United States and
India, they would promote India-U.S. ties in a way that the flawed nuclear deal
that both are desperately seeking to clinch will not. Although the emerging
alliance between India and the United States is less the result of heady
romance than a practical arrangement, it appears likely to thrive in the same
way that most Indian "arranged" marriages have.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat)
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