The two faces of Barack Obama - His trip to India 11-6-2010

A Diwali weekend should be a perfect, if a bit noisy, break for a president in distress. President Barack Obama, battered at home, badly needs a break. The festive lights, however, might only expose a dubious policy as he winks at his wartime ally,
Pakistan, with one face and smiles at his peacetime friend, India, with another. The text of his Delhi visit can be read only in the context of the Obama presidency's biggest foreign policy challenge: Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama prepared for Delhi by giving Pakistan $2 billion, which means a fresh warehouse of arms.
Islamabad is likely to use the money to buy more advanced F-16 fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships. India and the US should be natural allies. Obama's predecessor, whose worldview was conditioned by a Biblical sense of Good and Evil, recognised India as special. The Indo-US nuclear pact was the strategic culmination of his ideological investment, built on the foundation laid by the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott talks. That relationship has stagnated under Obama.

Even during his campaign, Obama sent danger signals to New Delhi. He said in an interview to Time's Joe Klein that "working with Pakistan and India" to resolve the Kashmir crisis "in a serious way" would be one of the "critical tasks for the next administration". He then suggested the appointment of a special envoy for the task in Kashmir which he described as a "diplomatic tar pit". Thankfully, President Obama didn't follow up what Candidate Obama had said.

ARMS TO INDIA -- Since 2008, India has signed military deals worth $8.2 billion with the US M-777 Ultralight Howitzers. Ten regiments of 145 guns worth $647 million Ninety-nine F-414 engines worth $650 million for the Light Combat Aircraft Twelve P-8I Poseidon long-range maritime patrol aircraft worth $3 billion Six C-130J Hercules special forces transport aircraft worth $1 billion Ten C-17 Globemaster-III heavylift aircraft for the IAFworth $3-billion ARMS TO PAKISTAN -- In nine years,Pakistan received a discounted assistance of $3.2-billion M-109 self-propelled howitzers. It has bought 115 guns worth $87 million Eighteen new F-16s worth $ 1.4 billion and 14 old F-16s. Upgrade kits for 45 old PAF F-16s for $891 million. Eight P3-C Orion maritime patrol aircraft for $474 million Six C-130E transport aircraft and their refurbishment for $76 million Missiles: 100 Harpoon anti-ship missiles worth $298 million and 5,250 TOW anti-tank missiles worth $186 million

Obama is unlikely to bring up the contentious K-word during the visit to spoil the strategic goodwill between New Delhi and Washington. The US is all set to replace Russia as India's largest arms supplier this year with a $3-billion deal on 10 C-17 Globemaster 111 cargo aircraft. But India, unlike Pakistan, pays for what it buys; it helps the American economy, rather than exploiting it. India has signed arms deals worth $8.2 billion with the US since 2008. India and the US have had 50 joint military exercises over the past eight years - a record. There may not still be a defence "alliance" between the two countries, but "cooperation" has touched a new high.

American strategists argue that the military relationship is long-term as well strategic in nature. "The US should establish a vision for what it seeks in the relationship and give concrete meaning to the phrase strategic partnership," say Richard L. Armitage, Nicholas Burns and Richard Fontaine, all former officials in the Bush administration, while advocating Washington's support for India's bid for a seat in the Security Council. They also recommend India's entry into Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).

The Obama administration is unlikely to take note. The president, though, listens when Islamabad demands more as wages for its status as a frontline ally in America's war against the Taliban, best illustrated by the third US-Pakistan strategic dialogue last month. "In keeping with our enduring commitment to help Pakistan plan for its defence needs," the US sanctioned $2 billion to the war ally. This is in addition to the $7.5 billion in civilian projects approved by the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation. At the conclusion of the dialogue, what the Pakistani foreign minister Mahmood Qureshi had said in his remarks brought out the real priority of Islamabad: "History has proved that the force of arms cannot suppress the legitimate aspirations of the Kashmiri people. It is in the US strategic interest to work for peace, stability, and resolution of the disputes in South Asia. The starting point in this quest is justice for the Kashmiri people."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not rebut. Washington is not only prepared to live with the lie of Pakistan. It is also bankrolling it, and that too despite the fact that, since 9/11, almost all global terrorist attacks have a Pakistani adjective. The Islamic Republic has never failed to live up to its reputation as Jihadistan.

Writes Zalmay Khalilzad, the the US ambassador to Afghanistan during the Bush administration: "The United States should demand that Pakistan shut down all sanctuaries and military support programmes for insurgents or else we will carry out operations against those insurgent havens, with or without Pakistani consent. Arguments that such pressure would cause Pakistan to disintegrate are overstated."

Such advice has no takers in the Obama administration, which has already made a virtue out of the limits of American power. It has not stopped indulging Pakistan, which in turn has not stopped indulging the Taliban either. What Pakistan wants is not a fully de-Talibanised Afghanistan. Such an Afghanistan, it thinks, will be a friend and ally of India. And a Pakistan armed to fight the Taliban is certainly not doing the job, for its priority is elsewhere along the border with India. For America, Pakistan as a dubious partner in war is still preferable to a Pakistan on the verge of implosion. And it takes the last bit of morality out of Obama's war in Afghanistan.

DOUBLESPEAK "It grieves us to see friends fighting.But we can't dictate to India or Pakistan to resolve differences." - June 2010 "We're the world's two largest democracies and have a range of shared values and ideals." - November 2009 "The world Has gotten competitive. the chinese and indians are coming atus hard, and theyare hungry." - June 2009 "At a time when the greatest enemy of India and Pakistan must be poverty, it makes sense to create an effective dialogue between them." - April 2009 "We must try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that Pakistan can focus not on India,but on the militants." - November 2008

Since 2001, Pakistan has received $3.2 billion in US military assistance for the war on terror. Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden do not have a navy or an air force; yet 90 per cent of Pakistan's defence acquisitions have been fighter aircraft, anti-ship missiles, anti-tank helicopters and missiles and long range maritime patrol aircraft. Most of them were sold to Pakistan at one-fourth of their original price owing to its status as a major non-NATO ally.

The US aid is being used to gradually whittle down India's conventional military advantage. A classified 2007 Indian army study, "India-Pakistan Combat Ratios 2002-2012", pegs the combat ratio between the two countries at 1:1.3 in favour of India. It predicted a "significant increase in India's overall combat ratio to 1:1.5 by 2012 because of acquisitions of tanks, artillery, air defence missiles and attack helicopters". Today, having acquired only T-90 tanks, army officials concede that the ratio is stagnant and could actually slide back to 1: 1.1, the lowest ever. "If this trend of acquisitions from the US and China continues, India's tactical advantage over Pakistan will be greatly diminished over the next five years," says a senior army official. In the scenario of an Indo-Pak war today, the Indian army will lose more soldiers than it did during Kargil.

Military equipment worth Rs 34,000 crore-night vision equipment, ballistic helmets, lightweight bulletproof jackets and boots-are stuck in the army's purchase pipeline. This includes a Rs 500-crore deal to buy 30,634 Gen-III gun-mounted night vision devices from Israel. Arguments over specifications continue to delay the order. It takes the US Army two to three years to acquire and issue standard military hardware, and five years to buy hi-tech equipment. "In our case, it takes at least four years to get basic equipment and there is no upper limit to delays," says a senior army officer.

US supplies to Pakistan have effectively nixed the F-16s prospects at being selected as one of the two US contenders for the IAF's $12-billion fighter tender for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft. "The US keeps telling us in every meeting that we are a strategic partner and then they go ahead and transfer arms to Pakistan which are certain to be used against us," says a senior Cabinet minister echoing India's dismay over the continuing US arms sales.

India cannot hope that Obama will be of any help in containing China, whose expansionist agenda and tactical alliance with Pakistan have only added to its worries. "As China seeks to remake global norms and institutions, it is also essential that the United States continues to assert its own ideals and strategic priorities and to work closely with other like-minded nations," writes Elizabeth C. Economy in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. Obama has his options. He can either see India as a like-minded nation, a global partner. Or he can contain India within a framework whose importance is conditioned by the war in Afghanistan. If he has vision, he will choose the first option. If he has eyes only for Pakistan, he will settle for the desultory second choice.

Source:  India Today.in

S.Prasannarajan, Sandeep Unnithan

New Delhi, November 4, 2010