Great Power Or Great Pity?

Immediately following the bold terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, the Indiangovernment marshaled its defense forces on a war footing and sent ground troops west to take up "forwardpositions" along the Pakistani border. The rhetoric from Indian politicians was equally belligerent with thePrime Minister telling his generals that "the day of reckoning with Pakistan has arrived". There appearedto be no doubt that India was finally saying that enough is enough and preparing to go to war with Pakistan.

A close friend of mine in Washington, DC, who is the former head of a policy Think Tank that specializes inConfidence Building Measures (CBM) in troubled regions of the world including the Indian subcontinent, askedme if I thought the war between India and Pakistan was imminent. I replied with an emphatic "NO" whichtook him by surprise.

Subsequently, he received reports through American government officials that confirmed his personal beliefthat India was planning to attack Pakistan which he believed was certain to trigger a Pakistani retaliationthat might include nuclear weapons. I tried to pacify my friend by telling him that the NDA government wasstill debating this issue internally and, from what I had heard, some very important constituents in the NDAdid not support the hawks and would unlikely change their views, unless of course Pakistan launched apre-emptive overt strike first.

Fortunately, my friend did not press me on why the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) peaceniks werethinking the way they did, nor did he appreciate the subtle point that Pakistan was already engaged in a proxywar with India. To him the possibility of a nuclear war was real and he remained unconvinced that India wouldkeep getting its nose rubbed in the mud by Pakistan without some retaliatory response in return.

To allay his fears, the South Asia specialist arranged a visit to India in May 2002 to meet with keypoliticians, and more importantly, with Indian military establishment including the Director General ofMilitary Operations (DGMO). He came back even more convinced that India was preparing "to teach a lesson"to Pakistan and that the military had planned for all eventualities. His passionate views were based on hisfirst hand observations, but he did not realize that I knew the "Indian psyche" a bit more. I stuck to my"NO" and raised the ante by saying that we should have a friendly bet. He agreed.

Right after Americans got worried enough about escalating tensions in South Asia to the point that the U.S.State Department issued a travel advisory to India and cautioned multinational companies to not sendrepresentatives to India (Summer of 2002), the Indian government quickly began to reassure the West that therewould be no war and even hinted that foreigners should not read too much into war-like postures instituted byIndia. I sent a message to my friend telling him that I was ready to collect my bet but he replied that Ishould wait until after the elections in J&K when he expected the Indian army to start its militarycampaign. Well, the army did finally make a move after the State elections, but it was towards their homebarracks!

My point in telling this lengthy story is that even the most astute India specialists in the West areunable to fully comprehend the Eastern, and particularly the South Asian, culture. How else can one explainWest’s inability to see through Pakistani treachery and continue to shower it with rewards far beyond itscontribution and assistance in the war against terrorism? And why is India always viewed as an "empirebuilding" nation when the last time the Indian empire was truly ruled by natives (Mauryas) was nearly 2,500years back?

Closer to contemporary times, India may express aspirations to secure a permanent seat in the SecurityCouncil, but in reality it lacks the essential psyche needed to be in the select group called "the greatpowers". From a historical perspective, it was neither the size of the land mass nor population that madePortugal or England to be masters of the world in their respective times. It was their confidence and anabsolute conviction that it was their destiny to rule the world.

It is the same confidence that President Bush shows when he speaks of changing the political landscape inthe Middle East by invading Iraq. It is not just the brinkmanship, but a sure determination to use raw power.Indeed, being sometimes irrational and Machiavellian are common attributes among the great powers. So it isnot surprising that my American friends would read India, an aspiring great power, in the same light as greatwestern powers when in fact nothing could be farther from reality in so far as India is concerned.

Two highly unconnected events took place in October 1962 that greatly affected India and America, sappingthe national morale in one country and lifting spirits in the other. India lost a war with China, the resultof immature brinkmanship by Indian political leadership without a properly trained and equipped army that tookon a ruthless enemy that sent initial waves of intruders as human shields for the main force to follow.

That any country would send mostly unarmed troops to attack another nation simply to act as cannon fodderwas beyond the comprehension of Indian military strategists, but that was exactly what China did. Throughsheer brutality and irrationality, China showed to India in 1962 what the rest of the world knows about Chinatoday.

Indeed, China has all the idiosyncrasies to make it to the top and its time as a great power will surelycome sooner or later. There is no historical record of a nation becoming a great power by exhibiting piety orby letting other nations take advantage of its generosity. In fact, the reverse has been proved to be true inIndia. Armies as small as a few thousand have been able to conquer and rule India for centuries, simplybecause Indians are extremely docile and generous people who have always welcomed foreigners with open arms.

The other event that took place in October 1962 was the Cuban missile crisis. Nikita Khrushchev, much likeGeneral Musharraf, was a charismatic and gutsy leader who made impassioned speeches in the United NationsGeneral Assembly (UNGA) and elsewhere that "Soviet Union was going to bury American capitalism". He mademany risky decisions both internal and external to his country (party’s exasperation with his risky internaldecisions eventually led to his fall), but none was more risky than bringing Soviet nuclear missiles to Cuba.

He was testing the newly elected American President, and bringing the world to a near nuclear catastrophewas his way of feeling out his adversary. The American President knew the irrationality of a nuclear war, butat that moment everyone in the U.S. saw it as nuclear blackmail by the Soviets which had to be tackled then orelse the American influence and power would never be the same. In the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation, it wasKhrushchev, not Kennedy, who blinked first. The rest, as they say, is history.

Sadly, in the recent eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between India and Pakistan, it is India that blinkedfirst. India has given into nuclear blackmail by Pakistan. Not one of the conditions laid by India inannouncing the troop mobilization has been met by Pakistan. Rather, Pakistan based terrorists that Indiawanted arrested and handed over have been released by Pakistanis who have thumped their nose at India at everyopportune moment.

India pulled back its army from the borders in a face saving moment, but the fundamental weakness of Indiahas been exposed. Indians may argue that there was not really a choice as the alternative was too horrific toeven contemplate, but that simply underlines India’s weakness as a military, and hence political, power.

India simply does not have the streak of irrationality and brute mentality necessary to become a greatpower in historical terms. What Indians are capable of is gathering "sympathy cards" from other greatpowers, and while many India experts and American politicians congratulated India for showing restraint, inreality what everyone understood is that India "does not have it".

George Perkovich, an American security expert, recently said that both India and Pakistan do not believe innuclear deterrence, something that is necessary to establish regional stability among neighboring nuclearstates. What he failed to recognize is: what if India accepts it, but not Pakistan? In that case, what areIndia’s options? If Pakistan continues to bleed India through a "proxy war" on one hand, and holds thebig stick of "nuclear first strike" on the other, what should India do?

The reason that Perkovich and others like him put India and Pakistan on the same footing is because Indiamatches Pakistani nuclear rhetoric by an outward belligerence, which in reality is an empty threat. The worldat large does not realize that the same rational minds that are capable of achieving global leadership insoftware development are incapable of daredevilry needed to pursue an irrational war, and in effect havebecome paper tigers.

India is at momentous cross-roads of history. Soon it will be an economic powerhouse. But will it be agreat power? Acquiring latest weapons of war and providing a huge military budget are necessary, butinsufficient, steps towards that goal. What is needed is a new "can do" attitude, not please-pity-me-as-Iam-wrongly-being-victimized outlook.

India should not be looking to America and other nations for pats on the back, but into the eyes of its ownfellow countrymen who have lost everything in the war that Pakistan is waging against India for the lastdecade without an end in sight. The answer does not lie in rationalizing the "down side" of anyconfrontation with Pakistan, but in creating the "up side" that rationalizes war against evil nations andtyrants much like a great power is doing these days.

There can be no respect without creating fear in enemies and there can be no greatness without beingwilling to sacrifice everything for national sanctity. India has been defiled, repeatedly, by one of itsneighbors, and yet its leaders seem more interested in protecting their legacy, rather than in restoringdignity and honor of the wounded nation.

I wish my premonition about empty Indian rhetoric had been proved wrong. I wish I had lost the betwith my American friend. As it is, he is treating me to a lunch in the first week of December. I hope that bythen India makes moves to prove that my friend is right and I am wrong.

After the new wave of terrorist attacks in Srinagar and Jammu on November 23-24, is it too much to hopefor?

(The writer, Vijay K. Sazawal, Ph.D., is National President, Indo-American Kashmir Forum (IAKF)Washington, DC, USA)