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The pact is a fact of rethinking self-interest
Last Sunday's report in this newspaper that Colombo and Washington are on the verge of entering into a defence deal will come as no surprise to those who have been following international developments, particularly the post- September 11 world events.

Since the United States mounted an international campaign against global terrorism following the September attacks, it has pressed ahead with renewing military contacts with countries in which it previously had bases or military facilities or have attempted to forge arrangements with others that had been wary of a foreign military presence when the world was divided into ideologically hostile blocs. The fact that Sri Lanka is now ready to go into a compact with the United States when for many years respective governments in Colombo were highly critical of the presence of the US base in Diego Garcia-some 600 miles south west of Sri Lanka- and had in fact demanded that super powers stay out of the Indian Ocean, clearly shows how circumstances have changed.

Sri Lanka, of course, was not alone in demanding that super power navies stay out of the Indian Ocean and that the United States and the Soviet Union be denied base facilities in this ocean.

All this was part of the non-aligned philosophy and Washington-baiting was the fashionable flavour of those years when the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was considered the "moral voice" of the Third World.

India was one of the strongest critics of US military presence in the region and supported Sri Lanka's proposal at the United Nations calling for an Indian Ocean Peace Zone(IOPZ).

Whether India was motivated by the same reasons as Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike was in making the proposal, is, of course arguable. I remember asking Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi a question relating to this at a press conference at Temple Trees in 1973- two years after Mrs Bandaranaike's proposal in 1971 became a United Nations Resolution.

Mrs Gandhi showed her annoyance and anger when I asked whether in the event of a peace zone becoming a reality the Indian Ocean would be dominated by a single naval power.

The only navy with any repute at the time was India. Indonesia's ambitions of becoming a major naval power in the region vanished with the end of 'konfrantasi' and the fall of Sukarno. Pakistan's navy had been clobbered by India in the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war and remained a skeleton of itself.

The Shah of Iran too entertained ambitions of being a great regional military power and even proposed an arrangement that included India and stretched to the Pacific Ocean with Australia at the other extremity. Though he was the guardian of American interests in the region, his naval power did not extend too far beyond the Persian Gulf-as it was then called. So India was the only country that could have actually benefited from the absence of a big power presence in the Indian Ocean. It would have reigned supreme in the only ocean to be named after a country.

Though India lacked a powerful carrier-based naval air arm to project its power beyond the Bay of Bengal in the East and the Arabian Sea in the west, it was by far the unchallenged naval power in the Indian Ocean.

But the last decade or more has not only changed the complexion of international relations but has resulted in the death of the old bipolar world-to use a weathered phrase.

At the height of the ideological conflict, India was more inclined to favour the Soviet Union. It entered into a friendship treaty with that super power in 1971. But times have changed. The collapse of the Soviet Union left New Delhi without the supportive moorings of a super power.

While the main beneficiary of the retreat of international communism was the United States, the September 11 terrorist attack and the growing menace of global terrorism gave Washington a powerful new weapon with which to influence world events and sovereign nations faced with the threat of terrorism. Today New Delhi is an ally of Washington and would like US support to curb terrorist and secessionist threats against it.

Sri Lanka too faced with a debilitating war of separatism has sought Washington's help in countering it and keeping a weather eye open for fresh attempts to revive the conflict in the event that peace talks fail. But seeking military assistance from Washington could have been a foreign policy blunder had New Delhi not given a nod of approval.

Writing to the South China Morning Post on May 2 on US military interests in the region, I said that post-September 11 "Washington requires a forward military presence and relations with India are improving.

Trincomalee, located between the Gulf and Southeast Asia fits the bill. But New Delhi is unlikely to approve of the long-term presence of a super power so close to its shores that could pass on military communications to an enemy or hostile power". It means that as long as the US has no permanent base facilities, India might go along with the new deal that Sri Lanka has planned with Washington.

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