2nd November 1997

The loneliness of the sole superpower

Can inter-state conflicts and new global issues undermine the grand project popularly known as the ‘New World Order’? Those who believed somewhat naively that all or most conflicts regional or inter-state were the natural inevitable outcome of what columnist Walter Lippman had called ‘the Cold War’ are certainly surprised by new contentious issues that undermine the idealistic efforts of those statesmen and opinion leaders who are committed to the ideal N.W.O.

And at least in America now titled the sole superpower there is still no Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the horizon. On the contrary divisive debates and sharp clashes of interest are very much part of the post-Cold War.

Consider the question of the Security Council, the ultimate seat of power and decision-making. Does it require perestroika “Yes” is the choric response. It is a view strongly endorsed just a few weeks ago by the President of the second largest country a respected democracy, and an African leader, one of the towering personalities of the century, Nelson Mandela.

And yet they remain sceptics. A statement issued after Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and Nelson Mandela, met in Durban “lambasted partial or selective expansion of the Security Council and vowed to closely co-operate on defence matters which involve “regional and global security and strategic issues”.

They were quite critical of the proposed “selective and partial expansion of the Security Council” and argued strongly for global criteria.” Students of the “new challenges” that claim a place in the global agenda of the next century should note that “the growth of narcotic trafficking” was recognised as a serious threat.

What finally of N.A.M. an organisation with which Sri Lanka has been closely associated? It must, the two leaders observed, “build the capacities required to meet the challenges of the 21st century.” India will assist South Africa in planning the 1998 summit. India has suggested a pre-summit meeting of ten N.A.M. leaders to prepare “a blueprint for revival of the N.A.M. so that developing countries’ interests are fully protected”.

Students of the movement should not only note the growing awareness of such a need but the use of the “identity developing countries” as a more effective title and collective identity in what is surely an ‘age of identity’.

U.S. – India

The U.N. is no more than a talking-shop.... what matters is the Security Council, and the privileged “Permanent” call the shots, interrupt the cynics, sometimes introduced as the hard-nosed “realists”.

So what of the realities? An Indian “hawk” was how he was usually introduced to visitors to Delhi.... K. Subramaniam was director of Strategic Studies Institute.

In a signed article to the Times Of India last month Subramaniam took up the idea of a strategic dialogue between the most powerful democracy and the most populous.

I.K. Gujral and Nawaz Shariff:

“Some Indian observers feel that all such attempts by Western academics and think tanks are aimed at ”subordinating India to the Western strategy and trapping it to give its nuclear option”. In short it’s an exclusive club, and no place for new members, India has China in mind too. The US and the US dominated NATO and UN dare not “blackball” China, the largest nation and oldest civilisation. Of course, it would have been nice if Chiang Kai-shek or somebody like him was in charge. But Taiwan is not too bad a second prize. That was clear when the US rushed to Taiwan’s defence recently. Given the political trends, Taiwan may not always remain a U.S. bastion.

China’s role

Far from provoking a crisis over Hong Kong, Beijing did not give the last governor or the British authorities an opportunity to make a drama of “democracy and human rights”.

Firm but impeccably proper was the Chinese response to the well-orchestrated provocation. But Hong Kong represents money and economic power. That was said of America (the business of America is business) could be said of the Chinese policy planners in Beijing.

“Behind China’s “financial real politik” lies another little noticed reality” says Harvey Stockwin, a Hong-Kong based British journalist who worked with Colombo as his base too.

“There has been a marked ‘geo-financial’ shift in the balance of monetary power. It is not merely that Hong Kong, with a mere six million in habitants has the fifth largest foreign exchange reserves in the world”.

Money talks. Money moves. Big Money of these proportions is power, global power.

Indo – Russia

In 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stunned the non-aligned and the western alliance by signing a formal “peace” treaty with the land of Lenin and Stalin. It was justified by Indian pundits, particularly of the I.D.S.A. (the defence studies think-tank) as a necessary counterweight to Pakistan’s formal military links with the U.S.

Recently however we saw the former Soviet Union rush to the defence of Islamic Iran. And so did India. Why? The Islamic revival. India has a larger Muslim population than many a Muslim country.

And the present American ‘forward planners’ evidently believe that “Islamic fundamentalism” as the Western media prefers to describe it, represents a security threat to the oil-rich region.

What was the outcome? Let an American analyst, Stephen Rosenfeld of the Washington Post, explain: “The great streams of international commerce flowing from growth and globalisation keep exposing the United States to a political trap. The latest is the dispute over France’s determination to support a two billion dollar natural gas investment in Iran - a deal that the US had denied to an American Co. Paris rakes in the chips, Teheran grins...”

Smiling, not grinning, is Libya’s charismatic Muammar Gadafi. The U.S has imposed sanctions. No flights out of Tripoli for Gadafi’s planes. But ....

Who comes calling on the brave Libyan leader - who else but President Nelson Mandela, a leader revered in every continent, and no media can ignore.

Meanwhile Iran News announced that the Air Force had successfully tested a domestically built unmanned stealth plane in a series to demonstrate the country’s increasing military prowess...”.

And each confrontation between the U.S. and another country, a Third World country or a western ally, the sole superpower feels the loneliness of the long-distance to borrow the title of a best-seller.

New dangers of Indo-Pak nuclear conflict

VIENNA - Recently, India used its own domestically produced rocket to hurl into orbit a large satellite. Within days the newspapers were full of new Indian-Pakistani gun duels over the bitterly disputed territory of Kashmir. It was all coincidence, but a telling one.

No place on earth is more likely to spark a nuclear war than Kashmir. And the rapid progress being made by both Pakistan and India on rocket development brings that final day of sub-continental Armageddon dangerously closer.

Until recently it could be argued that the relatively primitive state of the nuclear-bomb art in both Pakistan and India meant they have engaged in a form of deterrence that the local experts call “recessed”. In other words, their limited nuclear capabilities are not destabilizing - there is no pressing need, now that both have low-level nuclear armouries to join and arms race of nuclear testing, pre-emption strategies and nuclear targeting.

Moreover, the nuclear proponents maintain that although the two countries may bluster, in practice their conflicts are almost ritualized. In the 50 years since they gained independence, they have fought three wars. The last two in 1965 and 1971 were concluded within two weeks and both civilian and battlefield casualties were light. Anyway, say the Indian strategists in a final point, the real enemy we confront with nuclear weapons is China.

But what kind of game are these nuclear thinkers playing? To take just the last argument: India is deceiving itself if it believes it can deter China this way. While China could wipe out practically every Indian city, India could only pinprick China in retaliation. The Indian nuclear bomb is no deterrent against China and vis a vis Pakistan is only a provocation that adds to Pakistani fears-fears that are touched with an edge of paranoia - that they are compelled always to play David to India’s Goliath.

Pakistani strategists have always worried about Indian armoured columns punching it across the plains. The Pakistani nuclear bomb on which work started a good two years before India’s first nuclear test in 1974, according to a new study by Neil Joeck, recently published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is meant more to remedy a perceived situation of inferiority than to be a building block in a sophisticated game, a la superpowers, of stable nuclear deterrence.

Indeed, this is the central issue-having developed a small nuclear arsenal, how do the two countries stabilize the situation? The superpower theorists have long argued that stability is not possible unless there is an assured second-strike capability. In other words, if you attack me, my retaliatory arsenal is so secure that I will be able to take revenge, however much damage you inflict upon me in your first strike.

Neither India nor Pakistan has the wherewithal, as the superpowers did, to develop and build such second strike capability. Therefore, the temptation in a period of rising tension “to use them or lose them” becomes very attractive, for it would undoubtedly bring capitulation by the other side.

Thus, the Indo-Pakistani nuclear stand-off has always been perceived by outsiders as inherently unstable. Now, to add to this instability, is the slow but steady introduction of ballistic missiles. They may not yet be configured for nuclear weapons, but it is only a matter of time before both sides do so. The short flight time of rockets, the inability to recall them once launched and the need to delegate command will put both sides on a hair-trigger.

The danger then is that Kashmiri insurgents and unofficial government representatives, who are apt at winding up a state of high tension in the region, in effect have their hand on this trigger. Together with such shortcomings as limited intelligence and the over concentration of decision-making in a small circle, that is a recipe for nuclear war. Both countries have together created a situation where they can no longer be certain where their security lies.

The remedy must be with the stronger party. Only if India starts the ball rolling on nuclear disarmament would Pakistan even consider the issue. Unilateral nuclear disarmament has happened before. Belarus, Kazakstan, South Africa and the Ukraine have eliminated their nuclear stockpiles. Argentina and Brazil have reversed their bomb building programmes.

India should be encouraged to take the first step. The bait should be the offer of an Indian place on the UN Security Council and a seat at the table with the G7, the grouping of the world’s most industrially advanced nations. The bait for Pakistan would be India’s agreement to the plebicite on the ownership of Kashmir demanded by the UN in the 1950s.

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