India’s decision to provide weapons to Kabul, through Russia, is not just about supporting a friend in need but also protecting its own foreign policy interests against a China-Russia nexus in favour of Pakistan
As Reuters reported late last month, India will pay Russia to supply the Afghan National Army with, as yet unspecified, military equipment. While generally this is good news, we need to classify this into three categories: Despair, relief and hope.
Despair, because we finally have confirmation — if any were needed — that despite the tall claims of various Government agencies, the reality is India is in no position to produce arms other people want, and the arms we produce are from transferred technology that we do not have the right to export. This, despite the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s persistent fact fudging. looking at Mr Narendra Modi’s interview to The Times of India on May 6, we again see a faulty analysis of the root causes, with Mr Modi blaming the ‘arms lobby’.
The reality is in fact two-fold: First, the ‘arms lobby’ can only take India for a ride because the country has such a convoluted acquisition process, with no understanding of defence economics, or the requisite accretion of expertise in the Ministry of Defence. How else can it be that companies tendering for India’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft programme for 126 promised 52 per cent technology transfer at best, but when Brazil buys a mere 36 planes, it is transferred the entire production line for global salesIJ What is it about Brazil, that the so-called ‘arms lobby’ cannot pull a fast one on them, but keep making India the butt of their jokesIJ
Blaming the ‘arms lobby’ which is, in fact, made up of companies that are pioneers of innovation like Saab, BAE and Thales, is a misdirected bullet. The ‘arms lobby’ needs to be invited into India with a full 100 per cent FDI in defence. This will create a policy that, for once, is not pro-DRDO but pro-India. These companies need to think of India as home, to train Indians and gradually bring India’s depth of expertise and knowledge up to international standards.
The second issue is that the DRDO is part of the problem, not the solution. The hope is that when a new Government comes in on May 16, good right-wing economics starts applying to defence policy as well. Indeed as of now Mr Modi’s statements on the subject are extremely disheartening. The reality is the nature of the arms business has changed. Thanks to Moore’s law, and quantum leaps in technology, the game today is to rapidly transfer technology and to rapidly innovate one’s way to the next generation using the profits from the past.
But leaving aside the sorry state of India’s defence, why is the deal with Russia a source of reliefIJ Because finally India has decided to get rid of its policy-paralysis and inertia. It is finally agreeing to what the Afghan Government has been asking us to do all along — not to fight for the Afghans, but provide them the means to defend themselves against terrorism and aggression. For far too long we have treated our friends in Kabul in a shabby fashion.
We have railed against the West and the ‘arms lobby’ for denying us arms when we needed it, and yet we have done the exact same thing to the Afghans. Finally, and thankfully, this policy has ended.
While India has finally done the right thing, by the Afghans, the benefits here are not just for the Afghans. Far from it if properly exploited, this move could set in motion far bigger currents — largely to India’s benefit. This is why this move on India’s part gives rise to hope.
Mr Ahmad Rashid, the noted Pakistani journalist and chronicler of the Taliban, has already given voice to Pakistani concerns in this regard. But intriguingly he claims, “One country could play a stabilising or balancing role and that is China. President Hamid Karzai has also asked China for military help but Beijing has been extremely reluctant to get involved on the ground in Afghanistan — just as China refuses to get involved in other conflict zones such as North Korea. Pakistan could now ask its closest ally, China, to get more involved in bolstering the ANA. That could balance Indian and Russian influence.”
This cuts to the heart of the dilemma that has been thrust on to China because of India’s move. If China does not move in to stabilise the situation, it clearly faces a situation of extreme instability, one that has spilt over into its restive Province of Xinjiang.
However if China does act to bolster the Afghan Government it is clearly running against the interests of its old and tested ally — Pakistan, whose whole strategy rests on keeping the pot boiling using the Taliban. The question is: What changes would that bring about in the Pakistan-China relationshipIJ To answer that one has to look at the nature of Chinese investments in Afghanistan. Almost without exception these are extractive — based on mining. Maintaining the flow from these mines when they become fully operational, if at all, depends not so much on the Afghan Government as it does the Taliban who are doing the disrupting. If anything, China’s interest here lies in paying off the Taliban not investing in the legitimately elected Government of Afghanistan.
However since Pakistan refuses to abandon its ‘zero sum game’ strategy in Afghanistan, China’s choices are limited. It cannot abandon a valuable lever against India, for mines whose viability is yet to be tested in a region whose stability, it has stake in undermining.
The more interesting part of Mr Rashid’s argument, however, relates to the Russia-China rivalry, which he assumes is a given. Far from it, the increasing acrimony between Russia and the West will probably leave Russia with few options but to become a junior partner in a Russia-China nexus. If Russia does indeed take up India’s offer, it gives India some hope, however slender and diminishing of avoiding the nightmare this grouping of Russia and China, with Pakistan as an important element of its foreign policy.
One can only hope.