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U.S. troops and bases on foreign soil were once anathema to India's nationalistic government. But now India's leaders encourage America to be in no hurry to give up the strategic foothold in Central Asia established by the military campaign in Afghanistan.
.
"I don't think America can give up the Central Asia presence now," says Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to my wondering ears. "You will be criticized. The presence troubles Russia and China. But you won't be able to give it up any time soon," he continues. He
then adds casually that U.S. forces should stay on in Pakistan to help stabilize a nation that India has long treated as a mortal enemy. Yankee Go Home Slowly also surfaces as a theme in a later conversation with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The United
States and India "are natural allies," he says. "We would like to develop relations on a long-term basis ... There has been close cooperation during this crisis on defense and security that should be extended."
.
America's war on global terrorism has scrambled old patterns of diplomacy and politics and creates potential reversals of alliances on a large scale.
.
While Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations have been forced into hard choices, Mr. Vajpayee's secular coalition government has been quick to take advantage of these changes and is emerging as the big- gest strategic winner thus far in the aftermath
of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.
.
The U.S. Afghan campaign destroyed one of India's enemies, the Taliban, and has seriously hobbled another, Pakistan. Rival China "feels somewhat isolated" at the moment because "the changes since Sept. 11 have not been to China's advantage," in Mr. Singh's
words.
.
And the war has helped India completely escape from the international pariah status that Washington hung on New Delhi for testing nuclear weapons more than three years ago.
.
Fortune has thus smiled on India, and the debonair Mr. Singh smiles back with the satisfaction of a man who knows that he has a good thing going and does not want to see it end yet. He is more than willing to give the United States more time to squeeze Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf and to stir Beijing's fears of encirclement by setting up long-term bases in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia.
.
In a lengthy conversation on Thursday with members of the Aspen Strategy Group, an informal body of U.S. foreign policy analysts, Mr. Singh put limits on India's embrace of a more significant U.S. role in his region. He specifically warned against well-meaning
U.S. offers of sophisticated devices or advice to help Pakistan control access to its nuclear warheads, since this could inadvertently give Islamabad greater confidence in its ability to deploy nuclear weapons.
.
Senior Indian officials indicated that they had detected no assembly of Pakistani nuclear components in the mobilization of both armies since December. On Jan. 1, the two nations routinely exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities, as they now do every year.
.
Mr. Singh urged Washington not to overreach in Afghanistan. "It is not Finland," he said, in a remark that he repeated later in the day to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who arrived on his second visit here in three months. "Don't try to convert it to Finland.
There are limits to what you can do."
.
There was no viable long-term security role in Afghanistan for American forces, he told the Aspen members. "It is best for the U.S. to maintain ... a not too visible presence," while Afghans develop their own national security force.
.
India would not interfere in Afghanistan, Mr. Singh said. And neither should any other neighbor. "Pakistan for the last 20 years played a role to keep India out of Afghanistan. That phase is over."
.
Mr. Singh, who resembles Anthony Eden wearing a Nehru jacket and a deep tan, is enjoying India's escape from the international doghouse to which it was consigned after surprise nuclear tests in 1998. Those tests triggered Pakistani atomic blasts, and sanctions
for both nations.
.
New Delhi's temptation will be to let ride the bet that has performed so handsomely for it in this opening phase of the war on terror - to believe that it needs to do nothing to help decrease the tensions with Pakistan that have prevailed since Dec. 13. The
better way of managing its sudden success is for India to take small but meaningful steps of military de-escalation, now. NEW DELHI U.S. troops and bases on foreign soil were once anathema to India's nationalistic government. But now India's leaders encourage
America to be in no hurry to give up the strategic foothold in Central Asia established by the military campaign in Afghanistan.
.
"I don't think America can give up the Central Asia presence now," says Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to my wondering ears. "You will be criticized. The presence troubles Russia and China. But you won't be able to give it up any time soon," he continues. He
then adds casually that U.S. forces should stay on in Pakistan to help stabilize a nation that India has long treated as a mortal enemy. Yankee Go Home Slowly also surfaces as a theme in a later conversation with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The United
States and India "are natural allies," he says. "We would like to develop relations on a long-term basis ... There has been close cooperation during this crisis on defense and security that should be extended."
.
America's war on global terrorism has scrambled old patterns of diplomacy and politics and creates potential reversals of alliances on a large scale.
.
While Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations have been forced into hard choices, Mr. Vajpayee's secular coalition government has been quick to take advantage of these changes and is emerging as the big- gest strategic winner thus far in the aftermath
of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.
.
The U.S. Afghan campaign destroyed one of India's enemies, the Taliban, and has seriously hobbled another, Pakistan. Rival China "feels somewhat isolated" at the moment because "the changes since Sept. 11 have not been to China's advantage," in Mr. Singh's
words.
.
And the war has helped India completely escape from the international pariah status that Washington hung on New Delhi for testing nuclear weapons more than three years ago.
.
Fortune has thus smiled on India, and the debonair Mr. Singh smiles back with the satisfaction of a man who knows that he has a good thing going and does not want to see it end yet. He is more than willing to give the United States more time to squeeze Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf and to stir Beijing's fears of encirclement by setting up long-term bases in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia.
.
In a lengthy conversation on Thursday with members of the Aspen Strategy Group, an informal body of U.S. foreign policy analysts, Mr. Singh put limits on India's embrace of a more significant U.S. role in his region. He specifically warned against well-meaning
U.S. offers of sophisticated devices or advice to help Pakistan control access to its nuclear warheads, since this could inadvertently give Islamabad greater confidence in its ability to deploy nuclear weapons.
.
Senior Indian officials indicated that they had detected no assembly of Pakistani nuclear components in the mobilization of both armies since December. On Jan. 1, the two nations routinely exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities, as they now do every year.
.
Mr. Singh urged Washington not to overreach in Afghanistan. "It is not Finland," he said, in a remark that he repeated later in the day to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who arrived on his second visit here in three months. "Don't try to convert it to Finland.
There are limits to what you can do."
.
There was no viable long-term security role in Afghanistan for American forces, he told the Aspen members. "It is best for the U.S. to maintain ... a not too visible presence," while Afghans develop their own national security force.
.
India would not interfere in Afghanistan, Mr. Singh said. And neither should any other neighbor. "Pakistan for the last 20 years played a role to keep India out of Afghanistan. That phase is over."
.
Mr. Singh, who resembles Anthony Eden wearing a Nehru jacket and a deep tan, is enjoying India's escape from the international doghouse to which it was consigned after surprise nuclear tests in 1998. Those tests triggered Pakistani atomic blasts, and sanctions
for both nations.
.
New Delhi's temptation will be to let ride the bet that has performed so handsomely for it in this opening phase of the war on terror - to believe that it needs to do nothing to help decrease the tensions with Pakistan that have prevailed since Dec. 13. The
better way of managing its sudden success is for India to take small but meaningful steps of military de-escalation, now. NEW DELHI U.S. troops and bases on foreign soil were once anathema to India's nationalistic government. But now India's leaders encourage
America to be in no hurry to give up the strategic foothold in Central Asia established by the military campaign in Afghanistan.
.
"I don't think America can give up the Central Asia presence now," says Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh to my wondering ears. "You will be criticized. The presence troubles Russia and China. But you won't be able to give it up any time soon," he continues. He
then adds casually that U.S. forces should stay on in Pakistan to help stabilize a nation that India has long treated as a mortal enemy. Yankee Go Home Slowly also surfaces as a theme in a later conversation with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The United
States and India "are natural allies," he says. "We would like to develop relations on a long-term basis ... There has been close cooperation during this crisis on defense and security that should be extended."
.
America's war on global terrorism has scrambled old patterns of diplomacy and politics and creates potential reversals of alliances on a large scale.
.
While Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations have been forced into hard choices, Mr. Vajpayee's secular coalition government has been quick to take advantage of these changes and is emerging as the big- gest strategic winner thus far in the aftermath
of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.
.
The U.S. Afghan campaign destroyed one of India's enemies, the Taliban, and has seriously hobbled another, Pakistan. Rival China "feels somewhat isolated" at the moment because "the changes since Sept. 11 have not been to China's advantage," in Mr. Singh's
words.
.
And the war has helped India completely escape from the international pariah status that Washington hung on New Delhi for testing nuclear weapons more than three years ago.
.
Fortune has thus smiled on India, and the debonair Mr. Singh smiles back with the satisfaction of a man who knows that he has a good thing going and does not want to see it end yet. He is more than willing to give the United States more time to squeeze Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf and to stir Beijing's fears of encirclement by setting up long-term bases in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia.
.
In a lengthy conversation on Thursday with members of the Aspen Strategy Group, an informal body of U.S. foreign policy analysts, Mr. Singh put limits on India's embrace of a more significant U.S. role in his region. He specifically warned against well-meaning
U.S. offers of sophisticated devices or advice to help Pakistan control access to its nuclear warheads, since this could inadvertently give Islamabad greater confidence in its ability to deploy nuclear weapons.
.
Senior Indian officials indicated that they had detected no assembly of Pakistani nuclear components in the mobilization of both armies since December. On Jan. 1, the two nations routinely exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities, as they now do every year.
.
Mr. Singh urged Washington not to overreach in Afghanistan. "It is not Finland," he said, in a remark that he repeated later in the day to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who arrived on his second visit here in three months. "Don't try to convert it to Finland.
There are limits to what you can do."
.
There was no viable long-term security role in Afghanistan for American forces, he told the Aspen members. "It is best for the U.S. to maintain ... a not too visible presence," while Afghans develop their own national security force.
.
India would not interfere in Afghanistan, Mr. Singh said. And neither should any other neighbor. "Pakistan for the last 20 years played a role to keep India out of Afghanistan. That phase is over."
.
Mr. Singh, who resembles Anthony Eden wearing a Nehru jacket and a deep tan, is enjoying India's escape from the international doghouse to which it was consigned after surprise nuclear tests in 1998. Those tests triggered Pakistani atomic blasts, and sanctions
for both nations.
.
New Delhi's temptation will be to let ride the bet that has performed so handsomely for it in this opening phase of the war on terror - to believe that it needs to do nothing to help decrease the tensions with Pakistan that have prevailed since Dec. 13. The
better way of managing its sudden success is for India to take small but meaningful steps of military de-escalation, now.
|