If US think-tanks had their way,
India's most
cherished dream, to emerge as a superpower, would be a
reality. This is a result of a Study undertaken by a Panel of
American Military Strategists who present three extreme
scenarios –– of
Pakistan
being overcome by a US-backed Indian confederation, a
Sino–Indian hegemony and a win-win China –– conjured up by an
American study.
The
participants who took part in the study were:
S. Enders Wimbush, Hicks & Associates, Chairman
Lt. Col
(USMC) Michael Brooker, HQMC PP&O
Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute
Aaron Friedberg,
Princeton
University
Graham Fuller, RAND Corporation
Stuart Gold, Science Applications International Corporation
Capt (USN) Karl Hasslinger, OSD/Net Assessment
Juli A. MacDonald, Hicks & Associates
Rajan Menon,
Lehigh
University
Maj (USA)
Thomas J. Moffat, National Ground Intelligence Center
Ross H. Munro, Center for Security Studies
Abraham Shulsky, Consultant
Victor Cha,
Georgetown
University
George K. Tanham, RAND Corporation
Ashley Tellis, RAND Corporation
Some of the startling conclusions are presented below:
The Year 2010 –– US Bombs
Pakistan
"The
United States of America uses its B-2 bombers in the year 2012
to launch conventional air-strikes to destroy Pakistani
nuclear facilities in a bid to prevent the nukes from falling
into the wrong hands. The extraordinary
US
action follows an unsuccessful Indian conventional attack on
Pakistani nukes, and a Retaliatory Pakistani nuclear strike
against Indian border forces. This sparks the disintegration
and disappearance of
Pakistan,
and creation of an expanded Indian Confederation or Superstate."
This is not some Nostradamus indulging in apocalyptic
visions. It's just one of the many futuristic scenarios culled
out from the "Asia 2025" study –– a 147-page Opus –– conducted
by the
US under
secretary of defence (policy). Written last year and
distributed in limited circles, these documents show that
US
defence planners are now shifting their focus from
Europe to Asia where
they would wish to contain the threat of an Islamist Pakistan
and an economically resurgent China. This may in future lead
the US to seek closer alliance with India.
2010–12 CE ––
Pakistan Near
Collapse; Face-Off Over Kashmir; Pak Uses Nukes On India; US
Takes On Pak Nukes
Rand Corporation's Ashley Tellis, one of the 15 top-guns of
American policymaking, who took part in the study, told
Outlook: "These are long-range perspective studies. Their
chief virtue is that they help policymakers think about
alternative futures which would otherwise escape them under
day-to-day pressures."
2013–18 CE ––
Pakistan
Accedes To India; India Is Superstate; India, Iran, U.S. Edge
China Out
This report was a result of a Study held at
Naval War
College, Newport, Rhode Island, between July 25 and August 4,
1999, the study was meant to explore what
Asia might look like and what challenges it might pose to US
defence and national security planners till the year 2025. The
participants realised that the scenarios were speculative and
cautioned that they were not predictive. "Rather they are
highly imaginative descriptions of things."
2010–25 CE ––
Indonesia
Fragments, US Intervenes, Sino–India Pact, US Retreats,
India–China in Control
An Asian diplomat in
Bangkok
added: "The remarkable thing is that
India
has become such a major factor in US defence policymaking."
The nuclear tests by the Vajpayee government coupled with
India's emergence as a global IT superpower are bound to lead,
sooner or later, to a radical rethink on US defence alliances.
What this means is that the US will soon see India as a
partner of choice.
2015–25 CE ––
China Flexes
Muscles Offers India Deal, S. Korea, Japan Push US Out, India
S. Asia Hegemony
The Year 2010 –– India Finally Overcomes
Pakistan in
an Epic Civilizational Struggle against the Islamic Jihad (War
to Convert the entire human population to Islam)
Scenario 1 –– The Day
India
Overcame Pakistan In An Epic Civilizational Struggle Lasting
One Thousand Years
The "New South Asian Order" scenario begins unfolding in the
year 2010 with the imminent collapse of
Pakistan,
where ongoing economic crises, ethnic conflicts and the
government's helplessness on the law and order front render it
increasingly unstable.
"Sindhis, Baluch and Pathans, who have long resented a
Punjabi-dominated
Pakistan,
rebel. Mohajirs take to the streets. Islamic extremism adds to
the instability in two forms –– Taliban's destabilisation
efforts and the growing power of the <>" the study says.
In contrast,
India
successfully combines political decentralisation and economic
reforms, generating rapid growth based on steep decline in
population growth and a massive influx of foreign direct
investment. Simultaneously,
China's
economic resurgence and belligerence in
East Asia brings the US
closer to India. As Pakistan slides into anarchy, the US
remains focused on North Asia with its forces deployed in
Japan and South Korea.
By 2012, the Pakistani state is totally paralysed and loses
control to Islamic extremists who infiltrate
Kashmir.
"India
demands that Pakistan end the Islamic incursions. When
Pakistan fails to respond, India moves into Azad Kashmir.
Pakistan issues a nuclear ultimatum for Indian withdrawal from
Azad Kashmir. The Chinese echo Pakistan's ultimatum and begin
mobilising along
India's
eastern flank between Nepal and Bhutan to sever the Mizoram–Nagaland–Assam–Sikkim
outpost of
India,
and threaten to use 'all available means to stop Indian
aggression'. The US urges restraint, and despite other
flashpoints, the
US
sends naval forces to the Bay of Bengal and warns China to
stay out," the study speculates.
Fearing that
Pakistan
would use its nuclear weapons, India launches an unsuccessful
conventional strike on the former's nuclear capabilities.
Next, Pakistan launches nuclear strikes against Indian forces
along their common border, driven by a "use it or lose it"
rationale.
The
US intelligence shows that Islamists in
Pakistan
are seizing the remaining Pakistani nuclear weapons. This
goads the US to launch "a conventional strike on
Pakistan's
nuclear sites".
"The extraordinary
US action is
also motivated by a desire to preempt a full-scale nuclear
exchange between Pakistan and India. The US strikes by
deploying deep penetration warheads launched from B-2 bombers
to destroy Pakistan's remaining nuclear forces. Faced with the
reality of US–Indian cooperation, China backs off on the
northeastern front," it adds.
"Total anarchy prevails in
Pakistan. The
Indian army moves in to restore order. As the country
disintegrates, Pakistan's regions accede incrementally to
India. The Sindhi, Baluch, and North West Frontier Province
parliaments vote to join an Indian-led confederation. An
Indian Confederation emerges. Isolated Punjab is compelled to
join the confederation and merges with its Indian counterpart
to form a greater Punjab province within the confederation,"
the scenario goes.
"India's
central government grants extensive internal autonomy to the
Erstwhile Pakistani Provinces which are now confederal units
within India in exchange for control over their defence and
foreign policies.
Economically vibrant, the confederation is recognized as the
regional hegemon and an economic magnet for trade and energy
flows. The disappearance of
Pakistan
and the emergence of the Indian Confederation have a cascading
effect across Central Asia. Afghanistan, is dismembered by its
neighbouring states ––
Iran,
Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan –– who move in to annex the
territory controlled by their own ethnic groups."
The study says that
Pakistan
disappears by 2020, and the Indian Confederation emerges as a
regional superstate.
With
Central Asia stabilising, energy pipelines from
Central Asia,
via Iran, to the energy hungry subcontinent are constructed.
The East–West orientation of energy and commerce in Central
Asia gives way to a new North–South orientation.
Iran
becomes the main transit country and Karachi the main port, to
the East Asian markets.
It sees India becoming a "regional hegemon", and US planners
are now urging the US defence department to anticipate a
heightened Indian economic and strategic role in the region,
raising the question –– What does all this mean for the US
presence in Diego Garcia and the potential for military
cooperation with India?
In the end, the
US discovers
unexpected partners in India and post-Islamic Iran. Both
countries (India and Post-Islamic Iran) take on enhanced roles
to protect sea-lanes for oil deliveries, reducing US
responsibilities in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. According
to the study, China could respond to India's emergence not by
challenging it head on, but by increasing its activities in
the Russian Far East and Indochina. It may, thus, challenge US
interests in East Asia. It could, for instance, strengthen its
position in Indochina and the Bay of Bengal, making Southeast
Asia the future arena of conflict and competition.
And, if
India does
become a future US ally, what kind of development, regional
and global, would be needed to cement these ties further?
Tellis has a pithy list: "Collapsing Pakistan, aggressive
China, threats to Middle East oil, deeper Indian–US economic
and military engagement, high Indian growth rates, Indian
willingness to participate in combined peace operations with
the US."
Scenario 2 –– Anti-Islamic Sino–Indian
Entente
A second scenario is the creation of a "New Sino-Indian
Condominium." In the lead-up to this development, the
US tries but
fails to reach a strategic arrangement with India till 2010.
India resents US inattention, which feeds the Indian national
psychology of wanting to be seen as a great power.
"In a blatant act of self-assertion,
India
conducts a new round of nuclear tests in 2008, precluding any
possibility of moving forward in a strategic relationship with
the US. Growing anti-hegemonic sentiments stimulate
India
to accelerate its military buildup, shifting attention
increasingly towards naval power," the study says.
As the US initiative towards India founders and eventually
collapses after India's nuclear tests, and as Indonesia's
fragility becomes more threatening, India and China initiate
strategic discussions on regional cooperation to secure
sea-lanes, control regional unrest, and common concerns....
The anti-hegemonic undertones of their discussion gradually
surface as an explicit shared objective in displacing the
US
from the regions they seek to dominate.
Just how deep is
US mistrust
of China in matters relating to defence? Tellis says the
mistrust is growing. And, how does this sit with US economic
interests in
China?
He responds: "Conflict not yet reconciled, and will not be for
a long time to come since China does not yet pose significant
direct threat to the US or US interests." In 2014, Indonesia
fragments, leading to a slaughter of wealthy Chinese, as
separatist rebels seize Indonesian gas and oil production.
"Everybody except China and India want the US to act" to
restore order, the study says.
In 2016, during the run-up to a
US
presidential election, a small band of Islamic militants,
intent on hurting the US, fires a series of powerful missiles
at a
US
destroyer and frigate passing through the narrow Lombok
Straits near Indonesia.
More than 200
US sailors
and marines are killed. All presidential candidates pledge to
bring American troops home and the US announces immediate
cessation of operations and orders US ships to pull back.
In 2017, Chinese and Indian leaders intensify their
discussion of ways to eject
US presence
from the South China Sea, where China wants to establish
hegemony, and from the Indian Ocean, where
India
wishes to establish its supremacy. They tacitly agree to
cooperate and decide on joint action.
India moves
rapidly into the Straits of Malacca, and
China
takes control of the Lombok and Sunda Straits and reopens them
to international traffic.
China
also occupies the disputed Spratly Islands and Natuna
gasfields. India's navy takes command of the Malacca Straits
by cracking down on the pirates.
Most countries, including
Japan, praise
China and India for their joint action. Between 2017 and 2025,
the US presence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans rolls back,
and America's allies reach a new accommodation with
China
and India.
"The tensions between
China and
India are not eliminated by their dividing much of
Asia into
hegemonic spheres. But for the time being, cooperation suits
both perfectly..... The New Sino-Indian Order begins."
The study suggests that Sino–Indian cooperation might be
impeded if the
US
establishes a working strategic dialogue and common
geopolitical objectives with one partner. "India appears to be
the more logical choice of the two," the study says.
US may need to rethink its strict non-proliferation policy,
the study says, because some states like
India which
acquire nuclear weapons may actually contribute to the US
national security goals. "The US may be faced with a trade-off
between selective proliferation and regional presence," the
study says.
Scenario 3 ––
India And
China Re-Discover Their Two Thousand Year Old Relationship
This scenario is hinged on the fact that
China's
long-term goal is to dominate Asia and this doesn't change
whether China is strong or becomes relatively weak due to
domestic economic and political troubles. Beijing is now
determined to control Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the
Senkaku islands (also claimed by
Japan).
Well before 2025,
China will
have established effective control of Continental East Asia
and peninsular Southeast Asia will fall under its thrall. From
2000–2015,
China
increases its military presence in the South China Sea,
establishing several naval bases there. ASEAN (Association of
South East Asian Nations) fails to act collectively against
Chinese expansionism.
The study, very clearly says, "Next,
China
temporarily and adroitly neutralises
India
by recognising Indian hegemony in South Asia and the Indian
Ocean.
China
withdraws from its de facto bases on
Burma's
Indian Ocean coast. In return, India tacitly recognises
China's hegemony over the South China Sea, further undermining
Southeast Asia's will to resist aggressive Chinese
encroachment."
Another scenario, entitled "China Acts" sees a full-blown
naval battle between
China and the
US, with the latter losing lives and aircraft. This happens
after the US withdraws from Japan and South Korea by 2015
following ultra-nationalist protests in those countries
against US presence, ending in a series of terrorist attacks
against US forces. The damage is done and the American people
support a pull out of their forces from East Asia. China takes
a series of steps to cash in on the fact that the US has
effectively no forward presence in Asia.
India Sees The US Alliance As An Opportunity
"India
sees the US Alliance as an opportunity to elevate its position
in the Asian prestige hierarchy. India, which has been
developing a Blue Water navy, accelerates its programme and is
capable of out-of-area deployments. Like the Japanese, it also
remains open to new defence relationships and an enhanced
diplomatic role in regional security issues, particularly in
the Persian Gulf," the study says. Here, India's role is
enhanced but it remains subordinate to
China's
strategic interests.
What also emerges from these scenarios is the fact that
India
becomes crucial to the United States strategic thinking, and
could emerge as a major regional power with whom the US would
work together towards having military tie-ups to fight the
dangers of theology-inspired terrorism to global peace.
(Pramod Buravalli who sent us this article is Sr.Director
(Asia Pacific),
TechRP Inc, Nashville, TN-37067.
He may be contacted at
www.techrp.com in the US.
The company has offshore development centres in Hyderabad and
Bangalore.) |