USA And The Future Of The World

[acharya]

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=220&page=31


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During the Cold War era Russia was Communist and India non-aligned. British imperialism had ended and given place to Anglo-American neo-colonialism. India as a non-aligned country wanted friendship of all, but was viewed with suspicion by western powers. They struck a pro-Pakistan posture and tacitly encouraged Kashmir’s secession. In North-East India they facilitated Baptist-inspired separatism. Notably, religion was used as an instrument of politics in both arenas to trouble India. Russia, as the prime component of communist Soviet Union, stood by India in all confrontations with Pakistan, was the largest supplier of military hardware and helped India to industrialise, whereas America backed off from a signed agreement to build a single steel plant.

Now the world paradigm has changed. The conflicts are no longer ideology-based but civilisation-based, as per Huntington (1996), and the most important ingredient of a civilisation is its religion. In this era what is the probability that America would retract from fomenting trouble in the North East by reigning in funding from the Baptists? It is pretty much nil, in my opinion. America herself is in the grip of evangelist fervour as Baptists and Episcopalians are gradually merging, and support of the Christianist militants of the north-east will likely gain momentum. America, in this mood, cannot be a reliable strategic partner. In addition America has to appease the Muslim world in all other theaters except in the Arab-Israeli conflict of West Asia. She has conveniently picked Orthodox Christianity as the adversary and has encouraged Islamist separatists in Kosovo and Chechnya, and bombed Serbia to Stone Age, in order to neutralise the effect of the AIK factor. For a long time America had categorised Islamist terrorism in Kashmir as freedom struggle, and only recently has resiled from that stand. When Afghanistan’s and North-West Pakistan’s Taliban militancy becomes somewhat pacified, America will likely revert back to her original Kashmir posture again, to reward (and perhaps stabilise) Pakistan for her cooperation in the Afghan frontier.

Our foreign policy seems ill-advised and short-sighted. We seem to be putting all our eggs in the American basket. We may have limited joint naval exercises with America but should not enter into any military or strategic pact or understanding with her. However, we should join the CSTO, retain our military base and presence in Tajikistan and influence events in Afghanistan. If China can have close economic ties with the USA, hold billions of dollars worth of US treasury bonds and help maintain the world dollar standard on one hand, and cozy up to CSTO on the other, why cannot India continue her traditional friendship with Russia and at the same time have a working relation with the USA? What the government is proposing right now is an extremely close strategic tie-up with America to the detriment of our relation with Russia. In the end it is a question of finesse in conducting foreign policy. We should learn from Pakistan; observe how it acquires nuclear power with the help of China, carries on ambivalently with the Taliban and yet milks her relationship with the USA to the last drop. In contrast, our foreign policy is offending our traditional and reliable friend, Russia by a ham-handed one-sided approach. The government must rethink and change direction. What I have tried to show is that, under the present geo-political circumstances, Orthodox-majority non-Communist and secular Russia is a natural and reliable ally of Hindu-majority non-Communist and secular India. The Orthodox, unlike the Protestant and Catholic, do not have a proselytising mission to convert the rest of the world to their faith, and religion matters in today’s world.

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