<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Nov 3 2004, 10:53 PM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Nov 3 2004, 10:53 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> Atleast that will get the monkey off our backs.. <!--emo&:whistle--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='whistle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then, these Kangressi will give her "Bharat Ratan". That will be real shame for every proud Indian on earth and in Heaven.
<b>EU and India sign partnership deal</b>
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) -- The European Union signed a "strategic partnership" with India on Monday to tighten economic and political ties with a burgeoning economy that Europeans have come to regard as important to regional stability.
<b>Dangerously misunderstanding Nehru </b>
- By Bharat Karnad
At a recent Cabinet-level meeting to approve certain expenditures on strategic systems, <b>senior military officers present were reportedly shocked to hear Natwar Singh, the minister for external affairs, scoff at such spending with his stock Nehruvian-sounding criticism.</b> With the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, remaining noncommittal, it was the defence minister Pranab Mukherjeeâs steely insistence that won the day. It is hardly surprising that those, like Natwar Singh, who make a great show of being uncompromising followers of Jawaharlal Nehru, understand him not at all. In the main, because they stress what Nehru wrote rather than what he actually did during his long tenure as Prime Minister. <b>Natwar Singhâs bookish take on Nehru would not matter very much were it not for his ministerial post, in which case it is a policy liability</b>.
There is no dearth of people who are muddled about Nehruvian precepts because they take these more seriously than they do his practice of foreign affairs, which was at complete variance. When these worthies talk about "Nehru, the statesman," Jawaharlal emerges as something of a naïve and doltish character who went about spouting Third World-ist inanities and proposing disarmament and "peace initiatives" at every turn when he was not whining about the inequitable world order. <b>These faux Nehruvians are found in the press, in places like the Jawaharlal Nehru University, and in government mainly in the ministry of external affairs (MEA) where the foreign service officers are now required to reinforce the half-baked institutional understanding of Nehru by poring over his many books.</b>
Two generations of Indian analysts and analyses have come up since Independence divided between the many who hail Jawaharlal Nehru as an "apostle of peace" and a Third World leader non pareil, and the few from the "realist" school of political thought and those in the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, who excoriate him for his alleged "woolly-headedness." Both have mis-read Nehru.
It must be conceded that hagiographical writing about the founding fathers of a new state helps in nation-building and in firming up national identity. To that extent, the mainstream uncritical appraisals of Jawaharlal <b>Nehru served a purpose. But, carried too far it can seriously disable a countryâs foreign and military outlook and policies. That point may now have been reached.</b> In the post-Cold War world of dominant power strategies of active counter-proliferation, preemption and preventive war and devoid of the Soviet-American rivalry that provided third countries protection, the soft-options available to India are no more and its margin of safety is much reduced. In this milieu, it is prudent to dress up US appeasement policies in Nehruvian raiment.
The real Nehru, it turns out, was an arch-realist and a world-class strategic visionary who was motivated less by morality â "Gandhian" or any other â than by principles of realpolitik. He saw India as a great power that needed in the government domain, principally, to acquire the matching military wherewithal. Strengthening the countryâs economic muscle could be left, he believed, to public and private sector cooperation. Hence, Nehru made two vital decisions. Calling it a "Janus-faced policy," he imparted a weapons thrust to the countryâs nuclear energy programme from its inception but kept it secret from the rest of the government, including the MEA â the reason why diplomats like Natwar Singh who were never in the decision loop, have no stake in nuclear security. And, he seeded a broad-based defence science and industrial capability comprehensively to service the needs of the armed forces and also to earn export revenues to amortise the vast investments. <b>Every means and opportunity were exploited to build up nuclear and defence industrial competence and capabilities â from the United Statesâ "Atoms for Peace" programme to hiring one of Hitlerâs leading fighter plane designers, Dr Kurt Tank, to produce a modern combat jet aircraft.</b>
In the interim period when Indiaâs strategic self-protection gear was not in place, Jawaharlal Nehru, given his ideological and cultural affinities, sought security for India under the US nuclear umbrella and enrolled as a virtual member of the western alliance. Declassified detailed Pentagon plans drawn up in the mid-Fifties reveal the aim to defend India, where possible, jointly with the Indian military against the Chinese communists as well as against internal revolution engineered by the Communist Party cadres. A Carrier task force, an Airborne Division, a composite Air Strike Force, nuclear demolition teams were among the American units tasked for this expeditionary mission. In 1962, the Western nuclear umbrella, in fact, partially opened over India.
The US and the UK were complicit, moreover, in making Nehruâs seemingly anti-West non alignment policy successful. Their logic was that by attracting many developing countries to it, this grouping would curtail the number of Third World states available to the Soviet Union to poach on. Apparently, the returns from such a policy were enough for London and Washington to tolerate the downside â Nehruâs "socialist" rhetoric and policies at home. Further, keeping his eye on the power politics involved, Nehru first proposed "general and complete" disarmament (meaning both nuclear and conventional military disarmament) that he knew would be unacceptable and then warned the great powers in the First Committee of the United Nations that if progress towards such disarmament was not forthcoming, India would obtain a nuclear arsenal at tenth the cost incurred by them. This was an example of an extraordinarily agile and complex diplomacy at work.
All of the above and many other equally startling revelations regarding Indiaâs foreign, military and nuclear policies, based entirely on hitherto unused declassified documents available in the official British and American archives and on extensive first-hand interviews, were published in my book, Nuclear Weapons & Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (Macmillan, 2002). (The government of India does not believe in declassifying official documents, despite the 30-year rule but, fortunately, its UK and US counterparts do and the workings of the Indian policy are now rendered transparent.) It is a comprehensive and original analysis and a substantive and irrefutable revisionist history of free Indiaâs foreign and conventional military-cum-nuclear policies. It includes my prescription that India should acquire a consequential thermonuclear deterrent with intercontinental ballistic missile reach to consolidate its great power status, strategic security and "autonomy," and political leverage. Pray, how did the self-appointed guardians of Nehru-viana react?
In a review of my book published in the fortnightly Frontline, A.G. Noorani, for instance, who apparently hates a nuclear weaponised, dismissed the work as "polemical" â "controversial argumentation" according to the Oxford Dictionary â on the astonishing plea that would discredit an undergraduate that my study had relied principally on official documents and correspondence between the Indian and US and British governments, on extensive interview research, and on oral history typescripts (little heeded by Indian scholars) available in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library rather than on the "published record" â meaning, presumably, the stuff featured in newspapers and periodicals of the day! It is clear that for those who have made a career out of flogging a patently flimsy, uni-dimensional Jawaharlal Nehru that they have conjured up, definitive evidence to prove that the great leader was out to secure for India in the shortest possible time the military qua diplomatic heft of a great power, is anathema.
Natwar Singh (who sought a copy of my book on the pretext of reviewing it, but never did), like Noorani, is in the same denial mode about Nehru. At the Hindustan Times Leadership Initiative conference, "(Nuclear) deterrents," he declared grandly, "are not a sign of progress." This, of course, is to turn Jawaharlal Nehruâs hard-boiled strategy of acquiring nuclear weapons to steer India towards international recognition as a world power, which in any case he believed was owed it, on its head. Worse, the minister boasted that "We did not let the change in government disturb the tempo of our engagement with the US" and that "it is our government which were able to move decisively to conclude the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP)."
Considering that NSSP is a product of the previous BJP-led regimeâs naiveté, cupidity and rank bad strategic sense, advancing it amounts to the Congress party-led coalitionâs kick-starting a process that will end in formally reducing India to a sub-strategic security dependency of the US, like, say, Pakistan! Poor Jawaharlal Nehru! <b>How ironic that India, on the cusp of genuine strategic capability he seeded, is forsaking its position of advantage and, under the direction of those who swear by Nehru, is settling down as a second-rate American camp follower. The decline of India to a client state will no doubt be tracked and Indian leaders responsible for it identified when historians get hold of official US documents three decades hence</b>.
Bharat Karnad is Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, remaining noncommittal, it was the defence minister Pranab Mukherjeeâs steely insistence that won the day.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Pranab Mukherjee would have been a better choice for PM.
Russia favours India's entry into UNSC without veto
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday fully supported India's entry into the UN Security Council as a permanent member but was not in favour of veto rights to new members.
<b>".....But speaking about the role of veto and other tools present in the UN, we should say that we believe it would be absolutely unacceptable to erode such tools of the UN,"</b> he told a joint press conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the two leaders held extensive talks on a host of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern.
<b>"Because, otherwise, the UN organisation will lose its weight and lose its role changing into some discussion club, some new addition of the league of nations," </b> he said.
He was asked whether Russia would like India to have veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council.
Favouring re-organisation of the UN, including the enlargement of the number of permanent members of the Security Council, Putin said <b>"India is our strategic privileged partner...And speaking from the point of view of geographical representation... India is number one."</b>
He said in the process of negotiations, <b>"we show significant flexibility...We have full understanding, mutual understanding with our Indian partners in this matter."</b>
The Russian leader said "our position is in preserving United Nation's universal character and serving as a tool for the resolution of all the problems of the modern world."
Putin, who is on a three-day visit to India, advocated expansion of the Security Council.
"Beyond any doubt there should be no deterrents in the rights of the members of the Security Council. I think that would have been a destructive approach. We have to show flexibility taking into account the interests of all participants in the process. Thats how I have described to you our position," Putin said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So much for permanent friends.. <!--emo&  --><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->
India is to become a full partner in the GLONASS navigational system, both for civilian and military purposes.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"India and Russia are putting together their space technology skills to build an ambitious navigational satellite project that would have both civilian and military applications, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported Thursday.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A milestone agreement on Indian participation in the proposed Global Navigational Satellite System (Glonass) as an <b>equal and sole partner of Russia </b>is to be signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's three-day visit to India from Friday, IANS quoteda senior official as saying.
Russia had revived the project recently as an alternative to the US Global Positioning Satellite System and invited India to join it.
New Delhi's positive response comes in the wake of delay in finalizing India's participation in the Galileo satellite navigation system that European Union is developing." ...more at link
<b>Remember a few months back, the US stated they would take down any space based system that threatened them while they were engaged in combat. That included any satellite that was providing info to "the enemy" or navigational satellite, etc. So this is a most interesting development. </b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe that the UN is an useless organization meant for people with idealistic inclinations. That is one reason why Nehru gravitated towards the UN. The UN is used by the big boys, like Uncle Sam and the Moscow Bear to achieve their aims. For the once mighty nations like India, Germany and Japan, which were castrated to different degrees, and are still bound due to a variety of reasons to the victors, the UNSC seat might offer an artificial sense of satisfaction. It reminds me of the past days when a seat in a particular college mattered only for prestige and not the teaching. The realist big boys really do not care much for UN and Sammy uncle has shown with his actions in Iraq that the UN is superfluous. Instead of wasting effort on the UN we need to build our muscle seriously forming what ever stop gap alliances it takes and dumping relationships that are not fruitful. I doubt the Kangress netajis are up to anything like that.
Probably Putin is scared that India won't need Russia once it gets veto power in UN.
At the very least one can say that all this talk about permanent freinds and natural allies is hogwash. We have seen that ruskies will only yield as much as it is in their interests - no more no less. Nobody is out to do any favors to anybody which is fair. We should always keep this in mind.
A US offer Delhi can't refuse
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> NEW DELHI - US President George W Bush's first tenure was good for India, and Bush II promises to be even better, with the United States formally offering a range of military hardware, including an anti-missile radar system and maritime spy planes, to India. The offer includes the much-touted Patriot anti-missile defense system that tackles aircraft and also tactical and cruise missiles, C-130 stretched medium-lift transport aircraft, P-3C Orion maritime surveillance planes, and even F-16 fighters. The US has also offered Perry-class frigates and Sea Hawk helicopters, while special-operations forces will be looking at chemical and biological protection equipment. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very well. Some of this is probably hype. But the reaction to this was ..
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Russia, meanwhile, is far from impressed with the deal. On Tuesday, officials told Delhi that Moscow would no longer transfer any high-technology defense system to India without a pact to protect intellectual property rights, and said India's bid to buy the United States' Patriot anti-missile system would not work on Russian-supplied platforms.
"If India will not fully honor our interests, then there is no need to attach strings, conditions and demands from Russia not to trade [in arms] with Pakistan," an unnamed Russian Defense Ministry source was quoted as saying by the state-run RIA Novosti agency, ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India.
Pointing out that currently, at the request of India, Moscow is not cooperating with Islamabad in the defense sector, the official said that if India does not keep Russia's interests in mind, military ties with Pakistan can be resumed. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In other words.. Ruskies are saying "you are my b1tch". Now I get this UNSC member without veto BS !!
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Moscow favours veto powers for India: Putin
Saturday, 04 December , 2004, 21:35
New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday made it clear that Moscow fully favoured veto powers for India as a new member of the UN Security Council, rejecting news reports that conveyed the opposite view.
The Indian media reports on his comments made on Friday "does not correspond to the Russian stand", Putin told reporters.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Moscow favours veto powers for India: Putin
<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Dec 5 2004, 04:37 AM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Dec 5 2004, 04:37 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> http://www3.sympatico.ca/shinjitai/brown_guy.WMV
must see! <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Good man Bhairon Singh !!! <!--emo&:rocker--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rocker.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rocker.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The Vice-President did the trick
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> NEW DELHI, DEC. 5 . It took a little bit of blunt talking from the Vice-President, Bhairon Singh Shekhwat, to make the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, issue a clarification about Moscow's stand on India's place in the United Nations Security Council.
According to officials present at the meeting yesterday between Mr. Shekhawat and Mr. Putin, the Vice-President first expressed his gratitude for continued Russian support over the years in the matter of the Kashmir dispute and noted that such support had created an enormous public goodwill in India for Moscow. And, then, the Vice-President added that all that goodwill stood washed away by Mr. Putin's reported remarks on "no veto for India."
This observation made Mr. Putin sit up and he wanted to know what the Vice-President was trying to say. Mr. Shekhwat, according to those present, drew Mr. Putin's attention to "no veto for India" newspapers headlines. The Russian President turned to his aides to explain to him those "guilty" headlines.
Having heard from his aides, Mr. Putin turned to Mr. Shekhawat and told him that his remarks the previous day had been substantially misunderstood. And, then, added that he would use the first available opportunity to publicly correct the impression.
True to his promise, Mr. Putin decided to speak to newspersons after inaugurating the BrahMos office complex, before he left for Bangalore. He clarified: "I am convinced that India should have veto power, otherwise it will be a one-sided reform of the United Nations."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
12-17-2004, 04:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-17-2004, 10:22 PM by Hauma Hamiddha.)
<span style='color:red'>No Numbers in your ID-Moderator</span>
Antonia's World Political Network
Indian Ocean Community
Afghan-Hindu Association
IT is a growing network presented in two profiles:
World Trade Organization is oftern referred in the context of a
phenomenon called global village.
There is another phenomenon which has replaced the erstwhile colonial
presence --a phenomenon which may be called: unaccountable global
governance.
A good instance is the well-acknowledged state of the polity in Bharat
presented in a breath-taking flow-chart:
http://www.adelaide.indymedia.org.au/userm...age/7/sonia.bmp
The URL depicts how 5 people representing 4 countries are controlling
Bharat: 2 Italians, one from France, one from Netherlands and one from
Belgium.
Not to mention the world evangelical/proselytization orders (targeting
soft targets such as Hindu Bharat, since islamist regions out of range)
and other ISI-Marxist links of Comintern or Chinatern.
Now that China has gone private (aka swiss bank accounts of generals
of liberation army), Marxists of Bharat have a problem figuring out
their definitions of imperialism and capitalist hegemony and
reconciling them with Hegelian dialectical contraptions. There is no
strategic space for the once-infamous CIA to edge into this network.
KGB may occasionally sniff into the network (1) either because of the
Beijing-Moscow Express which supplies the daily, basic needs of
woollen clothing and pork; or (2) yearning for kissing the beauties in
Infosys city in Bangalore.
World Political Network ! No United Nations, this.
Not a blade of grass grows on Aksai Chin, said an erstwhile PM. Soon
thereafter he came on the Radio addressing the nation crying that he
was stabbed in the back on McMahon line. Annexation of Tibet is
delivered on a platter to China.
So much for strategic thinking. Kanchi Acharya? What Kanchi? What
Acharya? Vellore jail is what Andaman was for Savarkar, in the
neo-colonial dispensation. Why waste aircraft fuel when commute is
possible between Saidapet and Vellore by Toyota Qualis. One can also
visit Rajiv Gandhi statue closeby in Saidapet or Sriperumbudur memorial
en route to Kanchi during video-conferencing for bail pow-wow. Law is
an ass that goes at an ass' pace, because Law throws the fat books at
any passer-by.
Indian Ocean Community (Hindu mahasagar parivar) as a counterpoise to
European Community. What a dream. No time for strategic thinking.
K.
Afghan Hindu Association, Inc. (the "Association") is a tax-exempt,
not-for-profit, New York Corporation. It was incorporated in the
State of New York in August 1991. Its membership consists of all
Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan who presently live in the United
States, which to date number approximately fifteen hundred families
or seventy five hundred members.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The year 980C.E. marks the beginning of the Muslim invasion into
India proper when Sabuktagin attacked Raja Jaya Pal in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is today a Muslim country separated from India by another
Muslim country Pakistan. But in 980 C.E. Afghanistan was also a place
where the people were Hindus and Buddhists. The name "Afghanistan"
comes from "Upa-Gana-stan" which means in Sanskrit "The place
inhabited by allied tribes". This was the place from where Gandhari
of the Mahabharat came from Gandhar whose king was Shakuni. The
Pakthoons are descendants of the Paktha tribe mentioned in Vedic
literature. Till the year 980 C.E., this area was a Hindu majority
area, till Sabuktagin from Ghazni invaded it and displaced the ruling
Hindu king - Jaya Pal Shahi.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Afghan"isthan" was once center of Vedic Culture. The Indo Aryans
definitely lived in that region before migrating further either
upwards or downwards. For the Aryans Afghanistan was the land of the
Gandharvas or the celestial beings. The Gandharvas were depicted in
the Vedic scriptures as celestial beings, skillful in music, with
magical powers, and beautiful forms. In status they were not equal to
the devas, but regarded as higher beings with divine powers,
mischievous at times, but mostly friendly and reliable.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Buddhism owes a great deal to the Bactrian Greeks, whose patronage
enabled Buddhism to gain firm foot holding in Central Asia and
Chinese Tukistan. The most famous of the Bactrian Greeks about whom
we have some confirmed details was King Menander. He ruled Punjab
with Sakala as his capital and he became interested in Buddhism. The
ancient Buddhist manuscript, the Milindapatha or the Path of Milinda
by Nagasena records the conversations King Menander had with Nagasena
about some aspects of Buddhism.
For full coverage please go to:
http://www.afghanhindu.com/
K.
<span style='color:red'>No Numbers in your ID</span>
http://www.dailypioneer.com/archives2/defa...ives2%5Cdec1104
THE PIONEER, DECEMBER 11, 2004
What's India's grand strategy?
KPS Gill
A nation has security, Walter Lippman notes, when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate interests to avoid war, and is able, if challenged, to maintain them by war. <b>It must be clear to any objective observer of the trajectory of developments in this country that India does not meet these criteria, and that its leadership has not even begun to imagine the task of building them into a national vision. </b>
Indeed, for decades, India has even failed to neutralise the challenge arising out of the malevolence of a single hostile neighbour one-eight its size.
The disaster of the confrontation with China in 1962 has simply been pushed out of our strategic perspectives, and the political and military leadership in the country appears to have convinced itself that shared economic interests, China's "good intentions", and our "friendly relations" with Western and other powers are sufficient guarantee against any future threat from that direction. And given China's overwhelming size and rising power, in any event, what can India do?
But why doesn't Pakistan think in this way of India?The truth is, though there is much talk of India's emerging "great power status", the strategic vision and the awareness of both the collaborative and competitive imperatives that this would involve is still to develop within leaders and leadership institutions in this country. It is significant that, while we pit ourselves repeatedly, exclusively and with very limited success against a manifestly inferior adversary, preparing for an engagement with a superior enemy has been integral to Chinese military and national philosophy since the very creation of the "New China" under Mao Zedong's inspired, though ruthless, leadership. China clearly sees itself as being engaged in sustained and protracted competition with other major powers, while India sees itself substantially as little more than a hopeful supplicant before, and occasionally as an inferior partner with, these.
It is useful to recall that China has confronted and defeated the United States in two wars-directly in the Korean war and indirectly in the war in Vietnam-at a time when the new nation was only just beginning to stabilise after two decades of civil war and a seven year conflict with Japan. At that time the Chinese economy was shattered, there was mass distress among the people and the nation's industries had virtually collapsed. On the other hand, the US was already well established as the number one power of the world.
Indeed, the earlier victories of the People's Liberation Army in both the civil war and the war against Japan were also secured against adversaries who were far better equipped and, at least at some point, far more numerous. In June 1950, when General Douglas MacArthur made a daring push towards the Yalu river-the boundary between China and North Korea-he was confident that China would not dare to intervene because of America's air superiority and nuclear power status. But China pushed in more than 200,000 "volunteers", who attacked and overran the US 8th Army 50 miles south of the Yalu River.
History-even recent history-is replete with instances where "inferior" powers have prevailed in the battlefield over "superior" powers, and, at least once, China has been the victim of this process. In 1979, China attacked Vietnam to "punish" Hanoi for toppling the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, but had to withdraw in haste after it was given a bloody nose by fierce Vietnamese resistance.
In Iraq, today, rag tag bands of insurgents and terrorists are tying down the Armies of the world's "sole superpower" and it is far from clear who will emerge the eventual victor.
It is clear that established military doctrines in countries like India, Russia, even America, have failed to grasp the transformations in the fundamental nature of warfare that have occurred. America's overwhelming firepower can devastate the infrastructure of any country in the world, but it cannot impose the necessary conditions of an unambiguous victory. There is, indeed, both among great powers and among "aspiring great powers", a failure to evolve the necessary concepts of war and of "soft power projection" that can help guarantee their interests in the new world order.
If India is to rank among the world's first nations-indeed, given its particularly hostile neighbourhood, if India is to survive over the long term-its leadership will have to evolve a grand strategy that will guide the nation into the future. If the political, administrative and intellectual leadership of this country remains completely mired, as it presently is, in the chaotic exigencies of daily political survival and the pressures of the most immediate challenges at hand, the future of the country is in serious jeopardy.
Within this context, a military doctrine that seeks to prepare the country only for a "short, intense war-the only kind of ar that we are, in fact, currently prepared to fight is worse than absurd, it is a preparation for defeat. India does not appear to have any strategic minds at least not in the nodes of power-and has manifestly lacked these for a very long time. The fact is, war has been systematically and substantially factored out of the Indian political world view in its unrealistic-often delusional-pursuit of peace. <b>To desire and to work for peace is, of course, admirable. To fail to prepare for the wars of the future is suicidal.</b>
The country's leadership appears to have put its entire faith in the capacity of our limited economic successes (these are a fact of life only for a microscopic minority in a fraction of the country's geographical area) to catapult India to great power status. The fact, unfortunately, is that this success is itself permanent hostage to the multiplicity of internal and external security challenges confronting us today.
It is now time to evolve and articulate India's grand strategy, and to tailor specific policies in every area-the economy, governance, administration, defence, foreign policy, human security, development-to the realisation of this strategy. Within this context, a radical restructuring is needed to create an integrated system of military and commercial production that would not only directly benefit both these sectors, but would create the sinews for the wider task of nation-building.
Defence science has, historically, led national (commercial and industrial) science in the advanced nations. In India, defence science lags far behind the commercial sector, despite the billions of rupees that have been poured into the defence scientific establishment. The gap between our indigenous defence technology capabilities and the cutting edge technologies of the modern world is several generations wide. This is not the case in at least a selection of our best private and non-military technological enterprises.
We have the scientific capabilities; we are simply failing to apply these where they are needed because our present security perspectives and doctrines are flawed. Our technological efforts and institutional structures need to be redefined by clear thinking on the projected demands of future operations and conflicts, and not just of current threats. The development of technologies in line with a comprehensive and realistic security doctrine could radically alter our entire strategic and tactical vision, not only on the conventional and sub-conventional battlefield, but in every aspect of the national enterprise.
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