Opinion

Growing US-India Military Cooperation Threatens Pakistan
By Riaz Haq
CA

The Afghan Taliban suicide bombers brazenly struck in the heart of Kabul while American Defense Secretary Robert Gates was still en route to New Delhi to further expand the already growing US-India military ties. Was this a loud message by the Afghan insurgents to the Pentagon chief timed to remind the world of the precarious nature of the US-NATO military mission in Afghanistan? Will this terrorist reminder affect what Gates did in Delhi?
Regardless of what the Taliban intended, it is how the Kabul attack is viewed by the Pentagon chief and his boss that will shape the US policy in the region. In response to a query by the New York Times reporter Elizabeth Bumiller traveling with the entourage, Mr. Gates had little to say about the Taliban suicide bombings near Mr. Karzai’s palace in the center of Kabul. “These highly visible attacks are a tactic in this conflict, and it’s very hard to stop all of them,” he said as he tried to play it down when he spoke to the New York Times.
”There are also a lot of defense acquisitions that are on the table," AP quoted Lalit Mansingh, the former Indian ambassador to the United States, as saying last Tuesday, shortly before Gates' arrival. India is expected to become a major customer for the US military-industrial complex over the next few years, according to PressTV.
American Defense officials, however, have said that the US weapons sales to India would not be a focus of the trip. Regardless of such denials, the key reason for Gates' visit could be found in the fact that India is planning to raise its military budget by 50% to almost $40 billion, making military expenditure 3% of the annual gross domestic product (GDP). In contrast to India's planned defense expenditures, Pakistan's entire 2009-10 budget amounts to little over $30 billion.
"Our current defense spending is lower than 2% [of GDP]...and it should be at least 3%," A. K. Antony said at a meeting with top military commanders last year, without specifying a time-frame. India raised its defense spending in February, 2008, by 10% to $26.5 billion for the fiscal year 2008-2009, but it still fell below 2% of GDP for the first time in at least a decade.
India's neighbors and long-term rivals, Pakistan and China, allocate around 3.5% and 4.3% of GDP to defense, respectively. The minister said top priority must be given to the modernization of the Indian Armed Forces and half of the defense budget should be allocated for the purchase of new military equipment.
Currently, more than half of India's budget is allocated for military, paramilitary, police, various security forces and debt servicing. That leaves less than half for everything else, including infrastructure development projects, education, healthcare, poverty alleviation, and various human services. This new arms buildup by India will leave even less for what India needs most: to lift hundreds of millions of its citizens from abject poverty, hunger, squalor and disease.
The US and Russian support is emboldening India's military, and its leadership has already started saber rattling against Pakistan and China. Recently, Lt-General A S Lamba of Indian Army has been quoted by the India media boasting about a "massive thrust into Rawalpindi to quiet Pakistanis within 48 hours of the start of assault." Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor has said India is ready for “the successful firming-up of the cold start strategy (to be able to go to war promptly) in the multiple fronts against multiple different militias at the same time.” General Kapoor has talked about taking on China and Pakistan at the same time.
Such an arms buildup by India is sure to threaten India's neighbors and fuel an arms race that South Asians can ill-afford with widespread abject poverty, hunger, malnutrition and very low levels of human development.
Pakistan has expressed serious concerns over a "massive" arms buildup by India, warning the buildup could destabilize the regional balance. Pakistan's National Command Authority, which oversees the country's nuclear assets, has taken note of developments "detrimental" to the objectives of strategic stability in the region, an official statement said last week.
" India continues to pursue an ambitious militarization program and offensive military doctrines," the command said, after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. "Massive inductions of advanced weapon systems, including installation of ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles), buildup of nuclear arsenal and delivery systems...tend to destabilize the regional balance," it said.
The human cost of this unfortunate escalation by India will mainly be borne by its most vulnerable citizens who will probably lose the few crumbs of bread they are forced to live on now. It will continue the horrible sanitation situation that forces two-thirds of Indians to defecate in the open that spreads disease and kills millions of various diseases each year.
India has failed to use a period of high economic growth to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty, falling far short of China’s record in protecting its population from the ravages of chronic hunger, United Nations officials said recently. Last year, British Development Minister Alexander contrasted the rapid growth in China with India's economic success - highlighting government figures that showed the number of poor people had dropped in the one-party communist state by 70% since 1990 but had risen in the world's biggest democracy by 5%.
The World Hunger Index of 88 countries published by IFPRI last year ranked India at 66 while Pakistan was slightly better at 61 and Bangladesh slightly worse at 70. There are very few places where people are poorer or hungrier than Haiti, which recently suffered a massive tragedy. However, Bangladesh and some states in India and Sub-Saharan Africa have much higher levels of hunger and malnutrition than Haiti. In addition to Bangladesh and the nations of sub Saharan Africa, the Indian states of Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh are worse off than Haiti, according to India's State Hunger Index (ISHI) survey report.

Gujarat is often projected as a success story by the right-wing Indian media. The economy of Gujarat is sustaining an overall growth rate of eight percentage points, but the incidence of rural poverty declined at the annual rate of 0.23 per cent, which is the worst Human Development Index (HDI) improvement record among all Indian states. From 1996 to 2006, Gujarat slipped one rank each in education and health indices to eight and tenth positions, respectively, as compared to 20 other states. In improvement in Infant Mortality Rate, it ranked 13th. The state ranked 14th in Child Mortality Rate, 13th in TMR, 17th in stunted children and ninth in underweight children. What it says is that economic growth alone cannot solve the problems of poverty and malnutrition in Gujarat, or India, or the rest of the world. Economic growth has to be accompanied with progressive policies to uplift the most vulnerable populations in society.
In the context of unprecedented economic growth (9-10 percent annually) and national food security, over 60 percent of Indian children are wasted, stunted, underweight or a combination of the above. As a result, India ranks number 62 along with Bangladesh at 67 in the PHI (Poverty Hunger Index) ranking out of a total of 81 countries. Both nations are included among the low performing countries in progress towards MDG1 (Millennium Development Goals) with countries such as Nepal (number 58), Ethiopia (number 60), or Zimbabwe (number 74).
Ranked at 45 on PHI index, Pakistan is well ahead of India at number 62, and it is included in the medium performing countries. PHI is a new composite indicator – the Poverty and Hunger Index (PHI) – developed to measure countries’ performance towards achieving MDG1 on halving poverty and hunger by 2015. The PHI combines all five official MDG1 indicators, including a) the proportion of population living on less than US$ 1/day, b) poverty gap ratio, c) share of the poorest quintile in national income or consumption, d) prevalence of underweight in children under five years of age, and d) the proportion of population undernourished.
In addition to large purchases of weapons from India's traditional suppliers Russia and Britain, the massive Indian military build up has been fueled by at least $5 billion in purchases from Israel during the last three years, according to UPI. The US has sold India $3 billion in American arms in 2008, the year that Mr. Gates was last in India, according to the New York Times.
One of the items on the agenda for Gates visit was India's demand for US defense technology. While Russia has been openly sharing its defense technology with India, Indian officials have long been frustrated by the quality, maintainability and effectiveness of Russian military hardware. The Indians are looking for alternatives to reduce their dependence on Russia, but the US reluctance to share technology has been an issue. The American refusal to share US technology has also restricted some of the India-Israel defense deals, such as the transfer of US-funded Arrow anti-ballistic missiles to India.
Gates has agreed that the Defense Department would do more to help Indian officials understand legal agreements the US needs before certain technology could be shared to accomplish more joint exercises and operations, the US official told the New York Times.
While the absence of technology agreements doesn’t hinder more joint efforts, it does limit their scope, Gates told reporters on his plane en route to New Delhi. The accords, including one for protecting technology, are standard for the U.S. when it works with military partners and may set out terms such as what information can and cannot be revealed.
As Mr. Gates responds to India's desire to increase US defense purchases with technology sharing, he needs to carefully calibrate the impact of US actions on the success of the US mission in Afghanistan. Gates must also recognize the link between lack of social spending and political instability in the region. Secretary Gates must not forget that the closer US defense cooperation with India will make it less likely that Pakistan will trust the US intentions in the region, particularly in Afghanistan. Mr. Gates needs to remember that US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal warned in his report last year that "increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter-measures in Afghanistan or India.”
After his India visit, Secretary Gates visited Islamabad to meet Pakistan's civilian and military leadership. Mr Gates thus joined the list of senior US officials to visit Islamabad since President Obama began developing a new strategy for the Pakistan-Afghan region late last year. Senior administration officials who have come to Islamabad recently include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, Special Representative Richard Holbrooke, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and others.