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Why
the hurry to support NMD?
There
is a suggestion making the rounds that the Prime Minister was not
aware of the fact that External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh was
about to endorse President Bush’s National Missile Defence.
Vajpayee
learnt of his government’s glowing support to the American
idea only after the Ministry of External Affairs had issued an official
statement to the effect.
Because
of a certain miscommunication, 7 Race Course was under the impression
that the MEA had kept the Prime Minister’s office in the picture
from the moment President Bush made the historic statement.
It
seems Jaswant Singh’s instinctive response to the statement
was positive. At least we are moving away from MAD (Mutual Assured
Destruction). He telephoned Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra,
informing him of the development. A copy of the Bush statement was
sent to the PMO. The White House National Security Adviser, Condoleeza
Rice was also going to telephone Jaswant later that day, the PMO
was told.
Race
Course Road sources believe that when the Prime Minister and Jaswant
Singh met subsequently, Vajpayee was left with the impression that
Brajesh Mishra had been kept posted of all the developments that
day. But Mishra’s friends maintain he had no clue that an ecstatic
statement was about to be issued.
There
was anxiety on another count. Two days later Russian Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov was to visit New Delhi. The Russian aversion to the
American plan is common knowledge. When NATO Secretary General Lord
Robertson visited Moscow in March, he was given an earful by President
Putin on NMD.
From
Moscow, Lord Robertson visited Prague where he told a group of journalists
that Moscow had unveiled a plan of its own which, Moscow hoped,
would find favour with Europe. Putin’s point was that rogue
states and terrorist groups were in greater proximity to Europe,
Russia and Asia than to the USA.
In a sense the Ivanov visit came in handy to retrieve some of the
ground conceded in the hurried response to NMD. A major corrective
was introduced: treaties and agreements (like the 1972 ABM treaty,
or for that matter, the Shimla agreement) cannot be unilaterally
set aside.
Why
this tearing hurry to sign up on the American initiative? Surely,
shifts in strategic thinking cannot be affected furtively without
extended debate within the government and outside. The primacy of
relations with the United States in universally accepted but the
costs of proceeding on that path, the balance sheet, pros and cons
have to be debated, admittedly within the confines of a narrow thing
called the establishment.
Obviously
the NMD was not dreamt up yesterday. It has been in the public domain
for quite a while. It should surprise nobody that during Jaswant
Singh’s visit to Washington in early April (the spy plane crisis
with China was at its peak at that stage) Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleezza
Rice, everybody, invited New Delhi to sign up.
In
normal circumstances probably there would have been a debate. But
debate with Tehelka and a stalled parliament? Let us see what happens
after the state election results have sunk in!
A combination
of foreign policy initiatives like the bus journey to Lahore and
the recognition of India’s IT genius had given the country
a terrific profile globally. It is in the nature of the sub-continental
situation that a boost to India coincided with Pakistan’s isolation,
particularly with the United States. President Clinton’s five
days in India and five hours in Pakistan should not be forgotten
in a hurry.
It was almost unreal, the tempo of Indo-American romance —
alas, only in the last year of the Clinton Presidency. Remember
Indian millionaires raising funds for Hillary Clinton, that White
House banquet for which Indian journalists bought, borrowed and
rented tuxedos!
Unfortunately,
the implication of that high pitch excitement was that wishful thinking
had caused us to place all our eggs in the Al Gore basket. And when
the Florida abracadabra produced Bush, a momentary silence fell
on our foreign office.
Suspense
followed. Where was India in the Bush framework? All the Jaswant
Strobe Talbott minutes were in the hands of the new administration
in Washington. What were they making of it? Who was replacing Karl
Inderfurth? Christina Rocca was going to take some time to settle
down. Meanwhile a short cut offered itself by way of Bush’s
NMD statement.
And
now what? Questions come in a cascading torrent. If in response
to the Bush initiative Russia and China cosy up, what happens to
our unstable neighbourhood? What happens if Russian technology is
made available to China who must now enlarge its nuclear missile
arsenal? Moreover, even Americans are still debating a highly questionable
technology. One questions the hurry, not the primacy of the American
equation.
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