Indo-US partnership is not an alliance against China or Pakistan, claims Cold War Warrior Brzezinski
AJIT KUMAR JHA

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 2: In a brutally frank speech, former National Security Adviser to the US President, Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, on Monday asserted that the new Indo-US partnership is "not an alliance against either China or Pakistan."

While responding to a question from this correspondent on whether the security concerns of India will be a component of this partnership, Brzezinski, in what he himself described as a "blunt" reply claimed: "We can take care of China without India." He added: "We also do not need India to take care of Islamic fundamentalism." Brzezinski argued that "while pursuing the new Indo-US relationship, we are not going to be drawn into specifics of territorial claims by neighbours."

While admitting that there is "too much journalistic hype over the new Indo-US friendship, which tends to create self-generated illusions," Brzezinski cautioned against what he described as two self-fulfilling oversimplifications: first, that "China is destined to be a threat," and second, that "Islam is necessarily fundamentalist."

Brzezinski argued that only the twin principles of "democracy and development" ought to guide Indo-US partnership. "While minimising that" he claimed "can only undermine India's position," overplaying that (as the media seems to have done), he cautioned, can be "counterproductive to Indo-US relations."

Ever since US President Bill Clinton's immensely successful visit to India and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's equally significant trip to the United States, the nature of Indo-US relationship has become a cynosure for all eyes. Does the new partnership involve a paradigmatic shift? What are the crucial components of this new friendship? Can the new affair be described as a honeymoon, or is it merely a marriage of convenience based on satisfying each other's national interest?

While responding to such crucial questions, Brzezinski, who is also the counselor for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, argued that the new relationship between India and the US should be build on "enduring, sober and not illusionary principles."

While delivering the keynote address for an international conference on Asia Pacific and the Global Order, organised by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, Brzezinski, laid out the rationale dictating the new partnership: America's preeminence as a sole global superpower now makes an integrated and comprehensive strategy for Eurasia imperative. After all, "Eurasia is the principle arena of future power politics," according to Brzezinski. For peace and stability, Eurasia, according to him, "requires an arrangement, a constructive framework, an alliance structure."

Although a NATO-type military alliance (prevalent in Europe) was ruled out, Brzezinski passionately argued for an extension of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation for Europe (OSCE) to cover Eurasia as well. China, Russia, Japan and India would be the key players in this new balance of power, he argued.

Brzezinski, who many consider as the chief propounder of the new paradigm shift taking place within the US diplomacy in the post-Cold War era, has been arguing for the new focus into Eurasia for the last few years. In an influential article: "The Geostrategy for Asia," published in September/October 1997 issue of Foreign Affairs he wrote: "After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world's overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world's population, 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia's potential power overshadows even America's."

The United Nations, which according to Brzezinski, is based on the "principle of equality among unequal states," is clearly not enough to maintain global stability and peace. In this "transition period of American preeminence," the new alliance structure propounded by him would be the only alternative. However, he hastily added while responding to another question that there was "no conflict between transitional preeminence by the US and the prolongation of the period of preeminence."µIndia, which he described as a "spiritual superpower", would play an important role in maintaining the US preeminence in Eurasia by being a member of that alliance structure in the long run. In the short run, however, Indo-US partnership can be modelled after the US-Japan friendship, which started initially as "containment of Japan" but has evolved over time into "only engagement and no containment."

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.