The Indian Express
Sanjaya Baru : Wed Feb 22 2012, 03:23 hrs
Riyadh and Delhi are quietly drawing closer, acknowledging their many shared concerns
Amidst last week’s focus in the Indian media about a coming conflict between Iran and Israel, not much attention was paid to a historic visit to Saudi Arabia by the defence minister, A.K. Anthony.
Several interesting facts marked Anthony’s path-breaking travel across the Arabian Sea. First, the visit was the first ever such official visit by an Indian defence minister to the epicentre of the Arab world. Second, it came in response to persistent invitations from the Saudi government. Anthony was unable to make the trip on two earlier occasions when an invitation had been issued, but finally made it after a third call from Riyadh. Third, the defence minister was accompanied not just by diplomats and civilian officials but by three senior defence officials — the vice chief of army staff, the deputy chief of naval staff and an air vice marshal. Fourth, Anthony had one-on-one talks with his counterpart Prince Salman and an extended audience with King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
At the end of what has been described as “wide-ranging” talks, India and Saudi Arabia have agreed to set up a joint panel of officials who will together draft a defence cooperation agreement and a “road map” for defence cooperation that would include joint exercises between the three services of the two nations, training and co-production of defence equipment. The militaries and navies of both countries will undertake joint patrolling of the Arabian Sea, fighting sea piracy and disruption to maritime traffic.
India’s main concern is energy security and the security of the Indian community in the region. Already, rising tensions have pushed the price of oil up. Even if hostilities were not to break out, the persistence of raised risk levels will keep oil prices high. Finally, if Iran were to lay mines in the sea as a pre-emptive or provocative act, this would seriously disrupt the movement of oil tankers. Any sustained rise in the price of oil will hit the Indian economy hard.
King Abdullah has, it is reliably learnt, offered cast-iron assurances to Anthony that Saudi Arabia would step in and help both in making more oil available to India and in assuring the safety and security of Indian expatriates in the region.
An interesting aspect of the bilateral understanding reached between Anthony and Prince Salman is that India and Saudi Arabia would also undertake joint research and projects in the field of hydrography, exchanging information on nautical cartography and hydrographic surveys of coastal areas, ports, harbours and designated sea areas. In the near term this would also facilitate de-mining!
The people of India and Arabia have interacted across the waters between them for thousands of years. Omani and Gujarati seafarers were among the earliest and Arabs reached the Kerala coast as traders and teachers, not conquerors. In fact, among all the Muslim communities of the Middle East and Central Asia it is only the Arabs who never sought to conquer India. The Turks, the Persians, and the Central Asians came by land to plunder or rule. The Arabs came by sea to trade and teach.
While history has its limitations in shaping contemporaneous and forward-looking strategic choices, it does shape popular perceptions. What is, however, driving the India- Saudi relationship today is not this benign history but shared concerns about stability and growth in the Arabian Sea littoral and the Gulf.
Saudi Arabia is as concerned about events in Iran as it is about trends in Pakistan. Riyadh’s outreach to New Delhi is also an indicator that the Saudis are worried about what is happening in Pakistan. In this “arc of instability” Riyadh hopes India would be a reliable and credible guarantor of stability.
The writer is director for geo-economics and strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and honorary senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research
India's Arab Sprint: click here to read the full article
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestine. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Indian soldiers join Bastille Day parade
Indian soldiers, sailors and airmen will take part for the first time in Tuesday’s Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, where their Prime Minister is the guest of honour.
A 400-strong detachment, led by a section from the Maratha Light Infantry, one of the oldest regiments of the Indian army, will march down the Champs Elysées under the eyes of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is the guest of honour.
"When the Indian soldiers will take part in the military parade in Paris on 14 July, it will remind the French of the sacrifice of the numerous Indian soldiers who were killed or maimed in France during World War I," said Jerome Bonnafont, the French ambassador to New Delhi.
The Maratha Light Infantry, from the Deccan and Konkan regions in the south-west of India, dates back to 1768.
During World War I, the regiment fought in Persia, Palestine, Afghanistan and Mesopotamia. In the World War II, it took part in campaigns in Europe, south-east Asia and north Africa, including the battles of Tobruk and Monte Cassino.
The invitation, which follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s presence at India’s Republic Day celebrations in January 2008, marks another step in the ever-warming economic and military alliance between the two countries.
Military and armaments co-operation are a key element in those relations, according to Delhi correspondent Vikram Roy.
"Joint military exercises are very important, transfer of sophisticated armaments technology and now they are working on counter-mechanism to thwart international terrorism," he told RFI.
Indian soldiers join Bastille Day parade
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Success of war must be examined
© 1996-2009 The Honolulu Star-Bulletin | www.starbulletin.comSuccess of war must be examined- Another Perspective by Amarjit Singh
WE'VE BEEN hearing relentlessly during the past few months that the Iraq war is not successful. But have we paused to define what constitutes success? Have we paused to determine whether our objectives have been met? Are we sure we are not changing our definition of success as time goes along, forgetting why we went into Iraq in the first place? Let's take a look at these questions and analyze what's really going on.
Let's not forget that we went into Iraq to topple Saddam to wipe off a cancer from the face of the Earth, ensure that there were no weapons of mass destruction, eliminate refuge for terrorists, clamp Iraqi support for terrorists in Palestine and ensure that oil is not used as a weapon by a mad dictator. There is no doubt that all these were accomplished. Nowhere in our mission statement was it anywhere mentioned that we were going into Iraq to quell sectarian hatred that had been simmering for a thousand years.
The United States succeeded in exposing and thwarting numerous plans of the terrorists to attack it. What you didn't get by way of another terrorist attack in the United States was a success of the Iraqi, Afghan and other covert international operations. Think about what could have happened if you had turned your cheek. To think that the war is not a crusade is also naive because the determination and doggedness of the misguided Muslim terrorists gunning for the United States is close to madness. Burying our head in the sand and thinking they won't come after us on our soil is too naive, too unreal. Moreover, the evidence existed after the Afghan operation started in October 2001 that terrorist elements were planning attacks on U.S. soil.
The 2003 exposure of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network irrefutably disclosed that Pakistan supplied uranium enrichment technology to Iraq as far back as 1990. By 1991, Iraq was building a facility for a centrifuge. Also recall that the Iraq war convinced Libya's Moammar Gadhafi to come clean on WMDs, a fantastic intelligence and diplomatic success by all counts. (Of course, Pakistan also supplied centrifuge cascade to North Korea and Iran, which is why we now have the problem with those two countries, as well).
There is also a very high likelihood that Khan sold cascades to al-Qaida, which is known to have tried in 1994 and 1995 through Sudanese individuals to acquire nuclear material. Going into Iraq and Afghanistan places the United States in a better position to intercept terrorist and nuclear traffic in the Mideast that might be eventually directed against it.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blitz singularly led the world astray in his tirade against the United States. He had reports in the early 1990s that Pakistan supplied centrifuge cascades to Iraq, and yet refused ever to acknowledge that because he couldn't find them. Try hunting for a needle in a haystack, since chemical weapons and centrifuge cascades can be operated behind chicken sheds and dairy farms, and enriched uranium can be hidden in cow sheds behind heaps of cow dung, not to mention that cascades, drawings and uranium can be taken across to neighboring countries.
The Iraq war influenced Syria to pull out of Lebanon, another success milestone. That sectarian violence erupted in Iraq does not mean that the U.S. mission in Iraq is not successful. We did not go into Iraq to bring peace to them, but to bring peace to us. Let all know this truth -- that those who mess with a hornet's nest must face the consequences. Every nation has an inalienable right to live in peace. The United States is no exception.
Finally, those who believe the purpose of the Iraq war is to halt the sectarian violence are not looking beyond their noses, not to mention that they are shifting from initial objectives. The United States is responsible for itself, not for others. The United States can't and needn't stop that violence. What the United States is doing in Iraq is clearly designed at self-preservation and the future security of the world. Leaving a vacuum there might well encourage rogue powers to gain dominance in the Middle East, and that would make the calculus much too complicated for comfort.
Amarjit Singh is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
Vol. 12, Issue 7 - Sunday, January 7, 2007
Article URL: Success of war must be examined
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