Saturday, April 20, 2013

“India is the single-most important defence partner for US”

William H. Avery, who served in the US diplomatic service as an Economic Officer, is a master at trade development and commercial advocacy, and is a three-time recipient of the US State Department's Meritorious Honour Award. A prolific writer on international affairs, Avery tells Mayank Singh how India needs to start thinking beyond just Pakistan and China and take interest in building a strong military base in the Asian region. India has the potential, he says!

B&E: Asia is constantly represented on the international fora and its position is factored-in by different countries in their policy making. Your assessment?
William H. Avery (WAH): All the action is in this part of the World. We are seeing a shift of economic activity, which will be followed by military activity and military strength from the trans-Atlantic to the Pacific region, including China and India and all the regions that fall in-between. With regard to the subcontinent, principally, India and China are the places that are going to be significant. US also because it is a continent with 300 million people. So I think a new structure is emerging where there are three potential centres of power – US, India and China.

B&E: You have been talking of India becoming a superpower. Yet, you say that it will have to ‘achieve’ this position. What shortcomings on India’s part do you observe here?
WAH: I think India has many natural advantages. It has a demographic advantage. It has skill base, which is not just a technological skill base. What is missing in India is a recognition of how you build power in this World which requires military and economic strength, not just at home but overseas. And it requires a willingness to use power. If you look at India’s experience with Sri Lanka, it is very instructive. I think Rajiv Gandhi knew that for India to get to the next level, it had to be willing to play a strong regional role. But the problem is that when the LTTE assassinated Rajiv, India withdrew. So what you had for the past 20 years was not only India not becoming a global power but also failing to become a regional power! Another element is a kind of obsession with Pakistan. Pakistan, a barely functioning State, is quite clever in a way to bring India down to its level. India fell into that trap. And it was with the advent of the Indo-US Nuclear deal that India began to rise above it and perhaps only because of India’s economic growth was it was able to pull away from Pakistan. So some things are beginning to happen. But India needs to take a more activist approach to becoming a strong military power.

B&E: You have called the withdrawl of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) from Sri Lanka as India's mistake. Also, you say that it should have been redeployed after the unfortunate assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Your thoughts...
WAH: I do feel it was a mistake. I understand why it was made. And it is always easy to go back 20 years and look at it in retrospect, but the fact that a country allowed a former prime minister to be assassinated on its own soil and then nearly asked for the extradition of the assassins is pretty amateurish. And there’s nothing we can do to change that. However, it should serve a lesson. We should look at it critically and make sure that India does not make the same mistake again. I think the IPKF episode was one that pushed back India’s emergence as a global power by many years. However, it should be acknowledged that India did recover by 1998 – the series of nuclear tests was a huge step forward. So where India has been conventional in defence matters or rather meek, its nuclear diplomacy and its nuclear policy have been much stronger.

B&E: Do you see a bigger ploy of China in keeping India busy with Pakistan while increasing its arsenal and technological knowhow and economic opportunities, and then using them as pressure tactics?
WAH: It could be a Chinese strategy. I don’t know whether it is a conscious strategy or not. Having said this, I believe that India should not remain busy with Pakistan because there is a much wider world out there. The cross-border terrorism issue is significant and has to be monitored by India. At the same time however, India’s emergence as a global power will not come true if the Indo-Pak equation remains the key agenda on the diaries of India’s foreign policy agents for ever.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
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