india flexes its muscles

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India Flexes Its MusclesAuthor(s): Alexander EvansSource: Foreign Policy, No. 130 (May - Jun., 2002), pp. 94-96Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3183497 .

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Global Newsstand

China, Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand. What really matters to citizens in poor nations are the corruption and waste that too often undermine their countries'

growth prospects and their own children's opportunities. And what should really matter to citizens in the rich economies of Europe and North America is the impact of

their countries' trade, immigra- tion, and finance policies on the prospects of their neighbors in Africa, South Asia, and the poor- est parts of Latin America. [H[

India Flexes Its Muscles By Alexander Evans

SSAPRA India Bulletin, December 2001, New Delhi

SHerald, January 2002, Karachi

t's official. Aggressive diplo- macy works for India. Exas- perated by a decade of Paki-

stani support for Islamist rebels in Kashmir, India has used the war on terror in Afghanistan and the suicide attack on India's parliament building on December 13, 2001, to give fresh impetus to a nationalist foreign policy. While the In- dian public differs from its lead- ers, rating national security low on its list of electoral priorities, Indian diplomats have extracted major concessions from Pakistan by directly threatening war.

In the December 2001 issue of the SAPRA India Bulletin, a secu-

rity journal published by a New Delhi think tank, former Indian intelligence officer B. Raman reflected upon the impact of the Indian parliament attack. Raman complained that historically India has reacted passively to Pakistan's use of terrorism as a "low-cost covert weapon against us." He instead called for a proactive yet flexible policy, including diplomatic measures such as severe restrictions on bilateral trade. He

advised against a hard-line approach, arguing that leaping too quickly toward military options shows a failure of imagination.

But the Indian government took a different tack. It drew on U.S. rhetoric following the September 2001 terror attacks in the United States and demanded Pakistan take action against the two militant groups allegedly responsible for the December assault. India quickly mobilized land and air forces and

Your time is up: Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf (left) and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in January 2002.

initiated a massive military buildup on the border with Pakistan. It also withdrew its high commissioner to Pakistan, cut diplomatic missions to Pakistan by half, and barred Paki- stani planes from Indian airspace.

By late December, Pakistani offi- cials expected an Indian attack. As Pakistani journalist Zaffar Abbas recounts in the Karachi-based monthly magazine Herald, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf alerted U.S. Secretary of State

Colin Powell that Indian military action was imminent, thus sparking intense diplomatic activity by Powell and U.S. Presi- dent George W. Bush. The United States pressed India and Pakistan for restraint, but Indian restraint carried a price tag: Islamabad must take visible action against insur- gents in Kashmir. On January 12, 2002, a somber Musharraf yielded to India's demands when he appeared before his citizens on live tele- vision to publicly ban five Pakistan-based Islamist militant groups. He also out-

Q- LL D 0 z 0

Alexander Evans is a research associate at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College London.

94 FOREIGN POLICY



lined an ambitious vision for the future of Pakistan-one without sectarian extremism.

As Abbas argues, Musharraf took a major diplomatic step with these concessions, which were justi- fied within Pakistan by secret evi- dence about the freelance activities of militant groups. This step, Abbas maintains, may be a watershed in Indo-Pak relations, one that encour- ages future relations based on dia- logue, not militancy.

Ultimately, India responded with statements of cautious optimism, and the two countries avoided war. As of several months later, however, India has not significantly deesca- lated, which partly supports Raman's contention that narrow escalation carries risks for India. By exhausting all nonmilitary options, India is pushed toward either the use of force or a loss of face.

Domestic political considera- tions likely played a key role in India's decision to act forcefully. The crisis conveniently predated four critical state elections for the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which at this writing dominates the Indian government. The BJP had made national security a central plank of its election campaign in the belief that voters would respond favorably. Yet despite India's apparent victory in the crisis, the party lost all four races in February.

The December crisis could have been just another in a long line of conflicts over Kashmir. However, a fresh dimension in Indo-Pak diplo- macy has emerged: The threat of force against Pakistan can deliver diplomatic dividends for India. Raman was proved overly pes- simistic in the latest crisis, but Abbas could be too optimistic in predicting a future based on dia- logue. India threatened war in December 2001 in a deliberate

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attempt to force Pakistan to change its Kashmir policy, namely the support of militants. But the outcome has yet to meet all of India's expec-

tations. Extremist Islamist groups have been banned in Pakistan, but a national commitment to Kash- mir's self-determination remains. If

Pakistan again challenges the Indi- an status quo in South Asia, India may raise the stakes once more. And next time, it may mean war. [II

Japan's Global Ambivalence By Mindy L. Kotler and Daisuke Okuyama

* Ronza (Forum), December 2001, Tokyo * Sekai (World), January 2002, Tokyo

Perhaps the central question in U.S.-Japan relations is a philosophical one: Is Japan

a world power? Should it be? Clear- ly, the Bush administration takes the affirmative view, and recent Japanese actions-sending destroy- ers to the Indian Ocean, firing on a North Korean spy boat, hosting the Afghan reconstruction conference- lend some credence to this position. Whether the Japanese themselves share this perspective, however, is another matter. Much of the public debate in Japan following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States has focused on what kind of international identity Japan should seek. Two Japanese magazines, the mod- erate opinion journal Ronza and the more liberal Sekai, have recent- ly grappled with this question, and their results reflect Japan's ambivalence toward any form of international involvement.

The editor of Ronza, Shuzo Mochida, asks his readers, "What does Japan want to become?" To provide an answer, Ronza assem-

bled several prominent scholars from the United States and Japan to write on Japanese security strategy, antiterrorism, and peace in the Islamic world. Although the Ameri- can authors were adamant that September 11 had transformed international relations, the Japanese contributors generally urged their country to take an ameliorative, but somewhat passive, role in world affairs. For example, Obirin Uni- versity Prof. Akira Kato argues that the terrorist attacks of September 2001 highlight a shift from "national security to human security," in

surprised when its measured efforts were not "appreciated" by the rest of the world during the Gulf War in 1991. Thus, lokibe argues, Japan's global engagement should strength- en its humanitarian aid programs. He believes that the international community is likely to appreciate this division of labor between Japan and the United States and that "it is a good tradition that postwar Japan is careful about military action." Or as Ronza's editor notes, "there is a growing consen- sus that we want to find our central role in economic reconstruction

The Bush administration has little basis for assuming that Japan desires greater international engagement.

which military force is of limited use. In this world, Japan should strive to ensure "individuals' peace and security instead of that of states." According to Kato, Japan's contribution to this change should involve conflict-negotiation efforts and economic aid focused on the provision of basic human needs.

Such humanitarian aid is a learned role for the Japanese, for whom the opposite of no international military role is no role at all, not even economic assistance. As Kobe University Prof. Makoto Iok- ibe points out in Ronza, Japan was

while we should be cautious toward military cooperation."

The contributors to the January 2002 issue of Sekai reflect even greater hesitation about whether Japan is ready to take on any international responsibilities, humanitarian or otherwise. Journalist Masao Yora discusses how passage in Octo- ber 2001 of the Peacekeeping Law (PKO), which enables Japanese participation in U.N. peacekeeping oper- ations, involved a series of unrelated domestic political dealings. These included an attempt to introduce electoral changes that would have

Mindy L. Kotler and Daisuke Okuyama are director and research associate,

respectively, of the Japan Information Access Project in Washington, D.C.

96 FOREIGN POLICY



india flexes its muscles

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