Brookings: Experts - Teresita C. Schaffer

When India’s Foreign Policy Is Domestic

Teresita C. Schaffer and Howard Schaffer — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:06:00 -0400

Editor's note: Teresita Schaffer has started work on a book called India at the International High Table. The book, co-authored with Howard Schaffer, will examine how India sees its role in the world, and how this translates into India’s negotiating style. This article, co-authored as well, discusses the impact on Indian foreign policy decision-making when an international issue becomes a factor in domestic politics.

In the past six months, passionate domestic politics have twice taken over India’s foreign policy process, complicating its relations with neighboring countries. The most recent case involved a resolution on Sri Lanka adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which led an important coalition partner to leave the government. The earlier crisis, in September 2011, scuttled two major features of India’s proposed expansion of relations with Bangladesh. When India’s foreign policy becomes domestic, decisions tend to escalate, coalition politics intensify, and the fallout affects both politics and policy.

The Sri Lankan story began in 2012, when Washington sponsored a resolution intended to press for accountability for the anguishing events that took place at the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war. The text was very mild, recommending that Sri Lanka take a number of measures that it had already more or less pledged. India’s surprising “yes” vote reflected pressure not so much from the United States as from a handful of politicians from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, who were concerned about Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. Indian foreign policy professionals were unhappy over this departure from their normal practice of not voting for country-specific resolutions.

The second act took place at the March 2013 UNHRC meeting. The United States sponsored a somewhat sharper Sri Lanka resolution. “Requests” became “urgings” and the text called on Sri Lanka to heed not just the recommendations of its own government-appointed Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission but also reports from the United Nations.

The drama in India, however, was substantially greater than last year. The absence of any significant movement toward national reconciliation left Indian foreign policy professionals frustrated (like their U.S. counterparts), and the release of film footage reportedly showing the killing of the Tamil rebel leader’s twelve-year-old son, created widespread revulsion in India. But what really drove events was the rivalry between two Tamil parties that alternate in running the state government. The Sri Lanka conflict is deeply embedded in this contest, and both parties use their alliances and disputes with the party in power in Delhi to further their quest for state primacy. The DMK, allied with the central government but opposed to the state government, mounted a full-court press to demand that India not just vote for the resolution, but amend it to accuse the Sri Lankan government of “genocide and war crimes.” This fit in with the DMK’s traditional sympathy for the now-defeated spearhead of Sri Lanka’s Tamil uprising, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It also was an opportunity for the DMK to outdo its rival, the AIADMK, in support for their brothers in Sri Lanka.

The DMK took its campaign on the road. A debate in the national parliament produced no consensus, but drew public statements blasting Sri Lankan anti-Tamil “atrocities” from a parade of government ministers as well as Sonia Gandhi, president of the ruling Congress party. The Government of India cancelled the upcoming India-Sri Lanka defense dialogue. A DMK-led organization reportedly lobbied foreign embassies in Delhi to toughen the resolution. The DMK then pulled out of the government coalition, citing the U.N. resolution. This put the government’s existence in technical danger, though the DMK hinted that it would not bring the government down. Not to be outdone, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (from the other major Tamil party, the AIADMK), banned Sri Lankan cricket players from participating in an upcoming match in Chennai.

Unusually, India’s UNHRC representative was summoned to Delhi, and returned to Geneva with instructions – evidently from the top – to try to toughen the resolution. This last-minute effort went nowhere. On March 21, the resolution passed with 25 positive votes, 13 negative ones and 8 abstentions – compared to last year, one more yea, and two fewer nays. India had once again overridden its normal distaste for country-specific resolutions, and India and Sri Lanka were left with some difficult fences to mend. Last year’s Sri Lankan anger was mostly against the United States; this year, India was the principal target. There is every likelihood that the same issues will be back again at next year’s UNHRC meeting.

The Bangladesh case also involved a regional party and former ally of the Indian government, and was in some ways even more dramatic. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Bangladesh in September 2011. In preparation, the two governments had worked out a package of agreements to resolve many of their oldest and most complex disputes. These included settling a border that includes nearly 200 enclaves on both sides that are under the sovereignty of the other, division of the waters of one of their shared rivers, transit for India to areas east of Bangladesh, and expanding trade. The Indian government thought it had the acquiescence of the provincial government in West Bengal, headed by the feisty Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress, mercurial former allies in the central government coalition.

They reckoned without Banerjee. A week before the prime ministerial visit, she denounced the water sharing agreement. The central government dispatched a star senior diplomat, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, to pour oil on the troubled waters in Kolkata. He failed. Among many competing explanations, two stand out: Menon had no authority to provide sweeteners for the financially strapped West Bengal; and he was not an elected politician, much less one Banerjee would consider her equal. In addition, it is not clear that he could help Banerjee address the local impact of the proposed agreement within West Bengal.

Banerjee’s opposition nearly scuttled the whole trip, to both sides’ great embarrassment. The overture to India was Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s signature foreign policy issue. She reluctantly agreed to implement the salvageable parts of the program. The two governments continued to work on the water issue and the transit agreement that Bangladesh had withheld in retaliation. In February, Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid visited Bangladesh and opined that the problems would be resolved. He was followed by President Pranab Mukherjee, India’s most senior Bengali politician.

Bangladeshis of different backgrounds and politics tend to blame the Indian bureaucracy for their problems with India, and hope that politicians – especially Bengali ones, and especially Mukherjee – will provide solutions. The view from Delhi and Kolkata is more complicated. The personalities of the political leaders in Kolkata and in Dhaka emerge as a critical factor. The long-time Communist chief minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu, had his state’s politics in the palm of his hand. Political observers in Kolkata told us that this enabled him to take a statesmanlike view, as he had in shaping the 1996 India-Bangladesh water agreement. Banerjee is less secure in her political hold on the state. She is also a “street fighter,” determined to eliminate any threat to her West Bengal power base, either from the communists or from her former allies in Congress. This makes for a natural tension with New Delhi.

Indian observers ruefully agree that the next move is up to New Delhi. The government faces an uphill task in obtaining parliamentary assent to the constitutional amendment it needs to implement the border agreement. Obtaining the support of the West Bengal government for the water and transit deals is probably becoming more difficult.

Despite their different dynamics, these cases have important features in common. Both featured high-octane local political leaders in India, and both had deep roots in state politicians’ volatile relations with the central government. Domestic politics swept aside the normal foreign policy process, making decisions and follow-up unpredictable. When foreign policy issues are taken up by party politics, decision-making rockets to the top of India’s power structure. Domestic deal-making becomes the primary requirement. India’s foreign policy machinery cannot control that – or the international bargaining that goes with it. India’s foreign policy institutions are starting to maintain stronger state level contacts in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. However, as we saw in both these cases, when there is a political dispute over policy toward Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, contacts between senior officials or ambassadors and the state government are mainly useful as an early warning system. They are unlikely to be able to resolve problems.

Some foreign policy issues get caught up in party politics without the direct local identification that marked these two cases. Recent examples include the U.S.-India nuclear deal, frozen for nearly a year because of the leftist parties’ objections, and the Indian government’s initial decision to permit foreign direct investment in retail trade. Such issues are less likely to revolve around one high profile opponent, like Tamil Nadu’s Karunanidhi or West Bengal’s Banerjee. But they share the other characteristics of the boundary between foreign and domestic politics, including escalating the locus of decisions. They will become more frequent as India’s economy grows and its integration with the global economy becomes more important.

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer
Howard Schaffer

India and America, Batting Together in Asia

Teresita C. Schaffer and Howard Schaffer — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: Teresita Schaffer has started work on a book called "India at the International High Table." The book, co-authored with Howard Schaffer, will examine how India sees its role in the world, and how this translates into India’s negotiating style. This article, originally published in The Hindu, one of India's leading English language newspapers, discussed U.S.-India interaction in East Asia.

On a table in the office of a senior Indian diplomat sits an unusual piece of memorabilia: a baseball bat. It is signed not by members of the official’s favourite baseball team, but by the U.S. officials who participated in the inaugural session of the now well-established consultations between India and the United States on East Asia, in 2010. This bat and the similarly adorned cricket bat kept by the Indian diplomat’s American counterpart are an apt symbol of how the United States and India have deepened their common understanding of the strategic stakes in this critical region. Now they need to deepen their economic ties across the Pacific.

The geopolitical shifts that shaped the expanded U.S.-India relationship changed the way both related to East Asia. India’s Look East policy expressed New Delhi’s intention to expand its footprint in East Asia, after decades of thin relations with China and relative neglect of the rest of the region. India’s economic opening to the global economy made its Asian orientation a tangible reality. India has signed three free trade agreements, all with East Asian partners: Japan, Korea, and ASEAN. Participation in several ASEAN-centred institutions underscored the political dimension of India’s Asia-wide ties.

Three indicators

The Obama administration has intensified a decades-long shift toward Asia in U.S. economic and foreign policy. The heart of U.S. Asia policy traditionally lay in the military anchor in Japan, the security challenge of China, and the enormous economic relationship with both. These factors are still important. But with the “pivot” or “rebalancing” that administration spokesmen have been talking about for the past two years, look for three new markers: deeper U.S. engagement with Asian regional institutions; a modest shift in the centre of gravity of U.S. military assets toward the Indo-Pacific region; and, significantly, the decision to treat India as part of a larger Asian region, a decision made more important by the growing prominence of U.S.-India ties.

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Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer
Howard Schaffer

Publication: The Hindu

For U.S. Voters, Foreign Policy Needs to Reflect Immediate Economic Goals

Teresita C. Schaffer — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The defining image from the October 22 debate between President Obama and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is of the two candidates passionately disputing their prescriptions for the U.S. domestic economy. The moderator, veteran TV journalist Bob Schieffer, caught the spirit of the evening with his final words before inviting the debaters to make their closing comments — “I think we all love teachers.” A visitor from Mars might be forgiven for not realising that this was a debate on foreign policy.

Schieffer’s choice of subjects for the debate is revealing, and sheds light on the most immediate voter concerns. Three of the themes had to do with the Middle East: Libya; Syria; and Israel and Iran. Despite America’s political polarisation and Romney’s months-long drumbeat for a more muscular approach to Iran’s nuclear programme, there was striking similarity in the views of the two candidates.

A fourth theme, Afghanistan and Pakistan, extended the discussion of America’s difficult relationships in the Muslim world. Both candidates stressed that the United States was leaving Afghanistan; gone were Romney’s earlier hints that he would slow down the departure and “consult the military commanders.” Despite a provocative question from the moderator, neither wanted to “divorce” Pakistan. Again, little discernible difference.

Read the full article at thehindu.com »

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The Hindu

Image Source: © Reuters Staff / Reuters

Prospects for Indian Internationalism

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

October 25, 2012
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

On October 25, the India Project held an event with C. Raja Mohan, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, moderated by Teresita Schaffer, nonresident senior fellow with the 21st Century Defense Initiative, on prospects for Indian internationalism. His remarks and a summary of the following question and answer session can be found below.

1. Expansive Internationalism:

India’s heritage of internationalism contributed to the Indian independence movement. The Bengali literary giant Rabindranath Tagore expressed a vision broader than nationalism, with a spiritual emphasis that, far from being anti-Western, included Western spiritual movements and found echoes there. Socialism and Communism were at their height as international movements during this time. Wendell Willkie’s One World, which built on the shattering disillusion after World War I, had influence in India.

When India became independent, one of the first big events was an Asian unity conference. This showed both the dimensions of Nehru’s international vision and its limitations. Nehru called for observance of universal human rights, and expounded an interventionist approach to the United Nations declaration on human rights. India’s opposition to racism and specifically to apartheid was one of the leading features of the internationalism of this period. India broke diplomatic relations with South Africa as early as 1948.

But even in this early period, Nehru’s expansive vision was tempered. The Kashmir crisis made clear the need to defend Indian sovereignty. India’s policy toward intervention was inevitably inconsistent. India opposed the UK/French/Israeli Suez operation but not the Russian invasion of Hungary. India itself used force in Goa, despite Nehru’s peace policy and rhetoric.

2. Dysfunctional multilateralism (the post-Nehru period, into the 1980s):

During this phase, India’s internationalism became less idealistic and more ideological. The Non-Aligned Movement became more radical, and this influenced India’s positions. This was the period of the United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism, which India supported. This coincided with a period of populism at home, with Indira Gandhi’s “abolish poverty” efforts.

India’s engagement with the world diminished during this period. Its economy became less international; its economic engagement with its neighbors also dropped. The memories of the 1970s still live on in some of the sensibilities on the Indian scene and, importantly, in the image of India’s policies held by non-Indians.

3. Defensive internationalism and regionalism (late 1980s through 1990s):

During the initial post-Cold War decade, India’s policies on international engagement were largely negative. India resisted international urgings to use “preventive diplomacy” to resolve Kashmir. Its response to assertive nonproliferation was hostile. It was largely negative toward the new United Nations agenda. All these initiatives were seen as threats to India’s sovereignty.

At the same time, the groundwork was being laid for a new and more dynamic phase of international engagement. India became more deeply involved in regionalism during this time. Its relaunch of closer relations with East and Southeast Asia was especially significant, along with its having joined some of the ASEAN-linked groups.

4. Responsible multilateralism (since 2000):

Between 1980 and 2011, India’s two-way goods trade grew from $22 billion to $750 billion. The growth would be even more striking if one included services. Imports and exports grew to about 45 percent of India’s GDP.

This increased economic engagement with the world paralleled increased political engagement. Relations with the United States were transformed; this decreased Indian fears that the United States would try to “roll back” its nuclear assets, and India in turn softened its opposition to international nonproliferation, seeking to join the nonproliferation-related export control groups. The United States also muted its “activism” on Kashmir.

At the regional level, India’s outreach in East Asia strengthened. India also deepened its involvement in selective international groupings, such as BRICS and IBSA. It continues to participate actively in the Non-Aligned Movement, but Dr. Mohan regarded this as an inconsequential ritual.

Globally, India somewhat softened its position on climate change. It continued to seek a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, this time with United States support. India’s term in a non-permanent seat, however, had turned out to be a big disappointment for the United States, largely because of problems the Council faced in the Middle East.

India is changing from a rule-defier or rule-taker on the international scene to a rule-maker. As it does so, it is insisting on some level of accommodation.

5. The problem of the Middle East:

The Middle East poses a particular problem for Indian foreign policy, one which constrains India’s engagement with the international community. The large Indian Muslim population has been a matter of great sensitivity for India’s rulers even during the time of the Raj. Post-Independence, Pakistan has further constrained India’s policy. India’s goals are to protect India’s secularism and to ensure that Pakistan is not accepted as the spokesman for Muslims in opposition to India.

On the international scene, on issues that are framed between the West and Islam, India will tilt toward Islam or remain on the sidelines. Issues that are framed between Sunni and Shia-majority Muslim countries give India more space, hence India’s ability to support the Arab League mission in Syria.

Discussion:

During the discussion period, the following key points came up:

• India has massive economic interests in the Middle East, including dependence on that region for 70 percent of its energy imports and the presence of some 6 million Indians in the Gulf and elsewhere. It also has an active relationship with Israel. Saudi Arabia has become a more important economic partner than Iran.

• Why was India’s position on Libya at the UN so anti-Western? This was a case of delayed Indian adaptation to changed circumstances.

• India’s interest in permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council reflects its longstanding view that India should “be a member of any club that exists.” It may not happen soon; if India gains in strength, that will transform the situation.

• India has had difficulty finding the right style for engaging in Asean. Economic engagement in East Asia is important. India has free trade areas with Japan, Korea and Asean, but Indian politics are not yet ready to handle the Trans Pacific Partnership.

• India wants the United States to remain engaged in East Asia, and has supported the U.S. agenda on freedom of navigation.

• India and the U.S. have come a long way in their security relationship. The 2005 Defense Cooperation Agreement is an important milestone, as are service-to-service cooperation, defense industrial cooperation, and now shared missions. Trilateral and regional security cooperation in Asia are expanding. India has urged the IORARC to admit the United States and included the U.S. as observer in the Indian Ocean Naval Summit. This is still a subject of internal disagreement in India. India under the Raj was a “security provider”; it may move back to that position.

• India may be starting to move away from its classic insistence of a UNSC mandate for military operations. (“do you want to get Chinese permission every time you use Indian forces?”)

• India is skeptical of international disarmament negotiations. The international community needs to take on new issues: use of space, and how to create new rules of the road.

• India is a trading power and now emphasized keeping sea lanes of communications open. China has not yet shifted to giving priority to this issue in the South China Sea.

• Institutions and interests shape India’s policy more than personalities. There are few Indian internationalists on the right side of the political spectrum. We need to build up the realist discourse on foreign policy.

• Nonalignment 2.0 does not constrain government policy. If India doesn’t have “a US game,” it can’t have a “China game.” It can’t hang back indefinitely.

Expanding the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership

Howard Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This is the second piece in an on-going series showcasing Teresita and Howard Schaffer's research findings from their book, India at the International High Table, which will examine how India sees its role in the world and how this translates into its negotiating style. In this article, the authors argues that the recently concluded U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue really did expand the strategic links--not through the many activities that the two governments showcased, but through closer consultations on the world beyond South Asia. The first article, "Still Seriously Unmatched", discussed the developing relationship between India and China.

The June 13 U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue left some commentators in both countries complaining that there was less to it than met the eye. We disagree: it seems to us to have finally — almost by stealth — begun shifting the U.S.-India conversation toward something that deserves the name “strategic,” centred on policy consultations on the world beyond South Asia.

Huge agenda

Both governments emphasised the breadth of the binational dialogue. In the week before the ministerial meeting, the United States government hosted six other bilateral events on health, women’s issues, education, science and technology cooperation, cyber-security, and counter-terrorism. The full list (23 dialogues!) includes some important items, better funded than in the past — but tends to produce glazed eyeballs even among hardened policy wonks.

The stage was set for this year’s discussions, however, by two actions that had nothing to do with the actual meetings: the U.S. waiver of potential sanctions on India’s oil trade with Iran, and the memorandum between Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Ltd. (NPCIL) and Westinghouse committing both sides to work towards early works agreements on things like preliminary licensing and site development, aiming at an eventual nuclear power plant in Gujarat. Neither of these actions eliminates a problem. Secretary Clinton’s Iran waiver authority can only be exercised for 180 days at a time. India’s nuclear liability regime remains a serious problem for U.S. companies wanting to build power plants in India, and it is not yet clear that their concerns have been met. But both provide a sense of progress and temporary relief from a serious irritant. Both governments showed they were serious about their relationship.

Read the full article at thehindu.com »

Authors

Howard Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The Hindu

Image Source: Gary Cameron / Reuters

India-China Relations: Still Seriously Unmatched

Howard Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: Teresita Schaffer has started work on a book called "India at the International High Table." The book, co-authored with Howard Schaffer, will examine how India sees its role in the world, and how this translates into India’s negotiating style. The first in a series showcasing some of their research findings, this article, published in India's leading newspaper The Hindu, discusses how India looks from China’s perspective, and how the strengths and weaknesses of India-China engagement compares with relations between Delhi and Washington.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna's visit to China is emphasising the prospects for India-China cooperation, in the aura of good feeling that high-level visits usually generate. A well-connected academic, Wang Dehua, in an interview about the visit, refers to India and China as “a rising and an emerging power.” He concludes that “India's interests lie in wider economic and cultural cooperation with China. This is China's opportunity to break up the U.S. intention to contain China.”

A recent visit to Beijing and Shanghai after a long absence gave us a more complicated picture of how the rise of India and China, so central to U.S. strategic thinking, looks from the east.

The India-China relationship is still asymmetrical. This theme ran through a dozen or so meetings with Chinese and some Indians who follow the relationship closely. One Chinese observer commented that neither country was top priority for the other. The disparity in their trade relations tells the story: China is India's largest partner for merchandise trade; India is China's 10th partner.

Read the full article at thehindu.com»

Authors

Howard Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The Hindu

Image Source: © POOL New / Reuters

The Future of India's Foreign Policy: A Conversation with Yashwant Sinha

Wed, 30 May 2012 14:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 30, 2012
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT

Saul Room
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

On May 30, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted Yashwant Sinha, former minister of external affairs and finance of the Republic of India, for a discussion on the challenges and opportunities facing India’s foreign policy. Mr. Sinha reviewed the prospects for India’s relations with the U.S. and discuss the main international economic and trade issues affecting his country, with particular regard to Pakistan and other South Asian neighbors. He also shared his perspective on how he expects India’s policy will develop toward China.

After a 24-year long career in the Indian Administrative Service, Mr. Sinha joined politics in 1984 and, as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has since then served as minister for finance from1990-91 and1998-2002 and external affairs from 2002-04. He is currently a member of the Lower House of the Indian Parliament, where he chairs the Standing Committee on Finance. Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen will provide introductory remarks, and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Teresita C. Schaffer will moderate the discussion.

After the program, Mr. Sinha took audience questions.

Pakistan's New Player: The Expanding Role of Parliament

Howard Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The Pakistan parliament has now completed its action on a resolution defining the terms of reference for future Pakistan-U.S. relations, adopting it without formal dissent. Action now passes to the Pakistani cabinet, which must formally initiate discussions with the United States. All eyes will be on how the U.S. and Pakistani governments negotiate the actual working of this troubled relationship. The parliament's central role in this process also tells us about some things that have changed - and some that have not - in the way Pakistan's government institutions work, both internally and with the United States. Both countries should take this opportunity to revise their well-practiced negotiating tactics, which have become a recipe for failure.

The parliamentary resolution laid down guidelines for Pakistan's negotiators. Its most important points were predictable. It provided for resumption of ground shipment of supplies other than arms and ammunition for NATO and coalition forces in Afghanistan, at a higher price. It also demanded an immediate cessation of U.S. drone strikes or "hot pursuit" by U.S. forces into Pakistan; directed the government to seek an unconditional apology for last November's attack by NATO forces on a Pakistani border post at Salala; and rejected past or future verbal or implicit agreements between Pakistan and the United States. It concluded that the "footprint" of the United States in Pakistan needed to get smaller. It also threw in one curveball - a demand that Pakistan seek a civilian nuclear accord with the United States matching India's - and apparently rejected a second one, the release of Dr. Afia Siddiqui, currently serving an 86 year sentence in the United States for assault with intent to kill U.S. officials trying to question her. The context for all these recommendations was respect for Pakistan's sovereignty.

The Pakistani Cabinet now needs to turn these principles into an Executive Order that, after vetting in the Law Ministry, will guide officials working out the details with the United States. Like the three-week parliamentary deliberations, implementation is likely to be slower than anticipated. The resolution also specifies that all future agreements of any kind must be reviewed in detail by "all concerned" government ministries and submitted to the parliamentary committee. This uncharacteristically rule-bound process probably mirrors the legalistic approach Pakistan considers typical of American negotiators.

More importantly, the pace and content of negotiations will reflect the explosive politics in Pakistan of relations with the United States. The issues themselves are complex. Priorities have shifted during the four months since the Salala incident put relations in the deep freeze. Pakistan's civilian leaders will be reluctant to take advantage of ambiguities in the resolution in ways that might look like weakening of resolve. They will be concerned that another downward swoop on the U.S.-Pakistan roller coaster could expose them to public outrage. The resolution's directive that the government put all U.S.-Pakistan agreements in writing will shine an unwelcome spotlight on how the two governments address their most sensitive military and intelligence issues. Take drone attacks. To the United States, they are uniquely useful for reducing the terrorist threat, and some of them have been welcomed by - and quietly coordinated with - the Pakistani leadership, both civilian and military. But as we know from Wikileaks, this coordination flew in the face of what Pakistan's leaders had told their own public.

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Authors

Howard Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: © Faisal Mahmood / Reuters

Manmohan Singh and Asif Zardari: A Hopeful Encounter for India-Pakistan Relations

Howard Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Four months ago, Pakistani president Asif Zardari’s trip to Dubai for medical treatment sparked intense rumors of a military coup. Last weekend, Zardari lunched in Delhi with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and was photographed wearing a flamboyant turban at a renowned Sufi shrine at Ajmer in Rajasthan. What happened and what does it mean?

No one, least of all two longtime observers of the South Asia scene like us, expected to see India-Pakistan relations transformed by this Easter Sunday luncheon in New Delhi, the first meeting in a bilateral setting between the top leaders of India and Pakistan in seven years. But the brief summit session usefully highlighted the accelerating strengthening of ties over the past year or so. It also raised hopes that further progress can be achieved if the two sides persist in the sensible, unspectacular approach they have recently followed.

This welcome forward movement has been somewhat paradoxical. Since Partition in 1947, India-Pakistan relations have more often than not created problems that have undercut promising developments in both countries. Now, at a time when so many things have gone wrong in South Asia – and for U.S. interests in the region – improvement in ties stands out as a ray of light in an otherwise darkening scene.

The progress should not be overstated, however. The two sides have not scored a breakthrough on the key Kashmir issue or on any of the lesser, seemingly more soluble problems that have long bedeviled India-Pakistan ties. These include their continued armed confrontation on the bleak Siachen Glacier, brought back to the headlines by a horrendous landslide that buried over a hundred Pakistani troops there only hours before Singh and Zardari met. New Delhi remains highly dissatisfied by what it rightly regards as Islamabad’s failure to cooperate in bringing to book the Pakistan-based perpetrators of the November 2008 Mumbai attack. Islamabad, for its part, views with great suspicion New Delhi’s activities in Afghanistan. It fears they could lead to an unacceptable level of Indian influence there following the withdrawal of U.S. and other NATO forces.

The most impressive progress has been in economic cooperation. The two countries have moved ahead – if somewhat erratically – toward establishing a most-favored nation regime that will substantially boost the notoriously low level of goods exchanged between them. They are modernizing their archaic method of handling goods at border crossings, easing visa restrictions, and talking about oil pipelines and electric grid linkages. Indian and Pakistani businesspeople, long interested in creating a peace dividend, are discussing more seriously and hopefully than at any time in recent years the mutual advantages from increased trade and investment. If progress on this front continues, the business “peace lobby” could grow and strengthen.

The progress follows the decision of the two sides to move back toward the comprehensive dialogue between them that India broke off following the Mumbai attack. Cabinet ministers and senior civil servants now turn up regularly in one another’s capitals for formal meetings covering broad agendas. These sessions have been supplemented by well-received visits in both directions of prominent parliamentarians and representatives of major trade and industrial organizations. Widely and favorably reported in the media, these exchanges have helped create an unusually upbeat attitude toward bilateral relations in both countries.

Favorable developments also include things that haven’t happened, the Sherlock Holmes dog that didn’t bark in the night. Since Mumbai, there have been no further significant attacks on Indian territory by Pakistan-based terrorist groups; Indian authorities have evidently resisted any temptation to blame Pakistan for incidents triggered by domestically-based organizations. Kashmir has remained largely quiet since the summer of 2010, when over one hundred youthful protesters were shot dead in Valley towns. Pakistani authorities continue to remind the world — and their own public — that the Kashmir problem still remains unresolved. But they have not sought to raise it or other potentially inflammatory anti-Indian matters to deflect their public’s attention from the major economic, social, and political problems the country faces. As in the past, the more favorable mood on both sides remains vulnerable to spoilers intent on wrecking India-Pakistan ties. Another incident like Mumbai would destroy it overnight.

Against this promising background, President Zardari’s meeting with Prime Minister Singh was a modest further step in the right direction. No concrete accomplishments were announced, nor had any been anticipated in what was billed as a late add-on to Zardari’s visit to the Ajmer shrine. The two leaders’ post-meeting statements were an exercise in blandness. They called their talks “very fruitful” and spoke of their willingness to find “practical and pragmatic solutions” to the problems they had discussed. They offered no specifics on what they had said about these problems to one another, however. Zardari did disclose that he had invited Singh to visit Pakistan. The prime minister avoided any concrete commitment: he said he would be very happy to go there at a mutually convenient time.

We hope that the mutually convenient time will come soon. An early official state visit would provide further momentum to these favorable trends. Like other formal summits, it could serve as an “action-forcing event” at which leaders break deadlocks their subordinates cannot resolve. Singh himself has long spoken of making the journey, which unwelcomed circumstances have forced him to postpone several times. Before Partition he had lived in what became Pakistan. A visit to Islamabad and to his ancestral village in West Punjab would contribute to his effort to make improved India-Pakistan relations a major part of his political legacy.

But any hope that such a more elaborate follow-up by Singh to Zardari’s brief venture could soon lead to a genuinely “new era” in bilateral relations is unrealistic. A breakthrough on Kashmir, still for Pakistan the “core issue,” requires the presence in both New Delhi and Islamabad of strong and confident governments prepared to make painful concessions and to take their constituents’ flak for doing so. Singh, now politically weaker than at any time since he took office in 2004, is increasingly viewed as a lame-duck whose authority can be safely flouted by other senior government leaders. He will not want to add further controversy to his many problems.

Nor, to put it mildly, will Zardari. Despite the evident recent strengthening of his political position and the likelihood, dismissed only a few months ago, that he will successfully complete his term as president and go on to a second one, he must continue to defer to the Army on matters of foreign and security policy, especially on something as central to its interests as relations with India.

The Pakistan Army, which was not represented at the Zardari-Singh meeting, has been willing to go along with the recent progress in bilateral ties. Some observers see this as recognition that it has too much on its plate already on the Afghan border, in countering an insurgency inside Pakistan, and in dealing with the United States. Others argue that it has finally acknowledged that national security importantly depends on a strong economy, and has recognized that this in turn requires improved ties with India. But it seems unlikely that either reason will prompt the Army leadership to favor an early major improvement in bilateral ties, with all the consequences this could have for its own role in national affairs.

The best plausible scenario is further limited progress spearheaded by advances in economic ties. This will create an environment in both countries in which other knotty problems can more effectively be tackled (or set aside). Senior commentator C. Raja Mohan likens this to the recent record of Sino-Indian relations, where booming trade between Beijing and New Delhi has set the stage for progress on other fronts.

The United States has had no direct role in these favorable developments in India-Pakistan relations, though as noted the deterioration of U.S.-Pakistan ties may have played some indirect role in prompting the Pakistan military to look more kindly on better ties with New Delhi. (It has also given the Pakistanis a new target for their anger. Polling indicates that the United States is more unpopular now in Pakistan than is India!) As always, Washington has cheered from the sidelines as advances were made. Its best strategy will be to continue quietly urging the two sides on, making suggestions where these can be helpful, but recognizing its limited influence in both India and Pakistan on this issue.

Authors

Howard Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: South Asia Hand

Sri Lanka and the United States: Post-Geneva Repairs

Teresita C. Schaffer — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The meeting in Geneva is over, leaving a sour taste in everyone's mouth. It's time to put Sri Lanka's political rebuilding on track, and repair U.S.-Sri Lanka relations in the process.

For the next year, the UN Human Rights Council will be dealing with other issues. This is the time for Sri Lanka and the United States to relaunch their relations. External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris's upcoming trip to Washington represents an excellent opportunity to do just that.

An important U.S. contribution to this enterprise, ironically, was getting under way even as the UNHRC was meeting. A US government team was in Colombo to negotiate and Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).

Such agreements set the broad rules for expanded economic relations, and the predictability they provide have been extremely useful in other countries in attracting new business - precisely what Sri Lanka needs to strengthen and extend the peace dividend after its long and bitter war. It's time to conclude the agreement. Resolving the issues raised in the U.S. labour movement's petition against Sri Lanka's duty free access to the U.S. market under GSP would be an added bonus.

Sri Lanka could make two contributions to this effort. The first would be to intensify its reconciliation efforts. Senior government personalities generally describe economic development as the key tool in this effort. I believe it is an important starting point, but not the only tool.

The political benefits of economic development will be much stronger if it is supplemented by concrete moves toward addressing war-related grievances and political integration. The government has often cited the LLRC as its preferred vehicle for beginning the reconciliation process. Moving toward implementation, consequently, would appear to be the government's own decision, using the government's own means.

A more complicated U.S.-Sri Lankan issue, unrelated to the human rights dispute, arises from current U.S. sanctions on Iran and Sri Lanka's high dependence on Iran for oil imports. Sri Lanka would appear to have good reason to diversify its oil imports to provide additional security in an uncertain energy market. A little quiet diplomacy with the United States as it reviews its energy purchasing patterns might pay rich dividends.

Lowering the temperature between Colombo and Washington is not just an exercise in improving the atmosphere for its own sake. Sri Lanka's economic goals - which, as we have already seen, are closely linked to this government's goal of bringing the island together - cannot be achieved if Sri Lanka walks away from expanding economic engagement with the largest economy in the world, and from its largest export market. The United States too has important interests in play. One that has risen in importance in the last two decades is the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean, which is not just a passageway between the major U.S. security presence in the Persian Gulf and in the Western Pacific. It has become a strategic zone in its own right, and the United States needs to engage with Sri Lanka on that basis.

Sri Lanka's relations with the United States have always been influenced by the human side of the government's actions. From the time of independence, Sri Lanka was a country that held free elections and took pride in its ability to bring about peaceful governmental change. It was and is a country where everyone can read, nearly everyone finishes secondary school, and basic health care is the envy of the region. These are accomplishments that have brought the United States and Sri Lanka together. On the other hand, the ethnic war and the JVP uprising created a terrible legacy of disappearances and political violence that left thousands dead in Sri Lanka - and did terrible damage to U.S.-Sri Lankan relations in earlier years.

Human rights represent an important strand in America's political makeup, one that has tremendous resonance around the United States. Americans share in the excitement of countries that are recovering from long internal conflicts. Look at the way the opening of the political system in Myanmar has captured people's imagination. Sri Lanka has an opportunity to generate that same kind of positive excitement, using a mechanism it created, and serving a goal - the creation of a more united country - that all its politicians espouse. Don't let the moment for real action slip away.

Despite the dark conspiracies being described in the Sri Lankan press, the U.S. had hoped to avoid a confrontation in Geneva. A far preferable outcome, from Washington's perspective, would have been for the Sri Lankan government to use the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), and move toward implementing its recommendations. Washington focused on the LLRC because it was a home-grown institution, always a stronger basis for political healing than imported ideas. Unfortunately for everyone, the moment when this could be done discreetly and with no appearance of outside nagging has passed.

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The Sunday Times

Image Source: © Dinuka Liyanawatte / Reuters

Sri Lanka's Day of Reckoning

Teresita C. Schaffer — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

At the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Sri Lankan and U.S. governments are facing off this week over a resolution that the U.S. has proposed but neither side wanted. Sri Lanka's response to the events at the end of its toxic war — the subject of that resolution — has become the driving issue in Sri Lanka's relations with the United States. The resolution may not have much impact on the reconciliation process that is so critical for Sri Lanka's future. For the sake of Sri Lanka, the region and indeed Washington, it is important that reconciliation actually takes place.

Human rights have had a high profile in U.S.-Sri Lankan relations for at least three decades. Only since the end of the long civil war in 2009, however, have human rights and war crimes issues come to dominate the relationship. The problem started out as an entirely predictable emotional disconnect between the two countries. Sri Lanka's victory was won in the face of the scepticism of most of its international friends, and in the teeth of its aid donors' urging not to seek a military solution to its ethnic problems. After defeating one of the world's nastiest terrorist organisations, Sri Lanka expected congratulations. Instead, those aid donors, while welcoming the end of the war, put their post-war emphasis on preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and on human rights. Europe and the U.S. reacted to Sri Lanka's declaration of victory by calling for disbanding the camps where displaced Tamils were living in misery. The demands for accountability became more insistent, and from Sri Lanka's perspective more threatening, with the release of information suggesting that Sri Lanka might have committed war crimes in those terrible final days, notably the British Channel 4 news film, replayed in recent days and highly controversial in Sri Lanka.

Read the full article »

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The Hindu

Resetting the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship

Howard Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

2011 was a catastrophic year for U.S.-Pakistan relations. Starting with CIA contractor Raymond Davis's arrest for shooting two Pakistanis dead in January, going on through the raid on Abbottabad in early May that killed Osama bin Laden, and culminating in the NATO forces lethal attack on a Pakistani border post in November 2011, a series of shocks shook this important partnership to its core. Both countries expect their future relationship to be more modest, but neither has defined this concept. As they grapple with this change, U.S. policymakers need to recognize that Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the big issue, and to develop building blocks for a post-2014 relationship that meets the needs of both countries.

A recent visit to Pakistan provided a sobering view of where the United States now stands. Hostility toward the U.S. government among politicians, elites and the general public are a familiar problem, but two other aspects of today's problem are worth underlining. First, within the government, the biggest problem is with the Pakistan army, traditionally the privileged party when ties with Washington are robust. The army is now going out of its way to showcase an angry response to these humiliating events. The Pakistan government's continuing refusal of visas for many U.S. official visitors, including military officers working on military procurement or aid projects is happening at the army's request (notable exceptions are visitors dealing with F-16 supply or maintenance). Almost all the senior military officers who would normally have attended ceremonial events like the U.S. July 4th reception stayed away in 2011 - clearly on instructions.

Echoes of this resentment can be found on the U.S. side as well. Pakistanis are often quite unaware of the deep anger in the United States over Osama bin Laden's long sojourn in Pakistan. Pakistanis have complained for decades about being taken for granted by the United States; that complaint is now coming from some of the Americans closest to the relationship. Pakistanis wonder why the United States is starting to build a towering and expensive new embassy complex in Islamabad. Americans are now privately asking the same question, and noting that the major defense office in the embassy has shrunk to a third of its former size since the visa freeze.

Read the full article »

Authors

Howard Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: Foreign Policy

The Future of Reducing Nuclear Dangers: How Can India and the United States Collaborate?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:00:00 -0500

Event Information

January 5, 2012
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST

St. Louis Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Recognizing the need for India to participate more fully in the international non-proliferation system, in late 2009 the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the South Asia Program at CSIS created a Working Group on an Expanded Nonproliferation System to discuss three key issues: nuclear security, nuclear disarmament, and the possibilities for U.S.-India cooperation.

In its final report (accessible on the NTI website), the group recommended that India, while unable to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), could work together with the United States to bring India into the export control groups affiliated with the non-proliferation system.

This private discussion held at the Brookings Institution with American and Indian experts, including some of the working group’s members, began where the report ended – with a look at the structure of international efforts to reduce nuclear danger.

Stephen P. Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and moderator of the session, introduced the discussion by mentioning three paradoxes created by the nuclearization of South Asia:

Nuclear weapons cannot realistically be used, but to be an effective deterrent a state must be prepared to use them at any time, especially during crises.

Nuclear weapons are a symbol of national power and prestige, but new nuclear weapons states are reluctant to assume the responsibility and leadership of managing the global nuclear order.

Nuclear weapons and energy have an immense potential for further development, expansion and sophistication, but that also brings concerns about their safety, security and proliferation.

Teresita C. Schaffer, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings and convener of the working group, commented on the conclusions of the report and made the following five observations:

While the NPT is central to Americans, it’s seen as an obstacle by Indians. One path to progress lies in using and also expanding the non-NPT institutional frameworks, including export control groups and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). They provide a means of bringing all willing and responsible nuclear weapons states into a forum on global disarmament. This is a prerequisite for the disarmament progress the NPT itself envisages, and should therefore be an early subject of discussion between India and the United States.

Nuclear security should be “low-hanging fruit.” However, it has been difficult to work on in practice. The Japanese nuclear disaster at Fukushima has reinforced this concern, and led to a new backlash against nuclear power in Indian politics. The next nuclear summit in Seoul, preceded later this month by a Sherpa meeting in Delhi may offer an opportunity to address this difficult issue.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is going nowhere at present. India will not take it seriously unless the U.S. ratifies it, which is improbable in the current political context. But even if the U.S., India and Pakistan ratified the treaty, it cannot come into effect without the signature of North Korea. This means that it will not turn into a legally binding commitment, and that its main utility lies in its normative value. While Americans and many of the other NPT members have tried to use legally binding regimes to strengthen their security, other countries, including India, are less enthusiastic. This suggests that, at least at a minimum, the world needs to make more effective use of normative statements, since the “last mile” of legal commitments may turn out to be hard to traverse.

The FMCT may be more achievable provided it can be moved to a forum in which no single country can block its progress. Given its higher degree of technicality, including the proposal to control raw materials for production of nuclear weapons, it is less replaceable by a normative statement, but could assume greater importance than the CTBT.

India remains squeamish about multilateral norm-setting: it is uncomfortable with the private character of the World Institute for Nuclear Security and the limited membership of Proliferation Security Initiative, preferring the universal membership of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), even while not being particularly keen to make it a more muscular organization. This is a perspective Americans can understand. Multilateral rules have at times been very controversial in the U.S., where there is strong political resistance to subjecting to international dispute settlements. But, in order to reduce nuclear threats, how may both countries work together to overcome this discomfort?

Joan Rohlfing, president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and co-convener of the working group, focused her remarks on the following five issues:

The current system of nuclear governance and security is dominated by voluntary arrangements and predicated on the outmoded belief that individual state decisions and structures can provide sufficient security for dangerous nuclear materials. This idea of individual states’ nuclear “sovereignty” is, however, out of step with contemporary needs and it is therefore urgent to promote a shift in our mindsets and in our practices towards recognizing that with shared interests, there must be shared responsibilities and a much greater degree of collaboration, transparency and accountability.

There is a tension between states’ perceptions of sovereignty over all things nuclear and the increasingly urgent challenge to achieve nuclear security collaboratively. This can be traced to a set of three “international interests,” shared by all states, including:

an interest that the use of nuclear power does not lead to further weapons proliferation;
an interest that nuclear energy does not endanger human health or the environment;
and an interest to foster the ability to collectively develop the potential of nuclear energy in order to mitigate climate change.
NTI Counselor John Carlson should be credited for his excellent work on defining international nuclear interests, and especially the need to develop a stronger international role in nuclear governance.

International interests in nuclear security are dependent upon the continued public and political confidence in nuclear energy, which depends upon how well states do on nuclear safety and security. As the nuclear disasters of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima show, an accident or catastrophe in any one place in the world can have a profound impact on how the public and governments assess nuclear risks, and their willingness to continue to pursue it.

NTI has been dealing closely with these challenges, most recently by developing a nuclear materials security index, assessing on a state-by-state basis the security conditions within a given state. One of the main findings is that there is no consensus view on what things a state should do to have strong nuclear materials security, and that most states tend to look narrowly only at the physical protection measures in place at a particular facility.

India must play a greater role, working with other nuclear powers on transparency, global best practices, peer reviews, and regional cooperation. These are crucial issues on which Indian contributions have so far been minimal and insufficient.

P.R. Chari, visiting professor at the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (New Delhi) and member of the working group, forwarded the following observations:

The promise of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal has not been realized, as India remains out of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Australia Group and Wassenaar Arrangement. 2011 saw more contention than cooperation, especially on enrichment and reprocessing technologies, India’s Civil Nuclear Liability Act, and the reservations expressed by several NSG members regarding nuclear cooperation with India unless it joins the NPT.

On a positive note, Australia has finally decided to supply uranium to India, and the Indo-U.S. dialogue continues on strategic and nuclear issues, which is important for mutual understanding and for greater American appreciation of the constraints on nuclear issues imposed by India’s democratic coalition politics and civil society.

Specifically, on nuclear arms control and non-proliferation, three assertions are possible:

There will be no progress on CTBT unless the United States ratifies it. India will not go beyond its present moratorium and the jury is still out on whether more tests are needed to establish its credible nuclear triad.
With growing nuclear arsenals in China and Pakistan, India is unlikely to halt fissile material production until the FMCT is negotiated and finalized. It is egregious that one nation out of 65 has stalled negotiations for over a decade, and there is therefore a need to shift the forum for negotiations to the United Nations (UN).
Progress on the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) is more hopeful, as India has become pro-active regarding maritime security, policing of sea-lanes, and anti-piracy. More dialogue is needed between both countries to discuss the important legal and operational issues involved: How does the PSI fit within the UN’s legal framework? Could India interdict Chinese ships carrying contraband, and would the U.S. support it?

After the Fukushima accident, nuclear safety and security have gained salience and led to great public alarm about nuclear energy. Four specific questions arise:

How to regain public confidence that nuclear energy is safe?
How to establish a truly independent regulatory authority with domain knowledge?
What should be the realistic place of nuclear energy in the total energy mix?
How to ensure the safety of radioactive materials in industry, research and medical facilities?

The future U.S.-India dialogue will have to address the following questions:

Has the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal weakened the NSG? During the negotiations, China had hinted at the possibility of replicating the exception between China and Pakistan without prior approval of IAEA and NSG. Should NSG rules be modified or only waived on a case-by-case basis.
How to strengthen the IAEA by emphasizing its promotional, apart from its regulatory functions? The IAEA remains the best forum to synergize approaches to nuclear safety and security, for example on transportation of nuclear materials and nuclear forensics.
How can the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons be strengthened? This will improve the atmospherics for proceeding further towards nuclear disarmament.
The logical forum for discussing these and other issues, especially nuclear disarmament, would be the Indo-US strategic dialogue, which does not necessarily require an agreement to be reached, but could generate new ideas that could then be pursued in multilateral forums like the First Committee on Disarmament at the UN, or the forthcoming Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.

The discussion centered on the following three issue-areas:

1. Why is it so difficult for the U.S. and India to cooperate on nuclear issues?

For one participant, a political breakthrough is needed on the Indian side before a significant technical dialogue can take place. Even in its informal setting, the working group faced difficulties, so one can imagine the obstacles faced in the official dialogue.

Another reason forwarded was the historical baggage, or “trust deficit,” including a lingering Indian suspicion and doubts about U.S. intentions.

One participant underlined the difficulty in changing India’s mindset (often stimulated by the United States) where nuclear technology continues to be seen as a “miracle solution to all problems, from security to energy.” What are the incentives necessary to foster a cognitive change that also addresses nuclear energy/weapons as “a potential problem, a risky and dangerous enterprise?” How can we expect heretofore unaccountable constituencies of bureaucrats and scientist to accept international inspections?

Another participant questioned the logic and feasibility of focusing the Indo-U.S. dialogue on the nuclear domain, “the most sovereignist issue area,” to build normative cooperation and consensus between both countries, arguing that it would make more sense to focus first on “lower security” issue-areas.

One participant noted that India must be given time to complete a long and complex process, referring to the parallel examples of domestic change in Russia and the United States.

2. Lack of independent domain expertise and regulatory authority in India.

One participant observed that the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is situated “in a gray area,” functioning directly under the Prime Minister, but wary in taking major decisions, and being largely unaccountable.

The necessity for a truly independent regulatory authority in India was stressed repeatedly. “You can’t have an organization [Atomic Energy Commission] that is only responsible to itself, and only occasionally in contact with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance for its budgetary requirements,” one participated noted. However, any change in the regulatory authority is challenged by the lack of domain knowledge outside the existing establishment.

Two other participants observed that the current “excessive autonomy” enjoyed by the DAE is worrisome, reflecting a “crisis-driven” and reactionary approach. The Atomic Energy Commission, for example, recently prepared a review on nuclear safety, but it is questionable whether it did so only to assuage public apprehensions and protests following the Fukushima incident.

3. What are the avenues for future cooperation between the United States and India?

One participant questioned whether there was any significant difference in Indian and American strategies to get India on board of the four institutional frameworks of the nuclear regime (Secretary Clinton recently mentioned a “phased” and Minister Krishna a “tandem” approach). According to another participant, the difference arises between a “sequenced” (United States) and a “packaged” (India) negotiation strategy.

Another participant stressed that even while not expecting a “big bang breakthrough” India wants to see “demonstrable progress on all four fronts.” The Strategic Security Dialogue between India’s Foreign Secretary and U.S. Undersecretary Tauscher are in progress, meeting every six months. Both sides have been actively reaching out to other members of the NSG. India is aware that nuclear issues are not solely in the domestic domain, safety and security being “national responsibilities with international ramifications,” allowing for cooperation “with the United States and others.”

One participant noted a certain inertia to have overcome India in 2011, which now seems less enthusiastic, for example in regard to joining the Australia Group.

One specific issue discussed was progress on the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership, a cooperative initiative announced by the Indian Prime Minister in the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit. According to one participant, land was acquired in Haryana, in the capital’s outskirts, two courses had been held so far, and the Center is expected to become fully operational in 2-3 years. Another participant noted the “glacial progress,” with only one meeting being held since the signing of the MoU, and that while “focusing on the hardware,” India was ignoring cooperation on setting up the training and organizational structures.

One participant noted that whatever be the appropriate balance between national and international responsibilities in the various nuclear regimes, the role of the IAEA must be strengthened, as states cannot rely only on voluntary cooperative impulses. This should be an area of fundamental agreement between India and the United States.

Finally, another participant observed the possibility of extending the working group’s focus to the areas of doctrinal issues, underdevelopment or mismanagement, in particular how states should size and secure their nuclear weapon arsenals or atomic reactors. This assumes importance with the number of private actors increasing.

Nancy Powell: A Welcome Appointment at a Critical Time

Howard B. Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:03:00 -0500

President Barack Obama's admirable choice of Nancy Powell as the next United States Ambassador to India brings to that critical job in American diplomacy a talented career Foreign Service officer widely recognised as the State Department's most experienced and capable South Asia hand on active duty.

Ms. Powell will be the first woman to head the embassy after 21 men — a distinguished list, including seven Foreign Service officers and 14 non-career appointees. She will be the only American diplomat ever to have served as chief of mission to no fewer than three South Asian countries. She led the Islamabad embassy during the Musharraf government and, more recently, served as Ambassador to Nepal. Unlike any of her predecessors in New Delhi, she has had two earlier diplomatic assignments in India — as Consul-General in Calcutta and head of the political section at the embassy she is about to lead, both in the 1990s. She has also been deputy chief of mission at Dhaka.

Ms. Powell's “out-of-area” assignments have taken her to Africa as Ambassador to Ghana and Uganda and include postings to many senior policymaking positions in Washington. Her present prestigious job as Director-General of the U.S. Foreign Service makes her one of the top officials in Secretary Hillary Clinton's State Department.

We think Mr. Obama has made a very smart decision in choosing her for the New Delhi posting at this time. We have known Ms. Powell well, both personally and professionally, for over thirty years. We have always admired her not only for her regional expertise but also for her great skill and courage in dealing with knotty diplomatic problems; her common sense; her low-key, unflappable style; and her remarkable “people skills.” Perhaps most importantly, she has a long history of telling truth to power, without rancour or bluster, both in Washington and in her foreign assignments. She is a great person and a great diplomat. We are betting she will be an outstanding Ambassador.

And she will hit the ground running. She won't need the on-the-job training that most newly-assigned envoys require. She is familiar with the Indian scene and has a host of friends and contacts from her earlier assignments in Calcutta and at the embassy. The two years she spent as Ambassador in Islamabad will provide her with insights on Pakistan that will be valuable at a time when events there are likely to prove particularly challenging both to the United States and India. Her experience in Kathmandu and Dhaka will also be a big asset as she compares notes with Indian officials on Nepalese and Bangladeshi developments.

Ms. Powell will arrive in New Delhi at a point when U.S.-India relations need more than the usual careful nurturing. After the dramatic turnaround of the U.S.-India nuclear deal and the warmth and excitement of Mr. Obama's visit to Delhi just over a year ago, the relationship has lost momentum. Both governments' domestic challenges are the major factor here, but this is a high-maintenance relationship. It does not do well on automatic pilot.

Bilateral issues

The India-U.S. partnership that has been under construction for the past decade is based on a growing convergence of interests between the two countries, and fits into the increasingly Asia-centric priorities both now hold. They have had their greatest success in the bilateral area. When one looks at the issues on their agenda, it is a tough list.

The quest for an “end game” in Afghanistan is a source of considerable anxiety to both India and the United States, and Pakistan's role looks increasingly problematic. India and the United States have already had difficulty defining meaningful and realistic terms for cooperative policy; that will not get any easier. Whatever satisfaction there may be in Delhi over the current poisonous relations between the United States and Pakistan must be tempered by the realisation that they reduce Washington's ability to exercise constructive influence in Islamabad.
The possibility of cooperation, or at least parallel U.S. and Indian policies, in East Asia and on some aspects of the Middle East, on the other hand, has improved in the past year, and the new Ambassador has an opportunity to build up the U.S.-India partnership in both regions.
The India-U.S. security relationship, probably the most important new ingredient in the two countries' post-Cold War partnership, has a strong foundation in common interests, especially in Indian Ocean security. However, security ties are plagued by housekeeping problems – issues like logistical support and end use verification, where the two countries' standard operating procedures are incompatible and where they have had great difficulty negotiating mutually agreeable solutions.
Civilian nuclear trade, the most dramatic breakthrough of the past decade, has yet to move forward. The biggest disagreement concerns the question of nuclear liability.
Growing bilateral trade and investment ties are one of the most durable accomplishments of the past twenty years, and are likely to remain a strength for the U.S.-India partnership. But the long list of unresolved trade and investment problems, many of which go back three decades and more, has soured the atmosphere at working levels of the U.S. government, while hardy perennials like visa issues have had the same effect in India.
Cooperation in the multilateral arena, which received a boost when Mr. Obama endorsed India's bid for a permanent seat on a reformed U.N. Security Council, remains difficult. Indian and U.S. priorities for the council and visions for its future are poorly matched, and the Security Council decisions with the greatest political weight for the United States are frequently those that India sees as symbols of its own strategic autonomy.

The India-U.S. partnership is more than just a list of issues. It also reflects common values, such as the commitment to democracy. It fits into each country's strategic vision — including India's commitment to strategic autonomy and the U.S. concept of itself as a global leader, visions that have sometimes pulled the two countries in different directions. It gets played out in dozens of negotiations, in which the two countries' styles and positions may make it difficult to reach agreement.

Serving as translators

An Ambassador, however skilled, will not be able to resolve the problems and exploit the opportunities on this list singlehandedly. But Ms. Powell, like Ambassador Nirupama Rao in Washington, is ideally placed to set priorities among the many issues their countries are dealing with, stressing those with the greatest potential for good or ill, and finding the negotiating tools to create opportunities. Even more, they can serve as “translators” between the two countries and their respective strategic visions. They can articulate, and in some respects symbolise, a common vision for the India-U.S. partnership. And above all, knowing how their own governments work, they can ensure that both countries' top leaders remain personally engaged.

Authors

Howard B. Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The Hindu

Looking to the Future of Pakistan

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:00:00 -0500

Event Information

December 5, 2011
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

With each passing day, Pakistan becomes an even more crucial player in world affairs. Home of the world's second largest Muslim population, epicenter of the global jihad, location of perhaps the planet's most dangerous borderlands, and armed with nuclear weapons, this South Asian nation will go a long way toward determining what the world looks like ten years from now.

On December 5, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted the launch of The Future of Pakistan (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), which evaluates several scenarios for how the country will develop and evolve in the near future. A team of 17 experts from Pakistan, the United States, Europe and India, led by Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen, contributed chapters to the book, looking at pieces of the Pakistan puzzle. Several of the authors joined other Pakistan experts on two panels to examine the issues, relevant actors and their motivations, different outcomes they might produce, and what it all means for Pakistanis, Indians, the United States, and the entire world.

After each panel, participants took audience questions.

Transcript

Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20111205_pakistan

Participants

Panelists

C. Christine Fair

Assistant Professor
Georgetown University

William Milam

Senior Scholar
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Shuja Nawaz

Director, South Asia Center
The Atlantic Council

Moeed Yusuf

South Asia Adviser
U.S. Institute of Peace

Moderator: John R. Schmidt

Professorial Lecturer
The George Washington University

Pamela Constable

Staff Writer
The Washington Post

Marvin Weinbaum

Scholar-in-Residence
Middle East Institute

Joshua T. White

Ph.D. Candidate
Johns Hopkins University, SAIS

Does the Elephant Dance? A Discussion on Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

October 25, 2011
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036

India’s growing role on the world stage, including membership in the G20 and the United Nations Security Council, have thrown a spotlight on the scope of its aspirations and on the forces driving its foreign policy. Faced with an array of challenges from complex domestic issues to internal and external security challenges, how will India project itself internationally and how will its relationships in the region and beyond evolve?

On October 25, the Managing Global Order project at Brookings hosted a discussion on contemporary Indian foreign policy. David Malone, president of the International Development Research Centre, discussed his new book Does the Elephant Dance?: Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, 2011), based on his experience as Canada’s high commissioner to India from 2006-08. Brookings experts Stephen Cohen and Teresita Schaffer also joined the discussion. Brookings President Strobe Talbott provided introductory remarks and Senior Fellow and MGO Director Bruce Jones moderated the discussion.

After the program, participants took audience questions.

Audio

Does the Elephant Dance? A Discussion on Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy

Transcript

Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20111025_india_foreign_policy

Participants

Panelists

David Malone

President
International Development Research Centre, Canada

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir: A Grand Bargain?

Howard Schaffer and Teresita C. Schaffer — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:07:00 -0400

With U.S. relations in Pakistan at a low point and the two countries' strategic disagreement over priorities in Afghanistan on full display, it is time to review U.S. strategic options. One that deserves a close look is a grand bargain: give Pakistan what it wants in Afghanistan—but on two conditions: Pakistan assumes responsibility for preventing terrorism out of Afghanistan, and Pakistan agrees to settle Kashmir along the present geographic lines. This is not a panacea, nor would it be easy to execute. But it addresses the principal stumbling block to the current U.S. strategy, and provides an incentive to settle the region's longest-running dispute.

For the past decade, U.S. policy has been based on the assumption that the United States and Pakistan shared the strategic goal of extirpating from the leadership of Afghanistan the Taliban and allied terrorist forces. This objective was at the heart of the partnership struck after 9/11. As with the two previous major U.S.-Pakistan partnerships, in the 1950s/60s and in the 1980s, the assumption of strategic agreement was at best only half true, and the differences between the two countries' goals have become increasingly difficult to paper over. This time, Pakistan's desire to ensure what its army chief has referred to as "a friendly government" in Kabul—meaning a government deferential to Pakistan and impervious to Indian influence - has intensified, especially since the beginning of 2011. During that time, the U.S.-Pakistan relationship was devastated by the aftereffects of the shooting of two Pakistanis by CIA contractor Raymond Davis and his subsequent arrest, by the raid that killed Osama bin Ladin, and by the harsh public criticism of Pakistan by retiring U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen.

The two governments have been trying to salvage some working elements of partnership. However, their ability to work together toward a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan, badly strained by conflicting goals, was for practical purposes ended by the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Karzai government's designated representative for peace initiatives toward the Afghan Taliban. This was not the first time Pakistan's insistence on controlling negotiations inside Afghanistan had trumped its stated policy of supporting the Afghan government's negotiating role, but this incident has brought tentative peace feelers, already rickety, to a virtual halt.

Washington's response to this situation has been to seek a stronger basis for working with Pakistan. This reflects U.S. recognition of Pakistan's critical importance to peace in the region and to Afghanistan's future—as well as the major U.S. stake in nuclear-armed Pakistan's own political and economic health. These are indeed important considerations—but it does not follow that the United States should continue on essentially the same path that has repeatedly come up short.

Read the full article »

Authors

Howard Schaffer
Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: Foreign Policy

India Next Door, China Over the Horizon: The View from South Asia

Teresita C. Schaffer — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:01:00 -0400

Editor's Note: The following is a summary of Teresita Schaffer's chapter in the book Strategic Asia 2011-12: Asia Responds to Its Rising Powers - China and India, available starting September 14, 2011 through the National Bureau of Asian Research.

Main Argument:

For Pakistan, the rise of India is a strategic nightmare, while the rise of China is an opportunity to curb India’s advancement and reduce dependence on the United States. Afghanistan sees its ties with India and China, as well as with the U.S., as vehicles for blunting interference by its immediate neighbors, especially Pakistan. Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka generally accept India’s primacy in their region. Bangladesh and Nepal see their ties with China as a way of increasing their freedom of action against India; Sri Lanka sees both India and China as means to emphasize its independence from Western donors.

Policy Implications:

India’s South Asian neighbors look on India and China with one eye on relations with the U.S. Most of these countries are seeking either to balance a hostile relationship or to hedge against excessive dependency on the U.S. or India.
India is still the major player in South Asia, and is becoming more active in East Asia.
China’s security profile and economic heft in South Asia have risen dramatically in the past decade. India’s economic growth will determine whether New Delhi maintains its influence in its own neighborhood.
The Indian Ocean is the arena where the India-China rivalry will play out. U.S. strategic goals align well with India’s, and U.S. interests would be well served by treating the Indian Ocean as a single policy space.
The smaller South Asian countries, especially Sri Lanka, will play a greater role in the dynamics of the Indian Ocean region than traditional U.S. policy would indicate.

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The National Bureau of Asian Research

Pakistan's Views Towards India and the United States

Teresita C. Schaffer — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:42:00 -0400

In an interview with Dawn.Com, Teresita Schaffer discusses Pakistan's "three marriages and two divorces" with the United States, the challenge of the two countries' strategic gap, the impact when one country withholds information from the other, and some of Pakistan's negotiating successes with the United States.

Q. The United States and Pakistan have had three ‘marriages’ and two ‘divorces’. Are the interests that lead to an eventful marriage and factors which caused divorce always the same, or do they keep changing with every new partnership?

A. The immediate impetus for the three marriages came from factors external to Pakistan, such as the Cold War and Afghanistan. What caused the two divorces is different.

The first divorce came in 1965 during the Pakistan-India war, when Pakistan used U.S.-supplied weapons, which Washington had warned were not supposed to be used against each other.

Pakistan’s nuclear program caused the second divorce. In the 1980s, the U.S. restored a large aid program to Pakistan, but to get the aid through Congress, it also had to pass the Pressler Amendment. In 1990s, the U.S. could no longer certify that Pakistan possessed a nuclear explosive device because of which its assistance had to be cut-off.

In both cases, divorce was the culmination of Pakistan’s unwillingness to accept U.S. terms and conditions.

Q. What would you describe as the striking findings of your study about Pakistan’s negotiating style with the United States?

A. There are three big influences on Pakistan’s negating style with the United States. The first is Pakistan’s view of its place in the world with India as the perpetual enemy and the U.S. as an unfaithful ally. The second is the supreme importance of personal connections in the Pakistani culture. The third influence is the complicated structure of the government and complex relationship between the military, civil administration and the bureaucracy.

Pakistan tries to put the United States on a guilt trip and has been remarkably successful in doing that.

Q. The United States has historically personalized rather than institutionalize relations with Pakistan. How much has that benefitted both the countries?

A. Both the sides have personalised the relationship. Without some degree of personalization you are not going to get anywhere with a Pakistani leader. But by allowing the personal relationship to substitute for an institutional one, the United States makes itself vulnerable to the guilt trip.

Q. Do you see a dichotomy between the objectives of a U.S.-Pakistan strategic alliance and expectations of both the countries from each other?

A. Yes. This is the real challenge of U.S.-Pakistan relationship. The assumption during all three alliances was that our strategic interests were the same. In fact, they had some points in common, but were not the same. The key to these differences in each case has been India.

For Pakistanis, India is the long-term existential threat. For the United States, India is not an enemy. In Afghanistan, Pakistan’s prime objective is to minimize Indian influence, but the U.S. goal is to minimize the al Qaeda influence. These are not the same.

Read the full interview here »

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: Dawn.Com

Indian Ocean Rivals are Better Served with Cooperation

Teresita C. Schaffer — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The Indian Ocean is the lifeline of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—and of many other countries around the region and the globe. As old rivalries become more prominent in these waters, it is time to lay the groundwork for real collaboration on the issues that pose the greatest threat to Indian Ocean security. Stronger and broader anti-piracy cooperation would be a good place to start.

Until the 1990s, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf were looked on as adjacent but distinct regions, and the importance of the Gulf for many nations could be summed up in a single word: oil.

Today, the Indian Ocean still represents the crossroads of global oil markets. But it is also an economically dynamic area in its own right, the place where the world's rising powers are increasingly coming into contact. That puts the Indian Ocean, and the various strategic partnerships the United States maintains there, at the heart of the geopolitical world, with profound consequences for the UAE and her neighbors.

One symptom of the change can be found in U.S. national security strategy. Since the Second World War, commentators on U.S. policy have spoken of a "two ocean" maritime strategy, meaning the Atlantic and Pacific. In 2007, the U.S. Navy released a maritime strategy that still stressed two oceans as the principal centers for regular U.S. military presence - but now, the Indian Ocean is joined to the Pacific as a key strategic focus. This reflects in part the importance the United States attaches to the Gulf, but it also illustrates how central the integrity of sea lanes and their multifaceted connection to Asia have become to U.S. strategic planning.

The rise in importance of the Indian Ocean coincides with a dramatic transformation of U.S. relations with India. This change of course reflects the end of the Cold War and the growth of India's economy. But it also underscores the importance both countries attach to a peaceful and prosperous Indian Ocean region.

In the past ten years, India-U.S. security cooperation has expanded markedly, and naval cooperation centered on the Indian Ocean is its most active component. In the same period, India's attitude towards a permanent U.S. presence in those waters has shifted from deeply skeptical to supportive.

Even as Indo-U.S. cooperation has expanded in the Indian Ocean, India has expanded its ties with the countries on both sides of the Indian Ocean.

Look at the Gulf. The UAE is India's second largest trading partner and a major destination for Indian investment. It is not a coincidence that the first official visit made by Admiral Sureesh Mehta when he took command of the Indian navy in 2007 was to Abu Dhabi.

Similar changes are taking place to India's East. India now has free trade agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Japan and Korea and has been deepening its political and security relations - all with the quiet encouragement of the United States.

At the same time, this spotlight on the Indian Ocean underscores some historic rivalries. The strongest is between India and China.

Indian naval strategists and geopolitical thinkers worry about China's increasingly assertive posture and growing military ties with the countries that border the Indian Ocean. The phrase often heard in India is "the string of pearls," referring to facilities in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan where the Chinese military is developing regular access.

The United States in the past downplayed these concerns. In the past year or so, however, U.S. thinkers and policy-makers have become more wary of China's intentions. In the past five years, China's economic ties with the Indian Ocean countries have expanded at a rapid pace. China's military is ramping up its investment in the equipment needed for power projection.

India's long-standing rivalry with Pakistan has manifested itself more along their land border and in unconventional conflict than in the maritime domain. But China's close connection with Pakistan adds to India's uneasiness at a more regular Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean. China's involvement in building Pakistan's new port at Gwadar, near the border with Iran, suggests that the China-Pakistan relationship is acquiring more of a maritime dimension.

There is, in other words, considerable potential for increasing tension in the Indian Ocean area. This is the time to try to head that off by focusing on problems in which all the nearby states, as well as the world's trading countries, have a strong interest in cooperation.

The most compelling example is piracy in the Arabian Sea. The oil exporters of the Gulf - as well as their customers in India, Pakistan and China - depend on safe passage through these waters. The mechanisms for cooperation, principally Combined Task Forces 150 and 151, have brought assets and support from many NATO countries, and have had the participation of some regional countries, notably Pakistan.

The missing players, however, are important ones - India and China, both of which say they are maintaining contact with the combined task forces. Building an integrated organisation that includes rivals like India, China and Pakistan would be no easy task. But both the anti-piracy task and the longer-term goal of building a structure for cooperation among the powers who depend on Indian Ocean security demand a strong move in that direction. This is the time to start.

Authors

Teresita C. Schaffer

Publication: The National