I am starting this thread where serious articles on global politics can be posted. Here is first one which I find extremely well written;
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=349&page=3
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INDIA has entered a phase of rapid economic and political transformation. Its relative political and economic weight in its neighbourhood and the wider world is growing. It is leaving behind Pakistan, its arch rival and concomitantly constraining China’s regional primacy, though the latter is achieving prominence on all relevant indices of power even more rapidly than India.
This unfolding scenario portends grave dangers because Pakistan and China have a strong interest in thwarting India’s advance before it reaches a point when it can resist their spoiler tactics more tenaciously. Both China and Pakistan wish to embroil India in a war that will result in major setback for it. For China it will only entail arming and funding a Pakistani assault, which, in turn, will gain respite by merely undermining India’s prodigious advance since its own relative position is deteriorating unremittingly. It is therefore imperative for India to avoid open conflict though that does not mean it should desist from all retaliatory action in response to intolerable provocation.
Contemporary Pakistan has pretty much ceased to be an independent source of challenges despite its undeclared war against India. Indeed, historically, it was essentially a political and military pawn used by third parties. The persistence of its attempt to divert Indian attention over many decades was a product of Anglo-American Cold War aims, subsequently fuelled by China’s use of Pakistan as a lever to put pressure on India. Left to its own devices Pakistan would have likely reached accommodation with India, perhaps even before 1948 when the invasion of Kashmir was discreetly incited by the retreating British, angered by Jawaharlal Nehru’s refusal to allow British military bases in independent India. In the coming decade Pakistan will end up purely as an unashamed Chinese surrogate and will be deployed in a similar way the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea is to harass the Republic of Korea and occasionally Japan and secure China’s south eastern land border.
In order to understand the complex scenario contemporary India faces it is useful to briefly assess the interests of some countries in Asia and others beyond it. The relevance of the UK has already become negligible though it remains the most assiduous political and ideological supporter of Pakistan’s military dictators. Britain has also begun to assume the role China’s camp follower. It attempts to undermine Indian interests whenever cajoled by Beijing to do so, as witness former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband’s recent duplicitous repudiation of the 1914 Simla Convention though Britain has long ceased to have any locus standi in the matter. But Britain is now an insignificant global actor and Indian diplomacy needs to convey its displeasure as it would to any marginal entity like Canada or Australia for misbehaviour, perhaps by leaving an increasingly anachronistic British Commonwealth.
The US remains a crucial player, but political and economic circumstances are curtailing its impulse towards imperialist intervention to defend imaginary interests though that is the usual behaviour of the major power in the system wishing to signal its presence. But US scorched earth imperialism is proving costly and it seems likely to restrain its own traditional pre-emptive instincts to use military instruments for a wide range of goals. Major US military engagement abroad is likely to be preceded by fuller domestic consensus on perceived threats. The US is also being distracted by truculent Latin neighbours, a matter of far greater ultimate import for it than Afghan terrorists. Of special relevance to India is the reality of a virtual Sino-American alliance, with their economies totally enmeshed and the unfolding situation in Asia enjoining politico-military condominium between them rather than competition. And the US is searching earnestly for an excuse to allow the re-unification of Taiwan with China. However, the moment China attains Anschluss with Taiwan Japan’s post-war quiescence will end and other Asian countries, not least Vietnam and the Republic of Korea, will militarise seriously.
Self-serving Indian professionals, enamoured by a US life style that enriches migrants very quickly, foolishly imagine that some sort of Indo-American understanding is emerging vis-à-vis China. Nothing could be less plausible because, short of China embarking on some kind of military conquest in Asia, there are no major issues that divide the US and China. Indeed their interests and policies have long converged on Pakistan and the 26/11Mumbai terror attack probably occurred with the prior knowledge of both countries and possible intelligence inputs from China. The extraordinary recent Chinese decision to supply nuclear reactors to Pakistan, the world’s most egregious serial nuclear proliferator, without safeguards and outside the IAEA framework demands cynical scrutiny. Public US statements that it would consider extending to Pakistan an arrangement similar to the Indo-US nuclear accord seem to be the rationale for a joint Sino-American decision to supply Chinese reactors since insuperable hurdles exist to the former route. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is already an outsourced Chinese instrumentality that the US was fully cognisant of and chose to tolerate in exchange for Pakistani support to undermine a previous Soviet-supported Kabul regime. It has now gone a step further for shocking short-term reasons that may come to haunt the world and not just India.
On other critical issues like Tibet and Taiwan, the US defers to Chinese preferences and ASEAN is now very much part of China’s regional economic system, something the US has no particular reason to oppose. And nor does China have any rationale for unduly terrorising its neighbours, who are in any case wary of causing it offence. The exception is India, apparently unwilling, so far, to publicly accept Chinese primacy and affirm it by expelling the Dalai Lama from India. Nevertheless, the US finds India’s economic advance a useful counterweight to unbridled Chinese regional dominance that would enable China to dispense with US goodwill altogether. Thus, while there are virtually no circumstances in which the US will coordinate action with India on any significant issue against China it has an interest in facilitating India’s economic rise and will do so without undue ceremony. A degree of Sino-Indian political competition creates political space that allows the US to achieve its goals in Asia with greater ease.
Indian friendship with Russia remains of paramount importance, transcending petty issues of cost escalation for an aircraft carrier and other irritants. Russia remains the principal source of critical military hardware for India and, even more significantly in the long run perhaps, the generous facilitator of Indian aspirations to indigenise defence production. India is also indebted to Russia for providing sustained diplomatic support for over two generations. However, although, providentially, there are no vexatious Indo-Russian disagreements over international issues the latter cannot afford to fall out with China, India’s historic nemesis, without very good cause. While Russia is likely to support India if it faces serious difficulties there are limits to what can be expected in the complex diplomatic and military situation both face. In a worst case scenario, India needs the ability to engage simultaneously in a prolonged war with China and Pakistan, but can Russia be relied on to remain an unconditional hardware and ordnance supplier of last resort? Another question worth pondering is the relevance of the emerging Russo-German entente for India. Are there issues on which Germany and India could cooperate that would be in their pragmatic interest to explore?
....cont.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=349&page=3
................................................................................
INDIA has entered a phase of rapid economic and political transformation. Its relative political and economic weight in its neighbourhood and the wider world is growing. It is leaving behind Pakistan, its arch rival and concomitantly constraining China’s regional primacy, though the latter is achieving prominence on all relevant indices of power even more rapidly than India.
This unfolding scenario portends grave dangers because Pakistan and China have a strong interest in thwarting India’s advance before it reaches a point when it can resist their spoiler tactics more tenaciously. Both China and Pakistan wish to embroil India in a war that will result in major setback for it. For China it will only entail arming and funding a Pakistani assault, which, in turn, will gain respite by merely undermining India’s prodigious advance since its own relative position is deteriorating unremittingly. It is therefore imperative for India to avoid open conflict though that does not mean it should desist from all retaliatory action in response to intolerable provocation.
Contemporary Pakistan has pretty much ceased to be an independent source of challenges despite its undeclared war against India. Indeed, historically, it was essentially a political and military pawn used by third parties. The persistence of its attempt to divert Indian attention over many decades was a product of Anglo-American Cold War aims, subsequently fuelled by China’s use of Pakistan as a lever to put pressure on India. Left to its own devices Pakistan would have likely reached accommodation with India, perhaps even before 1948 when the invasion of Kashmir was discreetly incited by the retreating British, angered by Jawaharlal Nehru’s refusal to allow British military bases in independent India. In the coming decade Pakistan will end up purely as an unashamed Chinese surrogate and will be deployed in a similar way the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea is to harass the Republic of Korea and occasionally Japan and secure China’s south eastern land border.
In order to understand the complex scenario contemporary India faces it is useful to briefly assess the interests of some countries in Asia and others beyond it. The relevance of the UK has already become negligible though it remains the most assiduous political and ideological supporter of Pakistan’s military dictators. Britain has also begun to assume the role China’s camp follower. It attempts to undermine Indian interests whenever cajoled by Beijing to do so, as witness former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband’s recent duplicitous repudiation of the 1914 Simla Convention though Britain has long ceased to have any locus standi in the matter. But Britain is now an insignificant global actor and Indian diplomacy needs to convey its displeasure as it would to any marginal entity like Canada or Australia for misbehaviour, perhaps by leaving an increasingly anachronistic British Commonwealth.
The US remains a crucial player, but political and economic circumstances are curtailing its impulse towards imperialist intervention to defend imaginary interests though that is the usual behaviour of the major power in the system wishing to signal its presence. But US scorched earth imperialism is proving costly and it seems likely to restrain its own traditional pre-emptive instincts to use military instruments for a wide range of goals. Major US military engagement abroad is likely to be preceded by fuller domestic consensus on perceived threats. The US is also being distracted by truculent Latin neighbours, a matter of far greater ultimate import for it than Afghan terrorists. Of special relevance to India is the reality of a virtual Sino-American alliance, with their economies totally enmeshed and the unfolding situation in Asia enjoining politico-military condominium between them rather than competition. And the US is searching earnestly for an excuse to allow the re-unification of Taiwan with China. However, the moment China attains Anschluss with Taiwan Japan’s post-war quiescence will end and other Asian countries, not least Vietnam and the Republic of Korea, will militarise seriously.
Self-serving Indian professionals, enamoured by a US life style that enriches migrants very quickly, foolishly imagine that some sort of Indo-American understanding is emerging vis-à-vis China. Nothing could be less plausible because, short of China embarking on some kind of military conquest in Asia, there are no major issues that divide the US and China. Indeed their interests and policies have long converged on Pakistan and the 26/11Mumbai terror attack probably occurred with the prior knowledge of both countries and possible intelligence inputs from China. The extraordinary recent Chinese decision to supply nuclear reactors to Pakistan, the world’s most egregious serial nuclear proliferator, without safeguards and outside the IAEA framework demands cynical scrutiny. Public US statements that it would consider extending to Pakistan an arrangement similar to the Indo-US nuclear accord seem to be the rationale for a joint Sino-American decision to supply Chinese reactors since insuperable hurdles exist to the former route. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is already an outsourced Chinese instrumentality that the US was fully cognisant of and chose to tolerate in exchange for Pakistani support to undermine a previous Soviet-supported Kabul regime. It has now gone a step further for shocking short-term reasons that may come to haunt the world and not just India.
On other critical issues like Tibet and Taiwan, the US defers to Chinese preferences and ASEAN is now very much part of China’s regional economic system, something the US has no particular reason to oppose. And nor does China have any rationale for unduly terrorising its neighbours, who are in any case wary of causing it offence. The exception is India, apparently unwilling, so far, to publicly accept Chinese primacy and affirm it by expelling the Dalai Lama from India. Nevertheless, the US finds India’s economic advance a useful counterweight to unbridled Chinese regional dominance that would enable China to dispense with US goodwill altogether. Thus, while there are virtually no circumstances in which the US will coordinate action with India on any significant issue against China it has an interest in facilitating India’s economic rise and will do so without undue ceremony. A degree of Sino-Indian political competition creates political space that allows the US to achieve its goals in Asia with greater ease.
Indian friendship with Russia remains of paramount importance, transcending petty issues of cost escalation for an aircraft carrier and other irritants. Russia remains the principal source of critical military hardware for India and, even more significantly in the long run perhaps, the generous facilitator of Indian aspirations to indigenise defence production. India is also indebted to Russia for providing sustained diplomatic support for over two generations. However, although, providentially, there are no vexatious Indo-Russian disagreements over international issues the latter cannot afford to fall out with China, India’s historic nemesis, without very good cause. While Russia is likely to support India if it faces serious difficulties there are limits to what can be expected in the complex diplomatic and military situation both face. In a worst case scenario, India needs the ability to engage simultaneously in a prolonged war with China and Pakistan, but can Russia be relied on to remain an unconditional hardware and ordnance supplier of last resort? Another question worth pondering is the relevance of the emerging Russo-German entente for India. Are there issues on which Germany and India could cooperate that would be in their pragmatic interest to explore?
....cont.
......... Good Thread uncle ji !!! You have really progressed well on politics front... from state to interstate to India to International ... 
