Over the past quarter of a century, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, India has successfully fashioned a new and innovative approach of economic integration with the fast-growing economies of East and South-East Asia.

As a ‘dialogue partner’, our economy is now substantially integrated with the economies of the 10 members of Asean, extending eastwards from Myanmar to Vietnam.

We have ‘comprehensive economic partnerships’ with the ‘tiger economies’ of Japan and South Korea. Our economic ties with the 21st century superpower, China, are set to grow. As a member of the East Asia Summit, India participates actively in fashioning new security dynamics for the entire Indo-Pacific Region, extending from its shores to the Pacific shores of the US.

Difficult terrain

National Security Adviser Ajit Doval recently spelt out the security challenges that India faces across both its eastern and western land and maritime borders. Describing the challenges posed by China, Doval noted that we have a long border with a “difficult terrain”.

He slammed China for its border claims in Arunachal Pradesh, while stressing the importance of maintaining peace and tranquillity on our eastern borders. India is fashioning a diplomatic strategy to counter Chinese ‘assertiveness’, marked by closer ties with China’s maritime neighbours, ranging from Japan to Vietnam and Myanmar.

These moves are reinforced by consultations with the US to build a stable balance of power along and beyond our eastern frontiers. There can, however, be no substitute for defence modernisation while upgrading infrastructure on our eastern borders.

While the framework for enhanced security and cooperation on and beyond our eastern borders is taking shape, the same cannot, unfortunately, be said of developments across and beyond our western borders. Ajit Doval warned of security challenges flowing from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is clear that President Obama’s withdrawal plans are coupled with moves to establish a de facto Washington-Beijing-Rawalpindi axis, which seeks to ‘accommodate’ the Taliban, giving it control of substantial parts of south eastern Afghanistan. This plan also involves substantial arms transfers by the US to Pakistan, including F-16 fighters, potent air-to-air missiles, jet trainers and armoured personnel carriers.

Moreover, while the Americans may pay lip service on bringing the likes of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi to justice, they will really not do anything that discomfits Pakistan’s de facto rulers — its army establishment. It would be naïve for India to expect effective American support in confronting ISI-sponsored terrorism.

Impact on equations

The political uncertainty in the AfPak corridor bordering India has been accompanied by the entire ‘Greater West Asia’, from Iran to Algeria, being torn apart by civil wars, sectarian violence and Persian-Arab rivalries. The impending US-Iran nuclear deal has sent shock waves through the Arab world, particularly in the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It could change power equations, in much the way that the Nixon-Mao rapprochement did in the 1970s.

The angst in Saudi Arabia is evident in the manner in which the normally cautious Saudis have hit out militarily at Yemen, ostensibly because of growing Iranian influence. This is a miscalculation, for which Saudi Arabia will pay a high price.

The Americans did precious little to back their long-term allies, the Gulf monarchies, in their intervention in Yemen. Saudi Arabia was dumped even by its Islamic brethren such as Pakistan and Egypt. American client states in the Arab world appear to have not realised that after becoming the world’s largest oil producer and being set to become a major exported of natural gas, the US is really no longer too concerned about the fate of Arab ruling elites. India cannot, however, remain sanguine about these developments.

Over 70 per cent of our oil imports come from this region where 6 million Indians, who remit back $45 billion annually, live.

Moreover, the real epicentre of Shia-Sunni tensions is Iraq, which has the potential to re-emerge as a major partner. Peace in Iraq are crucial for regional stability and energy security. New Delhi has, therefore, to embark on new and imaginative diplomatic initiatives with the Gulf Arab monarchies, Iraq and Iran.

The ISIL now controls half of Syria and virtually the entire Syrian-Iraqi border. It rules Mosul and the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud. It also recently seized control of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Sunni-dominated Anbar province. What is shocking is the ineptitude of the American-equipped and Shia-dominated Iraqi army, which has appeared incapable of fighting, unless backed by Iranian-trained Iraqi Shia militia. The Iraqi army has to be made inclusive and professionalised in order to take on the ISIL effectively. The Iraqi government is widely perceived as being insensitive to the sentiments and aspirations of the minority Sunnis.

Towards a new approach

The ISIL and the Taliban share much in common. The barbarism that marked Taliban rule was evident from their wantonly blowing up ancient Buddha statues in the Bamiyan Valley in 2001. The Taliban foreign minister, Mullah Muttawakil, justified this barbaric destruction, proclaiming they were merely following the Islamic edicts of iconoclasm! The Taliban required Hindus and Sikhs to wear identity labels on their clothing.

The ISIL went one step further. Captured non-Muslims are treated as slaves and their women abducted and outraged. In Mosul and the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, the ISIL bulldozed architectural treasures, monuments and museums with the assertion that Prophet Mohammed destroyed such idols with his own hands when he entered Mecca.

The Taliban, which colluded with the hijackers of IC 814, have repeatedly attacked Indians and Indian diplomatic and consular establishments in Afghanistan. There is no reason to believe they will change when, courtesy the Obama administration, the Xi Jinping dispensation, the ISI led by Gen Rizwan Akhtar and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, they seize control of territory in Afghanistan, as the ISIL is doing in Iraq and Syria. ISIL has been described as “the most explosive Islamic movement the modern world has seen”. Is Mullah Omar’s Taliban any different? Should we not formulate a comprehensive ‘Act West’ approach to address these serious issues across and beyond our western frontiers?

The writer is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan

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