Asian security from U.S. angle

Washington's plans for a sustainable military presence in East Asia, not only retaining its "forward presence" but also seeking to update its military-strategic doctrines, dominate the third Asia Security Conference.

in Singapore

THE United States, not China or India, dominated the proceedings of the Shangri-La Dialogue, the third Asia Security Conference, which was organised in Singapore from June 4 to 6, by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The message, if it needed a renewed emphasis at all, was that Washington would not only retain its "forward presence" in the Asia-Pacific region but also seek to update its military-strategic doctrines.

At a different level, though, China's absence from the conference of political leaders (as also officials and non-governmental experts) lent a touch of the unreal to the deliberations. While India was represented by its Defence Secretary Ajay Prasad and its High Commissioner to Singapore Alok Prasad, a matter of logistical nuance was that the new Defence Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, who was scheduled to attend, did not do so apparently on account of the teething troubles of the new government in New Delhi.

In the event, even as U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke briefly about the growing relevance of both India and China to Washington's changing strategic calculus, the issues that came to the fore were discussed mainly from the U.S. perspective. These related to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the North Korean nuclear issue and Washington's plans to prune its military presence in South Korea while aiming for greater "agility", "lethality" and "precision". The lone voice of dissent was that of Malaysia. Its Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak opposed the proposed presence of "foreign soldiers or foreign assets" along the Straits of Malacca, under the new U.S.-sponsored Regional Maritime Security Initiative. The U.S. and Malaysia would, however, engage in a dialogue on this issue, it was stated at the end of the conference. Overall, given the primary attribute of the conference as a "dialogue", no consensus was reached, not even on the durability of the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

There was no serious suggestion, though, that the U.S. should pack up its military bags and quit the Asia-Pacific theatre immediately and forever. Setting the tone for the discussions, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong portrayed terrorism as the main geopolitical challenge of the current post-Cold War era in world politics. This theme resonated quite extensively among the delegates. And given the U.S.' propensity to project the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction as an aspect of the ongoing "global war against terrorism", this aspect, too, infused the discussions. However, while the issue of international terrorism was viewed almost exclusively in the current Islamic context of a campaign for a worldwide "jehad" and a new pan-Muslim "caliphate" and the like, the non-proliferation question was not viewed entirely through such a prism.

The most striking note of dissonance related to the manner in which Therese Delpech, member of the IISS Council, disputed Rumsfeld's assertion that the Pakistan-based A.Q. Khan network of nuclear weapons proliferation had not only been detected but also dismantled. Speaking at the first plenary session, Rumsfeld maintained that "the world is a better place [now]" as a result of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's "success" in dismantling the Khan network. It was during the final plenary, which discussed a related subject, that Therese Delpech took exception to such a view, without of course mentioning either Rumsfeld or India which has consistently remained sceptical about the claims that such a deep-seated "criminal enterprise" (Rumsfeld's own phrase) has indeed been forced to go "out of business".

In Therese Delpech's assessment, "there is... no assurance that the [A.Q. Khan] network is fully known [and] there is no assurance that the network is fully dismantled, for the same reason". In her reckoning, which was not challenged at the session, the U.S. has had "no direct access" to A.Q. Khan, generally regarded as the architect of Pakistan's atomic bomb. While Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) establishment had been acting as the "filter" that determined the extent of the U.S.' access to A.Q. Khan, another equally important factor prompted her scepticism. Islamabad, she underlined, had used "this particular network", in existence for "at least 15 years", as Pakistan's own "procurement network". It procured, as a state actor, the "technologies" needed for Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

Although international terrorism, in the specific context of India's perceptions of Pakistan's role in Jammu and Kashmir, was not a main conference theme, Therese Delpech was of the view that "Islamabad is not devoid of, say, ambiguity" in the "war on terrorism". The Kashmir issue was raised by Goh, in his keynote address, in the wider context of his apprehension that Kashmir could become a potential new theatre for the "jehad" campaigners in the event of a renewed India-Pakistan conflict and that Kashmir could even turn into a new breeding ground for terrorists in the same situation.

In view of the general U.S. stand of being nice to Islamabad in the current situation of Musharraf's presence at the helm there, India was not specifically identified as a victim of international terrorism. For the same reason, the relevance of Pakistan as a home to terrorists, an aspect that Musharraf himself has acknowledged now and then, was hardly discussed in any meaningful way. Rumsfeld, however, drew attention to the ongoing proliferation of terrorists in Pakistan itself and lamented that there was no sign of any effort to form an international coalition to address this lurking menace. Nor did he indicate why the U.S. itself had not so far considered it a worthwhile exercise.

On the subject of U.S.-led international coalitions for one "cause" or another, a strong view was aired by a Western participant that Washington might be better advised to look for signs whether some of the groupings it was leading were, at the strategic bottom line, little more than coalitions of reluctant partners. Rumsfeld would not, of course, accept such a characterisation, steeped as he was in the diplomatic idiom and geopolitical grammar of "coalition of the willing".

Substantive semantics apart, the discussions did drift towards questions about whether or not the South Korean people were really behind their government's sustained support for the U.S. actions in Iraq. Neither South Korea's National Defence Minister, General Cho Young-kil, nor its Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lee Soo-hyuck, chose to address the growing Korean "nationalist" backlash against U.S. activism as a serious threat that might only undermine Washington's plans for a sustainable military presence in East Asia, albeit in a more mobile formation than at present. Rumsfeld made it clear that the U.S. would no longer prefer a "static" presence, a legacy of the Cold War. Despite Washington's tendency to regard the South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun as not a particularly U.S.-friendly leader, it is still no time in Seoul to think out of the box.

On the North Korean nuclear issue, which was among the mind-teasers for the participants, who were given much dialogue space by IISS Director John Chipman, there were no opinions against the U.S. proposal for the "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantling" of Pyongyang's atomic weapons programme. Lee Soo-hyuck felt that China, which had so far played a commendable role in organising the ongoing process of "six-party talks" on the North Korean nuclear issue, had not yet come up with any substantive proposal. Given China's strategic links with North Korea, any firm proposal from Beijing would carry great weight, it was suggested. No new light was shed on the linkages between Pakistan and North Korea in the domain of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles. Although the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), currently directed mainly against Pyongyang, was commended by Rumsfeld, either at the conference itself or on the sidelines, no explicit call against the PSI was made by the participants.

Under the overall framework of the PSI, some of whose operational norms are in doubt under the present international law, the U.S. has made no secret of its intention to push for a regional maritime initiative exclusively for policing the Straits of Malacca, as an international sea-lane that facilitates enormous traffic against possible terrorist attacks as also unconventional forms of piracy and the like. With Malaysia, a littoral state directly concerned with this proposition, having opposed any shrinkage of national sovereignty and territorial integrity (in this case territorial waters), the U.S. surely has much to think about. Rumsfeld, however, has already dismissed the notion of "territorial waters" with regard to an international waterway as "utter nonsense".

As for the premise that the U.S. is the military factor for "stability" in the Asia-Pacific region, an idea which is not opposed by a number of East Asian states, the question of a Washington-sponsored ballistic missile defence system (BMD) came in for much discussion back-stage. Some Indian participants were of the view that the BMD could trigger a chain reaction if China were to try and increase its offensive nuclear weapons capabilities against a perceived U.S. move to hamstring Beijing while seeking to devise a system to thwart anti-West missile strikes by rogue states and/or terrorists. Any such response by China could prompt India, and perhaps even Pakistan, to follow suit, it was sketched out.

According to the Japanese Minister of State for Defence, Shigeru Ishiba, whose speech was read out in absentia, the concept of BMD was morally defensible. Going beyond Hideo Sato's alternative future situations that were sketched out in the early 1990s - namely, a restoration of pax Americana, the emergence of pax Nipponica, the rise of competing economic blocs and the possibility of U.S.-Japan joint leadership - official Tokyo now tends to stay as close to the U.S. position as possible, notwithstanding the growing opposition among the Japanese people to Washington's current "imperial project" in Iraq.

No less important for Asian security, though, are the strategic interactions that the U.S. should have with not only Japan and Australia but also India and China, besides the Islamic bloc as a collective reality (even if it be an amorphous entity). Selective engagement with some leaders of some Muslim countries or with some traditional allies will not do.