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>From http://www.antiwar.com/goldstein/pf/p-g052702.html
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Airstrip One
by Christopher Montgomery
Antiwar.com
May 27, 2002
Conspiracy Corner
The 39 Steps to Nowhere
There's one very good reason why conspiracies are so genuinely rare in international
relations, and
that's because, although you can hide what you're doing, you can't very often hide
why you might do it. In other words, 'secret diplomacy' and everything more Bondian
beneath that is all well and good, but the interests of a state are sitting out in
full view
for anyone and everyone to have a go at apprehending what they are. Foreign policy
actors may and do pursue their ends by covert means every now and again –
though, in truth, the scope for achieving significant results from this approach is,
history suggests, slight – but those ends are, by their very nature, in full sight.
Rare is
the regime whose aims are obscure; indeed, inter-state instability throughout all
recorded time has had this very factor at the root cause of more wars than every
other put together.
When writing about foreign policy, a more useful, though less sexy term than
'conspiracy theory' would be 'credible narrative'. This, by its very nature, has all
the
substance of your traditional, free floating conspiracy theory, but, as opposed to
historical writing, which attempts to explain why whatever has just happened has just
happened, a 'credible narrative' is more of an instant effort to say, 'this has
happened'. What a credible narrative seeks to do then, is to point to what is in full
view and say, 'look, these facts ought to be viewed thus'.
One such narrative that, completely without evidence, I always found absent and
convincing concerns the international, and specifically American reaction to the
Indian, and consequent Pakistani, nuclear tests of 1998. In a nutshell, and to avoid
any of those embarrassing 'and here from my last paragraph, I produce a ten of
clubs, a white rabbit and, whoah, a way out there conclusion' moments, I think that
the United States deliberately let go this Indian escalation because she was happy to
see a potential regional rival to China built up. There you go, paranoid, unsupported
by trivia such as evidence, but as liable to be 'true' as any of the other explanations
lying between the poles of Clintonian incompetence and muddle-headed liberal
pragmatism. An obvious reason for writing about this supposition is the cheerful talk
in the sub-continent (with any number of hacks being glad that were able to find [sic]
an anonymous Indian sufficiently senior to attribute the inevitable, 'well, we could
afford to lose, oh, 25 million, but could they?' quote to) of nuclear war. The other
reason, and more pertinent to this column, though not perhaps to the wider
Antiwar.com project, is that, as ever, Britain's diplomacy during and after the 1998
tests shows that we have no inclination in reaching out for independence.
The Failure of Western Policy in South Asia
Some of you aren't going to like this because I'm going to use the language of, to be
fusty, 'great power politics'. There are two likely grounds why you might flinch: 1.)
you're essentially liberal opponents of war, and hold that even to think in these terms
is to subscribe to an inherently aggressive worldview, inimical to peace; or, though
why you're reading this, God only knows, you're 2.) a sophisticated fellow, someone
who works for a foreign ministry, or an international agency, or reads The Economist,
or teaches International Relations at Stanford, and you shudder at the obsolescence
of the language. 'That's not', you might kindly observe, 'really the way to understand
the world as it is'. Which is a debate, and one we shouldn't shy away from on the
right hand side of the fence, but it's not an important one, for we understand, whether
Tories or libertarians, truths about states few liberals have an interest in admitting.
That said, let's advance some general principles for what Western interests might
have reasonably be said, from a conservative point of view, to have been in that
period when first India, then, in response, Pakistan merely confirmed what we all
knew, that they had a limited nuclear capability.
We can't have liked this as:
· we do want to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons because: (i.) unstable
regimes should not have access to them, & (ii.) it does 'lessen' our own weight in the
world for others to get them;
· the US, still hegemon, had responsibilities incumbent upon her because of that
famed 'global leadership' and failed to discharge them;
· as things, entirely predictably, worked out, pitiful non-sanctions were pointlessly
imposed on both countries (whereas meaningfully severe sanctions imposed quickly
on India might have deterred Pakistan, and thus kept the pressure concentrated
where it should have been, upon New Delhi); the result of this was, of course, to
India's benefit in the short term. She was able withstand sanctions far better than her
western neighbour; however, in the longer term, this policy failure – even if the
corrupt regime in Islamabad had wanted to hold off going nuclear, there, due to
Western passivity, was no sellable benefit to hand to be touted about for doing so –
contributed mightily to the domestic tensions that saw Sharif's government consume
itself from within, and be replaced in due course by Musharraf's.
All in all, a clear example of what non-intervention can do, and why being anti-war
and anti-intervention are not conterminous.
>From a British perspective . . .
The new Labour government failed to offer any leadership within the Commonwealth
during the testing crisis. This, in turn, contributes to its ongoing decline into utter
irrelevance, and, by default, confines us to the straight-jacket of the EU. For the
greatest problem advocates of British independence has is that as far as the political
class believe, TINA rules the roost. There Is No Alternative, whether to the Atlantic
Alliance, or membership of the EU, or worse still, both, is the order of the day. If we
are to break free from this shrew's palsied grip, we have to see where there were
and are alternatives for Britain. We have to kill TINA. That's why the quintessentially
FCO'd approach the new Prime Minister, and the new Foreign Secretary (then, Robin
Cook) took stands proud as impotence looking for an excuse.
What we actually did, and as ever, in America's wake, was to make vague noises
about this attack on the Western order, some of us (though not Britain or any major
EU state) impose puny sanctions for a while; and our whole strategy publicly rested
on the assumption that, with the Pakistani test out of the way we can get on with the
business of getting both states into the non-proliferation regime. Which was silly as
this happy schema was never going to pan out (i.e. both countries then were
escalating the crisis by adapting missiles for nuclear use, and, would subsequently
operate not in the static environment of, e.g. Cold War Europe, but all too hot
Kashmir).
How sensible or realistic a course was the one we pursued? Not very. India and
Pakistan, ignoring what too many British and American officials saw as the economic
logic of their position (and the fact that both lacked outside sponsors in this
enterprise) justified measured inaction on its own grounds: this will blow itself out,
it's
just something they have to do. Yet, what now convinces further aspirant nuclear
states that there is the likelihood of concerted, multi-lateral/US led reaction, which
sufficiently damages the aspirant's national interests to the point whereby 'gaining'
nuclear weapons is not worth the candle? Nothing. As ever the biggest drawback to
US leadership in this arena is that its client Israel possesses vast quantities of
nuclear material – and this is a client that exerts a dangerous influence on the
patron, even to the point of blinding her to her own selfish interests. But what if the
US, in the era of neo-con sponsored madness about China (and really, go back and
read what those idiots were writing under the dying years of Clinton – in fact, next
week I'll remind you by having a good old laugh at Present Dangers), was making a
rational calculation? That preserving, indeed, enhancing the military credit of a
nation
once already, since independence, trounced by the PRC was a Good Thing, if your
military bureaucracy, and its camp followers told you, 'war's a coming'? Look at that
map of Kashmir the next time you see, and ponder on the other dotted international
border, and remember that India wants revanche in more directions than one.
A Missed Opportunity
Now, you're totally not going to like this, but one of the great tragedies to all this
was
that Pakistan was there for the taking as a client. Weirdly enough, the readership of
Antiwar.com, as far as I can provoke it into writing to me, is just littered with U.S.
patriots (remember, because the ethos of the site is connected to tiny things like, uh,
why Americans should reject imperialism and foreign wars, you're habitually smeared
as being unpatriotic by your neo-con brothers). Well, when I say patriot, I mean what
leftists quite fairly depict too many on the right as being: insecure, tub-thumping
nationalists, who take any implied criticism of their country as a personal rebuke. The
best way they find to express annoyance at this insult is, naturally, to lash out at
your
(specifically, my) country. This takes two main forms, both equally indicative of less
than total self-assurance, namely, every global problem is, ultimately, Britain's
historic fault, or, we're so pitiful that we, not a single one of us, should even have
an
opinion on foreign policy – that's for the big boys.
That was all by way of a digression; obviously, Pakistan as a client, or, if you
prefer,
responsive friend, was a more pertinent issue for those with more need of friends,
because their foreign policy forces itself into every corner of the planet. My point
simply being that, as I'm about to attempt to show, the friendship of Pakistan, now so
important and still less than fulsome, was there to have in spades if the response of
the nuclear testing had been that bit more intelligent.
Britain, in her response, failed yet again to give a lead to a coherent Commonwealth
foreign policy agenda. And this was a very grievous instance, with the likes of
Australia and New Zealand crying out for serious G-5/G8 leadership – which
manifestly the US was not going to deliver on. Then there was the fact that taking a
stance would have pleasingly set us apart from the EU (and very far apart from the
French) - we could have lead vocal condemnation of India, orchestrating calls for
punitive diplomatic measures against her, in short, grandstanded, and then some.
This, overblown as it sounds to the 'Britain's inherently crap, give it up' brigade
(and
as I say, there's as numerous here at home as they are amongst Weekly Standard
readers getting a dirty thrill from visiting this sire), is the sort of thing we have
to gear
ourselves up to doing if we're to be a credible great power. The US, and the
Russians do do this sort of thing, the Chinese would if they could, the French would
bite their arm off for a semblance of the opportunity, and we too have to be up for it.
Pakistan, and this statement was just as relevant in 1998 as it is today, is a
'frontline
state' worth preserving as a bulwark of British interests. She is being undermined
internally by at least India and Iran, as well as the corrosive effect of her own
religious militants and endemic political malfeasance, and she could best mature
politically and strategically under a perfectly competent foreign nuclear umbrella. But
this is now as dust. For pity's sake, just as theatre, even Britain could have
considered rushing, purely as a short term expedient, military assets to Pakistan just
to show solidarity. The surface point of this would have been to reassure the
Pakistanis that they didn't need to go down the dangerous atomic road the Indians
just had; the subtext would have been, we get nothing out of India as it is, let's
offer a
hand of friendship to someone who needs it and see what happens. Such an alliance
would have acted as a restraint upon Pakistan these last four years, for serious allies
provide all-important security (diminishing the trend towards rashness from
desperation), and, they act as a backstop, i.e. states formulate policies with a view
to
what their allies will wear, the maintenance of the alliance rapidly becoming an end in
itself.
Imagine the sort of superbly disingenuous speech a Bevinite new Labour foreign
secretary could have delivered in 1998:
India is in great danger on her present course of throwing away the leadership of
South Asia. In a country with such great economic problems relating to the mass
poverty of her people, the tactically foolish and strategically useless acquisition of
nuclear weapons will cost ordinary Indians dear. Already British, Commonwealth and
European aid has been cut off, and we are working in the UN to agree
comprehensive sanctions on this rogue and isolated state. In the Commonwealth we
have supported the move to suspend Indian membership, and we are giving a lead in
the EU to measures to co-ordinate aid and trade policy there.
By being apparently bad you can do good. This is not a profound insight, but it's a
relevant one when you in a country whose institutional attitude to foreign policy is,
'yeah, we're keen on decency, really quite priggish in our outlook, but all we'll ever
do
internationally is keep our heads down so at least we don't positively do bad'.
Way Out, and Helping Friends As We Go
I keep coming back to the historic existence of alternatives because it is the
perceptual - conceptual even, for some – absence thereof that convinces the
governing British elite to subscribe to the inept foreign policy it does. Take, in the
same timeframe, Indonesia. That was another case where, separate of the EU and
the Americans, we could have helped give a lead to the concerned and affected
Commonwealth states - Australia and New Zealand. They sought it, we flunked it.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, every which way you look at it, if you
want to
see Toryism in Britain again, John Howard is the man to turn to for an example. Or
take Cuba - a revived, collaborative Commonwealth would as one mobilise behind
British support for the Canadian line on Havana. This wouldn't make a teaspoonful of
warm spit's difference to the situation in Cuba, but that's not the point. The Point is
that even Canada – Canada – can venture dissent where it won't matter, and the
beauty of this is that you start building alliances were it's safe to do so.
Even as things stand, tomorrow, before UK and Canadian ministers attend G8
meetings or sub- meetings, or before the UK attends serious Security Council hoe-
downs London could evolve the practice that papers are submitted, normally by the
resident High Commissioners, or by External Affairs Ministers, for discussion and co-
ordination. Whitehall could make a show of discussing things with Commonwealth
allies. Thereby a rough stab would have been at a 'common position'. This both
would give meaning to a revived Commonwealth (i.e. it would give access to the top
table for those who currently lack it, and never will possess it as of right), and it
would
enhance Britain's position at the top table as she would be speaking with a still
louder
voice.
The problem for, for example, Australia and Canada, is not that are incapable of
pursuing distinctly Australian and Canadian foreign policy goals. It is that the means
by which they have chosen, a subordinate alliance with the disproportionate power of
the United States, is misguided. It is especially misguided in that the United States,
rightly, does not have their interests at heart. They, by being slavish, directly
contribute to the power of the US over them, and over each other. Every notion of
how any of the English speaking countries outside of America can break free of her
grasp indicates the same practical and paradoxical conclusion: by coming together,
only then can they follow their own courses.
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