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Counterpunch - Oct 3, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad10032007.html

Gang of Four

The Buoyant Bush Agenda in Asian Waters

By VIJAY PRASHAD

In 1954, India's Jawaharlal Nehru told the Parliament that his
government opposed military pacts because they converted areas of peace
"into an arena of potential war." The South East Asian Treaty
Organization (SEATO) was not intended to provide security to the
countries of South-East Asia alone. Formed in Manila, SEATO included
the US, and because of the presence of this major power, Nehru argued,
"it inclines dangerously in the direction of spheres of influence to be
exercised by powerful countries. After all, it is the big and powerful
countries that will decide matters and not the two or three weak and
small Asian countries that may be allied to them."

SEATO remains in effect. But it has recently been supplanted by a more
ambitious undertaking. Once more in Manila, this time at the sidelines
of an Association of South-East Asian Nations regional meeting in May
2007, four states (the US, Japan, Australia and India) met to create
the Quadrilateral Initiative, also called the Quad or the Axis of
Democracy.

Over the past five or six years, the navies of these four countries
have conducted a series of bilateral and trilateral military exercises.
In April, the US, Japan and India held a naval drill in the Sea of
Japan. The Indian and US navies have jointly operated in the Indian
Ocean, notably near the strategic Straits of Malacca. These games
culminated this September, when the navies of the four powers held a
joint exercise called Malabar 07 in the Bay of Bengal. Thirteen US
warships joined seven Indian, two Australian and two Japanese (apart
from one Singaporean frigate). The substantial presence was Indian and
American.

Indeed, the Indian government led by the Congress Party has moved quite
eagerly into an alliance with the Bush agenda. In 2005, the US and
India announced a new strategic partnership based on the foundation
that both are formal democracies that have some shared interests. This
relationship had been fostered for a decade by increased economic and
military ties. One part of this new framework was the US-India nuclear
deal, which opened the door for nuclear commerce and for a further
weakening of the international framework against nuclear proliferation
(a framework already battered by the refusal of the "nuclear powers" to
countenance disarmament). When Bush took office in 2001, he
substantially withdrew the sanctions placed on US trade with India as a
result of the 1998 nuclear tests. From the start, long before 9/11, the
Bush agenda included drawing India into an alliance along with its
closest partners (Japan and Australia). The Bush team and the Indian
Congress are eager to portray this nuclear deal as a stand-alone
arrangement over energy policy. In actuality, it is a welcome mat for
the creation of a new geo-political alliance, with India, Japan and
Australia in a sub-imperial role. To push the Bush hegemony, the
targets at the two ends of Asia are China and Iran, both of whom have
emerged as convenient instruments to energize new military pacts that
benefit the Bush agenda.

Isolate Iran.

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Delhi in 2006, she
urged the Indian government to break its historical ties with Iran.
Rice focused on Asia's new peace pipeline, a gas duct that would travel
from Iran through Pakistan into India. This major undertaking was
expected to tie these three countries into an energy arrangement and to
deter rash move toward instability (such as the Kargil War of 1999).
But it meant that the Indian government would maintain its close ties
with Iran. Instead, Rice promised to make up for the energy shortfall
with nuclear energy (although this is estimated to cover only 7% of
India's considerable energy needs). The centrality of the nuclear deal
for the Bush team was not economic, but it was to find another level
for its political project of isolating Iran.

The US government demanded a quid pro quo for the nuclear deal with
India: India must vote against Iran at the IAEA (which they did in 2005
and 2006, "coerced" by the US, as former US Assistant Secretary of
International Security and Non-Proliferation Stephen Rademaker said
earlier this year). In 2006, the Hyde Act intended to bypass US law on
nonproliferation and pave the road for nuclear commerce with India
demanded that the US government "secure India's full and active
participation in United States efforts to dissuade, isolate and if
necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons
of mass destruction." Representative Tom Lantos (Democrat) fulminated,
"I want to be damn sure that India is mindful of US policies in
critical areas such as US policy towards Iran. India cannot pursue a
policy vis-à-vis Iran which takes no account of US foreign policy
objectives." Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat) wanted an amendment that
demanded that India cut its ties with Iran, a position that was
rejected by the anyway bellicose US Congress. What they voted for was
deemed a sufficient message to Iran.

Encircle China.

The Quad's ships went toward the Straits of Malacca that connect the
Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. This inlet is the pathway to
almost 100,000 ships a year (to increase by 50% in less than twenty
years). Half of China's oil supplies go through the channel (a quarter
of all world oil shipments make the passage). The message to China was
clear: the Quad is capable of shutting down the Straits and throttling
China's economy.

This hostile intent is very public. In the Pentagon's 2006 defense
review, the Generals write, "Of all the major and emerging powers,
China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United
States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time
offset traditional US military advantages absent US counterstrategies."
Of the counterstrategic measures proposed, the most important one is
"security cooperation and engagement activities including joint
training exercises, senior staff talks, and officer and foreign
internal defense training to increase understanding, strengthen allies
and partners, and accurately communicate US objectives and intent." The
picture that graces this section of the report is of a US F-15 Eagle
pilot in discussion with a Japanese F-15 pilot at Nyutabaru Air Base,
Japan, and the caption reads, "The US alliance with Japan is important
to the stability in the Asia-Pacific region."

At Sophia University, when Rice was asked about China she drew not only
upon the Japanese connection, but also India and South Korea. "I really
do believe that the U.S.-Japan relationship, the U.S.-South Korean
relationship, the U.S.-Indian relationship, all are important in
creating an environment in which China is more likely to play a
positive role than a negative role." Despite her demurs that these are
not anti-China alliances, the basic message is that they are designed
to make China behave in a positive (pro-US hegemony) way or else it
will have to face the consequences. Rear Admiral Rick Wren, the
commander of the USS Kitty Hawk, was far less diplomatic. He told the
International Herald Tribune, "Certainly we are a bit wary of China.
They seem to be fairly opaque in communicating what they intend to do
with this large military buildup." The Australian government is as
candid as Wren, with its worry that Chinese military modernization
"could create misunderstandings and instability in the region."

The Shakening of the East.

As NATO expands eastwards, and as the Quad comes into effect, both
China and Russia have reacted with exertions of their own. In a
forthcoming book from New Delhi's LeftWord Books, the former diplomat
M. K. Bhadrakumar considers that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
is becoming a "NATO of the East." Formed in 1996, the SCO includes
Russia, China, and four of the Central Asian states (it was initially
called the Shanghai Five, and renamed in 2001 when Uzbekistan joined).
As the Quad formulated its own moves, the SCO countries conducted a
military exercise of their own, the Peace Mission 2007 held in
Chelyabinsk in Russia's Volga-Ural region, as well as in Urumqi, in
China's Xinjiang. The 6500 troops that took part in this exercise
showcased not only their military prowess, but also the increasing
cooperation between China and Russia. When Washington, Tokyo, Canberra
and New Delhi are asked if their military moves are a threat to China,
they typically say that there exercises are for goodwill and not for
threats. Mimicking this kind of rhetoric, Russia's Sergei Ivanov said
of the SCO games, "The military exercise is not targeted at a third
country." The heat, in other words, is up.

The Quad is not on firm foundation. Japan's Shinzo "Flame of Reform"
Abe crash-landed in the Diet, when the Japanese people failed to back
his moves to remilitarize the country. His successor, Yasuo "Do it to
me" Fukuda is weakened and is anyway far less liable to be as
militaristic as Abe. Australia's John "One Australia" Howard, in his
fourth term as Prime Minister, enjoys low popularity ratings, largely
because of his continued support for the Iraq Occupation, and for his
enthusiasm for the Bush agenda. One reason Howard is keen on the
militarization of Japan is that Australia's exertions in the Gulf mean
that it does not have the military power to extend its paws into the
South Seas and South-East Asia; it needs Japan. But even the
Conservatives are unclear about their prospects in the forthcoming
elections, with Labor's Kevin Rudd holding firm at a 65% approval
rating. India's Communist parliamentarians have the Congress Party's
feet to the fire; their principled anti-imperialism will not allow any
concession toward allowing India to become the sub-imperial contractor
for the G-7 countries. "The Americans will ask us to snap relations
with Iran and scrap our gas pipeline project," said the Communist Party
of India (Marxist)'s General Secretary, Prakash Karat. "This is an
attack on our sovereignty. The Left will not allow the US to shape
Indian foreign policy."

In the US, meanwhile, a handful of people know about Bush's agenda on
the high Asian seas. Bush is unpopular, but Bushism is a doctrine
widely shared among the ruling elites. The Democrats and the
Republicans are united in their view that US primacy must be preserved
at all costs, and that China and Iran threaten this position. The
anti-war movement's concentration on Iraq, and now Iran, is
strategically important, but it also serves to blind the public on the
broader agenda, notably what is unfolding in the Indian Ocean, in the
South China Sea and in the Sea of Japan.

It is time for the anti-war movement to broaden its analysis, to put up
banners against the Quad and its ancillary strategic partnerships. As
Nehru said in 1954, these alliances do not create a zone of peace; they
manifest themselves as a region of potential war. That war, against
China, against Iran, might not occur in the next few months, or even in
the next few years. But if this kind of buildup continues it will
happen inevitably in the future.

[Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian
History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College,
Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of
the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at:
]

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