Asian security
I.K. Gujral

The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have deeply impacted the world's politics. This caused replacement of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan where the Karzai government is struggling to reach the threshold of stability. As our history shows, a stable Afghanistan is essential for the stability of Central and South Asia that, in turn, affects the 'Central Eurasian' security and its power balance. Unfortunately, the process of nation-building in Afghanistan is so muddled that even the foreign armies are unable to effectively tackle it. The deployment of American forces in Central Asia has added a new dimension to Central Asia and Central Eurasia. The crucial question, from the standpoint of security environment, is how long the U.S. remains in this region and how long Russia and China tolerate the activities of the NATO forces in their strategic backyard.

An unstable environment in the region has contributed to the growth of the Islamist fundamentalism that is spreading to Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. According to media, over 10,000 Uighurs had gone to Pakistan and Afghanistan for military training and 'religious' education. This would obviously concern China, whose politico-strategic response is emerging slowly.

The Central Asian Republics have not yet fully recovered from the post-cold war shocks to resist the revivalist surges in their countries. Economic stagnation has added to the instability. The authoritarian regimes are unwilling to comprehend the backlash to their oppression. Russia and China appreciate that these situations can be effectively tackled by a network of multilateral security system. The creation of SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) was a step in this direction that requires further strengthening.

The broadening arc of instability, extending from Middle East to North East to South Asia, is gravely infected by the prevailing malaise in Pakistan that now continues to breed narco-terrorism. The absence of responsible and genuinely democratic governments in some countries of South Asia is facilitating the growth of religious extremism, drug trafficking and other illicit activities. These regimes by violating basic human values are brutalising their own people, thus destroying internal social cohesion and also infecting the neighbouring societies. The war on Iraq and the socio-political churnings that followed are refusing to settle down. Being in close neighbourhood, the Afghan and Iraq situations are deeply impacting all countries of South Asia, Pakistan and India in particular.

The track record of the military regime in Pakistan in this respect is not encouraging. It is not only India, which is consequently the victim of terrorism, but Pakistan itself that is woefully destabilised. Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan refuse to learn from their own history and seek the help and support of the United States of America who plays with both in a classical style: Playing one against the other. Gen. Musharraf is busy persuading Pentagon to appreciate his strategic importance as an ally in the West's future wars against the Islamists and utilisation of the U.S. bases in Baluchistan.

The leaders of the Indian democratic polity are victims of a similar syndrome. Though India is unwilling to allow the U.S. to act as a 'facilitator' but Musharraf is outbidding in asking the U.S. to mediate on the Kashmir issue as part of its roadmap for normalisation of Indo-Pak relations. It should be obvious to both that by looking outwards, the region cannot strengthen the environment of mutual trust, security and stability. The Indian policy makers live in the belief that in the era of globalisation, there is a natural coincidence of its interests with the U.S. This need not be misconstrued as 'anti-Americanism' but a realistic assessment of the international scenario should make us re-examine our policy paradigms. As it is, the area of instability is extending from the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Malacca Straits, covering the whole of South Asia in the middle. Even though the ouster of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was justified, the same cannot be said about the overthrow of the Saddam regime. The American occupation of the oil-rich country has not brought peace or stability to West and South-West Asia. The spillover effects of these developments continue to haunt us and are likely to affect the situation in the Xinjiang and some parts of Tibet. The situation in India-the hub of South Asian sub-continent-cannot remain unaffected by the developments in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The two close neighbours of India-Nepal and Sri Lanka-are faced with grave challenges to their integrity and stability. This should cause concern to forces of good neighbourliness and peace calling for a shared security outlook that may not let the outsider hegemonies to permanently stay in the region.

The unseemly competition to curry U.S. favours and even think of sending troops to Iraq to stabilise occupation is bound to have a disastrous effect on peace and stability in our region. The need of the hour is to take a holistic view of the sources of threat to peace and stability in the West Asian, Central Asian, and South Asian regions as a whole and identify the real purpose that impels the neo-cons to sustain the iniquitous and unjust international order without correcting the basic faults in the outdated and unworkable international financial and economic system.

The colonialists, both old and new, have their own designs for integration of the north-western part of the South Asian sub-continent into West Asia on the basis of religion. Their projection of Pakistan as a West Asian power was an attempt in this direction. A high priest of British imperialism, Sir Olaf Caroe, former Governor of N.W.F.P. had, while lamenting the end of the Raj, projected Pakistan as part of West Asia. The neo-imperialists are saying the same but in reverse order. They are trying to project the South Asian stakes in the Persian Gulf region, including Iraq, which is reminiscent of the days of the British rule in India when the administration of the Persian Gulf and South Arabian region (Aden Protectorate) was under the British power in India. This may tempt some myopic policy makers who do not see the pitfalls confronting such outlooks. 'The Clash of Civilizations' thesis of Huntington provides an ideological justification for the new imperial policy openly advocated in the United States by the strategists like Richard Haas, Robert Kaplan and others. Unilateralism and 'clash of civilisations' are incarnations of the hegemonistic geo-political ideas which served the colonies in the cold-war era. With the North Korean nuclear imbroglio still unresolved, it is likely to destabilise that region as well. In the American interest and the Chinese interest, these regions are not coinciding in this respect.

It is time that all Asians who had suffered the three centuries of imperial rule, reject these concepts and take a collective challenge of destabilisation lurking before Asia in general and South, West and Central Asia, in particular. In a situation where the South Asian sub-continent and the areas adjacent to it in West Asia and Central Asia are facing grave threats of destabilisation, it is all the more important to strengthen, in every possible manner, the bilateral and regional initiatives to meet these situations. Instead of looking to Washington and London for mediation or intervention to stabilise the region, the Asian states must themselves come forward with creative initiatives to build an effective structure of Asian peace and stability in the spirit of the UN Charter which endorses a regional security system. The three survivors in the East Asia economic crisis-India, Russia and China-have an important obligation to help forge a system of Asian security and cooperation which will go a long way to revive the global economy ridden with a deep crisis.

(I.K. Gujral is former foreign minister and prime minister of India).