US might fall short of allies to deter China

By: Azhar Azam

This is one of my pieces, which originally appeared in China Global Television Network (CGTN) website:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e35556a4e33457a6333566d54/index.html)

Until 2016, the policymakers in the White House and the Pentagon believed that despite its growing economic, political, and military influence in the Asia Pacific (APAC) – China is not predestined to become a competitor to the United States.

The Department of Defense (DOD) logged that although such Chinese activities pose a significant challenge to American’s position in the vital APAC region but the US envisions an expanded China’s cooperation on regional and global security challenges.

In 2017, it lined-up Beijing in the queue of potential adversaries however still didn’t perceive any immediate threat from Beijing. The Pentagon went all-out at China in 2018, accusing it for using ‘predatory economics’ to seek ‘Indo-Pacific hegemony’ and the displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in future.

Now almost pleading to the US Congress for a whopping $750 billion defense budget request for FY2020, the DOD faintly conceded that the United States lost its cold-war era military dominance to China and Russia.

It impugned that several damaging trends like budget instability, the decades-long anti-terrorism campaign, and unfocused strategic vision allowed China and Russia to undermine US global influence and to narrow DOD’s military technological advantages through increased spending in war-fighting capability.

Pentagon’s newer ‘strategy driven budget’ now focuses to find new partners and strengthen alliances with Australia, Japan, and South Korea as well as through agreements and bilateral engagements with India, Vietnam, and Indonesia to generate decisive and sustained military advantages against China in the Asia Pacific region.

Refuting January’s US intelligence report that warned about expanding Chinese and Russian global influence, particularly in Middle East and East Asia – the fresher DOD strategy backs its program to reduce forces in in Middle East and departure from the two-war construct.

The DOD also ignored to weigh the US intelligence assessment, which noted that some of the US allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade and are becoming more open to new bilateral and multilateral partnerships.

The recent developments show a major policy shift in the US foreign policy – apparently forfeiting Middle East to China and Russia and focusing more on China’s growing influence in Asia Pacific that accounts for about 55% of the global population and nearly 43% of the global GDP.

Through exploiting the border and territorial disputes between China and its neighboring countries – Washington is pursuing a ‘greater plan’ to circumscribe Beijing through its regional allies, eventually to blight Beijing’s economic and strategic interest in Asia and the Pacific.

But gallingly to the United States – China is the largest trading partner of Australia, one of US close allies, in terms of both imports and exports. In last financial year, roughly 34% of the Australian exports went to China while its imports from China accounted for 22.5%. So, falling to Washington’s trap could jeopardize the much higher Australian economic stakes.

At the same time, the historically strained relations between China and Japan have significantly improved after last year; the Sino-Nippon agreed to play-down the differences and agreed on everything from currency swaps to ocean rescue. Also in 2018, Abe became the first Japanese prime minister to visit Beijing after seven years.

On the other hand, even though the US-Korean ties survived the deterioration pinch followed by cost-sharing agreement between the two countries on keeping 28,500 US troops in South Korea, but the tensed Japanese-Korean relations continue to remain a hitch for the success of the US bigger plan to form a trilateral alliance against China in the region.

While THAAD has been a stick diplomatic issue between Beijing and Seoul, the US-China trade war is dolling blows to already struggling South Korean economy. As South Korea relies heavily on semiconductor chips exports (26% of the country’s total exports) to China, Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods have slashed the demand for its electronic items in China by 14%. And if the US-China tiff ripens into a ‘full-blown trade war’, it could incur a loss of up to $37 billion to the trailing economy.

Washington has long hoped that Japan and South Korea could sort out their conflicts and help it to control China’s unstoppable economic and strategic marches; nevertheless the bonds between the two nations have repeatedly crawled from one to another.

While Washington fails to forge US-Japan-Korea alliance against China, instead a counter China-Japan-Korea alliance is evolving. On December 6 and 7, the three nations held fourteenth round of negotiations on free trade agreement (FTA) in Beijing and discussed the progress on Regional Comprehensive Economic partnership (RCEP).

Parenthetically, the 16-membered RCEP includes all of US allies – Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam – it is counting on to check China’s streaming strides across the region and beyond.

Earlier this month, the trade ministers from all sixteen nation-states including China agreed to resolve issues – such as tariffs, intellectual property, and transfer of information technology – with the aim of reaching a comprehensive agreement by the end of the year.

In these rapidly changing global proceedings, the United States could quickly fall short of allies to execute its strategy ‘to compete, deter, and win’ over China and might have very soon be craved to revamp it in an age of ‘great power competition’.

State Department Data on Global Arms Trade is Patently Absurd

By: Azhar Azam

In 2014, the Boeing’s F-18 assembly line in St. Louis was expected to close down within two and half years after the US Navy decided to shift from F-18 to Lockheed Martin-manufactured F-35. Similar projections were also made about F-15 production line, which would come to an end after fulfilling a large order from Saudi Arabia.

Nevertheless, the two large deals with a pair of other American key partners in Middle East – Kuwait and Qatar – prevented those production lines from closures, helping their operations to extend into at least 2020.

The United States, followed by Russia, France, Germany, and China, is the largest arms exporter in the world. Incidentally the same five countries are also the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which is primarily responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Arms sales radically contribute to the US defense industry, a sector which directly employees 2.5 million workers. Every year, the US government manages about $40 billion of defense equipment transfers under foreign military sales (FMS).

The US Department of State’s report ‘World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT)’, published in December 2018, said – the United States accounted for the largest share of about 80% or $159.9 billion in the global arms deliveries that totaled $189.4 billion in 2016. The financial value of these arms transfers exceeds SIPRI’s estimate of $88.4 by whooping 114%.

According to the 36th edition of annual report on arms transfers – Russia ($11.9bn), Germany ($5.4bn), France ($4.2bn), and United Kingdom ($4.0bn) were the other leading arms suppliers in the world.

‘During the period (2006-2016), about 80% of the world arms trade, by value, appears to have been supplied by the United States, about 10% by the European Union, about 5% by Russia, and less than 2% by China. The U.S. share of the world arms market appears to have grown, while the EU share appears to have diminished, with no clear trend in the Russian and Chinese shares.’

It continued to drop ‘bombshells’, revealing that ‘unspecified or multinational entities’ and Japan were the largest arms recipients with imports of $43.9 billion and $24.9 billion respectively in 2016. The data also showed that both these political groups’ arms imports averaged $42.0 billion and $26.0 billion correspondingly for 2014-16.

US State Department elaborates the ‘unspecified or multinational entities’ as those which are the US exports mainly to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other international entities. The arms imports on account of this particular area saw a sharp increase from $3.0 billion in 2006 to peak $43.9 billion in 2016.

Despite 13% decline in arms imports, Japan continued to lead the global arms imports from 2006 through 2016, the report said. The Japanese arms imports averaged $20.5 billion for the 11-year period, which was substantially higher than the other leading arms importing nations’ mean: Saudi Arabia ($6.2bn); UK ($10.2bn); and South Korea ($6.9bn). The decline in the UK and the rise in Saudi Arms imports over the previous few years enabled the Kingdom to emerge third-largest arms buyer in the world.

Where is India, the most-hyped arms buying nation world over? Surprisingly it wasn’t even amongst the US State Department’s top-10. With a global share of just 2%, India ($4.1bn) was ranked 14th in leading arms importers in the world for 2016 – trailing behind Italy, Algeria, Egypt, United States, Iraq, Israel, Australia, UAE and others. Interestingly, the United States, the largest arms exporter was slotted at No. 10 in the biggest arms buyers listing.

Nevertheless, the WMEAT data contains some serious disparities with some of the other reports and estimates.

A report to Congressional Research Service (CRS) in December 2016 told that the United States ($16.9bn), Russia ($7.2bn), France ($7.0bn), China ($2.9bn), Italy ($1.8bn), Germany ($1.6bn), and the United Kingdom ($1.3bn) were the leading arms exporters to the world in 2015. Total arms deliveries by leading arms suppliers were $40.8 billion for the same year.

The latest of the CRS reports on arms transfers further said that only $33.6 billion of arms were supplied to the developing countries in the world (ostensibly the largest arms buyers). Egypt ($5.3bn), Iraq ($5.0bn), Saudi Arabia ($4.5bn), India ($1.9bn), and Algeria ($1.6bn) were the largest arms recipients in 2015.

Another report by Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) said that the US defense industry, which is composed of defense equipment manufacturing and service-providing conglomerates, shipped $20 billion of exports in 2017. In the last 10 years, the country’s defense-related exports grew considerable 75% from $11.5 billion in 2007.

It additionally noted that geographically, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Middle East were the largest destination of the US defense equipment – accounting for 62% of the total defense exports or $12.5 billion in 2017.

Moreover Security Assistance Monitor (SAM), a Center of International Policy program forecasted that the United States’ global arms deliveries totaled $26.9 billion in 2016 and $30.9 billion in 2017 – much lower to the State Department’s recent assertions.

Reminiscing that AIA and SAM extracts data from the US defense statistics and underscoring the CRS report, the recurrent irrationalities on the value of global arms trade by US State Department is patently absurd.

Geopolitics Now: Turning a Blind Eye on Historic Human Coercion and Carnage

By: Azhar Azam

‘Geopolitics’ is a complex global practice, which is scripted by every nation-state to serve its very own national interests. Through the course of its enactment, the countries embrace all sorts of channels from impeccable diplomacy to obscene military-use.

A country can be one’s adored ally and at the same time, it can warm up towards the enemy of its closest ally. The era of ‘with us or against us’ has quickly disappeared and now the world is opening up to form new geopolitical configurations.

During the World War-II, China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States were the four major allies, billed as Big Four or Four Policemen. These four, along with other allies, formed the latter named United Nations against the Axis powers (Rome-Berlin-Tokyo) to curb their aggression.

Much has changed today. The ‘Four Sheriffs’ bloc is shattered and has rived into two parts, China-Russia and the US-UK. Nowadays Italy, Germany, and Japan are no more the Axis powers; rather they have grown into economic giants and are the axis of development and growth. Incidentally two of Axis powers, Germany and Italy, are NATO members while Japan is also a major Non-NATO ally.

In the changing global models, Moscow and Washington are the predestined foes but they can still manage to closely tie up with one common super ally, Israel. The US is protecting Japan from North Korean, Chinese, and Russian threats. China once seeking US support from the former Soviet Union is now a Russian partner.

Today India can classify its bromance with Israel as ‘marriage made in heaven’ and at the same time, can remit deep harmony for Palestinians. On the other hand, Israel can sustain promising relations with Indian adversary, China.

India can develop strategic and trade ties with the United States at the cost of its all-time ally, Russia and in a rejoinder Russia can welcome its cold war rival, Pakistan. Then off course, the China and Pakistan can describe their relationship as ‘all-weather friendship’ which is ‘sweeter than honey’.

Washington can discount New Delhi’s strong economic and strategic ties with Tehran hoping to contain Beijing’s growing influence but Iran can yet preserve apex rapport with China. Iran can openly intervene in Syria to protect Assad regime and can combat with the US-backed opposition factions without any threats to its sovereignty. Both Iran and Israel can be the vilest enemies but can be very close to China and Russia.

Iran and Saudi Arabia can spawn crucial differences but still can manage to vote unanimously on Jerusalem. Washington can be tightly tied with Riyadh and simultaneously can duck to Iranian intervention in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and UAE can ignore the Pakistan-India historic tiffs and can be aligned with either of them.

The United States can downplay Pakistan role in war on terror and can also bolster knots with Pakistan’s one of the most reliable affiliate, Saudi Arabia. Pakistan can warm up towards cold war rival, Russia, while the US and Russia can talk in Moscow to resolve Afghanistan dilemma.

Afghanistan would have been the Pakistan’s unsurpassed neighboring country over the years but historically an Indian victor, Kabul can now abhor Islamabad and can greet New Delhi on its soil with open arms.

Albeit several downturns in relations during Erdogan stint, Turkey can retain diplomatic and trade relations with Israel and can also endure brotherly ties with Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Like New Delhi, Ankara can also manage to get close to both Washington and Moscow in tandem.

North Korea may be the most-hated country for the Americans but the United States can ignore the direct nuclear threats and also the sweet India-North Korea relations – instead can focus on ‘terror havens’ in Pakistan.

Africa can be a bone of contention for international forces in the backdrop of rich natural resources like timber, oil, and diamonds – snubbing the intense killings, human rights abuses, and massive human displacement in a number of African countries.

Nearly all of the European countries including the United Kingdom can generally have good relations with all the countries around the world despite supporting US wars on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere – killing millions, directly or indirectly.

Kashmiris can be a victim of Indian oppressions, Palestinians can be assailed by Israel, and Rohingyas can be persecuted by Myanmar but international community can afford to just condemn or pass resolutions but never forgetting to propagate odd armed resistance.

This is how ‘geopolitics’ neglects gross human rights violations, human carnage, and human persecutions to serve the larger national interests of any nation-state.

Behind Baiting Pakistan, China’s Containment not Peace in Afghanistan is the Ultimate US Objective

By: Azhar Azam

The stalemate in Afghanistan war is turning out to be a bone in the throat of the United States. Albeit spending more than $1 trillion in 17 years on war operations and reconstructions in the ‘graveyard of empires’, the peace in the messy country remains a delusion.

All the US military and strategic tactics including massive troop deployment, carpet bombings, and to train, equip, build, and sustain the Afghan Security Forces (ASF) have precisely failed to prevent the situation from further erosion.

After eliciting an incalculable human casualties and widespread destruction, the US has now eventually conceded its vindictive stance towards Taliban – accepting their key role for sustainable peace in Afghanistan. It is now holding direct talks with Afghan Taliban.

The new US approach incorporates a significant change in its South Asian foreign policy – underscoring that it has spurned any kind of negotiations with Afghan Taliban since 2001 when it launched inimical attacks on Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaida networks and to oust Afghan Taliban from power.

A US team, headed by Zalmay Khalilzad is holding marathon talks in Doha with an empowered Afghan delegation, led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The peace dialogue is composed of four major issues including troop withdrawal and ceasefire that will substantiate a draft for any future agreement, told State Department spokesperson in press briefing.

In January, Afghan Taliban nominated Mullah Baradar as chief peace negotiator. He was one of the four founding members of Afghan Taliban in 1994 and was released by the government of Pakistan last year.

It was the highest-ranking release of any Taliban official. Mullah Baradar held several position in Afghan Taliban regime and was considered to be the most-influential Taliban leader behind Mullah Omar.

When urged to elaborate Secretary Pompeo’s remarks about Taliban as terrorists in Afghanistan – State’s official declined to respond. 'The Secretary’s words speak for themselves, and I’m not going to go beyond that’.

It is important to recall that Afghan Taliban isn’t listed in the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

To US, an organization (foreign) must engage in terrorist activities that threaten the security of US nationals or the national security of the United States and Afghan Taliban do not meet the criteria as it is largely an insurgent group that controls over vast swaths of territory and has aspirations to govern the country.

That is why, in January 2015 when the US needed to negotiate a prisoner swap with Afghan Taliban – they were termed as an armed insurgent group that were ‘different than (a terrorist) organization like Al Qaeda’. Also because the White House believed that such prisoner swaps were ‘traditional end-of-conflict interaction’ with the Afghan war wounding down.

The ongoing US-Afghan Taliban peace dialogue is not abrupt. There has been a gradual buildup to reach this point and the role of one country, Pakistan, has continuously been conclusive around looming peace in Afghanistan.

Going back to July 2015, the White House welcomed the Murree Peace Talks between Afghanistan government and Afghan Taliban, calling them ‘an important step toward advancing prospects for a credible peace’.

Observers from China and the United States attended these quadrilateral exchanges, which were choreographed by Pakistan.

However landmark dialogue between the two major stakeholders in Afghanistan was sabotaged after Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was killed in a US drone strike in May 2016, toppling the rare hope of peace.

But the killing of Mullah Mansour did not make any difference to the situation in Afghanistan, which continued to deteriorate further as a BBC study in January 2018 found that Taliban are active in 70% of Afghanistan.

Same month, President Trump turned down any possibility of negotiations with Taliban after a series of deadly attacks in Afghanistan. ‘There may be a time, but it is going to be a long time.’ But the ‘long time’ quickly faded away.

In July, four Taliban members met Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Well in Doha. The groundbreaking talks ‘were very helpful’, a senior Taliban member told The Guardian.

Just before the talks, the White House dropped its coarse stance about Taliban stating that while they are a source of instability in Afghanistan, it is unlikely that they could pose any kind of international danger.

Latter on August 21, Wells greeted Imran Khan’s statement on the importance of peace on both sides – Afghanistan and Pakistan – as well as emphasized on Pakistan’s key role in long-term stability in Afghanistan.

Thenceforth US Foreign Secretary Pompeo and General Dunford came on September 5 to ‘reset’ relations with Pakistan – once again highlighting the importance of Pak-US relationship and Pakistan’s vital role in negotiating Afghan peace process.

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traced indications of reconciliation in Afghanistan – which were now away from an illusion. Mattis mentioned some ‘open line of communication’ – avoiding confirmation of Doha talks with Taliban.

In October, Afghan Taliban held a second round of talks, this time with Khalilzad that was followed by a two-day meeting in Abu Dhabi, including representatives from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In December, President Trump requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to support and facilitate the Afghan peace process. Pakistan welcomed the US desire, highlighting country’s ‘long-standing position to give peace and reconciliation a real chance in Afghanistan’.

The letter was followed by Khalilzad visit to Pakistan. Prime Minister Khan reassured that ‘Pakistan has helped in the dialogue between Taliban and the US in Abu Dhabi…..Pakistan will be doing everything within its power to further the peace process’. Pakistan denies any direct influence on Afghan Taliban.

The peace talks were occasionally interrupted when Afghan Taliban threatened to abandon the dialogue, accusing that the United States is pursuing ‘its colonial and military objectives in the guise of peace’. The dialogue however continued, though Afghan Taliban are still reluctant to talk to Afghan government, calling it a ‘puppet regime’.

So, once again the United States is desperately seeking Pakistan’s crucial role to resolve long outstanding Afghanistan conflict, in an apparent acknowledge that Afghanistan dispute cannot be resolved without the help of Pakistan.

Pakistan must not just observe the peace proceeding or go recklessly through the course. It must rather press the US to support Pakistan peace initiatives such as increased troop deployment, surveillance, and border management gages aimed at restricting terrorists’ movement on Pak-Afghan border for long-term, durable peace in both the countries.

But unfortunately the deliberate US denial to these peace initiatives explicitly coincides that the resolution of the Afghan conflict or sustainable peace in Afghanistan is not its ultimate goal and goes on to corroborate that it essentially needs a vulnerable country (and least violent) in South Asia to contain China.

The US approach touts that the US is baiting Pakistan in tracking relatively a prone Afghanistan that would provide it an ideal footprint in South Asia to keep check on its new cold war rival – China – as well as to serve its global political, trade, and strategic interests.

Rafale will make no difference to lackluster Indian military capability

By: Azhar Azam

If India had Rafale jets, results would have been different – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last week. He was referring to India-Pakistan February 27 aerial dogfight in which Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shot down two Indian aircrafts.

The remarks came nearly three months after Modi government pleaded to Indian Supreme Court (ISC) in November 2018 – had Rafale jets been used in the Kargil war with Pakistan in 1999, Indian casualties would have been lower.

It was justifying India’s acquisition of Rafale aircrafts from French company, Dassault Aviation. Indian apex court eventually delivered a shaky verdict in the government’s favor – dismissing the call for an independent court monitored investigation over purchase of 36 Rafale jets for €7.8 billion.

A request to review Rafale decision will be heard by ISC on 06-March-2019.

Now after an enormous delay of almost two decades, India is expecting to finally receive the first batch of Rafale multirole fighter jets in September 2019 but the latest addition to Indian Air Force (IAF) fleet will ‘no game changer’, Mikhail Khodarenok, a military analyst and retired colonel in Russia’s missile defense forces, told RT.

The complete delivery will be made by 2022.

Although Rafale will enhance Indian military capabilities over Pakistan but ‘it won’t lead to any game-changing moments due to the relatively small number’ of jets ordered’, the analyst added. He further said that it would take time for IAF to integrate the planes and train pilots to fly them.

‘Optimistically speaking, the Rafales will be fully-ready for combat only after several years’, Khodarenok explained.

Indian aircraft acquisition plan dates back to 2001 when it identified the need to buy advanced fighter jets to beef up the anemic capability of IAF and to rejuvenate the aerospace industry by achieving self-reliance in producing hi-tech military aircrafts.

New Delhi then took six years to define the absolute demand and issued Request for Proposal (RFP) for the acquisition of 126 aircrafts in 2007. Dassault Aviation’s Rafale fighters were finally shortlisted in 2012 at the cost of $10.2 billion.

According to the agreement, India had to purchase 18 off-the-shelf jets from Dassault and the remaining 118 aircrafts were to be constructed in India by Indian state-owned enterprise Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL).

But the deal was wedged in price negotiations and other time specifics. Over the time, Modi government rose into the power in 2014.

During his very first trip to France in April 2015, Modi stunned Indian nation while announcing to renegotiate the Rafale deal and purchasing only 36 flyaway Rafale aircrafts – instead of 126 – from Dassault in a government-to-government deal for €7.8 billion.

Signed in September 2016, the new agreement ruled that all the 36 Rafale jets will be imported from France – stroking a blow to Indian technology transfer and ‘Make in India’ drives.

As a matter of fact, nearly one-fourth of the total IAF airborne strength is outmoded – 10 of its 42 squadrons are needed to immediately grounded over poor safety record, including Russian made Mig-21s and Mig-27s, dubbed as ‘flying coffins’.

Since 1963, India has purchased a total of 874 MiG-21s from Russia with varying avionics, radars, and missiles – out of which about 490 aircrafts were involved in accidents and crashing, killing nearly 200 pilots. IAF is still flying some 120 MiG-21s that will be retired in phased by 2021-2022.

The last time Russia produced MiG-21 was in 1985, almost 34 year ago but India continued to keep flying these machines by refurbishing or upgrading.

Air Commodore Prashant Dikshit (Retd.) conveyed his grim worries on IAF capability, saying that the numbers of the Rafale purchase were cut from 126 to 36, the FGFA program with Russia is stalled, the Tejas have slow production rates (just 8 per year) and the tender for the next lot of 110 new planes has just come out, which can take years to fructify.

Meanwhile, Indian opposition has continuously been slamming its federal government – beckoning the new pact an ‘insurmountable loss’ to the taxpayers’ money as well as accusing BJP regime for unfairly picking Anil Ambani’s Reliance Defence Limited (RDL).

Rahul Gandhi strongly criticized Modi, asserting he has destroyed Indian strategic asset – HAL – by snatching Rafale from it and gifting it to Anil Ambani. He freshly molested Modi, ‘YOU are WHY brave IAF pilots like Wing Cdr. Abhinandan, are risking their lives flying outdated jets.’

While Indian defense preparedness goes in the backburner over Rafale controversy and HAL’s fiascos – its regional rivals, China and Pakistan, are growing rapidly and Indian $250 billion military modernization program is fracturing.

In March 2018, a senior General in a report to Indian parliamentary defense committee said that there are huge deficiencies and obsolesce of weapons, stores, and ammunition existing in the Army. About two-third of the army inventory is obsolete.

Earlier in 2017, Indian army rejected an Indian-made riffle for the second consecutive year in a row, after it failed to clear the quality tests. Its other locally-made military products like Arjun tanks, Teja LCAs, and even bullet-proof jackets cannot frequently be used on the sensitive borders of China and Pakistan over performance issues.

Indian vice army chief summed up Indian military production, Pakistan has better industrial base than India as far as defense production is concerned. Pakistan’s defense equipment exports are definitely more than India does.