THE signing of the New Framework for the US-India Defence Relationship by the defence ministers of the two countries in Washington on June 28, marked the commencement of “a new era” in their evolving strategic partnership and a follow-up to the signing last year of the next steps in strategic partnership agreement.

After noting that the US-India defence cooperation had advanced to an unprecedented and qualitatively different level since 1995, when the agreed minute on defence relations between the US and India was signed, the latest agreement clearly states that it would support and be an element of the broader US-India strategic partnership. It “builds on past successes, seizes new opportunities and charts a course for the US-India defence relationship for the next ten years.”

The latest US-India defence pact claims to advance their shared security interests which include; maintaining security and stability; defeating terrorism and violent religious extremism; preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and associated materials, data and technologies; and protecting the free flow of commerce via land, air and sea lanes.

In pursuit of these shared interests, the defence establishments of the two countries will promote mutual cooperation. To this end, they shall, inter alia; conduct joint and combined exercises; collaborate in multinational operations when it is in their common interest; strengthen the capabilities of their militaries to promote security and defeat terrorism; enhance capabilities to combat the proliferation of WMD’s; enhance bilateral defence trade; increase opportunities for technology transfer, collaboration, co-production, and research and development; expand collaboration relating to missile defence; increase exchange of intelligence; and continue strategic-level discussions for common approaches on international security issues.

A high-level mechanism has been established by the agreement to guide and oversee the long-term US-India strategic defence relationship. The newly established Defence Procurement and Production Group under the overall guidance of the Defence Policy Group of the two militaries, which is meant to advance US-India defence cooperation, will oversee defence trade as well as prospects for co-production and technology collaboration in the defence field.

The Defence Procurement and Production Group is expected to address the issue of the possible sale and co-production of F-16 or F-18 aircraft which have been offered to India. There are already reports that the US has offered to sell the Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile system and waive its export controls to let India acquire the Arrow missile system as well as dual-use advanced nuclear and space technologies.

In this context, the more recent Indo-US agreement, concluded during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington, enabling India to acquire nuclear power reactors and technology for peaceful purposes is highly significant as it sets aside the restrictions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime.

The latest US-India defence pact has far-reaching adverse implications for Pakistan’s security and for peace and stability not only in South Asia but also in Asia and the world. It poses formidable challenges to Pakistan’s policymakers in the diplomatic, political and security fields in maintaining the balance of power in the region.

The pact confirms that the US has decided to accord higher priority and greater importance to its fast growing relations with India which it has come to accept as the dominant power in South Asia than to those with Pakistan. It also needs to be seen in the context of the declaration by the United States in March 2005 to help India become a “major world power in the 21st century” which would enable the latter to project its power in its neighbourhood and beyond with the apparent strategic aim of countering the growing weight of a rising China in Asia. The US military-industrial complex would also benefit from ingress to the growing Indian armaments market.

Therefore, the agreement is driven by considerations which ignore those relevant to the maintenance of strategic balance in South Asia. In pursuit of the goal of accelerating India’s rise to a global power status as a counterweight to China, the US has disregarded the imperative of a strategic balance in South Asia. It has not factored in the unlikelihood of India reversing its current trend of developing its strategic relations with China in favour of US geo-political strategy of weaving a web of containment around it, besides prejudicing an equitable settlement of Kashmir by aggravating the imbalance of power between the two contending sides.

The US also disregards the fact that India along with Iran and Pakistan are seeking membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization headed by Russia and China which ‘rejects attempts at monopoly and domination in international affairs and calls for a new security architecture of equal security for all countries.”

The recent telephone call by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Foreign Minister Kasuri informing him that Washington would remain responsive to the security concerns of Pakistan, a major non-Nato ally, is helpful but not sufficiently reassuring, keeping in view the past US track record and the strategic importance of its defence pact with India that embeds it in Asia, the emerging centre of gravity of world power.

Pakistan, therefore, must remain vigilant in the face of this ominous development that would adversely affect Pakistan’s nuclear capacity by anti-ballistic missile systems to intercept short and medium-range missiles carrying nuclear weapons and come to grips with the diplomatic, political, military and strategic challenges to its national security.

In this regard, the Islamabad Council of World Affairs recommends the following: At the diplomatic level, Pakistan should forcefully convey to the US at the highest level its security concerns caused by the latest Indo-US defence pact. We must emphasize the destabilizing consequences for Asia, particularly South Asia, of an open-ended supply of highly advanced weapons and new weapon systems to India. The supply of an anti-missile system to India would especially disturb the precarious strategic balance in South Asia.

Since both Pakistan and India are de facto nuclear weapon states, the government of Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally and pivotal partner in the war on terror, should urge the US to adopt an even-handed and non-discriminatory policy on the transfer of nuclear and space high technologies for peaceful purposes and not a differential treatment in the name of “individual relationships”.

All of Pakistan’s civilian nuclear facilities have been subject to IAEA safeguards since their inception. Its national command authority has institutionalized in a transparent manner the command and control of nuclear weapons since 2000 to ensure they are secure and cannot be taken over by extremists. Pakistan has also taken stringent measures of export control to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons by any clandestine network to any state or non-state actor.

It is abiding by its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear weapon tests. In short, Pakistan is conducting itself as a responsible nuclear weapon power and is therefore entitled, no less than is India, to tacit recognition as a nuclear weapon state. Pakistan’s nuclear capability poses no threat to US national security.

The acquisition of new weapons systems by India would force Pakistan to take the necessary measures to redress the strategic balance. This could result in the diversion of scarce resources from the gigantic task of economic development and eradication of poverty, to military purposes. We must impress upon the US, which otherwise emphasizes the need for economic progress and human development, that it would be ironical for it to pursue policies with the potential to produce the opposite results.

Pakistan’s experts should carefully study the security implications for Pakistan of the supply to India of anti-missile systems and other new weapon systems including conventional armaments costing $5 billion. Our aim should be to maintain a credible deterrent at the lowest possible cost without entering into an arms race with India.

Pakistan’s security policy must be based on a judicious integration of its military, economic and diplomatic / political dimensions with special attention to its sustainable economic development. Over-emphasis on the military at the expense of economic and diplomatic / political dimensions would have serious consequences for the country.

Pakistan must, of course, continue its policy of developing close and friendly relations and cooperation with the US bearing in mind at the same time the latter’s limitations in security cooperation with Pakistan set by India’s opposition to any enhancement of Pakistan’s deterrent capability. The decision of the National Command Authority headed by President Musharraf to take “appropriate measures” to ensure the maintenance of deterrence capability of the country cannot but be welcome.

In the face of the “quantum jump” in Indo-US defence cooperation a major policy shift by the US with regional and global implications of hegemony Pakistan must necessarily take counter-measures that remain open for it. Pakistan should also broaden its options while continuing the policy of developing tension-free and good neighbourly relations with India through a just and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute and other impediments to the normalization of relations.

Pakistan’s comprehensive, long term and stable friendly relations with China have been a factor of stability in an otherwise volatile region. Strengthening these historic ties is the need of the hour in addition, serious attention must be focused on building bridges of understanding with Russia while developing closer links with neighbours to the west and north, specially Iran and Afghanistan. All these countries have a common interest in a multipolar world order in preference to global or regional hegemonism for establishing “strategic stability in the world.”

The writer is a former foreign minister.

IN a jointly authored article published in the New York Times, US national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley and Homeland Security Advisor Frances Fargos have proposed a fundamental change in US approach to confronting terrorism.

In spite of some half truths that the article contains, it is the first admission of US wrongdoings, which makes it too good to believe. Nevertheless, it holds out a promise that was not on the cards until recently.

While the article presents a vague strategy for combating terrorism, it makes some important points. First, the US foreign policy remained flawed because it patronized governments in the Middle East that denied their people true democracy and the freedom it guarantees. In this context, the reference to “America’s mixed record on supporting freedom” seems a carefully worded admission of the blind pro-Israeli stance of the policy. Given the fact that the Zionist lobby influences virtually every aspect of US policymaking, a more explicit admission could not be expected from these gentlemen.

Second, the article admits a stark reality which, until recently, the US seemed to ignore; that countries with huge standing armies equipped with lethal weapons are defenceless against terrorists. Armies and weaponry are effective in battlefields, not against terrorists playing hide and seek. To defeat terrorists the US must deprive them of the cause that earns them sympathy, and it has no choice except to change its strategy on facing up to terrorism.

However, given its long record of covert and overt interventions in almost every country on this planet, the US will find it near impossible to meet this challenge credibly as long as George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld remain in office. This trio, and its backers in the White House, Pentagon, state department and the department of homeland security, don’t enjoy the credibility that the task demands.

But to expect them to quit is to hope for the impossible, which makes the change of heart expressed in the article seem unreal. The trio carries the blame for the tight spot the US finds itself in today but the likes of Nixon, Reagan and Bush senior carry as much burden of responsibility for this mess. If, as suggested in the article, the US foreign policy remained flawed for decades then the world has a right to ask the American people for an apology for the political sins committed by former US presidents, which too is highly unlikely.

Admitting mistakes requires courage and strength of character. That Americans will muster the courage to do so is doubtful because no US government ever admitted the monumental errors it committed. This attitude convinced the Americans that their governments were ‘always’ right. As a consequence, belief in the convoluted thinking that “if it is good for America it is right”, became pervasive. Americans gave up measuring the righteousness of causes on the scales of ethics and morality.

Even now, the US secretary of state goes around the world telling everyone what the US ‘expects’ them to do. Ms Condoleezza Rice is doing is what the US has become used to: extracting total subservience from every country. Unilateral actions that include bombing of Japan, cold war, war against Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, blind support for Zionism, first Iraq war, war in Afghanistan, second Iraq war, and now the war on terror are reflections thereof.

This is so because US governments now come into power on the shoulders of corporations whose sole aim is to grab cheap natural resources, wherever they may be, and eliminate every obstruction in the way of fulfilment this desire. The democratic process of change in government is now a cleverly enacted farce.

What baffles the world is the failure of the American people to see that US foreign policy has been wrong once too often. Can those who sided with the likes of Ariel Sharon the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein, and scores of other dictators, appear fair without repenting these enormous errors of judgment? While the US can’t undo the effects of these follies that cost the world enormously in terms of the loss of millions of innocent lives, an honest act of repentance can encourage the victims not to hate the US any more.

It is amazing that American politicians don’t find the ‘war on terror an absurdity although it embodies an obvious contradiction. Nor do Americans realize that their leaders who vow to counter terrorism with war are no holier than the terrorists. After the unfortunate July 7 terrorist attacks in London, no leader pointed to the fact that the terrorists tried to disrupt a meeting that was convened primarily to remedy the problems of poverty, deprivation and disease in the Third World.

No American politician realized that statements to this effect could have exposed to the people (the terrorists claim to represent) the true face of the terrorists-turned-crusaders. This is not the only instance when the US lost the initiative in depriving the terrorists of the cause that gets them the sympathy they need. After each terrorists attack, US politicians came out with counter threats that rekindled among the terrorists the desire for revenge. This recklessness made every US-friendly state a target for the terrorists.

The US must understand that nations need to be helped, not threatened, to accept change and it is not the exclusive privilege of the US to decide what is right and what isn’t. History doesn’t suggest that the US knows ‘everything about everything’; nor does anyone else. We all made mistakes and none of us will ever be wiser than the rest.

The wise depend on the power of reason because convincing the adversary through credible reasoning is the weapon that achieves lasting success. Only fools depend on the gun. Gun toting Americans helped Osama make his personal grudge against the US the holy cause of many ignorant Muslims and the world has been caught in the crossfire.

The undeniable reality is that we all must learn to live amicably on this planet and to succeed in that endeavour we must learn to find negotiated settlement of our differences. Terrorists too can be brought around to accepting this idea but not by being threatened with a gun. Telling the terrorists “we will beat the hell out of you” won’t work. It will only ignite more fires of revenge.

In spite of the doubts about its reflecting a real change of heart, the fact that the article has been authored by two key advisors to the government conveys the impression that there is, at least, a realization in official circles that nothing seems as bright as President Bush paints it to be before the world. It is now obvious that US failure in Iraq and its fallout which US allies in Europe are now facing has prompted the realization that it is time to put away the guns and start thinking about negotiating peace with the terrorists. What the world eagerly awaits is when, if at all, will this process begin?

THE ministry of commerce was rather modest when it suggested an export target of 16.3 billion dollars for the current financial year, which would have marked an increase of 16 per cent on last year’s performance. But the federal cabinet wanted a round figure and approved a target of 17 billion dollars, which meant an 18 per cent rise over the export performance of last year.

Commerce minister Humayun Akhtar thinks that target as achievable in view of the steadily rising exports. Trade and industry has largely welcomed the trade policy, and considers the enhanced targets as achievable in a fast growing economy in which the textile exports increased by 12 per cent after removal of the quota restrictions.

Even after the enhanced export target the deficit in the balance of external trade would be 4.79 billion dollars as the import target has been set at 21.79 billion dollars. The import target is usually exceeded every year as the quantum of imports depends on a number of factors, external as well as domestic, beyond the control of the government.

The trade policy is significant for the many concessions it makes to the exporters and the many initiatives it proposes to augment exports. One segment disappointed by the policy is the leather industry. What it has got is too little compared to the textile sector. It certainly expected far more to make a larger contribution to the economy. But then, textiles form two-thirds of the exports, while the performance of the leather industry ranks way low.

A number of experts of international repute are to deal with some tough areas, including the European Union with its stern policies, particularly in the areas of textiles. A lobbyist is to be hired for the US market as well. Another hired expert will try to attract more foreign direct investment and transform the domestic industry into a major player in the world.

Let us hope that only experts of international repute are hired and their advice is given serious consideration, and the one accepted is implemented earnestly and expeditiously.

The performance of our trade representatives abroad, too, is to be monitored regularly and diligently and those who do not perform satisfactorily are to be called back. Simultaneously the commercial secretaries should be given the requisite facilities they need and not be subjected to excessive economy measures. Their is a tough task and they should be given all the assistance they need before being called back home on a charge of poor performance.

The export products have to be diversified instead of relying excessively on textile and cotton which form two-thirds of the exports. The exporters have to explore new markets. They should look for new countries to sell their goods and also enlarge the markets wherever they are already in. They have to increase value-added exports so that they can earn more not for the volume of goods sent out but for its value-added contents.

Above all, export houses have to develop their own brands and make them a symbol of quality and durability. They have to invest enough in developing their brand and make them a symbol of excellence. They have to hire their own experts for that purpose instead of relying on the government to hire experts at its cost. The private sector has to take far more initiative in this area and produce results instead of expecting too much from the government which has its limitations because of its bureaucratic structure.

New industries have to be developed and the existing ones promoted to perform far better in the export field. The pharmaceutical industry is capable of much larger exports and far more diversification of its exports. One such firm based in Balochistan has shown remarkable enterprise in the export area, particularly in exporting its products to Afghanistan. Some other pharmaceutical industries are doing likewise in their exports to Central Asia. Clearly, there is plenty of scope for larger export of drugs and carving out a far wider export market.

Mining for Gems and Jewellery-making are now to be given the status of an industry with all the facilities it covers and enough bank credit. The industry has been given a good many concessions in its export transactions instead of being held by a tight leash as hitherto. The industry should repay the trust placed on it now and help the country benefit by that.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz wants new investment on a large scale in engineering, agro-industry, petro-chemicals, tourism, steel, power generation and oil and gas. These are industries the country can gain a great deal from. Instead of sending out a larger volume of goods at low prices we will be exporting our brain power. And that is the need of the times in a high technological world.

One country with which large scale trade is possible is India. But political factors, particularly the unresolved Kashmir dispute, stands in the way of large scale trade between the two neighbours with 1.2 billion people, India’s hidden trade barriers too hinder large-scale exports from Pakistan to that country. On the other side, while Pakistan wants to import meat and other kitchen items from India, procedural hitches stand in the way and delay the process unduly.

Instead of moving up step by step, India wants the larger issues of trade to be tackled first, like the Most Favoured Nation status to India by Pakistan and the right of India for transit trade with Pakistan’s western neighbours, including Afghanistan, and the Central Asian states.

On the other side, the Free Trade Areas agreement between Saarc states is to come into effect in 2006. How a real FTA is possible in the face of numerous obstructions in the way — political, policy-based and procedural — remains to be seen.

Another neighbour opening up more and more fast for Pakistan’s exports is China, which has at last revalued its yuan following pressure from the West, particularly the U.S. That makes foreign goods cheaper for China, though the revaluation is not as much as the West wanted nor has the Chinese currency been set afloat. Instead, the revaluation is nominal 2.1 per cent. Anyway that makes Pakistan’s exports to China cheaper to that extent.

China recently allowed import of Pakistan’s mangoes which are well liked there. And it may soon allow the import of kinos from Pakistan. And it has also allowed the import of Pakistani rice which can prove very popular there. As time passes the list of importable items from Pakistan to China will increase, particularly in the area of agricultural products.

It is for the Pakistani exporters to profit from expanding trade with China which is now more quality conscious.

Meanwhile a brief announcement from the State Bank of Pakistan bars import of sugar from India at a time when the Trading Corporation of Pakistan is urging the government to import sugar urgently so that there are enough supplies by Ramzan without the prices rising sky-high. What the bald announcement means is that India-Pakistan trade though very small is capable of sudden surprises and shocks. And the reasons could be political, or procedural.

Humayun Akhtar talks of the trade policy lowering the cost of doing business. The cost of doing business may be coming down but the cost of production and movement of goods has been going up, thanks to high inflation in the country which officially is projected this year at 8 per cent. Businessmen protest that not only the cost of export finance has been going up, but also the prices of oil, gas and power, and the cost of transportation.

The rise in the cost of oil and power is a world phenomenon and Pakistani goods have to compete with those using similar high priced oil. But the energy use efficiency in many other countries, particularly the industrial states, is far better than Pakistan. But the inflation caused by domestic factors, including the rising cost of export loans, can create problems for our exporters. The State Bank says the pressure on prices at home will continue until the end of December. The question is: if last year’s official projection of inflation at five per cent produced a double digit inflation, what will be the situation this year when the official projection is eight per cent?

The prime minister proposes to set up an Economic Advisory Group to advise the government on economic policies. It will have non-officials and businessmen, too, as members. Such advisory groups had been set up in the past without much efficacy, and the government seldom acts on its advice.

Usually the members of the group are not well informed about the problems of policy-making. Often the private sector members of the group clash with each other at meetings of the group because of their conflicting interests.

The chambers of commerce and their Federation and the large trade associations should be able to function as effective advisors. But unfortunately the chambers are not backed by effective research. Nor is the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry any better. Instead they prefer giving dinners and lunches to the ministers and seeking favours. They function more like lobbies with limited knowledge than effective advisors.

In the post-textile quota world with the WTO playing an increasingly dominant role the private sector ought to be far more enterprising and venturesome. And they should not be relying on the government too much.

As the government lowers taxes, exporters are the beneficiaries. But they should use their new resources for developing new markets and be competitive in selling their goods.

EXTREMISTS in Srinagar gave their reply by killing four within 24 hours of the joint resolve by the US and India to wage a global war against terrorism. In Delhi, General J.J. Singh, the Indian chief of the army staff, said that 2,000 infiltrators lodged in 53 camps were waiting along the Line of Control (LoC) to cross into India.

Intrepid Herald, a monthly from Karachi, wrote in detail how the training camps were beginning to hum in Pakistan. BBC said the other day that 17 lakh students attended 20,000 madreessahs in Pakistan and that “many students developed an intolerant prejudice and narrow-minded view of the world. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said at Dubai that she never allowed during her regime the type of terrorist attacks which took place in London or earlier on the Indian parliament (an admission of terrorism but of a less lethal type).

All this makes eyes turn towards President General Pervez Musharraf who has himself declared ‘jihad’ against religious extremists following the 7/7 bomb blasts in London. He may appear to be going over the same exercise which he did after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. But he must be a worried man. Religious fanaticism that he used at one time as a tool to frighten the West to support him is a menace, nearly out of his control.

In a society where fundamentalism has seeped in because of official patronage and lack of democratic temperament, there are not many options left, more so when you need the extremists for political purposes. You cannot dismount the tiger you are riding without harming yourself. Getting off without building a popular structure is equally hazardous. Musharraf knows that.

The military-led regime in Islamabad is still dependent on the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a group of religious parties. Musharraf now feels embarrassed over managing the election of many religious extremists to the National Assembly. But he realizes that he cannot afford to go beyond rhetoric. They are the ones who have legitimized his stay in power and they are the ones who have blessed the merger of the president’s office with that of the chief of the army staff.

The MMA government in the NWFP felt that it could get away with the Hasba law, a move towards enforcement of clerics’ dictatorship in the province. Probably, it would have if bomb blasts had not taken place in London. Musharraf had to challenge the law’s constitutional validity before the Supreme Court. Either he has forgotten how to ride two boats at the same time, encouraging religious elements as well as chastizing them softly, or has he succumbed to pressure by Washington and London?

Unfortunately, what the fundamentalists are doing in Pakistan or their counterpart elsewhere is giving a bad name to Islam, a noble religion. Because of a few, millions of Muslims all over the world are experiencing mistrust and bias in their day-to-day life. But then if rulers use religion for their own purpose, extremists are bound to proliferate and act in the manner they do.

President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are correct when they say that democracy should be deepened and strengthened in different parts of the world. But America defied democracy when it attacked Iraq without the Security Council’s sanctions. People in horror have come to question the very ideology.

What happened first in Ayodhya and now in Srinagar are desperate attempts by religious fanatics to provoke India to stall its peace process with Pakistan. I wish the peace process had been mentioned in the joint statement issued by Bush and Manmohan Singh in Washington. At least, the latter who is meticulously following the process, should have mentioned it in his address to the US Congress. The success of the process is the best hope for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan — light at the end of the tunnel.

America honestly believes that the conciliation between Delhi and Islamabad is the key to the stability in the region, including West Asia. The Senate and the House of Representatives are the bodies to give their consent to the legislation on lifting the restriction on India’s purchase of the latest nuclear technology and plants to produce energy. The joint session was the right place to say that India and Pakistan were making progress on the peace process. Islamabad would have been touched by Manmohan Singh’s gesture.

However, Pakistan has been positive on America’s leeway to India on the latest nuclear technology. Islamabad feels that it can probably get the same status one day. The snag, however, is that Dr A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan’s bomb, at one time was running a clandestine business to sell nuclear knowhow to other countries. India’s record on this point has been impeccable. Still the US administration will face a lot of difficulties in getting India the virtual membership of the nuclear club. Already a member of the US Congress has said that he will block the legislation to remove restrictions on India’s access to nuclear fuel and technologies.

Reactions to the nuclear deal appear to have been conditioned by the cold war hangover. How does the handicap in piling up nuclear device matter? One bomb is enough to wipe out northern India. Again, the discussion is which country got more, America or India? This is what was discussed when the world was divided into two blocs — one led by the US and the other by the Soviet Union. Nuclear disarmament should have been discussed, not nuclear armament.

My greater worry is that Washington may insist on New Delhi not to proceed further with Iran gas pipeline. It may argue now that India can buy nuclear energy plants, why go for costly gas? (My impression is that nuclear power may be costlier if you take into account the money spent on maintenance, protection, etc). The Bush administration’s bias against Tehran is so banal and so blatant that it would like to sour amiable relations between India and Iran. Since new nuclear policy will come up for the Congressional hearing, the administration may egg on some members to argue that if New Delhi expected reciprocity from Washington, India should also pay attention to America’s sensitiveness on Iran.

The question is not gas, although it is important. The issue is that of age-old relations with Iran and the Muslim countries beyond. The pipeline, passing through Pakistan, may also span the distance between New Delhi and Islamabad. This is where India’s strategic interests lie, unlike America that sees nothing beyond force. Washington has already got the maximum from India by offering nuclear advance technology and the wherewithal. It should not ask for more.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.