The visit of Vice President Biden to India has ended. We are not privy to sources who know what transpired in the meetings. But we do get the sense that very little was accomplished in this visit except a discussion of what both sides would like to see. Mr. Biden is a very smart politician. Very few are better than him in charming the audience. Witness his line about the Delaware United Cricket Club and how he has earned bragging rights by visiting the land of the best cricket team in the world.
On a serious note, we were struck by the following sentence from his speech in Mumbai:
- “So let me state it plainly: There is no contradiction between strategic autonomy and a strategic partnership. I’ll say it again: There is no contradiction between strategic autonomy and a strategic partnership. Global powers are capable of both.”
Clearly Vice President Biden was referring to India’s concern about losing their strategic autonomy if India joins in a strategic partnership with the USA. The reverse is actually more true. America will maintain its own strategic autonomy as it pursues a strategic partnership with India. Meaning America does and will maintain the right to choose where America elects to be a strategic partner and where America prefers its strategic autonomy from India’s interests.
We look at this strategic autonomy of America by focusing on two key words. Words are used to signal intentions and purpose in foreign policy. Such words become especially significant when they are specifically created, reintroduced, changed, and removed in a major foreign policy setting.
To us, two key words tell us the story of America’s foreign policy towards India.
1. Indo-Pacific
This word is now the currency that defines the strategic integration of the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific Ocean. The term “Indo-Pacific” was launched as America’s preferred term by Secretary Hillary Clinton in her article America’s Pacific Century in November 2011:
- “We are also expanding our alliance with Australia from a Pacific
partnership to an Indo-Pacific one, and indeed a global partnership.”
The Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean have been existing peacefully for millions of years. Commercial ships and Naval military vessels have cruised between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean through the Malacca Straits for centuries. But no one called the region an integrated whole as implied in the Indo-Pacific term. After all, the “Indo” term became strategically insignificant after the British left India.
So why did Secretary Clinton launch the “Indo-Pacific” term in such a public manner in 2011? As C. Raja Mohan writes in his Samudra Manthan book:
- “The phrase “Indo-Pacific” acquired some currency in the Obama Administration as Washington proclaimed a “pivot” to Asia in 2011…”
America’s pivot to Asia is strengthened by India’s participation in South East Asia and in the South China Sea. This fits well with India’s own “look east” policy of greater trade and involvement in the Far-east. Japan, America’s major ally in Asia, is also seeking to deepen its relationship with India. As C. Raja Mohan writes:
- “Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan … ,argued that “the Pacific and the Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity. A ‘broader Asia’ that broke away from geographical boundaries is now beginning to take on a distinct form.””
The reality is, as C. Raja Mohan opines,
- “With its growing naval capabilities and few direct quarrels with the United States, New Delhi is an attractive partner for the United States. Not surprisingly, Washington has called for greater Indian activism in the western Pacific and Indian oceans.”
Robert Kaplan went much farther in his India’s Riveting Centrality article:
- “it is the very fact that India’s rise, militarily and economically, automatically balances against China because of India’s proximate position on the map”
The bottom line is that India now features prominently and positively in American strategic thinking about Asia.
Ergo, the new primacy of the term “Indo-Pacific” – a signal to the world of America’s recognition & approval of India’s vital role in America’s pivot to Asia, a signal that America considers India its strategic partner in the Far East.
If the word “Indo-Pacific” signals America’s strategic partnership with India, then what word signals America’s strategic autonomy from India?
2. South Asia
The historic term for the landmass that contains India, NonPakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Afghanistan is “Indian Subcontinent.” This was not a part of Asia but a landmass that moved closer and eventually crashed into Asia thus creating the Himalayan range. In a recent study, MIT calculated the age of this event to be 40 million years ago.
The geographical constraints of the Himalayan range and the Oceans have made the Indian subcontinent a “self-contained” region in the words of Stratfor. This geography of self-containedness has made residents of this Indian Subcontinent generally indifferent to what happens across the enormous natural barriers.
The culture of the subcontinent is Indian, developed at the beginning of known time. Every other “nation” in this subcontinent was a part of India at one time. Afghanistan got pulled out much earlier than others while Bangladesh & NonPakistan were the most recent breakaways. Yet, through out its long history, the subcontinent was always referred to as the Indian Subcontinent.
But not today and not especially by America. Over the past several years, the term “Indian Subcontinent” has been consigned to history and replaced by a new term “South Asia”. The fact that South Asia is wrong historically, geographically and culturally is irrelevant. South Asia is now standard terminology in American Foreign Policy, American Think Tanks and in American media.
The message of the “South Asia” term is simple, in our opinion. It is a signal of America’s strategic autonomy from India in the region that used to be called “Indian Subcontinent”.
The reality is that America has chosen its strategic partner in the northwestern areas of the Indian Subcontinent. That partner is NonPak-i-Stan, especially the NPak military. America has worked closely with the NPak military for decades. America needs the support of the NPak military to exit Afghanistan with a saved face. And that, American policy makers think, mandates working with the NPak military, a diplomatic word that means accepting core strategic demands of the NPak military. And what does NPak military want above all? Getting India out of Afghanistan!
This is the simple and crystal clear message of the two words “Indo-Pacific” and “South Asia”. The first word tells the world that “India is an indispensable part of“ America’s “rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific” and the second word tells India and the world that America doesn’t want any real Indian presence in the northwest portion of the Indian Subcontinent.
As we have seen, words are just tools and can be changed to signal changing views.
- If & when India becomes insignificant or unnecessary in America’s Asian calculus, then we will see the traditional term “Asia-Pacific” take over from the new term “Indo-Pacific”.
- If & when, America’s dependence on NPak fails and America needs full participation of India, then we will see the historical term “Indian Subcontinent” take over from the artificial “South Asia” term.
Simple and Clear, isn’t it?
Editor’s Note: Regular readers are aware that we don’t use the word Pak-i-Stan. We all remember what happened when a regime called itself the Master Race. Soon that led to the term Lebensraum. The rest is history. No one of European descent calls that regime by its Third Reich name. The word Pak-i-Stan is even more heinous than the Master Race word. Because it means the land/regime of Pak or people pure enough for heaven. So by definition that regime cannot allow itself to be stripped of its purity by the presence of impure people. Hence their religious cleansing of Buddhists, Hindus, Ahemadiya Muslims and now Shiya Muslims. Yet American & Europeans keep using that given name Pak-i-Stan. We will not. So we correct it by adding the neutral “non” and calling it NonPak-i-Stan or NPak for short. Note we do not use the insulting or negative term NaaPak.
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