India and Russia-III

12-16-2000, 08:47 AM

India and Russia-III
December 13, 2000
By Lieutenant Colonel Thakur Kuldip S Ludra (Retd.)

In the great game involving Soviet Russia and United States of
America, the entry of Soviet Russia into Afghanistan was an heaven
sent opportunity where United States of America was concerned.
Without getting directly involved she increased the economic pressure
on the Russians, and eventually Russia found, that like the Americans
in Vietnam, she was being sucked into an adventure, whose economic
and social costs she was ill-equipped to bear. She started to pull
back. However, she had stretched herself, economically, to such an
extent that she was practically facing an economic disaster,
notwithstanding all the natural resources available. So much so that
she had to dump tons of gold in the international market to sustain
herself. The public demanded consumer goods and they were in short
supply. Over night her allies facing similar problems started
deserting her and the communist pattern of economy practically
collapsed. The Communist countries started opening their economies to
the western world and the western capital.

The situation so arose that the complete complement of the Warsaw
Pact renounced the communist ideology and opened their markets to
Western capital. The two Berlins and Germanies united. The Baltic
Republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia announced their decision
to secede from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the World
welcomed them into the United Nations Organisation. The Asian
Republics started seething with ethnic unrest, with a threat of
secession from the Soviet Socialist Republics and they disintegrated.
Only with a lot effort and persuasion that some form of a cohesive
organisation, in the form of Commonwealth of Independent States was
created, to give Russia some semblance of respectability. However, a
lot of loose ends were left, leading to a very untidy international
situation. So bad had the situation become that Russia was now found
lining up on the doorsteps of the Western Powers seeking dole to help
her out of the economic morass that she had landed herself in.

Facing a declining position in the international pecking order Russia
tried mending her fences with China, with an occasional nuclear sabre
rattling. She tried to rope in India also in trying to create a power
triangle consisting of herself, China and India, However this was a
non-starter right from the beginning.

For India the position was just as tragic. Overnight she found the
very cornerstone of her policy tottering. Many a midnight oil got
burnt in the North and South Blocks in Delhi. Internally also, India
had just ushered in another (second) minority government and was
facing a major economic crisis. She had just declared a whopping
trade deficit and her external and internal debts had taken the
country very close, if not into a debt trap. At that stage India
faced :-

An unstable political situation.
A critical economic situation.
A hostile Pakistan, proxying for American and Chinese interests.
An intransigent United States of America determined to impose her
economic will.
A diplomatic isolation in the international fora.
In the international markets, with large scale disarmament by Russia
and her allies, along with corresponding reduction of armaments in
the countries of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, there was going
to be an obvious, large scale surplus of armaments. In addition,
because of this disarmament, the armament industry, the largest in
the world, would also be in a state of disarray. The resultant would,
therefore be an obvious attempt by the industrially advanced nations
to capitalise on their surplus war making equipment situation.

They would like to have small scale wars which they could control and
which would eat away their surplus. And sure enough, there was the
Gulf War which ate away $43 Billion. Then there were the Kosovo and
Bosnia imbroglios. There has been violence in East Timor and
Indonesia. Of course there were problems in Cambodia, in Sierra Lone,
Uganda, Angola and nearer home in Kargil. Then of course there is the
ever green strife in Afghanistan.

Insurgency also requires weapons and there have been insurgencies, In
Jammu and Kashmir, the North-east India, the Central Asian States,
the Mynamar, Indonesia, Philippines, Xingjiang, in Greece, Algeria,
in Central America and Mexico plus the never ending Sri Lankan
imbroglio. You name a continent and there was some strife or the
other each needing weapons and ammunition. Soviet Russia or rather
its successor states were and still are facing an acute economic
crisis, a shortage of funds and consumer goods. They would obviously
have no qualms in selling surplus arms. Nor for that matter would the
so-called Western democracies. There would have been any number of
purchasers.

The most obvious customers would have been China, Pakistan, the
Middle-eastern countries and India. However India, at the time under
the World Bank and International Monetary Fund prot=E9g=E9es were all
out to earn their future berths in these organisations and had let
the Indian Armed Forces starve for funds and as such equipment. They
had also let the Indian weapon industry slow down to a virtual stop.
The Indian expenditure on armaments and defence had gone down to as
low as 1.7% of the Gross Domestic Product. Thus India instead of
trying to capitalise on the buyers' market that was prevailing in the
early nineties just sat on its butt and watched countries like
Pakistan and China steal a march over her. The result was Kargil.

Even more important would have been the large scale unemployment of
defence scientists and technologists in Russia who would now be
unemployed and for grabs by countries wanting to up grade their
weapon and armament industry. Thus the situation would have been that
not only would there be a literal basement sale of weapons systems
and equipment but there would be a large scale migration of Russian
Defence scientists and technologists.

China of course grabbed a lion's share both of these defence systems
like the SU-27 aircraft. She also lured the largest number of
scientists and technologists. Surprisingly even United States of
America was in the market to lure in these scientists and
technologists. India of course, still in the process of re-inventing
the wheel, let this wonderful opportunity to upgrade the production
facilities of her Defence Industry go waste.

It must be realised that the stakes in the armaments industry are
very high and both, the Western Industries, as well as Russia would
like to retain their hold on the world arms market. Purely in
economic terms the arms manufacturers would also like to ensure a
perpetuity of this market. There will always be discreet and
insidious attempts to ignite and perpetuate conflicts in the troubled
spots of the world as long as their own countries are secure.

In the Indo-Russian relationship, the present situation is such that
Russia needs the Indian Armed forces as a market for her surplus
weapons systems, hence the gifting of Admiral Gorskhov, and also help
sustain her production facilities as well as finance her Research and
development. To ensure this she will do her best to denigrate and
possibly sabotage India's Research and Development effort. The
sacking of Admiral Bhagwat was one such effort by her protE9gE9es in
the Indian arms bazaar.