24 October 2007
''India Rediscovering East Asia''
he visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in August; India's multi-nation naval exercise with the navies of Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the United States in September following the trilateral naval exercises with Japan and the United States in April; and the planned visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China following China's and India's first joint counter-terrorism training in November were all events confirming that India's "Look East" policy is in full swing.

While India has a long-standing history of engagement with East and Southeast Asia, which has been couched in shared values, history and culture, it has now been embedded in pragmatism and shared interests, such as resource interdependence and economic integration, to provide a more solid foundation. Fueled by globalization, the liberalization of India's economy and the rise of transnational security concerns, India's "Look East" policy has also been tied to broader interests such as meeting India's energy security and development needs, the ongoing rapprochement with the United States, counter-terrorism, maritime security, combating Islamic extremism and stabilizing India's periphery.

History and Culture Bind India to East Asia

India has a long history of trade and cultural exchanges with East Asia. Trade links with East Asia stretch back two millennia to the Silk Road and Calicut emerging as a major trading port in South Asia. Meanwhile, cultural and religious bonds date back to Emperor Asoka's spread of Buddhism beyond the subcontinent in the third century BCE.

Other notable periods of contact between pre-independence India and East Asia include the Kushan Empire, which built extensive trade networks with China, and the Chola Dynasty, which ruled over much of Southeast Asia during which Rajendra I conducted a naval expedition to Srivijaya (present-day Indonesia) to protect trade with China and Rajendrachola Deva I (Parmeshwara) named the island of Singapore (Singapura) in 10th century AD. Korean legend also tells of an Indian princess that traveled to Korea in 48 AD, whose sons founded the Kingdom of Shilla.

The exchange of pilgrims, explorers, and traders continued until the onset of British rule over India in the 18th century, after which India ceased to be an independent actor on the international stage. India's contact with East Asia became subordinated to colonial rivalry as Indian opium and soldiers were used to gain markets and quash rebellions in other parts of Asia such as China (the Opium War) and Malaya. During the Second World War, the Stilwell Road served as a vital transit route to shuttle supplies from India to the anti-Japanese forces in China, and Subhash Chandra Bose's short-lived Indian National Army formed an alliance with Imperial Japan.

Under India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, India reengaged with East Asia. The Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi on April 2, 1947 served as one of the earliest attempts to form a pan-Asian identity under the context of the modern nation-state system. Forming a common cause with Asian leaders such as Indonesian President Sukarno and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on decolonization, Western imperialism, socialism, national sovereignty, equality, and a developing-world solidarity, Nehru helped to forge the "Bandung Spirit" of 1955, which became the precursor for the Non-Aligned Movement and the Asia-Africa Summit.

Nehru also offered to serve as a mediator during the Korean War and French-Indochina War, supported communist China's claim to a seat at the United Nations, expressed pride in Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and opposed punishing Japan at the post-WWII Tokyo trials. The spirit of Asian brotherhood was most visibly manifested in the slogan of "Hindi-Chin bhai bhai" (Indians and Chinese are brothers), which attempted to forge a familial bond between Asia's two oldest civilizations and Panchsheel (or the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence), which formed the basis for Sino-Indian relations and China's and India's relations with other countries.

However, this phase of India's engagement with East Asia perished with India's war with China in 1962, preoccupation with Pakistan, and inability to meet its development needs, which caused India to turn inward. Coinciding with these developments was the regional architecture in Asia separating along the Cold War divide with the formation of organizations such as the anti-communist, U.S.-led Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (S.E.A.T.O.).

India rediscovered East Asia in 1992 when it launched its "Look East" policy in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and the start of India's economic liberalization policy. What distinguishes the present engagement with East Asia from previous ones is the fact that it is operating on multiple fronts; India's historical, cultural and ideological links are being complemented by growing economic interdependence and multilateral cooperation from the movement of capital and human resources and a growing number of free trade agreements and cooperative security dialogues.

Former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, in a speech at Harvard University in 2003, noted the transformation in India's attitude toward Asia: "In the past, India's engagement with much of Asia, including Southeast and East Asia, was built on an idealistic conception of Asian brotherhood, based on shared experiences of colonialism and of cultural ties. The rhythm of the region today is determined, however, as much by trade, investment and production as by history and culture. That is what motivates our decade-old 'Look East' policy. Already, this region accounts for 45 percent of our external trade."

Economic Interdependence

Economically, India has emerged as Asia's third-largest economy after Japan and China. It has forged numerous free trade agreements with East Asian economies, including a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore and an Early Harvest Scheme with Thailand, while it is negotiating agreements with Japan, South Korea, and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) member states.

India needs to add as much as US$500 billion in investment into its infrastructure and Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have expressed interest in diversifying their investment beyond China. South Korea is India's ninth-largest source of foreign investment, with Korean companies such as Daewoo, Hyundai, Samsung, and LG having a significant presence in India. POSCO is investing $12 billion to construct an integrated steel plant in Orissa in India's single-largest inward investment. Meanwhile, Singapore has emerged as India's seventh-largest source of foreign investment with Temasek Holdings making significant investments in India's financial, pharmaceutical, logistics, and information technology sectors.

There have also been a number of Japanese investments in India, most notably in New Delhi's metro subway system and Maruti. The Japanese government and corporate sector will also provide one-third of the funding for the $100 billion, 1,500 kilometer (930 miles) Delhi-Mumbai freight and industrial corridor, which is to begin construction in 2008 and be completed by 2012. Discussions are also proceeding on reaching a bilateral currency swap agreement between India and Japan. India is already the leading recipient of Japanese aid, receiving over $1 billion in 2005.

Numerous infrastructure projects also serve to tie India closer to East Asia. India is participating in the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific initiatives for an Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian Railway Network. Discussions are also proceeding on reopening the WWII-era Stilwell Road linking India's Assam state with China's Yunnan province through Myanmar (Burma). This follows the reopening of a direct overland trade route along the Nathu La Pass on the border between Sikkim and Tibet in July 2006 after 44 years.

Soft Power Influence

India is also attempting to reassert its soft power influence over the region. Notably, India is attempting to draw attention to its role as the birthplace of Buddhism and a center for learning through the Pan-Asian Nalanda Initiative, which aims to revive its 3,000-year old Nalanda University.

India's democratic credentials have also been a catalyst for India's integration with East Asia. Notably, Japan and Taiwan have sought closer relations with India in the context of their "value-oriented diplomacy." In his speech before a joint session of India's parliament in August, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described India as part of "broader Asia" that spans "the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the U.S. and Australia." Abe noted that these states comprise an "arc of freedom of prosperity" of "like-minded countries" that "share fundamental values such as freedom, democracy and respect for basic human rights as well as strategic interests."

Abe is the third successive Japanese prime minister to visit India after Yoshiro Mori in 2000 and Junichiro Koizumi in 2005, and India is the only country with which Japan will have annual prime ministerial level talks. Prime Minister Singh's visit to Japan in December 2006 culminated in the signing of the "Joint Statement Towards Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership."

The Taiwanese government under the current pan-Green Democratic Progressive Party has also attempted to forge a closer bond with democratic states such as India in order to raise its international profile and balance Beijing's attempts to contain its role on the world stage. Notably, the visit of Taiwanese presidential candidate and opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou to India in June 2007 was the first by a senior K.M.T. official since Chiang Kai-shek in 1942.

While India has remained a staunch supporter of the "One China" policy and recognized the People's Republic of China on the mainland over the Republic of China authorities on Taiwan, it has, nevertheless, pursued a policy of increasing engagement with the island. Notably, the business community has also taken note of the complementarity of India's software expertise and Taiwan's hardware expertise.

Overlapping Security Concerns

On the security front, India has stepped up engagement with East Asia fueled by its need for cooperation on counter-terrorism, humanitarian relief, anti-piracy, maritime and energy security, confidence-building, and balancing the influence of other powers, notably China. Driven by the fact that more than 50 percent of India's trade passes through the Malacca Straits, the Indian Navy has established a Far Eastern Naval Command (F.E.N.C.) off Port Blair on the Andaman Islands.

India has also been conducting joint naval exercises with Singapore (SIMBEX) since 1993, with Vietnam in 2000 and has engaged in joint patrols with Indonesia in the Andaman Sea since 2002. Japan and India were also members of the tsunami relief Regional Core Group in the Indian Ocean in 2004 along with Australia and the United States.

In an attempt to build confidence, India has also conducted a number of joint military exercises with China in recent years. In addition to their first joint counter-terrorism training in November, both states also held joint naval exercises in the East China Sea in November 2003 and the Indian Ocean in December 2005, as well as joint mountaineering training in August 2004.

Growing Multilateralism

India is also participating in a growing number of East Asian forums on economic, political and security issues. India became a sectoral dialogue partner with A.S.E.A.N. in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1995, a member of the A.S.E.A.N. Regional Forum in 1996, and a summit level partner (on par with China, Japan and Korea) in 2002. The first India-A.S.E.A.N. Business Summit was held in New Delhi in 2002. India also acceded to A.S.E.A.N.'s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2003.

India is also a member of a number of track-two (non-governmental) dialogues such as the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and numerous sub-regional forums, including the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, the Ganga-Mekong Cooperation Project and the Kunming Initiative in the Indochina region.

In many cases, India's membership to these forums has been a result of attempts by the region to balance China's growing influence in the area. Notably, Japan brought India into A.S.E.A.N.+6 to dilute the A.S.E.A.N.+3 process, where China is dominant, while Singapore and Indonesia played a significant role in bringing India into the East Asia Summit.

The United States and Japan have also lobbied for India's membership to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. India's leadership role in numerous sub-regional forums in the Mekong River Delta has also been regarded by some as a reaction to China's growing presence in the region.

East Asia in South Asia

India's growing presence in East Asia has paralleled East Asia's growing presence in South Asia. Notably, China, Japan and South Korea were granted observer status to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in 2005. Japan's role as Asia's leading and the world's second-largest provider of foreign aid and its growing international peacekeeping role has also made Tokyo an increasingly active player in South Asia. For example, Japan has pledged significant aid to bring an end to the civil war in Sri Lanka and in its first deployment under its new Ministry of Defense Japan sent peacekeepers to Nepal in March to monitor the cease-fire between the government and Maoist rebels. As part of the U.S.-led "war on terrorism," Japan has sent refueling ships to the Indian Ocean.

China has been increasing its engagement with South Asia to the quiet consternation of India. China's free trade agreement with Pakistan went into effect in July this year and China has also emerged as Bangladesh's leading trade partner and arms supplier. Beijing's support for the regime of Nepal's King Gyanendra following his suspension of democracy from February 2005 until April 2006 has been a source of irritation to India.

China's efforts to develop alternative overland routes to transport oil and gas imports by extending the existing Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan and China and developing port facilities at Gwadar in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as well as through Bangladesh and Myanmar, have been viewed by India as part of a "string of pearls" strategy of economic and military encroachment into South and Central Asia.

India's rapprochement with East Asia is also tied to a number of India's broader strategic interests, including rapprochement with the United States, ensuring stability along India's periphery, meeting its energy security needs, and fueling economic integration in South Asia.

Rapprochement with the United States

India's ongoing rapprochement with the United States is being driven by India's improving relationship with U.S. allies in East Asia, including Australia, Japan and Singapore. The U.S. commitment to help India emerge as a "world power" by assisting India's military modernization as evinced by the signing of the "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship" in 2005 and the "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership" in 2001 has prompted U.S. allies in Asia to step up military-to-military engagements with India.

For instance, in March 2006 Australian Prime Minister John Howard signed a memorandum on defense cooperation with India. In April 2007, Australia and Japan along with the United States held a trilateral naval exercise off the Boso Peninsula in central Japan, and the "Malabar-07" U.S.-India joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean in September included the navies of Japan, Australia and Singapore as well.

Energy Security

India imports more than 70 percent of its oil consumption and half of its gas consumption. At the same time, India's energy dilemmas are shared by many states in East Asia. Asia accounts for a quarter of the world's energy consumption, meets 41 percent of its energy needs from burning coal, holds 3.5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves while having the world's second-, third-, fifth- and sixth-largest oil importers, namely Japan, China, South Korea and India.

These shared concerns demand a joint, multilateral approach. India, with other major energy consuming countries in Asia, can cooperate on addressing shared concerns to their energy security such as developing regional strategic petroleum reserves, collective bargaining to address the Asian premium on imported oil, encouraging joint development of disputed energy-rich territories, and improving energy conservation and efficiency.

India's growing engagement with East Asia also complements India's increasingly proactive foreign policy with other regions given the converging interests between India and other Asian powers. For instance, in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, numerous Asian states are attempting to generate goodwill and foster peace and development given their growing dependence on these regions' resources.

In 2004, India took the first step in promoting regional energy cooperation by convening the First Roundtable of Asian Ministers on Regional Cooperation in the Oil and Gas Economy in New Delhi, which brought together the four principal Asian oil-consuming countries -- China, Japan, South Korea and India -- and engaging in a dialogue with major oil-producing countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Similarly, as the 123 Agreement under U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act moves from being a bilateral issue to a multilateral one with necessary endorsement from the International Atomic Energy Agency and 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, India will need to seek approval from numerous states, including pivotal players in Asia. The recent willingness by Australia to sell uranium to India is significant given that Australia holds 40 percent of the world's uranium reserves. The quiet acquiescence by Japan to the U.S.-India nuclear agreement is also a milestone given Japan's staunch opposition to nuclear proliferation.

China, while initially expressing discomfort about the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement by labeling it as creating a "nuclear exception" and undermining the nonproliferation regime, has recently toned down its opposition to the deal by calling for "innovative and forward-looking approaches to civilian nuclear cooperation."

Stabilizing India's Periphery

India's "Look East" policy also offers potential solutions to South Asia's security concerns. Aside from the increasingly active role by Japan and China in South Asia, the mixed success of countries in South and Southeast Asia in combating Islamic insurgencies offers potential for cooperation and collaboration in finding joint solutions to the wave of Islamic extremism sweeping the region. For instance, Indonesia has managed to quell Islamic extremism, while in the southern regions of Thailand and the Philippines in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh and Pakistan in South Asia, Islamic terrorism is escalating.

In the case of Indonesia, emphasis on local solutions over foreign intervention, the use of effective local law enforcement and intelligence gathering such as the Detachment 88 police unit over military heavy-handedness, and ensuring that syllabi in Islamic schools promote tolerance, non-violence and progressive Islamic education, have effectively marginalized Islamic extremist elements in Indonesian society.

India has a vested interest in ensuring that Islamic extremism does not take grip in the region given its ongoing struggle with an Islamic insurgency in Kashmir, as well as a growing string of attacks on symbolic targets in India's heartland since the December 2001 attack on India's parliament that have been aimed at igniting communal violence and undermining confidence in India's economy.

The most notable linkage between India's "Look East" policy and attempts to secure the homeland has been seen in New Delhi's shift in policy toward the military junta in Myanmar. Myanmar is the only country in Southeast Asia that shares both a land and maritime border with India. As such, India's foreign policy toward Myanmar has undergone a major shift.

New Delhi has moved from voicing its opposition to the military junta's crackdown on pro-democracy activists to a more pragmatic policy of engagement with the regime since 1993, fueled by India's desire to gain access to Myanmar's energy resources and Southeast Asia's markets, as well as balancing China's influence in the region and obtaining Yangon's support in countering insurgent groups in India's northeast.

As part of this policy, there have been a numerous exchanges of senior level officials, India-Myanmar trade has expanded from $87 million in 1990 to $569 million in 2005, and India has also sold numerous weapons platforms to Myanmar at "friendship prices" with the intention to fight Indian insurgent groups seeking sanctuary in Myanmar's territory.

Promoting South Asian Economic Integration

India's economic integration with East Asia also offers a potential catalyst for economic integration in South Asia. Intra-regional trade in South Asia accounts for a mere four percent of the region's total trade, even though the South Asia Preferential Trading Arrangement has been in place since 1995 and the South Asia Free Trade Area went into force in July 2006.

In contrast, in 2004 intra-regional trade in A.S.E.A.N. amounted to 49 percent; in N.A.F.T.A., this figure was 44 percent and in the European Union this was 67 percent. The low level of economic integration in the region is not surprising given the adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan; both states account for 90 percent of the region's G.D.P. and official trade between both amounts to less than $500 million.

Resolving India-Pakistan hostilities and addressing fears by India's neighbors of India's economic dominance of the region are necessary to fuel economic integration. Tying South Asia's economic integration to broader Asian economic integration would help pacify fears of India's dominance of a regional free trade arrangement.

Engagement Below Expectations

Despite the successes of India's "Look East" policy, India's engagement with East Asia is not without controversy. First, engagement continues to be below its full potential. For example, despite the rhetoric of India and Japan in forming an "arc of freedom and prosperity," bilateral engagement remains low. Japanese investment in India was approximately $2 billion in 2006, far less than the $57 billion that Japan invested in China, while Sino-Japanese trade was more than $207 billion in 2006, far less than Japan-India trade, which amounted to $7 billion.

Similarly, India makes up only 0.67 percent of Taiwan's total trade and Taiwanese investment in India totals $116 million as opposed to well over $100 billion in China. In Southeast Asia, New Delhi remains second fiddle to Beijing's growing presence in the region as China's trade with Southeast Asia exceeded $160 billion in 2006, while India's trade with the region is less than $30 billion.

Similarly, despite the ongoing rapprochement in Sino-Indian relations, mutual mistrust persists. Chinese investment in India has lagged as India's national security establishment has opposed Chinese investment in strategically important Indian sectors such as ports and telecommunications. While China has emerged as India's second-largest trading partner, India is only China's tenth-largest trading partner.

Sporadic tensions continue to arise over their long-standing territorial dispute, as highlighted by India canceling the visit of 107 bureaucrats to China in May of this year after China refused to accept the visa application of an official from the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh. India has responded by allegedly enhancing its air power on its eastern front. Despite 11 rounds of negotiations between their Special Representatives since 2003, China and India have failed to make significant progress on the boundary dispute. [See: "India-China Competition Revealed in Ongoing Border Disputes"]

Similarly, India's engagement with East Asia remains peripheral to the region's security concerns. India has a vested interest in the two most prominent flashpoints in East Asia, notably the Taiwan Strait and Korean Peninsula. Many have forgotten the fact that India played an important role during the Korean War as a mediator between the United States and communist China.

Nonetheless, India is neither a member of the current six-party or the larger ten-party framework on the North Korean nuclear issue, even though India has a number of vested interests in a peaceful Korean Peninsula; most notably, Pakistan has assisted North Korea with its nuclear program (by providing uranium enrichment technology) through the A.Q. Khan network in exchange for North Korean assistance to Pakistan's ballistic missile program (by providing it with the Nodong/Ghauri ballistic missile). Beyond this, North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship serves to delay India's formal membership to the nuclear club by demonstrating the "dark side" of nuclear proliferation, even though India has a strong record in nuclear nonproliferation.

With respect to the Taiwan Strait, India has a vested interest in the peaceful resolution of the dispute given India's growing economic interdependence and people-to-people contacts with both sides of the strait. Some quarters of India's policymaking community have even voiced the utility of forging closer relations with Taiwan as a quid pro quo for China's close relationship with Pakistan. Nonetheless, India is unlikely to intervene in cross-strait hostilities in an overt way as Japan and the United States have highlighted in the "peaceful resolution" of the Taiwan Strait dispute as a "common strategic objective" in their 2+2 (U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee) statement in 2005.

There has also been, from the Western point of view, a "dark side" to India's "Look East" policy given New Delhi's engagement with regimes such as Myanmar, where it has sacrificed ideological principles such as supporting democracy for pragmatic interests. Most recently, India has incurred the wrath of the West with the intended transfer of its Advanced Light Helicopters, which are built with components from numerous European countries, to the State Peace and Development Council regime in Yangon, which is a contravention of the E.U. arms embargo on Myanmar.

Furthermore, despite India's change of approach in dealing with Myanmar, it is not apparent that India has made any significant gains. For instance, while Indian energy companies Oil & Natural Gas Company Videsh Ltd. and Gas Authority of India Limited have a 30 percent stake in Myanmar's A1 and A3 blocks in the Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal, a proposed natural gas pipeline to India has been threatened by an agreement between Rangoon and PetroChina to supply China with 6.5 trillion cubic feet (TcF) of natural gas via a pipeline from the A1 block to Kunming in China's Yunnan province. [See: "Pipeline Politics: India and Myanmar"]

There are also reports that numerous weapons platforms sold by India to Myanmar may actually be used to arm and assist Indian insurgent groups. While Myanmar took part in Operation Golden Bird in 1995 to clamp down on Indian insurgent groups, efforts have not been as successful as those in neighboring Bhutan in 2003 (Operation All Clear).

India's "Look East" Policy Comes Full Circle

Despite these impediments, India's foreign policy has finally moved beyond the confines of South Asia toward East Asia, as demonstrated by the fact that India's hyphenated foreign policy, which has traditionally been linked to Pakistan, is now increasingly linked to China, Japan and the United States. The India-Pakistan-U.S. triangle has been replaced by the India-China-U.S. triangle, which is complemented by numerous other Asian powers including Japan, Australia and Russia.

While India's engagement with East Asia is by no means new, the fact that India's long-standing cultural and historical links are now being complemented by growing interdependence forged by economic integration and transnational security concerns serves to forge a stronger bond with the Asia-Pacific region. Shared interests are complementing shared values. Pragmatism and realpolitik are replacing Nehruvian idealism in India's engagement with East Asia.

Report Drafted By:
Chietigj Bajpaee

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of enquiries@pinr.com. PINR reprints do not qualify under Fair-Use Statute Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All comments should be directed to comments@pinr.com.

I find it striking how naive folks can be on diplomatic decisions different countries make.
The simple fact is that each country deals in its own national interest.
Below is a good article around India's self interest in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

October 24, 2007
India Agrees to Help Sides Reconcile in Myanmar

By SOMINI SENGUPTA
NEW DELHI, Oct. 23 — The Indian government described Myanmar on Tuesday as its “close and friendly neighbor” and said it would aid in Myanmar’s national reconciliation, even as the United Nations special envoy called on India to join other countries in pressing Myanmar’s military rulers to stop their campaign of repression against pro-democracy protesters.

Ibrahim Gambari, the United Nations’ top official assigned to Myanmar, told reporters here that he was “very satisfied” by India’s commitments. His visit was part of a tour across Asia, intended to cajole Asian governments to take a tougher stance on the junta’s crushing of the protests, which began late in the summer and grew over several weeks.

He is scheduled to go to Beijing next and return to Myanmar in early November to promote reconciliation there, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Energy-starved India has lately courted Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, which is rich in natural gas. Even during the protests, India steered clear of directly criticizing the government.

“As a close and friendly neighbor, India has multidimensional linkages with Myanmar,” a Foreign Ministry statement read. “Consequently, initiatives should be mindful of the need for a peaceful and stable Myanmar. India will continue to play a constructive and positive role, along with like-minded countries, to this end.”

Privately, Indian diplomats have said they have their own interests in maintaining good relations with the government in Myanmar. Not only is India eager to cash in on its neighbor’s substantial reserves of natural gas, but Indian officials say they also count on the government in Yangon to control anti-Indian insurgents along the border.

In late September, with the protests under way, India dispatched its petroleum minister, Murli Deora, to Myanmar. He returned with a contract for three deep-water gas exploration projects for the Indian-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

The Bush administration has called for sanctions on Myanmar, which India has resolutely opposed.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has called for a United Nations arms embargo to press countries like India to stop supplying weapons to Myanmar’s military government.

Barnett: Build better fairy dust, suffer fewer bad actors

By Thomas P.M. Barnett
Sunday, November 11, 2007

Scientific advances today are accomplished at the intersections of various fields, according to Frans Johansson's brilliant book, "The Medici Effect." Breakthroughs come when disparate disciplines collide in new ways. This innovation is readily seen in nanotechnology, or the creation and use of materials - even machines - at the atomic or molecular scale.

While the sexiest nanotechnology focuses on new applications, many possibilities exist to vastly improve existing techniques and procedures.

I got a lesson on one such potential use recently at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which - by design - is sort of a Medici effect all its own, meaning the lab steers scientists from various fields into multidisciplinary efforts to solve vexing problems.

Being a strategy consultant to Oak Ridge, I'm like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to receiving briefings from lab scientists because - no matter the project - it's easy to imagine real-world applications ranging far beyond the subject at hand.

As an expert on globalization, I focus a lot on transparency, with my analytic mantra being, "connectivity drives code." By that I mean, the more you engage the larger world (connectivity), the more you become subject to rules (code).

Want to live all by yourself in a shack in the woods? That means fewer rules for you, because your code is simply shutting yourself off from the outside world.

Want to travel all over this planet and engage in all sorts of commerce?

That's going to mean a whole lot more rules apply, and with all those rules comes an abundance of transparency. You will be increasingly tracked, tagged and located by networks.

But what if you're someone who believes in that more primitive, isolated life and you're willing to fight and kill and die to impose that choice on others?

If that's your chosen ideology, then you will destroy other people's connectivity to keep that integrating world at bay.

You'll live largely off the grid and engage global networks for the twin purposes of winning converts and sowing chaos.

In short, you'll leave no traces, just destruction, so tracking you will be no mean trick. You're like a criminal who doesn't want to leave any fingerprints behind.

Police have detected fingerprints at crime scenes for over a century to identify culprits. In the old days, the primary method involved spreading "fairy dust" (i.e., various powders) over surfaces suspected of containing fingerprints - hence "dusting for prints."

If the suspect left behind oily enough prints, the dust would stick to them and reveal identifying information. Your fingers get oily, for example, when you touch oily body parts like your face or hair.

But say our suspect is more careful, washing his hands or using gloves or leaving prints solely on harder-to-dust surfaces, like certain metals or plastic bags or a victim's skin.

By the late 1980s the new gold standard in lifting "cleaner" prints involved superheating special glue until it vaporized and could bond with the targeted fingerprint, creating a sort of protected cast visible to the naked eye.

This technology was superior to dusting because it could reveal prints based on less residual material, interacting with base components such as amino acids and glucose.

But this technology still suffered a time limit: the longer a print dried out, the fewer chemical components were left behind to react to the super glue.

So today's cutting edge in fingerprinting involves boosting the signal, so to speak. You want to be able to compile an identifying print from the slimmest amount of biological residue left behind.

Enter nanotechnology.

By constructing new forms of dust employing nano-engineered shapes (e.g., rods, cubes, spheres, pyramids), scientists are figuring out how to enhance the most difficult-to-obtain fingerprints.

These particles are used to shift the wavelength of light that is directed against targeted surfaces, resulting in an identifiable scattering signal.

Where can this go?

How about a rape kit that lifts the perpetrator's prints off the victim's body? Or international inspectors scanning mass graves to gather evidence for a war crimes prosecution? Or - you get the idea.

In this increasingly connected world, it's our inability to finger bad actors that - in the end - allows them to create the most terror. Make better fairy dust, crack tougher codes, connect more dots, create more transparency, and you've got fewer bad actors.

In this global war, the smallest things will matter most.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a distinguished strategist at the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies and senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Contact him at tom@thomaspmbarnett.com.

© 2007 Knoxville News Sentinel

Op-Ed Columnist
Democracy’s Root: Diversity
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By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 11, 2007
Last Tuesday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican — the first audience ever by the head of the Catholic Church with a Saudi monarch. The Saudi king gave the pope two gifts: a golden sword studded with jewels, and a gold and silver statue depicting a palm tree and a man riding a camel.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
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The BBC reported that the pope “admired the statue but merely touched the sword.” I think it is a great thing these two men met, and that King Abdullah came bearing gifts. But what would have really caught my attention — and the world’s — would have been if King Abdullah had presented the pope with something truly daring: a visa.

You see, the king of Saudi Arabia, also known as the Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina, can visit the pope in the Vatican. But the pope can’t visit the king of Saudi Arabia in the Vatican of Islam — Mecca. Non-Muslims are not allowed there. Moreover, it is illegal to build a church, a synagogue or a Hindu or Buddhist temple in Saudi Arabia, or to practice any of these religions publicly.

As BBCnews.com noted, “some Christian worship services are held secretly, but the government has been known to crack down on them, or deport Filipino workers if they hold even private services. ... The Saudi authorities cite a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad that only Islam can be practiced in the Arabian Peninsula.”

I raise this point because the issue of diversity — how and under what conditions should “the other” be tolerated — is roiling the Muslim world today, from Lebanon to Iraq to Pakistan. More churches and mosques have been blown up in the past few years than any time I can remember.

A senior French official suggested to me that maybe we in the West, rather than trying to promote democracy in the Middle East — a notion tainted by its association with the very Western powers that once colonized the region — should be focusing on promoting diversity, which has historical roots in the area.

It’s a valid point. The very essence of democracy is peaceful rotations of power, no matter whose party or tribe is in or out. But that ethic does not apply in most of the Arab-Muslim world today, where the political ethos remains “Rule or Die.” Either my group is in power or I’m dead, in prison, in exile or lying very low. But democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can’t take root.

But respect for diversity is something that has to emerge from within a culture. We can hold a free and fair election in Iraq, but we can’t inject a culture of diversity. America and Europe had to go through the most awful civil wars to give birth to their cultures of diversity. The Arab-Muslim world will have to go through the same internal war of ideas.

I just returned from India, which just celebrated 60 years of democracy. Pakistan, right next door, is melting down. Yet, they are basically the same people — they look alike, they eat the same food, they dress alike. But there is one overriding difference: India has a culture of diversity. India is now celebrating 60 years of democracy precisely because it is also celebrating millennia of diversity, including centuries of Muslim rule.

Nayan Chanda, author of a delightful new book on globalization titled “Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization,” recounts the role of all these characters in connecting our world. He notes: “The Muslim Emperor Akbar, who ruled India in the 16th century at the pinnacle of the Mughal Empire, had Christians, Hindus, Jain and Zoroastrians in his court. Many of his senior officials were Hindus. On his deathbed, Jesuit priests tried to convert him, but he refused. Here was a man who knew who he was, yet he had respect for all religions. Nehru, a Hindu and India’s first prime minister, was a great admirer of Akbar.”

Akbar wasn’t just tolerant. He was embracing of other faiths and ideas, which is why his empire was probably the most powerful in Indian history. Pakistan, which has as much human talent as India, could use an Akbar. Ditto the Arab world.

I give King Abdullah credit, though. His path-breaking meeting with the pope surely gave many Saudi clerics heartburn. But as historic as it was, it left no trace. I wished the pope had publicly expressed a desire to visit Saudi Arabia, and that the king would now declare: “Someone has to chart a new path for our region. If I can meet the pope in the Vatican, I can host Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Shiite and Buddhist religious leaders for a dialogue in our sacred house. Why not? We are secure in our own faith. Let us all meet as equals.”

Why not?

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November 11, 2007
Broken Supply Channel Sent Weapons for Iraq Astray

By ERIC SCHMITT and GINGER THOMPSON
This article was reported by Eric Schmitt, Ginger Thompson, Margot Williams and James Glanz, and was written by Mr. Schmitt and Ms. Thompson.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — As the insurgency in Iraq escalated in the spring of 2004, American officials entrusted an Iraqi businessman with issuing weapons to Iraqi police cadets training to help quell the violence.

By all accounts, the businessman, Kassim al-Saffar, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, did well at distributing the Pentagon-supplied weapons from the Baghdad Police Academy armory he managed for a military contractor. But, co-workers say, he also turned the armory into his own private arms bazaar with the seeming approval of some American officials and executives, selling AK-47 assault rifles, Glock pistols and heavy machine guns to anyone with cash in hand — Iraqi militias, South African security guards and even American contractors.

“This was the craziest thing in the world,” said John Tisdale, a retired Air Force master sergeant who managed an adjacent warehouse. “They were taking weapons away by the truckload.”

Activities at that armory and other warehouses help explain how the American military lost track of some 190,000 pistols and automatic rifles supplied by the United States to Iraq’s security forces in 2004 and 2005, as auditors discovered in the past year.

These discoveries prompted criminal inquiries by the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and stoked fears that the arms could fall into enemy hands and be used against American troops. So far, no missing weapons have been linked to any American deaths, but investigators say that in a country awash with weapons, it may be impossible to trace where some ended up.

While the Pentagon has yet to offer its own accounting of how the weapons channel broke down, it is clear from interviews with two dozen military and civilian investigators, contracting officers, warehouse managers and others that military expediency sometimes ran amok, the lines between legal and illegal were blurred and billions of dollars in arms were handed over to shoestring commands without significant oversight.

In the armory that Mr. Saffar presided over, for example, his dealings were murky. Mr. Tisdale, who recalled seeing a briefcase stuffed with stacks of $20 bills under Mr. Saffar’s desk, said he thought Mr. Saffar enriched himself selling American stocks along with guns he acquired from the streets. Mr. Tisdale was supposed to sign off on any transactions by Mr. Saffar, but he said many shipments left the armory without his approval and without the required records.

Ted Nordgaarden, an Alaska state trooper who worked as the police academy’s supply chief, said most of the weapons he saw leaving the armory went with a military escort. For his part, Mr. Saffar denies any wrongdoing, including any arms dealings. Nearly a half-dozen American and Iraqi workers say his gun business was an open secret at the armory.

Elsewhere, American officers short-circuited the chain of custody by rushing to Baghdad’s airport to claim crates of newly arrived weapons without filing the necessary paperwork. And Iraqis regularly sold or stole the American-supplied weapons, American officers and contractors said.

A shipment of 3,000 Glocks issued to police cadets disappeared within a week when they were sold on the black market, said an American official involved in distributing weapons. Other military sources said the weapons would fetch between five and seven times more than the $200 a police cadet would earn in a month. American military commanders say Iraqi security guards are suspected of stealing hundreds of weapons last year in about 10 major thefts at arms depots at Taji and Abu Ghraib.

The investigations into missing weapons are among the most serious in the widening federal inquiries into billions of dollars in military contracts for the purchase and delivery of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces.

Already there is evidence that some American-supplied weapons fell into the hands of guerrillas responsible for attacks against Turkey, an important United States ally. Some investigators said that because military suppliers to the war zone were not required to record serial numbers, it was unlikely that the authorities would ever be able to tell where the weapons went.

Many of those weapons were issued when Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq, was responsible for training and equipping Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005. General Petraeus has said that he opted to arm the Iraqi forces as quickly as possible, before tracking systems were fully in place. The Pentagon says it has since tightened its record keeping for the weapons, but government auditors said in interviews that they were not yet convinced that an effective system was in place.

“The problem goes well beyond bookkeeping,” said Joseph A. Christoff, the director of international affairs and trade for the Government Accountability Office. Another G.A.O. official said, “There were inquiries from soldiers finding enemy weapons caches, finding AK-47s, and they would ask, ‘Did we give these to them?’”

Some military officials involved in supplying the Iraqis describe the sense of urgency they felt and the need to cut through what they saw as a cumbersome military bureaucracy.

A few miles from Mr. Saffar’s armory, Maj. John Isgrigg III and Maj. Timmy W. Cox were assigned to issue weapons to the Iraqi military and national guard from early 2004 to 2005. As soon as they heard that a new shipment was arriving, the officers said, they put together a convoy to be the first to claim it, barreling onto the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport and loading the crates of Glocks and AK-47s.

In several telephone interviews and e-mail exchanges, Majors Cox and Isgrigg described a race between themselves and the system. They acknowledged that they did not do everything by the book. They did not always call ahead to the airport to say they were coming. They signed receipts but did not always wait around to fill out inspection reports, known as DD-250s. And they told only certain superior officers about their plans for where the weapons would be delivered.

Major Isgrigg, 46, described the chain of custody as a maze of red tape. Once weapons went into it, it took days for them to be released, he said. Sometimes, he said, a competing unit distributing weapons to the Iraqi police would get to a shipment first, so he and Major Cox would have to wait for the next one. He said that warehouse crews had been infiltrated by Iraqis sympathetic to insurgents, and that sometimes weapons would disappear.

“We had folks getting killed because equipment wasn’t moving,” said Col. Randy Hinton, the majors’ superior officer. “Were there times when all the right forms were not signed? Probably. But we had a mission to do, and we were going to do it the best way we could at that time.”

In a phone interview from Bangkok, John Hess, who worked as the assistant director of operations for an American-owned company that helped manage supplies for Iraq, said payments to the companies that supplied arms to Iraq were often delayed because of missing DD-250s. He said he believed that the officers had the right motives but used dangerous methods.

“Once those weapons left normal channels,” Mr. Hess said, “none of us were ever sure where they were really going.”

Several co-workers complained about the unorthodox tactics of the two officers, including an accusation that Major Cox, 38, was stealing weapons, Major Isgrigg said. However, federal officials said the officers were not the targets of an investigation.

Even when they managed to get weapons to the Iraqi military, Major Isgrigg said, it was hard for him and Major Cox to feel triumphant. The Iraqi commanders could barely keep track of their troops, much less stocks of new weapons, he said. He estimated that 30 percent of the equipment he and Major Cox delivered went to Iraqi soldiers who showed up for duty one day, and disappeared the next.

“There were times we would issue a batch of weapons and within 10 days they would show up at the Enemy Weapons Purchase Program,” Major Cox, who is on his second tour in Baghdad, wrote by e-mail, referring to a military effort to buy guns from the streets.

“We didn’t always think we were going about things the right way,” said Major Isgrigg, who left Iraq in July. But he said he believed that his actions were necessary, saying of his commanders: “They rushed it. Their goal was to get those units standing as fast as possible, and then to get out of there. There was no planning for the long term.”

As the American military hurried to train and equip Iraqi security forces in the spring of 2004, the Pentagon turned to contractors to operate warehouses to store equipment and weapons.

Mr. Saffar managed an armory on the grounds of the Baghdad Police Academy, which along with a nearby warehouse was operated by an American-owned company based in Kuwait.

In July, the company, American Logistics Services, which later became Lee Dynamics International, was suspended by the Army from doing future business with the government amid accusations that the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to military contracting officers. The company had won $11 million in contracts to manage five warehouses with arms and other equipment in Iraq.

The company’s armory, a long concrete building divided into two sections in the back, was a logistics hub for the new Iraqi police. Crates of AK-47s and Glock pistols purchased by the Pentagon were trucked to the armory by armed convoys from a large warehouse at Abu Ghraib, and Mr. Saffar issued them to cadets.

It was also from this 1,800-square-foot building and six adjacent 40-foot-long metal shipping containers that Mr. Saffar plied his personal arms trade, co-workers said. He sold guns from the black market and from captured stocks. “There wasn’t anybody there who didn’t know what he was doing,” said Mr. Nordgaarden, the Alaska state trooper.

Mr. Tisdale said Mr. Saffar had a steady stream of customers, from Iraqis to South African private security contractors. “There were truckloads of stuff moving out of that armory without my authorization,” Mr. Tisdale said.

Mr. Tisdale said that he complained repeatedly to two top American Logistics executives, but they assured him that Mr. Saffar’s dealings were proper. The company has not responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Tisdale and other co-workers said they believed that an American military official, Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, an Army officer who oversaw the warehouse contract and whose activities have been part of the investigation into American Logistics, also must have known about the arms dealings. Mr. Tisdale said the colonel regularly visited the armory and met with Mr. Saffar. Mr. Nordgaarden recalled seeing Colonel Selph at the warehouse 8 to 10 times over a year.

In an brief encounter outside her Northern Virginia home, Colonel Selph would say only that she was not guilty of any wrongdoing, and that she was under orders not to speak to the press. She would not say whose orders.

Mr. Saffar, who said he left Iraq in August 2005 when his contract to manage the armory ended, denied that he had run a private arms business. “My work was to issue weapons and ammunition to the Iraqi police,” he said in an e-mail message from Bahrain.

Mr. Hess, who was the assistant director of operations for American Logistics, defended Colonel Selph as the one person trying to establish order in the chaos that characterized the early months of the reconstruction effort. And he said that though Mr. Saffar’s arms business might look bad from a distance, it hardly raised an eyebrow in Baghdad.

“You’re talking about a war zone,” Mr. Hess said. “In Iraq, weapons are everywhere.”

Eric Schmitt and Ginger Thompson reported from Washington, Margot Williams from New York and James Glanz from Baghdad.