India and Russia-III

[Guest guest]

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.