Military Security Cooperation In South Asia: A Concept

Military Security Cooperation In South Asia: A Concept (Abridged)

Guest Column by Prof. A.S Dalvi & Amit Mukherjee

The essence of security relies on the capacity of a state or nation states in their ability to defend their territorial integrity. This has only one primary dimension and that is the military dimension.

Basically, the charter of the UN presses the concept of security where nations would develop friendly relations based on mutual respect and on the principles of equality, equality of rights of the people, the right to self-determination and the right to take any step likely to consolidate peace in the world to achieve international cooperation by solving international problems of economic, social and humanitarian nature. Even though it stipulates that no coercive action must be taken, the recent emergence of new security scenarios created by the US and its unilateral decision to take action against Afghanistan and Iraq has thrown the non-coercive approach to the backseat. .

Military Security cooperation requires the creation of a military security zone in South Asia. This concept has various strands.

Military to Civil: The Armed forces of a military organization form the largest organized establishment of trained manpower that is able to handle battle hardened situation on the civilian front. They allow the state to envisage a better counter emergency management policy with efficiency. This pre existing setup requires to broaden its periphery of involvement in South Asia in three areas and these are Maritime Security, Piracy and smuggling and drug trade.

Maritime Security: The South Asia region is a maritime region. The commercial activities and influence of the sea in South Asia requires little elaboration. It is a major source of food for the region, trade, raw material and investment among other things. The Arms Race and the speedy acquisition of armaments in the South Asia region in the case of maritime surveillance and intelligence collection systems, fighter aircraft with maritime capabilities, anti-ship missiles, submarines, naval electronic warfare systems are proven to be taken as offensive in nature and creates an inflammatory response from the potential and perceived rivals. Regional confidence and security building measures are essential to downgrade the possibility of escalation on perceptions. It is therefore important that regional mechanisms are instituted both to address the cause of the problem and to manage and reduce the tensions. The United Nations Law of the Sea convention sets possible guidelines on which such disputes and security concerns could be met on a mutually agreed system. From an international point a few, in Asia it must be noted that the law of the sea sees a collective security approach for reduction of tensions in the region.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development the trade estimates are close to 21500 billion ton-miles in 1999. In ten years the trade is expected to be 35000 billion ton-miles and by 2015 its expected to rise as much as 42000 billion ton-miles. By way of old records more oil and gas, which happen to be the lifeline of any nations survival, are also dependant on HOMRUZ and Malacca Straits in South Asia. The member nations have to formulate an all-acceptable policy to influence a common security interest to control the all-important SLOC zones for mutual survivability and stability in the region.

Disaster Management: As mentioned before, the biggest organized and trained force of a nation in the South Asian region is the armed forces with their resources. The effectiveness of their involvement can be seen in many relief operations that they have participated in under any flag. The sheer size of disasters and calamities are such that no other single entity in any member state in South Asia can take charge of relief work.

The magnitude of these operations and their potential to become larger in the future gives the impetus for developing the proposed integrated system using IT and GIS as base technologies. The Sea and the land areas can be digitized on the basis of commonalities and a centralized or sectionalized database of information pertaining to the collective data can be stored. With the use of active data management and remote sensing suites due to which all will identify any discrepancy belonging to any party simultaneously - thus reducing the chances of blame game and redundant investigations.

Environmental Security: Environmental degradation can become a reason for conflict if it threatens a state or an international security scenario and may require military intervention of some kind. Environmental degradation is thus a security prone system and environmental security is a military prone system. The military model of environmental security marks the extent to which the pursuit of traditional security contributes to other forms of insecurity including environmental cases. The destruction of environment leading to an armed conflict intended or unintended as a cause for environmental degradation, damage of terrestrial and marine ecosystem and contribution to air pollution is another reason for joint integration of distributive mechanism using GIS.
Military to Military: It would be best to begin with Maldives, which has been for long time a strong ally of India. Maldives is strategically important for Indian security. It was more so during the cold war period.
Maldives
Given India�s historical intervention for preventing a coup in Maldives and the joint �dosti� exercises involving Indian and Maldivian Coast Guards have symbolized the deepening service-to-service relations. The Maldivian government has never accepted the possibility of a bilateral defence agreement with India since it bases its security concerns in a manner that while preferring to seek India's security assistance on a transitory basis and not under a bilateral arrangement through a treaty, the island entrusts the overall responsibility of ensuring its security with the United Nations. It considers India as a source of contingency security assistance, but that does not qualify India to become an overall security manager of the island nation. However post 9/11 the function of dependency on United Nations may leave a big question mark on the existing policy of the Maldivian government. Under such circumstances a new start can be made and the government of Maldives be approached with the trans-national military security set up wherein we give the participating nations (in this particular case Maldives) proportional amount of flexibility in deciding the allowances that may need to be incurred while setting up of the security apparatus. Regular military exercises could benefit India and Maldives from any ambitious exigency that any pirate nation or group may attempt on a State that is in a weak position. It also allows India to use its blue water navy for strategically important demonstrative purposes. The advantages of such exercises will invariably help the military security apparatus to exercise new and old realms of military options as training alternatives. Such a system finds its genesis from the same old concept of mutual benefit to which both India and Maldives are accustomed to for the last 40 years. Such an arrangement does not need to be formed on a permanent basis and can be time framed according to the negotiasted settlements.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka has been bogged down with the problem of LTTE. . In the 1980s, Sri Lanka wished to use its strategic location in the central Indian Ocean (positioned by a natural harbour, Trincomalee) to involve external forces to neutralise India�s hegemonistic tendencies in the island�s security or gain some sort of insurance against its vaguely formulated perceived threat from India. With realisation that India�s role in the region is pervasive Sri Lanka is seeking military arsenal and support from India and is promising that Indian weapons will not be used against Tamil civilians. One of the priority items for Sri Lanka are vehicles the military can use to ward off the LTTE's claymore mines, which have accounted for most of the casualties during the renewed violence since December last year. Sri Lanka, whose navy finds the LTTE's Sea Tigers a formidable foe along with the new threat of air attacks, also wants the Indian Navy and Coast Guard to enforce an effective blockade of the sea surrounding the island's northeast to choke the rebels' military supplies.

It is looking for further Indian technology, besides the radars it has secured from New Delhi, to mount better surveillance of its airspace in view of the LTTE's newfound aerial power. But India is hesitant to sell combat weapons to Colombo as opposed to equipment used mainly for defense. This is confusing and does not explain why India is reluctant to take a positive big brother role in the subcontinent. Earlier these neighbors were themselves antagonistic about India�s dominating position since they could cry out to the west on false pretexts and even join the propaganda bandwagon to counter India�s weight in international forums led by the misleading and misguided efforts of those antagonistic to India. Since then the political dynamics has changed. The smaller states are realizing their long term survival requirements can be fulfilled by their nearest neighbor. It is this realization that India should take advantage of and take the leadership role that all these nations are asking for. Unless we take a proactive approach to fill these gaps in the international interactions in south Asia we would be outwitted by China which is too keen to assist any nation and fill these gaps to create a circle of influence not just encircling India but inside India too. The requirement of aerial photography is a line of technology that India can help apart from the need of intelligence cooperation.

Myanmar

Indian security forces, frustrated by cross-border raids by armed rebels in the remote northeast, are looking for increased military ties with Myanmar and possible joint operations to flush out separatist guerrillas. It is in Myanmar�s interest to not have hostile relations with India. The visit of defense ministerial group heightens and discussions that followed between India and Myanmar seems set to have led to a substantial increase in arms sales and other forms of military cooperation. India wants the junta to launch a massive military crackdown along the lines of a similar operation that took place in Bhutan in December 2003 to crush militant bases belonging to a wide range of rebel groups that remain in India�s poverty-ridden, isolated northeast. The package reportedly included helicopters and radars manufactured by Bharat Heavy Electricals.

Nepal

The Nepalese sphere has been more turbulent in the recent past given the Maoist uprising. Nepal's King Gyanendra's declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, sacked the prime minister and suspended many constitutional rights, including freedom of the press, speech and expression, peaceful assembly, and the right against preventive detention. This is a region of extreme instability where a Maoist `regime change' in Nepal could result in unpredictable consequences.

Pakistan

The toughest nut to crack however would be Pakistan - India military cooperation Indian government has been pushing the idea of joint mechanism of security forces along the border and sharing of intelligence. One such issue was much hyped in the media when an Indian intelligence report tip off that saved a probable disaster involving Pakistani Presidential convoy. However at the military level, the only cooperation setup possible for now is setting up a unit to unit intelligence and information sharing network which addresses common security concerns of both nations, as expecting any thing more would be unrealistic now. Security officials from India and Pakistan met at the Wagah border crossing on July 19 to discuss ways to strengthen border security and to combat illegal trafficking. During the meeting, the two sides exchanged information on illegal border crossings, trafficking and marked areas for proposed joint border patrols.

Bhutan

The new treaty with Bhutan indicates that it shall be have greater freedom to interact with other nations and sources to meet its military requirements. The Bhutanese army which is almost 80% dependant on Indian arms and its economy which is 73% funded by India makes it a very natural ally. It has constantly supported India�s political actions in the UN and other international arenas. It is currently engaged assisting India in ousting militant extremist from the southern jungles as successfully done in 2003.

Bangladesh

That leaves Bangladesh and it�s politically divided country, one half supporting the new school of ideas and the other half more keen on having friendlier relations with old (erstwhile East) Pakistan . What becomes an irritant for countries like India is the intent of the government of having friendlier relations with Pakistan. This along with the problem of refugees needs to be tackled with a firm hand as it has long term negative implications on India�s security ( for India specifically and south Asia as a whole) since instability in India has direct impact on the whole of south Asia.

Conclusion

The existence of peace and prosperity of one of the world�s biggest economic powerhouses of the new century happens to boast one in SOUTH ASIA. It is imperative on India and other neighbors to accept the reality that their best concerns of security and peaceful co-existence no longer can survive by employing the policy of opportunistic ambiguity to earn bargaining power as was done in the past to neutralize their common concern of a perceived threat and fear from a big nation (in this case India), and that it now heads in the direction of a collective theorem of Information Integration, assimilation, division and distribution. This as earlier coined will be possible using GIS and Computers. Use of space based techniques and India�s presence as a dominant technology player is essential for the umbrella of trust and cooperation we need to create for the whole region, for in the search of collective peace and security today lies the future of tomorrow.