US seeking favorable development of Korean nuclear issue

 
US seeking favorable development of Korean nuclear issue
    People's Daily    
Oct 30, 2006

The nuclear test conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a shift from secrecy to openness for the country on its possession of nuclear arms. Superficially, the nuclear test is of some concern to the United States, but it is quite possible that the United States may be the biggest beneficiary of the DPRK test.

Nuclear non-proliferation is not the US' goal

In the US national security strategy, the prevention of nuclear proliferation is simply a way to ensure national security. The US is not absolutely against nuclear proliferation; its possession of nuclear weapons is proof of this. It benefits from international cooperation in developing its own nuclear weapons. Sharing its nuclear knowledge is a form of proliferation. The Manhattan Project, for instance, was a joint nuclear research program between the US, Britain and Canada and the atomic bomb was partially built with the help of these wartime allies. Britain continued to research nuclear weapons and Canada did not. The United States' missile defense project with Japan is another such project to share nuclear knowledge. This is nuclear knowledge proliferation; the key is with whom it is shared.

The United States has no lingering points of contention with Britain and France over the development of their nuclear program, because it believes that western democratic countries, even with nuclear weapons, pose no danger to US security. The US has also accepted the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, though Israel has refused to confirm or deny this. If Israel does in fact have nuclear weapons, this will presumably be a deterrence to attack from other countries in the region. This would be a boon for the US too as political and military pressures could be shared, increasing the security of the United States.

After the eastern democratic nation of India tested nuclear weapons, the US quickly realized that imposing sanctions was not the best direction to take. It chose instead to find ways to encourage India to be a responsible nuclear power and to help India develop into one of the economic superpowers of the 21st century. It even wanted to develop a civilian nuclear power program with India. This was in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

India established a nuclear program not to defend against or attack the US, Russia, Britain, China, France or even Pakistan. India has three to seven times the amount of conventional weapons that Pakistan has. It is Pakistan that needs nuclear weapons. It is clear that the United States' deliberate violation of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty was a move to contain other nations. US assistance to India is a kind of nuclear proliferation, vertical proliferation.

This clearly indicates that nuclear non-proliferation is not America's strategic objective. Its strategic goal is national security. The US helped India to help curb the rise of autocratic nations. As long as the US needs anti-terrorism support, the US will keep Pakistan on side as a non-NATO ally and give it billions of dollars of support. It no longer worries about the impact of a nuclear Pakistan on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It will not concern itself with the legitimacy of the Pakistani government, or investigate the legal liabilities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb.

In America's eyes, nuclear proliferation is classified into the acceptable and the unacceptable. The former benefits US security, the latter does not. When US allies break or bend nuclear rules, they are not opposed. When its rivals have nuclear weapons, the US takes a pragmatic approach. When nations not allied to the US have nuclear arms, the US faces reality and gradually grows to value its relationship with those other countries, ultimately trying to incorporate them into its global strategy.

US seeks advantageous position in region

It is important to understanding the United States' long-term utilitarian attitude toward non-proliferation, which is quite different to China's staunch opposition to any form of nuclear proliferation. China needs to grasp the US's agenda in the DPRK following nuclear testing and predict the possible evolution of US policy on the Korean Peninsula.

The United States has had to register its objection to the DPRK's nuclear test to be politically correct. China perceives this as part of the US' overall strategy in the region. The US has been monitoring the DPRK"s nuclear development for a long time and suspected DPRK of having nuclear weapons as early as a decade ago. It was fully prepared for the DPRK to take this step, and may already be resigned to the DPRK becoming a nuclear power.

The United States abandoned talks with DPRK at the end of last year. The US imposed economic sanctions on the DPRK and found reasons for the DPRK to be excluded from Six-Party talks. In the meantime, it asked China to share the responsibility of a nuclear DPRK, despite the fact that DPRK claims it was pressure from the US that forced it to develop nuclear weapons. Considering the difficulty of the mission, the requests of the United States are bound to drive a wedge between China and North Korea. The Bush administration's sanctions have caused the DPRK to believe that talks with the US have become impossible. The US is remolding North Korea's foreign policy by taking positive measures to induce the DPRK to conduct nuclear tests, imposing sanctions under the multilateral framework of the UN and weakening China's influence on North Korea.

The United States is also making strategic use of Japan and South Korea in the Korean nuclear issue. In recent years, the relationship between the United States and South Korea has weakened. South Korea insists on its Sunshine Policy for North Korea. South Korean people are more and more dissatisfied about the United States over the issue. The DPRK nuclear test will isolate the two neighboring countries, which is beneficial the US.

The next president must adjust policy on DPRK

America is confident that North Korea would not forfeit its nuclear arms and knows that a war is not a political possibility. It has to resolve the issue peaceful means, but needs to ensure the DPRK becomes a responsible nuclear state. North Korea claims it will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, that it will not sell or proliferate nuclear weapons or technology and that it is not involved in international terrorist activities.

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1718 to impose sanctions on DPRK. As long as the DPRK guarantees its nuclear weapons are only for self-defense purpose, it will have no trouble with the US, at least until the next President of the United States is sworn in.

The US-led war in Iraq and the sanctions the Bush administration has imposed on the DPRK have affected North Korea's awareness of security; relations between the two countries have seriously deteriorated. Hopefully the next president of the United States will adjust its policy and hold talks with the DPRK.

North Korea has boosted its confidence in terms of security and will be more willing to interact with the US, as it is still being isolated by the broader international community. This is North Korea's position now but US will ultimately lift the sanctions it has imposed on the DPRK. The US will seek favorable development in the regional situation.

By People's Daily Online 

Containment with Chinese Characteristics

ontainment with Chinese Characteristics

Beijing Hedges against the Rise of India

By Christopher Griffin

Posted: Thursday, September 7, 2006

ASIAN OUTLOOK

AEI Online

Publication Date: September 7, 2006

This Asian Outlook is available here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF. Although China and India have announced that their relationship is important enough to "reshape the world,"[1] Beijing views its increasingly important ties with Delhi as a means to manage India's growing strength. China has combined traditional strategic balancing and diplomatic engagement in an effort to set its own terms for India's emergence as a great power. Without American support, India is at risk of being boxed in by Beijing's containment strategy. In an impressive display of whirlwind diplomacy, China and India have just negotiated a series of major agreements: a strategic partnership in May 2005, a memorandum on energy cooperation in January 2006, and a memorandum of understanding on military relations in May 2006. Chinese observers point to these agreements as proof that Beijing and Delhi refuse "to become sacrifices of contention between big powers" and that "neither of them has seen the growth of the other side as a threat but, instead, as a development opportunity for itself."[2] But all is not as it seems in Asia. Indeed, the more one follows Sino-Indian relations, the more it appears that Beijing has ripped a page from what it perceives as the U.S. playbook for containing a rising power. The People's Daily recently summarized U.S. policy toward China: There have been two tendencies in the United States in the formulation of its China policy, one holding China as a potential rival that must be contained on all sides; the other believing China's momentum is irreversible. . . . [It must therefore] be engaged to play a "responsible" and "constructive" role. Washington's China policy in recent years has turned out a combination of the two, while its [recent] acts are all-sided containments under the cloak of engagement words.[3] As frustrating as Beijing finds this perceived policy of "all-sided containments under the cloak of engagement," it has found the approach increasingly useful in its own relationship with India. Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai? The modern Sino-Indian relationship opened on an optimistic note that is difficult to recall today. When Beijing and Delhi established formal relations in 1950, each had recently finished bitter struggles for independence and then stood at the vanguard of a global post-colonial movement. The implications of this sea change in international affairs appeared so profound that Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru found it necessary to introduce a new concept to describe relations among nonaligned states: Panchsheel, widely known as the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. The Chinese government embraced the concept (which appears in both countries' diplomatic statements to this day), and the Sino-Indian relationship was celebrated as forming the nucleus of a new world order. Indeed, the Indian media were encouraged by Nehru's government to use the term "Hindi-Chini bhai bhai," or "India and China are brothers," to describe the relationship. Tensions simmered, however, beneath the smooth façade of Sino-Indian relations. The Panchsheel principles were just the introduction to a territorial settlement between Beijing and Delhi that did not resolve several major disputes, largely concerning the McMahon Line negotiated in 1914 to establish a border between British India, de facto independent Tibet, and the Republican Chinese government (which signed the agreement but did not ratify it). Nehru considered an important part of India's stature that the McMahon Line stand, while the Communist Chinese government considered it an effort to enjoy the gains of an imperial British land grab. Conflict broke out in October 1962, when the dispute over the Sino-Indian border in the area of Aksai Chin (near Kashmir and under Chinese control but claimed by India) and Arunachal Pradesh (east of Bhutan and under Indian control but claimed by China) erupted into warfare. After clearing the Indian Army from Arunachal Pradesh, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) withdrew and established a line of control along India's claimed border.[4] China achieved all its goals in this conflict, known as the Sino-Indian War. Possession of Aksai Chin secured a direct supply route between Tibet and Xinjiang, while Nehruvian delusions of grandeur lay safely in shambles--so much so that one scholar ventured that China's "strategy as it unfolded after 1959 was designed not so much to gain possession of a few thousand miles of mountainous territory . . . as to erode India's position as a power of some consequence on the Asian scene."[5] For the next two decades, China consolidated its 1962 victory against India by supporting strategic proxies against Indian interests, most notably in its support of Pakistan during the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistani wars. Chinese policy was characterized by declarations to the effect that "should the Indian expansionists dare to launch aggression against Pakistan, the Chinese government and people will, as always, firmly support the Pakistani government and people."[6] While the declarations of Chinese support could not save Pakistan from repeated humiliations in its fights with India, they drew lines that Delhi knew it could not cross in its fights with Islamabad without possibly triggering Chinese intervention. Meanwhile tensions along the border kept Indian forces diverted to the contested northern front, especially Arunachal Pradesh, a remote territory enveloped on three sides by foreign frontiers and dependent upon supplies delivered through the 21-kilometer-wide Siliguri Corridor. Also, beginning at some point in the 1980s, China initiated covert support for Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. In the 1980s, however, Sino-Indian relations began to thaw as the leadership in Beijing sought to distance itself from both the Soviet and American Cold War camps, leading to the launch of an "omnidirectional" foreign policy in Asia. This modified approach toward the subcontinent was reflected in China's diminished verbal support for Pakistan during a near-outbreak of Indo-Pakistani hostilities over Kashmir, and likewise when the Chinese government gradually backed out of its support for Sri Lanka and Nepal during Indian disputes with those countries in 1987 and 1988.[7] Indeed, it appeared that Beijing was ready to recognize Indian ascendance in what it increasingly viewed as the strategic backwater of Southeast Asia.[8] Nuclear Breakout, Nuclear Deal China's new approach toward India ran into trouble after 1991, when a newly reformed Indian economy recovered from crisis and entered a period of rapid growth, allowing Delhi to climb the ranks of international arms importers quickly. While India's economic dynamism put pressure on the Sino-Indian relationship, the tipping point came on May 11, 1998, when the Indian government detonated three nuclear devices in the first of a series of tests conducted by Delhi and Islamabad that month. The tests revealed the suspicions that Beijing and Delhi continued to harbor. In an explanatory letter that then-Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee sent to world leaders, he specifically referred to China ("an overt nuclear weapons state . . . which committed armed aggression against India in 1962") as a reason for the Indian bomb.[9] Senior Chinese statesman Qian Qichen responded that "international condemnation [of the tests] is totally justified" and pointed out that "[w]hat is particularly unacceptable is that India has gone so far as claiming that it conducted the nuclear tests because of China's threat."[10] The People's Liberation Army Daily added that the nuclear tests have "further exposed [India's] ambition of seeking regional hegemony in the military sphere."[11] While Qian condemned India's nuclear tests, the Chinese government used its presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to craft an international condemnation. UNSC Resolution 1172 called for India and Pakistan to scrap their nuclear weapons programs and join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as non-nuclear weapons states. The resolution was far harsher than a U.S.-drafted statement of the four other permanent members of the UNSC.[12] Despite its condemnation of India's nuclear weapons program, China declined to impose any sanctions on either India or Pakistan, still viewing the latter as a useful balancer on the subcontinent while Beijing entered into a period of diplomatic rapprochement with Delhi that concluded with Vajpayee's June 2003 state visit to Beijing. The likely explanation for China's Janus-faced handling of the 1998 South Asian nuclear breakout was that while it felt threatened by India's nuclear program, it also recognized that the tests had set the diplomatic ball rolling by pulling America into the region, a process that continued through the 1999 Kargil Crisis, the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, and the near-outbreak of war between India and Pakistan following a December 2001 attack against India's parliament. Although India and China trumpeted Vajpayee's 2003 visit to Beijing as proof of progress, the progress between the two countries was overtaken by a pair of bilateral agreements announced by India and the United States in the summer of 2005. The June 28 "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship" overturned longstanding Chinese assumptions about India's regional power and its ties to Washington, and the July 18 Joint Statement pledged the United States to aid India's civil nuclear power program. China met the July 2005 nuclear deal with muddled hostility, as the Chinese government sought to criticize it without undercutting its newly improved relationship with India. On July 25, the foreign ministry stated that Beijing hoped "the relevant cooperation between [the United States] and India will be conducive to safeguarding the regional peace and stability in Asia."[13] The party mouthpiece the People's Daily meanwhile repeated criticism of the nuclear deal from American analysts, arguing that Washington viewed its relationship with India as a way to pressure China.[14] The Chinese government has been remarkably conciliatory toward the nuclear deal, signaling that it will not veto its approval in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), where its opposition could pose a major setback. The apparent logic behind China's moderation on the nuclear deal is Beijing's perception that any adverse strategic consequences of U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation could be counteracted through similar support of Pakistan's civil nuclear program. A March 2006 People's Daily article indicated that Beijing retains the option of acting through strategic proxies[15] to undercut any gains that the United States and its allies make as a result of the nuclear deal: "The agreement will have its 'rippling' effect, which means that Pakistan, which has a similar position as India on the nuclear issue, may make similar demands and Iran may feel even more resentful of this 'double principle' in the current nuclear dispute."[16] Within a month of issuing this veiled threat, reports surfaced that Beijing had entered into talks with Islamabad on supplying a 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant.[17] And China is in a strong position to press its case for cooperation with Pakistan--Beijing can make approval of its support for Pakistan a basic condition for supporting the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal at the NSG, a necessary step for Indian-American cooperation. China has thus set the stage for itself and its proxies to retain regional strategic ascendancy.[18] Ties that Bind: Military Contacts and the Contested Border While China is moving to contain the fallout from the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal, it is also working to maintain its longstanding conventional military superiority over Indian forces, despite the latter's recent gains. The central elements of this effort have been a combination of bilateral agreements that will give Beijing better access to India's evolving military, and unilateral moves intended to strengthen its own position along the countries' contested border and in the Indian Ocean. Despite the global media focus on the nuclear deal in the summer of 2005, Beijing was far more concerned with a less-noted agreement signed between Indian defense minister Pranab Mukherjee and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The June 28 "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship" committed Washington and Delhi to cooperation in thirteen substantive areas such as joint operations, intelligence sharing, and technology transfer.[19] The New Framework is disconcerting to the Chinese government because it represents a major step forward in the development of U.S.-Indian defense cooperation that has accelerated since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The United States and India now organize regular exercises in which their militaries conduct sophisticated operations such as at-sea refueling, landing helicopters on ships at sea, and mixed force-on-force mock engagements. The lesson of this cooperative experience for the United States and India has been that while the latter seeks to maintain its strategic autonomy, it needs American support if it is to break away from its longstanding role as a client of Russian arms--a position that left it operating the same weapons as most of its neighbors, including China--and as a player on the wrong side of the growing technological gap between the American defense industrial base and the rest of the world.[20] Closer Indian ties to the United States defense establishment have tremendous implications for the military balance in Asia. They have first meant that the United States is moving closer to recognizing India as what the Bush administration calls a "responsible, democratic nation" that can be entrusted with responsibility for security in the Indian Ocean if U.S. forces are ever called to deploy rapidly to other theaters. And while the global superpower is inviting India to develop a dominant maritime position, Delhi's ever closer relationship with Washington will enhance its ability to do so. Indian leaders are keen to use the strategic partnership with the United States to introduce into India advanced U.S. technology, learn America's most successful operational practices, and give India the chance to integrate its widely dispersed military into an effectively unified force. Defense industrial ties with the United States promise to make this transformation sustainable over the long term as Delhi collaborates with Washington in the design and production of new generations of weapons systems.[21] Chinese observers have not let these developments pass without comment. On July 7, 2005, the People's Daily published an article titled "Washington Draws India in against China," in which it declared that the New Framework was "partly intended to diminish China's influence in this region and to safeguard and expand U.S. strategic interest [sic] in Asia."[22] The article continued by pointing out that the provisions for defense industrial cooperation are "of special significance given the fact that the United States on the one hand presses the European Union to keep [its] arms embargo on China and urges Israel to cancel arms sales to China while on the other hand sign[ing] a wide-ranging defense agreement with India." Despite China's rapidly developing defense industrial base, it cannot help but acknowledge its losses in being largely cut off from American, European, and Israeli markets, especially while India has access. The first component of China's response to these adverse developments has been to seek new routes to Delhi through political agreements that will permit greater Chinese observation of the Indian military. Most important is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that Mukherjee signed with Cao Gangchuan, China's minister of national defense, in May 2006. The MoU commits the two countries to a regimen of joint military exercises, collaboration in counterterrorism, anti-piracy, and search-and-rescue efforts, as well as regular military exchanges.[23] Upon signing the MoU, Mukherjee drew the guarded conclusion that India's "ties with China have reached a certain degree of maturity. . . [We] are striving to address our differences in a proactive and purposeful manner without allowing them to affect the comprehensive development of our relationship."[24] Other Chinese assessments have been more sanguine, as characterized by the People's Daily commentary that the MoU will "foster a favorable international and regional situation, and provide a strategic foundation for mutual trust" with the opportunity for India to use the framework to "play a very important and positive role in maintaining peace in the Asia-Pacific region and across the world."[25] One Indian analyst pointed out the source of this divergence in views when he observed that the agreement appears to have three major implications for the Chinese side that Delhi does not share: One, China has taken the growing ties between India and the United States more seriously than it took the 1998 nuclear blasts by India. Two, the MoU is undoubtedly a Chinese initiative to seek a better understanding of the thinking within the Indian armed forces. And three, the MoU will not assist in a speedier resolution of the border dispute. . . China's only way of determining the progress of military relations between India and the U.S. is by having formal ties with the Indian defense ministry.[26] Seen in this light, it is not surprising that Beijing should be satisfied with the arrangement. And the American experience of military ties with China in the 1990s indicates that Delhi will find its new partnership a flawed one. The Sino-American relationship has been plagued by a lack of reciprocal transparency, as China sought to gain greater access to technical components of the U.S. military without raising the curtain on its own forces.[27] India may find China an eager partner at the negotiating table, but if it looks beneath China's "cloak of engagement words," it may yet find a pattern of containment. That pattern appears to be emerging first along the Sino-Indian border, where China is bolstering its military position by upgrading its infrastructure. This move is strategic because although China has always enjoyed a position with strong operational superiority over India along the contested areas in Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, it is sensitive to the gradual deterioration of its position in the Indian Ocean as Delhi develops new generations of weapons systems with American support. The strategic consequences of India's growing naval power are clear. Every additional barrel of oil that China imports leaves Beijing more vulnerable to a disruption of the sea lanes. If Delhi's naval modernization effort turns the Indian Ocean into India's ocean, the risk for Beijing may grow unacceptable. In response, it appears that just as Beijing has long leveraged its claims against Indian-controlled territory in Arunachal Pradesh to legitimize its occupation of Aksai Chin, it may now leverage its superiority along the Sino-Indian border to remind Delhi of the costs of conflict on the Indian Ocean. The July 1 opening of a railway linking Beijing and Lhasa is the most important symbol of this Chinese strategy. This new link strengthens Beijing's grasp on Tibet: the number of ethnic Han Chinese arriving in Lhasa, where Chinese already outnumber Tibetans, has increased since the opening of the railway, and the PLA has also significantly enhanced its ability to deliver heavy weapons and logistical material to the region in the event of either a domestic disturbance or a conflict with India. Although one Chinese researcher has suggested that the "Indians' worries [are] unnecessary because a country's military strategy depends on its political intent," Beijing's position in Asia has benefited from reminding Delhi of China's superiority along the border.[28] China is also redressing the Indian Ocean balance directly through the "string of pearls" strategy. In recent years, Beijing has developed port facilities in Chittagong, Bangladesh; Sittwe, Burma (Myanmar); and Gwadar, Pakistan.[29] China has launched each of these developments through bilateral trade promotion agreements under which it pays most of the costs of dredging deep water ports, but it is also an element of a naval balancing strategy, as demonstrated by a Chinese-run radar station on Burma's Coco Islands and the development of naval facilities in the Gwadar ports. The potential drama surrounding these developments has not fully played out, but it is clear that despite recent bilateral summits in which the Chinese and Indian governments have exchanged pleasantries on cooperation to end border tensions, the dispute is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future.[30] This will remain the case so long as China is able to bolster its strategic proxy Pakistan by strengthening its hold along the Indo-Tibetan border while developing a hedge against India's growing naval power.[31] The Race for Resources The aspect of Sino-Indian relations that has received the most attention in recent years is the simultaneous sprint for energy supplies. China and India each face a triple bind in the energy market: their rapid growth rates ( 9.1 percent and 6.1 percent annual GDP growth over the last decade, respectively) that fuel energy demand; their inefficient energy use that requires more additional energy input per percentage growth of GDP than more developed countries; and their dependence upon on foreign products to satisfy their energy demands (40 percent and 70 percent of crude oil consumption from imports, respectively).[32] Energy needs have driven China and India to a series of bidding wars for energy assets across the globe, experiences that have been especially sour for India. In a bid for Kazakhstan's third largest commercial oil producer in August 2005, China outbid India when Kazakh authorities allowed Beijing to make an additional offer after the final official bid.[33] Two months later, a Chinese oil firm beat out its Indian competitor when Beijing offered to back up the commercial bid with some $2 billion in development aid (Delhi had offered a paltry $200 million aid package).[34] And in December 2005, Burma decided to build a natural gas pipeline to Yunnan Province in China rather than across Bangladesh to India, reflecting a combination of Bangladeshi indecision on the terms of the deal and Rangoon's preference to foster trade with Beijing.[35] Although Beijing came out on top of all of the Sino-Indian gas and oil bidding wars, each fight nonetheless resulted in inflated prices for the assets that China eventually got, leading the two countries to consider joint bids for energy assets. The two sides tested the waters of cooperation in December 2004, when Chinese and Indian oil firms made a successful joint bid for a set of fields in Canada, setting the stage for a January 2006 "Memorandum for Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Oil and Natural Gas" that permits joint bids on energy assets in third countries.[36] Although it was an Indian initiative, the memorandum is a major victory for the Chinese government, as Delhi acquiesced to playing the role of "junior partner" in Beijing's globe-trotting campaign to secure energy resources. In addition to its symbolic significance, the new partnership means that as India and China enter into joint energy deals with third countries, they will develop common interests in the survival of what are--more often than not--unsavory regimes. Indeed, instead of creating a stable source of energy supplies, these deals are more likely to entangle India into disputes it might prefer to avoid. While the logic that India should concede to joining the opponents it cannot beat is compelling, it is also weakens Delhi's position vis-à-vis Beijing. Institutionalizing Chinese Leadership Since 2001, China has pursued an increasingly ambitious strategy of using regional forums to solidify its role as primus inter pares in Asia. This presents an even greater strategic challenge for India than energy arrangements. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the most important forum to Beijing's regional strategy. Founded under China's leadership in June 2001 as a means to coordinate cooperation among China, Russia, and the central Asian republics, the SCO was quickly marginalized by the success of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan later that year and the rapid development of security ties between Washington and several SCO members.[37] Despite this setback, the SCO has reemerged in recent years as a significant actor as American energies have been sapped by the war in Iraq. The statement adopted at the June 2005 SCO Astana Summit formally marked the organization's rebound as a Sino-centric bloc when the member states called for Washington to establish a timeline for withdrawal from central Asia, followed immediately by Uzbek president Islam Karimov's eviction of U.S. forces from the Karshi-Kanabad airbase in southern Uzbekistan. In the same month that SCO members delivered the Astana statement, the organization also welcomed India into the organization as an observer. Indian relations with the SCO have since been cool. While member states look at using the body as a nexus for collaboration on a wide range of political and security activities, Indian officials have repeatedly clarified that while "India is keenly interested in all activities focused on socio-economic development," it does not extend the range of cooperative fields beyond those.[38] The divide between Chinese and Indian views was on full display when Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh neglected to attend the June 2006 SCO summit in Shanghai, indicating in the words of one observer that "India was simply too important for a guest appearance, in contrast to Iran and Pakistan, which sent their presidents . . . [and] that India does not have the compulsions of a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--in the doghouse internationally and desperate to say his piece on any available America-skeptic platform--or a Pervez Musharraf--a client of the Chinese leadership and looking to it to get some sort of parity with India in the Nuclear Supplier's Group."[39] While Singh's hands-off approach to the SCO may demonstrate a plausible strategy for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the costs of membership in the organization, it comes up short in light of China's recent gains as an observer in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), a body founded in 1985 that also includes Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan. In contrast to the SCO invitation for Indian membership, the SAARC invitation to China was the result of a diplomatic debacle in which the regional politics played out as "India against the rest."[40] When Delhi tried to forestall the granting of observer status to China at the Dhaka Summit last year, Nepal (then receiving Chinese military assistance in the wake of an Indian arms embargo) made China's observership a condition for supporting Afghanistan's entry into the organization, a position that received broad support, especially from Pakistan.[41] The consequence of Delhi's capitulation is that India gained a seat in a Sino-centric, anti-American organization in exchange for giving China access to a body that is desperately looking for an additional player to challenge India's preeminence in South Asia. India's embarrassment in the SAARC membership process in 2005 will likely be a precursor to a permanent loss of influence in the organization. China's most ambitious project for regional leadership to date was its 2005 effort to transform the proposed East Asian Summit (EAS) into a Chinese-led outgrowth of the ASEAN+3 arrangement between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations members and Japan, China, and South Korea. Tokyo sought Australian and Indian participation in the meeting, a move that received support from Southeast Asia. When the Japanese proposal prevailed, Beijing quickly moved to invite Russian participation, an acknowledgement that if China could not lead the organization, it should be downgraded to serve as a regional "talk shop." The EAS experience is a perfect example of China's strategy of combining organizations (such as the SCO) that tie India down with those that leave it behind altogether. The latter component of China's strategy is most vividly displayed in the United Nations Security Council, in which Beijing uses its position as the sole permanent member state from Asia to guarantee that its regional competitors, Japan and India, are denied access.[42] It is possible that Security Council reform will be carried out--especially if the United States can avoid maneuvering itself into a position of de facto opposition to India's bid for membership--but only when China feels that the political consequences of unilaterally blocking progress are too risky. In sum, China has effectively engaged the regional organizations of Asia as useful bodies through which it can alternately bring India closer to the Sino-centric fold or minimize India's voice at more critical forums. The closest that India has come to posing a credible response has been with the support of Japan, Southeast Asia, and the United States at a distance during the 2005 EAS debate. Caveats and Conclusions If China's recent behavior toward India can be best explained as a containment strategy designed to guarantee that India rises on China's terms, this conclusion should be qualified somewhat. The most important caveat is that it is not obvious that the Chinese government is acting with a unified strategy. It is possible that policy toward each of the areas discussed here is being crafted independently by separate divisions of the Chinese bureaucracy. We know, however, that in recent years, China's strategy toward India has moved up the policymaking food chain in Beijing.[43] Although a well-articulated "India strategy" may not have existed for much of China's recent history, it is inconceivable that most Chinese action today does not serve an increasingly well-defined set of goals, and it is difficult to ascertain a more likely one than that which this paper has suggested.[44] Americans should also recognize a divergence between China's economic and security interests with India; we have the same problem with Beijing. As trade between China and India grows, the relationship will develop the defining characteristic of the Sino-American relationship: tremendous gains from cooperative economic development are matched by growing stakes in bilateral disputes.[45] This trend neither foreordains nor forestalls strategic competition, but it will continue to complicate Sino-Indian relations. If China is pursuing a containment strategy against India, it has achieved some early key victories: guaranteeing that Pakistan will maintain rough nuclear parity on the subcontinent, co-opting Indian foreign policy interests through energy collaboration, and establishing a strong leadership position in regional political forums. For American policymakers, this trend suggests that despite noted atmospheric improvements in the Sino-Indian relationship, efforts to launch a new era of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai will ultimately falter on the longstanding disputes between the countries.[46] In contrast, Indian-American ties can benefit from India's long-term need for U.S. support if it is to effectively respond to China's containment policy. The various fields of Sino-Indian competition are multifaceted and intersect with American interests at many junctures. Therefore, there are countless opportunities for an American role. Washington should strive to: Drive as hard a bargain as possible at the NSG. Pakistan is not India: it has sold nuclear plans wholesale to such rogue states as Libya and North Korea and is perennially unstable. If Sino-Pakistani nuclear cooperation cannot be avoided, it should be on strictly safeguarded terms. Continue to support India's military modernization by lowering licensing restrictions on arms exports to Delhi. The purpose should not be to fuel a Sino-Indian arms race, but to dissuade China from pursuing a path of revanchism that will unite other Asian countries against it in collaboration with the United States. Maintain energy cooperation as a major plank of the U.S.-Indian relationship. India's efforts to secure energy resources through overseas acquisitions are inefficient, and history predicts that they will be ineffective. India could benefit most from cooperation to upgrade its energy processing and distribution infrastructure. Consider greater American participation in Asian regional forums. SAARC has already indicated that it would welcome Washington to an observer's seat, a move that would help balance Beijing's newfound influence with the body. A U.S.-led effort to reinvigorate a more inclusive body such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation would also provide an alternative to Chinese leadership in Asia. These policies could improve America's position in Asia and avoid some of the worst possible outcomes of Sino-Indian competition. As American policymakers debate Washington's proper role in shaping India's rise to great power status, they should keep in mind that Beijing has already chosen a leading role for itself. Christopher Griffin is a research associate at AEI. Intern Shivani Kota provided research assistance, and editorial assistant Evan Sparks worked with Mr. Griffin to edit and produce this Asian Outlook. Notes 1. John Lancaster, "India, China Hoping to 'Reshape the World' Together," Washington Post, April 12, 2005. 2. Shih Chun-yu, "China and India Explore New Type of Relationship between Big Powers," Ta Kung Pao, July 11, 2006. 3. "One Must Be Responsible for His Threats," Renmin Ribao [People's Daily], February 28, 2005. 4. The reasons for China's withdrawal while maintaining its territorial claims remain in dispute. Beijing claims that it was to demonstrate the country's sincere desire to settle the dispute through negotiation. Indian analysts suspect that the Chinese leadership calculated that by maintaining claims to Arunachal Pradesh, it would have a bargaining chip for negotiations over the more valued Aksai Chin. Also, the PLA had simply reached its logistical limits in the harsh terrain. 5. Nancy Jetly, "Sino-Indian Relations: Old Legacies and New Vistas," China Report 30, no. 2 (April-June 1994): 220. 6. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu and Jing-dong Yuan, China and India: Cooperation or Conflict (London: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 19. 7. Ibid. 8. Susan L. Shirk, "One-Sided Rivalry: China's Perceptions and Policies toward India," The India-China Relationship: What the United States Needs to Know, eds. Francine R. Frankel and Harry Harding, (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004), 75 and 81. 9. Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 53. 10. "Qian: Nuclear Arms Race Likely if India Doesn't Stop Tests," Zhongguo Xinwen She [Chinese News Service], May 19, 1998. 11. "What Is the Intention of Wantonly Engaging in Military Ventures," Jiefangjun Bao [People's Liberation Army Daily], May 19, 1998. 12. Strobe Talbott, Engaging India, 74-75, 80. 13. D. S. Rajan, "China: Views on Manmohan Singh-Bush Joint Statement," South Asia Analysis Group, August 8, 2005, available at http://www.saag.org//papers15/paper1490.html (accessed on August 31, 2006). 14. Lu Yansong, "Short-Sighted Nuclear Deal," Renmin Ribao, August 19, 2005. 15. For the best discussion of China's use of strategic proxies as an instrument of foreign policy, see Justin Bernier, "China's Strategic Proxies," Orbis 47, no. 4 (Fall 2003): 629-643. 16. "Behind U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation," Renmin Ribao, March 4, 2006. 17. "Pak, China to Sign Nuclear Deal," Asian Age, April 11, 2006. 18. Mohan Malik, "China Opposes U.S. Nuclear Deal for Fear of 'Losing' Influence," Force, May 21, 2006. 19. Embassy of the United States to India, "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship," news release, June 28, 2005, available at http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/ipr062805.html (accessed on August 19, 2006). 20. The notable exception in the region is Pakistan, which is a longstanding arms client of the United States. Indian strategists view each new arms sale to Islamabad as a betrayal, a continuing source of tension in bilateral relations. 21. Christopher Griffin, "What India Wants," Armed Forces Journal 143, no. 10 (May 1, 2006): 16-17. 22. "Washington Draws India in against China," Renmin Ribao, July 7, 2005, available at http://english.people.com.cn/20050707/print20050707_194676.html (accessed on August 14, 2006). 23. Christopher Griffin, "What India Wants," 17-18. 24. Sridhar Kumarawami, "Pranab Spells Out Look East Policy," Asian Age, June 12, 2006. 25. "China and India Cooperate to Find a Win-Win Path," Renmin Ribao, June 8, 2006. 26. Pravin Sawhney, "New Initiative," Force, June 13, 2006, available at http://www.forceindia.net/june/bottomline.asp(accessed on August 29, 2006). 27. Kurt Campbell and Richard Weitz, "The Limits of U.S.-China Military Cooperation, Lessons from 1995–1990," The Washington Quarterly 29, no. 1 (Winter 2006-2006): 169-186. 28. Hu Liang, "Expert Claims to Enhance Sino-Indian Relations," Ta Kung Pao, July 7, 2006. 29. For more on China's maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean, see Christopher J. Pehrson, String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China's Rising Power Across The Asian Littoral (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2006), 3-7. 30. Symbolizing the strength of the dispute was a recent international conference in New Delhi at which the Chinese consul general interrupted Mukherjee's remarks to announce that "China never invaded India! . . . It is untrue and irresponsible to say that China invaded India." "General Consul: China Never Invaded India," Renmin Ribao, September 8, 2005. 31. Pravin Sawhney, "New Initiative." 32. GDP figures are from the World Bank's World Development Indicators online database, available at http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/home.htm. For crude oil imports data, see "PRC, India State-Run Firms Discuss Joint Bids for Oil Assets in Kazakhstan," Agence France Presse, June 8, 2006. 33. Indrajit Basu, "India Discreet, China Bold in Oil Hunt," Asia Times Online, September 29, 2005, available at www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GI29Df01.html (accessed on May 5, 2006). 34. Amitav Ranjan, "Let's Shop for Oil, Gas Together: India, China," Indian Express, August 24, 2005, available at www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/full_story.php?content_id=76875 (accessed on May 5, 2006). 35. Anand Kumar, "Myanmar-Petrochina Agreement: A Setback to India's Quest for Energy Security," South Asia Analysis Group, January 19, 2006, available at http://saag.org//papers17Q681.html (accessed on May 5, 2006). 36. "China, India Sign Energy Agreement," China Daily Online, January 13, 2006, available at www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/13/content_511871.htm (accessed on August 28, 2006). 37. Mohan Malik, Dragon on Terrorism: Assessing China's Tactical Gains and Strategic Losses Post-September 11 (Carlisle, PA: Institute for Strategic Studies, 2002), 33-35. 38. "India Supports Basic SCO Principles: Official," Xinhua, June 13, 2006. 39. "Game in Shanghai--Ignore SCO, but not Central Asia," Pioneer, June 17, 2006. 40. "China or Bust--SAARC in a Spin," The News International (Pakistan), November 13, 2005. 41. "Countering India," Asian Age, November 17, 2005. 42. Mohan Malik, "Security Council Reform: China Signals Its Veto," World Policy Journal 22, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 19-29. 43. Susan L. Shirk, "One-Sided Rivalry," 86-88. 44. Mohan Malik has also proposed a containment strategy explanation of Beijing's behavior towards India in his essay "China's Strategy of Containing India," published on February 6, 2006, by the Power and Interest News Report, available at http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_printable&report_id=434&languageid=1(accessed on September 3, 2006). 45. Trade has already shot up from $117.4 million in 1987 to $11.3 billion last year--a ninety-six-fold increase. Trade is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015, which is tremendous progress compared to recent growth but still paltry compared to the Sino-Japanese bilateral trade sum of $184.4 billion in 2005. "Sino-Indian Trade Could Reach $100 Billion by 2015," Agence France Presse, May 12, 2006; "India, China to Register Trade of 20 Bn US Dollars by 2007," Xinhua, March 16, 2006; Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu and Jing-dong Yuan, China and India, 25. 46. For an overview of Indian perceptions on improved Sino-Indian relations, see Julie A. MacDonald et al., Perspectives on China: A View from India (McLean, VA: Booz Allen Hamilton, 2005), 25-29.

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US wants Central Asia economic corridor set up

Dawn
12 July 2006
http://www.dawn.com/2006/07/12/top9.htm

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, July 11: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
underscored the importance of establishing an economic link between
Central Asia and India through Pakistan and Afghanistan when she met
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, the State Department said.

Briefing journalists on Monday's meeting between Mr Kasuri and Ms
Rice, the department's spokesman said both the countries "have an
interest in building up those economic ties from Central Asia down
through Afghanistan and Pakistan into India" and Ms Rice and Mr Kasuri
"talked about the importance of developing that economic
infrastructure".

Spokesman Sean McCormack said both Pakistan and Afghanistan also
understand that for "realizing the full potential of this economic
integration," they must continue their common fight against terrorism.

The spokesman indicated that the Rice-Kasuri meeting primarily
focused on growing tension between Kabul and Islamabad which is
affecting the global war on terrorism.

Secretary Rice briefed Mr Kasuri on her recent meeting with Afghan
President Hamid Karzai and told him that both Afghanistan and Pakistan
have a shared interest in the stability and security and also in
economic prosperity of each other, Mr McCormack said.

He said the US was working with Pakistan and Afghanistan to address
their security concerns "on trilateral basis," endorsing the Pakistani
position that all issues concerning the war on terror should be
discussed in a trilateral forum.

Asked if Ms Rice agrees that Afghanistan and Pakistan should not
discuss their differences publicly, Mr McCormack said: "Certainly, we
would encourage them, if they have any differences, to work them out
and try to resolve them before they become a matter of public
discussion."

He, however, acknowledged that Mr Kasuri and Afghan Foreign Minister
Rangin Dadfar Spanta were "ministers in their own right and they are
going to speak their mind in public".

Trade plan would allow nuclear sales to India

Trade plan would allow nuclear sales to India
Critics call deal bad foreign policy

By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff  |  July 3, 2006 | Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/07/03/trade_plan_would_allow_nuclear_sales_to_india/?p1=email_to_a_friend

WASHINGTON -- Over the past six years, the largest consortium of businesses in India spent more than $1 million on fact-finding trips to India for US members of Congress, their staff, and spouses, and on lobbying Congress to pass a law that would fundamentally change India's relationship with the United States.

Last week, the efforts of the New Delhi-based Confederation of Indian Industry and a simultaneous lobbying campaign by American industrial companies paid off: Two key congressional committees approved a controversial plan to allow trade with India involving nuclear technology and other sensitive areas.

If the full Congress approves the plan, the deal would cement a historic new US-India alliance and open the doors to billions of dollars worth of high-tech and military sales to the South Asian nation. India will become the only country in the world to gain access to sensitive US nuclear technology without signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and agreeing to give up its nuclear arsenal. In return, India would tighten its export controls and place some of its nuclear reactors under international inspections.

Supporters of the plan say it is a ``win-win" proposal, increasing business ties with one of the world's fastest-growing economies and strengthening nuclear safeguards in India at the same time.

But critics say billion-dollar business interests -- in the United States as well as India -- have trumped the decades-old policy of trying to get India to give up its nuclear weapons program. They point to the massive, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort by the Confederation and US businesses as proof.

``It is clear that business interests and US defense contractors and former US officials involved in South Asia policy have been working hard to push this deal," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. ``History has shown that US nonproliferation policy has consistently been compromised by interests in maintaining good relations or expanding business ties."

President Bush backed the proposal as a way to allow India to buy civilian nuclear reactors from the West, helping it feed its ever-growing needs for power without resorting to pollution-prone conventional power plants. Bush administration officials say the deal also provides a host of strategic advantages, including building a lasting friendship with a rapidly growing democracy in Asia, as a check on China's growing influence.

But few deny that the prospect of business opportunities worth billions of dollars helped fuel the deal. For Indian entrepreneurs, it is an opportunity to make money on privatized nuclear power plants and buy high-tech equipment that has been restricted for decades. For US businesses, it is a chance to invest in India's rapidly growing energy sector, to sell supplies to Indian nuclear reactors, and -- for the first time -- to have a shot at large-scale military contracts.

The legislation approved by the committees would lift prohibitions on civilian nuclear trade with India. Selling nuclear equipment to India has been off-limits since it developed and tested a nuclear weapon in 1974 outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Poor relations and intermittent s anctions have prevented other kinds of military trade.

``I believe that all things being equal, we will get a considerable portion of the $20 [billion] to $40 billion in acquisition that the Indians plan on making by 2020," said Raymond Vickery, a senior adviser to the US-India Business Council, the US counterpart to the New Delhi-based Confederation, which is carrying out its own extensive lobbying effort.

Vickery said that congressional approval of the deal would give Lockheed Martin a reasonable chance to get a $4 billion to $9 billion contract to supply 126 combat fighter planes to India's Navy, a contract that India would have been unlikely to approve while sanctions were in place.

Westinghouse, whose nuclear division is based in Western Pennsylvania, could help India build a civilian nuclear reactor, and Atlanta-based General Electric would be well-placed to get a contract to supply India's reactors with nuclear fuel, Vickery said.

The business prospects have spurred the US-India Business Council, which represents 200 US businesses operating in India, to hire heavyweight lobbying firm Patton Boggs to work on the issue and hold strategy meetings about how to approach skeptics on Capitol Hill. Reports on the expenses of the American group's lobbying on India have not been filed.

But one of the quietest and most persistent efforts to influence Congress on India policy has come from the Confederation of Indian Industry, which represents some of India's most profitable companies. The group was among the top international organizations paying for congressional travel between 2000 and 2005, even though they were not registered to lobby at the time, according to a review of congressional disclosure records conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

During that period, they paid more than $538,000 in travel expenses for trips by 19 Congress members, 11 spouses, and 58 congressional staffers, according to the records.

The group spent the most money on travel for Representative Jim McDermott, a Washington Democrat, and his staffers, whose four trips to India cost about $40,955. McDermott, a cofounder of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, has not taken a formal position on the India nuclear proposal, according to his spokesman, Michael DeCesare.

DeCesare said the 2004 trip to India was intended to discuss AIDS in workplaces, and McDermott was not approached at that time on the nuclear issue.

Foreign organizations and governments are allowed to lobby the US government, but they must register with federal officials.

Of the 50 members serving on the House Foreign Relations Committee, eight had trips to India paid for by the Confederation, traveling or sending a staffer. One of the eight, Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, voted against the proposal last week when the committee overwhelmingly approved the deal.

In April 2005, the Confederation registered to lobby for the first time, paying Barbour Griffith & Rogers , a well-connected lobbying firm, $520,000 to lobby US government agencies, including Congress, the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Defense.

Robert Blackwill , who served as ambassador to India and deputy national security adviser under Bush, was hired by the firm to run the effort. A former foreign policy staffer for Senator Chuck Hagel assisted. In September 2005, the embassy of India also hired the firm, paying $240,000.

Businesses on both sides of the ocean have advocated closer US-India ties for years. But the issue of India's nuclear program always got in the way.

``It was like a cinder in our eye," said Frank Wisner , another former ambassador to India who once served as chairman of the US-India Business Council.

Indian officials said the legislative deal will send a signal to businesses of a lasting alliance between the two countries and give a legal framework to their new relationship.

``There are going to be opportunities for investment and infrastructure and energy that are mind-boggling," said Raminder Jassal, deputy chief of mission at the Indian Embassy.

For decades, the United States and India distrusted one another. During the Cold War, India refused to take sides and embraced a socialist economy.

After its 1974 test, India refused US demands to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which gives five countries, including the United States, a right to retain nuclear weapons but prohibits others from developing them.

US efforts to contain India's nuclear program carried a price for US businesses. For instance, General Electric had to stop supplying nuclear fuel to Indian reactors.

By the early 1990s, when India moved to a more capitalist economy, trade flourished. But in 1998, India tested a nuclear device again and Congress responded by cutting off everything from the sales of high-powered computers to World Bank loans and engine parts for India's emerging space program. Indians resented the US sanctions, feeling as though the United States refused to acknowledge their country had become a world power.

President Clinton took steps to repair the relationship, but Bush has taken the effort further. He lifted the 1998 restrictions on India and launched a dialogue about military and economic cooperation, including a forum with American and Indian executives.

In 2005, Bush hosted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India at the White House and announced that he would initiate civilian nuclear cooperation .

Last Stand: The military's problem with Bush's Iran policy (Sy Hersh)

LAST STAND by SEYMOUR M. HERSH The military's problem with the President's Iran policy. Issue of 2006-07-10 Posted 2006-07-03 On May 31st, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced what appeared to be a major change in U.S. foreign policy. The Bush Administration, she said, would be willing to join Russia, China, and its European allies in direct talks with Iran about its nuclear program. There was a condition, however: the negotiations would not begin until, as the President put it in a June 19th speech at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, "the Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities." Iran, which has insisted on its right to enrich uranium, was being asked to concede the main point of the negotiations before they started. The question was whether the Administration expected the Iranians to agree, or was laying the diplomatic groundwork for future military action. In his speech, Bush also talked about "freedom for the Iranian people," and he added, "Iran's leaders have a clear choice." There was an unspoken threat: the U.S. Strategic Command, supported by the Air Force, has been drawing up plans, at the President's direction, for a major bombing campaign in Iran. Inside the Pentagon, senior commanders have increasingly challenged the President's plans, according to active-duty and retired officers and officials. The generals and admirals have told the Administration that the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying Iran's nuclear program. They have also warned that an attack could lead to serious economic, political, and military consequences for the United States. A crucial issue in the military's dissent, the officers said, is the fact that American and European intelligence agencies have not found specific evidence of clandestine activities or hidden facilities; the war planners are not sure what to hit. "The target array in Iran is huge, but it's amorphous," a high-ranking general told me. "The question we face is, When does innocent infrastructure evolve into something nefarious?" The high-ranking general added that the military's experience in Iraq, where intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed, has affected its approach to Iran. "We built this big monster with Iraq, and there was nothing there. This is son of Iraq," he said. "There is a war about the war going on inside the building," a Pentagon consultant said. "If we go, we have to find something." In President Bush's June speech, he accused Iran of pursuing a secret weapons program along with its civilian nuclear-research program (which it is allowed, with limits, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). The senior officers in the Pentagon do not dispute the President's contention that Iran intends to eventually build a bomb, but they are frustrated by the intelligence gaps. A former senior intelligence official told me that people in the Pentagon were asking, "What's the evidence? We've got a million tentacles out there, overt and covert, and these guys"—the Iranians—"have been working on this for eighteen years, and we have nothing? We're coming up with jack shit." A senior military official told me, "Even if we knew where the Iranian enriched uranium was—and we don't—we don't know where world opinion would stand. The issue is whether it's a clear and present danger. If you're a military planner, you try to weigh options. What is the capability of the Iranian response, and the likelihood of a punitive response—like cutting off oil shipments? What would that cost us?" Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his senior aides "really think they can do this on the cheap, and they underestimate the capability of the adversary," he said. In 1986, Congress authorized the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to act as the "principal military adviser" to the President. In this case, I was told, the current chairman, Marine General Peter Pace, has gone further in his advice to the White House by addressing the consequences of an attack on Iran. "Here's the military telling the President what he can't do politically"—raising concerns about rising oil prices, for example—the former senior intelligence official said. "The J.C.S. chairman going to the President with an economic argument—what's going on here?" (General Pace and the White House declined to comment. The Defense Department responded to a detailed request for comment by saying that the Administration was "working diligently" on a diplomatic solution and that it could not comment on classified matters.) A retired four-star general, who ran a major command, said, "The system is starting to sense the end of the road, and they don't want to be condemned by history. They want to be able to say, 'We stood up.' " The military leadership is also raising tactical arguments against the proposal for bombing Iran, many of which are related to the consequences for Iraq. According to retired Army Major General William Nash, who was commanding general of the First Armored Division, served in Iraq and Bosnia, and worked for the United Nations in Kosovo, attacking Iran would heighten the risks to American and coalition forces inside Iraq. "What if one hundred thousand Iranian volunteers came across the border?" Nash asked. "If we bomb Iran, they cannot retaliate militarily by air—only on the ground or by sea, and only in Iraq or the Gulf. A military planner cannot discount that possibility, and he cannot make an ideological assumption that the Iranians wouldn't do it. We're not talking about victory or defeat—only about what damage Iran could do to our interests." Nash, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, "Their first possible response would be to send forces into Iraq. And, since the Iraqi Army has limited capacity, it means that the coalition forces would have to engage them." The Americans serving as advisers to the Iraqi police and military may be at special risk, Nash added, since an American bombing "would be seen not only as an attack on Shiites but as an attack on all Muslims. Throughout the Middle East, it would likely be seen as another example of American imperialism. It would probably cause the war to spread." In contrast, some conservatives are arguing that America's position in Iraq would improve if Iran chose to retaliate there, according to a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon's civilian leaders, because Iranian interference would divide the Shiites into pro- and anti-Iranian camps, and unify the Kurds and the Sunnis. The Iran hawks in the White House and the State Department, including Elliott Abrams and Michael Doran, both of whom are National Security Council advisers on the Middle East, also have an answer for those who believe that the bombing of Iran would put American soldiers in Iraq at risk, the consultant said. He described the counterargument this way: "Yes, there will be Americans under attack, but they are under attack now." Iran's geography would also complicate an air war. The senior military official said that, when it came to air strikes, "this is not Iraq," which is fairly flat, except in the northeast. "Much of Iran is akin to Afghanistan in terms of topography and flight mapping—a pretty tough target," the military official said. Over rugged terrain, planes have to come in closer, and "Iran has a lot of mature air-defense systems and networks," he said. "Global operations are always risky, and if we go down that road we have to be prepared to follow up with ground troops." The U.S. Navy has a separate set of concerns. Iran has more than seven hundred undeclared dock and port facilities along its Persian Gulf coast. The small ports, known as "invisible piers," were constructed two decades ago by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to accommodate small private boats used for smuggling. (The Guards relied on smuggling to finance their activities and enrich themselves.) The ports, an Iran expert who advises the U.S. government told me, provide "the infrastructure to enable the Guards to go after American aircraft carriers with suicide water bombers"—small vessels loaded with high explosives. He said that the Iranians have conducted exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and then on to the Indian Ocean. The strait is regularly traversed by oil tankers, in which a thousand small Iranian boats simulated attacks on American ships. "That would be the hardest problem we'd face in the water: a thousand small targets weaving in and out among our ships." America's allies in the Gulf also believe that an attack on Iran would endanger them, and many American military planners agree. "Iran can do a lot of things—all asymmetrical," a Pentagon adviser on counter-insurgency told me. "They have agents all over the Gulf, and the ability to strike at will." In May, according to a well-informed oil-industry expert, the Emir of Qatar made a private visit to Tehran to discuss security in the Gulf after the Iraq war. He sought some words of non-aggression from the Iranian leadership. Instead, the Iranians suggested that Qatar, which is the site of the regional headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, would be its first target in the event of an American attack. Qatar is a leading exporter of gas and currently operates several major offshore oil platforms, all of which would be extremely vulnerable. (Nasser bin Hamad M. al-Khalifa, Qatar's ambassador to Washington, denied that any threats were issued during the Emir's meetings in Tehran. He told me that it was "a very nice visit.") A retired American diplomat, who has experience in the Gulf, confirmed that the Qatari government is "very scared of what America will do" in Iran, and "scared to death" about what Iran would do in response. Iran's message to the oil-producing Gulf states, the retired diplomat said, has been that it will respond, and "you are on the wrong side of history." In late April, the military leadership, headed by General Pace, achieved a major victory when the White House dropped its insistence that the plan for a bombing campaign include the possible use of a nuclear device to destroy Iran's uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. The huge complex includes large underground facilities built into seventy-five-foot-deep holes in the ground and designed to hold as many as fifty thousand centrifuges. "Bush and Cheney were dead serious about the nuclear planning," the former senior intelligence official told me. "And Pace stood up to them. Then the world came back: 'O.K., the nuclear option is politically unacceptable.' " At the time, a number of retired officers, including two Army major generals who served in Iraq, Paul Eaton and Charles Swannack, Jr., had begun speaking out against the Administration's handling of the Iraq war. This period is known to many in the Pentagon as "the April Revolution." "An event like this doesn't get papered over very quickly," the former official added. "The bad feelings over the nuclear option are still felt. The civilian hierarchy feels extraordinarily betrayed by the brass, and the brass feel they were tricked into it"—the nuclear planning—"by being asked to provide all options in the planning papers." Sam Gardiner, a military analyst who taught at the National War College before retiring from the Air Force as a colonel, said that Rumsfeld's second-guessing and micromanagement were a fundamental problem. "Plans are more and more being directed and run by civilians from the Office of the Secretary of Defense," Gardiner said. "It causes a lot of tensions. I'm hearing that the military is increasingly upset about not being taken seriously by Rumsfeld and his staff." Gardiner went on, "The consequence is that, for Iran and other missions, Rumsfeld will be pushed more and more in the direction of special operations, where he has direct authority and does not have to put up with the objections of the Chiefs." Since taking office in 2001, Rumsfeld has been engaged in a running dispute with many senior commanders over his plans to transform the military, and his belief that future wars will be fought, and won, with airpower and Special Forces. That combination worked, at first, in Afghanistan, but the growing stalemate there, and in Iraq, has created a rift, especially inside the Army. The senior military official said, "The policymakers are in love with Special Ops—the guys on camels." The discord over Iran can, in part, be ascribed to Rumsfeld's testy relationship with the generals. They see him as high-handed and unwilling to accept responsibility for what has gone wrong in Iraq. A former Bush Administration official described a recent meeting between Rumsfeld and four-star generals and admirals at a military commanders' conference, on a base outside Washington, that, he was told, went badly. The commanders later told General Pace that "they didn't come here to be lectured by the Defense Secretary. They wanted to tell Rumsfeld what their concerns were." A few of the officers attended a subsequent meeting between Pace and Rumsfeld, and were unhappy, the former official said, when "Pace did not repeat any of their complaints. There was disappointment about Pace." The retired four-star general also described the commanders' conference as "very fractious." He added, "We've got twenty-five hundred dead, people running all over the world doing stupid things, and officers outside the Beltway asking, 'What the hell is going on?' " Pace's supporters say that he is in a difficult position, given Rumsfeld's penchant for viewing generals who disagree with him as disloyal. "It's a very narrow line between being responsive and effective and being outspoken and ineffective," the former senior intelligence official said. But Rumsfeld is not alone in the Administration where Iran is concerned; he is closely allied with Dick Cheney, and, the Pentagon consultant said, "the President generally defers to the Vice-President on all these issues," such as dealing with the specifics of a bombing campaign if diplomacy fails. "He feels that Cheney has an informational advantage. Cheney is not a renegade. He represents the conventional wisdom in all of this. He appeals to the strategic-bombing lobby in the Air Force—who think that carpet bombing is the solution to all problems." Bombing may not work against Natanz, let alone against the rest of Iran's nuclear program. The possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons gained support in the Administration because of the belief that it was the only way to insure the destruction of Natanz's buried laboratories. When that option proved to be politically untenable (a nuclear warhead would, among other things, vent fatal radiation for miles), the Air Force came up with a new bombing plan, using advanced guidance systems to deliver a series of large bunker-busters—conventional bombs filled with high explosives—on the same target, in swift succession. The Air Force argued that the impact would generate sufficient concussive force to accomplish what a tactical nuclear warhead would achieve, but without provoking an outcry over what would be the first use of a nuclear weapon in a conflict since Nagasaki. The new bombing concept has provoked controversy among Pentagon planners and outside experts. Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who has taught at the Air Force's School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, told me, "We always have a few new toys, new gimmicks, and rarely do these new tricks lead to a phenomenal breakthrough. The dilemma is that Natanz is a very large underground area, and even if the roof came down we won't be able to get a good estimate of the bomb damage without people on the ground. We don't even know where it goes underground, and we won't have much confidence in assessing what we've actually done. Absent capturing an Iranian nuclear scientist and documents, it's impossible to set back the program for sure." One complicating aspect of the multiple-hit tactic, the Pentagon consultant told me, is "the liquefaction problem"—the fact that the soil would lose its consistency owing to the enormous heat generated by the impact of the first bomb. "It will be like bombing water, with its currents and eddies. The bombs would likely be diverted." Intelligence has also shown that for the past two years the Iranians have been shifting their most sensitive nuclear-related materials and production facilities, moving some into urban areas, in anticipation of a bombing raid. "The Air Force is hawking it to the other services," the former senior intelligence official said. "They're all excited by it, but they're being terribly criticized for it." The main problem, he said, is that the other services do not believe the tactic will work. "The Navy says, 'It's not our plan.' The Marines are against it—they know they're going to be the guys on the ground if things go south." "It's the bomber mentality," the Pentagon consultant said. "The Air Force is saying, 'We've got it covered, we can hit all the distributed targets.' " The Air Force arsenal includes a cluster bomb that can deploy scores of small bomblets with individual guidance systems to home in on specific targets. The weapons were deployed in Kosovo and during the early stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the Air Force is claiming that the same techniques can be used with larger bombs, allowing them to be targeted from twenty-five thousand feet against a multitude of widely dispersed targets. "The Chiefs all know that 'shock and awe' is dead on arrival," the Pentagon consultant said. "All except the Air Force." "Rumsfeld and Cheney are the pushers on this—they don't want to repeat the mistake of doing too little," the government consultant with ties to Pentagon civilians told me. "The lesson they took from Iraq is that there should have been more troops on the ground"—an impossibility in Iran, because of the overextension of American forces in Iraq—"so the air war in Iran will be one of overwhelming force." Many of the Bush Administration's supporters view the abrupt change in negotiating policy as a deft move that won public plaudits and obscured the fact that Washington had no other good options. "The United States has done what its international partners have asked it to do," said Patrick Clawson, who is an expert on Iran and the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a conservative think tank. "The ball is now in their court—for both the Iranians and the Europeans." Bush's goal, Clawson said, was to assuage his allies, as well as Russia and China, whose votes, or abstentions, in the United Nations would be needed if the talks broke down and the U.S. decided to seek Security Council sanctions or a U.N. resolution that allowed for the use of force against Iran. "If Iran refuses to re-start negotiations, it will also be difficult for Russia and China to reject a U.N. call for International Atomic Energy Agency inspections," Clawson said. "And the longer we go without accelerated I.A.E.A. access, the more important the issue of Iran's hidden facilities will become." The drawback to the new American position, Clawson added, was that "the Iranians might take Bush's agreeing to join the talks as a sign that their hard line has worked." Clawson acknowledged that intelligence on Iran's nuclear-weapons progress was limited. "There was a time when we had reasonable confidence in what we knew," he said. "We could say, 'There's less time than we think,' or, 'It's going more slowly.' Take your choice. Lack of information is a problem, but we know they've made rapid progress with their centrifuges." (The most recent American intelligence estimate is that Iran could build a warhead sometime between 2010 and 2015.) Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council aide for the Bush Administration, told me, "The only reason Bush and Cheney relented about talking to Iran was because they were within weeks of a diplomatic meltdown in the United Nations. Russia and China were going to stiff us"—that is, prevent the passage of a U.N. resolution. Leverett, a project director at the New America Foundation, added that the White House's proposal, despite offering trade and economic incentives for Iran, has not "resolved any of the fundamental contradictions of U.S. policy." The precondition for the talks, he said—an open-ended halt to all Iranian enrichment activity—"amounts to the President wanting a guarantee that they'll surrender before he talks to them. Iran cannot accept long-term constraints on its fuel-cycle activity as part of a settlement without a security guarantee"—for example, some form of mutual non-aggression pact with the United States. Leverett told me that, without a change in U.S. policy, the balance of power in the negotiations will shift to Russia. "Russia sees Iran as a beachhead against American interests in the Middle East, and they're playing a very sophisticated game," he said. "Russia is quite comfortable with Iran having nuclear fuel cycles that would be monitored, and they'll support the Iranian position"—in part, because it gives them the opportunity to sell billions of dollars' worth of nuclear fuel and materials to Tehran. "They believe they can manage their long- and short-term interests with Iran, and still manage the security interests," Leverett said. China, which, like Russia, has veto power on the Security Council, was motivated in part by its growing need for oil, he said. "They don't want punitive measures, such as sanctions, on energy producers, and they don't want to see the U.S. take a unilateral stance on a state that matters to them." But, he said, "they're happy to let Russia take the lead in this." (China, a major purchaser of Iranian oil, is negotiating a multibillion-dollar deal with Iran for the purchase of liquefied natural gas over a period of twenty-five years.) As for the Bush Administration, he added, "unless there's a shift, it's only a question of when its policy falls apart." It's not clear whether the Administration will be able to keep the Europeans in accord with American policy if the talks break down. Morton Abramowitz, a former head of State Department intelligence, who was one of the founders of the International Crisis Group, said, "The world is different than it was three years ago, and while the Europeans want good relations with us, they will not go to war with Iran unless they know that an exhaustive negotiating effort was made by Bush. There's just too much involved, like the price of oil. There will be great pressure put on the Europeans, but I don't think they'll roll over and support a war." The Europeans, like the generals at the Pentagon, are concerned about the quality of intelligence. A senior European intelligence official said that while "there was every reason to assume" that the Iranians were working on a bomb, there wasn't enough evidence to exclude the possibility that they were bluffing, and hadn't moved beyond a civilian research program. The intelligence official was not optimistic about the current negotiations. "It's a mess, and I don't see any possibility, at the moment, of solving the problem," he said. "The only thing to do is contain it. The question is, What is the redline? Is it when you master the nuclear fuel cycle? Or is it just about building a bomb?" Every country had a different criterion, he said. One worry he had was that, in addition to its security concerns, the Bush Administration was driven by its interest in "democratizing" the region. "The United States is on a mission," he said. A European diplomat told me that his government would be willing to discuss Iran's security concerns—a dialogue he said Iran offered Washington three years ago. The diplomat added that "no one wants to be faced with the alternative if the negotiations don't succeed: either accept the bomb or bomb them. That's why our goal is to keep the pressure on, and see what Iran's answer will be." A second European diplomat, speaking of the Iranians, said, "Their tactic is going to be to stall and appear reasonable—to say, 'Yes, but . . .' We know what's going on, and the timeline we're under. The Iranians have repeatedly been in violation of I.A.E.A. safeguards and have given us years of coverup and deception. The international community does not want them to have a bomb, and if we let them continue to enrich that's throwing in the towel—giving up before we talk." The diplomat went on, "It would be a mistake to predict an inevitable failure of our strategy. Iran is a regime that is primarily concerned with its own survival, and if its existence is threatened it would do whatever it needed to do—including backing down." The Iranian regime's calculations about its survival also depend on internal political factors. The nuclear program is popular with the Iranian people, including those—the young and the secular—who are most hostile to the religious leadership. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, has effectively used the program to rally the nation behind him, and against Washington. Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics have said that they believe Bush's goal is not to prevent them from building a bomb but to drive them out of office. Several current and former officials I spoke to expressed doubt that President Bush would settle for a negotiated resolution of the nuclear crisis. A former high-level Pentagon civilian official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the government, said that Bush remains confident in his military decisions. The President and others in the Administration often invoke Winston Churchill, both privately and in public, as an example of a politician who, in his own time, was punished in the polls but was rewarded by history for rejecting appeasement. In one speech, Bush said, Churchill "seemed like a Texan to me. He wasn't afraid of public-opinion polls. . . . He charged ahead, and the world is better for it." The Israelis have insisted for years that Iran has a clandestine program to build a bomb, and will do so as soon as it can. Israeli officials have emphasized that their "redline" is the moment Iran masters the nuclear fuel cycle, acquiring the technical ability to produce weapons-grade uranium. "Iran managed to surprise everyone in terms of the enrichment capability," one diplomat familiar with the Israeli position told me, referring to Iran's announcement, this spring, that it had successfully enriched uranium to the 3.6-per-cent level needed to fuel a nuclear-power reactor. The Israelis believe that Iran must be stopped as soon as possible, because, once it is able to enrich uranium for fuel, the next step—enriching it to the ninety-per-cent level needed for a nuclear bomb—is merely a mechanical process. Israeli intelligence, however, has also failed to provide specific evidence about secret sites in Iran, according to current and former military and intelligence officials. In May, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert visited Washington and, addressing a joint session of Congress, said that Iran "stands on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons" that would pose "an existential threat" to Israel. Olmert noted that Ahmadinejad had questioned the reality of the Holocaust, and he added, "It is not Israel's threat alone. It is a threat to all those committed to stability in the Middle East and to the well-being of the world at large." But at a secret intelligence exchange that took place at the Pentagon during the visit, the Pentagon consultant said, "what the Israelis provided fell way short" of what would be needed to publicly justify preventive action. The issue of what to do, and when, seems far from resolved inside the Israeli government. Martin Indyk, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who is now the director of the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, told me, "Israel would like to see diplomacy succeed, but they're worried that in the meantime Iran will cross a threshold of nuclear know-how—and they're worried about an American military attack not working. They assume they'll be struck first in retaliation by Iran." Indyk added, "At the end of the day, the United States can live with Iranian, Pakistani, and Indian nuclear bombs—but for Israel there's no Mutual Assured Destruction. If they have to live with an Iranian bomb, there will be a great deal of anxiety in Israel, and a lot of tension between Israel and Iran, and between Israel and the U.S." Iran has not, so far, officially answered President Bush's proposal. But its initial response has been dismissive. In a June 22nd interview with the Guardian, Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, rejected Washington's demand that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment before talks could begin. "If they want to put this prerequisite, why are we negotiating at all?" Larijani said. "We should put aside the sanctions and give up all this talk about regime change." He characterized the American offer as a "sermon," and insisted that Iran was not building a bomb. "We don't want the bomb," he said. Ahmadinejad has said that Iran would make a formal counterproposal by August 22nd, but last week Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader, declared, on state radio, "Negotiation with the United States has no benefits for us." Despite the tough rhetoric, Iran would be reluctant to reject a dialogue with the United States, according to Giandomenico Picco, who, as a representative of the United Nations, helped to negotiate the ceasefire that ended the Iran-Iraq War, in 1988. "If you engage a superpower, you feel you are a superpower," Picco told me. "And now the haggling in the Persian bazaar begins. We are negotiating over a carpet"—the suspected weapons program—"that we're not sure exists, and that we don't want to exist. And if at the end there never was a carpet it'll be the negotiation of the century." If the talks do break down, and the Administration decides on military action, the generals will, of course, follow their orders; the American military remains loyal to the concept of civilian control. But some officers have been pushing for what they call the "middle way," which the Pentagon consultant described as "a mix of options that require a number of Special Forces teams and air cover to protect them to send into Iran to grab the evidence so the world will know what Iran is doing." He added that, unlike Rumsfeld, he and others who support this approach were under no illusion that it could bring about regime change. The goal, he said, was to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the I.A.E.A., said in a speech this spring that his agency believed there was still time for diplomacy to achieve that goal. "We should have learned some lessons from Iraq," ElBaradei, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, said. "We should have learned that we should be very careful about assessing our intelligence. . . . We should have learned that we should try to exhaust every possible diplomatic means to solve the problem before thinking of any other enforcement measures." He went on, "When you push a country into a corner, you are always giving the driver's seat to the hard-liners. . . . If Iran were to move out of the nonproliferation regime altogether, if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon program, we clearly will have a much, much more serious problem."