Vice Admiral (Retd) Madanjit Singh, Former Chief of Western Naval Command
Those were very interesting remarks by Secretary Menon. I am just quoting your remarks where you said that we have a stake in the region, and we have. There are a few situations in the Asian region, and I specifically mention Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka, which you mentioned, and Myanmar. We seem to be playing a secondary and supporting role in these crisis situations. Can we not play a more active role? Can we not, as a country, be involved in sorting out solutions for the conflicts in these countries?
Shivshankar Menon
In Afghanistan and Sri Lanka we a like a duck, paddling madly under water, but trying to appear still above the surface. I think we are very actively engaged in both Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. We have a commitment in Afghanistan of over $850 million in terms of assistance; we have a presence across Afghanistan. There are almost 4k Indians today working on the reconstructing of Afghanistan in Afghanistan itself. We just lost two people last week on one of our projects to a Taliban attack, we have paid prices for this, but our commitment is quite clear. What is important in Afghanistan is to look at it not just as a law and order situation or a security situation, because I think the real challenge in Afghanistan is to enable the creation of a plural and stable society again, society and economy. To that extent what we are doing in Afghanistan is crucial to the international effort, what we are doing with our friends and with other countries.
In Sri Lanka it is quite clear that we and the world have wanted to help the situation evolve in the direction of a negotiated political settlement, but we have not succeeded yet, but we will keep trying. As Dr Chipman said, large parts of this are really a matter of internal politics. We will keep trying to create an environment within which that politics can take the desired direction, but we cannot be seen to be interfering with somebody else’s internal politics.
Iraq is a case unique to itself, and if you gathered 10 countries together and said, ‘What is your solution?’, you would get less than 50 solutions. Please do not expect me to tell you how we are going to solve Iraq or what India is going to do.
Dr Liam Fox, Shadow Secretary for Defence, UK
Foreign Secretary, how certain can the international community be that India will support and maintain a robust position on the Iranian nuclear issue, and what implications does such a position have for civil nuclear cooperation with the US?
Shivshankar Menon
I think our position on the Iranian nuclear issue is quite clear. We have made it quite clear that it is certainly not in our interest to have another nuclear weapons state in our neighbourhood. We have also made it quite clear that while Iran might have the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, she also has an obligation to implement the various commitments that she voluntarily undertook. Ultimately the issue of whether or not she is implementing those obligations depends on the technical judgement that is best done by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). They are in the best place to do it if they are allowed to implement their commitments to carry on their work properly. That is what in the IAEA board of governance, together with the UK and other countries, we worked for that.
Will this succeed? I do not know, I do not have a crystal ball. The Iranian cases of systemic failure, where we find that the existing regime is not sufficient to cover all possible cases, is a good reason to change the way we look at non-proliferation issues. This is why I said it is important that we now create a new international consensus on non-proliferation and that we work together to do so. We, as a nuclear weapons state, are ready to do so and to participate.
The India-US civil nuclear agreement, which we hope to bring to fruition soon, I see more as an immediate answer to India’s energy security needs, to the problem of clean energy in the world, and less as a non-proliferation issue. Quite frankly there is no direct non-proliferation issue involved in India’s case. India has had an exemplary record, better than most, in the matter of not just how we handle and keep sensitive technologies, but also in how we use them. Given that, I am not sure that the kinds of links that some people try and draw between various situations and the truth. What is clear from our experience over the last 20 years is that we do need to sit down together and evolve a new non-proliferation consensus among ourselves, all of us. It is not going to be easy, but certainly we can do something better than we have done so far.
Ichita Yamamoto, Ranking Member, Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, House of Councillors, Diet ofJapan; Former State Secretary for Foreign Affairs
Secretary Menon, you mentioned China three or four times, and I never dreamed that China would achieve such economic growth so quickly. As you see, the Chinese GDP will surpass Japan in a few years, and they will become the second largest economy very soon. How do you look at this rising of China? Do you think China can take a path of becoming a responsible superpower? Do you think the China factor will benefit India or the world?
Shivshankar Menon
As you said, the rise of China has been a remarkable achievement. Our own attitude, quite frankly, is that there is enough space today, both strategically and economically, for all of us to rise. The rise of China does not necessarily have to prevent the kind of development and growth of an open international system, which is more equitable and democratic, and is what we see. It does not necessarily have to work against it. Now, our experience of engaging with China over the last 20 years, both in a direct bilateral sense - we now do over $40 billion of trade every year, China is our second largest training partner, we now have exchange, we do military exercises together – our experience of engaging with them suggests that the best way to deal with this phenomenon is more engagement. Where it will end I cannot answer, but it should be our attempt, all of us in Asia, to work together to create a web of interlocking relationships, and an open security and economic architecture within which we can all grow.
Admiral (Retd) Arun Prakash, Former Chief of Naval Staff and Chairman, Chief of Staff Committee
Mr Menon, yesterday we had the opening keynote address by Mr Kamal Nath, and he said right at the beginning that he felt a sense of discomfort with the title of this forum, India: Rising Global Power. He felt uncomfortable with the term power. Now, that is a true reflection of India’s historic discomfort with the mantle of power on its shoulders, we have never actually shouldered it, possibly because of our heritage of non-violence. However, the fact is that no country has become a great or middle power without the armed forces being actively associated in policymaking and strategy. What has happened in India is a decoupling, and perhaps even an exclusion of the armed forces from strategic issues and policymaking. As Foreign Secretary what do you think of the participation of the armed forces? Do you see them as an instrument of diplomacy or state policy? Do you see them as a nuisance, or do you think they are irrelevant to higher policymaking? I could not have asked this question a year and a half ago so I am taking the first possible opportunity.
Shivshankar Menon
You posed two questions in one. You said about discomfort with power. Historically I cannot think of a single rising power that started saying ‘we are a big power’ until they were well beyond the peak of their power. It is amazing, and this is historically true. Deng Xiaoping’s 24 character strategy, keep your head down, hide your lights, and is something that most rising powers have. Frankly I am not worried about the word power in the title, I am more worried about the hubris that comes with saying, ‘look at us, we are rising, we are so good’, which is why you noticed that what I spoke on was on our challenges and opportunities, rather than the title that I think was originally there.
The second part of your question, certainly the armed forces are an instrument of stage power, it just works with different bits and pieces of that power, and they have to work together, and I think we do. We have managed, it in a sense, without doing this publicly, and this is why it is such a unique relationship. Every other bit of our public business we do out in the open. I used to tell the Chinese that all your arguments that you do within the politburo and the central committee, we do outside in public and the streets. So please do not be confused by what you see, but this is one part of our work that all my experience suggests that we have actually managed to do quietly among ourselves. Certainly we cannot make foreign policy without the armed forces and their input, but they have to also be one of several actors. As I said, as India changes our means also expand, and today we are dealing with many more aspects of policy than just sheer hard power in the old sense of the word. That is where we need to broaden.
Our problem is not that we disregard hard power or that we are uncomfortable with power. No, I do not see that at all in government. I think Mr Subrahmanyam sitting here is living proof that it is not. Our problem is the opposite, that we need to integrate the various forms of power together, and that is something that we have to learn as we go along, because the pace of change has been so fast.
Pierre Lellouche, President, Franco-Indian Group, French National Assembly; Former President, NATO Parliamentary Assembly, France
Mr Secretary, first of all I want to tell you how much I appreciated your talk, and I was struck by its lucid analysis of the difficulty of the international system. I would have expected a more upbeat view on the part of the rising star of the new international system, but you had this note of caution, which I found very interesting. I am going back to the nuclear question raised by my British friend and colleague. I do not think you can handle Iran by saying that you want a new non-proliferation consensus, because we will be there in about 20 year time. The question is, assuming they continue to enrich uranium and we have a crisis in the next few months, on which side will India be? As you know, in my country we tend to be rather pessimistic about this situation, not that we like to be pessimistic, but we see the situation as a serious one. It would be interesting to have your view on this.
Second, you said very openly ‘we are a nuclear weapons state’, we know and respect that, but how do you run this relationship with your neighbours? Pakistan is also a nuclear weapons state, have you managed to work out channels of communication that would be at least reassuring to the rest of the world who watch this situation? On the Pakistan side there is particular concern, because we do not know how nuclear weapons are controlled. India is a democracy and there are elements of control, but we still do not know how it works in Pakistan. Can you tell us what you know and how you can build confidence?
Third, I like your notion that we should go towards disarmament. I believe my own country should be much more active in this at the end of the day. So what specific steps would you take in that direction?
Finally, on the same nuclear question, do you think that the idea of a nuclear fuel bank, which the IAEA is pushing for, is a proper answer to national enrichment facilities, and would India be prepared to participate.
Shivshankar Menon
On Iran, quite frankly, if you look at all the options, and you asked what the answer is if Iran goes on enriching, what are your options? Ultimately you need to have in place a system in which Iran is a party, which means you do need a consensus on something, whether you have a global consensus on a non-proliferation regime, you at least need to have Iran as a party to whatever you agree on her own programme. Otherwise, whatever you do, any of the other alternatives or the other options - sanctions, military action - none of them is a lasting solution. In fact, it is only likely to exacerbate the problem. That is the way we look at it. So, you need to evolve something which involves Iran as well, where Iran is part of it and is tied to the solution. How do you do that if you do not talk to them, if you do not involve them in it? The rest is short-term thinking, quite frankly, from our point of view, and it runs the risk of making the future much worse.
About India and Pakistan with nuclear weapons. Immediately after the 1998 tests both India and Pakistan realised that we needed to be in touch with each other. Given the history of our relationship this was not easy, but it is quite remarkable. In 1999 itself we actually agreed on a series of discussions on nuclear CBMs (conventional ballistic missiles). We have been carrying that out, we do have an expert group on nuclear CBMs, which has produced some results in terms of confidence building measures, about notification of ballistic missile tests, et cetera. We have a series of steps that we are taking, but it is a conversation that will need to continue, that will need to develop, and that both sides will need to work at. So the honest answer to your question is we recognise the need, we have some mechanisms in place, but we still have a lot to do together.
Disarmament: what steps? Our view has been that if you can set a clear goal of a nuclear weapon free world, you can then work backwards from that, and make it clear that it is a time bound verifiable programme. Make it clear that that would be the logical and effective way of dealing with disarmament, and that partial measures or steps that you might take always run the risk of creating fears of imbalance, and of generating precisely what you do not want, which is more local arms races, depending on where you create the imbalance.
On the nuclear fuel bank, we run a full fuel cycle of our own, and we would be happy to participate and to provide a home for the fuel bank if that is necessary. Discussions are still a long way away from that yet.
Gopinath Pillai, Executive Chairman, Savant Infocomm Pte Ltd, Singapore
In your painting of the scenario of the neighbourhood and relationships you omitted ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asia Nations). Does that mean ASEAN is irrelevant to India’s foreign policy?
Shivshankar Menon
I have a whole paragraph in here on ASEAN, which I did not read because I realised I was running out of time. So I will give you the text.
Gopinath Pillai
Why did you leave ASEAN out?
Shivshankar Menon
It was not central to my argument. Here is a success story, what we call our Look East policy, it has worked very well, it is developing well, and I think it is going to get better. So when it comes to weighing challenges and opportunities, frankly, this is the case that stands apart and the exception the proves the rule. That is honestly why I did, but I will give you the text.
Dr John Chipman
Foreign Secretary, we are delighted to be in the presence of a professional, and thank you very much for a wonderful speech. A necessarily diplomatic reply when required, but full frankness for most of our discussions. You really started off the debate here on India’s foreign policy, India as a rising power, right term or wrong term, in an invigorating way. Thank you very much for honouring us with your presence today.
