(Provisional transcript as delivered)
Dr John Chipman
We now have a very important final session before lunch. It is natural that the International Institute for Strategic Studies should wish to have the subject of defence diplomacy on its agenda, but we also put it on because of the general interest that exists in what we have referred to as India’s greater extroversion in order to align its political and security interests with its enlarging economic ones. It needs to engage in more defence diplomacy. We are delighted to have the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Indian Armed Forces here. Admiral Blair, who is a member of the Institute’s Advisory Council, as Pacific Commander played an extraordinary role before it was entirely politically correct to do so to ensure that the United States and India had a stronger defence alignment, even in advance of formal political agreements to that end. We also have with us Ichita Yamamoto, who is on the Committee of Foreign Affairs and Defense of the House of Councillors in Japan, to give a perspective from that other important great power in Asia, to which reference has already been made.
India’s Maritime Diplomacy and International Security
Admiral Sureesh Mehta
Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Naval Staff, India
Dr Chipman, Excellencies, learned participants at this inaugural session of the annual IISS-Citi India Global Forum, distinguished representatives, members of governments, civil society from India and abroad, ladies and gentlemen: good afternoon to you all. I am very privileged to be here today once again. It was a year ago that I spoke at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London on a very similar subject: India’s maritime diplomacy and international security. It therefore gives me great pleasure and honour to be afforded this opportunity to articulate my thoughts, expand upon this theme, and talk to you about India’s defence diplomacy.
If you were to review the immediate and strategic naval role of India, India recognises that the geopolitical, geo economic and geostrategic facets of the traditional interfaces between nation-states are all changing exponentially. There is also the increasing interaction between nation-states and non-state entities, benevolent and otherwise. I hardly need to state that change is indeed the defining characteristic of our age. Consequently, it ought to come as no surprise that the concept of security, as well, is undergoing significant change.
Traditionally, security used to be thought of only in terms of the defence of territories within a state system, whose defining characteristic was an incessant competition for military superiority with other nation-states, without superior or governing authority within a classic state of anarchy. As an interesting variation on this theme, the Indian approach to security has traditionally been to conceive it within a comprehensive and integrated framework where peace rather than security per se has been the central goal. This concept was based on the belief that a state of peace would automatically yield security. On the other hand, security – at least the traditional view of security – could well have ensured by a massive array of military forces, without necessarily leading to peace. It is pertinent to remember that our first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, held that contrary to what many in the West believed, peace inevitably led to security rather than the other way around.
Today, as we begin to incorporate the many facets of human security, we find ourselves moving away from an earlier and excessively narrow definition of security. The entire lot of these equations change, and the whole business of security and the security environment does need to be re-examined within its new and somewhat enlarged framework. An important change occurred right here in New Delhi just over two months ago, when the chiefs of very nearly all the states of the Indian Ocean region gathered in assembly and in conclave to launch the 21st century’s very first significant international maritime security initiative, what we have called the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS). The launch of so important a regional initiative was able to meet with such wide acceptance across the length and breadth of the 73 million square kilometres of the Indian Ocean was in itself a unique phenomena, one representative of a region that has come into its own and is ready to evolve a broad consensus in the use of defence diplomacy and constructive engagement to face the myriad security challenges that exist.
These security challenges include the threat of both inter-state and intra-state conflict. There are also a variety of security threats which, while remaining short of state-on-state conflict, present an equal, if not greater, threat to peace and security. Sub-regional politico-economic aspirations make for restive conditions upon the land, while piracy, armed robbery, human trafficking, poaching, illegal immigration and the seaborne ingress of guns, drugs, and even weapons of mass destruction abuse the historical freedom of the seas to cruelly exploit economic inequalities and the human yearning for betterment of the quality of life.
Economic diversities abound here, with some of the fastest growing economies of the world living cheek by jowl with severely challenged ones. In socio-political terms, as well, a number of countries of the region are dubious beneficiaries of a debilitating colonial legacy and are still struggling to stabilise indigenous systems. Religious fundamentalism and extremism are dangerous manifestations of the desperate socioeconomic straits that people and entire societies often find themselves floundering in. To this, we must add man-made challenges that operate at an even more fundamental level, such as global warming and environmental degradation.
As if these were not challenges enough, the region is the locus of almost 70% of the world’s natural disasters. Perhaps the greatest challenge to peace and security that most of the countries of our region face is that arising from poverty and underdevelopment, compounded by the fragility of state structures and institutions. There are also endemic shortages of key resources, such as capital, technology and infrastructure, which was also discussed in the previous sessions. There is a clear requirement for an infusion of wealth to combat these infirmities. Yet, it is well said that money is a coward. Money tends to avoid grave risk. Thus, economic prosperity can only come to the region from a degree of regional stability that attracts the [inaudible?].
These are not threats or challenges that can be met by states acting in isolation, each secure in its military capability. These are common threats and demand common approaches and common solutions. Each nation-state of the Indian Ocean littoral has come to realise that without regional stability, economic prosperity will remain a hopeless fantasy. Regional stability and security is therefore not some altruistic outpouring, but an expression of enlightened self interest on the part of every constituent nation-state. This reasoning drives military diplomacy, not just within fresh initiatives, such as the IONS, but equally within broader and more mature structures, such as ASEAN. Although ASEAN was initially constituted with a distinct and explicit desire to stay far away from security issues, it has in the fullness of time been forced to acknowledge the symbiotic relationship between collective regional security and economic prosperity. Thus, today, moving on from the security discussions incorporated within the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was set up in 1993, we are witnessing meetings of the defence ministers of ASEAN countries within the ASEAN construct itself.
It would be appropriate to acknowledge the contribution of this changing paradigm made by earlier initiatives, yet defence diplomacy as envisaged and practiced by India defers from the earlier security structures that tended to be embedded within the construct of competitive security as typified by the Cold War. NATO is an obvious example. Even the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS), which was initiated in 1988, with the US Navy’s International Seapower Symposium acting as a catalyst, was a Cold War construct. However, I must hasten to laud its transformation into a relevant, very useful and usually successful post-Cold War cooperative maritime construct.
India is acutely conscious of the fact that no nation is an island unto itself, and we are consequently quite clear that our geostrategic environment is sharply impacted upon, and perhaps even moulded by, the interplay of the geostrategic moves of other players, both state and non-state. We find ourselves in the midst of an unprecedented globalisation of trade, technology, media and a host of other areas of human activity. We are acutely aware that this interdependence is, in fact, the defining characteristic of the modern world. In the wake of this interdependence has come the realisation that there is a pressing need to ensure security in all of its myriad forms – economic security, security of international trade and commerce, and the security of life against the changing environment brought about by man and nature alike. It is this very realisation of interdependence that swings us across to the view that although the problems of holistic security are enormous, so are the opportunities.
In addressing the question of how these opportunities may best be maximised, we consider constructive engagement to be our mechanism of choice against the individual and collective challenges that I mentioned earlier. Constructive engagement is, therefore, the foundation of our defence diplomacy and manifests itself in the effort to create capacity and enhanced capability so that individual nation-states can look after their own security requirements, and these, when taken in aggregate, will generate a degree of regional stability that will be conducive to inclusive economic growth.
We feel strongly that this building of capacity and enhancement of capability need not be unduly oriented towards hardware alone. Indeed, the more relevant – and I daresay the more enduring – building blocks of maritime capacity are more likely to be related to the acquisition, consolidation, and sharing of soft skills. Accordingly, apart from the transfer of platforms and equipment, our defence diplomacy incorporates regionally relevant training through a variety of classroom or ship-borne trainers and trainee exchange programmes, concept development, doctrine formulation workshops, assimilation processes, personal exchanges, the free flow of ideas through seminars and symposia, table top exercises, and so on.
India as an independent nation has always recognised the benefits that accrue from defence diplomacy, and therefore our collaborative actions over the last two decades evidence the effective use of this important tool for enhancing regional security, building confidence amongst neighbours, and advancing broader national strategic and foreign policy objectives. In earlier times, defence diplomacy was somewhat limited to participation in certain joint exercises and things of that sort, but in more recent times these activities have become more varied in scope and wider in their encompassment of countries. We used to have defence trade with the erstwhile Soviet Union, with material assistance by way of asset transfers to regional neighbours and military training to countries in Africa and Asia, which were increasingly employed in consonance with our regional standing at that time.
However, it is the 1990s that will stand out in the annals of Indian defence diplomacy as the decisive years. The collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union and the resultant redefinition of geostrategic equations heralded the onset of our engagement with the West. Over the years, the temporal and spatial convergences in interests that we share with most countries of the region, as well as many others that maintain a presence in the region to further their strategic interests, have helped in greatly enhancing the spectrum of collaborative activities. Complex bilateral and multilateral exercises, joint production ventures, high-end technology transfer, defence trade, institutionalised interaction, military training and the like have served to consummate our defence relationship with many countries.
Let me reiterate that India’s defence diplomacy is driven by our desire to meaningfully and positively contribute to the furtherance of our common interests to create and consolidate a stable, peaceful and prosperous region in which the committee of nations is both intrinsic and assured, where every nation, big or small, is treated as an equal. There are multiple options of governance that are recognised as being functions of the independent choice of the people of each nation-state, where the people of every state of the region can live in dignity and peace, where the state protects the individual, and the individual preserves the state in a symbiotic relationship designed to establish and spread stability across the region. I am sure that Admiral Blair and Mr Ichita Yamamoto will have a lot more to say on the subject.
India, with its fourth largest military in the world, impressive naval and air force capabilities, and a modest defence industry, would seek to optimally use the attributes of defence diplomacy to advantage in pursuance of its national interests.
