Category Archives: China and the Pacific

‘Strategic Competition’ is War by Other Means

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A Troubling Legacy of the Westphalian System

By

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (to be published)

A debate rages amongst western scholars and strategists of the significance and what elements of statecraft make for the essence of “Strategic Competition”. The argument is centrally about influence over the international system.

The phrase “Strategic Competitiveness” first made its appearance as a polcy touchstone, notably, in the 2018 National Defence Strategy of the USA. The document identified the revisionist states of China and Russia as strategic competitors. China for using “predatory economics” to intimidate lesser endowed nations while militarizing and persisting with its illegal claims in the South China Sea; and Russia as an “autocratic nationalistic state that eschewed the economic, diplomatic, and security aspirations of its erstwhile bloc”. The document further envisages challenges in every arena of human endeavour and the only answer it presents is to “field a lethal, resilient and rapidly adapting Joint Force. The Joint Force is combined with a robust constellation of allies and partners…aim being to achieve favourable balances of power that safeguard the free and open international order”.  

This understanding of the policy has indeterminate strategic significance, rather cramped relevance and harps on a chord reminiscent of the cold war in its quest for ‘Balance of Power’ and the carving out of two adversarial military Blocs. In a sense it entails substantial economic, political and military risks not just to the protagonists but to the world at large; and significantly excludes nations who may choose not to accept a confrontational posture or retain strategic autonomy.  

The Westphalian Paradox

The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, ended long drawn out wars between feuding Christian societies in Europe. Its purpose was to consolidate a teetering Holy Roman (German) Empire that had been ravaged by wars, fragmentation and economic depredation. It created the “framework for relations” within West-Central Europe. Concepts of state sovereignty, new to Europe, and diplomacy find mention in the text of this Treaty.

While it was one of the attempts at codifying relations between states through an accepted set of laws, there was a looming threat that it provided a shield against. For, not only did it provide a basis to hold together Christendom as existed in West-Central Europe, but was an elemental collective pledge to confront the Ottoman Empire which was rampaging to its peak of power, wealth and expansion in South East Europe. What the Ottoman began as conquests in Asia Minor, led to the annexation of vast territories in Bulgaria, Greece and much of the Byzantine Empire. With the fall of Constantinople during the reign of Mehmed II (1432-1481), the Sultan’s dominion extended well into central Europe and was an ominous portent to the ‘Holy Roman Empire’.

Historical facts remind us that through the ages no International Order has ever been absolute nor has any one hegemon been endowed with the necessary power to control an Order in perpetuity. The emergence of rising powers provides the necessary dynamics for transformation of International Order; which in a way, mistakenly, provokes the mind to accept the simplistic axiom that “wars occur when the established order is challenged”.

The lamentable paradox is that the Westphalian System still remains the model for international relations, politics, concept of state sovereignty, basis of treaties/conventions and, critically, sets the criterion for “Global Governance”. This despite the arrangement not having space for emerging powers of autonomous bent. Just how pernicious the system can be was captured in  President George W. Bush’s confounding declaration to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001 where he left the comity of nations with a Hobson’s choice, “…Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make, either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Contrarian states are recast as a threat to order; this crudely was the essence of the system. Competing powers within the fetters of the Westphalian Model are projected to be disruptive entities that seek to topple the balance of power and rebuff the institutions that are at the heart of Global Order extant. The system ironically was conceived to provide a security arrangement specifically for the Christian principalities of Germany (of the 17th century) while keeping some form of cohesiveness amongst believers of the faith within the ‘Holy Roman Empire’, significantly to serve as a bulwark against the rampaging Ottoman Empire to the South East. Its applicability was constrained by geography, race, identity, ethnicity and critically belief; its purpose was specific for Hapsburg control (1438-1740). Indeed, as a professor of military history at the National Defence Academy asserted …in this realm, command was neither “Holy nor Roman and not even was it an Empire!”   

The Post-Cold War Order

Global Governance is a post-Cold War concept (1995). Recognizing the new climate in international relations, former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, in 1989, brought together a group of international leaders to explore new approaches to managing global relations.  His efforts laid the foundations for the establishment of an overdue Commission on Global Governance. Indeed the inabilities of the Westphalian Model can be seen in various modern international institutions including the United Nations which is a leading example of how civilizational experiences of diverse societies that make up the international milieu of the day are excluded. The UN in addition to its many spectacular failures —often as a result of indecision but more on account of its weaknesses is a case study in what ‘Global Governance’ ought not to be. There are neither binding rules to forge agreements nor can the power of veto be reined-in through the intellectual science of reasoning. What carries the day is which side is backed by brute power. As in the war in Syria; when agreement falls prey to selfish interests; or in Rwanda, where the genocide of 1994 is yet to find closure. Selectively applied international norms that suit privileged interests, is another agent, as in Iraq and in the Russia – Ukraine conflict; or more perilously due to finance driven bigotry, as during the recent Covid 19 pandemic. In all cases the very purpose of the UN to maintain peace and security, uphold human rights, provide humanitarian aid and put in place a model for sustainable development amounts to little else than empty talk, bereft of value and at times, an instrument to justify malfeasance.

Recognising the weaknesses of the Westphalian Model the Commission suggested the creation of “a multilateral regulatory system of management focussed on development of global independencies and sustainable development”. The idea has in its original form lost traction over time and wobbles on the edge of history’s garbage pail. Was this an act of geopolitical short sightedness or self-centredness of Western elites and influencers or was it a deliberate act that saw in the post-Westphalian world the need to cement a place for the Global Hegemon?    

The Focus; Sway over International Systems

The method of conducting international relations and the institutions that enabled the creation of alignments are pre-disposed to the idea of Realpolitik and are, consequently, interpreted in terms of the national interests of the resident hegemon. The coming of an emerging power, accordingly, sends out the call for an impending confrontation. One of three possible fallouts of such interplay is; assimilation into the Order, defeat by force of arms or advent of a new Order.

International benchmarks for accomplishment in Strategic Competition are five-fold: vitality of citizenry, technological prowess, strength of economy, demography and geographic endowment. These characteristics form the basis for determining two critical competitive priorities:  degree to which rivalry can be advanced and at what stage rivalry turns to “unfavourable-antagonism”, both priorities are driven by blinkered national interest, defy common understanding and border on brinkmanship. Since the struggle is, in many ways, over the essential character of the international system its institutions, rules and conventions; it is the individual perception of ‘universal application’ that prevails over the narrative. Morality, in the matter, plays a minor part. The key lies in how the anecdotal can be reconstituted to present a convenient reality. Indeed, it will also explain the power exertions that dominate this pursuit.  

The dangerous dichotomy lies in the divergent pulls that exist between a globalised world economy and exclusive state polity. While the world economy relies on a secure and stable system of governance for trade, communications and development for which organisations exist on land and in the air controlled and regulated by United Nations institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the World Trade Organisation; and on the oceans it is built on the bedrock of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). UNCLOS lays out rules for everything from global shipping enterprise and management of offshore natural resources including fisheries, critical minerals, oil, and natural gas—all managed primarily through the convention’s authority. Yet, Strategic Competition is not about how best these institutions can collectively be governed; but about control of these very institutions.      

Outcome of Competition: Collapse, Capitulation or Compromise

Studies refer to the concept of strategic competition over a range of interpretations; from a tautological point of view as “the act of competing” to the more nuanced “attempt to gain advantage over a nation or group of nations that are believed to pose a threat through self-interested pursuit of power and influence.” Two phrases in the latter description that become significant are:  ‘…believed to pose a threat’ and ‘…pursuit of power and influence’, both of which remain open ended in their implication and substance. While the issue of what comprises a ubiquitous threat and what commonly is recognised as the object of power and influence remains masked. Indeed, for a nation to announce that it is embracing Strategic Competition says nothing about how it will do so—that is, what specific instruments of state power to achieve success it will employ—or what it will prioritize. 

A realistic scrutiny of the relationships involved conforms to the historical concept of ‘Great Power Rivalry’, which in the past determined foreign policy, economic rapacity and national security; all characteristics that underpinned domination. The question that begs an answer is ‘in what way does Strategic Competition differ from Belligerent Hegemony?’  If the former refers to the combination of one group of people or groups of people exploited by another group of people; then there is little difference. The process of competition is invariably a tussle of differentials in growth rates, technological prowess, ideology distinction and economic stability; which in turn impacts on political and ominously, military balance.

Our own experience of competitive rivalries since the age of colonial antagonism to the present, tend to ignore the critical question of outcomes as planners fail to occupy themselves with where ‘Competition’ is leading to. History of intense rivalries between nations, tell us, they end for one side, in one of three ways: Collapse, Capitulation, or Compromise. Outcomes that terminate in consequences other than these three often set the stage for a return to confrontation.

We are then faced with a strategic dilemma which Michael Howard (war and social change-an essay) underscored, “…there is no war without resistance; but without resistance and the possibility of resistance, there is no International Order.”

Strategic Competition in Ukraine; Hazards of Wavering Resolve

The downside of being a part of a group engaged in strategic competition is the danger of rapid escalation and ‘wavering-resolve’. The on-going conflict in Ukraine is an example of how rapidly the situation can escalate to armed conflict and how diffidence can queer the pitch when engaged in strategic competition. Jens Stoltenberg, the ‘On-Off’ NATO Secretary General, suggested Ukraine might today have to decide on some “kind of compromises”. The former Commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command went a step further when he warned that Ukraine could face defeat by Russia in 2024. General Barrons is quoted as saying “there is a serious risk” of Ukraine losing the war this year. The reason, he attributes, is “because Ukraine may come to feel it can’t win”. “And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?”

Why people will want to fight and die is very convincing logic, but to have reached this conclusion in a proxy war after two years of so much disruption, wasteful destruction and sapping of global economies is baffling, to say the least.   

Enervating Frailties and the Virtue of Biding One’s Time 

While the agitation continues with academics and think-tanks over whether there exists a red-line between ‘Competition’ and ‘Conflict’; China has embarked on its own discernment since the 1970s, of ‘What is’ and ‘How’ Strategic Competition is to be prosecuted. At its heart are two pivotal precepts: the first is that the accumulation of power, beyond a point, can turn on itself; for the essence of competitiveness is to recognise that ‘Power’ plays a covering role as a bulwark against precipitate recourse to arms. Targeting frailties of the adversarial system and measures taken to enervate them (over time) through the manipulation of information and undermining values; till decay and doubt sets in is the aim. Beijing believes they can wait. The second is to guard against reckless acts by the adversary that may compromise China’s festering debilities and, indeed, undermine their scheme of enervating the adversary. Not having put a time frame for their strategic plans has lent considerable credibility to China’s position as a major power. Going back over the last half century, it is apparent that Beijing has persisted with this policy of playing one superpower against the other and yet, often, acted in defiance of the two. Despite its vulnerabilities, it neither yielded nor has it been pliant to the entreaties of Moscow or Washington. For these very reasons and as a participant in the many political and military conflicts of the post-cold war era China has today attained a singular stature in the international system as a superpower.

As China’s power grows and the contours of its Grand Strategy of ‘Rejuvenation and Revision’ are fully unveiled, the four ‘Initiatives’ or instruments of its strategy can be seen from a perspective that is set on competing and overturning existing order:

  • The first is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that poses to finance and boost infrastructure of dependent and client economies and in turn become the engine of Beijing’s geo-strategic military, financial reach and political clout.
  • Second, the Global Development Initiative (GDI) launched in 2021 at the UN General Assembly targets developing nations with small-scale projects that address poverty alleviation, digital connectivity, climate change, and health and food security; aim being to further their hold and reliance on Beijing. At its core is Beijing’s emphasis on economic development as the basis for human rights rather than equality and dignity.
  • Third, the Global Security Initiative (GSI), launched in 2022 seeks to promote China as the central arbiter to coordinate security needs of the region first, followed by global demands, through diplomacy contingent upon China.
  • Lastly, the Global Civilizational Initiative (GCI) introduced in March 2023, promotes a state-focused and state-defined values system that serves to eliminate universal values such as human rights and democracy. In a GCI-related address, Xi called “peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom” “common aspirations”, and not rights, of humanity. The GCI argues that the perceptions of such “common” aspirations are “relative” and that countries must “refrain from imposing their own values on others.

Meanwhile globally nations in the West and Asia are determined to push back against what is seen as Chinese hegemonic designs and revisionism. Multilateralism in this milieu provides a tremendous advantage, particularly so when strategic interests converge when confronted with a Beijing that seeks ‘Rejuvenation’.

Beijing has emerged and has thrown the gauntlet to unsettle the existing status-quo. In strategic terms the greatest risks in the competition are that contestants develop policies and technologies that threaten existing critical economic networks and informational dependencies within the prevailing international structures. This provides the logic for preparations by the military to fight an indefinable and often elusory conflict through the formation of coalitions and arming to the teeth. Who then benefits from Strategic Competition?

The Indispensible Enemy

               Daniel Ellsberg, the late, well acclaimed whistle-blowing author of the Pentagon Papers, posed a query: ” In the current state of world affairs where, uncertainty and conflicts are the rule; who benefitted from war?” Certainly in Ukraine, the South China Sea and Gaza it cannot be the chief protagonists but the contrivers and puppeteers of conflict.

The proxy war in Ukraine benefits most the USA; for the conflict has turned back to history and revived a threat from an “alliance of authoritarian powers” working against Western democracies. It has paved the way for American growth and leadership, and fashioned an antagonistic bloc comprising Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. And so too potentially, has the brewing conflict in the South China Sea; the conflict in Gaza is complex for it has gone beyond retribution.

Israel’s war against Hamas may have been justified by the latter’s murderous assault of 07 October 2023, but for the battering of Gaza to be prosecuted with a perverse and unrelenting ferocity for over ten months begs an explanation that cannot be vindicated by the idea of ‘rightful-reprisal’. Indeed, is there more to this conflict? Could it be that carnage provides the opportunity to take the first step towards realising the long sought after alternative to the bothersome absence of control over the Suez Canal? The Ben Gurion Canal project proposes to connect the Gulf of Aqaba (Eilat) in the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea and would pass through Israel and end in or near the Gaza Strip (Ashkelon). And if this Canal became a reality the Suez moves to the background for it can handle deeper draught and greater volumes of traffic. Most critically the Canal would be under firm control of the USA, Israel and the Western powers.

The key to continuing Great Power status, as Ellsberg ominously suggested, was the incessant availability of an indispensible enemy and the will to competition with that foe.

Global Governance and the Quest for a Stable World Order

The ‘Authoritarian Bloc’ is in a perilous struggle to bring about the decline and collapse of its perceived rivals with the aim to don the mantle of world leadership. In such a calculus, international affairs of the day, presents a world in which it is not just the ‘balance of power’ that is sought to be toppled; but every element of society—economy, diplomacy, law, trade, cyberspace, social media, journalism, culture and indeed the very nature of peoples—have become tools in a strategic competition. States with political authority over the sources of power of a nation are uniquely positioned to impose costs on other states. They have the advantage, in the short term, since they can wield elements of ‘soft and hard power’ unquestioned and direct through central control of these instruments. This state of affairs can only last as long as citizens remain convinced of motivations and kept blind to hazards of such competition.

With proliferation of nuclear weapons and the growing inclination towards the use of low-yield weapons to salvage a troubled conventional campaign; balance of power has ceased to be a fully relevant and credible principle of global order. However, it still retains a presence in international relations, more particularly, in the sphere of regional relations among states. So it is neither balance of power nor the exercise of brute force or even the emergence of a global hegemon that will assure a stable world order. Global governance in its pristine form is order that emerges from institutions that recognise the equality of humankind, acknowledged processes, formal agreements, and informal time-honoured mechanisms that negate unilateral military action and regulates collective action for a common good.

Global governance encompasses activity at the international, transnational, and regional levels that transcend national boundaries. In this conception of global governance, cooperative action based on rights and rules that are enforced through a combination of financial and moral incentives and, should the need arise; collective military power that proposes to replace disruptive strategic competition. If not, as Willy Brandt in 1980 put it, “Are we to leave our successors a scorched planet, impoverished landscapes and ailing environment?”

From Outpost to Springboard

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar. Published in the March 2024 edition of the DSA available at the following links:

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Determinants of Security and Development

     In his opening address to the Seminar on “Security and Development of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands” held at Port Blair under the aegis of the Andaman and Nicobar Command on 04 – 05 September 2009, the then  Commander-in-Chief of the Islands, flagged four annotative perspectives for the assembly. Counseling that Security and Development were two sides of the same coin, he stated “We are aware that thus far the outlook of successive governments towards these Islands has been that of an Outpost, this to me is a strategic flaw. Rather we need to convert the Outpost to a Springboard for not just our economic but also for security aspirations” for indeed, “development without security makes the former vulnerable while security sans development is vacuous”. The second perspective was the persistent mismatch between the nation’s very obvious potential versus delivered reality. The third and fourth standpoints related directly or obliquely to the challenge posed by China’s Indo-Pacific game plan, namely, it’s “Island Chain” and “String of Pearls” strategies while all the time promoting “small groups with disproportionate powers to subvert and sabotage”.

A Quirk of History  

              Edward Penderel Moon, a former Indian Civil Service administrator in colonial India, wrote a book on the Partition of India titled “Divide and Quit” much of its contents were gleaned from a document put together under the patronage of the British India Office and edited by Moon. It was labelled ‘India: The Transfer of Power 1942-47’ and was published in 11 Volumes.  Of particular interest are the confabulations of the British Cabinet, the imperial Chiefs of Staff Committee, Cripps Mission of 1946 tasked with the transfer of power and the concomitant “Mountbatten Plan” of 1947 that outlined the Partition of India.

                 Amongst the many tangled, artful, and often contentious issues associated with decisions leading to Partition was the fate of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Possession of the Isles had, through the Second World War, changed hands between the British and the Japanese. And yet, at no time had Whitehall lost sight of the geo strategic value of the Islands. In July of 1946, the British Chiefs of Staff in India declared that “India was so internally rife with divisions that the Transfer of Power would, inevitably, lead to the intercession of the Soviets” in their quest for ‘Warm Water Access’ (ala Czar Peter!) This became a fundamental assumption for a grand strategic appreciation by the Chiefs of Staff Committee.

    The Committee argued that at stake were the lines of communication between Great Britain and its Imperial interests in the Far East. While the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT) provided stepping stones that spanned half the Indian Ocean, there was an unbridgeable gap to Malaya and further East to Australia and the other possessions. They rued the fact that Partition will breach the grand global network of maritime communications, which in time would lead to the collapse of Imperial Control. The Committee came to the conclusion that should the ‘Transfer of Power’ occur and strategic basing and logistics denied in mainland India, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands provided the only alternative. This became the case for decoupling the Islands from the transfer of power.

           Whitehall was quick to endorse this appreciation. The Secretary for Defence Mr Alexander and the Imperial Chiefs of Staff Committee exhorted the Government to retain sovereignty of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. As a result of these urgings the draft of the ‘India Independence Bill’, which made its appearance in May 1947, simply contained no reference to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands when the document came to the section on transfer of territories. The matter was leaked to the Press (source of the leak was never quite established) which on 11 June 1947 took note of the glaring omission and warned of the Bill’s imminent rejection. Mountbatten, now the Viceroy, unyieldingly cautioned London of the country-wide uncontrollable and violent ramifications of such a move.

   The Cabinet, on 17June 1947, uneasy at the already simmering reaction to Partition on mainland India, decided eventually not to progress the proposal despite the vigorous protestations of Mr Alexander, the ‘grave anxiety’ of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the rather dilatory and specious claim by Jinnah on the Islands based on the vulnerability of the sea line of communication between East and West Pakistan.

    Britain as late as 05 July 1947 could have adamantly persisted with their original decision; the Imperial Chiefs of Staff could have dug in their heels and the Cabinet could have mulishly bulldozed their verdict, but they did not through a sheer quirk of history. They had, most unexpectedly, blanched at the thought of further exasperating the very delicate nature of the Partition award and ceded the transfer of the Island territories of Andaman and Nicobar to India.

The ‘Mummified’ Outpost

           An outpost, in the military lexicon, is a far flung remote station located on or near a nation’s  frontier that is lightly garrisoned for purposes of providing a surveillance post, an armed perimeter or a ‘trip-wire’ to raise the alarm of hostile or uncharacteristic activity. During the years post-independence, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands despite its location, decidedly, did not serve India as a military outpost. On the contrary the local administration and the Central Government in their policy making and implementation were more concerned with “mummifying” its environment, which in a way was a policy of doing very little.  

    The author in 1973 commanded an inshore patrol vessel INS Panaji (ex-Soviet Poluchat Class, commissioned in 1967) based at Port Blair. She was one of three of class that were notionally deployed for coastal defence. However rarely was there an occasion when even two were available at a time. Port facilities were restricted to a rickety commercial wharf (equipped with steam cranage) on Chatham Island which was also home to a 19th century colonial saw mill and the Western India Match Company’s pulp factory. The Haddo Wharf (concrete on piles) was still under construction. No other port in the Islands had any significant infrastructure. Inter-island passenger movement was primarily by small ferries restricted to the fair weather season. Practically all logistics would come from the mainland on a monthly basis. Road infrastructure was restricted to the South Andaman much of which had been built by the Japanese during their occupation 1942-45; other inhabited islands (37 of 572) had rudimentary roads very few of which were black-topped. Two airfields existed one at Port Blair and the Air force base at Car Nicobar. Port Blair would handle a weekly commercial flight from the mainland in the fair weather season while the Air Force had a fortnightly courier. There were no commercial refrigeration plants and power outages were common. In short there was no industry, no commerce, poor connectivity, very basic post and telecom facilities, little security and even less development.  

     Life ashore in 1973 was about survival and continuance. Sunken ships, listing derelict trawlers impounded in some distant past moored as flotsam and hulks of shipwrecks strewn across Phoenix Bay and Ranger Flat in Port Blair were reminiscent of some cast-off colonial roadstead out of the pages of a Conrad or Maugham novel! There were very few public utilities and most of the buildings and offices were log tenements sorely in need of repair. Evenings were spent at the Colonial Andaman Club where stories were traded of the wild beauty of the islands and escapades involving the indigenous tribes, while the billiards marker cum bartender, the timeworn ‘Sher Khan’, a shrivelled Pathan who had been incarcerated for serial honour killings, wafted silently in the shadows.

Formulation of a Strategy for Security and Development  

           Through the years of the Island Development Authority (1985) and the Look East Policy (1991 aimed to foster political, economic and security co-operation with ASEAN nations) there was inappreciable growth or progress to suggest a cohesive and long term blue print for the transformation of the Islands to a strategic economic and security asset, it remained about continuance and a contrary posture towards change.   

            The Security and Development Seminar of September 2009 (the former President Kalam and other national luminaries in attendance) was rounded off by a strategy statement. This Declaration (moved to the PM’s office by the Special Secretary to the PM, himself a participant) was keenly sensitive to the demands of three overarching considerations. First, interests and vulnerabilities of indigenous communities; second, climate change; and lastly the safeguard and conservation of the fragile ecology of the Islands. The approach was for building infrastructure through a combination of government investment, private entrepreneurship and establishment supervision. The sectors to be targeted were: eco-tourism, education, maritime and fishing industries, infrastructure development and security enhancements. The last included three dimensional surveillance; precision strike capabilities; intelligence sharing; capacity building for amphibious power projection in the Far East and failsafe cyber security. While each of these sectors became a subject of much greater study and discreet implementation, it is the matter of “the one big ticket project” central to the ‘strategy statement’ that will engage the remaining part of our scrutiny.

Container Trans-Shipment Port at Galatea Bay

              Great Nicobar is the southernmost and largest of the Nicobar group of islands. The land area covers 1044 sq.km but is scantily populated. The terrain is undulating and covered by rainforest and is known for its diverse wildlife. The island has four significant rivers whose course conforms to the orientation of the main range that slopes from North to South. Mount Thullier in the North is the highest peak in the Nicobar group, altitude 642 metres. The Island is home to the Great Nicobar Biosphere, Campbell Bay National Park, Galatea National Wildlife Sanctuary and Megapode Island Sanctuary. The non-Biosphere portions of the island are utilized for agriculture, forestry and settlements and are confined to the south-western and south-eastern coastal reaches.  Galatea River originates in the central region of the island and runs 25 kms southward till it drains into the Bay that carries its name. Indira Point, at the western extremity of the Bay defines the southernmost geographic point of India. The Bay is about 8 kilometres in extent in the South-North direction and 5 kms at its mouth. The Bay has navigable soundings (depths) in excess of 21 metres and is naturally protected from the south-westerly as well as the north-easterly monsoon winds that affect the region.

                What makes Galatea Bay strategically significant is its location, proximity to the one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and the nature of harbourage it can potentially provide. It is situated within 60 nautical miles (nm) from the approaches to the Malacca Straits and 40nm north of the 6 degree Channel, one of the densest shipping arteries in the world. The Channel connects the shipping routes emanating from the Persian Gulf the Red Sea and around the Cape of Good Hope transiting via the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal to the Malacca Straits and on to the South China Sea and Western Pacific Ocean. This narrow and vulnerable Waterway is crucial to the flow of global energy and trade, and is strategically and commercially significant for more than a third of humanity. It is also the shortest sea route between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean and over one-third shorter than the closest alternative sea-based route. It also accounts for 60% of global trade. In 2021 on an average over 200 hulls passed every day through the 6 Degree Channel. The average per day composition was 44 tankers, 6 Very Large Container Ships/Ultra Large Container Vessel (VLCS/ULCV), 60 cargo ships, 86 passenger ships and 4 support ships.                   

              Hitherto, containers bound for India and exported out embarked on-board VLCS/ULCVs had to be transhipped to Colombo, Singapore or Klang since no container terminal in India can handle VLCS/ ULCV’s of draught in excess of 17 metres. Currently, these very ports outside India handle roughly 75% of the transhipped cargo from India. According to the Ministry of Ports, Shipping, and Waterways, more than 85% of this cargo is handled at Colombo, Singapore, and Port Klang, with 45% of it handled at the Colombo Port. The transit and turn around at the ‘Relay-Port’ adds substantial costs to the tune of $500 to $1000 per Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU load 28 tons) standard container. Relay-Port turn around tariffs and other services further hike-up costs.

               From the economic perspective, construction of Galatea Bay Port is expected to provide savings, foreign direct investment, higher economic activity at other Indian ports, improved logistical infrastructure, job creation, and increased revenue share. Handling transhipment goods from all the nearby ports, including domestic ones, are expected to make the Port a significant hub for Asia-African and Asia-US/European container traffic.  

The Geopolitical Impact

              The term ‘geopolitics’ has historically been employed in reference to a nation’s interests and stratagems adopted to secure them. This understanding is subjective; for it does not account for the full significance of the term and even bears negative connotations. In the run-up to the Second World War, both Germany and Japan’s expansionist policies were justified using the ‘geopolitical’ argument garbed in bizarre concepts of Lebensraum and the Greater East Co-prosperity Sphere and today it is China with its unrelenting strategic urge towards “Rejuvenation”. The study of the relationship between a nation’s geography and its politics and how the former is leveraged to advance its national interests diplomatically is a far more elegant understanding of the term.

               However, the reality of the international system is the place that power enjoys in the scheme of assuring stability in relations between nations. In the absence of a security oriented cooperative impulse, the problem with competitive and often combative national interests is blindness to recognize that, we are in fact dealing with diverse regions, fast depleting resources and sea spaces that are the busiest of all the “vast commons”. The reluctance for collaboration on mutually acceptable terms makes the potential for friction high and the only consideration that could bring about change is the ability to attain a strategic posture that serves to deter, stabilize and preserve.

The Spring Board as a Conclusion

                 Strategic interests of India and leading democracies of the world converge on many aspects in the Indo-Pacific. At its core lies maritime security. India’s Act East Policy, in addition to having economic, cultural and commercial goals, includes strategic interests. The quadrilateral security dialogue (QUAD), the Australia-UK-US alliance and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific aim at maintaining prosperity, security and order in the Indo-Pacific.

                The large scale advancement of security measures in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and  development of Galatea Bay as a major hub for the management of container traffic, and indeed, strategic control; is a signal to China that attempts to side-line the existing rules based order and dislocate the status-quo will have consequences.     

Strategic Deception, the Chinese Way of Warfare

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Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar (To be Published)

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
                          ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The Aberrant Articulation

In a recent editorial in the Global Times a rare viewpoint was published, by a director of South Asian studies at the Fudan University, expounding eloquently the merits of the current Indian trajectory  available at https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202401/1304656.shtml titled “what I feel of the Bharat Narrative in India“. Its main theme was how India had achieved outstanding results in economic development, social governance and the manner in which its ‘great’ power strategy was rapidly progressing towards fruition. From any perspective this was odd for the extent of acclaim being heaped on India, and that, coming from a mouth piece of the Chinese Communist Party.   

In another press release China’s assertion of India’s “domineering diplomacy” appeared in the Global Times in quick succession to the earlier viewpoint. The latter could erringly be mistaken for strategic envy of the “Indian way” of establishing a hegemonic sphere of influence in South-Asia. The question arises why did these two aberrant articulations make their unprecedented appearance? Was it the opening move on the chess board to project the Indian State as a worthy rival? Or was to lull New Delhi to complacency?

The Soporific Jingle

 Hindi Chini bhai-bhai was a jingle popularised by Nehru after his first meeting with Zhou-Enlai in the run-up to the summit with Mao Zedong. It had a delusional quality that was further exacerbated after Mao met Nehru in Beijing in October 1954. China, having just fought the United States to a stalemate in the Korean War, was upbeat about the future. Mao perceived imperialism, at least the American brand of it, to be weak and in retreat. “Historically, all of us, people of the East, have been bullied by western imperialist powers,” he told Nehru. “The imperialist still looks down upon us,” this declaration was intended to forge an “instinctive feeling of solidarity” between the two; it did not fail. China and India, the two leaders seemed to be saying, would lead the developing world to a brighter future. Nehru went on to suggest that “big power status could well be handed over to the two” (!). The air during their summit was suffused, on the one side, by utopian thoughts such as “war was no longer a useable instrument for achieving policy goals”; while on the other were realpolitik assertions “that tension awakens people to revolution;” and that “war had a numbing and enervating effect on growth and progress.” But, “relations between China and India were sans tension “almost as if to allay any fears that India may have of China’s intentions (all the while not only had Tibet been invaded but the Aksai Chin region of northern Ladakh was being gnawed away).

The facts did not deter Nehru in his pursuit of an alternative bloc to the ‘cold warriors’ led by principles rather than power. He set about on a quest to band together like minded Afro-Asian nations that culminated in the Bandung Conference of 1955 and the Sino-Indian declaration of the Panchsheel Agreement, (Premier Zhou proposed Panchsheel and its principles of peaceful co-existence and mutual non-interference in 1953).

India nurtured a misshapen hope that non-alignment would bloom into a pan Afro-Asian movement based on common experience of colonialism. Moral power, spear-headed by the two most populace and indeed impoverished nations, it was hoped would reshape the international system where righteousness would overpower the balance of terror. However, Mao and Nehru had very different ideas about what that future might bring. Nehru wanted the developing nations to follow India’s lead in staying out of the ideological quarrels of the Cold War. Mao, by contrast, perceived the Third World as central to the coming global revolution, which China would stimulate and eventually lead. From start, China and India were engaged on “parallel tracks” for influence.

Rude Awakening

Following China’s invasion of Tibet in 1951 and the sustained injustices inflicted on the Tibetan people leading to the brutal suppression of an uprising in 1959, thousands of Tibetans, and their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sought asylum in India. From there, the Chinese government alleged, the expatriates continued to instigate rebellion, moving across the border to carry out subversion and sabotage. The Chinese responded by increasing their military presence in the border area, which in August and October 1959 led to a series of escalating armed skirmishes along the erstwhile Indo-Tibetan border.

As China and India faced off across the Himalayas, India made a startling but cruel discovery that they had an armed conflict brewing over territory, which to this day remains unresolved. It did not take long before the dreamy vision of Sino-Indian solidarity and resurgence gave way to loss and great rancour.

Price of Complacency

The lack of either nuclear capability or significant conventional power exposed India’s status as a minor power of little strategic importance. China sensing the moment of India’s despondency and vulnerabilities to have arrived, leveraged these frailties in the 1962 war. In the ensuing conflict an ill prepared India suffered a humiliating drubbing; leadership was found wanting in resolve and morale of the nation was broken. China on her part was successful in achieving three objectives; firstly delegitimizing the McMahon Line, secondly consolidating their sovereignty over Tibet and lastly to establish that the great Asian resurgence had space for only one and that was not for an ideologically muddled India. China had so comprehensively lulled the Indian leadership into a strategic torpor that the war was lost before the fighting began.

Deception as the Key Principle of ‘War-with-Chinese-Characteristics’

In Chinese strategic parlance to attain shi, is to bring about the alignment of opportunities and manipulate forces such that they stimulate favourable circumstances to strike or make the potential adversary bend to ones will. In short it is to “shape a strategic situation” through patience, deception, intelligence and intuitive-acumen of impending events. Clearly Beijing attained shi in their war against the USA in Korea when they waited till American forces crossed the Yalu river before they struck; they attained it before the border war with India; and in the 1970s they manipulated Nixon and the USA to counter balance the USSR and feed their dazzling growth, four decades later they put themselves in a position to challenge America for global leadership. Chairman Mao was known to be fond of not just citing shi but invoking it in his international dealings.

 We began on a note of consternation over the view point of the Chinese scholar Dr Zhiang Jiadong expressed in his article on the “Bharat Narrative”. While it may have just been an academic’s feature of acclaim, it may also be false encomium as a first step in attaining shi for intentions that can only be mala fide. Planners will do well to analyse such opinions for cognizable patterns, for is there a shi zealot lurking in Premier Xi?

After all, it was Sun Tzu who suggested that “all warfare was based on deception”.