By Amanda Boettcher
October 15, 2010
Courtesy Of "The Foreign Policy Journal"
In the United States, policy makers and advocacy groups have lobbied for defense spending cuts. On September 14, 2010, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a 5-year plan to reduce military spending by the Department of Defense beginning in 2012, for a total reduction of $100 billon. In June of this year, a commission formed by Rep. Barney Frank published a report on how to reduce military spending by $1 trillion over the next decade. Later in the summer, The Peace Economy Project, an organization that advocates for “reducing military spending in favor of social and infrastructure needs”, sent their staff to the Capital with an appeal to Congress asking that the body reduce military spending in favor of funding our communities. While such reductions have not yet been achieved, contention to increases in U.S. military expenditures continues to grow. As vocal dissent increases, however, a glance at the other side of the globe shows that calls for reducing military spending require an increased level of sophistication in order to avoid unintended conflicts.
Arms Peddler To The GlobeAccording to theCongressional Research Center, arms transfer agreements between the U.S. and developing countries climbed from $12.4 billion in 2007 to $29.6 billion in 2008. Russia ranks second in arms transfers with agreements totaling just $3.3 billion. Compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is by far the most dominant weapons dealer in the developing world. Arms contracts with developing countries have raised little opposition from members of the U.S. government on either side of the aisle. After helping to secure a $30 billion Boeing defense deal with Saudi Arabia, Republican congressman Todd Akin’s press official told Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post Dispatch that the congressman was supportive of the deal, and “you have to look at the overall balance of power in the region.” Boeing expects to generate 25 percent of its revenue from outside the U.S. within 5 years.
Recent Indian military purchases from U.S. defense contractors have enflamed tensions along their Chinese and Pakistani borders. In 2009, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, issued a joint statement with India stating that both sides are committed to “mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of defense.” Although most government officials in the U.S. support arms sales to India, the increased sales, facilitated by the U.S. government and profiting the Boeing Corporation, have compromised strategic American interests in China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Why the recent interest in these arms purchases, though?
India’s Economic and Military Growth
India is a growing economic power, producing a GDP of $3.57 trillion in 2009. While India’s economy is still less than half the size of China’s, India’s growth rate from 2004-2010 has averaged 8.8 percent, reflecting India’s potential to continue growing over the next ten years. With this newfound economic growth, the country is now looking to expand its military capabilities. India’s 2002-2003 military budget was $15 billion; today, its military budget is close to $30 billion.
India’s military spending is modest compared to the U.S. defense budget of $719 billion and China’s of $90-150 billion, but India’s military purchases from the U.S. defense industry over the past two years have been ambitious. From 2002-2009 India ranked second in overall defense trade agreements with the United States, and two large deals have been inked in the past two years. In 2009, India made a deal for eight Boeing P-81 maritime patrol aircraft worth $2.1 billion. In April of this year, the U.S. and India agreed on a sale of 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III Aircrafts. This $5.8 billion deal is the largest defense deal with India in U.S. history, but relations have not always been so cozy.
From Condemnation To Cooperation
Prior to 2000, the United States and India’s relationship was mixed with cooperation and condemnation. In December of 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower spoke to the United Nations about a new initiative called Atoms for Peace. The program would give developing countries access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. India was one of the developing countries that the U.S. assisted through the new program. But the relationship between the U.S. and India shifted after India refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and test fired its first nuclear weapon in 1974. Since 1974, the U.S. held the position that they would not help India attain nuclear energy if the country was not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and party to all IAEA safeguards.
After September 11, 2001, though, the U.S. and India’s relationship gained strength. India offered the U.S. use of Indian military bases for its counterterrorism operations. In a 2001 meeting between President Bush and India’s Prime Minister Vajpayee, the two agreed to broaden ties in many areas that included “regional security, space and scientific collaboration, civilian nuclear safety, and broadened economic ties.”
July 18, 2005 marked the culmination of the strategic partnership, as the United States and India announced a new “Civil Nuclear Cooperation.” The agreement,according to the U.S. State Department, allows the two countries to create a partnership for nuclear power enrichment. This means that U.S. nuclear companies will now be able to contract with India to create nuclear powerequipment and facilities, and the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) will be able to safeguard the process to some extent.
Why Cooperation With India?
There are many theories as to why the U.S. is now cooperating with India after years of condemnation for its nuclear ambitions. First, the cooperation may balance the power of China in Asia. China has the third largest GDP in the world behind the European Union and the United States. Many believe that China will compete with the U.S. as the current lone superpower, creating a bi-polar world similar to the Soviet Union and the U.S. during the Cold War.
Bill Emmott, in his book Rivals: How the Power Struggle between China, India and Japan will Shape our World, writes that the only explanation for India’s exceptional treatment for issues like the U.S. nuclear cooperation can be attributed to the U.S. attempt to balance power. “Where Nixon had used China to balance the Soviet Union, Bush was using India to balance China.”
John Mearsheimer, Political Science professor at the University of Chicago, says that the U.S. is leading the balancing coalition in Asia. India, Japan and Russia are “worried about China’s ascendancy and are looking for ways to contain it.” India has been willing to help the United States in its efforts to balance the power in Asia because India, along with other nations, are fearful of China’s rise and are willing to work with the U.S. to contain China.
In contrast to these views, the popular thesis, Structural Realism After the Cold War, by political theorist Kenneth Waltz, explains that the U.S. is not looking to balance or share power with other countries. With regard to China, he writes, “when Americans speak of preserving the balance of power in East Asia through their military presence, the Chinese understandably take this to mean that they intend to maintain the strategic hegemony they now enjoy in the absence of such balance.” The U.S. continues to enjoy the dominance that it has on the world stage and will work tirelessly to maintain that power.
Still others argue that US policy makers will not allow China to become the dominant figure in Asia because it may entice other countries to align with China and away from the U.S. sphere of influence. Noam Chomsky, a political theorist, activist, and professor of linguistics at MIT, says that the U.S. is fearful of the “domino theory” which is the idea that “successful independent development might spread contagion” elsewhere and, therefore, “must be destroyed.” If the U.S. loses its influence over Asian countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, those nations may see the Chinese model as a better way of growth. In Chomsky’s assessment, strengthening India as a free-democratic state will stem the power projection of China and keep the continent in the good graces of the United States.
Another theory for the increased U.S. export of weapons is that weapons are a result of America’s division of labor. The U.S. believes that they can make weapons better than any other country since that is the American area of expertise. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations says that it is best for people to do what they are good at. “Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods of attaining any object with the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that single object.” Knowing that the U.S. is good at making weapons makes politicians and businesses eager to export the U.S. competitive advantage to the rest of the world without thinking about the costs to arming those countries.
The fear in the post-September 11th world is creating opportunities for defense contractors. Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism, writes that September 11th made Asian countries fearful of terrorism and, in turn, created new markets for weapons. “The primary economic role of wars, however, was as a means to open new markets that had been sealed off and to generate postwar peacetime booms.” While Klein was not specifically referring to any one state or nation with this statement, one could make the connection to many Asian markets, including our relationship with India. The Indian people are not currently at war with any one country, but the fear of China, Pakistan and even religious extremists are opening opportunities for U.S. contractors to profit.
There is more to American arms trade than profit, though. Some influential leaders in American government feel the good that comes from arms trade with India outweighs the negative effects. According to the Los Angeles Times, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ position is that the hope of arming South Asian countries is that “military cooperation will help the U.S. build and win the trust that it needs in the region.”
When this happens, the arms trade is essentially considered the same as any other export commodity. India and the U.S. are both democracies and are seen as not having a high likelihood of going to war. As Thomas Friedman said, “no two countries with a McDonald’s restaurant have ever gone to war.” The U.S. has been establishing India as a firm ally with the defense exchanges in recent years and many contend that it will create stability and peace in the region. Unfortunately, “stable” is far from the situation on the ground.
Regional Consequences of India Defense Ties
The growth of India’s military is intensifying regional conflicts with its historic rival, Pakistan. Brian Pollins, in Globalization and Defense in the Asia-Pacific,discusses how globalization can have great benefits, but it is possible for “globalization to increase tensions and fractious relations among states while destabilizing political orders that themselves have pacifying effects.” Pollins goes on to say it is very difficult to predict if militarization will have a good or bad effect regionally.
For India and Pakistan’s relationship, additional weaponization appears to have had an adverse effect in their relationship. The countries have been to war three times over territorial disputes concerning the control of the Kashmir region.
While relations between the two countries have been stable for the past two years, the build-up of both militaries has had the destabilizing effect that Pollins referenced. The U.S. gave Pakistan about $11 billon in military aid between 2002 and 2009. Pakistan recently received a U.S. shipment of new F-16 fighter jets and had previously purchased F-15 jets. The country has been given this military assistance to fight extremism on the Afghan/Pakistan border region but has been accused of using these funds to bolster defenses against India instead.Pakistan believes the military buildup of India “will have severe consequences for peace and security in South Asia”. Thus Pakistan has been unable to focus all of its resources on reducing the risk of violent extremism within their borders. Instead, a large portion of its military might has gone into patrolling the India-Pakistan border and not Af-Pak. Zia Mian, a physicist at Princeton and columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus says that the arming of Pakistan has hurt the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Pakistani generals are more concerned with the U.S.-India strategic relationship and its border with India than with the Taliban.
The destabilizing effect of weapons transfers can also be seen within the relationships between the United States and China. China also has a disputed border with India that has caused friction between the neighbors. An August 18 report in the Times of India said that Beijing is concerned with “the strategic ramifications of India’s rising power.” As a response to this ascension, China is moving CCS-5 nuclear capable ballistic missiles closer to the Indian border.
The notion that the U.S. is moving into India to balance the power of China is also aggravating tensions between China and India. Colin Geraghty, columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, says that the U.S. strategy must be more focused than it is right now to clearly indicate to Chinese officials that the U.S. policy towards India is not intended to confine China.
India’s growing defense budget has also come at the expense of other national needs. In his paper The Growing Military Industrial Complex in Asia, John Feffer of Foreign Policy in Focus writes that countries have “devised a wealth of rationales for military spending—and each has ignored significant domestic needs in the process” and have “ignored significant domestic needs in the process.” While the Feffer article refers to arms buildups surrounding the Korean peninsula, these same sentiments can be said for India. While India’s army grows, 40% of its citizens live below the World Bank’s poverty line of$1.25 per day. That $30 billion a year spent on its military could greatly help the plight of the poor.
The weaponization of India also undermines the ability of the U.S. to use soft power to stop human rights abuses. India has many human rights violations according to Amnesty International. Some of the worst include unlawful killings, excessive use of police force and torture. Even with these violations, the U.S. has continued arming India and the U.S. only recently committed to exploring the idea of an arms trade treaty. Meanwhile, the U.S. is urging Chinato end human rights abuses and has pushed for the release of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and jailed pro-democracy journalist, Liu Xiaobo. The United States loses significant credibility in urging China to end its human rights abuses while it simultaneously arms and overlooks the human rights abuses of India.
While there are a wide range of global structures meant to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons like the Nuclear Supplier Group and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, there is no equivalent for conventional arms transfers. The UN has made attempts since 1993 to develop an arms control treaty that would limit sales to human rights violators and undemocratic nations. In 2008, the UN voted to create a framework for arms control. After initial opposition during President George W. Bush’s administration, President Obama now supports regulation of conventional weapons. Regardless of trade restrictions, limiting trade by any country will continue to be a challenge due to limits of enforcement mechanisms in global governance.
Conclusion
As calls for defense spending cuts in U.S. grow, defense contractors are looking to new markets to overcome a flat U.S. defense market. India has been one of the main global defense markets. India is seen as a win-win market for the U.S: it can be used to balance China’s power while helping provide income for American businesses.
Unfortunately, the United States’ cooperation with India has had unintended consequences. The continued cooperation between India and the U.S. has made neighboring Pakistan, Afghanistan and China uncomfortable about the relationship and has caused a build-up of arms in those nations that could spiral into an all out arms race. Cozy Indo-US relations have also hurt American military operations in Afghanistan, forcing Pakistan to focus too much attention on India and not on reducing the risk of violent extremism. It will be important to closely watch the decline of defense spending in the U.S. and make sure that defense contractors are not aiding the creation of new wars in South Asia and other developing nations.
The U.S. should push for a stronger arms trade treaty that will limit the ability to sell arms to violators of human rights, and armament beyond reasonable defense. President Obama has said he now supports an arms trade treaty in the UN and citizens should show their support for this very necessary regulatory step in the global community.
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