When defence deals are diplomatic deals

The US State Department is the branch of the government whose purpose is portraying a civilised face of America. Strong nations, whose diplomacy matters much, do not care about it and weak nations only have diplomacy to practise that matters to nobody. In other words, weak nations’ diplomacy doesn’t matter and strong nations do not care much about being diplomatic. Less diplomacy and more muscle and militarism is the norm in global affairs today. Diplomacy is either sparingly practised or is offered with the dominating threat of military force in the background.

The State Department has been reduced to an almost rubber stamp branch of government. Post 9/11 particularly, the CIA and the Pentagon dominate the international relations-linked decision-making in the White House. The sacking of the oil baron Rex Tillerson and ushering Mike Pompeo, an anti-Muslim xenophobe from Kansas who was leading the CIA, to run the State Department is a further illustration of this culture. A State Department under Pompeo would acquire a completely new identity, one most likely portraying a racist, militarist, and hate-driven image of America.

Highlighting the continued defence ties between Russia and India and how America wants to sell its military hardware to India, Shailesh Kumar, the Asia director of the Eurasia Group, noted that “defence deals are essentially diplomatic deals.” Diplomacy as generally understood, strives for cultural and economic ties, people-to-people contact and so forth. Today, diplomats behave more like employees of corporations rather than of their elected government. The US is courting India with the aim of selling them its military hardware. American weapons manufacturers look at India as a huge market. Lockheed Martin even offered to move the production of F-16 fighter jets from Texas to India if India agreed to buy the plane.

While India is making defence deals in violation of the US sanctions against Russia, the United States government wouldn’t treat those sanctions as sacrosanct enough to alienate a customer. “My suspicion is that America will not deem the S-400 purchase as sanctions-worthy,” Kumar said. Sanctions and diplomacy are sacrificed to benefit a few rich corporations.

It is interesting to notice the criticism over the potential $6 billion deal of India purchasing from Russia five S-400 Triumf systems, an anti-aircraft missile array that can also intercept missiles. That while American military sales to India went from nearly zero about 15 years ago to $15 billion today, Russia is still its number one arms supplier. No criticism about further fuelling the arms race between Pakistan and India.

The American alternative to the Russian S-400 is called the Patriot missile systems. Americans tried to sway India to buy the Patriot instead of the S-400 but the Indians weren’t very impressed with its performance when it failed to protect Saudi Arabia’s capital from a Houthi-fired rocket. Americans are concerned that the S-400 deal is a setback for the Patriot missile systems. This is a bigger setback for peace in the region but then peace yields no profits for Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Maria Abi-Habib in The New York Times says, “the pending S-400 deal is alarming to the Americans because it is a relatively new and state-of-the-art weapons system, not just an agreement to service existing equipment.” The alarm is not over the destabilising impact this could have.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis recently said, “We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we are engaged in today, but great power competition — not terrorism — is now the primary focus of US national security,” Yes, it is really the ‘great power competition’. Russia and China can give America a run for its money, literally. The world is scampering towards destruction with excitement and eagerness.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2018.

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