Military Diplomacy Mantra: Love Thy Neighbour

After China, India is Asia's fastest growing military power this Century. That is an acknowledged fact. India has, in the last decade, astutely built its security ties with the US, also widening its basket beyond Russia to look for arms and defence systems to transform its 13.1 million military into ‘lean and mean’ fighting force. But, it quickly needs to address its defence diplomacy issues with its neighbourhood, even as it aspires to be permanently on the high table at the United Nations (UN).

- Geopolitics Bureau

The South Asian 'Big Brother' (China) has robust ties with five of its nine neighbours. New Delhi has zero defence diplomacy with Pakistan except to sort out military and border conflicts. This is an imperative, as India readies itself to bid for a permanent seat on a reformed, expanded UN Security Council, whenever that happens. Here is a quick look at India's military diplomacy with its neighbours — arms supplies, defence exchanges, capacity building, joint exercises and influence.

PAKISTAN

India and Pakistan are the only two South Asian that cannot see eye-to- eye on anything. Even a non-issue could trigger a major military fall-out between the two nuclear-powered nations. The neighbours — they were one country till 1947 — have fought three major wars in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971; have had a sector battle in Kargil in 1999; and almost came to a nuclear stand-off in 2001-02 in the aftermath of the terror attack on Indian Parliament, suspected to be by groups owing allegiance to Pakistan. All of these conflicts have been too bitter. India had come up trumps in each of the wars and battles. It is only obvious that they really cannot have any defence relations, except as enemies. For this reason, the two nations have bare minimum contact among their defence establishments — a Tuesday ritual of Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) talking over the hotline about issues on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and a couple of diplomatic talks erratically held about territorial disputes such as Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek. The two DGMOs met in December 2013 for the first time in over a decade, but there were no tangible results, except reiteration of their November 2003 Ceasefire Agreement along the 778-km LoC, violated nearly 200 times in 2013 alone.