Bloomberg
Excellent Op-Ed in the Bloomberg magazine indeed that gives deep insights into what’s going on today in the global theatre of superpower conflicts.
Having read the essay carefully I asked myself: Okay, but what does it all mean for India ? And here’s what I think :
India is being wooed and suckered by the Biden Administration into believing that it is the “natural, strategic partner” of America while Pakistan is, as Biden himself said publicly a week ago, is “the most dangerous country in the world”.
Is INDIA easily fooled? We don’t know . It’s very complicated. I am sure though that foreign-policy gurus and think-tanks in the MEA of India, of course, know only too well the following:
In the grand imperial plan of the Americans , Pakistan is a multi-purpose strategic tool that comes in so very handy to ensure balance of power in Asia on the chess-board of superpower rivalry for dominance on this continent :
– a pawn that can be moved around to keep the Russia-China axis constantly off-balance,
– a knight-piece that keeps India leashed militarily and tied-up in all sorts of diplomatic knots on the international stage
– a rook–piece that plays the role of Sunni agent-provocateur effectively stalling and foiling Shia Iranian regional designs,
– the bishop-piece that provides easy insurance back-up cover in military terms for all US naval forces patrolling the Arabian Gulf and
– and the Queen-piece : i.e be sponsor-in-chief for the Taliban Government in Afghanistan, preventing thereby any chance of Russian advance into or access to the Indian Ocean should it become a major theatre of war in a larger U.S.-Sino conflict exploding over Taiwan in the South China Sea. And furthermore, maintain the ever-looming dark presence of the archetypical threat of Islamic-Terror hovering over India, and Kashmir more especially.
We don’t know yet if the US has strategically outmanoeuvred Russia and China . Time will tell us. But the Biden Administration does seem to believe, for the present at least, that it certainly has India outmanoeuvred in South Asia without too much of a sweat or fuss.
In Asia, India has really turned out to be low-hanging fruit for America that it can keep just hanging on for as long as it wants and until easily picked and pickled at any time of strategic choice.
Sudarshan Madabushi