The War Games They Play

As I write, a "war at sea" is raging off the southwestern coast of India in the Bay of Bengal. As many as 26 warships from five countries are engaged in friendly "hostilities." For six days until September 9, torpedoes from submarines and counter-fire from vessels and attached aircraft, with amphibian forces reinforcing the two "mixed sides," are adding to the turbulence of the often choppy waters.

Underway is yet another India-US war game - the third in less than two years to provoke indignant protests from India's peace movement and left political parties.

The first was the the joint exercise by US and Indian air forces, named Cope India and staged in the Kalaikunda airbase near Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). The dogfights staged over paddy fields then triggered demonstrations down there, resounding with the slogan of "Bush, go back." More recently, in July 2007, the USS Nimitz, to have played a major role in real wars (no games) in the Persian Gulf, came calling at the port of Chennai (formerly Madras). The coastal city, too, witnessed no welcome to the nuclear-powered warship, but clamorous protests against the "strategic partnership" the event signified.

On both these occasions, the Indian defenders of the "partnership" with the world's best-known warmongers decried the protests as pettily political. They claimed that the protesters were misrepresenting routine moves in military relations. On both occasions, opponents of the unholy "partnership" countered the claim, as we did in these columns (Why India-US War Games Cause Wide Concern, November 8, 2005, and What USS Nimitz Brings in Its Wake, July 6, 2007).

The pleaders for the "partnership" are at it again. What is all the fuss about, they ask in wide-eyed innocence; what is new about the war games? Have not India and the US conducted 27 joint military exercises since 2002, seven of them involving the navies of the two countries? Are not the current sea drills the thirteenth edition of the exercises code-named the 'Malabar' series, being held regularly since 1994? And is not a mere joint exercise being misrepresented as a military alliance?

The rhetorical questions call for a three-part rebuttal.

• In the first place, India's peace movement had never sung praise of the past India-US military exercises. It has continued to view these exercises with grave and growing concern. It has minced no words, in particular, about the Malabar exercises, with their scope, sophistication and symbolism increasing since 2002 when they were resumed (under the far-right government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee) after a break following India's nuclear-weapon tests of 1998.
• Secondly, though they're the seventh in the Malabar series involving use of submarines and aircraft carriers, the current exercises are the largest this far. Meant to strike awe in regional observers, mainly China, is the participation of a US armada led by the supercarrier USS Nimitz, with the USS Kitty Hawk of similar reputation, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Chicago and the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton.
• The message of the major US participation is reinforced by the mid-exercise visit to Chennai and Port Blair (in the Andaman Islands) of Vice Admiral William Douglass Crowder, head of the US Seventh Fleet, the largest of the forward-deployed American fleets, with about 50 warships and over 200 aircraft available to it at any point in time.
• The five-nation military exercise has also raised fears in the region of an "Asian NATO" in the making. The Royal Australian Navy has expressed its special satisfaction over its first-ever participation in the exercises.
• Thirdly, the context and content of the exercises make unmistakably clear the character of the exercises as a major step in the evolution of a military alliance. To repeat arguments in this regard is to risk their dismissal as a peace activist's polemic of a distinctly left-sounding logic and language. It might help the case to quote, instead, from a highly respected US source on military affairs like the Armed Forces Journal.

Let me leave Christopher Griffin, writing in May 2006 in that journal on "What India Wants," to dilate on the subject. He begins with one of the basic purposes of such exercises: "... the U.S. remains a bit player in India's defense market.... What companies and governments find difficult, military exchanges and exercises make easier. They do this by giving Indian officers hands-on experience with U.S. military technology, and showing the types of operations that importing such technology could enable."

Proceeding to the war games now on, he says: "In the past four years, Malabar has developed from a set of basic maneuvers to one of the most sophisticated bilateral military exercises conducted by the US." Malabar 2002 consisted of "basic passing exercises among naval vessels, as well as personnel exchange, antisubmarine exercises and replenishment-at-sea maneuvers." In 2003 and 2004, however, the exercises expanded dramatically.

The expanded exercises, Griffin notes, included "visit, board, search and seize" (VBSS) operations against suspected smugglers, "a key capability for participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)."

He recalls: "The growing U.S.-Indian military-to-military relationship has paid major dividends. U.S. and Indian warships jointly escorted U.S. ships through the Straits of Malacca for a year after the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom." The angry reaction in South-East Asia to India's rehearsal for a PSI role made New Delhi retreat, but Malabar 2007 shows that Washington has not given up. Griffin does not set fears of an emergent "Asian NATO" at rest by quoting US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen on the envisaged outcome of increased interoperability, the aim of the exercise. The starry-eyed admiral speaks of a "1,000-ship fleet" serving as a force of "freedom-loving nations, standing watch over the seas, standing watch over each other."

Griffin adds: "It is in this sense that growing US interoperability with India, Japan, Australia and other Asian-Pacific partners is an important precursor transforming the security regime in Asia. The challenge is to develop a shared vision between Delhi and Washington."

That is a vision that Delhi cannot possibly share with many other countries in the region, or with India's own peace-loving people.

A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to Truthout.

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