India and Pakistan at the Brink?
The Hanoi holdup; assuring the Philippines; Australia’s new national security strategy
The Big One.
The worst South Asian military crisis since 2002.
The final week of February saw tensions between India and Pakistan boil over following the February 14 attack at Pulwama, claimed by the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed. After a sustained diplomatic campaign, the Indian retaliation—framed as an intelligence-driven “preemptive” action—that had been promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally occurred. Indian Air Force jets struck Pakistani territory—that’s right, not disputed Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but undisputed Pakistani territory. With that action, India lit the fuze sparking the worst military crisis between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since the 2001-2002 crisis that saw both sides mobilize for war. Pakistan struck back, captured an Indian pilot, and the world waited with bated breath for India to potentially up the ante.
But that’s where this crisis appears to have plateaued—for the better. The Indian pilot was released by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who pitched the release as a unilateral gesture of peace, but was also the result of behind-the-scenes diplomatic pressure. India and Pakistan continued to exchange fire across the Line of Control in Kashmir as artillery shells and mortars rained down in unusually large numbers through March 1. As of this writing, the crisis has largely petered out and further escalation appears unlikely. Pakistan has at least made gestures to show that it will take action against Jaish-e-Mohammed, but a long history of failed attempts to hold the group accountable leave many in India skeptical.
A few top-level observations on the crisis follow.
This was the first India-Pakistan military crisis in the age of social media. That’s introduced a disturbing component to the “audience cost” aspect of crisis management for both governments. For instance, as I write this, netizens from both countries continue to litigate the details of what precisely the IAF hit in its air strike and what Pakistan’s retaliation involved. The details may never become known, but public pressure has resulted in a steady stream of leaks from official sources on both sides.
Second, open-source intelligence investigations have applied further pressure. In 2019, governments can’t get away with exaggerated claims about sufficiently large military strikes. A series of open-source researchers (Nathan Ruser at ASPI; Michael Sheldon at the Atlantic Council; and Jeffrey Lewis and Dave Schmerler) have found, for instance, that Indian reports emphasizing a massive death toll from the initial strikes near the Pakistani town of Balakot were likely exaggerated. India continues to officially deny this.
The nuclear arsenals of both countries received considerable attention outside the region—especially in headlines. Despite the seriousness of this crisis, nuclear weapons appear to have played no role. The lesson for India and Pakistan? Perhaps there is more space than either side had assumed under the nuclear threshold for conventional war. On this point, see this prescient Diplomat analysis from last autumn, making that very argument.
The facts of the crisis serve as a reminder of the limits of nuclear deterrence—especially on the Pakistani side. India’s action was not only the most ecsalatory military move in South Asia since the 1999 Kargil War between the two sides, it was the first time one nuclear-armed power struck another’s territory with airpower. Pakistan’s retaliation was meant to reestablish deterrence at the conventional level.
Learning from this crisis in both countries will be a long-running process. Expect to see the government in India report to lawmakers at some point on what exactly happened at Balakot—perhaps sooner rather than later given the impending elections.
Bottom Line: Weeks before the 20th anniversary of the Kargil War, India and Pakistan discover the space for conventional brinkmanship in South Asia remains wide open.
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East Asia.
The U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi ended in a “no deal” outcome. That’s less surprising than it might seem looking at the sum of indicators leading up to the meeting between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the Vietnamese capital. The fundamental offer on the table in Hanoi was the following:
North Korea was ready to offer its plutonium and uranium production facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear complex (an eight square-mile site) for dismantlement.
In exchange, North Korea wanted clauses across five United Nations Security Council resolutions that pertained to its “civilian” economy to be abrogated as part of a relief package.
The United States mooted the topic of a liaison office as part of the talks; North Korea mooted a proposal to formalize its April 20, 2018, unilateral moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental-range ballistic missile testing.
The United States rejected the North Korean Yongbyon offer, citing the facilities on offer as incomplete and insufficient, and the sanctions relief package on demand as too high a price. Remember: This administration believes that it was the “maximum” pressure sanctions campaign throughout 2017 that brought North Korea to the negotiating table, not Kim’s attainment of a complete nuclear deterrent that same year.
Above all, the Hanoi summit brought crashing down to earth an illusion that had animated the U.S. policy approach to North Korea: Kim Jong Un had never agreed to the “final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea,” contrary to what multiple U.S. officials had said in the months since the Singapore summit. The offer in Hanoi was for a phased, step-by-step process, sequenced in a precise manner (U.S. agrees to sanctions relief for parts of Yongbyon). That didn’t happen and it all fell apart.
More concerning are reports that sometime in late-February, North Korea began reconstituting parts of the facilities it had dismantled last year at its Sohae Satellite Launching Center, including a satellite staging building and a missile engine test stand.
For a deeper dive into the Hanoi summit, you can listen to my discussion with geospatial analyst and North Korea expert Grace Liu on the podcast.
Elsewhere at The Diplomat, Christopher J. Watterson looks at what the Hanoi summit says about the North’s nuclear intentions. Viet Phuong Nguyen and Khang Vu look at the implications of the summit for the United States, Vietnam, and North Korea.
Bottom Line: The Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi shows that the illusion that motivated months of diplomacy has finally begin to fall apart.
Don’t Miss It: I recently had the chance to sit down with two experienced American China hand—Orville Schell and Susan Shirk—for a wide-ranging conversation about Xi Jinping’s China, the Party, and the future of U.S.-China relations. You can read an edited transcript of our conversation here.
South Asia.
Days after the start of the latest India-Pakistan crisis, some big U.S.-India relationship news broke—and it had nothing to do with Washington’s support for Delhi amid the fallout from the Balakot strikes. On March 4, Trump announced in a letter to the U.S. Congress that he had decided to end a favorable trade provision for India, along with Turkey. The decision refers to India’s status as a developing country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. The U.S. decision is likely to affect as much as $5.6 billion in Indian goods.
In a letter to Congress, Trump notified U.S. lawmakers of his “intent to terminate the designation of India as a beneficiary developing country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program.” The measure can take effect 60 days after Congress and the Indian government have been notified of the U.S. decision. “I am taking this step because, after intensive engagement between the United States and the Government of India, I have determined that India has not assured the United States that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to the markets of India,” Trump added.
The Diplomat’s Aman Thakker offers analysis on what this will mean for India, which had anticipated this outcome, as unwelcome as it may be. First, some context for the decision:
U.S.-India trade was booming over the past year. Total goods trade grew 16.7 percent between December 2017 and November 2018, with U.S. exports to India growing at 27 percent during the same timeframe. Revoking GSP at this juncture risks threatening this growth in trade. India has been postponing retaliatory tariffs to U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in hopes of reaching a favorable agreement with the United States. While India’s commerce secretary has said that New Delhi will keep these retaliatory tariffs out of discussions with the United States following the decision to revoke India’s GSP benefits, that may still change in the future and threaten this fast-growing trade relationship.
And how the GSP call might benefit China:
The decision to withdraw GSP benefits to India also creates opportunities for China, which maintains a trade surplus with both India and the United States, to expand its exports to the United States. In response to the decision by USTR to initiate reviews of India’s eligibility under the GSP program, several members of India’s business communities warned that Chinese goods would benefit if GSP benefits for India are revoked. For example, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry argued that “by removing the GSP benefits availed by India, the exports to the United States from India could potentially be replaced by China.”
Days after the GSP decision, we also learned that the U.S. trade deficit reached an annual record high of $891.3 billion, which is not a problem in itself, but a setback for the Trump administration, which has made the measure the primary barometer for the hawkishness of its trade approach to surplus-bearing trade partners.
Bottom Line: The end of India’s GSP status throws cold water on the relationship with the United States. India couldn’t evade Trump-era turbulence forever.
Don’t Miss It: Avinash Giri writes on India’s continuing struggle with Maoist militants in its heartlands.
Southeast Asia.
More than a few Asia analysts frowned when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo jetted off after the failed Hanoi U.S.-North Korea summit not to South Korea or Japan to explain what happened, but to the Philippines. But Pompeo was going to Manila with an important task at hand. Beginning in the final months of 2018, top Philippine officials had started to question the value of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which commits Washington to Manila’s defense. According to Philippine Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana in December 2018, the options under consideration after a review could include a decision to “maintain it, strengthen it, or scrap it.”
Instead, Pompeo went to give Manila a long-sought assurance on the applicability of the treaty to Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea. “China’s island building and military activities in the South China Sea threaten [Philippine] sovereignty, security and therefore economic livelihood, as well as that of the United States,” Pompeo said.
“As the South China Sea is part of the Pacific, any armed attack on Philippine forces, aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea will trigger mutual defense obligations under Article 4 of our mutual defense treaty,” Pompeo added.
The assurance offers clarity of the sort former President Barack Obama was able to give Japan in 2014, when he confirmed that the U.S.-Japan treaty alliance’s provisions extended to the disputed Senkaku Islands because they were administered by Japan.
Following Pompeo’s alliance, China has already started to test the alliance’s red lines. China’s maritime militia has started to exert a physical presence at the sand bars near Thitu Island off the coast of Palawan in the South China Sea. The American assurance was also undercut by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who underscored what he saw as a “problem.” "But the problem ... is they wd invoke the (Mutual Defense Treaty) ...But in [the United States], it has to pass through Congress. Any declaration of war will pass Congress. You know how bullshit America's Congress is," the Philippine president said.
Bottom Line: An important U.S. assurance to the Philippines nevertheless raises questions about the future of the alliance.
Oceania.
In mid-February, Australia’s ruling Liberal Party launched a new national security policy plan, outlining what the party sees the country’s top challenges and budgetary priorities. You can read the document here: A Safer Australia. A Secure Future [PDF]. Samuel Bashfield and James Mortensen break down the document over at The Diplomat:
While the plan lists big-ticket funding commitments across a range of traditionally security focused areas, it is noteworthy in its distinct broadening of the church of national security, and includes details on economic planning, domestic violence, and vaccination schedules. The inclusion of these nontraditional issues may well be welcome to some; however, without a clear notion of how these issues fit within the wider frame of national security – or without even a clear conception of what Australia’s national security outcomes are – the plan poses more questions than it answers.
Some of these questions include the inclusion of social protections for Australian citizens and the expansion of national security to cover issues including domestic violence and anti-vaccination campaign. The document is curious in that it also draws attention to the centrality of Australia’s Indo-Pacific neighbors, but does not spend considerable resources outlining a specific national strategy toward the region. “China” receives just a single mention in the document.
Bottom Line: Australia’s Liberal Party has outlined an ambitious new national security plan.
Asia Defense.
On February 19, U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin announced the “F-21”—a new fighter designed for India’s ongoing competition for a massive multibillion-dollar contract for 114 multirole aircraft. The contract is expected to be worth more than $15 billion. The F-21 moniker is a bit of clever branding from the U.S. firm, designed to evoke less the fourth-generation F-16, but a fifth-generation F-22. Of course, from what’s known about this fighter, strip away the public relations veneer and branding and what you’re left with is an F-16 Block 70 multirole combat aircraft. LockMart’s nonetheless underscoring the F-21’s quasi-fifth-generation nature: “The F-21 has common components and learning from Lockheed Martin’s 5th Generation F-22 and F-35 and will share a common supply chain on a variety of components,” a company statement reads. “Approximately half of the F-21 and F-16 supply chains are common with the F-22 and F-35.”
My colleague Franz-Stefan Gady dives a bit deeper into the F-21:
The company did not offer any technical details or specifications regarding to the new fourth-generation F-21. Based on a company video, it appears that the upgraded fighter jet features a retractable refueling probe and a large-area display in the cockpit.
…
The core of the F-16V (F-21) upgrade consists of an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, a modern commercial off-the-shelf-based avionics subsystem, and a large-format, high-resolution display. The AESA radar system is Northrop Grumman’s AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar a variant of which is also installed on the F-35.
At the core of the F-21 push by the firm is the prospect of manufacturing the aircraft via a production line based in India. Lockheed’s chosen Indian partner is Tata Advanced Systems, a subsidiary of the massive Tata group. A joint production facility would dovetail with India’s “Make in India” ambitions.
Bottom Line: The F-21 appears to be a thinly veiled rebranding of the F-16 Block 70. Will it be good enough for India?
Extras.
If you want a top-level overview of the India-Pakistan crisis, I joined Vox’s ‘Today, Explained’ podcast to go over what happened between the two countries and the history of the Kashmir dispute. Listen here.
Please do feel free to reach out with comments, tips, and feedback at ankit@thediplomat.com and follow me on Twitter at @nktpnd and The Diplomat at @Diplomat_APAC.