Indian Defence Review

Today habitual and professional Trump detractors are breast beating about the violence in the US Capitol Hill.  President designate Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have not spared any invectives. Nancy Pelosi has gone to the extent of seeking impeachment of Trump. Some of the elements inimical to Trump are also suggesting that he be divested of final control of nuclear weapons. In the forefront of this vilification campaign is the American media.

 A segment of Indian media also resonates the same Trump-bashing. It fails to explain how was Trump detrimental to India? The Trump detractors are pouring vitriolic, invoking ‘death of democracy’, but display prejudiced amnesia about the scale spread and magnitude of violence during the ‘Blacks Lives Matter’ riots in a run-up to the elections. The movement triggered suddenly and disappeared suddenly.  In terms of violence it was far more threatening.  As such the history of United States of America was targeted. The statues of historical figures, architects of American democracy, were vandalized. Even George Washington was not spared. White House, the symbol of democracy, was under siege. The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, walked with a Bible in his hand to placate the arsonists. To be fair, despite the extreme provocation, with rabid communal overtones, Trump supporters exercised restrain, thus sparing the country a ‘Civil War’. In a democracy, the executive head is bound by the Constitution in tackling threats to national unity and integrity .The best of Constitutions become dysfunctional if the opposition abandons political fair play. Sadly, the glee of Biden and his supporters displayed at the siege of President Trump was unworthy of a President aspirant.

Any non- visa minded American citizen will have no quarrel with Trump’s China’s policy. It was Nixon who ushered China into the global system in beginning of 70s. The imperative was Cold War. Over the years, China manipulated and wrecked the global framework from within. The biggest victim was US itself. The US-China trade imbalance grew to $500 billion in favour of the latter. Concomitantly, political influence over the US polity also increased.  China’s capability to make and break governments gradually expanded beyond South Asian countries. Trump not only tried to fortify his country against the pernicious Chinese influence wars it, but also aided India in neturalizing it in Nepal, Maldives, Myammar, Sri Lanka and the IOR countries.

The US threat perception has been extra regional or global. Ever since President Trump challenged China, internally and externally, an internal front has been rapidly emerging taking the advantage of the democratic latitude. The reality was exposed when a beleaguered President Trump during the ‘Black Lives Matter’ riots suggested deployment of the US military. In the last elections, the Democrats attributed Trump’s victory to manipulations by Putin’s Russia. Did the Chinese do the same this time in favour of Biden? Was ‘Blacks Also Matter’ orchestrated by China same on the lines of Shaheen Bagh? Which country in the world treated Trump as the biggest enemy to its interest, of course, China!!

Most respectable strategic experts are of the view that Covid was a Biological Warfare (BW) unleashed by China. The very first victims were two US aircraft carrier groups deployed in and around South China Sea. These aircraft carrier groups were namely, USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Ronald Reagan. Going by the entire sequence of events and strategic logic, it is ineluctable that one of the main objectives of China’s BW was to degrade the US military superiority in the Indo-Pacific region. The rest of the world suffered in varying degrees as a collateral damage. India too was a victim of Biological Warfare attack. It was coupled with aggressive posturing in the Ladakh to scare India away from the Indo-Pacific strategic partnership. There are also experts who believe that the second Covid attack on Britain by China has been in response to the deployment of aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in Indo-Pacific region.

It cannot be denied that owing to the Covid attack by China, there was a drastic and unprecedented change in the method of voting in US-Presidential elections. Postal ballots were resorted to in a big way. It is debatable as to what would have been the outcome had the voting was conducted in the normal way. So confident was the Chinese controlled US media that in the opinion polls it derided Trump’s chances. China’s Biological Warfare had indeed not only hit the US aircraft carrier in the waters of Indo-Pacific r and the ballot box as well, in the country’s hinterland.

It is convenient to dismiss such analysis as ‘Conspiracy Theory’, but the fact is that such conspiracies do not have smoking guns. An honest analyst relies on the logic of sequence of events. Trump had enunciated the ‘America First’ policy as a shield against Chinese economic and intelligence attack. Since 1971, the Chinese managed to occupy every cog of America’s state machinery. It had become impossible for the country to extricate itself. Trump tried and paid the price.

Trump effected impossible strategic alliances in West Asia. He is the architect of the unthinkable Arab-Israel bonhomie. He accorded recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and accordingly shifted the embassy. He effected the reestablishment of Arab unity between Dubai and rest of Arab world. He spared the world from the Iranian nuclear threat by cancelling the deal. All this was not possible without the elimination of Gen Qasem Suleimani, entrusted with clandestine operations throughout West Asia. The main architects of Iran’s nuclear programme Mosheen Fakrizadah has also been eliminated.

The geopolitical changes engineered by Trump are boon to India and disaster for Pakistan.

Before Trump demits office, he has done a massive geopolitical favour to India by ensuring the passage of The Tibetan Policy and Support Act in the Congress. As per the act, any new Chinese consulate in US will only be incumbent upon establishment of a US consulate in Lhasa. Also ,only the successor selected by Dalai Lama will enjoy legitimacy by the USA. Environmental issues, which impact on the water security of India also finds strong reference in the Act.  It may be mentioned here that 48% of water that flows out of Tibet, is into India.

We have not done service to our motherland by being geopolitically and strategically blind and according the status of China Tibet, the land of Kailash-Mansarover. We have manipulated and subverted the perception of Indians by referring ‘Indo-Tibet’ border as ‘Indo-China’ border. During the ongoing Ladakh stand-off, there is no news in public domain about the happenings, machinations and rumblings within Tibet. The China experts have little insight into Tibet.

And finally, but for Trump, abrogation of Article 370 may have run into international rough weather.