Negotiating a diplomatic minefield
Tensions between the US-led NATO coalition of the willing and Russia are rising to boiling point. US expulsions of Russian diplomats and the closure of Russia’s consulate in Seattle have met with an opposite response: a similar number of American diplomats expelled and the closure of the US consulate in St Petersburg. This has been followed by a brusque statement from the US State Department threatening further retaliatory measures against Russia. With John Bolton as National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, a formal US declaration of war is a possible next step.
At the State Department’s daily briefing, the spokesperson stated amid visible disbelief that US expulsions were justified but that Russia’s were not. A retired State Department official John Graham expressed deep alarm at the ascending cycle of escalation, as did Joe Laurie, a former reporter of the Wall Street Journal, who blamed the West for the crisis arising from the poisoning in Salisbury of a Russian double agent and his daughter, which the reporter opined lacked credible evidence. He said it was a geopolitical game – gamble, if you like, that could lead to disaster. The Austrian Foreign Minister told how she was badgered by US and UK diplomats to condemn Russia for attempting to kill its former agent and his daughter in Salisbury, which she refused to do.. Such facts, including the widespread demonstrations in Ghana on the opening of a US military base in the country, were conspicuously absent in the Indian print media, ever dependent on syndicated columns from the toxic New York Times.
Former Indian ambassador G.Parthasarathy’s edit-page article in Business Line was a welcome antidote to the poison. Emphasizing the need to safeguard India’s strategic autonomy within the paradigm of its relationships with the US, EU, Russia and China. China’s goals, truculently outlined by President Xi Jinping pointed to hegemonic regional aspirations, serving notice to the world that this would be the era of China’s tryst with history as an emergent great power.
Parthasarathy rightly ascribed the present Sino-Russian alignment to the inept policies of the United States, whose pressures had brought these once antagonists into a wary embrace. India had wisely kept faith with its ‘privileged strategic partnership’ with Russia, underwritten by close defence cooperation. The Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft are the mainstay of the Indian Air Force; the supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles and other critical weapon systems for India’s armed forces, including the 10-year lease of a Russian nuclear submarine, the latest Russian tanks, and stealth frigates are integral to India’s military capability. There is close institutional and ministerial interaction between New Delhi and Moscow. India and Russia are in the final stage of negotiation for the supply of five Russian cutting edge S-400 Air Defence Systems capable of intercepting and destroying airborne threats at a distance of 250 miles, that can simultaneously engage six targets. Each S-400 comprises tracking and search radar systems, eight launchers, 112 missiles and command and control vehicles.
India’s Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will shortly be making her first visit to Moscow, where she is also expected to discuss the acquisition of a jointly conceived Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft [FGFA], and participate in the international security conference. Meanwhile three Russian ministers in charge of economic development, agriculture and transportation, were meeting their Indian counterparts in New Delhi. Minister Sithraman will be exploring new vistas of cooperation between India and Russia.
The BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa was conceived by Russia, as was the subgroup of Russia, India and China, designed to sustain a core element of Eurasian peace and security.
Returning to Parthasarathy’s piece: he referred to the convergence of Indo-Russian interests in support of the Bashr al-Assad’s Syrian regime against the jihadi opposition, complemented with India as active participant in the quadrilateral naval exercises with the US, Japan and Australia in the Indian Ocean.. In a fluid international environment, a zero sum game can be a hazardous undertaking. India and Russia are in full accord on need for a multilateral global order to replace the discredited unilateralism seeded in an earlier age.
New milestone in India’s space race
India’s Space Research & Organization [ISRO] achieved the landmark launch of its much awaited GSAT-6A communications satellite in a geosynchronous transfer orbit at a height of 36,000km in a stationary geostationary orbit. It carried on board a GSLV F-08 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharicota on the east coast of India.
The GSAT-6A incorporates the high-thrust Vikas engine and will complement the GSAT-6 already These two satellites combined will provide platforms for the development of advanced technologies such as the unfurlable antennae, hand-held device, and ground networks,’ said K. Sivan, Chairman, ISRO, after the satellite was in an initial orbit of a perigree of 170 km and an apogee of 35,975km. The Indian-designed and manufactured cryogenic engine thrust the satellite into higher orbit, the cryogenic technology eventually mastered locally. The GSAT-6A gives India a bigger and more penetrative eye in the sky with civilian and significant military uses.
For long years the United States had placed India on the prohibited list for cryogenic technology, forcing India into a slower track of development. The country’s space scientists and engineers between them went forward step by step including setbacks along the way, before the goal of self-sufficiency was reached. The effort was a valuable learning experience. There were no short cuts, as means and ends were skillfully calibrated. The work in progress has ended in fulfillment. One cannot ask for better.
Ball tampering: A step too far
Australia was in turmoil following television evidence of ball tampering by three members of the country’s cricket team during the Test match against South Africa in Cape Town. Steve Smith and David Warner, respectively captain and vice-captain, and their protégé Test rookie Cameron Bancroft, caught on camera ball tampering, were suspended. Smith and Warner were stripped of their captaincy and vice-captaincy and all three banned from appearing in the next Test in Johannesburg and put on the plane to Australia.
The Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was apoplectic, denouncing the fallen cricketers for besmirching the fair name of their country, for being poor role models for kids, and for violating the ethos of what the game of cricket had come to represent over generations throughout the cricketing world. This is true in theory, less so in practice as the uproar in England’s notorious bodyline tour of 1932 of Australia showed up only too well.
Match fixing is a far more serious breach of the law and of ethics than ball tampering, which, in some form or the other, has been practiced at almost all levels of first class cricket. The brazenness of the latest manifestation of ball tampering struck a sensitive chord, bringing to the surface the deep resentment of opponents at Australian arrogance, epitomized by sledging – abusive language – directed at those of the opposition deemed obstacles to an Australian victory. Prime Minister Turnbull excoriated the practice as reprehensible, the great Don Bradman told an interviewer that any player in his team indulging in this practice would receive a warning to desist; if he persisted, he would never play in a team of which Bradman was captain.
All these factors came together in critical mass. Smith and Warner were banned from international cricket for the next year, while Bancroft was given the marginally lesser sentence of nine months.
The breakdown of Steve Smith on camera was poignant. He admitted to wrongdoing as a grave error of judgment which would remain with him for the rest of his life; he was brimming with remorse amid the tears for the dishonor and pain he had brought to his father, standing at his side, and to the game he loved and cherished.
With the dust settling, it is time to revisit his transgression. The Times in London penned the following lines: ‘Dear Australia, that’s enough now. This was ball tampering, not murder.’ The former Indian Test batsman, V.V.S. Laxman, speaking affectionately of Smith and Warner, hoped they would emerge stronger from their ordeal, with an undiminished appetite for runs that had entertained crowds around the world.
Their sentences should be proportionate, and hence reduced. True justice is never vengeance.