Nuclear CBMs, seriously

However, since most participants from either side consisted of recently retired foreign secretaries, generals, admirals and diplomats, the meetings had a certain gravitas. The Pakistani side frequently involved serving people, particularly from the Pakistani policy and plans making body 8212; Strategic Plans Division. The Indian MEA studiously kept out of Track II and slowly but deliberately painted themselves into a corner 8212; of ignorance and/or arrogance. After five years during which Track II dealings reached extremely sophisticated levels, the Pakistani Track I people were fully in the picture. The Indian Track II participants hoped that when the time came for formal negotiations they could bring the Indian MEA up to scratch.

These expectations did not take some factors into account 8212; the arrogance of the Indian Foreign Service and the ineptitude with which they prepared for a crucial talk with Pakistan, on a subject in which their expertise is so minimal. Comprehensive handouts were sent to the MEA whenever a particularly useful Track II meeting took place. These were never acknowledged, often from a number of Indian sources, despite the fact that the same document was circulating in Islamabad too. Offers of interactions between any number of eminent Indian thinkers and the Indian MEA were either put off or coldly turned down. The result is there for all to see. A subject of so much mutual benefit to both countries has produced an agreement which could have been arrived at over the telephone. This is trivialising with a vengeance. A senior diplomat has confirmed that the MEA isolated themselves not in a fit of absent mindedness, but deliberately, so that they would not be infected by the Indian Track II movement which they suspected were run by a 8216;8216;foreign hand8217;8217;. This, in spite of most participants being the diplomat8217;s former bosses. The foreign secretary8217;s hotline is an absurdity. A service needs a control room, equipped and manned 24 hours a day by officers and not a duty clerk before a hotline is put into it. Military operations are conducted from the DGMO8217;s control room. Let the foreign service learn how to run a control before they need a hotline.

Simple people can always be fooled if national dailies report trivialities in bold print on the front page. They assume that something important must be going on in Delhi. To experts, the Indo-Pak CBM talks are an embarrassment, and it will be difficult to avoid being patronised in London and Washington, merely because the MEA combined arrogance with ineptitude. It is common knowledge in Delhi that there are only two individuals in the Indian Foreign Service who can be fielded by the country at international conferences on arms control. This is plainly ridiculous. Even sillier is the idea that an additional secretary or joint secretary can negotiate national security issues on behalf of his country. 8216;8216;Negotiate8217;8217; means to bargain, to mediate, to compromise, to arbitrate and to make concessions. The task of satisfying public opinion in one8217;s own country is often more difficult than convincing the opposition of the merits of an argument. How can an additional secretary do all this?

When the Americans fielded their first team for talks with the Soviets they nominated three retired ambassadors, one strategist, one representative from the pentagon and one from the department of energy. All of them, literally all, were national figures. The main actors in this team remained on the negotiating team for the next 20 years. They were backed by a team of about twenty people from all disciplines to do the calculations overnight and to suggest options. Can the Indian MEA do something similar? Not if present attitudes remain. Innumerable thinkers and writers have pointed out that the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty I SALT I took two years to negotiate, Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty START took a similar period and Mutual Balanced Force Reduction MBFR which became Conventional Forces in Europe CFE took 15 years. But like the Bourbons, the MEA learns nothing. These Indo Pak talks which finished at 1300 hrs on the second day were like a friendly South Asian tennis match.

The time has come for the national security adviser to appoint a full time Indian negotiating team, which has no other responsibility, to replace the MEA functionaries, who will then be reduced solely to a supporting role. There was a period in the eighties and nineties when Indian diplomats were caught short on expertise on economic issues. Much damage was done before corrective action was taken. This phenomena is now being repeated in national security. It is one thing when India and Pakistan cannot resolve disputes owing to their complexity. It is something else when negotiations produce frivolous results because of lack of preparation and not accessing the intellectual resources of the country.