International News
China, Islamists top Donald Trump’s enemy list; India is partner in fight against both
President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy for the USA announced on Monday promised support for India’s emergence as a “leading global power,” while identifying China, Russia and Islamism as main threats.
“We welcome India’s emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defense partner,” the U.S strategy document said. Enhancing India’s global standing from being a ‘balancing power’ to be a ‘leading power’ has been a stated strategic objective of the Narendra Modi government.
“We will seek to increase quadrilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia, and India. …We will expand our defense and security cooperation with India, a Major Defense Partner of the United States, and support India’s growing relationships throughout the region,” the strategy finalised after months of internal deliberations in the U.S government, said.
India finds mention as a partner in Mr. Trump’s plans for South and Central Asia and Indo-Pacific, while China is named as a threat in both sections. The document said America “will help South Asian nations maintain their sovereignty as China increases its influence in the region,” and noted that many countries in the Indo-Pacific were looking to the U.S for leadership even as “Chinese dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the region.”
The document seeks to balance Mr. Trump’s America First politics with the country’s traditional strategic principles, and consequently makes contradictory commitments. It calls for “advancing American principles (that) spreads peace and prosperity around the globe,” at one place, while at another, it says America will seek partnerships with countries “each with its own cultures and dreams.”
Nation building or promotion of democracy in Islamic countries are not part of the strategy. The document also says America’s involvement in multilateral forums will be without any compromise on the country’s sovereignty. Mr. Trump, in a campaign style speech to unveil the new strategy, slammed his predecessors for protecting the interests of other countries at the cost of America’s own.
The document reiterates a series of announcements and speeches by the President and other senior officials in the last one year in the context of India. “We will deepen our strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region,” it said. “And we will encourage India to increase its economic assistance in the region,” it said about South and Central Asia.
The document also underscores the warning to Pakistan, which had appeared in Mr. Trump’s “regional strategy” for Afghanistan earlier his year. “We will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials. The United States will also encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrating that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets,” it said, in a reference to the risk of terrorists laying their hands on them.
The new strategy notes that America slipped into a state of complacency once the Cold War came to an end, while new rivals, state and non-state actors, used the international system against America. “These competitions require the United States to rethink the policies of the past two decades—policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners. For the most part, this premise turned out to be false,” the document said.
The document said “a geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region,” while South and Central Asia and Middle East remain havens for Islamists.
America will act against threats at their source, the document said , echoing the principle of preemptive strikes. “..we will pursue threats to their source, so that jihadist terrorists are stopped before they ever reach our borders.” Mr. Trump accused his predecessors of neglecting the military and the document promises of a new round fo military build-up. “It is a strategy of principled realism that is guided by outcomes, not ideology,” the strategy paper said.
