Is India Ready for the Next Crisis? by Air Marshal Sanjeev Kapoor (Retd) and Lt Gen KJS ‘Tiny’ Dhillon examines how decades of geopolitical rivalries, regional conflicts and nuclear proliferation have shaped a world where crises far beyond India’s borders can have consequences at home.
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The Cold War Era: The Reagan Doctrine and Era of Dual Containment
During the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan adopted a ‘containment’ approach, primarily focused on neutralizing Soviet influence globally while managing the Iran–Iraq war. This Reagan Doctrine entailed a massive military build-up to aid the anti-communist insurgents and the adoption of a strategic ‘tilt’ towards Iraq to prevent an overwhelming Iranian victory. In the 1990s, on the other hand, the Clinton administration officially coined the term ‘Dual Containment’ to describe the concurrent and comprehensive isolation of both Iraq and Iran. The focus in the 1980s was less on isolating both Iran and Iraq equally and more about leveraging Iraq against Iran by enforcing a general embargo on Iran. The key aspects of the Reagan-era dual containment policy were as follows:
• Focus on the Soviet Union: President Reagan intensified the Cold War competition, moving from détente to a policy of reversing Soviet gains by attempting to reduce the access to Soviet technology, depressing commodity prices and launching aggressive ideological battles, with the aim of achieving a victory rather than simply containing the perceived enemy.
• The Reagan Doctrine: In order to combat the spread of Soviet influence in the Third World, the US provided aid and training to anti-communist regimes and guerrilla movements like the Contras in Nicaragua and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
• Tilt Towards Iraq: The US pursued a policy of tilting towards Iraq (1982) during the Iran–Iraq war in 1982 after Iranians had started making gains on the battlefront, by providing intelligence and economic support to Iraq, while simultaneously selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
• The Iran–Contra Scandal: In an underhand counter to the policy of managing Iran, the US administration secretly sold arms to Iran to divert profits to the Nicaraguan Contras, thereby violating the US Congress Boland Amendment (of 1982–84), which had banned the supply of US military aid to the Contras.
Regional Cold War Amidst the Sub-Surface Simmering Heat
At the peak of the Cold War between the USSR and the US, the two superpowers brazenly exploited West Asia to reap the benefits of its geostrategic location and newly-found oil reserves. Thus, the West Asian region became a key inflammable battleground with both the Soviet Union and the US exerting their respective spheres of influence by backing the rival regimes in the region and fuelling regional conflicts, including the Arab–Israeli and Iran–Iraq wars. Both countries were working towards the aim of securing their energy interests and quelling the rise of their opponents’ ideologies. Following is a delineation of the major dynamics and alliances that characterized the political landscape of that era:
The Ideological Divide: The regimes ruling various West Asian nations during the post-Second World War era were mostly monarchies that were split apart not by their individual historic or cultural beliefs and dogmas but by the ideologies that their monarchs or leaders supported or aligned with. While the Americans backed anti-communist, conservative regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Iran under the Shah to arrest possible Soviet expansion in the region, the Soviets, on the other hand, backed Arab socialist governments like those in Syria and of Nasser in Egypt to expand their sphere of influence.
Energy Security and Military Interventions: As explained earlier, the US prioritized the securing of oil resources by forming critical partnerships in the Gulf region, while both the US and the USSR flooded the region with the legal and illegal export of arms, in the process accelerating both the regional arms race as well as the proxy wars. Some of the major regional events occurring around this time, such as the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, highlighted the shift from the supremacy of the pre-World War II powers such as Britain and France to the ascendancy of superpowers. The region again became a flashpoint during the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1967 and 1973, wherein the US provided economic and military support to Israel, while the USSR supported the Arab states. Thereafter, developments in the region such as Ayatollah Khomeini’s rise to power in Iran in 1979 and the Iran–Iraq War, which raged for eight years from 1980 to 1988, were heavily influenced by the Cold War alignments, with the superpowers and their allies supporting the opposing sides.
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): During the heightening of political tensions perpetrated by the Cold War, every country started aligning itself with either of the two blocs, with such alignments being manifested in the formation of powerful military alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) comprising the nations supporting the US, on the one hand, and the Warsaw Pact, which brought together nations supporting the USSR, on the other. In this environment of dominance of the international political milieu by two powers emerged a policy of non-alignment aimed at the pursuit of diplomatic relations with both sides while steering clear of aligning with either of them. Hence, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was formed in 1955 under the leadership of Marshal Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sukarno of Indonesia. This movement aimed to promote Afro–Asian solidarity as a means to counter Western and Soviet interference in their sovereignty.
End of the Cold War: With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US emerged as the only superpower in the world, which shifted the geopolitical balance dramatically. This period also saw a shift from ideology-driven politics to the protection of pragmatic national interests, including enhanced security cooperation and energy trade. However, despite the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the sub-surface simmering heat of conflicts and exploitation continued in West Asia, accompanied by the rapid rise of Israel–Iran animosity.
Regional Nuclear Proliferation—The AQ Khan Network: Meanwhile, things were heating up in the Indian subcontinent too. On 11 and 13 May 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests under the code name ‘Operation Shakti’. This was followed, just a couple of weeks later, by the Pakistani response in the form of six nuclear tests on 28 and 30 May 1998, under the collective nomenclature of ‘Chagai-I’. These nuclear tests marked the overt entry of the two regional nations into the elite nuclear club, shaking the foundations of global nuclear non-proliferation efforts and setting in motion a nuclear race in the region, with Iran also nurturing the dream of acquiring a nuclear weapon.
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