POSTPONEMENT OF GEN. SHELTON'S VISIT
by B.Raman
The postponement of the visit to New
Delhi from May 31 of Gen. Henry Shelton, Chairman, US Joint Chiefs of
Staff, could be attributed to the contentious debate presently on in
policy-making circles of Washington on the following issues:
* The allegedly arbitrary style of
management of the Pentagon by Mr.Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defence,
who has been sarcastically called Secretary of Missile Defence because
of his perceived over-preoccupation with a missile defence capability in
space which, in the view of many US experts, is unlikely to see the
light of the day for at least another 10 years.
* His plans for the re-organisation of
the Armed Forces with more emphasis on technology and less on manpower.
* His evangelical zeal in trying to
push through the National Missile Defence (NMD) despite considerable
reservations about the wisdom and the workability of the programme in
the US itself as well as abroad.
* His equally evangelical zeal in
trying to have China contained.
Revealing widespread unhappiness in the
Pentagon about his style of functioning, the "Washington Post"
reported on May 21: "In dozens of interviews, those people (in the
Congress and the Pentagon) complained that Rumsfeld has acted imperiously,
kept some of the top brass in the dark and failed to maintain adequate
communications with Capitol Hill." The critics have described
Mr.Rumsfeld and the advisers brought in by him from outside the Government
as "arrogant theorists".
His plans for the reduction of the
strength of the Army and of its acquisition of conventional weapons have
met with severe opposition from the Army and even from conservative
Congressmen. At a closed-door meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
with the aides of Mr.Rumsfeld on May 17, Gen.Shelton was reported to have
made a scathing criticism of these plans.
There has been equally strong criticism
of the NMD, particularly its air and space based versions.
Gen.Sullivan, a former Army chief, told a conference of Army reservists on
May 26 that he was worried that Mr.Rumsfeld would " propose a world
in which we will be able to hide behind our missile defense." He
likened the missile defense to the expensive but useless Maginot Line the
French built up to prevent German attack after World War I. Gen.
Sullivan later described Mr.Rumsfeld's emphasis on space as a
"rathole" for defense spending. According to the
"Washington Post", an E-mail sent by Gen.Sullivan criticising
Mr.Rumsfeld has been widely circulating inside the Army.
On relations with China too, there has
reportedly been an expression of concern by the permanent bureaucracy in
the State Department over his projection of China as a looming
threat. The permanent bureaucracy, which had played an active
behind-the-scene role in having the anti-China rhetoric of the former
President, Mr. Bill Clinton, toned down after he assumed office in 1993,
reportedly feels that Mr. Rumsfeld's obsessive concern over China could
prove counter-productive to US interests in Asia-Pacific.
Though Gen.Colin Powell, the Secretary
of State, has been publicly supporting the NMD, he is reported to be
unhappy over the hasty manner in which it is being sought to be pushed
through by Mr.Rumsfeld. Having been from the Army, he seems to share
some of the concerns of senior Army officers, many of whom were his former
subordinates, over Mr.Rumsfeld's plans for cutting down manpower and
expenditure on conventional capability in order to find more money for
space-based technologies.
Even before the election, Gen.Powell's
statements and interviews were free of the anti-China rhetoric, which had
been the trademark of Mr.Rumsfeld and Ms.Condoleeza Rice, the National
Security Adviser. In an interview on June 9,2000, Gen.Powell had
said that if he became a member of the new Administration, his advice to
the Administration would be : "Don't look for new
enemies". The critics of Mr.Rumsfeld allege that this is
exactly what Mr.Rumsfeld has been doing.
Mr.George Bush (Sr), who had served in
China and who knows China and the Chinese political leadership well, is
also reported to have counselled moderation on the new
Administration. After Mr.Rumsfeld issued his highly controversial
order suspending military-to-military interactions with China, it was
Mr.Bush (Sr), who was reported to have rung up the President and
Gen.Powell and expressed his concern over the way China was being
unnecessarily needled. Thereafter, the Pentagon denied that any such
order had been issued by Mr.Rumsfeld and attributed the previous
announcement on the suspension of the interactions to a misinterpretation
by the Pentagon spokesman of instructions by Mr.Rumsfeld that proposals
for such interactions should be referred to him on a case by case basis
for approval.
Nobody has bought this
explanation. It is claimed that Mr.Rumsfeld never allows any
statement on his behalf to be issued without himself approving the draft
and that, in view of this, the question of misinterpretation did not
arise.
The following developments are seen by
West European analysts as indications that Gen.Powell is slowly asserting
himself :
* Initially, on the advice of Ms.Rice,
Mr.Bush (Jr) declined a proposal from Moscow for a bilateral summit with
President Putin during his (Mr.Bush's) forthcoming visit to West
Europe. Subsequently, on the advice of Gen.Powell, he agreed to a
bilateral summit in Slovenia on June 16.
* After the plane incident over the
South China Sea, he reportedly rejected an advice from Ms.Rice that
while he should go ahead with his visit to Shanghai later this year to
attend the APEC summit, he should cancel the subsequent bilateral visit
to Beijing.
* It was at the suggestion of
Gen.Powell that Mr.Bush agreed to send his emissaries to important
capitals to remove their misapprehensions over the NMD. It was
Gen.Powell's way of ensuring against any over-hasty action overriding the
anxieties of Russia, China and NATO allies.
Meanwhile, in an interview to the China
Internet Information Centre disseminated over the Internet on May 30,
Professor Wang Jisi, a well-known scholar on Sino-US relations and
Director of the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences, stated as follows:
"Sino-US relations are experiencing
a hard time. Sino-US ties are moving towards a negative tendency
after the mid-air collision on April 1, citing such facts as the proposed
arms sales to Taiwan, the US side allowing Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan to
make transit visits to the United States, some officials changing the view
of a "constructive strategic partnership" in Sino-US relations
into an "adversary relationship" and the recent US policy report
claiming a southward shift of focus in US military deployment in East
Asia.
"The US should bear major
responsibility for the standoff. Leading officials of the Bush
administration, including Vice-President Richard Cheney and Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, are hawkish towards China. National
Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice intends to handle policy on China as they
did towards the former Soviet Union. Actually, few high officials of the
White House understand China well. (Writer's comment: He has avoided
criticising Gen.Powell )
"It is still too early to come to
the conclusion that the Sino-US ties are rapidly deteriorating.
First, diplomatic channels between the two countries are accessible
normally. The dispute over the military plane collision has been
solved in a diplomatic way instead of by saber rattling. Both sides
have shown great restraint on this issue. What is worth mentioning is that
President Bush did not change his plan to visit China during the APEC SOM
to be held in Shanghai in October.
"Secondly, trade relations between
the two countries have not suffered severely from the political
troubles. Trade relations have been the motive force of keeping
normal political relations for more than 10 years, and have provided a
cushion to deal with collisions between the two countries.
"There were three crises in the
Sino-US ties after the cold war ended--the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, Lee
Teng-hui's visit to US in 1995 and NATO's bombing of Chinese Embassy in
Yugoslavia in 1999. But the three crises were all overcome in the
end.
"The background of the US hawkish
policy towards China is that, as the sole superpower in the world after
the cold war, the US has not met any challenges from other
countries. Sustained economic growth and military strengthening with
hi-tech have led the Bush administration to overestimate itself.
"The US policy toward China is
leading to an adversary relationship while China's policy toward US is
keeping stable."
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: [email protected]
)
