Energy requirements ARE the new Indian foreign policy
Monday, June 6, 2005 at 10:13PM ■"Hunger for Energy Transforms How India Operates: A growing need for power influences foreign policy," by Somini Sengupta, New York Times, 5 June 2005, p. A3.
I remember sitting down with an Exxon exec who told me Bangladesh was going to float away on a sea of natural gas before those stubborn people would ever let in Western investment. And, of course, it would never sell that gas to natural enemy India.
Just like India could never think to lay a pipeline from Iran through Pakistan . . .
Well, things change. So India wants to plus up its nuclear energy industry big time, and doesn't want any hassles from the U.S. on that score. And yeah, we've given them the business before. When I was in India in 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was on the front page of all the papers, basically calling India a rogue state for its pursuit of nuclear power and it's intemperate relationships with like-minded states.
Well, things change for us too. Now we are willing to sell such technology to India, and when India signs a huge gas and oil deal with Iran, likewise demanding its international rights to develop nukes for "peaceful means," we better not expect the Indians to lean on Tehran or rein in that investment strategy.
Energy relations will remake South Asia and Central Asia in very profound ways in coming years, and those networked ties will extend into the Persian Gulf via Iran first and foremost. There is no preventing this, or Iran's growing role as a Gulf pillar. There is only coopting-or making sure you get what you want out of the process.
Don't expect India to piss in the wind on any of this, nor choose America over China. China-India energy cooperation will happen. It's not just some dream. As one Indian advocate points out, the EU started with just cooperation on coal between France and Germany.
So get used to it. India already has. "Mutual dependencies" is the new diplomatic buzzword in South Asia, where India rules and Iran is viewed as a little brother.
Again, get used to it.
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