April 12,2008:
Throughout the Cold War, India positioned itself as the leader of the
unaligned nations. In practice, India leaned to the left, and obtained most of
its imported weapons from the Soviet Union. India wanted Western arms, but was
unable to get technology transfers. So, in the early 1960s, modernization of
the Indian armed forces took place with Russian assistance. By the end of the
Cold War, seventy percent of Indian Army tanks and artillery, eighty percent of
warplanes and , and eight-five percent of warships were Russian.
In U.S.
eyes, India was an ally of Russia, and thus had to be watched carefully. Since
most senior Indian government and military officials spoke English, and many were
actually pro-American, it was not difficult for the CIA to penetrate Indian
intelligence agencies. This soon became
known, and those many Indians who were anti-American, became more so.
Since the
end of the Cold War, India has also shed its strong support for Palestinians,
established diplomatic relations with Israel (in 1991) and become a major
importer of Israeli defense equipment and weapons. India also became disenchanted with Russia as
a military supplier since the 1990s, as the collapsing Russian economy made the
supply of spare parts and warranty service even more undependable. At the same
time, the Indian government realized that its socialist attitudes, when it came
to economic policy, were not working. Communist China had dumped socialist
economic policy in the 1970s, and its economy had been expanding ten percent a
year ever since. India's economy, guided by socialist policies, was lucky to
grow two percent a year. So the Indians dumped the socialist ideas in the 1990s,
and the economy began to grow. With more money, Western weapons now became
affordable.
But some
things did not change. Many Indian politicians were still communist (despite
the collapse of European communism in the 1980s and 90s), and the CIA still had
its hooks into the Indian intelligence agencies. But the CIA has spies inside
many foreign intelligence organizations. The Indians complain to the U.S., but
everything is denied. Unofficially, the Indians are told that if they were true
friends of the United States, there would be no need for the CIA to be so
involved. And there it all sits, for the moment.