Need to build strategic partnership with both India and Pak

Lalit K Jha

Washington, May 5 (PTI) A top Obama Administration
official advocated the need to build "strategic partnership"
with both India and Pakistan and at the same time working to
reduce the tension between the two South Asian neighbour.

"We must forge strong strategic partnerships with both
India and Pakistan, while striving to reduce the tensions
between the two," the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy,
Michele Flournoy, said addressing a meeting of the Army Leader
Forum.

Commenting on the global security challenges, Flournoy
said in this globalised world, there is increased risk that
non-state actors will find ways to obtain nuclear, chemical or
biological weapons of mass destruction.

Al Qaeda, she said continues to morph and is now
regaining strength in Pakistan's tribal areas and spreading
elsewhere.

Further, she said the world in increasingly becoming a
multipolar world.

"We now face the challenge of simultaneously engaging in
hedging against a rising China. On the one hand, we are
looking in earnest for new areas of cooperation, in areas of
economic cooperation, climate change and so forth, while we're
also trying to ensure that we can counter emerging Chinese
military capabilities in the cyber field, in anti-satellite
weapons, anti-ship weapons, other access denial capabilities,"
she said.

Russia too presents both new opportunities and
challenges, she said.

"Petrol wealth has emboldened a more nationalistic and
autocratic leadership (in Russia). And yet there are a host
of areas, non-proliferation in particular, that demand that we
work together," Flournoy said.

In the changed circumstances, Flournoy said the American
strategy needs to be grounded in pragmatism rather than
ideology.

"We need a clear-eyed assessment of the challenges and
the opportunities we face in the new security environment, and
our objectives must be realistic and derived from, rooted in,
our core national interests," she said.

The United States also has to remain engaged in the
world, particularly in critical regions, she argued, adding
that this engagement has to be smarter.

"We must be more proactive in our use of soft power --
the full range of instruments, from diplomacy to economics to
trade to information -- and more selective in the where, when
and how of the use of our military might," she said

Flournoy said the US must exemplify respect for the rule
of law and should recognise that military power is necessary
but not sufficient to deal with many of these 21st-century
challenges. PTI LKJ