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Spartakus
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Topic: US, India Sign Defense Pact Posted: 29-Jun-2005 at 05:23 |
US, India Sign Defense Pact
Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee (L) is greeted by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield 28 June 2005 at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The defense ministers of the United States and India signed a 10-year agreement 28 June 2005 paving the way for stepped up military ties, including joint weapons production and cooperation on missile defense. AFP Photo/Snapsindia/Mohammed Jaffer. | Washington (AFP) Jun 28, 2005 The defense ministers of the United States and India signed a 10-year agreement Tuesday paving the way for stepped up military ties, including joint weapons production and cooperation on missile defense, officials said.
It called for "an enhanced level of cooperation covering military to military relations as well as a defense industrial and technological relationship," a statement said following the signing by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee in Washington.
They agreed to set up a "defense procurement and production group" and sign deals to cooperate on military "research, development, testing and evaluation" as well as naval pilot training.
"Both sides agreed that US-India defense relations are an important pillar of their transforming bilateral relationship," the statement said.
The military pact came three months after the United States unveiled plans to help India become a "major world power in the 21st century."
Washington's move to boost relations between the world's oldest and largest democracies which were on the opposite sides in the Cold War was seen by analysts as part of a strategy to counter the growing influence of China, India's immediate neighbour.
Under the plans, Washington offered to step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives as well as high-tech cooperation and expanded economic and energy cooperation.
By SpaceWar
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"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Anujkhamar
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Posted: 29-Jun-2005 at 12:15 |
I've been hearing alot about this recently, but im just not convinced.
The Americans are never going to share their all of their technology with us and with cooperation we will always be behind.
Oh well, we'll jsut have to wait and see the outcome, hopefully im wrong.
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Genghis
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Posted: 29-Jun-2005 at 20:14 |
I'm overjoyed by this. The Indians are a good people and I'm glad we can help them, and we can work together at keeping the Chinese in their place. I despise the Chinese.
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strategos
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 00:58 |
Originally posted by Genghis
I'm overjoyed by this. The Indians are a good people and I'm glad we can help them, and we can work together at keeping the Chinese in their place. I despise the Chinese. |
Chinese are good people too. Why do you despise them?
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http://theforgotten.org/intro.html
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Gubook Janggoon
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 01:00 |
FINALLY!
I thought this was only a dream. Very happy right now.
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Anujkhamar
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 03:17 |
Ok, your reactions are all positive, do you all believe this will actually happen? (no sarcasm intended, seriously curious)
As i said above, if this article isn't just hype between the two countries then wohooooo!
edit: just a thoguht, the US could start outsourcing their military r&d. US WEAPONS FOR CHEAPER PRICES!
Edited by Anujkhamar
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Spartakus
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 04:14 |
U.S., India Forge Closer Ties
AFP photo of the Rumsfeld and Mukherjee meeting on Tuesday. | by Chetan Kulkarni Washington (UPI) June 29, 2005 The new, 10-year defense deal between India and the United States takes the relationship between the two former Cold War rivals to a new sphere of cooperation.
The "New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship," signed Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his Indian counterpart, Pranab Mukherjee, seeks joint weapons production, technology transfer and collaboration on missile defense.
The two countries also set up a Defense Procurement and Production Group and agreed to start a Joint Working Group to study the Defense Policy Group that guides defense relations between the two countries.
The deal comes a day after Mukherjee told a Washington audience that if his country was to play a part as an engine of growth and factor of stability in Asia, U.S. restrictions on transfer of dual-use nuclear and space technologies should be relaxed.
"Our nuclear energy and security programs are separate," he said. "Restrictions against India's energy program are anachronistic."
The defense minister spoke Monday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. During his visit he met with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Mukherjee said energy scarcity and dependence biggest challenges to India's economic growth.
"If indeed India is to realize its economic potential, India needs alternative sources of energy, he said. "Foremost among those available is nuclear energy."
He said the United States and India has begun a dialogue on the energy issue to address some of the restrictions on technology transfer. The easing of the restrictions would benefit India's economic prospects over the next few decades, Mukherjee said.
Energy-starved India is making several deals, including ones with Iran that have sparked the ire of the United states, in a bid to feed the country's ever-increasing energy needs.
"Energy is going to be the burning issue in the coming years," Ahmad Tariq Karim senior adviser at the IRIS center at University of Maryland said. From an Indian perspective, he said, it was necessary to pursue dual-use technology and seek assurances from the United States related to its energy needs.
India has in the past emphasized that it has in the past developed technology that was denied to it because of sanctions.
"The United States has to choose between keeping India on board or lose its goodwill," Karim said, adding the two countries were in the process of "reaffirming the discovery of each other as friends."
Mukherjee's visit, a precursor to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the United States next month, is seen as a step in this direction.
Relations between the two countries has traditionally been frosty. During the Cold War, Washington supported India's rival Pakistan and India was close to the Soviet Union, whose main successor state, Russia, is still New Delhi's largest arms supplier.
Ties were so bad that in Cold war-era that, according to documents released by the State Department Tuesday, President Nixon referred to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as an "old witch," and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, called Indians "bastards."
Relations between Washington and New Delhi were opened up by the Clinton administration and the current Bush administration has engaged India as a major international partner and said it wants to make help the country become a "major world power."
India, too, has been cementing its traditional defense and diplomatic ties with countries such as Russia, while it has embarked on new relations with Israel, Central Asian states and even Pakistan.
"There was a clear dominant almost hegemonistic tone (in Mukherjee's speech) about India's role in the region and its extensive outreach," said Touqir Hussain, senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
He said there was a new confidence in the way India saw itself and its role in the region after the U.S. assertion it wanted India to be a superpower.
Mukherjee said the United States and India realized they shared common values and security concerns and there is "an objective convergence of interests."
"It is crucial that India and the U.S. work together with the international community to find a new order for 21st century," he said.
By SpaceWar
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"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "
--- Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky, 1991, Russian-American poet, b. St. Petersburg and exiled 1972 (1940-1996)
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Genghis
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 11:13 |
Originally posted by strategos
Originally posted by Genghis
I'm overjoyed by this. The Indians are a good people and I'm glad we can help them, and we can work together at keeping the Chinese in their place. I despise the Chinese. |
Chinese are good people too. Why do you despise them?
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The people are plenty nice. No people that invented General Tso's could be all bad. But their government is a threat to my country and seek to harm us.
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Paul
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 12:11 |
So after profiting from arming their enemy Pakistan to the teeth, they are now going to profit from selling arms to India, selling arms to both sides in a conflict.
After a 100 years of dumb-ass administrations someone in Washington has finally learnt how to read a history book and discovered how the British Empire worked. Britain made a mint, doubled the length and death of the US Civil War this way.
Edited by Paul
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Genghis
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 18:56 |
I don't think we're going to be helping Pakistan very much anymore. America has acquired a recent distaste for Islamic governments.
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Paul
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 20:02 |
Bush wants Musharif in power though, the alternative is a religious government. The powerful and rich US muslim lobby provide a large chunk of Republican funds and have the same fears. Bush promised them arms for Musharif as payment for their support.
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Tobodai
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Posted: 30-Jun-2005 at 22:34 |
prolly not a good time to bring up this bit of history:
Nixon's dislike of 'witch' Indira |
Kissinger and Nixon opposed an independent Bangladesh | Ex-US President Richard Nixon called Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi an "old witch", according to recently released documents from the 1970s.
His national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, said "the Indians are bastards anyway" in the run-up to the India-Pakistan war of 1971.
At the time, the US saw India as too close to the then Soviet Union.
The US state department has declassified many documents this month on US foreign policy of the time.
One key conversation transcript comes from the meeting between President Nixon and Mr Kissinger in the White House on 5 November 1971, shortly after a meeting with the visiting Indira Gandhi.
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MAY 26 1971
Kissinger: They are the most aggressive goddamn people around there
Nixon: The Indians?
Kissinger: Yeah
Nixon: Sure |
"We really slobbered over the old witch," says President Nixon.
"The Indians are bastards anyway," says Mr Kissinger. "They are starting a war there."
He adds: "While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted too. She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war."
'Special relationship'
The Indo-Pakistan war took place between November and December 1971.
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The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line
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It had its roots in demands in 1970 by East Pakistan, later Bangladesh, for independence.
In March 1971, Pakistan's military acted to put down the secessionists there. Millions fled to India's West Bengal state.
India supported an independent Bangladesh and ties with the US plummeted in August 1971 when Delhi signed a treaty with the Soviet Union that included mutual military assistance in case of war.
President Nixon, on the other hand, had developed a "special relationship" with Pakistan's then military dictator, General Yahya Khan.
In a White House conversation with Mr Kissinger on 4 June 1971, President Nixon berates his ambassador to India, Kenneth Keating, for wanting to, as Mr Kissinger puts it, "help India push the Pakistanis out".
President Nixon says: "I don't want him to come in with that kind of jackass thing with me... Keating, like every ambassador who goes over there, goes over there and gets sucked in."
Indira Gandhi sought stronger links with the Soviet Union |
Mr Kissinger then says: "Those sons-of-bitches, who never have lifted a finger for us, why should we get involved in the morass of East Pakistan?
"If East Pakistan becomes independent, it is going to become a cesspool. It's going to be 100 million people, they have the lowest standard of living in Asia."
President Nixon replies: "Yeah."
Mr Kissinger: "They're going to become a ripe field for communist infiltration."
President Nixon then openly courted China to try to turn the tide of the war Pakistan's way.
With the Indian army and armed Bengali separatists winning, the US on 10 December 1971 urged Beijing to mobilise troops towards India, saying the US would back it if the Soviet Union became involved.
China declined and on 16 December the war ended with the Indian army and Bengali separatists taking Dhaka.
Exiled leaders had declared Bangladesh independent on 26 March 1971 and, in 1972, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to become the country's first prime minister.
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