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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (74153)	2/15/2003 4:11:17 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi kumar_rangan; Re: "Lets assume India says "yes" to a war. thats 1+B people. who cares then what 150M +/- 59M say, huh ?" (1) Why should I make incorrect assumptions about India in order to show "flaws" in my "argument"? (LOL!!!) India's support for continuing inspections is probably clear to most people. For the others, see today's Times of India: BANGALORE: Defence Minister George Fernandes on Saturday said it would be "inconceivable" that US should take any action against Iraq after the UN inspectors found no weapons of mass destruction there and reaffirmed India's position that the issue must be resolved amicably. ... timesofindia.indiatimes.com (2) From the point of view of military, diplomatic, and economic power, India is a shitty little country that doesn't count. While I believe that this is only a temporary state of affairs, and I expect to see India eventually grow to be a world powerhouse, that is not the condition at the moment. I believe the US should look forward to that future time, and should sow the seeds of alliance, or at least friendship, with India. But don't expect that sort of vision out of this administration. (3) India (since independence) has not been an ally of the US. Instead, India has tended to side with Russia. This is in distinction to Germany, France and Belgium, whose soldiers stood next to ours against Communism for decades. Fifty years from now, I'd prefer India as an ally over Germany, but that is then, this is now. Most of the utility of a nation, as an ally, can be summed up in their GDP. The rich countries make good allies, the poor ones just don't matter much, unless they can provide convenient cannon fodder. Germany and France are rich nations and are important allies. India would be a good source of cannon fodder, but I doubt that they'd willingly get involved in anything more than a few hundred miles from their borders. As an example, Fabrique Nationale is an arms maker in tiny Belgium (population 10 million). One of their model rifles (the FAL) was used in 70 nations. For example, see the 3rd and 7th columns on page 3 of this reference: fas.org -- Carl