June 30, 2005
Desi-fans @ Winds of Change; India-US Defense PactNews
A fantastic, detailed, link-filled post from Joe Katzman of Winds of Change on the recently signed US-India mutual defense pact -
...the behaviour of its rising Islamists "is slowly forcing the US and India together over common strategic concerns."...The United States and India signed a 10-year agreement paving the way for stepped up military ties, including joint weapons production and cooperation on missile defense. Titled the "New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship" (NFDR), it was signed on June 27/05 by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and India's Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
This is a big deal. A very big deal.
Joe's post covers a fascinating amount of territory and proves that he's no slouch in the Desi current events arena. Heck, he even uses the term Desi rather appropriately.
This post is part of a series of "enthusiastic" coverage on Indian geopolitics that are worth checking out.
vinod on June 30, 2005 05:22 PM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
who is this guy?
You know, The Vorlon Question never really has an adequate answer....
And as some of us know, it has an equally elusive Shadow Question: "What do you want/ desire?"
Joe,
Was that a Babylon 5 reference? Nicely done.
I guess your response is enough of an answer...
He writes well, writes on India and makes Babylon 5 references. Be still my beating heart.
Let's hope the anti-terror campaign goes better in India than it is here.
In pulp fiction, towards the end (I guess), our man Jules quotes Ezekiel 25:17 but then says to Ringo: But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.
I am trying real hard not to laugh.
First we have our very own USA (I am not a citizen, but I try to mean well) playing dollar auction with our very own Pakistan and our very own India.
(not a quote)We now have our very own USA selling (I could have said our very own India is buying and it would mean the same..but just for effect, I stick to this) fighter aircrafts, Patriots Pac 3 missiles as against the old Pac 2's which by the way are less advanced --for what ? combat Islamists ?
oh btw, passing mention, US is selling some more than 10 F-16s to Pakistan to combat Islamists there too.. you know Terrorists.. those terrorists who have huge armies and stufff...whom we can kill with all these killing machines.
and yes sireee.. those very islamists and no no no.. not the Chinese.. what will Chinese do ? Oh nothing, Said Sir Donald.. just that sir Donald has no idea why Chinese defense budget is building greatly.
On a serious note, this is the similar (not same) strategy used with USSR..and once that is agreed upon, we can debate on the likelihood of its success.
(Why are Indian and US flags not one beside the other. Indian flag being below US flag..man this is...... total whining on my part..I guess even babies don't whine so much these days--for those who are offended, this was meant to be a joke, shoddy or otherwise.)
yes, be still ;-)