Monday, May 26, 2008
Should India own the Indian Ocean?
Read an article today on the collapse of the wild Tuna stocks and what struck me was that while fishing in the Mediterrenean is strictly regulated most of the Spanish and French catch is from the Indian Ocean and overfishing is leading to collapse. maybe India and Australia need to team up and make the Indian Ocean off limits for fishing for all but Indian Ocean Littoral states. I mean how would Canada react to an Indian trawler in the Grand Banks taking in unregulated Cod? Another case for a Blue Water Indian Navy
Sunday, May 25, 2008
India invades the Gulf - A possible solution
Currently the Gulf economies are booming on the back of high oil prices and cheap labor provided by South Asians. The economies of India and China are growing at very fast rates and need more and more oil. China like the USA is also a big producer of oil so they are not so much at the mercy of the Gulf states but India which imports almost 90% of its crude is getting desperate. At the same time most jobs in the Gulf are done by Indians, Pakistanis and other third world nationals. In such a scenario an invasion of the gulf becomes very likely. This post sets out the scenario
December 2008 - The US elections have happened and Obama has won. Bush knows that Obama will do a quick and dirty pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan so he is desperately looking for a partner to stabilize the Middle East before the US needs to leave. He contacts the Indian government and proposes to immediately implement the Nuclear deal without any safeguards or conditions on what India does with the Uranium the US supplies. In return he wants India to send peacekeeping forces to Iraq to takeover from the American soldiers.
The Congress government knows its going to lose the next election in a few months time in any case so it doesnt care what their communist coalition partners say anymore. India agrees to send 3 regiments but negotiates for a few more thing. One US ignores Indian Air Strikes on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. This action guts out the cross border insurgency and frees up the regiments for deployment. Second India is allowed to buy the US carrier Kitty Hawk as is with all weapons systems for immediate deployment to the Gulf ( the Kitty Hawk is due for replacement in 2010 in the US navy). Indian troops are at first greeted with a cold shoulder as being American stooges but soon get control of the country. In this they are helped by their long experience in counter-insurgency and their willingness to take casualties to prevent collateral damage - e.g. when fired upon from a Mosque American troops would normally call in an airstrike on the Mosque but Indian troops send in commandos and clear out the insurgents even if that means taking Indian casualties. The troops infact dont use APCs or Helicopters at all within 3 months.
Mar 2009 US troops have withdrawn from Iraq and the Kitty Hawk is on station in the Gulf now with an Indian crew. Things have started to quite down and Indian Army contingents are giving R&R holidays to their soldiers who use it to mostly visit Dubai for shopping. While on such a vacation Indian Soldiers in Mufti (civilian dress) are subject to racist treatment from Arabs who are used to having Indians and Pakistanis do menial jobs in the Emirates. One such incident escalates with an Arab Teenager running over an Indian Soldier with his SUV. The soldier is well liked in the Indian Army and was a receiver of the Param Vir Chakra for actions in Mosul just the previous month. Indian army lodges a protest and quitely puts in a policy of all groups on Indian soldiers on R&R having at least one English Speaking officer with the soldiers and allows the Officer to keep his personal sidearm with him when in the Emirates. Emirates protests and tries to stop the weapons but bows to US pressure. Further incidents happen and finally lead up to an Indian officer shooting a Saudi bigot . The officer is arrested and Emirates hands him over to the Saudis. The Indian contingent in Iraq launches a cross border commando raid and rescues the officer leaving 18 Saudis dead. The Saudis try to retaliate against Indian and Pakistani workers in the Kingdom by cancelling everyone's visa and rounding them up in deportation camps. Emirates, Kuwait follow suit. In the roundups over a 100 workers are killed (these workers have gone into debt to buy visas to the Gulf and are not willing to leave without earning back their money). Most of the workers illed are Muslims from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh and it becomes an election issue. The Congress government wants to project an image of protecting Muslims and asks the Indian contingent in Iraq to immediately carry out some punitive raids against the Saudi holding facilities. The raids escalate due to Saudis launching F16s against the INS Ashoka (the erstwhile Kitty Hawk). Indian pilots are much better trained and equipped with Su 31 MKI naval variants. The cream of the Saudi and UAE airforce is soon resting at the botom of the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile Saudi and UAE economies are in total chaos. Everything from Oil Drilling to McDonalds to the Sewage System in these countries was being run by Expats who have either been rounded up or left the country due to fears of war. Their society collapses and reverts to Bedounism. The Indian Army sends in more Regiments on the INS Jalashva which is the erstwhile USS Trebton and these land on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia and proceed to immediately capture Mecca and Medina and declare them International Religious cities where any Muslim from anywhere in the world can visit without visas. To avoid hurting Muslim sensibilities the Indian regiments sent are the Grenadiers and J&K Rifles - regiments made up mostly of Indian Muslims and the action is portrayed as a liberation of Holy Muslim sites from a regime gone crazy. Soon India is in Control of Iraq , Kuwait, the Gulf States and the Red Sea and Persian Gulf coastlines of Saudi Arabia. Oil production is boosted up with a massive influx of workers from India and Pakistan. In order to keep the Pakistanis happy India hands over control of the Islamic protecterate of the Hijaz to the Pakistanis . The Pakistanis are more than happy to share the spoils as they are tired of the racist Arabs themselves. As South Asian workers can work in Saudi now without having to tolerate racism and a parasite class of Arabs production and efficiency takes off. India and Pakistan along with the US get first dibs on the oil generated. A democracy is established in the UAE and Kuwait with citizenship based on 5 years of residency. This leads to an Indian majority population which votes in a pro-India government. Meanwhile the Indian soldiers' rescues of the South Asian workers have led to an increase in South Asian solidarity and talks proceed on softening SAARC borders, unifying to a single currency the Rupee (replacing the Indian, Pakistani , Nepali and Sri Lankan Rupee, the bagladeshi Taka ) The new UAE government joins SAARC and votes in favour of joining the South Asian Union. The economies of the region freed up off their shortage of oil and with a labor intensive Oil industry available to absorb the excess working population, take off and are soon growing at China beating rates. The west is happy to get their oil from a democracy as well as the rapprochment of India and Pakistan thus removing a Nuclear flashpoint. China on the other hand is not so happy at losing its allies Pakistan, Nepal (the Nepali communists are voted out when they try to avoid joining the South Asian Union and visa free access to UAE jobs) and Myanmar who have reacted to the air raids with the better part of valor and joined the South Asian Union. China starts trying to stir things up with Iran and Afghanistan (they utilize their conduits with the Mujaheddin from the Soviet occupation days). India and US react by declaring they are for the peacefull independence of Tibet, East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia and start funding of radical separetist groups in these territories.
This scenario to be continued in the fall of the Chinese Empire scenario where China gets reduced to China proper without its colonies in Tibet, Mongolia, Yunnan.
Please feel free to comment on problems you see with this scenario.
December 2008 - The US elections have happened and Obama has won. Bush knows that Obama will do a quick and dirty pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan so he is desperately looking for a partner to stabilize the Middle East before the US needs to leave. He contacts the Indian government and proposes to immediately implement the Nuclear deal without any safeguards or conditions on what India does with the Uranium the US supplies. In return he wants India to send peacekeeping forces to Iraq to takeover from the American soldiers.
The Congress government knows its going to lose the next election in a few months time in any case so it doesnt care what their communist coalition partners say anymore. India agrees to send 3 regiments but negotiates for a few more thing. One US ignores Indian Air Strikes on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. This action guts out the cross border insurgency and frees up the regiments for deployment. Second India is allowed to buy the US carrier Kitty Hawk as is with all weapons systems for immediate deployment to the Gulf ( the Kitty Hawk is due for replacement in 2010 in the US navy). Indian troops are at first greeted with a cold shoulder as being American stooges but soon get control of the country. In this they are helped by their long experience in counter-insurgency and their willingness to take casualties to prevent collateral damage - e.g. when fired upon from a Mosque American troops would normally call in an airstrike on the Mosque but Indian troops send in commandos and clear out the insurgents even if that means taking Indian casualties. The troops infact dont use APCs or Helicopters at all within 3 months.
Mar 2009 US troops have withdrawn from Iraq and the Kitty Hawk is on station in the Gulf now with an Indian crew. Things have started to quite down and Indian Army contingents are giving R&R holidays to their soldiers who use it to mostly visit Dubai for shopping. While on such a vacation Indian Soldiers in Mufti (civilian dress) are subject to racist treatment from Arabs who are used to having Indians and Pakistanis do menial jobs in the Emirates. One such incident escalates with an Arab Teenager running over an Indian Soldier with his SUV. The soldier is well liked in the Indian Army and was a receiver of the Param Vir Chakra for actions in Mosul just the previous month. Indian army lodges a protest and quitely puts in a policy of all groups on Indian soldiers on R&R having at least one English Speaking officer with the soldiers and allows the Officer to keep his personal sidearm with him when in the Emirates. Emirates protests and tries to stop the weapons but bows to US pressure. Further incidents happen and finally lead up to an Indian officer shooting a Saudi bigot . The officer is arrested and Emirates hands him over to the Saudis. The Indian contingent in Iraq launches a cross border commando raid and rescues the officer leaving 18 Saudis dead. The Saudis try to retaliate against Indian and Pakistani workers in the Kingdom by cancelling everyone's visa and rounding them up in deportation camps. Emirates, Kuwait follow suit. In the roundups over a 100 workers are killed (these workers have gone into debt to buy visas to the Gulf and are not willing to leave without earning back their money). Most of the workers illed are Muslims from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh and it becomes an election issue. The Congress government wants to project an image of protecting Muslims and asks the Indian contingent in Iraq to immediately carry out some punitive raids against the Saudi holding facilities. The raids escalate due to Saudis launching F16s against the INS Ashoka (the erstwhile Kitty Hawk). Indian pilots are much better trained and equipped with Su 31 MKI naval variants. The cream of the Saudi and UAE airforce is soon resting at the botom of the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile Saudi and UAE economies are in total chaos. Everything from Oil Drilling to McDonalds to the Sewage System in these countries was being run by Expats who have either been rounded up or left the country due to fears of war. Their society collapses and reverts to Bedounism. The Indian Army sends in more Regiments on the INS Jalashva which is the erstwhile USS Trebton and these land on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia and proceed to immediately capture Mecca and Medina and declare them International Religious cities where any Muslim from anywhere in the world can visit without visas. To avoid hurting Muslim sensibilities the Indian regiments sent are the Grenadiers and J&K Rifles - regiments made up mostly of Indian Muslims and the action is portrayed as a liberation of Holy Muslim sites from a regime gone crazy. Soon India is in Control of Iraq , Kuwait, the Gulf States and the Red Sea and Persian Gulf coastlines of Saudi Arabia. Oil production is boosted up with a massive influx of workers from India and Pakistan. In order to keep the Pakistanis happy India hands over control of the Islamic protecterate of the Hijaz to the Pakistanis . The Pakistanis are more than happy to share the spoils as they are tired of the racist Arabs themselves. As South Asian workers can work in Saudi now without having to tolerate racism and a parasite class of Arabs production and efficiency takes off. India and Pakistan along with the US get first dibs on the oil generated. A democracy is established in the UAE and Kuwait with citizenship based on 5 years of residency. This leads to an Indian majority population which votes in a pro-India government. Meanwhile the Indian soldiers' rescues of the South Asian workers have led to an increase in South Asian solidarity and talks proceed on softening SAARC borders, unifying to a single currency the Rupee (replacing the Indian, Pakistani , Nepali and Sri Lankan Rupee, the bagladeshi Taka ) The new UAE government joins SAARC and votes in favour of joining the South Asian Union. The economies of the region freed up off their shortage of oil and with a labor intensive Oil industry available to absorb the excess working population, take off and are soon growing at China beating rates. The west is happy to get their oil from a democracy as well as the rapprochment of India and Pakistan thus removing a Nuclear flashpoint. China on the other hand is not so happy at losing its allies Pakistan, Nepal (the Nepali communists are voted out when they try to avoid joining the South Asian Union and visa free access to UAE jobs) and Myanmar who have reacted to the air raids with the better part of valor and joined the South Asian Union. China starts trying to stir things up with Iran and Afghanistan (they utilize their conduits with the Mujaheddin from the Soviet occupation days). India and US react by declaring they are for the peacefull independence of Tibet, East Turkestan and Inner Mongolia and start funding of radical separetist groups in these territories.
This scenario to be continued in the fall of the Chinese Empire scenario where China gets reduced to China proper without its colonies in Tibet, Mongolia, Yunnan.
Please feel free to comment on problems you see with this scenario.
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