May 26, 2002
THE ALLIES WHO ACTUALLY MATTER :
Russia opens military supply line for India (Saurabh Shukla, May 26, 2002, Hindustan Times)India's declaration of a 'decisive response' to Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism has received a big boost from its strategic partner, Russia.
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin is advocating restraint and has also offered to broker peace, Russia has reportedly begun supplying emergency military hardware to New Delhi to meet the Pakistan challenge.
Back-channel diplomacy has also resulted in Moscow extending 'logisitical support', including intelligence on PoK terror camps to Indian security
agencies.
Significantly, Moscow has indicated to New Delhi that if the need arises, it will exercise its 'veto' in India's favour at the UN Security Council. During the 1971 war, the then Soviet Union had similarly acted on four occasions to prevent India from being declared the 'aggressor.'
Any day now, the media and the pundits are going to wake up and notice that the Middle East is effectively encircled by an alliance of admittedly motley democracies--Israel, Turkey, India, and Russia on land [note that three of them have nukes], with the United States controlling the air and the sea. While all the hawks shriek about the minor tactical issue of which day we attack Iraq, we're in the midst of forging a grand strategic alliance that makes it unimaginable that the Islamic world could win a general war with the democratic West.