Of late, the issue is being increasingly talked about in some strategic circles in India. The question being raised is about India’s stand vis-à-vis NATO. Will India be joining the military alliance? At present, the US is the leader of the largely European NATO, where 32 nations, democracies all have voluntarily agreed to place their Armed Forces under the strategic command of the USA. Will the world’s largest democracy agree to do so?

At present, the debate is academic. There is no NATO in Asia, and the question of India joining or not does not arise. NATO is basically a European military alliance, set up post World War II to avoid another catastrophe that befell these nations for almost six years when Hitler’s tanks overran most of them. The overwhelming sentiment after the War was: ‘never again’. Though Hitler’s Nazi Germany was trounced comprehensively, the Soviet behaviour ~ a war-time ally ~ post the War turned unbelievably perfidious.

Almost overnight, the anti-Hitler ally and professed friend Stalin, the Soviet dictator turned a murderous foe. After the fall of Hitler, he supplanted Nazi tyranny with Communist tyranny in many of these hapless European nations. NATO, a formal military alliance set up by European nations (plus Canada) with the US in strategic command, has served its original objective admirably. For three quarters of a century after World War II, it has ensured peace in Europe. Blatant Soviet expansionism was effectively checkmated.

The NATO members were all established democracies, a commendable League of Democracies ~ as Dr Kissinger described it. They had all imbibed the lessons of their recent history well. The choice of the US as their leader was both automatic and obvious. It was the military leader of the European Allies during the War and saved the day for democracy in Europe. And not only there but also in Asia, where Imperial Japan had emerged as a military ally of Nazi Germany. Indeed, democracy had a very narrow escape worldwide. Fast forward to the 21st century. The erstwhile Soviet Union of Stalin had collapsed ~ the Communist tyranny imploded from within.

The East European nations, where Red Army jackboots were marching in place of Nazi jackboots, broke free. Having hard-won their freedom after decades of foreign Communist tyranny, they joined their West European counterparts in securing their future. NATO membership was the obvious choice. They realized that their nascent democracies, to survive, must join the League. And fortunately, the spread and depth of democracy round the world has been going apace since the end of the 20th century. Enter the Dragon. The scenario has changed radically. The Sleeping Giant in the formidable form of Communist China gradually replaced the erstwhile Communist tyranny of the Soviet variety. Whereas the Soviets, a European power had invaded and occupied many European nations post World War II, China, historically an Asiatic power has arrived to threaten Asia. Mao Tse Tung, the founder of Communist China imposed a tyrannous Communist rule almost at the same time as the formation of NATO. But NATO was too preoccupied with the Soviet threat that it almost overlooked the emerging Asian tyranny.

And the Chinese Communists in the formative years put on a grand façade of sweet reasonableness before the outside world. The West, led by the US was comprehensively hoodwinked. History is nothing if not full of ironies. The welcoming brigade, believe it or not, to the ‘comity of nations’ was led by a ‘peace loving’ India! In 1955, at the International Conference of Nations at Bandung, the Chinese Communists made their first appearance, all smiles and bouquets. So much so that Taiwan, a “permanent” member of UN Security Council was made to vacate its seat in favour of Chinese Communists. No one stopped to ask if the new entrant would abide by the Rules and Conventions of International Law that all members of the UN are pledged to abide by.

A most sinister tyranny had “arrived” on the world stage, wearing the broadest of smiles. Back in China, the founder of the Communist state had crowned himself the emperor in all but name. The Maximum Ruler adopted the title of Chairman, as Emperor Mao would have sounded ‘undiplomatic’ in the ‘comity of nations’. Right from the word go, since 1950 he went about encroaching and occupying contiguous territories. One by one, he occupied Inner Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Tibet, Aksai Chin etc. He would have occupied Korea too but his proxy, North Korea was checkmated by the resolute and far-sighted US President Truman, ably assisted by his equally resolute World War II Commander, Gen Douglas McCarthur. The Asian version of Stalin had met his match.

According to Dr. Kissinger, Mao had triggered the Korean war to divert world attention and attack Formosa (formerly Taiwan) and “reunify” it with mainland China by force. Fortunately, fate and fortune was on the side of democracy and God had not written off the world in favour of autocracy. Truman, the US President, promptly ordered the US 7th fleet to the Formosa Strait, and Mao was halted in his tracks. The reason was obvious, and Mao confessed as much to his official biographer, Edgar Snow. Mao had nicknamed the US publicly as a “paper tiger” that roars but cannot bite.

He admitted to Snow that the ‘paper tiger’ had “nuclear teeth”. Hiroshima must have been fresh in his mind. Needless to mention, China had not developed nuclear weapons by then. Dr. Kissinger drew appropriate lessons from the incident when he summed up famously the true character of Chinese Communists: “China respects only one thing, and that is strength.” But India, the self-proclaimed champion of non-alignment learnt its lessons the hard way, when we were attacked without provocation in 1962. Of course, we have since imbibed these lessons well. Today, the nation is fully prepared, and our resolve is all too evident whether in Dhoklam or Ladakh.

Like China, we are a nuclear power with a fully armed and well-equipped modern army. We have a formal “partnership” with friendly democracies in the Indo-Pacific, along with USA ~ QUAD. The other two are Australia and Japan, facing a similar threat from an increasingly expansionist China. The situation is radically altered. India is facing an existential threat from China. Emperor Mao’s current successor is an equally expansionist and devious emperor, Chairman Xi, minus of course the outward trappings of royalty. Chairman Xi is faithfully continuing the policies of Emperor Mao and continually expanding China’s footprint not only in Asia but extending to the Horn of Africa.

The aim of China’s expansionism this time is not so much land grabbing of neighbours as it is to dominate the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Land grabbing of course continues, though in small measure in contiguous territories such as India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Tibet, Inner Mongolia etc. Mao may be dead, but Maoism is alive and kicking, literally and figuratively

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)