November 28th 2023.
Colonel Raymond M. Powell, U.S. Air Force, is the founder and director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project launched at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University. His “assertive transparency” initiative has been praised internationally for bringing attention to China’s maritime gray-zone strategy. It has also been the basis for the Philippines’ recent information operations campaign against China’s coercive activities in the South China Sea.
Colonel Powell has a long military background, including senior operational, policy and diplomatic roles. He was the U.S. Senior Defense Official/Defense Attaché to Australia from 2017-20, and the U.S. Air Attaché to Vietnam from 2013-16. He also served three Pentagon tours, combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in a host of other roles across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Colonel Powell attended a seminar on global security organised by the Brahma Research Foundation in Mumbai on Sunday. He spoke exclusively to the FPJ on Tuesday. When asked about the trust deficit between India and the U.S., he commented that during the Cold War, the U.S. attention was focussed on the USSR and it took on Pakistan and other countries as its allies to counter Moscow. India had its own compulsions in being close to the USSR and it pursued a policy of non-alignment.
He went on to discuss the threat posed by China, saying that China has ambitions of being a revisionist power and dominating the world. This poses a danger to the U.S. and India, as well as other countries. The U.S. is now consciously giving more importance to India which has a crucial role in containing Chinese expansionism. Additionally, the U.S. is shifting supply chains and manufacturing to India.
Regarding the Indo-U.S. Nuclear Treaty, Colonel Powell said that it was entered into to restrict nuclear proliferation, and that India has not been able to conduct a single nuclear test ever since it signed the treaty. He added that the less the number of nuclear-armed states, the better it is for world peace.
Finally, he talked about the stability of China internally, saying that it has an autocratic regime which politicises everything under the sun. The Chinese government need to worry about threats from its own people who are controlled by the Communist regime.
Overall, Colonel Powell believes that India's policy of non-alignment is giving it leverage to deal with large power blocs. He also believes that the Indo-U.S. Nuclear Treaty has put a cap on India's nuclear programme, but that it is necessary to restrict nuclear proliferation.
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