The Democratic Crescent?

The emerging cooperation between Israel and Turkey tells only half the story of the strategic shifts taking place around the “Islamic crescent” from West to South Asia. India and Israel have also been cooperating notably since the end of the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, India lost its main military backer and found in Israel a technologically-advanced nation willing to assist in the modernization of its armed forces. Israel, for its part, welcomed an additional ally (needing, as it does, all the friends it can get) and income from arms sales. Though India’s longstanding rhetorical commitment to the Palestinian cause has meant that any cooperation has been relatively quiet, it has proceeded apace with the Israelis training 3,000 Indian troops, concluding millions of dollars in arms sales, and assisting in the development of new aircraft and tank platforms. (Btw, Indo-Jewish ties are not without precedent—there have been Jews in the southern Indian state of Kerala for nearly 500 years and a synagogue has stood in the city of Cochin since 1568, as it happens, just around the corner from my father’s family home.) The relationship took on a more substantial cast after September 11. Though from the Indian perspective, the decisive moment was not the attack on the United States but the attack by a suicide squad on the Indian parliament on December 13, 2001. In that context, Israeli expertise in counterterrorism became even more prized in the Indian security establishment. Accordingly, the hawkish BJP government, who brought a refreshing pragmatism to a historically lugubrious and moralistic Indian foreign policy, pushed deeper ties with Israel. The interesting question now is whether the newish Congress government will continue building this relationship. Getting back to Turkey, some people have started connecting the dots between Israel, India, and Turkey and written of a new “Triple Entente” or “Axis of Democracy” with which the United States should ally. Frankly, as we confront looming disorder in the region over the next 30 years—Iranian nukes, Pakistan's potential collapse, continuing terrorism—I think these are friends we could sorely use. Just to name one example, the burdens of our Iraqi adventure would have been much eased if smart diplomacy had led to the deployment of Turkish and Indian troops.