 Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat is the former Chief of the Naval Staff of India. A talented and all-round officer, he has had a brilliant career in the Indian Navy, eventually achieving the highest rank. In December 1998, the then Union Defence Minister, George Fernandez, dismissed Bhagwat when he was just nine months shy of ending his term as the Naval Chief, leading to serious controversial issues relating to India's national security. We, as the military, are sworn to defend and protect the people. And that derives from the Constitution of India, specifically the Directive Principles of State Policy, which again are linked to our freedom movement, but essentially at the core of the freedom movement was our freedom to follow our own independent part of development. With functions outside the normal territorial limits in the wider international waters, regional waters, what is its task? Is its task to become a junior partner to one great power of the other? If it becomes, then where is our independence? It certainly does not serve the national interests. If we whichever way we define the national interests, and that is a tendency which is dominant at this moment, because we have a government, and we have been having governments since the neoliberal capitalists of 1991, which have always subscribed to the Washington Consensus, and Washington Consensus, as you know, is not the government of the United States. Washington Consensus is the consensus of the multi-national and transnational, which have an alliance with the military security complex, which itself is a product of the great armament cooperation, the great oil cooperation, which have been engaged in the colonial and neo-colonial project, and now much more intensely than even in the 19th and 20th century. This century has got a sharper focus, a sharper aim, a sharper objective than in the past. So we are actually, now we say it in the US, we are actually have a quasi-alliance, which is going, which is with a belligerent nation, a belligerent power, an imperial power. And imperialism is not a cup of tea, it's not a tea party. Imperialism is actually engaged in the actual loot or dominance of the natural resources of the oil world, whether it's oil, whether it is raw materials, whether it is strategic raw materials. People in the political arena who are talking about the Indian Navy being a net security provider. Now this is a strange term, which is very strange to me, but then many terms come to us from the West insidiously, into New Delhi in particular, and that's where they are, as a fact, in the media or in the normal public discourse, how does this become a word, this term will become a common popular term, it has no basis, because we do not have the resources, we can barely fulfil our obligations and our duties to our own country as a sovereign state or it was a sovereign state. And therefore the question of net security provider doesn't make sense, whether it is in terms of aid in case of natural disaster, whether it is in case of piracy, actions against piracy, we say these are cover terms, these are insidious terms to take us one by one towards the serious. Secondly, when you partner or you are seen to be a partner, the perception is that you are the partner of a belligerent imperial state, then we are creating a security dimension which is completely, goes completely out of hand, because our basic policy is to have a good neighbor's, good neighbor policy with our neighbors, including, for example I mentioned as an example, Iran. Secondly, we've had a long proven relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship with the Soviet Union and now with its successor state, Russia. We also have again and again emphasised at least in public pronouncements that we are attempting to live in peace with China and therefore we have this agreement on peace and tranquility on the border, which we suppose is a certain minimum posture, but if we actually advertise ourselves, like we are advertising ourselves with Malabar exercise, with various statements which seem to suggest that we have broadly, we broadly have a common objective with an imperial power like the United States and we subscribe indirectly, it's difficult for these people to openly say that, but we broadly subscribe to the US security, Asian security architecture, now that actually in, in blunt terms, in very blunt terms, means that you are ready to be a cannon fodder again as you, as we have been for hundreds of, hundred years or more than 150 years, starting with 1840 and earlier in China and otherwise in World War I and World War II, in fact the Indian Armed Forces and what is all this about? Is it with somebody who is very reliable? The reliability factor is just simply not there. In 1962, we got token military communication sets and some other, wherewithal, there really never been any, any, any major technology transfer or equipment transfer, even today, the transfers are of system, military systems, which are nominal, we pay a lot for them, but they are nominal, they don't make a difference to our strategic strength and there is no hope at all as per the Senate and Congressional proceedings that any real transfer will take place unless we completely and openly surrender to ourselves. Imperialist paths don't help build great paths. They build clients and dependencies. That is the basic. Secondly, I don't think, I mean I'm presuming, but I don't think that our establishment circles, our ruling circles, our ruling classes are aware of the closeness of the, and the mutuality of interest and even dependency between China and the United States. It may alter at some point of time, but at this point of time, they are in deep embrace and they've said so. If you see the G2, G2 communicate after President Xi's visit to United States, where they say we are two major paths and we deal with it ourselves and everybody else can deal in other forums of G7 and G20, etc. And even the current noise about the South China Sea, it is just noise. As President Yutake said, they say that they will help us assert what we conceive to be our rights and that these, but when the reality comes, they've shown their flag, they've advertised they're they're transgressing the water of the claim by China in any of these countries, but when it comes to the real issues, they walk away, they're not with the Philippines. Having seen this and Vietnam, Vietnam was just signed an agreement with China a couple of days ago, a couple of weeks ago with President Xi to say that they will have deeper cooperation under the new conditions and every single country of Southeast Asia has separate bilateral negotiations have got a standing position with China, even Singapore, even little Singapore, and they are they have they they understand the reality. How is it that our people in New Delhi, how is it that they are making such noises about South China Sea? I'm not saying our interests are involved, our interests are involved everywhere because it's one world, it's one sea, all the seas are together, but how is it that they seem to suggest that we have got some secret allies or some unknown allies or unadvertised allies in Southeast Asia who are looking for us to provide a lifeboat to them. The Southeast Asian countries name whatever you want Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand is even closer to China and it's not a question of being closer they have arrived at a bilateral working security economic partnership with China. So we can't go around nobody's invited us but we are inviting ourselves with resources that we have not caught. I would appreciate if we had resources to divert into we are already the number mobile world's arms importer to become super important and get all the arms that we want and that we would be sailing or marching to these waters that's not the intention that's not the intention even in public the public policy at least sticks to the point that economic development the development of our country the development of our resources the resources that we have we spend for minimum security physical security of the people of India physical security of our waters physical security of our resources in the exclusive economic zone and beyond and we have relationships in West Asia we have relationships with Africa we have relationships with Southeast Asia of course we have so we will continue with the relationship to demonstrate Malabar exercise which have been held recently as a kind of a prelude to a quads agreement now I'll take a minute of yours about quads because this word is also being banked around by the Carnegie think tank by the some other think tanks in Delhi I'm just forgetting their names so they're very vocal very very vocal in Delhi to say that quads is the answer to Indian security quads is no answer to Indian security who's quads Japan Japan has got the highest level of trade with China its number one trading partner is China and Australia Australia dependency relationship with with China is amazing because they are completely dependent for the export of their raw materials to China to take the United States we have already seen the United States even joined the Belt and Road Initiative there and their their multinational are very eager to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative they're all lining up they're all lining American multinational lining up in the across Asia Central Asia on to Europe what is it on the noise that they made about South China President Trump visited China and now everything is quiet on the western front or shall I say the eastern front so all these issues of TPP all are all issues have to be factored in but somewhere somewhere I don't know how we have gone into the illusion I'm particularly talking about the so-called intellectuals by the so-called strategic experts who come on television who come across on the media to say that there is a there's a really stable reliable military security relationship with the United States either this is a living in cloud cuckoo land all this living in some dream land but the reality is completely different because the United States cannot afford as a declining bankrupt exhausted empire making all kinds of moves of course it is its lifeline is war its lifeline is conflict its lifeline is tension its lifeline is crisis whether all those create the market for its armaments complex which is the main complex which is the main pentagon spending is the main main foundation of u.s economy today whatever little growth they are one one percent two percent is all created by the military industrial complex or the military security industrial complex in which the people of the united states are not involved the people of the united states are like our people we have got friendship with them they have had friendship with everybody in the world but the Zionist bankers it is the Zionist bankers complex which is really or i would like to say that they are influencing policy and tending to influence decisions hopefully not hopefully not hopefully they the writing on the wall will be seen hopefully the reality will be seen into this system of trying to push India to influence India at least to posture to posture that we would you call you can call it alignment you can call it strategic partnership you can call it there are so many buzzwords these days but that they were into posturing that india and u.s will come together together somewhere and be and contain china i recall the statement of the chinese ambassador in washington he says just forget about containing there is nobody who can contain china now because we are self-reliant we have worked hard we have studied hard and we have built up our own country and we intend to defend it with all our strength that period of lilo buy your time and then come up which was 25 years ago 20 years ago is no longer so this dream of containment that we are part of the policy of containment which you know was was first drafted by george kiran with the spectral soviet union is no longer valid so in that context one is really left wondering that are we being taken up the garden path are we being taken for a ride so our defense policy and we as people who have been in defense cannot cannot just forget for even a moment the needs and then necessities and the priorities of the indian people that's the context in which one would like to one would like to believe that we are working and we have worked and we will work