Nations developing competitive advantages

I have been closely following the Israel-Palastine imbroglio. I am not competent to comment on it for I do not have the full knowledge of the historical, current scenario.

But what struck me as significant is the groundwork laid by Israel prior to attacking Gaza. They have been planning this for two years, has done some intense lobbying with friendly governments and even non friendly governments over the past year. The muted reaction to their incursion is a victory for their diplomacy. How did they pull it off?

Someof it has to do with historical facts. But for a nation, that has more enemies than friends in the world, to pull this off means we can learn from them. They had decided long time back that they have to have US as their supporters. Towards this they worked solidly with the rich jewish lobby in Washington over the last 6 decades (ironically Israel became a reality around the same time India got independence). This lobby ensures continued support for Israel irrespective of who comes to power. Secondly, they developed a core competence in manufacturing world class weapons. They are, if I remember correctly, the third largest suppliers of weapons in the world. This puts many other countries in world at their mercy, for antagonizing Israel means these countries military becoming weak. Finally, they were never apologetic about what they do. Their objective is clear. Israels interest comes first, second and last. Towards this they will do anything. Believe me when I say that I do not approve of what they have done to the Palestinians, but you need to give credit to the Israelis. Despite all the hullaboo by muslims world over, did you notice one thing? The major Arab nations - Saudi, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan etc has been very very quiet at the Government level.

Take Pakistan. They also go independence the same time as India. Their only core competence is that the country has a location that is a dream geo politically. Borders with China, India and Afghanistan makes Pakistan a vital ally. They threw in their lot with Americans during cold war, and despite being the nerve centre of jihadis, they are so important to USA that they will pump in billions of dollars to support them. And Pakistan leverages this and the fact that they are a nuclear power to the hilt. Also, they have developed a terrific competency in manipulating the western media. Indians need to take some lessons from Pakistan on how to use the media. How many times have they been the attackers and how many times have they managed to end up making the world believe that they are the victims. Even the idiot of a Prime Minister we have (who now bleats that the terrorists had Pak support), went so far to say that Pakistan and India BOTH are victims of terror. Need I say more.

That leaves us. We, as a nation, lives in the past. Yes, we do have a glorious past. But during the past 6 decades, we never created any core competency or levers that can be used when the time comes. Nehru went in for non-alignment, though subtly supporting Russia. Since we did not align fully with Russia, this didnt give us much advantage. And typical of anyone who places two legs in two boats, we sunk when one of the boats sprung a leak. We could have become an economic giant in 1980's. But skewed policies prevented us from becoming one. We opened up the economy 20 years too late, missing a golden chance to become an Asian super power. Even the current economic status is more wishful thinking. Though we are emerging as a strong economy, we do not know how to use that to our national good. We are considered to be an unworthy ally in international arena. We are humiliated time and again in international forums (Sashi Tharoor fiasco in UN is still fresh in mind). We have lofty ideals, but very little capability to follow up with action. China flexes its economic muscles to check US and the Western countries. Ditto Japan. See how Russia uses its oil to make a roaring comeback after the disintegration of the USSR. It took them all of 10 years to become an important player once again. But we dither. We dont take the lead. The global financial crisis, where we were not affected that much really, was a great opportunity for us to take the lead. We could have engineered a coup in the various financial institutions. But we let it slip. We could have used our IT prowess to control the whole cyberspace (at least a major chunk). But we never thought that way. We have one of the largest army in the world and we are a nuclear power. But we let even tiny Nepal, Burma and Bangladesh to cock a snook at us. We have lost our respect in international arena, despite the bravado of our successive rulers. We are still suffering from the hangover of the colonial era. We are still subservient to the white skinned. See how Manmohan Singh pampers and dances to American tunes. More than anything else, we dont have the steel in us to stand up and be counted. When the need of the hour is to be a bully (only that language works in the modern world), we are the worst of the cowards.

A few days back Pranab Mukherjee talked about India not hesitating to use all options against Pakistan. This reminded me of a story,

Once a namboodiri was very hungry in an alien place. He went to another namboothiris house and asked for food (those days it was a practice to give food). But unfortunately, the house belonged to a stingy namboodiri, who refused to give him food. His pleadings fell on deaf years. By then a small crowd had gathered. Our namboodiri finally raised his voice and said

"So you wont give me food? then i have no choice but to use the last resort. But believe me, it has far reaching consequences".

Now everyone was intrigued. Even the stingy namboodiri was shaken up. He was advised by the crowd to offer food, lest the namboodiri do something that will be harmful to all. The namboodiri was given food.

After he had eaten, one guy asked him with respect

"Namboodiri, may I know the last resort that you threatened with?".

The namboodiri smiled and replied,

"Oh! I would have just walked off to the next village and tried my luck there. What else could I have done?. That was my last resort"


Need I say more about what India would have done or will do?