When English Prime Minister Lord Palmerston said in the mid-19th century that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, but only permanent interests”, he could hardly have foreseen that the birds would come home to roost within a century. In an authentic demonstration of the primacy of national self-interest, the US Congress passed a law known as the McMahon Act of 1946, which expressly forbade the transfer of any atomic weapon know-how to wartime allies, and partners in the Manhattan A-bomb project, the British.

I will revisit the McMahon Act presently, but the other fact I wish to draw attention to is that nations rarely if ever do anything for altruistic motives. It is against these touchstones of international relations that we need to gauge the contretemps we are witnessing about the ongoing multilateral naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal. I will try to provide answers to five FAQs regarding this issue which has been given such a controversial slant by some political parties. Are we really doing anything unique and unprecedented by having a multilateral exercise? From 1949 onwards, the Indian Navy (IN) participated regularly in the annual Britain-led Commonwealth naval exercises known as Joint Exercises Trincomalee. The participants included Australia and Pakistan, and these exercises were abandoned only in 1965 when Indo-Pak relations plummeted.

Why did we resume exercising with other navies? Four decades of almost complete insularity had taken its toll on the tactical and doctrinal skills of the IN. These cannot be had for love or money, and can only be acquired painstakingly by pitting yourself against mock adversaries. So when the opportunity presented itself to first exercise with the US Navy in 1994, it was eagerly grabbed. Readers may please note that the 123 Agreement was unheard of then.

... contd.