'India Has A Hard Face But A Flabby Interior'

Ramananda Sengupta January 17, 2000 00:00 IST 'India Has A Hard Face But A Flabby Interior' -0001-11-30T00:00:00+05:53

Amidst widespread perceptions that Washington was less than helpful during and after the hijack crisis, and in the backdrop of its rejection of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's request to declare Pakistan a terrorist state, Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington; Teresita Schaffer, Director for South Asia, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Stephen Cohen, Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution; and Sumit Ganguly, Visiting Fellow, Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, predict the fallout in an interview to Ramananda Sengupta. Excerpts:

How justified is India’s perception that the US support during and after the hijacking crisis was lukewarm?

Michael Krepon: The US knows about hijacking, as we have taken many hits. So we are sensitive to the problem and the issue of how to resolve these terrible occurrences. This is not like Kargil, where you go public and indicate to the world how you stand. You don’t resolve hijackings with shouts and...