The Pakistan Problem:
Four Countries' Relations Will Decide Region's Future

The commando-style terror attack in Mumbai, India, that claimed nearly 200 lives in late November highlights the ongoing danger Islamic extremists pose to even the most developed democracy in South Asia. The attack -- and the diplomatic maneuvering in its wake -- also casts light on the increasingly important network of relationships between India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. These four countries -- three of them nuclear states -- will likely decide the future of South Asia in an era of terrorism, coalition warfare and national rapprochement.

The U.S.-led "war on terror," which has seen scores of nations deploy troops and non-military resources to Afghanistan and other battlegrounds, has been a catalyst for remarkable change in old rivalries in the region. Pakistan's elected leadership has made efforts to improve cooperation with the developed world in combating extremism in its lawless border region with Afghanistan. Islamabad's coming-out has even involved a slow, and separate, process of reconciliation with New Delhi, with which it has fought four wars since Pakistan's independence from India in 1947.

Prior to the Mumbai attacks, India and Pakistan were on course to sign a broad agreement for economic cooperation that would have represented a big step forward in the two countries' relations. Early indications that the Mumbai terrorists hailed from, or received support from, Pakistan, have threatened to stall the trade measure. Still, the lines of communication between New Delhi and Islamabad have remained open throughout the present crisis -- and that alone is encouraging. "They have talked on the telephone," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she prepared to travel to the region in the wake of the attacks. "This is a different relationship than it was a number of years ago."

The major gripe between the two nations was, and is, the disputed region of Kashmir.
Tension over Kashmir has motivated many of the terror attacks that have struck India in recent years. It's unclear, as yet, what drove the Mumbai attackers, but there are plenty of issues for Islamic extremists to pick from. Not least among them: India's involvement in Afghanistan.

A Venue for Cooperation

India's growing economic and military ties to America have drawn the world's second-most-populous country into the U.S.-dominated Afghanistan war, in an important albeit mostly non-military reconstruction role. Pledged Indian investment in Afghanistan now totals some $1.2 billion, with emphases on education and agriculture, making India Afghanistan's biggest financial backer.

One State Department source, speaking to World Politics Review on background, even proposed that the Afghanistan war has been a windfall for U.S.-India relations by giving the two countries a venue for strategic cooperation. "I'd suggest that, when you think long-term about U.S. involvement in South Asia, the most positive thing we have going on now is a nurturing relationship between the U.S. and India," the source said. "That would not have come about had we not gotten involved in Afghanistan."

Afghanistan is "the canvas on which we've painted our broader vision of what the U.S. and India had in mind in terms of strategic vision," the source said.

But India's war participation has complicated its relationship with both Kabul and Islamabad. At the same time that it welcomes Indian investment in Afghanistan, Kabul must downplay New Delhi's activities in the landlocked country in order to protect both its own evolving relationship with Islamabad, and the tenuous progress India and Pakistan have made in settling decades-old grievances between them.

"I'd say the Afghans are choosing not to talk about Indian relations as a way of accommodating the Pakistanis," the State Department source said. "I'd say the Afghans feel very good about ongoing relations with Indians, but don't want to create pressure on Pakistan."

The regional strategic mix was a volatile one even before the Mumbai attacks. In July, militants bombed the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 41 people, including two Indian diplomats. Three days of terror and bloodshed in Mumbai have further raised the urgency, and the stakes, in the region's strategic relations. "There is no time to waste," The Times of India wrote in an editorial on Nov. 28, the last day of attacks. "To tackle terror . . . India should seek international help now to upgrade its own security apparatus, but also to stabilize the entire region stretching from Afghanistan to Bangladesh."

That will mean greater openness regarding India's role in Afghanistan -- a risky prospect considering Pakistan's historically suspicious view of Indian moves in the region. Risk notwithstanding, public channels already are opening between Kabul and New Delhi. While Mumbai still smoldered, Afghan president Hamid Karzai phoned Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to offer his condolences and call for a new "regional approach" to defeating terrorism.

Two Nations' Backyards

To be sure, both India and Pakistan had clear interests in Afghanistan long before the country became a haven for Islamic terrorists in the 1990s under the hardline Taliban regime. Both Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, India view rugged, under-developed Afghanistan as their "backyard," and an important strategic asset or liability in the event of another Indo-Pakistani war (a possibility that -- despite current tensions -- is increasingly unlikely).

For India, Afghanistan represents a "bridge to Central Asia" and an "important
albeit passive geopolitical constraint on Pakistan," according to an April report from Center for Strategic and International Studies. India "has wanted to protect and expand its stake in Afghanistan in order to prevent the consolidation of an anti-India bloc extending westward from Pakistan. It had been blindsided by the Soviet decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979 and was determined to remain closely involved and avoid another unpleasant surprise."