The shift in US policy
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan
August 4,Dawn


THERE has already been considerable comment in these columns on the recently announced Indo-US defence pact and the new US policy on nuclear collaboration with India. The main reason for revisiting these developments is to present a slightly different perspective.

There is an air of deja vu about the Pakistani concern that the sub-continental balance of power has once again been threatened by India’s greatly enhanced access to sophisticated military hardware and nuclear technology from the United States. The alarm bells are ringing partly because there was only a blurred focus on the process that led India and the United States to the present level of strategic cooperation. India was making steady progress in freeing its relations with Washington as, indeed, with other western states, from what George Perkovich, the author of ‘India’s Nuclear Bomb’, once described as that ‘infamous hyphen’ that had connected India and Pakistan in the calculations of outside powers since 1947. Indian diplomacy had increasingly challenged this hyphenated approach to South Asia.

The nuclear tests of 1998 gave a new lease of life to the traditional equation as strategic parity seemed to outweigh growing disparities in virtually all other fields. Perkovich had followed Kenneth Waltz’s criteria to determine if India was a major power and argued that a state’s power can be understood as a combination of its capacity to influence others to behave as it wants them to and, conversely, to resist the unwelcome influence of others. He was not convinced that India had already attained the status of a major power. India’s failure to browbeat Pakistan in the ten-month long military standoff reinforced this perception. India rightly concluded that its ongoing dialogue with the United States had to be intensified to upgrade its conventional as well as strategic capability.

Ever since the nuclear tests, the United States has maintained a continuous though clearly differentiated engagement with New Delhi and Islamabad. Experts like George Perkovich had assumed that India would not be able to radically alter the US stand on the nuclear issue because of the stringent US non-proliferation legislation. They are not exactly thrilled by the latest decision of President Bush.

But Washington Post’s Jim Hoagland has read the dynamics of the US policy in the era of neo-conservative dominance more accurately. Hailing the new “visionary bilateral agreement” on nuclear cooperation with India as “the first important accomplishment of George W. Bush presidency,” he considers the accord as a demonstration of a security strategy that “holds that the nature of regimes, rather than the nature of weapons they possess, will determine their relations with Washington.” Pakistan, he thinks, occupies a difficult and highly dangerous, middle ground for US interests. India now follows Israel in benefiting from this arbitrary interpretation of NPT and the US law.

There have been two dominant trends in the US policy towards South Asia since the Clinton era. In Pakistan’s case, the initial emphasis was on internal political and economic reforms, relations with the Taliban and pressure to get it to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as well as accept a fissile material cut-off for future. Driven by the need to punish Afghanistan for the great atrocity of 9/11, President Bush enlisted Pakistan as the most committed ally in the war against terror.

The revised policy recognized the need to enhance Pakistan’s military capability — largely in the context of the anti-terrorist campaign. It also attached high priority to cultural and educational modernization to ensure that Pakistan does not become another Afghanistan. This was an intensive but essentially limited engagement with little relevance to the realignment of global power structure.

The decision to help transform India into a major global power had an altogether different context. The ideologues of the Bush era have tirelessly argued that the immense disparity in the military power of the United States and all other ‘major powers’ entitles it to pursue policies of unipolarity and unilateralism, be it the doctrine of pre-emptive intervention, Kyoto Protocols or the International Criminal Court.

It is, however, easy to talk about hegemonic doctrines but much more difficult to limit the dispersal of power, especially of the economic kind. The rise of other states and, more ominously, the increasing disruptive capability of non-state actors make for an unstable hegemony, an inconclusive imperium. Even the United States cannot dispense with the Bismarckian paradigm of the hub and spokes; it needs to ensure that emerging powers do not upset it. India’s self-image as a state that has outgrown the limitations of an Asian sub-region makes it a principal candidate for an alliance with a superpower asserting itself as the most powerful empire of human history.

Condoleeza Rice speaks of the United States’ relations with three major Asian powers—- Japan, South Korea and India as providing the “strategic context” in which Chinese ambitions could be restrained. This is an unfair view of China as it ensures its global eminence not by projecting military power but mostly by its spectacular economic success and its scrupulous adherence to the UN Charter. China’s unflagging commitment to export-led economic development gives it a great stake in international peace and stability.

Nevertheless, the new US policy towards India continues to be justified as an effort to build India as a countervailing power and a potential military ally of the United States in the inevitable confrontation with China. Obviously, the nuclear component of the new India policy would have a smoother passage through the Congress if China was painted as a potential foe.

The crystal ball that one can gaze into at this point of time shows intense competition and rivalry but no Sino-US or Sino-India military confrontation. Taiwan, perhaps the most contentious issue, will become a flashpoint only in the unlikely event of Washington encouraging it to declare independence. The recent Chinese formulation of ‘one country two shores’ strengthens the hands of Taiwanese opposed to severing links with the mainland. Furthermore, the economic interdependence between the US and China has now reached a level where conflict has become almost unaffordable.

Similarly, the Sino-Indian territorial dispute may take time for resolution but carries little risk of a resort to the use of force. Meanwhile, burgeoning trade, expected to increase from the present $12 billion to $ 100 billion, will always militate against India joining any military adventure against China. There is no gamble here on the part of the United States — only well calculated moves to ensure that India becomes an essential pillar of the American strategic architecture for Asia and not a member of a coalition of major powers prejudicial to American interests. The chances are that the US will protect its position by modulating its harsh unilateralism and settling for an acceptable global equilibrium propped up by India, China and other major powers. Pakistan’s real challenge is to find a place in this new order.

If it is a correct reading of unfolding events, it is not very difficult to work out Pakistan’s options. It is probably not open to Pakistan to seek a fundamental review of Washington’s strategic decision to assist India at the expense of India-Pakistan balance of power. Similarly, it is extremely unlikely that the US will extend comparable nuclear-related equipment or technology to Pakistan. It is time to recognize that Washington uses NPT and other international instruments in the nuclear arena selectively. But there is, at this point of time, no need to distrust American assurances that Pakistan’s conventional military needs will be considered sympathetically.

The present balance of power is rather fragile. The army is probably capable of playing a defensive role. When it comes to airpower, India has SU-30 Ks, Mirage 2000s, MiG-23s and MiG-27s strike aircraft and MiG-29 air defence fighters. Pakistan’s Mirage IIIs, Vs and Q-5s and around 30 aging F-16 aircraft cannot provide a balance without the induction of new F-16s and that too if they arrive with the required avionics. Pakistan Navy has not known the baptism of fire that the army and air force have gone through but it has used the limited funds available to it intelligently to maintain reasonable defensive capability with submarines and light guided missile ships.

Pakistan cannot match India’s defence expenditure, especially with open-ended Indian acquisitions from the United States, without accentuating existing distortions in Pakistan’s economy. But a carefully calculated ratio of forces will have to be ensured till India-Pakistan detente takes firmer roots.

Regrettably, there is still a crucial role for strategic deterrence. Pakistan has to free itself of any external veto on research and development on nuclear weapons and delivery system as India is not likely to accept a strategic restraint regime that compromises its major power status. China has countered the possible ABM capability in Taiwan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region by R&D dedicated to the refinement of its nuclear forces without opting for Soviet style warhead parity. Meanwhile, we have to preserve our faith in the process aiming at neutralizing the historical animosity between the two nuclear-capable neighbours. The difficulties encountered en route should be an argument for re-doubled efforts and not for abandoning the journey.

Notwithstanding its close and somewhat domestically controversial ties with Washington, Islamabad has expended greater energy in diversifying its external relations than in a long time. Admittedly, not all the initiatives have borne fruit as yet. Russia, for one, has not responded adequately to Pakistani overtures. With Iran, where distrust of Pakistani establishment runs deep, there is still a long way to go. Pakistan has to demonstrate, whenever the occasion demands, that it would never be a part of the siege Iran is threatened with. Domestic compulsions of the Kabul authorities and visceral anti-Pakistan feelings of some elements of the erstwhile Northern Alliance will continue to create difficulties but Pakistan has to stay the course in pursuing cooperation with Kabul, and through Afghanistan further afield with Central Asian states.

The kingpin of a long-term policy designed to assure Pakistan’s due place in the eventual global equilibrium — a place defined by its intrinsic strategic importance —- continues to be China. It will be a mistake to take this vital relationship for granted. It too requires proper nurturing. History has shown that an exaggerated Washington-centric policy did not serve Pakistan well. This is the right time to persuade the United States that the high importance that Pakistan rightly attaches to relations with it does not obviate the need for developing ties with other countries some of which may not find favour with it at a particular moment of time.