Sure would be nice to deconflict India and Pakistan

OP-ED: An insurgency swells, but Pakistan focuses on India, By H.D.S. Greenway, Boston Globe, October 20, 2009

Great piece that explores a criticism I've often levied at both the Pakistani and Indian militaries: the incorrect focus on one another as the preferred big-war conflict.

Best section:

After three Indo-Pakistani wars since the British partitioned the sub-continent in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, old fears of India run deep in the Pakistani psyche. So is distrust of America, which uses Pakistan and then discards it "like a used condom,'' as bitter Pakistanis are wont to say. Pakistanis particularly remember how the United States simply walked away when the Russians were defeated in Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan with the chaos on its border.

Too many Pakistanis view the fight against Islamic militants and the battle for Afghanistan as America's struggle - not really theirs. Elements in the Pakistani military and intelligence service have long tolerated the Taliban as an ace up the sleeve, and as a counter to Indian influence in Afghanistan.

But haven't the provocations, the Mumbai hotel bombings, the attack on the Indian parliament, and the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, come from the Pakistani side, and hasn't India shown restraint? Yet, from Pakistan's vantage point, every Indian consulate opened in Afghanistan is an encirclement, and every move has a hidden anti-Pakistani agenda.

Both sides are paranoid on the subject (which, I guess, makes both sides truly un-paranoid), but the anti-Americanism (not unwarranted) on the Pakistani side makes the Indians the more reasonable and reliable partner. Plus India is the key globalization pillar in South Asia, primarily in the form of its rising middle class (500m unbranded teenagers!).

So--again--I say, make sure we keep India happier, even as we endeavor to break both militaries off their Leviathan-wannabe trajectories. Both nations have major-league SysAdmin portfolios--especially India as its economic networks expand globally.

(Via WPR Media Roundup)

Comments

[stuart abrams]

I liked the end of the piece - pointing out how much of all of this chaos goes back to the end of European colonialism (the real relevance of Vietnam to today's conflicts). It also dovetails with something I've been thinking about: the similarities between Pakistan and Israel, the bookends of the central Asian corridor from the Mediterranean to the Indus Valley. Both are states carved out of former British territories at roughly the same time to serve as religious homelands. Both were viewed as illegitimate by their more populous neighbors. Both now have nukes but nevertheless remain obsessed with fears that they face "existential" threats. Getting beyond those fears is the key to peace for both states.

[don]

the chickens have finally and fatefully come home to roost in pakistan