Pakistan: The Problem and the Prospect

In 1947, Pakistan was created expediently by British statecraft to sub serve strategic aims.

Shrinivasrao S. Sohoni

Perhaps not adequately-known, British strategic thinkers of the 1930s and ‘40s, appreciative of the vital geopolitical significance to empire defence of the northwest region of the Indian subcontinent, were convinced and concerned that an undivided India granted Independence under Gandhi-Nehruvian leadership, would not enlist with the Anglo-American alliance against International Communism - represented at that time by the Soviet Union and Red China. In 1947, this geopolitical assessment underpinned British statecraft leading to the bloody vivisection of India, its amputated part – Pakistan - created expediently to sub serve strategic aims. From the viewpoint of regional geo-political significance, the territory of Pakistan, even in the 21st century, has indubitably immense strategic value, bordering as it does the Gulf region, Iran, and Afghanistan, and being the gatekeeper on the Arabian Sea coastline to routes to and fro natural-resource-rich Central Asian countries, and to China’s dragon-fired economy. Implementing the scheme for the creation of Pakistan, the US and UK expeditiously maneuvered Pakistan’s induction as a member of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Locations in Pakistan’s north-west were then developed by the US as air force bases bringing oil and industrial sites in the erstwhile Soviet Union within range of military airpower and helping dominate air space over the Gulf region. Pakistan was also used by the West to interface and exert leverage with other Islamic countries. President Nixon, exploiting the Sino-Soviet rift, used Pakistan’s mediation to connect with Mao’s China. Presidents Carter and Reagan relied on Pakistan to build and guide the Mujahedeen resistance against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Today the US-led NATO uses Pakistan to reach supplies to forces in Afghanistan, expects Pakistan’s cooperation in the war against Al Qaeda and Taliban as well as negotiations with Taliban, and as an alternative channel of contact with China. In lieu of its being used as a subordinate client state, colossal military and financial aid was flooded into Pakistan almost on demand. Although the US and UK stood as champions of democracy worldwide, upsetting of democracy in Pakistan by military coups and prolonged spells of military dictatorships in Pakistan were permitted, even found simpler to do business with. During the 1948, 1965 and 1971 armed conflicts initiated by Pakistan against India, the West was supportive of Pakistan. Pakistan’s genocidal havoc in its erstwhile eastern wing, now Bangladesh, appeared overlooked. President Nixon even diverted the Seventh Fleet of the US Navy towards the Bay of Bengal in an attempt to intimidate India. Post-1971, Pakistan pursued, unthwarted, its clandestine nuclear weapons and missiles program with Chinese and DPRK collaboration. Pakistan’s equally deadly nuclear proliferation activity, though also meticulously monitored by the West, was not objected to. Pakistan was not penalized for its known sponsorship of heinous acts of terrorism in J&K, Punjab and different cities of India. Pakistan’s sponsorship of narcotics trade and counterfeit currency operation was similarly ignored. To this day, immense military and non-military aid meanwhile continues to flow from the US and its allies to Pakistan, and despite definitive evidence of Pakistan being the base for launching of terrorist strikes in Afghanistan and in India, the West exerts pressure to restrain India from reacting in any way other than through diplomatic channels. It is to be noted that Pakistan’s geopolitical value draws involvement, among others, of two other key powers in pursuit of their respective national strategic aims: Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China. This makes for a complex, and complicating, coincident focus of policies in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region of three power blocs intrinsically antagonistic to each other (US-NATO, Saudi Arabia-Arab states, and China-DPRK). In pursuit of their corresponding national geo-strategic objectives, Pakistan is relied upon and favored by all three blocs, and Pakistan, through six decades of skilful diplomacy, has traded on its geo-political value with all three and succeeded in securing immense regional power and influence. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, the main promoter of radical fundamentalist Islam, or Wahhabism, supports Pakistan as its vital partner in spreading Wahhabism in Pakistan and Afghanistan – targeting also Muslim populations of the Central Asian republics, and aiming to outflank and counter the influence of Shia Iran. Saudi money finances thousands of madrassas in Pakistan, generating tens of thousands of fanatic Islamic militants each year, hell-bent on waging global Jehad for violent Islamic world conquest. Apart from billions of dollars of aid and assistance, Saudi Arabia stands as Pakistan’s mentor and patron on all issues of international concern to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia relies on Pakistan to provide the military bodyguard for its King, contingents of Pakistani troops to strengthen and balance the Saudi national army, and Pakistani trainer-instructors for its air force and army. Saudi Arabia is also suspected of looking to Pakistan for acquiring a nuclear weapon system. Meanwhile, resurgent 21st century China, intent on maximizing its ascendance in world economy, sees Pakistan as the intermediate space through which roads and railway lines via the Karakoram Region must be extended to connect with Gwadar and Karachi – and access the sea lanes of the Gulf region. In return China equips Pakistan with nuclear weapons know-how and weapon systems, undertakes strategic capital projects in Pakistan, collaborates in anti-India activity, and provides Pakistan political support in international forums apart from bountiful financial aid. China estimates that its planned exploitation of Afghanistan’s mineral resources will be facilitated if Pakistan secures domination of Afghanistan through the Taliban. Also, China calculates that mindful of its support to Pakistan, including support against India, Pakistan may restrain Islamic radicalism seeping into the Muslim-majority Chinese Uighur region. Thus, with the US, Saudi Arabia and China, in pursuit of their separate agendas, providing humungous support, (not to speak of major support from their respective allies) Pakistan enjoys gigantic advantages. Pakistan has consequently emerged as a kinetic power in South Asia, posing a dire, ever-present, and imminent threat to India, and virtually dictating the course of security-related events in the region including India. Pakistan since its inception has single-mindedly prosecuted plans against India. Over six decades, Pakistan’s plans have diversified and intensified, including sponsorship of terrorist attacks, counterfeit currency circulation, spread of Wahhabism, support to organized crime, narcotics trade, support to separatist and subversive elements – whether ULFA, Maoists, Naxalites, Khalistanis, radical jehadis, propaganda, and espionage. Acquisition of latest weapons and weapon systems for use against India remains an obsession of Pakistan military leadership. Animosity against India determines every aspect of State policy in Pakistan, including the content of school history books influencing attitudes of emerging generations. Terrorism remains a cardinal prong of Pakistan policy against India. Alarmingly, Pakistan’s State Education Policy 2010-20 of compulsory Islamization of all types of education and training using clerics certified through the madrassa system, will rapidly radicalize Pakistan with Deobandi doctrine and prejudice, and fan sectarian hatred within Pakistan. There is no doubt that there exists in Pakistan opinion favouring democracy, ideals of liberal humanism and peace, including that there should be friendship and cooperation with India and steps towards building bilateral and regional cooperation in trade, tourism, cultural exchange, and people to people relations. There is acute awareness also of the dangers of radical Wahhabism particularly in its nexus with terrorism. But this body of opinion is effectively marginalized if not also suppressed by the military elite which actually rules Pakistan, and dominates State policy in military, nuclear weapons and foreign policy matters, thriving on arms contracts, and projecting India as an enemy to justify massive arms purchases and build the primacy of the Army’s role in Pakistan. Similarly, this ruling military elite views Afghanistan as an area to be subjugated and kept dependant on Pakistan. To Pakistan, Afghanistan is a country to be exploited as if conquered province, a pathway to accessing Central Asia’s resources and potential, and the area in which Pakistan’s being a key factor induces US-UK, Chinese and Saudi courting of Pakistan. Taliban being Pakistan’s creation and its strategic asset – are to be positioned in the governance of Afghanistan to provide local facilitation of Pakistan’s political, economic and military interests. In Afghanistan, Pakistan’s present policy will continue – on the one hand of feigning to support the US-led NATO campaign against Taliban, while on the other hand clandestinely providing sanctuaries, sustenance and guidance to Taliban. What does all this point to? The grim and alarming truth is Pakistan is fast emerging as the vestibule of radical Wahhabi Islam, violence and destabilization: harbouring and posing a threat to a vast swathe of territory including: Central Asia, the Karakoram region, and the entire subcontinent of South Asia. Pakistan will strive for three outcomes in Afghanistan: US and other coalition forces to withdraw from active combat configurations; US to reach a political settlement with Taliban; and the Taliban’s consequent re-entry into Afghanistan governance structures. Essentially, Pakistan’s interim goal is to reproduce the pre-2001 situation in Afghanistan – of a regime in Afghanistan dependant on and subservient to Pakistan, a protagonist of radical Wahhabi Islam, a local partner in global Jehad for violent global conquest. Pakistan then would be in a position to dominate Central Asia, outflank Iran, and almost dictate the terms of engagement with China – for China’s aspirations for road and rail access to the Gulf and Chinese anxiety to exploit the colossal mineral wealth of Afghanistan, Baluchistan, hydrocarbon resources of West Asia, and natural resources further south-west in Africa. There is potential however for a dilution of support to Pakistan, as at present constituted, from US-UK, Saudi Arabia and China – on account of competition and mutually conflicting interests of the three blocs, notwithstanding certain complementarities of interest among them. The stage is already set for a tense conflict of interests between the mentors of Pakistan, with Pakistan being the main theatre of action. Increasingly, the US and China vie with each other for pre-eminence in status and future roles in the global economic scenario and in the real politic of international power play. The US views with great suspicion Saudi Arabia’s nexus with Wahhabism and its ambitions in hydrocarbon/mineral-rich Muslim nations of Central Asia. China too regards Saudi Arabia as a propagator of Wahhabism which threatens China’s strategic south-western region. Saudi Arabia views with derision the American way of life as anathema to Islam and the Sunna; and equally regards the atheist Chinese State and their vaunted Confucianism to be infidel and contemptible. All three blocs, in terms of their respective political or religious predilections and military and economic aims, intensely resent each other’s interests in and influence with Pakistan, and all three compete with each other for domination of Afghanistan on grounds corresponding to their respective national agendas. Emerging American and British foreign policy may operate to undermine Chinese exploitation of Afghanistan’s mineral resources and Chinese projects for extension of communication links through Pakistan to the Gulf. US-UK foreign policy may also work to restrict spread of Saudi and Pakistani sponsored Wahhabi Jehadi Islam in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. American foreign policy will seek to exploit Central Asia’s vast mineral and hydrocarbon resources while preventing China or Saudi Arabia from accessing these. Pakistani foreign policy and diplomacy thus far has deftly navigated amidst these mutually triangulated contradictions in the interests of its key mentors. It is to be seen however how the complexities will play out in a conflict between Jehadi Wahhabism and Terrorism, Anglo-American strategic ambition supported by its awesome techno-military power, and 21st century Chinese composite resurgence. There are chances are that Pakistan, its volatile internal politics ever in turmoil, and Baluchistan, Sind, Punjab and the Frontier region never having been emotionally integrated as a nation, will in course of time crack along its domestic fault lines -- under the pressures of external as well as internal forces. Just as the territory of present day Pakistan was seen to be the real estate in pre-Partition India strategically most to be coveted, the territory of Baluchistan will increasingly be seen to be the real estate in Pakistan possessing almost all of Pakistan’s situational strategic value. The separation of Baluchistan from Pakistan, and Baluchistan’s being fostered for the advantages it yields, will be the next leitmotif of US-UK policy – with the triple aims of blocking China as well as Saudi Arabia and to promote US-UK strategic interests. Much tension and conflict may precede such development. But in the vestibule of violence that Pakistan is, this will appear a natural progression. There is a peaceful alternative to this -- one which is feasible only if enlightened self-interest prevails -- based on opening of trade and transit routes connecting the economies of Europe, the CIS States, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; and Central Asia and China with Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; and all these with the Gulf. But key to this happy prospect -- one which can usher an age of prosperity for the entire world -- is also Pakistan. Pakistan will have to relent and resile from its present policies, and turn a new leaf. Either that, or be balkanized. (The author is a retired IAS officer, currently working as Senior Advisor to the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Kabul)