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Pak-US relations: The Long War
Brig (R) Samson Sharaf
A few days back, I had the occasion to meet Professor Walter Russell Mead, a US scholar and opinion maker, who was on a fact-finding mission to Pakistan. I met him after he had already interacted with some think tanks and important people from Pakistan; some critical and others apologists.
Knowing that he is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and also linked to the evangelical church, I was particularly keen to find out how the religious right affected the US policymaking. If he is to be believed, it actually does; but I doubt his contention in view of the Kennan Telegram and Tonkin reports. In my and many respected opinions, it is the Military-Industrial Complex and its think tanks that beef up a case.
As it turned out, his chief intellectual interests involves the rise and development of a liberal, capitalist world order based on the economic, societal, and military power of the United States and its closest allies prominently the UK. He also theorises to seek a stable Southern Asia (South, East and Central) with India playing the major role from East Africa to Malacca, albeit containing the rise of China. During discussions, it became amply clear that the US occupation of Afghanistan is a mere stepping stone for greater geopolitical designs in what may turn out, in his own words, to be a long war.
He was of the view that Pakistans security perspective framed around a hostile and overbearing India was faulty and in conflict with the US perspective of a stable and prosperous Asia led by India. He suggested that Pakistan ought to forget all issues with India and instead focus on a supportive role in the region with it (India) in the lead and become a prosperous country, rather then be doomed economically, as it presently is.
But this view is not new to Pakistanis. I recall having met Michael Krepon of the Henry Stimson Centre in 1995 and 2001 advocating risk reduction and confidence building measures with India. I asked him that if Pakistan was to agree to all the US suggestions, would Washington guarantee the Kashmiri people their freedom. He was quiet for some time and then said No. The same can also be said of ex-President Clintons visit to Pakistan to deliver a sermon to the nation besieged by military dictatorships, inept politicians and Harvard trained bureaucracy. He refused to intervene on behalf of the Kashmiri people.
Ashley J. Tellis once wrote that India and Pakistan exist on the extremes of divides and went on to qualify his thesis with historic predispositions and facts. Now a naturalised American and an expert advisor on the region, he qualifies India as a peace-loving and caring country to lead Asia and chooses to forget his thesis that propelled him to fame. In one capacity or the other, he remains a bigwig of the region and moulds opinions. So when I read and hear one American opinion and policy maker after another being particularly dismissive of Pakistan and its abilities, I wonder what keeps them thinking in such a manner.
Are their pre-emptive policies really a solution or an isolationist syndrome built around oceanic insulation and immense military power?
One, Pakistan has not been able to produce the likes of Tellis and Khalilzad, who have managed to penetrate the core of policymakers and shaping opinions. Our scholars and expats of ability invariably choose to adapt to the perspectives of their adopted land and become apologists. They hardly frame opinions. Pakistans lobbyists, though highly paid are ineffective.
Secondly, Pak-US relations have surged intermittently during times of the so-called strategic alliances. If Ayub Khans letter to a US Admiral, in 1955, that spam the cyberspace nowadays is to be taken as a measure, not much has changes since. Each time, Pakistan has acted as a US dependency and then exercised its flexible conscience on selective basis. As a reward, the US has been compliant in looking the other way, while Pakistan shored its security against India. But this time it is different. While Pakistan continues to do the donkeys work, it gets no respite and leverage.
As I gathered from the meeting and many opinionated research papers from USA, the issue of Afghanistan is fast becoming peripheral. The US will not withdraw from Afghanistan, nor will the pressure on Pakistan from across the Durand Line and world over abate. This confirms earlier circumspection about the US objectives in Afghanistan not to arrest OBL and dismantle Al-Qaeda, but to occupy the pivot of three Asias for geo-strategic gains and world domination. Though the apparent logic and hindrance in this policy may be Pakistans fixation with India, it actually boils down to the growing strategic partnership between Pakistan and China. This is what makes the present crises A Long War.
As a face saving threat, it appears that this reasoning spares USA the indignity of another Vietnam type retreat. It shifts the perspective to a global game of the US-led economic domination that will make another ideology collapse. You see, it was ultimately the economics that won the war against a communist ideology. Pakistans competition with India is asymmetrical and Pakistan will soon collapse economically, is what Dr Mead was quick to assert. Built on Paul Kennedys thesis of The Rise and Fall of Great Empires, the US has time on its side for things to happen. For Pakistan, it is the final phase of the battle for its integrity in face of a dysfunctional economy that gives rise to internal conflicts.
In my meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday last, I mostly remained a silent listener. The only point I made was that if Pakistan was indeed so vulnerable, why the government was allowing Pakistans economy to collapse so easily? He gave no answer; but this is a subject I amply dilated in a series of five articles I wrote in TheNation on economic manipulation.
My parting words to Dr Mead were that Pakistan or no Pakistan, in the final analysis, it is the people of the region who will win. I asked him to read the Forgotten Social Dimension of Strategy by Michel Howard and take a fresh look at his thesis of Asian domination.
As for Pakistan, we need to make a blessing out of the current flooding tragedy and not waste a penny of the aid that comes Pakistans way to hedge our flagging rupee and jump start a reconstruction programme that actually benefits the common man and not offshore dollar accounts. This reconstruction programme unlike the ERRA should set the pace for a healthy development activity built around domestic industries and expertise to boost local economies. Concurrently, the entire country should gear towards a national austerity programme.
The writer is a retired brigadier and a political economist.
Brig (R) Samson Sharaf
A few days back, I had the occasion to meet Professor Walter Russell Mead, a US scholar and opinion maker, who was on a fact-finding mission to Pakistan. I met him after he had already interacted with some think tanks and important people from Pakistan; some critical and others apologists.
Knowing that he is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and also linked to the evangelical church, I was particularly keen to find out how the religious right affected the US policymaking. If he is to be believed, it actually does; but I doubt his contention in view of the Kennan Telegram and Tonkin reports. In my and many respected opinions, it is the Military-Industrial Complex and its think tanks that beef up a case.
As it turned out, his chief intellectual interests involves the rise and development of a liberal, capitalist world order based on the economic, societal, and military power of the United States and its closest allies prominently the UK. He also theorises to seek a stable Southern Asia (South, East and Central) with India playing the major role from East Africa to Malacca, albeit containing the rise of China. During discussions, it became amply clear that the US occupation of Afghanistan is a mere stepping stone for greater geopolitical designs in what may turn out, in his own words, to be a long war.
He was of the view that Pakistans security perspective framed around a hostile and overbearing India was faulty and in conflict with the US perspective of a stable and prosperous Asia led by India. He suggested that Pakistan ought to forget all issues with India and instead focus on a supportive role in the region with it (India) in the lead and become a prosperous country, rather then be doomed economically, as it presently is.
But this view is not new to Pakistanis. I recall having met Michael Krepon of the Henry Stimson Centre in 1995 and 2001 advocating risk reduction and confidence building measures with India. I asked him that if Pakistan was to agree to all the US suggestions, would Washington guarantee the Kashmiri people their freedom. He was quiet for some time and then said No. The same can also be said of ex-President Clintons visit to Pakistan to deliver a sermon to the nation besieged by military dictatorships, inept politicians and Harvard trained bureaucracy. He refused to intervene on behalf of the Kashmiri people.
Ashley J. Tellis once wrote that India and Pakistan exist on the extremes of divides and went on to qualify his thesis with historic predispositions and facts. Now a naturalised American and an expert advisor on the region, he qualifies India as a peace-loving and caring country to lead Asia and chooses to forget his thesis that propelled him to fame. In one capacity or the other, he remains a bigwig of the region and moulds opinions. So when I read and hear one American opinion and policy maker after another being particularly dismissive of Pakistan and its abilities, I wonder what keeps them thinking in such a manner.
Are their pre-emptive policies really a solution or an isolationist syndrome built around oceanic insulation and immense military power?
One, Pakistan has not been able to produce the likes of Tellis and Khalilzad, who have managed to penetrate the core of policymakers and shaping opinions. Our scholars and expats of ability invariably choose to adapt to the perspectives of their adopted land and become apologists. They hardly frame opinions. Pakistans lobbyists, though highly paid are ineffective.
Secondly, Pak-US relations have surged intermittently during times of the so-called strategic alliances. If Ayub Khans letter to a US Admiral, in 1955, that spam the cyberspace nowadays is to be taken as a measure, not much has changes since. Each time, Pakistan has acted as a US dependency and then exercised its flexible conscience on selective basis. As a reward, the US has been compliant in looking the other way, while Pakistan shored its security against India. But this time it is different. While Pakistan continues to do the donkeys work, it gets no respite and leverage.
As I gathered from the meeting and many opinionated research papers from USA, the issue of Afghanistan is fast becoming peripheral. The US will not withdraw from Afghanistan, nor will the pressure on Pakistan from across the Durand Line and world over abate. This confirms earlier circumspection about the US objectives in Afghanistan not to arrest OBL and dismantle Al-Qaeda, but to occupy the pivot of three Asias for geo-strategic gains and world domination. Though the apparent logic and hindrance in this policy may be Pakistans fixation with India, it actually boils down to the growing strategic partnership between Pakistan and China. This is what makes the present crises A Long War.
As a face saving threat, it appears that this reasoning spares USA the indignity of another Vietnam type retreat. It shifts the perspective to a global game of the US-led economic domination that will make another ideology collapse. You see, it was ultimately the economics that won the war against a communist ideology. Pakistans competition with India is asymmetrical and Pakistan will soon collapse economically, is what Dr Mead was quick to assert. Built on Paul Kennedys thesis of The Rise and Fall of Great Empires, the US has time on its side for things to happen. For Pakistan, it is the final phase of the battle for its integrity in face of a dysfunctional economy that gives rise to internal conflicts.
In my meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday last, I mostly remained a silent listener. The only point I made was that if Pakistan was indeed so vulnerable, why the government was allowing Pakistans economy to collapse so easily? He gave no answer; but this is a subject I amply dilated in a series of five articles I wrote in TheNation on economic manipulation.
My parting words to Dr Mead were that Pakistan or no Pakistan, in the final analysis, it is the people of the region who will win. I asked him to read the Forgotten Social Dimension of Strategy by Michel Howard and take a fresh look at his thesis of Asian domination.
As for Pakistan, we need to make a blessing out of the current flooding tragedy and not waste a penny of the aid that comes Pakistans way to hedge our flagging rupee and jump start a reconstruction programme that actually benefits the common man and not offshore dollar accounts. This reconstruction programme unlike the ERRA should set the pace for a healthy development activity built around domestic industries and expertise to boost local economies. Concurrently, the entire country should gear towards a national austerity programme.
The writer is a retired brigadier and a political economist.