South Asia was globally important during the Cold War era and remains relevant to world's peace and security even in today's changed environment. The recent India-Pakistan peace process has offered no results as the two sides did not go beyond reiterating their respective positions on Kashmir and agreeing to continue discussions for a “peaceful negotiated” settlement of this issue.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
After a brief spell of charm and glamour created in Delhi by the visiting Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar and her designer outfit and a usual diplomatically worded anodyne joint statement issued in the name of the two foreign ministers after their talks in the Indian capital on July 27, it seems the India-Pakistan peace process has lulled back into its usual stalemate. That is what always happens after “candid, cordial and constructive” talks between the two countries.
The outcome was not unexpected but the fact that India managed to fudge the real issues by bringing the focus on Hina Rabbani Khar's personal charm and extraordinarily elitist fashion accessories — Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, oversized Hermes Birkin bag and classic pearl jewellery —did disappoint the people in Pakistan.
In his suo moto statement in the Indian Parliament on Pakistani foreign minister's visit, India's foreign minister S.M. Krishna revealed that in their talks, the two sides did not go beyond reiterating their respective positions on Kashmir and agreeing to continue discussions for a “peaceful negotiated” settlement of this issue.
This is the same old narrative of India-Pakistan dialogue. It seems to be losing relevance or credibility ever since South Asia became part of the larger US-led 'great game' in this part of the world. The post-9/11 military stalemate in Afghanistan represents a new reality for India-Pakistan peace process. It now becomes a critical factor for the prospect of a stable and peaceful Afghanistan. President Obama in early days of his presidency understood this linkage.
In one of his pre-election interviews, President Obama said that his administration would encourage India to solve the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan, so that Islamabad could freely cooperate with the US on Afghanistan. In his view, “the sources of Afghan instability are in Pakistan; those in turn are linked to Islamabad's conflict with New Delhi, at the heart of which is Jammu and Kashmir.”
He knew that no strategy or roadmap for durable peace in the region including Afghanistan would be comprehensive without focusing on the underlying causes of conflict and instability. For any regional approach to succeed in Afghanistan, Obama was convinced the India-Pakistan equation will have to be kept straight.
South Asia was globally important during the Cold War era and remains relevant to world's peace and security even in today's changed environment. The policy of containment, in its final phase, was enacted on the soil and rugged mountains of this region with Pakistan and Afghanistan playing a decisive role in dismantling what the free world once called the 'evil empire" of the former Soviet Union.
The same two countries are now the pivotal frontline and battlefield of the ongoing global war on terror. The role that they are now required to play to make the world safer and more peaceful is inevitably conditioned by the overall political, socio-economic and security environment of their region. South Asia's problems are no longer an exclusive concern of the region itself. They now have a worrisome global dimension which raises major powers' stakes in the issues of peace and security in this region.
The complexity of these issues is rooted in South Asia's turbulent political history, its geo-strategic importance, its untapped economic potential, and the gravity and vast array of its problems with their impact on the global security environment. An objective assessment of this region's volatile environment will reveal that South Asia's issues of peace and security, in their essence, emanate from India-Pakistan hostility and conflict. And at the core of all their problems is the Kashmir issue.
No wonder, at no time did South Asia figure so prominently as a colossal challenge in US foreign policy. It was is a challenge of managing the magnitude of this region's political, economic and social problems by promoting democracy, peace and the rule of law within and among the region's states through universally acknowledged norms and principles.
What this region needs is not the induction of new destructive weapons and lethal technologies but the consolidation of peace, stability, development and democratic values that we lack so much. South Asia needs stability through balance not asymmetry of power.
The foremost requirement for world's major powers, the US in particular, was to avoid any policies or steps that led to disturbing the strategic balance of power in this turbulent region. But Washington had its own priorities for this region as part of its China-driven larger Asian agenda and its ongoing post-9/11 Central Asia-focused 'great game' in pursuit of its worldwide political and economic power.
In 2005, it signed a long-term multi-billion dollar military pact with India to keep its military industry running. It also entered into a country-specific discriminatory nuclear deal with India introducing an ominous dimension to the already volatile and unstable security environment of the region. This new “strategic partnership” with all its ramifications raised serious fears and concerns in Pakistan about its impact on the overall strategic balance in the region, including prospects of durable peace in South Asia.
If the turbulent political history of this region has any lessons, Washington's engagement in this region must have been aimed at promoting strategic balance rather than disturbing it. It should have been geared towards developing a sense of security and justice in this region by eschewing discriminatory policies in dealings with India-Pakistan nuclear equation, the only one in the world that grew up in history totally unrelated to the Cold War. But this never happened.
Pakistan is especially perturbed by America's indifference to its legitimate security concerns and sensitivities. Its Afghanistan-related problems are aggravated by the growing Indo-US nexus and India's resultant strategic ascendancy in the region. India's overbearing presence in Afghanistan gives it an ominous nuisance potential for cross-border trouble in Pakistan's volatile tribal areas and Balochistan province.
The ongoing Afghan war, now in its tenth year, has been the costliest conflict in America's history and also one of the longest ones which has been prolonged not for national interests but by its own inertia. No wonder people in the US and its allied European countries are sick and tired of this unwinnable war and want their troops back from Afghanistan sooner rather than later.
This brings us back to the Afghan imbroglio. Peace in Afghanistan is long over-due. The US may have its own political compulsions in the run-up to next year's presidential election but both Afghanistan and Pakistan have already suffered for too long and cannot afford another cataclysm. The effectiveness of their role and capability in any peace process will suffer if other conflicts and disputes continue to engage and divert their attention and resources.
The ongoing Afghan war, now in its tenth year, has been the costliest conflict in America's history and also one of the longest ones which has been prolonged not for national interests but by its own inertia. No wonder people in the US and its allied European countries are sick and tired of this unwinnable war and want their troops back from Afghanistan sooner rather than later. President Obama who wasted two years in an ill-advised surge operation is now facing public as well as congressional pressure for a speedy pull out.
A basic lesson of military history ignored in this case is that you don't start a war unless you know how to end it. At least till now, Washington doesn't seem to have any fresh thinking, much less a dialogue strategy to end the Afghan war that in the first instance was a wrong war to start. Last year's WikiLeaks on Afghanistan were a sordid narrative on the very legality and morality of this conflict. It was presented as an immoral war based on lies and deceit.
Waged as the global "war on terror," according to a group of academics at New York University two years ago, it has only been a "semantic, strategic and legal perversion." They also described the Afghan conflict as a “wicked” problem. The concept of “wicked” problem was first articulated in the 1970s denoting problems characterized by social complexity, a large number and diversity of players, a high degree of fragmentation, and contested and multiple forms of causality.
Different stakeholders in a conflict beset by “wicked” problems fail to arrive at a common definition of the problem at hand, often because they disagree on the very cause of the problem. According to this study, the ongoing forms of conflict in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are characterized by decades of failed US policy and are classic examples of wicked problems. The US claim that fixing the security situation in South Asia is the primary need of this region for the redress of its other pressing problems is questioned by those who believe that poverty and economic underdevelopment are the primary causes of violence in this region, and that it is these elements that need to be redressed.
Wicked problems require holistic analyses that do not ignore the possible effects of changes to other elements in the system, rather than strictly linear forms of problem-solving. In the Afghan conflict, the US forced the Taliban from power. It never defeated the Taliban nor did it make a serious effort to do so, as that would require massive resources that it doesn't have. It conscripted its NATO allies in an international coalition to fight this war which is in its tenth year and still remains far from being conclusive. It also entered into a strategic alliance with India at the cost of regional stability.
The Afghan crisis, both during and post-Soviet occupation era has had a direct impact on Pakistan's social, cultural, political, economic and strategic interests. This is a reality that even Obama's Secretary of State Hilary Clinton acknowledged in a Congressional testimony last year. But with almost daily violations of its territorial integrity and sovereign independence, and a regular accusations and slanders hurled at it, Pakistan wonders whether it is a partner or target in fighting a common enemy.
The ongoing Afghan war, now in its tenth year, has been the costliest conflict in America's history and also one of the longest ones which has been prolonged not for national interests but by its own inertia. No wonder people in the US and its allied European countries are sick and tired of this unwinnable war and want their troops back from Afghanistan sooner rather than later. President Obama who wasted two years in an ill-advised surge operation is now facing public as well as congressional pressure for a speedy pull out.
A basic lesson of military history ignored in this case is that you don't start a war unless you know how to end it. At least till now, Washington doesn't seem to have any fresh thinking, much less a dialogue strategy to end the Afghan war that in the first instance was a wrong war to start. Last year's WikiLeaks on Afghanistan were a sordid narrative on the very legality and morality of this conflict. It was presented as an immoral war based on lies and deceit.
Waged as the global "war on terror," according to a group of academics at New York University two years ago, it has only been a "semantic, strategic and legal perversion." They also described the Afghan conflict as a “wicked” problem. The concept of “wicked” problem was first articulated in the 1970s denoting problems characterized by social complexity, a large number and diversity of players, a high degree of fragmentation, and contested and multiple forms of causality.
Different stakeholders in a conflict beset by “wicked” problems fail to arrive at a common definition of the problem at hand, often because they disagree on the very cause of the problem. According to this study, the ongoing forms of conflict in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are characterized by decades of failed US policy and are classic examples of wicked problems. The US claim that fixing the security situation in South Asia is the primary need of this region for the redress of its other pressing problems is questioned by those who believe that poverty and economic underdevelopment are the primary causes of violence in this region, and that it is these elements that need to be redressed.
Wicked problems require holistic analyses that do not ignore the possible effects of changes to other elements in the system, rather than strictly linear forms of problem-solving. In the Afghan conflict, the US forced the Taliban from power. It never defeated the Taliban nor did it make a serious effort to do so, as that would require massive resources that it doesn't have. It conscripted its NATO allies in an international coalition to fight this war which is in its tenth year and still remains far from being conclusive. It also entered into a strategic alliance with India at the cost of regional stability.
The Afghan crisis, both during and post-Soviet occupation era has had a direct impact on Pakistan's social, cultural, political, economic and strategic interests. This is a reality that even Obama's Secretary of State Hilary Clinton acknowledged in a Congressional testimony last year. But with almost daily violations of its territorial integrity and sovereign independence, and a regular accusations and slanders hurled at it, Pakistan wonders whether it is a partner or target in fighting a common enemy.
The foremost requirement for world's major powers, the US in particular, was to avoid any policies or steps that led to disturbing the strategic balance of power in this turbulent region. But Washington had its own priorities for this region.
Whatever the end-game, durable peace in Afghanistan will remain elusive as long as Pakistan's legitimate security concerns in the region remain unaddressed. Pakistan has already staked everything in support of this war and is constantly paying a heavy price in terms of violence, massive displacement, trade and production slowdown, export stagnation, investor hesitation and a worsening law and order situation.
Washington knows that the real Afghan issue now starts and ends with Pakistan. It is time Washington also realized that if the region's stability was predicated on stability in Pakistan, special attention is warranted on reducing, not fueling radicalism in Pakistan, and redressing the imbalances in India-Pakistan equation. Peace in this volatile region would remain incomplete without addressing the India-Pakistan issues which are not without direct impact on the overall situation in the Afghan theater.
On its part, Pakistan has direct historical stakes in Afghan peace as it is in its interest to have an independent, friendly and united Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, to play its indispensable role effectively in the peace process, its legitimate concerns will have to be addressed by ensuring that the Afghan soil is not used for undermining its security and territorial integrity.
A final peace settlement in Afghanistan must also contain international guarantees based on UN Charter's purposes and principles, for the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity of Afghanistan with solemn mutual undertaking by all neighbouring and regional countries to respect the principle of non-interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.
Washington knows that the real Afghan issue now starts and ends with Pakistan. It is time Washington also realized that if the region's stability was predicated on stability in Pakistan, special attention is warranted on reducing, not fueling radicalism in Pakistan, and redressing the imbalances in India-Pakistan equation. Peace in this volatile region would remain incomplete without addressing the India-Pakistan issues which are not without direct impact on the overall situation in the Afghan theater.
On its part, Pakistan has direct historical stakes in Afghan peace as it is in its interest to have an independent, friendly and united Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, to play its indispensable role effectively in the peace process, its legitimate concerns will have to be addressed by ensuring that the Afghan soil is not used for undermining its security and territorial integrity.
A final peace settlement in Afghanistan must also contain international guarantees based on UN Charter's purposes and principles, for the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity of Afghanistan with solemn mutual undertaking by all neighbouring and regional countries to respect the principle of non-interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.
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