It pays to play "within" the system, so to speak
@ carl -
Quote:
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan today joined the UN Security Council for a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the powerful world body, which also has India among its 15-member states.
Pakistan was elected to the Security Council last October when 129 out of 193 members of the UN General Assembly voted for it during an election.
Pakistan has previously served the Council in 1952-53, 1968-69, 1976-77, 1983-84, 1993-94 and 2003-04.
"It will be Pakistan's seventh time on the Council, and the fourth time its term will overlap with India, as it did in 1968, 1977 and 1984," the state-run APP news agency said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/w...w/11329074.cms
Sorry to be so gloomy given the New Year, but nothing has changed and nothing will change. Monies siphoned off from civilian aid or gifted by those who wish to be regional "players" will continue to build up a conventional and nuclear arsenal pointed eastwards and all the while our best minds will write journal articles detailing how "assuaging fears" will "demilitarize" the subcontinent. Too many people are professionally and personally invested in one narrative - and one narrative only.
@ davidpo....yes, I probably went too far....
Quote:
Originally Posted by
davidbfpo
Madhu wrote a few posts back, briefly on the Whitehall (UK) stance:
Yes the kith & kin links of the Pakistani / Kashmiri communities in the UK, who are overwhelmingly in the English urban areas outside London, have had an impact on Whitehall and primarily via the Labour Party. The Labour Party IMHO has relied upon their electoral support and given very little in response domestically, let alone over Kashmir.
There has been very little UK aid to Azad Kashmir (AK) despite the kith & kin links. Even the recently built, DFID funded bridge shortening the journey time between AK and Islamabad was built by a Chinese contractor and not widely advertised. In fact our diplomats appear to have looked at other places from the safety of Islamabad, notably the Punjab for commercial reasons and NWFP for security reasons.
Locally it is evident that amongst the younger generation of British-born, Kashmiri origin there is less interest in AK, a place widely regarded as corrupt and far from a green paradise, with high youth unemployment. Not helped by the regular visits by AK politicians at election time to raise funds; Kashmiris here cannot vote in AK elections unless they return.
There is little appetite for "solve Kashmir, solve Pakistan" in Whitehall-Westminster, virtually no political pressure and less community interest, let alone passion.
In summary no solution here.
Using Kashmir as a bargaining chip (or pretending to talk about issues of importance to the Pakistani military) is sometimes held up as something the US can do when the US wants some short-term cooperation. The history, I believe, shows that to be the case. Not consistently, but often enough. I agree in that I doubt there is any serious interest.
At any rate, I tend to get carried away in discussion. Not a good habit. I want to say here that I meant nothing in particular about Whitehall and nothing in particular about any one British analyst given the nature of the discussion here and elsewhere on the subject of COIN and scholarship. I was merely stating a common complaint heard among my own type of "kith and kin" (I say "type" because no one in my family is political or cares much about foreign policy one way or the other: "yeah, given 'em Kashmir, more trouble than its worth" seems to be the general feeling. Really, it's the economy and China that seems to animate.
Here are examples of a "different narrative":
Quote:
Subsequent Changes in American Stand: In brief, a historical analysis of subsequent events would indicate that America’s stand on Kashmir kept changing in direct response to India’s stances and attitudes on international issues. The more important factors that came into play, singly or in combination were:
* United States State Department policies towards the Indian Sub-continent becoming overly dependent on the guidance of Sir Olaf Caroe, the British expert and friend of Pakistan.
* United States stand on Kashmir was being determined by Britain. Britain has never till today got over the loss as to why Kashmir did not accede to Pakistan despite, Britain’s determined efforts.
* The Cold War enlistment of Pakistan as a strategic ally for containment of the former Soviet Union.
* India’s policy of non-alignment which became an anathema for the United States and the West.
Broad pattern of American Involvement with Kashmir Issue: The American involvement with the Kashmir issue has been a constant. What has varied is the intensity and this corresponded to the prevailing security environment and USA-India-Pakistan equations. (1) The 1950s witnessed active involvement; (2) The 1960s and 1970s was an era of detached involvement; (3) The 1980s marked US promotion of dialogue.
The 1990s witnessed an intense anti-Indian manifestation on the Kashmir question under the Clinton Administration. This was chiefly due to the pro-Pakistan proclivities of the Asstt Secretary of State, Robin Raphael who on October 23, 1993 declared that: "We (USA) do not recognise the legal validity of Kashmir’s accession as meaning that Kashmir is for ever an integral part of India... The people of Kashmir have got to be consulted in any kind of final settlement of the Kashmir dispute." It was a strange reversal from what Warren Austin had declared in 1948.
Clinton was later to make amends in the last year of his second administration on this count when Pakistan was berated by him on the Kashmir issue, specifically in terms of respect for the LOC. It must be noted that the proxy war in J&K by Pakistan intensified during the 1990s i.e. the era of United States permissiveness of Pakistan’s delinquency in Kashmir.
What has crept in US policies in the 1990s and being sustained by the present Bush Administration and particularly the Secretary of State, Colin Powell is "the aspirations of Kashmiri people".
http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5C...Cpaper403.html
Not endorsing all of that unconditionally. I just wanted to point out that traditionally Western diplomacy and scholarship has been so Pakistan- and NATO-centric in that part of the world that it is very hard for institutions to think differently. One need only sample traditional Western scholarship on the subject to see that the narrative tends to run in one direction. My opinion, obviously, and one that can be argued. I'd just like to see more nuance in the scholarship and discussion, a nuance that takes into account something like the above history. :)
RUSI has an interesting article about "root causes" that pooh poohs all the fuss in India when Miliband made his comments some time back. I think it is that sort of thing that irritates, actually (that the root cause of all of the problems in Pakistan is Kashmir is an area of debate and contention. Yet this debate until recently never made its way into much of American/UK think-tankistan or scholarship). I think the tone of the paper and its attempts to explain away a "gaffe" are something that tends to irritate if I read things correctly. Ray or other Indians may want to say something about that. (This may be a cultural misread on my part, but man, is the tone of the linked paper condescending.)
http://www.rusi.org/analysis/comment...49906F67ADFEE/
Anyway, the point is not to say the above is correct or not, but once again, to point out that there is a different way of looking at things.
'A line in the sand' before the abyss
An IISS Strategic Comment on 'US and Pakistan: a troubled relationship' and I have cited three of the four last paragraphs.
With my emphasis:
Quote:
Although views differ on the extent to which the Taliban leadership is serious about entering into negotiations, some experts believe it is ready to do so but its hands are tied by a Pakistani military reluctant to see talks progress – though it is unlikely that the talks referred to above could have happened if Pakistan had not at least tacitly acquiesced.
From Pakistan's perspective, the military does not believe that there will be an end to hostilities by 2014 – nor in any case would it favour the emergence of a stable Afghanistan if this were seen as privileging the interests of India and rendering Pakistan vulnerable to strategic encirclement. On the assumption of continued hostilities, Pakistan's military will want to ensure that extremist groups – which it regards as strategic assets in confronting an uncertain security situation in Afghanistan after 2014 – are protected from the process of attrition that the US has inflicted on al-Qaeda.
With the clock ticking, recent tensions between the US and Pakistan can be seen as the drawing of lines in the sand – a process of defining the limits to which Pakistani and US interests do and do not intersect in relation to Afghanistan. Both sides have many reasons to avoid a complete rupture in relations. For the US, Pakistan is a key factor in the struggle against extremist terrorism and nuclear proliferation. For Pakistan, the US remains both an important source of international legitimation and funding, as well as being the only major power able to exercise strategic leverage on India in the event that Indo-Pakistani relations undergo another major deterioration.
There are signs that, having looked into the abyss, the two countries are working to ensure that essential collaboration continues. But a further serious incident could prove terminal for a relationship that neither party has ever found satisfactory.
Link:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...-relationship/
One wonders if a Pakistani 'strategic asset', like the Haqqani network or LeT, was to successfully mount another bloody attack we'd fall into the abyss. It is easy to imagine some in the USA would not wish to exercise 'strategic leverage' after a Mumbai Two.
How do the predictions look?
Grim selection of thoughts.
Somewhere I have a longer review by a US analyst, based in the UK and will check what he thought.
What does Pakistan want in Afghanistan