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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arun gera who wrote (15004)	12/29/2001 1:49:51 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 281500

Pakistan has been the aggressor in all the three Indo-Pak wars Which is sometimes easy to do against a democracy. Most democratic governments are not traditionally militaristic, with their political "center of gravity" lurking much closer to the economic and social roots than towards the expansisonist policies. Pakistan has been economically backward for decades. And the normal tool of dictators and authoritarian rulers is to distract the people's attention from their economic imcompetence, and to focus it upon nationalistic themes, like "liberating" some region or another (one that is generally more economically developed than their own). But really what seems to be at stake here, is that certain elements within Pakistan (those which supported the Taliban) are now threatened with loss of face, and reduction of power within Pakistan. So for them, the easiest way out is to once again rely upon nationalistic themes, such as Kashmir, to boost their popular support internally, and to counter Musharraf's opposition. So we're seeing that Musharraf and Vajpayee are going to meet in Nepal, probably sponsored by the US, and possibly even China (at US encouragement). Hopefully the tension can be diffused, but I believe India is still going to require Pakistan to reign in the ISI's efforts at subverting India's presence on their side of the LOC in Kashmir. After all, the whole idea of inherent "rights" to the ownership of a territory is spurious, since people generally wish to associate with whatever nationality provides them the greatest economic opportunity and political expression. The easiest way for India to maintain control over Kashmir is to encourage it's development to an extent where the local people would fear losing their livelihoods should they secede and become part of a less prosperous Pakistan. Grant them the political expression at a local level, while requiring that regional expression must occur on a national level. Can one imagine if hispanic Americans suddenly decided to secede and join Mexico?? Or if Mexico was attempting to subvert local politics in an attempt to create such a secessionist movement? Non-hispanics living in the area would go nuts and demand that Washington send troops to man the borders to preserve our "national sovereignty". But the way to prevent such a situation in the first place would be to provide the economic inducements for hispanics to "vote with their pocketbooks" to remain part of the US. Of course, that then can exasperate the situation as more hispanic from Mexico seek to immigrate to the region and enjoy the benefits, thus increasing the ratio of hispanics to non-hispanics. And to a general extent that's what we've seen occur in the American South-West, with the unfortunate consequence that some of these immigrants only want the economic benefits, but are seemingly unwilling to learn English, or integrate themselves socially with the rest of the US. That's kind of what I perceive as the issue in Kashmir. I believe elements in Pakistan are engaging in a classic insurgency action, bent upon undermining India's ability to maintain stability in the region, and preventing investment capital from being deployed there (the political risk being too high). This retards economic development, which feeds the secessionist agenda. Overall, using Afghani and Al-Quaida proxies to wage an insurgency in Kashmir is a "smart" strategy on the part of Pakistan, until it gets the point where India believes they can justify and carry out retaliatory actions, both within, and outside of India aimed at preserving their borders. Then it comes to a point where Pakistani officials have to decide just how far they are willing to push this subversion, and whether they are ready to commit their entire nation to a war of attrition that India, by weight of numbers, will eventually win. Hawk