Locked in a Long-time Confrontation, India and Pakistan Replay the Cold War

When Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott reaches India this week, and Pakistan a few days later, he will encounter bended knees and muted rage. India, con vinced that the United States has forced Indian-U.S. relations to their lowest point in years, hyperbolically vilifies U.S. policy and stubbornly resists any proposals to alter its attitudes. In contrast, Pakistan believes that after several strained years, it is headed for warmer relations with the United States.

Both assessments embrace elements of truth. Washington has stumbled in its efforts to craft a new power balance in South Asia. India feels alternately ignored and deified, and interprets U.S. statements with rancor and regret. Pakistan has yet to overcome its simultaneous dependence and defiance toward the American hand that has so often fed it. It is little wonder that America feels dismayed and bewildered. Talbott, with Assistant Secretary of State Robin L. Raphel, is therefore off to mend fences.

Those fences are as much historical as current. Talbott will discover that the Cold War has not ended in South Asia and a new Cold War between India and Pakistan--provoked largely by the conflict in Kashmir--simmers on. He will also discover that remaking U.S. policy requires understanding past misperceptions and misconceived policies.

For too long, the United States justified its interest in South Asia by viewing it as a place on the road to somewhere more important--China, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union--and foolishly took sides in bilateral disputes to further its goals.

Disentangling the United States from the old Cold War without heating up the new one is a complicated business. The most immediate irritant is the stalled delivery of F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan. They were sold to longtime U.S. ally Gen. Mohammed Zia ul Haq, who saw them as a reward for services rendered in Afghanistan and a validation of Pakistan’s strategic aims in the region.

India believes that adding to Pakistan’s stock of F-16 and Mirage jets will heighten tensions and warns that it will counterbalance Pakistani capacities--cyclically reflecting Pakistani worries. India thus has lobbied against future aid to Pakistan.

Until now, this concern was speculative. In 1990, the United States canceled not only all foreign assistance to Pakistan but also delivery of the F-16s. The 1985 Pressler Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act required this until Washington certified that Pakistan cannot make nuclear weapons. But the Pressler amendment unbalanced South Asia even more, and the timing of sanctions--invoked only after the work was done in Afghanistan--gave Pakistan reason to distrust Washington.

With Pakistan punished but not India, neither state had incentive to change direction. India points to China’s nuclear capacities as the primary justification for its program. It feels that U.S.-mandated reductions, while potentially balancing its power relative to Pakistan, would weaken its posture toward China. To India, arms control looks suspiciously like a pro-Pakistani policy.

Both India and Pakistan think Washington belittles their security concerns, and thus play the nuclear card in domestic politics, sometimes irresponsibly. The goal of non-proliferation was temporarily lost when Pakistan announced its nuclear capabilities in 1991. This winter, India tested delivery systems. India and Pakistan are increasing conventional-arms stocks while stirring the nuclear pot.

The GOP Administrations that sold the F-16s and then suspended aid, and the Pakistan government that acknowledged its nuclear capacities in response, no longer rule. President Bill Clinton and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and India’s Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao all inherited policies they did not promote, and all should put this issue behind them quickly. Otherwise, they will be hemmed in by policies that predate the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The old Cold War will determine politics on the subcontinent long after the world has moved on to other problems.

Pakistan has lobbied to receive the F-16s, viewing their delivery as success against Pressler. It has paid $658 million for the jets, whose production to Pakistani specifications continued after sanctions were imposed. Washington held out the carrot of delivery to moderate the blunt stick of sanctions--a short-term tactic that is no substitute for long-term policy changes. Pakistan says it capped its nuclear program in 1990, but has not agreed to Pressler-mandated inspections.

If the United States, India and Pakistan believe, as all say they do, that non-proliferation is imperative, it is time to change strategy. One way is for Washington to return Pakistan’s payments.

Though this would create complex legal tangles between the U.S. government and its arms suppliers, these difficulties might force Congress to act more responsibly in setting sanctions, and provide some impetus for Congress and the executive branch to coordinate policy. It could also give Bhutto much-needed cash and badly needed negotiating room on a wide range of military and strategic issues. Moreover, this would remove the object of India’s immediate concerns and force New Delhi to reconsider the substance of its arms-control possibilities. All parties could then reconsider contemporary security needs rather than outdated ones.

Another is for Washington to take a stronger stand on the Kashmir conflict. Pakistan considers Kashmir a war of self-determination; India considers it an internal dispute aggravated by Pakistani meddling. Washington treats it as a bilateral territorial dispute. The United States thus falls into two traps: it dampens the voice of Kashmiris, and it allows an explicitly international issue--the protection of rights--to be reduced to a matter of barter in stalled talks between India and Pakistan.

Until Washington makes clear that Kashmiri rights must be respected as a matter of right--and, correlatively, that Kashmiris should determine their own fate--U.S. persuasive power in any other policy arena will be limited. Kashmir will remain an excuse for India and Pakistan to refuse serious arms limits and marginalize outside concern.

India and Pakistan know their democracies can be defeated by their foreign policies. The strength of concurrent democratic commitment in India and Pakistan provides a chance for the United States to help them match their democratic rhetoric with peaceful action.

Talbott’s visit offers a rare opportunity to highlight some important truths about Clinton’s foreign policy. South Asia can underscore the success of the Administration’s priorities, or witness their collective weakness.

Preventive diplomacy, sustainable development and democracy, multilateralism, rights and non-proliferation--all are clear, present and possible in the subcontinent today. Talbott’s foray can demonstrate U.S. commitment to these global goals by attaching them--rigorously and evenhandedly--to both India and Pakistan. Only then will balanced development, stability and security be possible.