Washington’s approach to Pakistan-India relations is unworkable

Old habits die hard. In the world of geo-strategy, Washington illustrates how some states hold on to bad habits. Just see its decades’ old strategic approach on Pakistan-India relations. Washington believes that as India’s smaller neighbor, the onus of keeping peace with India is on Pakistan. 

Successive US administrations have advised Pakistani governments on how to conduct its relations with India. Last month too, after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Blinken told the press: “We talked about the importance of managing a responsible relationship with India." 

Surely, the Pakistani foreign minister must have explained to Blinken, as he articulated clearly in his latest Al-Jazeera interview, the centrality of linkage between India genuinely addressing the resolution of the Kashmir issue and normalization of Pakistan-India relations. Earlier, the former PM Imran Khan and more recently his successor, PM Shahbaz Sharif too, emphasized this linkage at the CICA summit. 

But Washington isn’t listening. 

Blinken’s advice harkened back to Washington’s old policy. As Britain’s successor state in South Asia, the US confronted a three-fold challenge. One, establish ties with a newborn Pakistan and with post-colonial India; two, devise a geo-strategic policy in South Asia which would help Washington counter the communist threat present in the neighborhood of South Asia; three to manage, after the creation of Israel, the pro-Palestinian and anti-Western wave in the Middle East and Muslim world. 

Declassified US Foreign Relations (FRUS) documents of the late 40’s interestingly reveal the consensus among most US policy-making institutions that India by virtue of size and history ought to concede the Monroe Doctrine kind of role in South Asia. That its newborn smaller neighbor Pakistan, if it survived, was both strategically important but also pliable as a US partner- an approach that still holds. 

Washington’s policy makers have mostly either left it to Indian governments to ‘manage’ Pakistan or else at key historical junctures, have often taken policy decisions related to Pakistan factoring in Indian interests. 

For example, Washington intervened when India faced imminent defeat in its 1962 China war. To prevent any pressure from Pakistan on India, Washington facilitated the Bhutto-Swaran Singh talks on Kashmir. As soon as China’s military pressure on India was reduced, Washington became disinterested in the Kashmir talks. 

Similarly at the height of the Afghan war, when Pakistan was Washington’s key partner in the covert war against the Soviet Union, it was India who, via the State Department, exercised veto on Pakistan-related decisions. For example, the State Department forcefully opposed the sale of AWACs echoing the Indian objection that Pakistan would deploy the AWACs along the line of control in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. 

Washington's view of stability in South Asia has primarily focused on Pakistan accepting the status quo in the region which has essentially meant, according to the Indian strategic worldview. The most recent example of this was when Indian planes penetrated into Pakistani territory and bombed Balakot on fictitious grounds in 2019. Pakistanis were forewarned about the impending Indian attack. A senior Pakistani general called his American counterpart General Dunford, to inform him of the intel that had been received. Dunford opted not to take the general’s call. Once the Indian airstrike had taken place, the American general called back to say that since no damage had been done on the ground, Pakistan should not respond. Not responding was never an option since Pakistan’s sovereignty had been definitively violated. 

The principle of serving mutual interests will alone be the driver of improved Pakistan-India and indeed, Pakistan-US relations.

Nasim Zehra

But the operative message from the US to Pakistan was simple: ‘US interests primarily matter. India is our willing partner and to that extent, in Washington, Indian interests take primacy over Pakistan's interests.’ 

This remains as unacceptable to Pakistan in 2022 as it was in 1948. 

Meanwhile, as Pakistan struggles within for better governance and for a genuine democratic system to replace a perpetually damaging power play, it’s interesting that as the smaller regional power and one that refuses to accept Indian hegemony, Pakistan has also inspired some in the region and beyond. In 1997, during the World Human Rights Conference in Vienna, Pakistan successfully lobbied to table a resolution condemning the Bosnian massacre. Western powers unsuccessfully resisted the resolution arguing that the conference was about principles, not actual events! After the successful passage of the resolution, the Bosnian foreign minister walked up and said: Tell your country that we salute the man who provided security to Pakistan, else the same fate that we face would have befallen Pakistan. 

He was talking about Dr A.Q. Khan. 

Later, in a June 2005 meeting, as Pakistan’s special envoy on UN Security Council reforms, the words of the Costa Rican President were delightfully shocking. In his San Jose office, Abel Pacheco, a psychiatrist, poet, popular television commentator and entrepreneur, said Pakistan was respected deeply because as a small country, it resisted Indian hegemony. 

But clearly, in the larger continental-global game, Washington’s commitment to India is unsurprising. And it is unlikely to change if the mutual interests of both are served. 

The same principle of serving mutual interests will alone be the driver of improved Pakistan-India and indeed Pakistan-US relations. Washington should draw some lessons from the fact that not even at the height of flood devastation and unbearable inflation hitting food items as basic as onions and tomatoes, Pakistan opted not to purchase from India at much lower prices. 

No unilateral reset among South Asia’s two major nuclear states is on the cards. The more India becomes a preferred recipient of US technology, diplomatic support, economic assistance, nuclear know-how, intel and logistics, the more India sees reason to not play by any rules. And hence, for every Pakistan-India dispute, India’s positions harden and it believes it can weaken Pakistan's resolve. 

History testifies to the fallacy of this Indian belief, and more importantly, the belief that successive US administrations have consistently and erroneously held.

- Nasim Zehra is an author, analyst and national security expert. 

Twitter: @NasimZehra