Changing geostrategic landscape

PRESIDENT George W. Bush’s recent visit to Pakistan continues to be the subject of debate and discourse at all levels and in every segment of our society. The mood at the level of people has been one of anxiety and concern over the spectacularly preferential treatment that India received during his visit to New Delhi.

By all accounts India came out as “a big winner” whereas in sharp contrast, unequal dialogue, minimum protocol, cheerless welcome, arrival and departure in the dark of the night, maximum security, terrorist scare, death and debris in the vicinity of US consulate in Karachi, and a sombre mood on both sides characterized President Bush’s less than 24-hour sojourn in Islamabad.

According to a revelation in the New York Times a week after the visit, President Bush made an “unrivalled” gesture to Pakistan by overruling his secret service and going ahead with an “overnight” stay in Pakistan, a country alleged to be “the assumed haven of Osama bin Laden and one of the most dangerous countries in the world.” According to this report, all our diplomatic exertions in recent months, including those during the recent visit of our prime minister to Washington, were focused on persuading the US president to spend a night in Islamabad.

He did oblige us and took “calculated risks” by committing himself to “the overnight stay” in Pakistan. Indeed, it must have been a great solace to our leaders to have the world’s “most powerful” man spending a night in their neighbourhood. He slept at the US embassy in the heavily fortified diplomatic enclave. He may have had a restful night after his tiring schedule in India but for his secret service, it must have been a rare night of nightmares.

In New Delhi, President Bush not only spent three “memorable” days but also bestowed on India all that it needed and for it to be able eventually to claim a permanent seat in an enlarged UN Security Council. Although the details of its contents are not known yet, the nuclear deal signed by President Bush during his New Delhi visit is a recognition of India’s new place in the world and also a reflection of its phenomenal rise in the American estimation as a “thriving democracy, a growing economy and a responsible nuclear power.”

Under this deal, the US has agreed to end its decades long moratorium on sales of nuclear fuel and technology to India which on its part has agreed to take steps that will bring it into the international non-proliferation mainstream, including placing its civilian nuclear facilities and programmes under IAEA safeguards and adhering to the guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime. Both countries also undertook to “support efforts to limit the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies and also support the conclusion of a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).”

President Bush justified the groundbreaking arrangement with India by acknowledging its “strong commitment to preventing proliferation” of weapons of mass destruction. He went on to suggest that “as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology,” India should receive the same privileges as other such states. He also pledged to seek Congressional approval for the deal through an amendment in US laws and policies and also to work with friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India. In return, India agreed to take a number of specific steps to expand its nonproliferation commitments.

Besides the nuclear deal as the centrepiece of his visit to New Delhi, President Bush also reached additional agreements encompassing “a long list” of areas, including trade, agriculture, science and technology, energy, environment, defence, combating HIV/Aids, counterterrorism and “strengthening” of democratic institutions in Third World countries.

In Pakistan, the only agreements signed were those on the establishment of a US-funded entrepreneurals training centre and Pakistan’s participation in the US-sponsored container security initiative. No progress was reported on much trumpeted bilateral investment or free trade arrangements. As against a substantive framework of “strategic partnership” with India, only a “strategic dialogue” mechanism was announced for Pakistan.

Even on the four high-profile issues on Pakistan-US agenda, namely, nuclear, technology, democracy, terrorism and Kashmir, the US message was loud and clear. There will be no nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, not even for peaceful purposes, until it re-establishes its non-proliferation credentials. For Washington democracy is merely a subject for sermonic discussion and not a priority issue. On terrorism, Pakistan was doing great but still needs to do a lot more. On Kashmir, the US will only encourage a bilateral approach as the only “way forward.”

No matter what we now say to keep face, the fact remains that the US has given us an “unmannerly” reminder of the changing realities and a new geo-strategic landscape in South Asia. Not only the tone and tenor of what was said at the joint press conferences in Islamabad and New Delhi but also the texts of joint statements issued in the two capitals represented a clear contrast in the US treatment of its two strategic partners.

The new multidimensional India-US relationship comes as a culmination of the process launched formally during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington last July. But this relationship has been in the making for years with India attracting American interest as the world’s largest democracy and an emerging global economic power with a huge market and investment potential. Washington has always reckoned India as a counterweight to China and as a potential check on China’s rising economic and military power.

The inevitability of US-India strategic nexus had long been foreseen and was publicly articulated during President Clinton’s five-day visit to India in March, 2000. In fact, he laid the foundation of the new relationship by signing a five-page “India-US Vision for the 21st Century” charting a new and purposeful direction for their future relationship as “partners in peace” in the new century. The Bush administration has not only continued but also added a strategic dimension to this relationship.

Where does Pakistan stand? Last few years have been a fateful period for us. A dispassionate though painful soul-searching would reveal that our recognition in the comity of nations today is only as a “breeding ground” for religious extremism and militancy and as a country afflicted with a culture of violence and sectarianism. This perception not only impairs our global image but also complicates things in our dealings with our friends and foes alike.

The US, in particular, sees Pakistan as the “ground zero” and a pivotal linchpin in its fight against terrorism. From being a major power in South Asia always equated with India, Pakistan today is bracketed with Afghanistan in terms of its outlook, role, needs and problems. This is an unenviable distinction which circumscribes our role both within and beyond our region.

Our domestic failures have seriously constricted our foreign policy options. Decades of political instability resulting from protracted military rule, institutional paralysis, poor governance, socio-economic malaise, rampant crime and corruption, and general aversion to the rule of law have weakened Pakistan’s external image and standing. Terrorism is our sole identity now. We are seen both as a problem and as a key to its solution.

In 1998, after nuclear tests first by India and then by Pakistan, the US engaged both countries in a “strategic dialogue.” After eight rounds of talks with both countries on an equal footing ending in February, 1999, a clear parity was established between the two countries.

Like India, we accepted no obligation under the global nonproliferation regime that could circumvent the quality and future of our strategic programme. Besides obtaining relief from the much dreaded US sanctions, we were able to develop an implicit “strategic linkage” between Pakistan and India promising them “equality of treatment” in terms of any future concessions, including access to technology.

That linkage is no longer there now. Pakistan has been categorically “de-hyphenated” from India. President Bush left us in no doubt that India and Pakistan were two “different countries with different needs and different histories and could not be compared to each other.” He was blunt enough to tell President Musharraf at their joint press conference that Pakistan should not expect a civilian nuclear agreement like the one he had signed with India. He had earlier described India a “great democracy” and a “responsible nuclear power” which had earned the right to nuclear technology. The fact of the matter is that Pakistan never stood a chance for any such deal because of its alleged “proliferation” record. The New York Times had editorially predicted even before Bush arrived in Pakistan that “the Pakistanis won’t get that deal, and any time spent discussing the issue will be wasted time that could be spent on other ways in which America should be developing its relationship with the Pakistani people.” Alas, the Pakistani people or their future have never figured anywhere or at any level in US engagements with successive military regimes in Pakistan, including the latest Bush-Musharraf meeting.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also made it clear a day before their arrival in Islamabad that no nuclear deal with Pakistan was possible “at this juncture” as, according to her, there were serious “concerns” over its “proliferation” record. Did she mean to say that the US might be willing to revisit this issue “at some other juncture” or whenever Pakistan returns to a civilian rule and re-establishes its credentials as a responsible nuclear state? Many of us would like to believe that there remains a window of opportunity for Pakistan to catch up with India in nuclear status which could open only on the civilianization of its political command and control.

For now, at least, there are many questions on how this historic event of the “nouveau siecle” will impact on the overall security environment of South Asia which today stands out as a critical factor for regional and global stability. Is the US-Pakistan relationship any stronger in its strategic content after the Bush visit? Does Pakistan feel safer in the emerging environment of strategic imbalances in its region? Has Pakistan’s role in the war on terror been rewarded in any significant manner beyond words of personal praise and accolades for President Musharraf? Did the visit contribute in any measure to promoting stability and conflict resolution in South Asia? Is the prospect of India-Pakistan rapprochement and durable peace between them is any brighter now?

These are difficult questions and only time will provide the answer. But if the turbulent political history of this region has any lessons, Washington needs to understand the real issues of peace and security in this region.

Its future engagement must not exacerbate those issues. Any step that fuels an arms race with an escalatory effect on the military budgets and arsenals of India and Pakistan is no service to their peoples.

Indo-US defence and strategic alliance will not be without serious implications for the delicate balance of power and stability in the region and might also undermine the on-going process of nuclear and conventional restraint and stabilization measures which India and Pakistan have been pursuing as part of their composite dialogue and mutual confidence- building arrangements in recent years.

There are fears that India will use this nuclear accord to divert fuel and technology from peaceful to military uses and substantially increase its fissile material production leaving Pakistan with no choice but to bolster its own capability. No doubt, there will also be a serious and far-reaching effect on the global non-proliferation regime. But this is not an aspect that Pakistan should be playing up as a non-NPT country itself. We should instead be focusing more on our own security compulsions and on the need for equality of treatment between India and Pakistan.

For us, India’s access to civilian nuclear technology provides a precedent that should give us hope and motivation to deserve in due course the same status and treatment from the US and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). We only need to put our house in order and rebuild Pakistan’s image and credentials as a stable, mature and responsible nuclear state.

It is time we looked at ourselves and then realize whether we really deserved the treatment that India today is getting as the largest democracy of the world, and as the emerging global economic power. We also need to look at the nature and chequered history of our errand-specific “alignment” with the US which, in essence, has been an on-again, off-again relationship without any continuity, conceptual framework or shared vision.

For a country, domestically as unstable and unpredictable as ours, there can be not many choices. In today’s world, our options under a military controlled dispensation will remain limited. In the ultimate analysis, our problems are not external. They are domestic. Putting our house in order is our priority need.

We need to overcome our domestic weaknesses through national confidence-building and political reconciliation. National policies and priorities need to be rationalized. Tolerance and moderation, not extremism or obscurantism, should be our strength. The country must return to genuine democracy rooted in the will of the people, constitutional supremacy, rule of law, good governance, and a culture of political consistency and institutional integrity.

World’s major powers also need to recognize that under a democratically elected civilian government and with stable institutions strictly adhering to their constitutional roles, Pakistan will be a more responsible, more reliable, more effective and more appropriate partner of the free world in pursuit of common goals and in defence of shared values.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Not a blueprint for peace

WHILE proposing during his Amritsar speech on March 24, a treaty of friendship, peace and security with Pakistan, as “the ultimate culmination of the peace-making process”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected the linkage by Pakistan of the Kashmir issue with normalisation of relations in other fields.

The Indian prime minister’s detailed blueprint for the peace process which could, in his view, ‘culminate’ in a treaty of friendship and peace, makes no mention of a definitive resolution of the Kashmir issue, although it proposes a number of confidence-building measures.

Putting the cart before the horse would be a mild way of describing the proposed conclusion (at the end of the peace process) of a treaty of peace and security, which leaves untouched the major, long-standing source of insecurity i.e., the dispute over the political sovereignty of the Kashmiri people.

Since the proposal for a treaty of friendship, peace and security has a chequered history in the subcontinent, it is essential to review its antecedents. Manmohan Singh stressed the need for President Musharraf to do more to control terrorism and extremism and for Pakistan to eschew its stance linking Kashmir with other issues. A step-by-step approach envisaged the expansion of economic relations, people-to-people contacts and “dialogue by Indian and Pakistan authorities with the Kashmiris in their areas of control to improve the quality of governance.”

While reiterating that borders could not be redrawn, Manmohan Singh held that they could be made irrelevant, with Kashmiris being able to move and trade freely. He also visualized a situation whereby the two parts of Kashmir could, with the encouragement of the governments of India and Pakistan, work out a cooperative, consultative mechanism to maximise the gains of cooperation in solving economic and social problems of the region.

Most of the preparatory steps required in the Indian view for a friendship treaty lack both substance and clarity, such as the call for India and Pakistan to improve governance in those areas of Jammu and Kashmir controlled by them or the ‘two parts of Kashmir to work out a cooperative mechanism to maximise economic and social benefits.’ The Indian mental block in refusing to accept the centrality of the Kashmir issue in ensuring durable peace continues, as does the old refrain that President Musharraf needs to do more to curb terrorism and extremism. No notice was taken of feelers sent out by Pakistan regarding demilitarization and self-governance as possible stepping stones to a final settlement. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has understandably expressed deep disappointment at the Indian prime minister’s blueprint and reiterated the need for demilitarization, an end to continuing human rights violations and negotiations on reaching a settlement taking into account the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

As for the proposed treaty of peace and security, its history goes back a long way. One recollects in this connection the amused cynicism with which Prime Minister Nehru had greeted President Ayub’s call for joint defence by saying “joint defence against whom?” Then, the proposal for a no-war pact had also been raised by President Ziaul Haq but it did not elicit a favourable response.

A principal factor in India’s negative reaction to President Ziaul Haq’s proposal was, apparently, the consideration that a no-war agreement, while the Kashmir dispute was still active, would provide a safeguard and a cover under which Pakistan could, in the Indian view, promote resistance and militancy in Indian-held Kashmir, without risking the consequences. India may also have concluded that General Zia’s initiative, taken during the days of Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghan war, was meant primarily to safeguard his country’s rear, while it was engaged in Afghanistan.

Reservations had also been expressed in Indian policymaking circles about the advisability of entering into long-term commitments with a regime like General Zia’s that lacked a popular mandate. However, this consideration was no longer relevant when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif proposed at the UN General Assembly session in September 1997 the opening of negotiations with India on a non-aggression treaty as well as on arms control and arms reduction agreements.

This far-reaching proposal was made by the then Pakistan prime minister in full view of the world community, in spite of the existence of a strong segment of opinion in Pakistan, which held that large scale Indian repression in occupied Kashmir had to be brought to an end before such negotiations could be initiated.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s proposal had been met with studied indifference by the Indian government, then headed by Prime Minister I.K. Gujral, considered in some circles as a dove on matters relating to Pakistan. In reply to a newsman’s question about Gujral’s response to the proposal during his meeting with Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the 1997 UN General Assembly session, Ishaq Dar, a close aide to Nawaz Sharif, had said: “there was nothing”.

On India’s part, their counter-drafts for a treaty of friendship and cooperation, presented from time to time in response to Pakistan’s initiatives in this regard, sought to secure guarantees for total Pakistani disengagement from the Kashmiri liberation struggle as a pre-requisite for India’s agreeing to enter into a no-war pact. And as long as this commitment was not forthcoming, India would not withdraw the sword of Damocles of a wider war against Pakistan, in case the popular struggle in Kashmir got out of hand.

In proposing negotiations with India on a treaty for peace and non-aggression, Mr Nawaz Sharif had stressed the importance of mutual and equitable restraint on ballistic, conventional and nuclear weaponry, as also a proposal for a zero missile regime in the region (repeated several times). Simultaneous accession by India and Pakistan to the NPT, a nuclear weapon free zone in South Asia and mutual and balanced force reduction in conventional arms were also proposed. There was no meaningful response from India. This was perhaps the last opportunity before May 1998, to stave off the of nuclear tests by India and then Pakistan.

Although in public exchanges on the subject, terms such a non-war pact or a non-aggression treaty have sometimes been used as inter-changeable, there is a significant different between the two. In the absence of an agreed definition of what constitutes aggression, a non-aggression treaty, does not the have the same legal force, which a no-war pact does.

The absence of any concrete progress on Kashmir during the more than two years of the peace process and two rounds of the composite dialogue, has confirmed fears in Pakistan that the Indian strategy is to drag on the dialogue process on Kashmir indefinitely as a sop to Pakistan’s sensitivities, while the change in the ground situation as a result of numerous CBMs and exchanges in various fields would gradually remove the Kashmir issue to the remote back-burner of public consciousness.

Nothing is more important for the people of Pakistan and India than economic and social development for which durable peace is a must.

A dangerous deal with India

DURING the past five years the United States has abandoned many of the nuclear arms control agreements negotiated since the administration of Dwight Eisenhower.

This change in policies has sent uncertain signals to other countries, including North Korea and Iran, and may encourage technologically capable nations to choose the nuclear option. The proposed nuclear deal with India is just one more step in opening a Pandora’s box of nuclear proliferation.

The only substantive commitment among nuclear-weapon states and others is the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), accepted by the five original nuclear powers and 182 other nations. Its key objective is “to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology ... and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament.” At the five-year UN review conference in 2005, only Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan were not participating — three with proven arsenals.

Our government has abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and spent more than $80 billion on a doubtful effort to intercept and destroy incoming intercontinental missiles, with annual costs of about $9 billion. We have also forgone compliance with the previously binding limitation on testing nuclear weapons and developing new ones, with announced plans for earth-penetrating “bunker busters,” some secret new “small” bombs, and a move toward deployment of destructive weapons in space.

Another long-standing policy has been publicly reversed by our threatening first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. These decisions have aroused negative responses from NPT signatories, including China, Russia and even our nuclear allies, whose competitive alternative is to upgrade their own capabilities without regard to arms control agreements.

Last year former defence secretary Robert McNamara summed up his concerns in Foreign Policy magazine: “I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.”

It must be remembered that there are no detectable efforts being made to seek confirmed reductions of almost 30,000 nuclear weapons worldwide, of which the United States possesses about 12,000, Russia 16,000, China 400, France 350, Israel 200, Britain 185, India and Pakistan 40 each — and North Korea has sufficient enriched nuclear fuel for a half-dozen. A global holocaust is just as possible now, through mistakes or misjudgments, as it was during the depths of the Cold War.

Knowing for more than three decades of Indian leaders’ nuclear ambitions, I and all other presidents included them in a consistent policy: no sales of civilian nuclear technology or uncontrolled fuel to any country that refused to sign the NPT.

There was some fanfare in announcing that India plans to import eight nuclear reactors by 2012, and that US companies might win two of those reactor contracts, but this is a minuscule benefit compared with the potential costs. India may be a special case, but reasonable restraints are necessary. The five original nuclear powers have all stopped producing fissile material for weapons, and India should make the same pledge to cap its stockpile of nuclear bomb ingredients. Instead, the proposal for India would allow enough fissile material for as many as 50 weapons a year, far exceeding what is believed to be its current capacity.

So far India has only rudimentary technology for uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing, and Congress should preclude the sale of such technology to India. Former senator Sam Nunn said that the current agreement “certainly does not curb in any way the proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear material.” India should also join other nuclear powers in signing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

There is no doubt that condoning avoidance of the NPT encourages the spread of nuclear weaponry. Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Argentina and many other technologically advanced nations have chosen to abide by the NPT to gain access to foreign nuclear technology. Why should they adhere to self-restraint if India rejects the same terms? At the same time, Israel’s uncontrolled and unmonitored weapons status entices neighbouring leaders in Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other states to seek such armaments, for status or potential use. The world has observed that among the “axis of evil,” nonnuclear Iraq was invaded and a perhaps more threatening North Korea has not been attacked.

The global threat of proliferation is real, and the destructive capability of irresponsible nations — and perhaps even some terrorist groups — will be enhanced by a lack of leadership among nuclear powers that are not willing to restrain themselves or certain chosen partners. Like it or not, the United States is at the forefront in making these crucial strategic decisions. A world armed with nuclear weapons could be a terrible legacy of the wrong choices. —Dawn/Washington Post Service

The writer is a former US president, a Democrat, and founder of the Carter Centre.