The Past and Future of U.S. Alliances in South Asia
DEVELOPMENTS
The United States relies heavily on its allies to advance foreign policy priorities such as combating terrorism, conducting wars, and maintaining open trade channels. Perhaps nowhere will American alliances be more critical than in Asia, the continent undergoing the most dramatic economic growth and rise in relative strategic power.
By no coincidence, President Obama took a 10-day trip to Asia in November, with an overarching goal of shoring up bilateral relations with India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. The United States and its democratic allies reassured each other of continued partnership in the face of an emerging China and tensions on the Far East’s waters.
India’s larger security concerns come from another neighbor, Pakistan. Pakistan, like India, has been an on-again, off-again ally of the United States in the decades since both South Asian states achieved independence in 1947. Pakistan is currently a crucial partner in the American-led campaign against terrorism.
The lexicon of adolescent courtship aptly describes the ever-dynamic US-India-Pakistan triangle: nervous flirtations, tentative dance steps, and jealous quarrels. Both India and Pakistan regard the other’s relations with the United States suspiciously, and always have. The United States has affirmed its intention to maintain close ties to both; whether Washington can successfully maintain this delicate dance will be a defining question of the 21st century.
BACKGROUND
From the late 1940’s until the early 1990’s, American leaders viewed India, Pakistan and many other developing countries through the lens of the Cold War and the larger chess game of containing the Soviet Union and Communism. The United States did not form a consistently close alliance with either India or Pakistan.
India asserted its ideological independence throughout the Cold War by leading the non-aligned movement (NAM). A foremost tenet of NAM was favoring neither the Soviet bloc and its Communist allies, nor the United States and its Western allies. The fledgling Indian government drew from both democratic and socialist principles, and Indian leaders were famously cordial with Moscow, as well as Washington. India purchased arms and conducted trade with each superpower, and Indian society had a cultural affinity for both Russians and Americans.
India was the largest country to stay overtly neutral throughout the Cold War, though at periods it seemed that India was slightly cozier with the Soviets. India was most concerned with threats from two bordering enemy states, Pakistan and China. India fought bloody wars over territory with Pakistan in 1947, 1965, and 1971, a low-level border skirmish at Kargil in 1999, and a separate war with China in 1962. To this day, India has active border disputes with Pakistan and China along large swaths of land.
Pakistan’s society was defined from its inception by Islam, which precluded too close an affinity for the cultural liberalism of the West, or the mostly non-religious rise of Communism. However, Pakistan harbored no long-term hostility toward either side, and at times had friendly exchanges with both Washington and Moscow during the Cold War.
From independence through the present, Pakistani foreign policy has been centered on its enmity with the larger and predominantly Hindu India. This posture has led to a long series of palace intrigues and coup d’etats, as army generals and civilians have fought a long tug-of-war to consolidate political power. The military plays an outsized role in Pakistan’s elite circles, by milking national security threats to garner internal support. These realities always made it challenging for the United States to develop continuity in relations.
Another effect of Pakistan’s deep mistrust of India is its close alliance with China, forged in an effort to encircle India and regain the upper hand in Kashmir. In the early years of the Cold War, the United States had courted Pakistan, even signing a 1954 mutual defense agreement and approving aid packages worth billions under President Eisenhower, hoping to help prevent a communist domino effect in Asia. The friendship was derailed in the early 1960’s by Pakistan’s suspicions of US arms sales to India, and undemocratic transitions in Pakistani administrations. By 1965, China had become Pakistan’s closest ally, and this deep friendship continues.
The fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s ushered in a new era, in which nations reassessed their alliances and foreign policies. India’s non-aligned movement largely fizzled with the Cold War and coincided with a dramatic economic liberalization program opening up consumer markets to foreign companies for the first time. India was decisively looking West and investing in capitalism like never before. Less than two decades later, India boasts world-beating IT and manufacturing firms, has a burgeoning middle class, conducts significant trade with the United States, and is considered a rising economic power. India has also been steadfast as the world’s largest democracy for many decades, despite strains of Marxism and nationalism.
Pakistan rose in importance to the United States after 9/11, when it became clear that some of the Afghan mujahideen fighters – jointly nurtured by the CIA and ISI to help thwart the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980’s – had morphed into an unprecedented anti-American terror network. Much of this network overflowed out of Afghanistan into Western Pakistan, and the United States enlisted the help of Pakistan’s government to combat these militants. Pakistan has been an ally against terrorism since 2001, undertaking concrete actions such as unprecedented military crackdowns on insurgents and tolerance of limited unmanned drone attacks in the frontier regions, despite the high domestic unpopularity of each.
The United States has clear reasons for maintaining alliances with both India and Pakistan simultaneously. India and Pakistan also have obvious reasons to reciprocate to Uncle Sam, most of all for trade and military aid. But is this arrangement sustainable?
ANALYSIS
An intractable point of contention between India and Pakistan for the last 60 years has been Kashmir. The United States, the U.N., and other parties have been unable to resolve this crisis. Until a lasting solution is reached, Indian and Pakistani troops will probably remain on hair-trigger alert, perpetually close to another confrontation with the possibility of nuclear war. Under this scenario, any friendship with the United States will be viewed with suspicion by each South Asian country. Is the United States taking sides or offering more military support to one versus the other?
As important as resolving the Kashmir question, are the prospects for democracy. It is likely that if India remains a strong democracy and acts responsibly in its dealings on global affairs, common values will naturally bring the United States ever closer over time. However, it is worth noting that India is prone to lashing out at the West and the nonproliferation regime, which was the case during India’s 1998 nuclear weapon tests in Pokhran, and which set back the clock of friendship and trust by several years.
If Pakistan lays stronger pillars of democracy and builds on them, while continuing to prove a trustworthy partner in preventing future terrorist events against India or the West, the United States will likely keep Pakistan close – even if Pakistan pursues dalliances with China on the side.
It is indeed possible for the United States to form closer alliances with both countries than ever before in economic, political, and military terms – while helping establish unprecedented stability. But this is far from a foregone conclusion. It will remain a highly delicate dance – and American leaders should remain firmly committed to forge through the hiccups. For their part, Indian and Pakistani leaders must resist the loud calls from within their borders to defect. Any defection in the US-India-Pakistan triangle, which for the past 60 years has defined “shifting political alliances,” will cause a new spiral toward instability in the region. History has shown that starting an alliance over again, once weakened, is no easy task.
Mahanth Joishy is South Asia Regional Editor of Foreign Policy Digest.
