By PLS
Only if you believe that a simplistic “fer-me-or-agin-me” approach to international affairs is the best way for any country to handle its economic and security needs in the long run.
In that case, talking about international affairs (and conducting international relations) in black and white, good and evil, starkly Manichean terms makes sense.
But the real world is infinitely more complex, as the Bush administration is coming painfully, reluctantly to understand in the Middle East.
America's intricate web of interrelationships with countries in another part of the world illustrates such complexities even more richly. In South, Central and Far Eastern Asia, the US is engaged in a process of balancing vital interests for which a simplistic vocabulary of friends and enemies is of no use whatsover. Let's take a look.
Russia’s Back
The latest news is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to be a guest of honor at India’s splashy Republic Day Parade. Even as India and the US have not quite finished the process of working out an accord that involves US support for nuke-based energy production in India, Russia and India are expected to sign eight to ten bilateral accords, including an agreement on “joint production of a multi-role transport aircraft and fifth generation fighter jets.” The Soviet Union was a major supplier of India’s military needs during the Cold War when the US was closely allied with India’s primary antagonist Pakistan. Now that Russia’s oil rich, the bear is on the prowl again. (Late breaking news: Russia will supply four new nuclear power plants.)
The Porous Pakistani Border
Meanwhile, Pakistani intelligence agents in Quetta roughed up (probably not accidentally) a New York Times reporter and confiscated her computer, notebooks and cellphone long enough to copy what she’d learned and from whom. She had been gathering evidence of Pakistan’s supportive role in the Taliban’s explosive resurgence in Afghanistan. Both Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden are assumed to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan. Yet Pakistan these days is America’s heavily subsidized and supposedly staunch ally in the “war” against terrorism. Of course, Pakistan is also cultivating close military and economic ties with China, whose recent Star Wars demonstration has the US worried.
Duh!!!
So both America’s partners in South Asia are flirting with countries that are, to put it mildly, competing strongly with the US for influence and power in today’s word. And America is brazenly romancing both.
But of course! We’re talking about that hot spot where Pakistan blends (I could have written bleeds) culturally into Afghanistan, where South Asia meets Central Asia, China and Iran. Furthermore, though Russia no longer enjoys a hard national boundary in this region (except with China), its sense of proprietorship has never been abandoned.
Hot and Cold on Terror
Actually it’s fairly easy to see why Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf often appears to be talking out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to dealing with the US on military issues touching its neighbors. Not only is there Musharraf’s need to accommodate harshly conflicting internal perceptions of Pakistan’s best interests, there’s also the fact that his own life is on the line every day. Aggressive Islamists who distrust his moderate personal life style and are in cahoots with segments of Pakistan's army.
All this definitely complicates the US effort to snatch Osama bin Laden out of his hideaway in mountainous tribal terrain. The indigenous warrier clans that play host to him share cultural and linguistic ties with Pashtuns in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (capital Peshawar) and with Pashtuns in Afghanistan, and they don’t recognize the legitimacy of the British-drawn Durand Line that serves even now as an international border. Pashtuns marry, trade, herd sheep and smuggle guns, drugs and most everything else across the border—and always have. To them it’s not a hard firm line; it’s more like a dotted line riddled with two-way flow sites. No plains-based troops, British or Pakistani, have ever brought these tribes under control of modern civil law, because the cost (and the potential for failure) has always been judged to be too high. Complicating the situation today is the fact that that many of the religious sects and parties in Pakistan, whether legal or illegal, have training centers and allies in the tribal areas. It’s almost as if tribal law is invading the cities of Pakistan proper—Karachi, for instance—rather than (as once predicted or at least hoped) vice versa. To comply with US wishes, then, Musharraf has to be constantly watching his back.
Septic Kashmir
There’s a further, totally realpolitik reason why Musharraf does not want to seriously weaken Pakistan’s violence-prone religious parties. They help to keep pressure on India. For the past sixty years Pakistan has smarted from a mostly justifiable little brother complex vis-a-vis India, which leads the Paks (who’ve lost several wars with India) to do whatever it takes to tear India down. Pakistan may not be able to wrench Kashmir away from India, but countering Pakistani-inserted insurgents in Kashmir keeps India bleeding personnel and finances, which suits Pakistan just fine. Similarly, a decade ago, plenty of US-provided arms intended for the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan were funneled, by elements of ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence apparatus, across the Pak-India border to support the bloody Sikh separatist movement in Indian Punjab.* The movement failed, but its fallout included the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, undoubtedly a source of satisfaction to Pakistan as well as a cadre of angry frustrated Sikhs.
The China Conundrum
US business wants to take advantage of an increasingly wealthy India with its huge consumption-crazy middle class, but the US also wants a counterweight to the growing economic and military power of China. Not only has China managed to launch a missile that destroyed a target satellite in space, it’s beginning to develop a blue water navy which could eventually threaten US dominance in the Pacific Ocean basin. So a prosperous and ever stronger India is in the US national interest, even as, paradoxically, a US strengthened India might drive Pakistan further into the arms of the Chinese, who also have reasons for containing India, which in turn has been impelled to reach out not only to the US but to Russia, which is frustrating US interests in Iran and elsewhere. Meanwhile, to Musharraf’s relief and Pakistan’s profit, the Chinese have no interest in getting overly involved in America’s war against terror, at least for the time being, but the US has to treat China’s military build up and sometimes contrarian foreign policy with some deference, because of the dicey matter of all the US debt that China holds and could dump in a fit of pique.
Confused? Well, that’s the point. Nothing is simple in this (or any) part of the world. Every regional constellation of countries reveals complex historical relationship residues and intricately interwoven and often conflicting interests. The trick is to find a mutually beneficial balance that makes every side feel respected and relatively secure politically and economically.
Well, relationships can get even more complicated, thanks to things like religion and macho psychology, but this is a good solid starting point.
The Diplomatic Balancing Act
Now that we're talking about China, it might be worthwhile to visualize one of those Chinese acrobatic troupes** in which an incredible array of bodies somehow balance themselves on a single strong back or two—all managing to smile in the process. At any minute, without the greatest of care by all participants, the formation may collapse and people (or countries) will get seriously hurt.
Diplomacy is to international relations what balance is to acrobats. It looks a lot easier to accomplish than it is, which is why it’s all too frequently underrated.
*Kohima to Kashmir: On the Terrorist Trail by Prakash Singh, New Delhi, Rupa & Co., 2002.
** Photo courtesy of the University of California Sacramento.