Managing Pakistan's failure

[ramana]

Could be. However some of us old timers were following this Pressler charade from mid 80s! And there was no BR then.

[ramana]

From Telegraph, Kolkata,,K.P. Nayar writes!!!!

US Dilemma For Pakistan

US dilemma for Pakistan K.P. NAYAR
Washington, Feb. 3:
The crisis of the Arab Street is slowly spilling into South Asia.

In Lahore, it has surfaced in demonstrations since Sunday against any attempt to release a US consular employee, now in custody for the murder of two Pakistanis, and has spread to the US chancery and the foreign office in Islamabad.

In both cities, the establishment is walking a tightrope, hoping to direct the pervasive anti-Americanism cutting across Pakistani society away from its own rulers. That may be easier than dealing with what is emerging as the worst diplomatic stand-off between Washington and Islamabad.

In an effort to secure the release of Raymond Davis, the consular employee, President Barack Obama quietly sent Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, for a meeting with Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, but to no avail.

So far, at least. Worse, the Pakistanis made public the general’s trip from Afghanistan without, of course, saying that Davis was his reason to see Kayani.

Obama sent Petraeus following consternation on Capitol Hill here that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari had turned down a plea by a six-member delegation of US Congressmen to free Davis.

The delegation was made up of members of the US House of Representatives, Stephen Lynch, Brian Higgins, Todd Platts, Jason Chaffetz and Raul Labrador and led by the powerful chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, Darrell Issa.

{All Paki supporters!}


Many Congressmen think they own Pakistan because of the control the US Congress exercises on the purse-strings of the huge aid to Islamabad and Zardari’s refusal was a rare slap in their faces.

But, for the establishment in Pakistan, the Davis case has come in handy: during crises of the street, it is not uncommon for foreign nationals to become pawns in the games for power. It has happened in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, in Idi Amin’s Uganda and in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Today, a magistrate in Lahore extended the police remand for Davis by another eight days. This week, the central and Punjab governments clashed on the issue and there was uproar in Pakistan’s National Assembly over the Zardari government’s prospective inability to stand up to pressure from Washington to free Davis.

Islam being the raison d’être for Pakistan, Rawalpindi has always shivered when it rained in Cairo, Tehran or Rabat.

It happened during the siege of the Grand Mosque at Mecca in 1979, again in 1989 after Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses and has occurred periodically whenever peace at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was disrupted.

Although it is in South Asia, Pakistan’s rulers have always had pretensions of being sentimentally closer to the Arab world than to its neighbours because of religion.

But perhaps for the first time, this proximity, partly self-deluding, has put not only Zardari, but also Kayani and the Opposition’s Nawaz Sharif in a crisis of identity.

Notionally a democracy, Pakistan’s democratic institutions are only slightly stronger than those in many Arab states. As in Egypt, the military is the strongest institution in Pakistan.

Therefore, the potential for a popular revolt in Pakistan against its ruling classes of the Hosni Mubarak variety can only be diverted through the outlet of anti-Americanism.

But the government’s and the military’s dependence on Washington makes any excessive fanning of anti-Americanism self-defeating.

{Really HAMletian choice! And poetic justice/choice too!}

Pakistan’s closeness to Arab despots and the benefits it has received from such closeness from states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also makes it difficult for Islamabad to decide where it stands in the present crisis.

By late this evening, there were signs that a resolution of the crisis over Davis may be in the offing.

Interior minister Rehman Malik today confirmed that the American is in Pakistan on a diplomatic passport. That will make it difficult for the courts in Lahore to hold him in remand much longer.

Prem bahalle bahalle!!!

Get the bhangra icon.

KP Nayar is not holding anything back.

[shiv]

Christine Fair spills out a lot of perfidy!

The F-16 Fiasco

Need to archive this article. In the last one week I have seen at least one comment on this forum that said that Pakistan was "abandoned" by the US after 1979.

Between 1979 and 1989 Pakistan received $5.6 billion (in constant 2009 dollars) in total aid, of which $3.5 billion was military assistance.) During this period, Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons program without penalty until 1990 while receiving enormous financial and military support from the U.S., which allowed Pakistan to improve its capabilities to fight India.

[Johann]

Christine Fair spills out a lot of perfidy!

The F-16 Fiasco

Need to archive this article. In the last one week I have seen at least one comment on this forum that said that Pakistan was "abandoned" by the US after 1979.

Between 1979 and 1989 Pakistan received $5.6 billion (in constant 2009 dollars) in total aid, of which $3.5 billion was military assistance.) During this period, Pakistan developed its nuclear weapons program without penalty until 1990 while receiving enormous financial and military support from the U.S., which allowed Pakistan to improve its capabilities to fight India.

I hope you don't mean me Shiv.

Pakistan was under nuclear sanctions and diplomatically isolated until the Soviet invasion of 25 December 1979.

Carter's initial offer of $400m of aid was memorably dismissed by Zia in February 1980 as 'peanuts'.

The first major military aid package for the Pakistanis was agreed in December 1981 by the Reagan admin, $3.2 billion over 6 years.

That is also when the first arms deal was signed, the 40 F-16s ordered by Pakistan [Peace Gate I&II] and AH-1 Cobras for $1.7b. The Saudis paid the $111m down payment, since Congress had appropriated no money for military aid to the Pakistanis in either 1980 or 1981.

The Saudis were of course paying for the Pakistanis to provide an anti-coup force in Riyadh (important after the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979), and insurance against the Iranian revolution coming across.

http://www.ips.org.pk/pakistanaffairs/s ... /1080.html

See table 2 for a year by year break down of US civilian and military aid to Pakistan. The amount disbursed in each year reflects the amounts appropriated in the year before.

If you remember, Congress was controlled by the Democrats who were hostile to many of Reagan's more aggressive attempts to fight the Cold War. It was not until Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson was won over in about 1983 that the spigots really began to flow.

[shiv]

I hope you don't mean me Shiv.

You specifically stated that Pakistan was abandoned by the US from 1965 to 1980 and that China then became more important. This completely ignores US support and protection of Pakistan before, during and after the 1971 war since Pakistan was a bulwark in China-US detente. I am sure you have read the released (formerly confidential) cables about the attitude that Nixon and Kissinger had towards issues like India's suspected designs on West Pakistan in 1971 and the encouragement given to China to put pressure on India during the war (which China did not do).

And as per the Christine Fair article - the lady says what many have pointed out on here - that is US presidents in the 1980s were "certifying Pakistan" as not developing nuclear weapons. Clearly an "abandonment" from 1990 to 2001 is a mealy mouthed version of events. In the 1990s the US unequivocally considered terrorists in Kashmir as "freedom fighters". The same freedom fighters who helped release the 3000 odd people in the twin towers from the bondage of life on earth.

So I think your sweeping generalization about Chinese importance is less accurate than the fact that the US too is complicit in helping along Pakistan China ties even as the US utilized Pakistani services for its interests.

[arunsrinivasan]

Shiv, many thanks for the link. I had missed it.

[RajeshA]

X-Posted from TSP Thread

Published on Jan 26, 2011
Protest in Rome against Pakistan’s blasphemy law: AFP

ROME: Italian lawmakers and religious associations protested in Rome Wednesday against Pakistan’s blasphemy law, calling for the release of a Christian woman sentenced to death under the legislation.

Catholic and Jewish associations joined human rights group Amnesty International and representatives of the Pakistani community in Italy in a 100-strong demonstration in front of the Italian parliament.

“We want this law to be abolished,” Pakistani-born Joseph Philip told AFP, explaining that his uncle, a Catholic Bishop, had been killed for his religious beliefs. He said he had come to the protest along with 15 compatriots.

Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old, Christian mother-of-five, was sentenced to death in November after Muslim women labourers who worked with her in the fields complained she made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.

Umberto Bossi, head of Italy’s anti-immigrant and populist Northern League Party and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s partner in the centre-right coalition, attended Wednesday’s protest here.

“We want to express our solidarity,” he told journalists. A delegation from the protest also met Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

Last Thursday the European parliament urged Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to pardon and release Bibi following calls from several countries, international organisations and an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI.

European parliamentarians also called on the Pakistani government to revise their blasphemy laws and their application.

I think, if Aasia Bibi is hanged for blasphemy or killed otherwise by anybody in Pakistan, EU Parliament should stop ALL imports from Pakistan. Perhaps BRFites should write to EU Parliamentarians, Pakistani Christians in Europe like Mr. Joseph Philip, and to North League Party and any other group, which has influence in the EU Parliament.

The less foreign exchange Pakistan has, that many less weapons would Pakistan be able to purchase, that much more would be the inflation on petroleum products, and that much sooner would Pakistan collapse. If one can get a few of Pakistani industries to collapse - garments, carpets, sports goods, agricultural produce for exports, etc., the more difficult it would be to get these industries up and running again.

In fact, this import ban should stay as long as blasphemy laws in Pakistan are not done away with, that means for ever.

This is an emotive enough issue in many circles in Europe, especially in the various Roman Catholic countries, and it would be easier to win over EU legislators on this issue, than on terrorism.

The screws need to be tightened on Pakistan.

[SSridhar]

Christine Fair spills out a lot of perfidy!
The F-16 Fiasco
Select quotes:

Despite full knowledge of Pakistan's nuclear program, Congress added Section 620E to the FAA, which granted the president a qualified authority to waive sanctions for six years, . . . .In 1985, the Pressler Amendment was passed, making U.S. assistance to Pakistan conditional on an annual presidential assessment and certification that Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons.

Ramana, this is why I said in the 'Pakistan proliferation' thread that the US and Pakistan came to an understanding on this issue before Pakistani collaboration was cemented in the US obsession to defeat the USSR and dismantle communism.

We can only surmise. First, it was perhaps estimated that six years would be enough to defeat the USSR and hence the initial waiver for 6 years. As that period lapsed and the fighting was still going on, an extension was given through the instrument of annual Presidential certification. During this period, the US simultaneously appeared to be in the forefront of stopping proliferation by passing legislation after legislation, that either had clever holes or was not applied to Pakistan. When Pakistani procurers were caught in the US proliferating, they were tipped off or the case was diluted and thwarted. In the extreme event that Pakistan was caught red handed in European countries as well, the US Administration forced those governments to turn a blind eye. One can also guess that Turkey was chosen as a safe conduit and it was easily explained away as due to its lax export controls without any penalties for that country.

Thus, I would say that in c. 1979, the US and Pakistan had an idea of the timeframe within which the Pakistanis would be allowed to develop their nuclear weapons and delivery platforms and that the US would simply turn the other way during this time. The US maintained a facade by passing legislation, appearing to reprimand the Pakistanis (which appeared in the press due to selective leaks to buttress the US claim of being a Nonproliferation Ayatollah), and the Pakistanis in turn promising not to enrich Uranium beyond 5% etc.

As I said in the other thread, the US perfidy in nurturing the 'Idea of Pakistan' is long and will be a big project to reveal in itself. It will happen only when Pakistan inflicts more and more pain on the Americans and concerned Americans decide to spill the beans. Yet, the complete story will never come out.

We, in BR, are getting vindicated, as you said.

[Lalmohan]

i am surprised that the evanjehadis of unkiland are not up in arms about asia bibi...

[RajeshA]

X-Posted from the TSP Thread

This is an emotive enough issue in many circles in Europe, especially in the various Roman Catholic countries, and it would be easier to win over EU legislators on this issue, than on terrorism.

The screws need to be tightened on Pakistan.

RajeshA Ji, Somehow love for Pakistan in western world runs deeper than we think it is. Atleast until the point, Pakistan is useful for Geo-strategic reason. Once that phase is over, Pakistan has been and will been thrown away like hair stuck in the comb.
These days only religious issue that is emotive is, if it involves followers of RoP.

As long as India is not divided, this love will be there. The love will never go away and I will bet even if a JDAM goes to US mainland, the love will still be there. Thing might change even if a small district is made independent from India.

We just go in loops and circles on the forum with a lot of analysis and some false hopes.

I think, we should not see the West as one big bloc working under a singular assumption and control. It is a heterogenous bloc, and may be the pro-Pakistan lobby or the anti-India lobby is there to talk the various groups into supporting Pakistan's longevity, but any such lobby would have its work made more difficult if the various groups get increasingly agitated against Pakistan and want to lash out.

This is where I think, India and Indians should work on, to make various constituencies increasingly feeling betrayed and angry at Pakistan. At some point the pro-Pakistan lobby may not be able to control the storm.

Whereas in individual countries and their foreign policy machineries there is a keen awareness of Pakistan's importance, the level of altruistic thinking is much much higher in the European Parliament, and European Parliament is powerful in some areas.

[ramana]

SSridhar, To add to your remarks, I think 1985-86 period is when the US allowed the PRC to transfer the actual bomb. It was this period when they escalted the Mujhedooen operations by providing Stingers and want to ensure that TSP had some deterrent against Soveit retalaliation. The losses in Afghanistan and the economic mess iN FSU forced the end of Cold War soon after that.

However the US-PRC perfidy is that the bombs were not taken back after the end of Cold War and allowed to be retained by TSP as Wages of Terrorsim. In fact PRC allowed the TSP to test its bomb in 1990 per the US officials who wrote a book on PRC nuke program. All this after the Cold War was over.

And this led to the TSP support to the Kashmir terrorist movement and world wide terrorism support.

[Lalmohan]

just thinking aloud... if the TSPA had nuked a soviet tank army... what would the soviet have response been?

[svinayak]

SSridhar, To add to your remarks, I think 1985-86 period is when the US allowed the PRC to transfer the actual bomb.

According to the info it was around 1987 the bomb was transfered.

The new operations started in May 1986 and continued till Oct 1987.

The Op Brasstracks started Oct 1986 and was till the end of winter.

[Johann]

You specifically stated that Pakistan was abandoned by the US from 1965 to 1980 and that China then became more important. This completely ignores US support and protection of Pakistan before, during and after the 1971 war since Pakistan was a bulwark in China-US detente. I am sure you have read the released (formerly confidential) cables about the attitude that Nixon and Kissinger had towards issues like India's suspected designs on West Pakistan in 1971 and the encouragement given to China to put pressure on India during the war (which China did not do).

Shiv,

Have you actually looked at the table of year by year military assistance to Pakistan 1965-80?

Have you looked at the weapon systems that were inducted in to the Pakistani armed forces in that period?

They were not American, but rather Chinese and French. The French systems were paid for by the Saudis and Iranians, while the Chinese weapon systems were essentially free ('friendship prices').

The Nixon Administration certainly did rely on Yahya Khan as an intermediary to the PRC 1969-71, but Pakistan under Bhutto from 1972-77 got on very poorly with the United States, and Pakistan was not a serious issue between India and the US.
Pakistan under Zia did get on any better with the US until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - the US embassy in Islamabad was burned to the ground in November 1979 by Jamaati Islami mobs while the Army looked on.

Clearly an "abandonment" from 1990 to 2001 is a mealy mouthed version of events. In the 1990s the US unequivocally considered terrorists in Kashmir as "freedom fighters". The same freedom fighters who helped release the 3000 odd people in the twin towers from the bondage of life on earth.

Shiv,

US economic aid to Pakistan in the 1990s was a tenth of Cold War levels, and military aid at even lower levels. Please see the tables.

What were the conditions of Pakistan's US-supplied weaponry during the Kargil war in 1999? How many operational F-16s and P-3s did they have?

What was Pakistan's economic condition during the Kargil War and on September 10th 2001?

Although people like Robin Raphael in the US State Dept. were hostile to India and sympathetic to the Pakistan, that did not stop Pakistan from being placed on the State Department's terrorism watch list in January 1993.

Harakat ul-Mujahidin's fondness for kidnapping western tourists in India did not do them any favours with the Americans, and they were added to the State Department's FTO list before Al Qaeda was.

Pakistan's Army has profited enormously from hosting Al Qaeda - America had lost interest in Pakistan after the Cold War and was no longer funneling the kind of money it had grown dependent on.

The 1990s once again saw Pakistan buying large quantities of Chinese and French weapons. Then 9-11 took place - if I were Pakistan I'd never want to crush the jihadi problem - more than an annoyance to India, its turned America in to a cash cow again.

[Johann]

SSridhar, To add to your remarks, I think 1985-86 period is when the US allowed the PRC to transfer the actual bomb. It was this period when they escalted the Mujhedooen operations by providing Stingers and want to ensure that TSP had some deterrent against Soveit retalaliation. The losses in Afghanistan and the economic mess iN FSU forced the end of Cold War soon after that.

By most reports the Chinese transferred CHIC-4 design to the Pakistanis (PAEC) in late 1982 to early 1983. That is why they conduct their first cold test in March 1983. AQ Khan claims in an interview with Nawa-i-Waqt in February 10 that Pakistan had achieved nuclear weapons capability

About the same time (1982-83) Pakistan began to allow transshipment of N.Korean and Chinese arms to Iran, including Scud missiles through Karachi and the Karakorum highway, through Baluchistan.

However the US-PRC perfidy is that the bombs were not taken back after the end of Cold War and allowed to be retained by TSP as Wages of Terrorsim. In fact PRC allowed the TSP to test its bomb in 1990 per the US officials who wrote a book on PRC nuke program. All this after the Cold War was over.

Ramana,

The 1990 test along with Bhutto's overthrow was key trigger in the US sanctions that were placed on Pakistan from October 1990 until September 11th.

JAN 1989: Bush Administration enters office

5-10 JUN 1989: Benazir Bhutto visits the US. Promises to halt fissile material production.

1989: Western intelligence sources indicate that China is arranging for Pakistan to test its nuclear device at China's Lop Nur nuclear test site.

NOV 1989: Berlin wall falls.

10 APR 1990: Prime Minister VP Singh states that Pakistan was inciting insurgency in Kashmir and neighbouring Punjab. If this did not stop, Pakistan should be ready for war. The war would not be a short one. It would be fought until India had "achieved its strategic objective".

SPRING 1990: Pakistan reportedly reacted to Indian Army war game maneuvers near its border by preparing to drop one of seven weapons from a specially configured C-130 cargo plane. [02 December 1992 NBC News report by Robert Windrem]

MAY 1990: Pakistani deterrent placed on alert; issues nuclear threat.

20 MAY 1990: Robert Gates visits Pakistan and India to defuse crisis. Briefs Bhutto on nuclear programme, which the PA had refused to discuss with her in detail. US urges Bhutto to exercise control.

26 MAY 1990: Probable underground test of a Pakistani CHIC-4 derivative in PRC. ~10kt

2 AUG 1990: Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. US begins emergency airlift of troops to Saudi Arabia.

6 AUG 1990: Benazir deposed President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Bhutto believes that she may have triggered the coup by attempting to make the nuclear programme accountable to her.

13 AUG 1990: Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister arrives in Islamabad (on his way to Bangladesh and Malaysia) with a letter from King Fahd requesting military assistance. This follows unofficial American requests. Pakistan agrees to send an infantry 5,000+ brigade group under Brig. Tahir Ali Qureshi to ‘defend the two holy places’. There is serious criticism in the newspapers by Islamists and many nationalists that this is pandering to American interests. Pakistan launches an effort to create an OIC-only response.

OCT 1990: President Bush announced that he could no longer provide Congress with Pressler Amendment certification that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear weapon. Economic and military aid to Pakistan is terminated, though the Bush administration continued to permit a limited number of commercial military sales to Pakistan. Pakistan handled the cutoff with little public rancor and committed itself to freezing the nuclear program in an attempt to placate the United States.

DEC 1990: India-Pakistan non-attack agreement on nuclear facilities enters in to force with exchange of ratifications.

DEC 1990: Gen. Aslam Beg in a speech publicly praises Iraq’s ‘strategy of defiance’ against the West.

JAN- FEB 1991: Gulf War. The JI, COAS and left condemn ‘American imperialism’, despite the friction it causes with the GCC countries. Gen Mirza Aslam Beg compares it to the Battle of Karbala. Beg, like Arab and Pakistani Islamist parties thinks that Muslims (esp Pakistan) should have dominated the Coalition, and that the US wants to diminish Muslim power. Gen. Beg publicly proposes strategic Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan Islamic security organisation based on nuclear technology exchanged for conventional weapons assistance.

MAR 1991: Abandoned Iraqi tanks and military equipment recovered from Kuwait and southern Iraq by CIA and DoD with Saudi assistance. Shipped to Karachi for use by Hekmatyar and allies.

MAY 1991: Bush administration fails to make a request for aid to the Afghan Mujaheddin. Congress at Charlie Wilson’s urging gives money anyway.

5 JUL 1991: BCCI shut down by the Bank of England for financial fraud.

AUG 1991: Beg replaced as COAS by Janjua. Janjua interested in normalising relations with USSR, and mending relations with the US and Saudi Arabia.

SEP 1991: US & USSR agree to end aid to Afghan combatants by January 1992. US disengagement from the Afghan War.

DEC 1991: CIA arms pipeline to the Afghan Mujaheddin shuts down. CIA attempts to convince Pakistanis to destroy Iraqi tanks undelivered to the Muj. The Pakistanis refuse.

25 DEC 1991: Soviet Union officially dissolved

[shiv]

What were the conditions of Pakistan's US-supplied weaponry during the Kargil war in 1999? How many operational F-16s and P-3s did they have?

What was Pakistan's economic condition during the Kargil War and on September 10th 2001?

Johann I am not sure why you wish to belabor the point and make what seems to me a feeble excuse for American actions. The questions you ask above sound quite ludicrous given that the US has, since Sept 11th given Pakistan more arms and money than even before. If - at some future point in time - they stop that for a brief while and then restart, it would clearly be a biased commentary to point out the fact that they stopped helping briefly and to completely ignore the totality that American help, despite breaks, has kept Pakistan going for the past 63 years. The fact that the Chinese and French helped does not in any way absolve America of its basically egregious nature in wanting to "balance out" powers - in this case India by supplying Pakistan directly, or by looking the other way when Germany, Iran, China and other powers supplied Pakistan when the US was not doing that.

Let me restate what I have said earlier in different words:

1) If China collapses, Pakistan will not collapse
2) If France collapses Pakistan will not collapse
3) If the US collapses, Pakistan will collapse.

[Johann]

ohann I am not sure why you wish to belabor the point and make what seems to me a feeble excuse for American actions.

Shiv,

I'm not really interested in what you mistake for excuses. That is a bore. It is the question of realistic assessments that interests me.

America has been a deeply unreliable and unpredictable partner to Pakistan, alternatingly offering famines and feasts, sanctions and support.

Pakistan has had only two consistently reliable security partners in the last 50 years - Saudi Arabia and the PRC.

Who do you think sustains Pakistan in the decades when there is little or no American military and economic aid?

Saudi Arabia has consistently paid for the expansion of Pakistan's extremist madrasas and its European coventional arms acquisition and much of its nuclear program, while the PRC has built much of its nuclear and missile infrastructure and a lot of its conventional forces.

They have never threatened 'to bomb Pakistan in to the stone age' or placed sanctions on it.

When the current bout of US-Pakistani cooperation collapses, who do you think will remain? These countries are in the region, and their interests are far more consistent and persistent than a global power on the other side of the world.

As long as China and Saudi Arabia remain on the same page with regards to Pakistan , the Pakistani Army, and the jihadis they rely on will get all the support they need to survive.

[shiv]

As long as China and Saudi Arabia remain on the same page as far as Pakistan , the Pakistani Army, and the jihadis they rely on will get all the support they need to survive.

I have a slightly different opinion on this. Pakistan's survival as a nation state was underwritten by the US apart from arms and funds. Neither China nor the Saudis can do this. I have a list of reasons why I believe this to be true - not least the fact that the Pakistani elite who made all the deals with the US were culturally closer to the US that either KSA or Pakistan.

Uneven Cohen seems to have recognised this and that is why he says that a failing Pakistan wil be China's problem. If the US goes the Pakistani army and jihadis will insist that China replace the US. China will find it tough to fill the US's shoes.

Ultimately Pakistan's fate will be linked to its 180 million people more than a 1 million man army and elite. The forces that push those 180 million in one direction or other have always been modified by the army and elite aided by US funds and arms from others with the excuse that India will be taken down by these actions. If the US goes before taking India down, China and KSA are hardly going to be able to fulfil the demands of the 180 million who are now pushing for control.

What the US does will be crucial, but no matter what - no nation on earth can support 180 milllion Pakistanis. The US, China and France have merely supported the army and the elite. The jihadis, you will know, are merely an extension of the army and their survival is linked to the army.

[Johann]

Shiv,

I think we can agree that there is a difference between state failure and state collapse. States collapse when their ruling elites lose the will to power and start bickering with themselves. That is what took place in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

Other states like Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Syria, etc have faced much more serious conditions of failure without collapse because their people at the top stuck together.

What makes you think that the PA elite depend on the Americans for their will to hang together and survive? Nixon's support didn't make any difference to the East Bengali struggle. The absence of US support didn't make any difference during Z.A. Bhutto's struggle to crush the Baluchis. The deciding factor is always much more local.

The Pakistani establishment know that they don't need America to survive - rather they see them as a kind of ladder from that takes them from basic survival to high living.

Can one honestly say that the devout Zia had more in common with an actor from California like Reagan than King Fahd in Saudi Arabia? Or that Kiyani does not have more in common with the tough generals of the CMC as far as political culture goes than people like Admiral Mullen? The PA and PLA know what it means to run military businesses, dictate policy to civilian leaders, brutally crack down on restless minorities and actively proliferate nuclear materials.

The challenges of feeding a Pakistani population in the course of doubling by 2050 are absolutely mindboggling, but I don't doubt what would happen if and when the Americans disengage again - they will get just enough help from the PRC and the Saudis to blackmail India in to providing the rest of what it needs to survive. India will be wealthy enough to make it a much more attractive target for extortion than mutual assured destruction.

[SSridhar]

SSridhar, To add to your remarks, I think 1985-86 period is when the US allowed the PRC to transfer the actual bomb.

Two kinds of transfers took place. One was actual devices themselves, as you said. The other was the design. In the case of the latter, all possible assistance was provided to Pakistan to build the bomb from scratch. The two principal players supplied many things such as enriched Uranium, Uranium Hexafluoride, ring magnets, inverters, oscilloscopes, Krytron switches etc. The very first cold test was conducted sometime in c. 1983. Hot testing took place in c. 1984. There are several confirmations of this. Even in c. 2002, when AQ Khan was publicly pardoned by Musharraf, the overriding concern in Islamabad was that he would spill the secrets of Chinese assistance. PRC came in very handy for the US because it had not signed NPT.

[ramana]

The odd thing about the Paki bomb is its tested so many times!

Its based on 1968 CHIC-4 tested weapon. ~20kt

Next it gets tested in PRC and is witnessed by Shahryar Khan in early 80s.

before that AK claims several cold tests in the integennum

Next we hear of 1990 test yield ~10kt

I gets tested in 1998 by Badmash. Again yield is a ?

Whats wrong with it? It looks like Paki processing is not upto CHIC4 standards!

[shyamd]

I can confirm that KSA has supported TSP's nuke acquisition. They footed the bills.

The agreement came from early on. KSA wanted something that has been tested numerous times and wanted to make sure that it worked.

[shiv]

What makes you think that the PA elite depend on the Americans for their will to hang together and survive? Nixon's support didn't make any difference to the East Bengali struggle. The absence of US support didn't make any difference during Z.A. Bhutto's struggle to crush the Baluchis. The deciding factor is always much more local.

tsk tsk Johann. You are confusing "nationalism" with "self indulgence". The loss of East Pakistan did not touch the elite. They just went on and emerged stronger, as did the support they got from the US. It was their own survival that was important to them and the US played an admirable role. Neither they nor the US cared for useless East Pakistan.

Can one honestly say that the devout Zia had more in common with an actor from California like Reagan than King Fahd in Saudi Arabia? Or that Kiyani does not have more in common with the tough generals of the CMC as far as political culture goes than people like Admiral Mullen? The PA and PLA know what it means to run military businesses, dictate policy to civilian leaders, brutally crack down on restless minorities and actively proliferate nuclear materials.

Tell me you're joking. Zia knew well how to run a military business and his suited booted westernized businessmen oiled deals with the US and the west. All deals with Pakistan invariably involve middlemen and kickbacks and the companies that sold to Pakistan were enriched as much as Pakistani officers and middlemen. I believe that you might be attributing a degree of "conscience" and "uprightness" in the US's dealings with Pakistan. The culture I am talking about is hardly the culture of fine dining and ballroom dancing. It is a culture of innate ba$tardry and chootiyapanti in which the US recognized that the Paki elite were incorrigible self serving mofos and Pakistan understood that the US too consists of incorrigible self serving mofos. A conclave of criminals basically with criminal minds on both sides making full use of each others strengths.

The challenges of feeding a Pakistani population in the course of doubling by 2050 are absolutely mindboggling, but I don't doubt what would happen if and when the Americans disengage again - they will get just enough help from the PRC and the Saudis to blackmail India in to providing the rest of what it needs to survive. India will be wealthy enough to make it a much more attractive target for extortion than mutual assured destruction.

Of course it will not happen if the Americans disengage. The Americans have never fed Pakis and never will feed them. What the Americans did was not even to make the elite richer as you have quite erroneously stated. Th Pakistani elite were rich without America and will continue to be rich minus America. What America did was to help consolidate the military power of the elite against the most dangerous challenges to their existence - mainly India. And that is why I want to see the US back out.

I believe you are only bluffing yourself if you point me to "tables" that say that the US paid the Pakis nothing for X years because what the US actually did does not go into tables. Not published ones anyway. If the US supplies 200 F-86s Sabres one day and stops supplying them the next day - I can be shown "tables" that the US is no longer helping. But those Sabres remain operational for years and their life gets extended by indirect means with Chinese, German, Iranian and Turkish mediation while the US can wear a halo around its head and say "Look at the tables. We're not paying Pakistan nothin'" The same thing holds true for F-16s. How stupid it would have been for any Indian to have said in 1990 - "Hey lookee at what we've got. The US is out. So the F-16s are no threat now" So the aid that the US gave to Pakistan in earlier years nicely covered the gap until Pakistan pinched the US's bottom with 9-11. The US took the hint and started helping their gang members again.

Disagreement is what we have got.

[brihaspati]

I am not sure any of the supposed patrons of Paki Occupation Government are ready to actually, seriosuly invest in basic industries in Paki occupied territories. Even for cheap labour to be effective you need a certain basic level of skills - which in turn needs ceratin basic levels in modernized education - and are nearly impossible to get in Pak in the areas of industry where there is still some growth potential.

So how much can loans and aids from the "friends" be used to pay "products" from friends. In the end it becomes a cycle of deferred payemnts to self from the patron side - patron's money goes out and comes back - maybe with some interest. But If the real economy is not covering sufficiently for that "interest" where is the net profit for patrons?

If US withdraws, don't think PRC or KSA or even Iran will be overjoyed to invest. In a lot of ways US presence in Paki occupied territories is a sort of incentive and guarantee for some degree of recoverability of investments from them.

With US withdrawal - Paki's will go back to the two primary means of survival they have always used for millenia. First is threaten and raid the trade connections between south-southeast Asia and CAR and Europe. Second, invite foreign adventurers so that they can then join in an expedition to loot the fertility of India. Either way the Pakis will find it difficult. Athird option is processing and running the drugs trade and perhaps a modern slave export business - both traditional biz for the area.

[shiv]

If, and that's a big if, the US "leaves" Pakistan or stops sponsoring the Pakistani army, I would be quite interested in knowing what would become of the Durand line.

For example - some of the biggest investments made by the US in Pakistan after 9-11 include helicopters and surveillance equipment designed to make the Durand line less porous. The Pakistani army is not interested in making the Durand line less porous as long as they are free to enter and dominate Afghanistan. Pakistan dominated Afghanistan with an Islamic army that was funded and armed by the US and KSA. The arms of course were American.

The same US now wants that Islamic army out of Afghanistan. After 9-11, the US has done its level best to try and get the Pakistani army to stay out of Afghanistan, but go right ahead and keep its "insurance against India" - i.e those elements of an Islamic army who were Reagan's "Freedom fighters of Kashmir" while the fight for freedom from the Soviets went on in Afghanistan. The US has tried every trick in the book to buy out the Pakistan army and that includes arming them comfortably to fight India - with F-16s and AMRAAMs and JDAMs.

But Pakistan's problem is a burgeoning Islamic population. No matter how much the army and elite want to serve the US in exchange for continued influence over events they are less and less capable of controlling their own population. The US of course is quite sanguine about the idea of the Pakistani army attacking its own population with artillery and aircraft. And the Pakistani army has obliged - to an extent. But as the US found in Vietnam and Iraq and is finding in Afghanistan - fighting your own people is a problem. Leaders who fight their own people are called despots and dictators. Leaders who do not care for the development of their own people and become wealthy at the expense of their own people are also despots. The US of course - with its sheer hypocrisy covered in a self-righteous hijab of freedom and democracy has consistently pretended that Pakistan has been really democratic, or has had a benign army in control, an army that merely seeks to preserve Pakistan against a devilish India and, in an earlier era, the Soviet Union. And this despotic Pakistani government of elites has been protected by the US for decades. These facts do not show up in aid tables unless you look for parameters like literacy, population growth, maternal mortality and infant mortality. And those figures can only come from a functioning country that actually conducts an honest census - which has not happened in Pakistan for over 2 decades. But no worry. Ask the US. Pakistan is an ally. And is a democracy to boot. Just like the US. Just like the US indeed, but not in terms of democracy though.

Johann has suggested that the Chinese and KSA will seamlessly step into American shoes if America leaves and all will be fine and dandy. Pakistan will be the same as it always was - fighting India with Chinese arms and support. This theory is easy to believe as long as you believe that the US model of supporting the elite and army actually works and will keep on working indefinitely

However where it fails is in the fact that Pakistan today is the result of the failure of the US model. Every problem in Pakistan today are problems that the US supported elite failed to address. Bangladesh was a victory of demographics over poor governance. The US "lost" East Pakistan because they bet on the elite. The Pakistani elite came out on top despite Bangladesh. If the US model of supporting the elite over demographic forces is failing, I would like to know what kind of magic the Chinese are going to perform in perpetuating the US model, funding and arming the Pakistani army while the population becomes more numerous, more illiterate and more removed from the rest of the world. the fact that this population of Pakistan will be a problem for India too is beside the point. How is china going to step in where the US failed, using the same tactic (or arming and funding the elite) that the US used? That elite is losing control of its own population. Demography is beginning to kick in in Pakistan.

Pakistan's' huge population have been kept under the yoke of the elite by an elite funded by the US saying that Kashmir will be regained from India as long as the population maintain the purity of Islam. The lie that no one seems top be talking about is that Pakistan has not survived on the purity of Islam, but on the back of an elite funded mainly by the US, and partly by China and KSA. 60 years and 100 million people later, Kashmir is still not part of Pakistan and the Pakistani army is increasingly fighting for its own territory within Pakistan. The only tool that the population have is the very tool that they were asked top use to unite and fight - Islam. But the government armed by the US and China did not need Islam. The Islam of the people is now fighting the arms supplied by the US and China. If the US goes guess which way the tide will turn? Will the Chinese manage to make the Paki army fight their own population in a way that the US did not manage to do? Or will the Chinese stop eating pork and allow the Islamists to survive and ditch the elite?

[RajeshA]

If the US model of supporting the elite over demographic forces is failing, I would like to know what kind of magic the Chinese are going to perform in perpetuating the US model, funding and arming the Pakistani army while the population becomes more numerous, more illiterate and more removed from the rest of the world. the fact that this population of Pakistan will be a problem for India too is beside the point. How is china going to step in where the US failed, using the same tactic (or arming and funding the elite) that the US used? That elite is losing control of its own population. Demography is beginning to kick in in Pakistan.

The Demographics are coming after the Elite in Pakistan, for several reasons:

1. The people are made to believe by "democratic elections", that the government would look after the needs of the people, for they are promised such things, so the expectations are raised.
2. The Elite has tended to have a lifestyle which happened to be in stark variance to that of the commoners.
3. The Elite put the Mango Abduls under a leash, but the leash does not protect the holder from being bitten. The leash protected the Elite from having their mangos become susceptible to other ideologies, but it did not protect the Mangos from becoming susceptible to a more radical form of the encouraged ideology, so much so that the mangos starting passing judgments on the Elite based on the same ideology.
4. The Elite has dabbled in relationships with others, with patrons who are considered as oppressors and enemies of the ideology.
5. The Elite ultimately has tended to look for protection of their persons, their families and their property using the services of the mango abduls as bodyguards.
6. The Elite in combination with hoarders have made the mango abduls pay dearly for their food.

Let's consider a scenario:
1. The people are not served this codswallop about Democracy. The people are not told that they have the right to expect something from this life. The people are told that life is difficult, and if Allah pleases they will get something. People are not allowed to see how life is outside their immediate environment - no TV, no DVDs, no Internet, no Newspapers serving foreign news and articles in praise of living standards abroad. Perfect Darkness! The rulers get legitimacy through the only ideology that is allowed in Pakistan - Islamism. There is no need for representativeness.

2. The Neo-Elite themselves make a pious image, and do not flaunt too much money around. They have palatial madrassas, with their women in burqa almost all the time, and loads of Taliban serving them, but they do not wear Western clothes, they do not dance and they do not watch Bollywood films. The new Elite is the Maulanas.

3. The Neo-Elite are themselves proponents of the most conservative form of Islam with all barbarity and obscurantism they can muster.

4. The Neo-Elite is always putting out frothing-in-the-mouth propaganda against America, West, Israel and India. The Neo-Elite does not meet with the representatives of these countries directly.

5. Their bodyguards are not given to them by the "police" but are their students from childhood, brainwashed to love and care for their Maulanas.

6. The Mullah-Zamindar alliance is such that the Mullah provides for the security of the Zamindar, and the Zamindar gives half of his produce to the Mullah. Mullah distributes this produce among his most loyal protectors and their families. The rest of the population lives on the crumbs, no health service, no education, and Talibanic law. Actually such an economy could be much stronger, because the Zamindars would start being taxed, and that too heavily. Other than that the Mullahs also sell Opium and Heroin in the West through narcotics networks and hawala systems. There will also be many Muslims coming from the West to learn and get trained by these madrassas and they too will bring in foreign exchange.

*******

In such a system of Mullah-Gangster Rule, there is no scope of revolution anymore. Only one gangster can supersede another gangster, who too will rule according to the same policies.

At the federal level, the TSP Army could still survive under a Mullahcracy.

They can always finance themselves using the option of extortion based on their nuclear weapons, terrorist threats, and piracy in the Indian Ocean, which gives them some more money. They can also give sanctuary to all types of organized crime syndicates in the world, and take a cut from their revenues. Now this Army and the Mullahcracy can survive without American aid, though it is not certain that even then Americans would stop the money flow indirectly to avoid being bombed.

The question was whether China can take over the services of the Pakistani Army after the yahoos come to power. If Pakistan does not demand any money for their population, and manages to pay the wages of its Army through their crime rackets, then China can step in to pay for the military hardware, military training and assure a UNSC veto. Here and there China may be willing to pay for other things like a naval base in Gwadar, some terrorist operations in India, Islamic rhetoric against India, Rhetoric against India say on water issues, etc. etc.

For a burgeoning economy like China, where PLA now has money beyond all its dreams, this is not asking for too much.

[shiv]

In fact that is why I mentioned the Durand line.

All that Rajesh has written is already happening in Pakistan - not some future scenario. Nawaz Sharif and his party are typical of that, but the army is wary. And yet - the periphery is spinning out of control. The US - going full tilt supporting Pakistan, with China filling the gaps is unable to stop revolution around the Durand line. China alone - with the US absent is not going to do much better. In fact China fears Islamism more than the US because China is right here in Asia. US mediated stability in Afghanistan, and lack of significant Islamist encroachment from there is an asset for China. China has a border with Afghanistan as well.

I find China making ass-licking statements about Pakistan - and the ass licking is directed at the Paki establishment. I see no way that China alone can succeed when a combination of China and the US having similar goals in Pakistan have failed. And there is no oil in Pakistan to convert Pakistan into Saudia.

China will have to face up to Islam and I'm lovin' it.

[RajeshA]

In fact China fears Islamism more than the US because China is right here in Asia. US mediated stability in Afghanistan, and lack of significant Islamist encroachment from there is an asset for China. China has a border with Afghanistan as well.

I find China making ass-licking statements about Pakistan - and the ass licking is directed at the Paki establishment. I see no way that China alone can succeed when a combination of China and the US having similar goals in Pakistan have failed. And there is no oil in Pakistan to convert Pakistan into Saudia.

China will have to face up to Islam and I'm lovin' it.

shiv saar,

the future is full of possibilities, and the winner is usually the one who uses his brain and money, puppeteers the puppets, but keeps his hands hidden.

A unified Pakistan under whatever dispensation would always be an Indian enemy. A fragmented Pakistan with the word "Pakistan" relegated to history and oblivion can on the other hand work as India's strategic depth to undermine China. We can always build better, deeper connections to the Taliban gangs there, who can spread their ideology Northwards.

IMHO, we are still so wedded to the present Indo-Pak dynamic in our thinking that we seem to be unable to properly grasp either the dangers or the opportunities hidden in Pakistan's future, or do we seem to be intent on molding the future to our advantage. Everybody seems to crave a seat on a sofa with coke and popcorn. There are big developments taking place in the world, before our very eyes.

Of course one can argue that GoI is doing Chanakian things behind our backs. But then I would also have to give them the credit for top secrecy, that none of this thinking has seeped out into strategic writings.

[Johann]

tsk tsk Johann. You are confusing "nationalism" with "self indulgence". The loss of East Pakistan did not touch the elite. They just went on and emerged stronger, as did the support they got from the US. It was their own survival that was important to them and the US played an admirable role. Neither they nor the US cared for useless East Pakistan.

Shiv,

I think the larger point I was making was that the US was not critical to the outcome in either "East Pakistan" or Balochistan.

But it sounds like you're claiming US support was at the same level or even higher in the 1972-79 period as it was 1954-1965 and 1969-71. It was not, it was significantly lower. I'd love to see the evidence for that.

Bhutto's first job on becoming President was to launch an ummah-wide begging trip, and he did very well out of it from the Gulf to Iran to Libya. The next major begging trip was to the PRC.

This is what paid for the nuclear programme, Ghaddafi stadium in Lahore, and the vast majority of Pakistan's new weapon acquisitions in the 1970s from the Mirages to the Chinese knock off fighters.

That is who supported Pakistan through the 1970s.

Why do you think Zia had the confidence to dismiss Jimmy Carter's initial $400m aid offer as 'peanuts' in February 1980? Carter did not make a better offer, but Reagan did.

Tell me you're joking. Zia knew well how to run a military business and his suited booted westernized businessmen oiled deals with the US and the west. All deals with Pakistan invariably involve middlemen and kickbacks and the companies that sold to Pakistan were enriched as much as Pakistani officers and middlemen. I believe that you might be attributing a degree of "conscience" and "uprightness" in the US's dealings with Pakistan. The culture I am talking about is hardly the culture of fine dining and ballroom dancing. It is a culture of innate ba$tardry and chootiyapanti in which the US recognized that the Paki elite were incorrigible self serving mofos and Pakistan understood that the US too consists of incorrigible self serving mofos. A conclave of criminals basically with criminal minds on both sides making full use of each others strengths.

Shiv, your claim was that Zia and the other generals were prone at doing business with the West than it was with China and the Saudis because of a common but fading colonial heritage.

What you are saying now is quite different.

Ayub Khan, with Bhutto as his Foreign Minister were looking well beyond the West after 1963.

Chinese and Islamic aid came with far fewer strings, and reduced their vulnerability to American pressure.

Of course it will not happen if the Americans disengage. The Americans have never fed Pakis and never will feed them. What the Americans did was not even to make the elite richer as you have quite erroneously stated. Th Pakistani elite were rich without America and will continue to be rich minus America.

I was not talking about Pakistan's ruling classes, who have their rents and their export businesses.

I am talking about the middle ranks and the middle classes who get to skim a little off the top of government programmes, who see new positions created, and who provide some of the goods and services that the mega-rich and the state spend on even more lavishly when the aid spigot is flowing.

Those middle classes and middle ranks are the ones who bestow popular legitimacy and take it away on the military regimes and governments.

Of course its not the only option for the middle class, and even a lucky few in the working class - working in the Gulf has been one of the only ways to get a leg up since the 1970s.

What America did was to help consolidate the military power of the elite against the most dangerous challenges to their existence - mainly India. And that is why I want to see the US back out.

And you don't think the Chinese and Saudis can do the same thing? Have you been watching the growth of the Chinese economy and armed forces?

What have the Chinese have been doing in North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, etc?

I believe you are only bluffing yourself if you point me to "tables" that say that the US paid the Pakis nothing for X years because what the US actually did does not go into tables. Not published ones anyway. If the US supplies 200 F-86s Sabres one day and stops supplying them the next day - I can be shown "tables" that the US is no longer helping. But those Sabres remain operational for years and their life gets extended by indirect means with Chinese, German, Iranian and Turkish mediation while the US can wear a halo around its head and say "Look at the tables. We're not paying Pakistan nothin'" The same thing holds true for F-16s. How stupid it would have been for any Indian to have said in 1990 - "Hey lookee at what we've got. The US is out. So the F-16s are no threat now" So the aid that the US gave to Pakistan in earlier years nicely covered the gap until Pakistan pinched the US's bottom with 9-11. The US took the hint and started helping their gang members again.

Yes, Shiv, maintenance and availability is important, which is why I asked you to look back at the readiness of the American platforms PAF and PN during the Kargil War in 1999 and Parakram in 2001-02 after a decade of sanctions. The list of post 9-11 deliveries and sales to Pakistan (which I posted in the mil forum a while back) had spares at the top of their list.

If India had for example had itself struck, or allowed the Israelis to strike Kahuta from IAF bases like Jamnagar as as had been considered, what would have been the best that the Pakistanis could have thrown up 1979-83? Ageing Sabres? Or would it have been Mirages and Crotales?

By 1971, the PAF had consolidated its B-57s in to a single squadron because of the spares issue. The Starfighters were retired by the end of 1972. Even the surplus (which tells us how modern they were) Luftwaffe Sabres delivered to the PAF in 1966 were paid for by the Shah of Iran, not the Americans. Nothing would have stopped the Johnson administration from paying for them if they wanted at that point if they had wanted - but Pakistan was not willing to help in Vietnam despite SEATO membership, and they certainly didn't care enough about Pakistan's military needs at that point to pay for them.

Those tables matter, because they show at the (very least) USG willingness at any given time to pay for the Pakistanis to receive the best stuff, which is what we are talking about, isn't it?

But the future will be different, and I'll tell you why. The best that the PRC could give the PAF instead in the 1990s and the early 2000s was the F-7 with its cut rate Italian avionics. The next few decades will be different because the Chinese will have much more to offer than the JF-17 that was ordered precisely because the Americans still aren't willing to equip the entire PAF. The J-20, the Type 41 SSK, their ASAT and offensive cyberwarfare capabilities all represent a quantum jump in terms of what China can produce and quite likely export.

In any case, it is the nuclear factor rather than conventional that is the key deterrent since 1990. Pakistan is now switching to the plutonium route to expand their arsenal, and I don't have to point out who built the Khusab reactor, or brokered the North Korean contacts, or supplied the cruise missile designs intended to maintain second-strike credibility against ABM systems.

Disagreement is what we have got.

Perhaps, but still worth exploring.

[Prem]

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/n ... nid=173366

Bottom Line

Pakistan's nuclear stockpile worries US

It has been reported by US intelligence that Pakistan has become the world's fifth largest nuclear weapons power, overtaking Britain. The deployed weapons now number more than 110, according to recent estimates of US intelligence. Pakistan says that it is a credible, minimum nuclear deterrent, and people should not get unduly concerned about the stockpile of nuclear weapons. Observers say that Pakistan has been infuriated by the nuclear deal between Washington and New Delhi, arguing that it has freed India's homemade fuel to produce new weapons. As a result, Pakistan argues that it has no choice but to bolster its own production.It is reported that the US has spent $100 million helping Pakistan to build fences, install sensor systems and train personnel to handle the weapons. But the US is deeply concerned that weapons-usable fuel, which is kept in laboratories and storage centres, is more vulnerable and could be diverted by insiders in Pakistan's vast nuclear complex.Another concern is not the weapons but the increase in production of material, especially plutonium. Pakisan is completing work on a large plutonium production reactor, which will greatly increase its ability to produce a new generation of weapons.The biggest concern for the US is theft from the plants that produce plutonium ( Hu has given them PU Bomb Design,H"i"an ji). It is reported that Al Queda has been attempting to procure nuclear material and recruit scientists in order to build a "dirty bomb." Western security chiefs told a Nato meeting in 2009 that Al-Queda was planning a programme of "dirty radioactive improved explosive devices" which could be used against soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. Furthermore, Al Queda papers found in 2007 convinced security officials that greater advances had been made in bio-terrorism than previously feared.There have been attempts by rogue organisations to smuggle weapons grade material. A freight train on the Kazakhstan-Russia border had carried weapons-grade material, and a small dealer in Lisbon had tried to sell radioactive plates stolen from Chernobyl.How is Pakistan financing the new weapons production at a time of financial stress in the country?

[ramana]

x-post .....

Will Pak be next?

WILL PAKISTAN BE NEXT?
- It is to be hoped that the Arab future tilts towards democracy
KANTI BAJPAI


The crises in Tunisia and Egypt have surprised the world even as they have shocked the incumbent leaderships. The knock-on effects on South Yemen and Jordan suggest that there is widespread popular disaffection in the Arab world. Is this a pointer to rebellion brewing in the Muslim world beyond the Arab countries? What about Pakistan in particular? Could it be next?

What we are seeing in Tunisia and now in Egypt is large-scale popular rebellion against long-standing authoritarian leaderships. Both are fairly advanced Arab countries in terms of per capita income ($7900 and $5400 respectively in purchasing power parity terms), literacy (78 per cent and 66 per cent), exposure to the media and electronic communications, and political awareness. Both have respectable population growth rates, with Tunisia slightly below the world average and Egypt somewhat above. Both are growing economically at a decent rate — at between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent respectively. Unemployment is probably the most disturbing element, with Tunisia at 14 per cent and Egypt at 10 per cent.

There is trouble also in Yemen and Jordan. How do they stack up against Tunisia and Egypt? Yemen has a per capita income of $2400 and Jordan of $5000. Literacy is at 59 per cent and 91 per cent respectively. Population growth rates are 2.97 per cent and three per cent, well above the global average of 1.17 per cent. Economically, they are both growing at five per cent. And unemployment is 35 per cent and 13 per cent. This suggests that Jordan is somewhat closer to Tunisia and Egypt.

Why then, given quite different profiles, at least between Yemen on the one hand and Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan on the other, are both sets of countries in political difficulty? Do the economic and social characteristics of countries not matter?

There is a view that economic and social deprivation leads to rebellion. An alternative view is that economic and social progress, up to a threshold, gives rise to rebellion. The four profiles sketched in here suggest that the latter view is more credible, as three of the four States represent middle-level developing countries that have attained a certain threshold of economic and social progress. Economic and social progress creates political awareness and a level of political mobilization that is necessary for an agitational movement. Economic and social progress is also influential in determining the nature of the movement. If one had to make a vulgar prediction, it is that Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan, as relatively rich and modern societies, will handle the present crises somewhat better and move in the direction of a fairly moderate, liberal alternative. Not so Yemen.

Is there anything that the four countries have in common besides being Arab and Muslim and sharing some economic and social features? One striking common feature is their political leadership which has been in the same hands for three decades. Discontent is as much political, therefore, as it is economic and social.

Where is Pakistan in comparison? Its per capita income is $2600 dollars, close to Yemen’s. Literacy is 54 per cent, again Yemen-like. Population is growing at a more moderate pace, at 1.84 per cent. Economic growth is running at 2.7 per cent, lower than Yemen and barely keeping up with population growth. Unemployment stands at 15 per cent, well below Yemen’s rate. In sum, Pakistan’s economic and social profile is more like that of Yemen than of Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan.

Yet, compared to the four Arab States, Pakistan has certain political characteristics which make massive street protests against the incumbent government unlikely. It has had a history of rather effective street protests — in 1969 to oust Ayub Khan, in 1977 to oust Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and in 2009 to oust Pervez Musharraf. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely to happen in the wake of Tunisia and Egypt.

For one thing, and perhaps most importantly, Pakistan has not had the same leadership for 30 years. Nobody in Pakistan, not even a dictator, has ruled for more than 11 years. Pervez Musharraf, the last authoritarian leader of that country, did not quite make the 11-year ‘limit’, being at the helm from 1999 to 2009.

Secondly, the present government in Pakistan is a popularly elected one. There is discontent in the country, but the Zardari government was elected in a free and fair election and his political capital has not run out — he has not hit the 11-year limit. Nor has it been possible to focus public anger against any one leader. President Asif Ali Zardari is not personally liked, but he is not the only focus of dissatisfaction. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, runs the day-to-day affairs of the State with a fairly capable group of ministers. Responsibility is more diffuse in Pakistan.

This brings me to a third feature of the Pakistani system, namely, its relative openness. Pakistan today is not authoritarian in the way that Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen are. There are political spaces and freedoms available to dissenting groups, most obviously parliament. The effect of this is to let pressure dissipate.

Fourth, Pakistan has a lively and relatively free media. Popular expressions of dissent and dissatisfaction are allowed fairly free rein, particularly in periods of civilian rule. Even during military rule, Pakistan’s press has had a fair degree of commentative and reporting freedom. Political unhappiness is therefore not bottled up as in the Arab world.

Another key difference is that Islamic forces in Pakistan have not been suppressed in the way that they have been contained in Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan. It is not clear to what extent Islamic groups have instigated or taken over the protests in those three countries. In Egypt, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood is becoming more evident. What is worrisome in the Egyptian movement is that the only organized force within it is the Brotherhood. There is a danger, therefore, that the Islamists will manipulate the post-Mubarak phase to their advantage and marginalize the liberals. In Pakistan, by contrast, the Islamists are pretty much out in the open and have the patronage or acquiescence of political parties and the army. Pakistani Islamists may not need a popular movement against the government of the day. They already set a good deal of the agenda and frequently act as a veto group.

Finally, young people have been a crucial force in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, but Pakistan’s youth, particularly educated youth, have really not played much of a role in agitational politics since the late 1960s. Some segments of young people have been drawn into Islamic radicalism, others have joined the mainstream political parties. Yet others have emigrated to the West or are politically apathetic. Those who have joined Islamic radicalism and those in the mainstream parties are not terribly interested in agitational street politics: the radicals are attracted to terrorism and sectarian conflict — Shia versus Sunni — or cultural reformation; and those in the political parties give vent to their views within the political process.

If this is correct, Pakistan is unlikely to be a candidate for the kind of protests we are seeing in the Arab world. Pakistan already has a richer democratic history than these countries. It also has much more instability and political violence. We must hope that the Arab future tilts towards democracy rather than instability and violence.

The author teaches international politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

OK. So he thinks it won't happen in TSP for the above mentioned reasons. He ignores that the only constant in TSP is the military shadow over the govrnment. Willy nilly since Ayub Khan's coup in the late fifties the Army has cast a long shadow. Right now the people's anger is turned into useless thunderbolts and is diverted. Then will come the TSPA 's turn

[ramana]

X-post...
I guess this is the right thread. .


Tamasha at Thimpu

Tamasha at Thimpu Managing Pakistan's failure and denuking it should preoccupy India most, says N.V.Subramanian.

7 February 2011: Can there be successful engagement between a thriving and rumbustious democracy like India and a failing jihadi state like Pakistan?

Not really.

Which is why this writer dismisses as hyperbole (or uncharacteristic cunning?) the Indian foreign secretary, Nirupama Rao's description of her Thimpu talks with her Pakistani counterpart as "successful".

Pakistan and India come to talks with mirror-opposite positions on Kashmir, the subject of Pakistan's eternal obsession. Pakistan claims it as the elusive prize of Partition.

Pakistan believes that with the possession of Kashmir, its problems of nationhood and national identity will cease. That's completely misguided.

If Pakistan had to become a nation, it would have done so in more than sixty years of independence. Kashmir is an excuse it trots out for its own failures in nation-building.

It sees Kashmir's breakaway as a catalyst to Balkanize India. It visualizes India as an artificial construct of secularism to be destroyed for its own survival.

That is one more reason why India will -- and can -- never give up Kashmir. No Central government could survive bartering away the state or changing its boundaries.

The problem for India is that it cannot not keep up the pretense of talking to Pakistan. The United States which has a handle in both countries wants talks to continue even though it is reconciled to its failure.

The US and India share fears about Pakistani nukes. The fear that those nukes will leak to the terrorists, in whole or in part, is what worries them and other responsible nuclear powers.

The crisis centres on the Pakistan army and the intelligence services. They control the deployment and security of the weapons.

Earlier, the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment nuclear-blackmailed India. Alongside, it expanded anti-India terrorism under a nuclear overhang, going all the way up to waging a "limited war" in Kargil.

It's when all this didn't deter India that it has attempted to blackmail the world about its nukes. The blackmail has taken two distinct forms.

One is that the Pakistan military must continue to be richly Western-aided so that it does not weaken against the terrorists and lose control of the nukes. Most of the aid is used to build the war-machine against India.

When Pakistan is questioned about the need for nukes, seeing it is the aggressor against India, and voices are raised to denuke it, it adopts the second distinctive form of blackmail. It lets out that the nukes will be leaked to the terrorists if it is not supported.

This vicious cycle could go on except for one thing. Pakistan is failing at a rapid pace. A terrorist takeover of Pakistan is as much a mid-term possibility as the state breaking up into its rival provinces. Don't imagine a Tunisia not to happen in Baluchistan.

For its internal failings, Pakistan must manufacture an external enemy. It is the United States and India. But for the Pakistan military and ISI, it is more often India.

Given this state of affairs, what can India do? At the most, it can keep up a fiction of talking, which is what this writer suspects the engagement with Pakistan is all about.

Nobody will admit it on the Indian side. But India is playing for time till Pakistan self-destructs.

Except for the huge problem related to the final disposal of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, nobody really cares (including the West) whether or not it survives as one state.

If Pakistani nukes can be evacuated, there will be active Western connivance to dismember it. Remember that together with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan has become the incubator of Sunni terrorism.

So do not be surprised if Indo-Pak talks are really about managing Pakistan's failure and to minimize the fallouts. To expect anything more would be unrealistic and optimistic.

A failing nuclear state is a mega threat. If it is jihadi to boot, it becomes a nightmare.

India should benchmark its success dealing with the failed state of Pakistan and seeking ways to denuke it. Nothing else matters.

Opinion writers are despairing. Not good.

[ramana]

Somnath how is the futures coming?

[shiv]

I think the larger point I was making was that the US was not critical to the outcome in either "East Pakistan" or Balochistan.

But it sounds like you're claiming US support was at the same level or even higher in the 1972-79 period as it was 1954-1965 and 1969-71. It was not, it was significantly lower. I'd love to see the evidence for that.

US attitudes and help to Pakistan and pressures on India were crucial to India's action and served to restrict India while failing to restrict Pakistan. These do not reflect in tables and given the dubious but mutually beneficial nature of US Pakistan relations no records exist the ways in which the US helped. But Pakistan's survival and international status as a coherent nation state as opposed to the dysfunctional nation that it is was sponsored and underwritten by the USA.

Shiv, your claim was that Zia and the other generals were prone at doing business with the West than it was with China and the Saudis because of a common but fading colonial heritage.

What you are saying now is quite different.

Ayub Khan, with Bhutto as his Foreign Minister were looking well beyond the West after 1963.

Chinese and Islamic aid came with far fewer strings, and reduced their vulnerability to American pressure.

In fact what I am saying is not as different as it may seem to you. The westernized Pakistani elite placed themselves inside Western nations as valuable and wealthy members of society who oiled deals for US and other Western businesses in massive and lucrative arms and infrastructure projects that had little impact on developing the population of Pakistan, which remained a feudal society. Islamic aid came with no strings - but it was money nevertheless and as long as the money flowed into western coffers via Pakistani orders and deals, private western businessmen, unhindered by governmental restrictions, were quite happy to toast and fete their Paki pals.

Until the 1990s - Chinese aid (aside from nukes) was a set of rust buckets. It certainly helped Pakistan - but China was only icing on the cake. The diplomatic support and the support the Pakistanis got via western media cannot be displayed in tables. US media have dominated the world and that has made or broken reputations. Pakistan's reputation remained unsullied in a way that the Chinese would never have been able to manage and still cannot manage. China has a long way to go before it can influence the world the way America did. The impact of media in so called "free societies" cannot be accounted for using a bean counting technique. And Pakistan - despite deep flaws and unending conflict never stopped being a blue eyed boy in the west courtesy the media.

And you don't think the Chinese and Saudis can do the same thing? Have you been watching the growth of the Chinese economy and armed forces?

What have the Chinese have been doing in North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, etc?

North Korea? Myanmar? Sudan?

Look at Egypt, KSA, Iran, Pakistan as examples of US arms aid. Now put all seven countries together in one long list and see which ones strike you as being powerful and which ones as "irritants"

Yes, Shiv, maintenance and availability is important, which is why I asked you to look back at the readiness of the American platforms PAF and PN during the Kargil War in 1999 and Parakram in 2001-02 after a decade of sanctions. The list of post 9-11 deliveries and sales to Pakistan (which I posted in the mil forum a while back) had spares at the top of their list.

When you choose to divide history up into convenient time slices to suit a particular argument - it does not translate into an honest account of events.

In this case you have chosen the time slice of "a decade of sanctions" and speak of the negative effects that the decade in question had. What this leaves out is that for at least the first 5 or 6 years of that decade - the old equipment supplied to Pakistan was perfectly serviceable and deadly and served to thwart India. If, in the latter half of the decade that equipment was getting old and unserviceable - there is no way that India could assess this information to be accurate. So equipment supplied by the US to Pakistan has served as both a threat and a deterrent to India for more than a decade after its supply despite the decade long gap in US support. If India had been an aggressor nation then these US actions could have some justification. But with Pakistan being the aggressor nation - lack of US opposition played a key role in Pakistani chutzpah.

The history of US-Pakistan relations can be summed up as long periods of arms and monetary aid, and shorter periods when that aid was absent. But there has been continuous diplomatic support for Pakistan and virtually no attempt to show up Pakistan as the dysfunctional state it has been for decades. Once again - the monetary aid or lack thereof shows up on tables because it is in the nature of accountants to make and keep such tables. The diplomatic support, and the fact that arms keep working well for decades after they are supplied do not show up on tables.

[shiv]

A unified Pakistan under whatever dispensation would always be an Indian enemy. A fragmented Pakistan with the word "Pakistan" relegated to history and oblivion can on the other hand work as India's strategic depth to undermine China. We can always build better, deeper connections to the Taliban gangs there, who can spread their ideology Northwards.

Did you get the impression that I disagree with what you have written? If so I am not sure how you gained that impression. I have been saying what you have written above for years.

The thrust of my posts in the last few days have revolved around the significant role the US played in keeping the concept of a united "Pakistan" alive and the extent to which China could manage the same trick even if it tried. The concept of "Pakistan" has survived with US sponsoship and some help from others. We need to get every one of the out of the way.

Making an argument that says "Oh what's the use? If the US goes China will replace it" is a cop out excuse that fails to recognize the importance of getting the US out, or making the US change its attitude towards the fragmented group of states currently recognized by the US and the UN as "Pakistan". If Pakistan has 3.5 sponsors, it will have only 2.5 if you remove one of them and I can see absolutely no information that suggests that 2.5 sponsors will be as effective as 3.5.

[shiv]

In a hilariously sarcastic article Christine Fair rubs it in:

The sad truth is that Pakistan’s elites –many of whom sit and have sat and will sit in parliament—have chosen to subjugate their country for their own personal accumulation and preservation of wealth. This should be the focus of public outrage: not Washington’s expectation that its massive investment in Pakistan yield some return for the interests of its taxpayers.

Some readers of this missive may counter that China and Saudi Arabia help Pakistan without such expectations. These cherished myths are rubbish.

What has China done for Pakistan? It did not help Pakistan in any of its wars with India in 1965, 1971 or the Kargil crisis of 1999, when it took the same line as the US and even India. It did little to help Pakistan in the 2001-2002 crisis with India and it even voted in the UN Security Council to declare Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) a terrorist organisation in 2009 in the wake of the Mumbai terror outrage.

The roads and ports and other infrastructure that the Chinese are building in Pakistan principally benefit China. Pakistanis are an afterthought. The Chinese obtain contracts on favourable and profitable investment terms, use their own employees, and contribute little to the local economy ultimately to build projects that facilitate the movement and sales of cheap (but also dangerous and poorly crafted) Chinese goods and products into and through Pakistan.

[A_Gupta]

Shiv, she points to them the way out. We can only hope they are stupid enough to ignore it.

To free Pakistan of international meddling, Pakistan’s political leaders need only to subject themselves and their patronage networks to an agricultural and industrial tax, a move which Pakistan’s leadership has steadfastly avoided throughout the state’s entire history. Of course, it must improve income tax compliance too.

Given this refusal to expand its tax net, the state relies upon an admixture of international assistance and punitive and regressive domestic sales and income taxes to pay its bills. Sales taxes are especially regressive because they affect the poor far more than the wealthy. Government servants — whose income tax is deducted from their wages — and other honest income tax payers pay their way while the wealthy agriculturalists and business elite abscond. Bangladesh has a better tax compliance record than Pakistan.

[Airavat]

free expression is becoming restrictive

[SSridhar]

. . . for at least the first 5 or 6 years of that decade - the old equipment supplied to Pakistan was perfectly serviceable and deadly and served to thwart India. . . . The diplomatic support, and the fact that arms keep working well for decades after they are supplied do not show up on tables.

Shiv, of course you are right about the various forms of American support that kept Pakistan bobbing in waters for most period and at other time from drowning. But, in terms of war fighting machinery & equipment, the distinction *must* be made between pre-1979 and post-1979 support. At least the pre-1979 US justification was to simply maintain equity (not equality) of Pakistan with India though under that guise they introduced force multiplying conventional weapons in the region. But, the post-1979 support was to establish strategic parity for Pakistan with India. In one stroke, they elevated Pakistan to an entirely different class. There is no parallel to this kind of US support to a country which has been a well known rogue from its very inception. The serviceability or otherwise of the US supplied equipment in 1999 or 2002 time frames simply did not matter thereafter. Still, F-16s remained serviceable to toss a nuke over India.

Another point to note is that the US always supported the PA at the cost of the common folk in Pakistan. Almost 65% of the US aid has been to the Armed forces. And, the US knew perfectly well where Pakistan would use these arms and who had been the aggressor in the India-Pakistan wars and skirmishes.

[shiv]

Shiv, she points to them the way out. We can only hope they are stupid enough to ignore it.

Arun - stupid or not I don't believe they can follow the advice even if they wanted to do that. The fact that articles such as this one by Ms Fair are appearing in the lay media only now - in 2011 when the basic faults in Pakistan have been apparent for decades is an indicator of how Pakistan and its leaders have been "protected from criticism" as long as they were doing America's job with great enthusiasm. While Ms Fair is probably right about China's selfishness - not a squeak emerges from her about decades of US selfishness in which the US too did not care who was taxed in Pakistan or how Pakistan managed its economy.

The result is that cheating the system and maldistribution of resources have been the norm for decades and are the routine modus operandi of anyone who is anyone in Pakistan. No one from this uniformly corrupt group is in a position to impose and correct the misdeeds of others.

For Christine Fair's advice to be implemented Pakistan has to empower a set of totally new "honest brokers" who have the power to impose economic reforms on the rich and powerful.

Complicating this scenario is the one fact that keeps on getting ignored - i.e the Pakistani army has cornered 25-40% of the nation's resources for many decades and they are an armed and powerful group. Exactly who is going to tell the Pakistan army that they are henceforth going to get a much smaller share of the national economic pie? Assuming this magic does occur, it will inevitably mean that the Pakistani army becomes smaller and vastly less powerful that it has been. For starters this means that Pakistan's ability to "match" India militarily will be eroded irreversibly - in a politically unpopular scenario. Secondly the Pakistan armys ability to hold on to the areas that are now called Pakistan will also be eroded. Quite apart from that there is the issue of private arms and arms factories. Those who are powerful in Pakistan are powerful because they are armed as well as wealthy. Who will impose taxes on those people when such taxes are designed to make them poorer?

For a nation to have a huge majority of people patriotically united behind the idea of "nation building" the vast majority of the people must have a stake in building that nation. In Pakistan a small minority have had a stake in building themselves up - and that minority have been supported by the US, China and KSA. To build teh nation - those people will have to be brought down in favor of uplifting the majority. I cannot see that happening in Pakistan in the absence of a powerful and broadly trusted "honest broker" who can enforce that. And the only "honest broker" that I can see is some combination of Islamic groups/political parties who gain democratic power as well as army support.

Catch 22. If the army starts supporting the uniform development of Pakistan, it will have to accept less resources. And if an anti-US islamist group comes into power with army support, they can kiss goodbye to US aid that has sustained the army and elite for decades.

Interesting times indeed.