rocky wrote:
Which begs the next question: why would the US want the Siachen demilitarized?
Good question. To answer this question, we may want to answer the more basic questions:
1) What is Siachen strategic value?
http://www.himalmag.com/june2001/review.html
foreign expeditions to the glacier originating from Pakistan, 14 in all, combined with ‘cartographic aggression’, provoked India into occupying Siachen. The climbing expeditions, accompanied by Pakistani liaison officers, provided the rationale for Pakistan to lay claim on the glacier. Maps began to be published in Europe showing the extended line of control joining the Karakoram Pass in the east following the Pakistani claim (the line along the glacier had earlier been left undefined—see Himal on Siachen, December 1998). These maps conceded the entire Siachen Glacier to Pakistan, and showed Pakistan and China sharing a long common border to the east of Siachen. The Indian Army occupied Siachen in 1984 when Pakistan gave permission to a Japanese expedition to attempt Rimo, a peak located in a side valley east of the Siachen and overlooking Aksai Chin, which would have linked Pakistan controlled Kashmir with China, along the historic trade route that leads to Chinese Turkestan over the Karakoram Pass.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_e ... r_area.jpg
Note that Siachen blocks Pakistan's access to the karakoram pass.
2) What entities gain if India loses control of Siachen?
a) Pakistan -- gains land access to chinese territory. This would dramatically increase the value of Gwadar for China, and would be very lucrative for Pakistan. (This is pretty weak since the terrain in this region is not very conducive to pipelines and the like) There may be better reasons for China and Pakistan to have a direct land route between their territories...increases their ability to transfer chinese WMDs to Pakistan, for example.
b) china -- An overland pipeline from Gwadar to eastern China? Maybe there are other reasons I am not aware of...
c) US -- Can proclaim to Pakistan to have gotten India to make concessions to pakistan and thus extract their pound of flesh. I don't see why the US would do China a favour, but maybe this is the handiwork of Sinophiles in the US SD.
3) Why would the US want to assist Pakistan and China, to India's detriment?
The US does not do anyone but itself favours -- so this may just be a short term measure to get more leverage on Pakistan. Secondly, if we take it for granted that pakistan will violate the AGPL if this treaty is signed, then the US entrenches itself more in the Indo-pak conflict than it already is. This entire problem would have its origins in the US, and all the "Experts" in this conflict would all be US lifafas. In short, the US gains more leverage over both India and Pakistan in different ways.
Just my two paise.