Future strategic scenario for the Indian Subcontinent

[brihaspati]

At some point the Saudis have to be overturned. If home grown dissenters are able to manage this, then it will not be a democracy - it will be a fundamentalist Islamic Republic along the lines of Khameinic Iran. Only if it gets defeated and colonized for some time under an invading force, which also removes its theologians, will nationalism hit back to unify the Arabs in a different nationalistic setup that is more compatibel with modern humanitarian outlook.

The Arab socialist movement should have been encouraged - in the tussle between them and the theologians the society would have modernized a bit and made eventual emergence of majjhim-pantha democracy possible. IMO, this should have been the line in AFG, Iraq and Iran too. The left would not have been uncontested - but they would have balanced out the theologians to an extent if the west did not intervene. A degree of modernization of more progressive thoughts would have allowed a situation where a post-communist -post leftist democratic setup would have been easier to install (as the two previous camps would have exhausted themselves to a great extent).

Now, the west has helped in liquidation of all progressive elements. External invasion and systematic liquidation of the theological apparatus is the only way forward it seems. A Napoleonic steam-roller ultimately clearing the ground for nationalism to rise in a modernized outlook.

[John Snow]

I am posting this link in this thread, so that we know how the leadership reacted (in the greatest democracy) for 8 years during GWB aka Dubya.

Richard Clarke: That night, on 9/11, Rumsfeld came over and the others, and the president finally got back, and we had a meeting. And Rumsfeld said, You know, we’ve got to do Iraq, and everyone looked at him—at least I looked at him and Powell looked at him—like, What the hell are you talking about? And he said—I’ll never forget this—There just aren’t enough targets in Afghanistan. We need to bomb something else to prove that we’re, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks.

And I made the point certainly that night, and I think Powell acknowledged it, that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. That didn’t seem to faze Rumsfeld in the least.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It really didn’t, because from the first weeks of the administration they were talking about Iraq. I just found it a little disgusting that they were talking about it while the bodies were still burning in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center.

{ The above was proved in BRF way before it is now disclosed, senior members may recall Dr. Tim and Texas Toast Ralphy Jones, as he wanders around these days as Ralphy, I know he is reading }

Please read and draw mentally the analogus situation in our current GOI ( MMS == Bush,
Dick == SG)
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/feat ... rentPage=1

{ps: Even though the title Oral History is more apt to Bill C . It is very interesting read from vaious actors in the destiny of this only world in the hands so few fools with so much power}

[svenkat]

Brihaspathiji,
This is OT,but want to respond to a few points you have made.
1)The Jewish genius has flowered in the western setting.There have been gentile minds of comparable genius.If one takes a genuinely broadminded view,greatness is seen in all major living civilisations.
2)Islam is ultimately derived from Abrahamic monotheism,but it has some 'original' claims-the egalitarianism(levelling down) which is an Arab contribution making Islam more genuinely 'monotheistic' than the much more exclusive Judaism and the absolutely worldly Christism, implanted on earlier cultures, which never makes similar claims except in heathen India and Africa.
3)In the Kali Age,not easy to escape clutch of Christism/Islam because packaging of Asatya as Satya will be the norm.Simplistic notions of egalitarianism are good mind control mechanisms.They offer 'something very fundamental' to the 'masses'.The very fact that they have made ground meant something was badly amiss in societies like Iran.To roll back Islam in Iran,the Iranians would have to recover Zorastrianism or some ethical theism to a deity like Varuna.That is impossible with loss of memory of those traditions.

Johann,
There was nothing naive about the Zionist notions.

1)The Zionists were avowedly secular but their fanatical love for Zion was rooted in the Chosen people and Chosen Land.There is nothing remotely naive in that.It was this fanaticism that made them ignore the very real presence of Palestinians.The Zionists wanted to create a modern state but the state they created had no legitimacy,could not be justified by any modern norm.Its only justification was desperation and the Bible.It was founded on disposession of palestinians.
2)Innumerable races and people have been exterminated.The British and American support was not naive.It was atonement for the sins of the past.The modern successors of the Caesars/kaisers wanted to solve the jewish problem.

The Anglo-Saxon barbarians recogonised the folly of their imperial ancestors.Christism did not have a fig leaf to cover itself.Christism was founded on its slender ties with Judaism.The Judeo-Christist tradition had to be invented as the new imperial cult at home and more importantly in the heathen world.

What is naive about Zionism?It cannot be justified by any of the current discourses on human rights,international law or rights of indigenous people.

The Anglo-Saxon barbarians rejoiced at the uprooting of Sikhs,Hindus from Punjab and the sub-altern in Bengal.Whores like Christine Rocca show the middle finger at us with backing from POTUS.

Kashmiri Pandits have been driven out from their homeland.The ASB support Paki terrorism.One never hears any sympathy for the plight of pandits.

[brihaspati]

There appears to be only two "peaceful" compromises available to the current brand of GOI leadership as regards the "Kashmir problem".

The first has been leaking out from time to time so innocently in the media and the various "think-tanks" and experts, is to convert the LOC into an IB. The reason this will not work is because for TSP it means the objective remains incomplete. If the whole of J&K cannot be occupied by TSP, India can still threaten the KKH and the occupied NA. It can also threaten PRC presence in Sinkiang through Ladakh. For an unfettered IO route for the PRC TSP+PRC must clear off India from the entire J&K. Evem if accepted temporarily, TSP will not rest until terror and infiltration starts the process all over again.

This could be a Indian side proposal or think, but ultimately it is unlikely to work.

The other route is to bring in an Good Friday Agreement style staged devolution of power and controlled autonomy to the whole of J&K. However this also does not suit TSP+PRC strategy. A joint control mechanism is more likely to eventually turn into Indian control and dominance - because of superior soft power of India. Even if the DIE doe snot take advantage of this, from the TSP perspective it can become too risky.

The current GOTSP is posturing simply to satisfy US pressure. So ultimately the so-called peace-process is not going to work out. Danger, if the GOI starts believeing in the possibility of this peace process turning out positively under US pressure.

[brihaspati]

krishnapremiji,
yes the discussion will go OT. I will just say that, I am not so liberal as the classical positivists. Besides ethnicity or indigenous claims, I would also look for the civilization and ideology they represent. If this ideology has any built in components of ultimate aim of destruction of all other ideologies, and subjugation to a certain type of absolute mental slavery (nothing beyond the "book" or "qitab" or its gratuitous interpretation at the hands of a self appointed un-elected theological authority) - then I will also consider that as an equal and important factor.

For me, an ideology that has the potential to take away the most fundanemtal of all human birth rights, to think and speak freely, has to be crushed. Any possibility of this ideology surviving under any of the excuses of ethnicity or otherwise, for the long term, cannot be acceptable. It may not be possible to eliminate the ideology overnight. It is also not feasible to do this by eliminating populations wholesale. But we need rashtryia control over such territories and populations to gradually eradicate the ideological memes through massive, uncompromising, multigenerational "re-education".

This is why I would like to have Bharatyia control over all of TSP occupied territories. J&K is a part and not the whole of the problem. This is also my reason to push for such a comprehensive incorporation plan. Conquest, in all its concrete and extended sense, physical, moral and cultural - is the vital part we have edited out of the Bharatyia. We have forgotten that expansion is also a part of our civilizational drive.

[Johann]

Krishnapremi,

Attacking the tactics or strategy of Zionist states and groups does not diminish Jewish nationalism's right to exist any more than attacking the tactics and strategy of Hamas diminishes the right of Palestinian nationalism to exist.

While many may not like the particular character of Jewish nationalism at this time, disputing right of Jews to a national identity, and a national homeland is as pointless as trying to dispute the right of the Palestinians to Palestinian nationalism, or the Arabs to Arab nationalism if not more so.

The birth of Zionism came before the final decision to build the Jewish national homeland in the Levant

I don't know if you have ever read Theodr Herzl, the leader of the Zionist movement in the 19th century, or Chaim Weizman, his succesor and first president of Israel you will see what I meant by naivety.

Their liberal assumption was that Palestinian Arabs would be happy to be citizens of Israel, because they would enjoy a higher standard of living than Arabs anywhere else, in terms of income, education and political rights such as voting and a free press.

Rather than integrate with the local economy and culture, they expected the Arabs to integrate with their culture and economy. Condescending and out of touch with reality, certainly, but not colonial in the usual sense.

Why was this naive? Jewish settlers did not come armed to the teeth, ready to fight and kill the Arabs over land. It took a considerable amount of time before they were organised for self-defence, let alone offence even though Jewish settlement with and without Ottoman permission was usually met with raiding against property and lives by local Arabs. In fact when they first started to get organised they were inspired by the Circassians - a people indigenous to the Caucasus and deported during Russian colonial conquest, and settled by the Ottoman Empire in Syria and Palestine.

[Johann]

Johann, The trajectory I see is like this.

Islam-> Sunni-> Shia-> ?

Persia first de-Arabised by adopting the Sunni faith and sent the Beduion back to the desert. After the Mongol & Timurlane's sack of Baghdad, Sunni power waned in ancient near east. Shiaism was adopted to again move away from the old Arabic roots while the Turks adopted Sunnism and moved westward.

Persia is going back to the roots over last couple of centuries and will de-Islamise eventually. The Khomieni revolution is a reactionary step and will pass away if not for the Western pressure where they can take cover of nationalism.

So Iranians will survive and move into the modern age. Some segments are already there.

The question is Arabs and wannabes ka khaya hoga? How long will they usurp the Covenant?

There's no question that Iran's educated classed have engaged very seriously with modernity, particularly the idea of governance through consent, and the desire for rule of law for over a century now, and that they have done so in a way that hasn't really happened in most of the Arab world.

Iran's evolution will look a lot like Europe or America's I believe - residual Islam which serves as a social and historical bond, a check and a balance on power, but which is not permitted to dictate to popular will, or trump deeper economic and social needs.

In my mind the greatest problem with the Arab world is the top down nature of these societies (which is about the same whether in pro-American or anti-American areas) - that is in part what makes the promised egalitarianism of an Islamic state so attractive to frustrated middle class types. The other factor is the relatively limited role women are allowed to play in public life outside the elite with the exception of a few big cities.

The situation of Arab women is more likely to change before the fundamental shape of the power structures in the Arab world change. That's my feeling, although the advent of full democratic, constitutional rule in Iran will have a huge, huge impact.

Ultimately the Arabs, like the Turks, Iranians and Javanese have still have pride in their pre-Islamic culture alongside their Islamic identity. The people to worry about are the Muslim cultures that lack that sense of self-worth. It has been in places like Somalia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan where you saw the most backward looking Islamist movements taking control of areas and burning down girls schools of their own people.

[brihaspati]

From a query on the "sharm" thread:

SwamyG wrote
Brihaspati ji: Would then you consider Indians diaspora spread across the globe as case of 'Bhartiya' succeeding? We have both the territory and concept at stake here. In the past, there were always an 'external hand' to pool in the nationalists - other kingdoms, clans, Islamic invaders, European powers etc. Now as the mode of attack is as much indirect as much it is direct; it will pit an Indian against another onlee - The Divided Elites.
Territories can be lost and gained. If the concept/ideology/value system falls below a critical mass then it will take a whole lot to rejuvenate the system.

I would consider the diaspora both a good and bad thing for Bharat. In the pre-colonial period, the Bharatyia retreated from the northern plains and went into more difficult terrain to preserve their culture, and therefore their nation. Resistance was primarily based in the south, starting with the Vijaynagara and the Sangams, with pockets of resistance further up among the Rajputs and even the Chandellas or some of their successors. A lot of dedicated brains as well as knowledge escaped from the north and took shelter in the South.

Such a circumstancially forced migration or diaspora, literally happened within the subcontinent. And every such diaspora actually is like a centrifuge. It separates out the lighter stuff from the heavier. For some, it is an opportunity to disjoin culturally from their roots - which in any case had already gotten quite weak in them. For others, it is a pull back to the center - the further they move away from the centre, the greater is the pull. There is a tempting particle physics analogy.

In the post-Independence period, once the the power was transferred to the selected dhimmi of British preference, and institutional control established for the new dhimmification ideologies, there was no corner left within India for the Bharatyia to survive with his culture. Diaspora now, gave an opportunity, to rediscover roots away from the intervention of the new rashtra with its dhimmification agenda.

The diasporic communities are yet to become locally powerful where they are settled now. Those who are of the "disjoint" type, will automatically have a weak political foundation as they would be desperate to identify themselves with the ruling local power structure and therfore be subservient and never dominant. Those who feel the pull to the roots, would be the temperamentally dominant, but then they would not expend their efforts in dominating the local power structure.

Returnees from the diaspora, who are not returning as agents of the powers they lived under, are probably the best candidates to shake things up. MKG is both a good and bad example. Without the diaspora a substantial impetus for change and new-thinking would be missing.

[Philip]

Thanks to jokers like this dude,Dick Cheney's facourite hatchetman,the Islamist ungodlies are justifiying their actions in the region and beyond as a response to the "Crusaders".Lumping Indian infidels along with the Crusaders and Zionists,claiming that we're all in it together, has been a long time accusation of Osama ,AlQ and the Paki terrorists.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 740735.ece

Blackwater accused of murder in 'crusade to eliminate Muslims'

Erik Prince, chief executive of Blackwater, has seen allegations made against him by two former employees

Tim Reid in Washington
Excerpt:
"A series of allegations including murder, weapons smuggling and the deliberate slaughter of civilians have been levelled against the founder of Blackwater, the security company being investigated for shooting deaths in Iraq.

The accusations, including a claim that the company founder Erik Prince either murdered or had killed former employees co-operating with federal investigators, are contained in sworn affidavits lodged at a Virginia court on Monday night. "

[brihaspati]

Do they need any excuse? If Indians are with US+Israel then also Indians are targets. If Indians are simply minding their own business with lots of protests against what Blackwater does or Israel does in Gaza, then also Indians are targets. If Indians simply submit and ask them to cove over and lord it around with their qitab, then also India is the target. India has been the plum for them to pluck right from the Hadith of "ghazwa-e-Hind" supposedly from Muhammad himself. Search on "ghazwa-e-hind" on the web turns out 16,200 refs. It is an important window into the minds of how Islamics work - and a big part of their self-delusion. But that self-delusion can still provide motivations for misadventures.

[svenkat]

Johann,
Nobody disputes the right of jews to live in dignity.But where?Weizmann and others argued that it was possible only in Zion/palestine.It went against the grain of 20th century thought.

'God' had granted the land to Israel(the believers).But how?The believers evicted the Cannanites.As a Hindu theist,I can argue that Iswara in his infinite wisdom evicted the jews out again.The Jews have again repossessed it by force.This is consistent with Hindu thought.Kshatra (military) power is the final arbiter of such things.Why quibble with words like 'naive'.

It is ridiculous to argue that I will migrate to a land and decide what is good for the natives.If an indvidual does that,you know what happens then.

If you have read my posts,you will notice that I am filled with reverence for men like Einstein,Marx,Freud and many jewish mathematicians,physicists,writers and thinkers.In fact their ideas repudiate simplistic monotheism.I am perfectly at home with Advaitic monotheism which understands the difference between ideals and reality.

Most Hindus have sympathy for the state of Israel.But by western notions of 'liberalism','indigenous people' and all that crap,it is untenable.

As a Hindu I have no problem with the state of Israel.Its logic is that US is able to guarantee its existence.

In fact,there is no logic or morals in international relations.Israel and Pakistan were both created by Anglo-Saxons.We have no problems with Israel.You know what we feel about the excuse of a nation which was hacked out from our land.

[RajeshA]

As far as land is concerned, I don't see any need to sympathize with the plight of any Muslims. They have conquered other people's lands, converted them, killed them or evicted them.

Any people, and nation which can teach these Muslim invaders, that they too can be invaded, and that Allah is not only in favor of their victory, is good for the world. Their crimes need to be told again and again. Lands occupied by them need to be freed.

Both liberal thinking and Dharma needs to take into consideration the crimes of the Islamists. History did not begin with the setting up of UNO.

[svinayak]

Johann,
Nobody disputes the right of jews to live in dignity.But where?Weizmann and others argued that it was possible only in Zion/palestine.It went against the grain of 20th century thought.

'God' had granted the land to Israel(the believers).But how?The believers evicted the Cannanites.As a Hindu theist,I can argue that Iswara in his infinite wisdom evicted the jews out again.The Jews have again repossessed it by force.This is consistent with Hindu thought.Kshatra (military) power is the final arbiter of such things.Why quibble with words like 'naive'.

Only three religion in the world and their people have their own land.
The Jews, Hindus and Buddhists have their own land. The rest of them dont have the concept of their own historical land.

[John Snow]

The (he)art of stratigic thinking inaction

[ramana]

Meanwhile while we parry with clever repartees others plan

Indian Grand Strategy for 2015-2050

[Prem]

Jews, Dharmic and and Chinesse , all 3 have dont have to look outside for their spiritual , civilizational roots . Rest are just CONverts working, with second hand information and heresy.

[brihaspati]

Meanwhile while we parry with clever repartees others plan

Indian Grand Strategy for 2015-2050

A tremendous amount of "ifs". India can take certain steps that will make it free of fossil fuel dependence within a span of 20 years. India does not tap into its powerhouse at all the - the peninsular projection into a warm tropical ocean. If dye based solar photovotaics are used properly, we can use the sea-floor oil drilling technology, to set up offshore solar power stations spread over a thin belt all along the coast covering thousands of square kilometres. All the non-productive arid areas could be converted into solar power generation, and arid area farming of oil-seeds for bio-diesels. Use landfills to reclaim strips into the ocean to place industrial and processing units as well as wind and tidal power generation units, (without lending wind to the sail of Nandigram types). Adopt more energy saving technologies like LED's for lighting, wood based domestic fuels, recycling of waste, compulsory domestic recycling and a minimal generation of solar or wind energy for each residential unit, can ultimately make India not only self-sufficient in energy but also independent of fossil fuels. Who knows, if with the right inputs, India does not race ahead and cracks controlled fusion!

Before you accuse me of dreaming and smoking - just try thinking and hoping - just once, that it is possible. And if anyone can make it possible, it is Bharat.

[brihaspati]

India;s main problem towards concentrating all efforts on the energy problem is basically tied up with the cleaning up of the hinterland of Bharat. India has to take control over the subcontinent, so that none of the peripheral rashtras foisted by the colonial and post-colonial foreign powers can be used by foreign interests to hold India back. As lomg as India leaves these rashtras alone and kicking they will be supported and pressurized by powers like PRC, or Uk or USA, or even theologians fueled by ME oil, to divert Indian resources and attention to defending itself.

There is no talk with Pakistan. Pakistan is a historical anachronism - a rashtra which has no national purpose other than creating a Caliphate over the subcontinent and destroy all non-Muslim cultures. Pakistan has outlived its utility even for the powers which created it - primarily UK and then its paramour USA. These powers are only being kept from realizing the bitter truth that they stand to gain from the dissolution of TSP and incorporation of these territories and peoples under Bharat - out of ego and racism, the blindness that destoyed the British empire. An unified subcontinent under Bharatyia rashtric rule, guarantees modernization of Pakistan occupied peoples, land reforms, and socio-economic upliftment. It provides guaranteed stability of economic infrastructure, port and road facilities reaching into the heart of Central Asia for access by the "west", and if sincerely supported by the "west", a loyal ally in balancing PRC and western interests.

PRC should agree to create a free republic of Tibet and withdraw from occupied territories of Sinkiang, NA, and AP. In return, Bharat can guarantee cooperation in IO and and SE Asia, and even the Pacific.

India can prepare well for war in any case, as preparation for war gives the nation purpose and determination, and practical impetus for racing and outpacing comeptitors in technology and economy. It should prepare Indians to face the possible fallouts of nuclear strikes undertaken by PRC and TSP, or even by proxy through a third power - maybe even under the excuse that nukes have fallen to Talebs or non-state actors. PRC thinks it will be safe because it predominantly Han ethnicity will be protected by the Tibetan plateau. A pacific nuke capable fleet or two should make it think.

India should not and cannot tie its military capability to what is being claimed by PRC or the various think-tanks who speak for PRC interests disguised under "neutral analysis".

[brihaspati]

I will try to respond to Cohen's article
http://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2009/ ... cohen.aspx
in two parts :

Part one

India’s Revolutions
India is a revolutionary power in many ways. India is not only undergoing several domestic revolutions—that of its economy, its caste system, and its federal structure, but also in how it sees its place in the world.[1] India’s revolutions are different than those of China, and comparisons must be made very carefully.

The end of the Cold War forced India to reconsider how it configured its relations with major states, notably America. It is still a free-rider to the extent that, without being a member of any American-organized alliance, it benefits from the stability provided by these alliances. At best, Indians describe their relationship with the US as a “natural alliance,” a content-less term. India has an interest in a stable international order, but it has so far been only a bit player when it comes to global order issues.

With the end of bipolarism the long-held dream of becoming one of the world’s four or five centers of power and authority seemed to move closer, but other than run of the mill peacekeeping operations under UN auspices—just like Bangladesh—it shows few signs of playing a larger role. Perhaps maintaining its own integrity is enough for the time being, but the chronic conflict with Pakistan is another reason why India remains confined to its region.

India’s dispute with Pakistan is one of the reasons why the reforms sought by Amartya Sen, M.S. Swaminathan, and such eminent businessmen as Nandan Nilekani will be slow in coming. Ironically, this is not because of Pakistan’s strengths, but because of its weaknesses. Let me develop this idea further.

What is a revolution as used in the social sense? A revolution is a rapid turning around in both the form and content of relations of power. From that aspect, all three areas mentioned for India, economy, its caste system, and its federal structure - are problematic. There is no clearly identifiable rapidly changing overturning or reversals of "relations of power" in all three. In the economy, traditional business communities/clans/networks are not being replaced by those who were dominated or exploited by such networks. The highly publicized entrepreneurship from technically trained professionals are rare and far in between, and still do not represent a "revolutionary" upsetting of the power held by traditional financier/mercantile capitalist/speculator/userer-moneylender/pure trader familial networks. This is a power held by non-producers, who take the largest cut from the pure process of monetary circulation and marking-up process. This has not changed for centuries.

In the caste system, what probably looks like a "revolution" is the impact of so-called electoral influence by "caste groups". However, it is not a revolution of the system. It does not alter the content and form of the power-relation. It simply replaces one imaginary social group apparently in power with another constructed social group - which is claimed to have been a victim. For example, the "Dalit" is a modern category - and is an attempt at construction of a new "victim" class (the name literally). The very construction of "Dalit" is contradictory to the assumption of "inherent caste conflict" - for it had to imagine a new homogeneous category based on "victimhood" and not on existing caste-definitions. If it had really based on actual caste-definitions, then the internal micro-conflicts between these supposedly uniformly repressed caste groups would have made political posturings impossible. It is not difficult to understand why, those among Indian academics who desperately try to deconstruct the existence of the "Hindu" by pointing out apparent fractures and internal divisions, are completely silent about the same phenomenon in the construction of the "Dalit".
By constructing new imaginary divisions, the process is actually a "reaction" and not a "revolution", as it is not overturning the content of the power relations but rather consolidating them.

In federal structure, there is no revolution. The implication is perhaps the apparent tendency towards reliance on regional electoral groupings to form a government at the centre. However, the fact that electoral politics goes through cycles of centrifugal and centripetal tendencies, is a crucial observation that is being missed. The electorate has always been concerned about balancing considerations of stability and local, immediate interests. This feature of reliance and looking forward to a super-regional stability that ensures stability for all component regions is an inherent part of the Bharatyia civilization. The historical reality that such subcontinent-wide stability was difficult to sustain in the age of a political system based on individual rulers and slow speed of communications, forced the regional communities to also hedge their survival on safeguarding the regional power. But both considerations remain simultaneously active. There is no revolution here, but a mistaken assumption by looking at particular phases.

The end of the Cold War did not mark a reconsideration of India's relations with major states. The GOI, post independence has always looked upon itself as a successor and inheritor of the British heritage as far as power is concerned. The reality that UK had lost its leadership of the Anglo-Saxon had been stark from independence. GOI had therefore always been forced to look for acknowledgement from the Anglo-Saxon camp but been rebuffed because of the inherent affinity of Anglo-Saxon world towards Islam as an antidote to Communism. It was the sponsorship of Pakistan and Pakistan's hostility towards India, that forced India to reluctantly pose as a third, nonaligned alternative, and in crisis, to seek help from USSR. But India's Congress dominated leadership did not have the natural inclination to side with "communism" for it represented the potential threat of a "revolution" that would have gone against a dynasty-network based regime. The Congress's core around Nehru would, and are, naturally inclined towards the Anglo-Saxon. It simply used the Russians to plead for acknowledgement from the Anglo-Saxon. With the fall of the USSR system, it was natural for India to seek and get the acknowledgement it had always sought from the "west" - since the sponsorship of Pakistan was no longer a priority for the West. Thus when Indians describe their relationship with the US as a “natural alliance,” a content-less term, they are expressing a subconscious recognition of the actual state of affairs and not in the sense of Cohen. India has so far been only a bit player when it comes to global order issues, primarily because of the post-independence Congress's psychological dependence on the Anglo-Saxon. They had grown up under and been nurtured and handed over power by the Anglo-Saxon, and could not think of replacing that power which they saw as the real global one, with themselves. It is perhaps almost identical to the complexity of father-son relationship, where rebellion and need for approval is mixed up inseparably.

No wonder that it took a political grouping which was severely repressed and kept away from power by the Anglo-Saxon, the forces represented by the BJP, to really think of projecting power beyond the confines of the subcontinent, and internationally.

Globalization and its Discontented Victims

The cold war masked a process that was just as corrosive to many states as the US-Soviet rivalry. Pakistan got the worst of both worlds: its cold war ties retarded its political development, they allowed for the perpetuation of a military and strategic rivalry with the much larger India, and gave it false comfort in the belief that its cold war allies would help them in time of crisis.
However, often hidden by the rhetoric of the cold war, another process was moving forward. This was variously termed “non-military security,” or ‘human security,” labels that were invented to compete with the cold war paradigm of “hard” or “real” security, that is, the security of states themselves.
There was a widespread belief, promulgated by the foundations and some governments, that states were themselves the threat -- that too strong states repressed their citizens, and that human rights groups and NGOs could, and should, fill in where the state was repressive. There was also a belief that too much attention had been given to the security of states, not enough to their citizens. The state was the problem, non-state forces, backed by international watchdogs, were the answer.

Cohen makes two fatal blunders. The first is obvious here, where he assumes that the phenomenon or processes like that of "political development" have an inherent Hegelian "hidden hand of history" that drives them organically forward in a pre-fixed unique and universal direction. This is typical of the false assumptions of a unilinear scheme of historical development that started in the western academic circles from the short term experiences of the Reformation and "Enlightenment". Cohen;s implicit assumption here is that left to itself, without Cold War sponsorhip, Pakistan would have evolved politically into something that is more "advanced" than that it has now become. From this, either consciously or subconsciously, Cohen arrives at the continuation of the national project of Pakistan to be "military and strategic rivalry" because of the Cold War. Cohen, avoids analyzing the main reasons behind the formation of this agenda of "rivalry". This has firm ideological roots and the specific social structure imposed by the feudal and theological elite of the precursor's of Pakistan. As long as there is any global rivalry between two or more resourceful powers, Pakistan's elite will continue to maintain the country in a semi-feudal state without land reforms and modern education under the control of medieval theologians by using its disruptive power. It is simply using the primary Islamic principle of living by appropriating the produce of others in return for agreeing not to harass and bleed.

The non-military security, that Cohen talks of, is not about any belief about the "threat" potential of the states. This is not motivated by any mirage of an universal concept of human rights. For those states which had the resources to indulge in this luxury, it was about undermining those foreign states that were seen to be ideological and economic rivals. If it was about supposed "western" humanitarian values, then intervention would have gone in favour of land reforms, legal and social reforms in Pakistan by the so-called NGO's and non-state actors. Same would have been true of a host of repressive regimes in Latin America and Asia and Africa. Otherwise Cohen has to agree that his definition of "repressive/strong states" is completely different from those that we would normally expect say, from the UN charter of human rights.

I think this was a misdiagnosis—states that were too weak were also a problem, and over the last ten years we have seen the further weakening of many new states, and some old ones, such as Nepal and Afghanistan, states that have been unable to adapt to the accelerating process of what we call globalization, defined as the increasingly rapid movement of ideas, people, and goods around the world at an unprecedented rate. The three technologies at the heart of this latest spell of globalization were the transistor, the wide-bodied jet, and the container ship. They enabled revolutionary applications such as the cell phone, satellite communications, and (a mixed blessing, indeed), global finance networks.

Cohen of course realizes that his theory would fall flat because of the reality of western interventions, and therefore has to save it as a misdiagnosis. He is also confused about the definition of "strong" and "weak". If a weak state means a state that cannot survive on its own, or is unable to provide stability to its regime, economy and society, or protect its boundaries, neither Afghanistan, nor Nepal can be clearly defined as a "weak" one. None have lost territorial definition, their societal frameworks have not changed. These states have had turbulent history of factionalism and rivalry among the elite and spectacular regime changes were a norm. Such regime changes had no impact whatsoever on the non-elite bulk of the populations - which continued in their stasis situation of religious and social structures. Their insignificant impact globally was because of their inherent geographical position and non-productivity, and they will remain so for a long time into the future. So the recent regime turbulences are a natural part of these states life and not necessarily a sign of their "weakness". They can survive in this state for a long time given appropriate external conditions.

Of course, the world has always been globalizing, people, ideas and goods have been in motion since prehistoric times. Four hundred years ago globalization entered its modern era with the invention of navigational aids and new forms of military organization that allowed the exploration and conquest of the world by a few Western states and later Japan. Two hundred years ago globalization hit the middle classes, and allowed ice from Walden Pond to cool drinks in the clubs of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, and as Henry David Thoreau wrote, would mix with the holy waters of the Ganges. A hundred years ago steam technology and international mail service enabled my grandfathers to hopscotch around the world until they settled in the United States—one of them, incidentally, made a stop in Canada.

Here Cohen is making the second blunder. He assumes that globalization is a force that pushes everything before it irrespective of local and regional conditions. It is actually specific local conditions and accummulated histroical experience of the society concerned that determines how far globalization will affect it and in what way. Globalization could actually provide the reasons for certain societies to revive in opposition to globalization and consolidate their societal features as a means of defence and isolation. Islam for example will get stronger before Anglo-Saxonic "globalization". Islamic societies have managed to erase civilizational experience and memories of complexity and independent thought. Such societies will be sacred to death at the prospect of dealing with increasing complexity and development of skills that require an independent and exploratory thought process.

India had the resources and the infrastructure to take advantage of the most recent surge of globalization. It has become a global player in the software industry, a major center for advanced research (often funded by others, not necessarily in response to critical Indian needs, such as agriculture), a cultural superpower, and an efficient processor of services. As Thomas Friedman and others have noted, India (and China) have lifted the largest number of people in history out of poverty—yet India still has half of the world’s poor.

India did not have the resources and infrastructure to raise all of its people below poverty in a single jump. Analysts like Cohen typically ignore the history of India, the enormous amounts of capital moved out of India by Islamic regimes and the British. Moreover, India's skills and wealth generation infratsructure including education had been systematically and deliberately destroyed by a succession of paranoid Islamic regimes desperate to ensure their parasitic existence. Only after independence did India begin to have a certain degree of control over its production processes. It is still an open question as to how quickly India could recover and advance over its millenium spanning destrcution and exploitation. China in comparison was relatively free of Islamic destruction and colonial penetration conpared to India.

Misreading the World

Indian leaders misread the end of the Cold War. They correctly saw that they had to re-balance Indian strategic policy—after all the chief international supporter, the Soviet Union, had disappeared. Leading Indian strategists argued early on that some accommodation with the United States was necessary. Now, just about every party, except a few on the Left, agree with this shift.

However, there was a slow and inadequate response to the unleashing of new forces set free by the decline of communist and left ideology. We forget that the Cold War was not just a struggle between major states—the so-called superpowers—but a struggle between ideas on how the world would be organized. Young people are almost always idealistic, and a generation ago usually rallied to a leftist, pro-Soviet, or even pro-China cause.

The end of the cold war, plus China’s conversion to market economics and a cynical single party state pretty much removed the appeal of left ideas as far as the young, the backbone of any revolutionary movement that opposed injustice, even if Maoism without Mao lingers on in South Asia.

By the early 1990’s it was easy to predict that ethnic identity movements and religion would replace communism as the Polar Star of the young, the disenfranchised, and the angry.[3] As a state, India is familiar with ethnicity and identity: it is an important element in India’s relations with all of its neighbors. A short list would include Tibetans, Kashmiris, Bengalis, Sikhs, Sindhis, Nepali speakers, Mohajirs, and Tamils. Indeed, every one of India’s neighbors has a major overlap with it in terms of ethnic identity movements.
New Delhi early on learned how to manage ethnic movements, using force when necessary, then accommodation. In the words of an Indian police official, “we hit them over the head with a hammer, then we teach them to play the piano.” It works, in the same way that the Romans kept peace in their far-flung multi-ethnic empire. It also works as an instrument of foreign policy, and a number of South Asian states, including India, have used ethnic separatist movements to keep a rival off-balance. India (backed by the US) did this for a while with the Tibetans of China, it certainly did this in Sri Lanka, supporting Tamils, with tragic and unanticipated consequences, and its most significant use of ethno/linguistic discontent was its support of East Bengali separatist against Pakistan. There is ample evidence that India uses its presence in Afghanistan to not only balance radical Islamists there, but to undercut Pakistani efforts.[4]

Cohen loses out on failing to understand the internal regional competition that exists within India. The Indian police officials remarks are taken naively as indicating an attitude applied universally to all groups and ethnicities. However, a Kashmiri Islamic separatist is not treated the same way as a Punjabi Sikh separatist or a Bengali Naxalite extremist. Typically the GOI has been much more condescending in allowing the Islamic Jihad to rise in Kashmir or compared to what it terms "Hindu extremism" or in allowing Naxalite violence to rise in central -south-eastern India compared to Bengal. The Indian government is still mainly dominated by interests based firmly in the Hindi-speaking, northern Gangetic plains, and the federal government is primarily used on a carrot and stick basis to use the resources of the entire country in favour of small networks of familial and dynastic groupings. This has been the primary drivers of fractures within the so-called Hindu-society and so-called regional-ethnic separatist tendencies. Cultural commonalities prove the essential unity, but critics seize on the reactions against this essentially economic exploitation and discrimination as indicators of the "fractured/ethnically separate" Bharatyia.

Of course, Pakistan had long fished in troubled Indian waters. Even today it officially draws a distinction between Kashmir and India proper. China actively supported Naga separatists and other irredentists for many years.

Two, three, four, or five wrongs not only do not make a right, but they create a morally muddied situation. If everyone is to blame, no one is to blame. The alphabet agencies—ISI, RAW, and so forth—are often the chosen instrument of state policy when there is a conventional (and now a nuclear) balance of power, and the diplomatic route seems barren.

Frankly, this would not matter very much in the larger scheme of things, especially with an India that is acquiring real economic power. In the case of India’s other major Asian rival, China, they have a long border dispute, they have supported separatist and irredentist groups in each other’s territory for years, they are economic rivals, and they are nuclear weapons states—yet they have moved to a level of accommodation and understanding that seems impossible in the case of India and Pakistan. China is expected to soon become India’s largest trade partner, whereas Indian trade with Pakistan (except via the smuggling route), is negligible.

This is surprising from Cohen. A country that had long fished in troubled waters cannot be deemed to be a "weak state". But then if it was a strong state, by Cohen's theory, western NGO's and non-state actors should have been working towards increasing human-security in Pakistan!

[shaardula]

B regarding you post:
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 08#p711508

very very intersting. very insightful.

what i understood.
problem with jews is endemic. not necessarily an outcome of palestine. as long as reality in ME reflected historic narration the jews were tolerable. the problem got aggrevated when things started to evolve in variance to that narrative. that created a fundamental problem. the book and its claims now were out of reality. creation of I is more fundamental a problem than it is admitted to. it was an attack on the book. creates "cognitive dissonance" because not all that the book says is necessarily lasting or true. its not a one time summit, that once is reached is done. it has to be sustained. but alas now their means, modes and methods have been rendered outdated ineffective. hence all the chest and hand scratching, by those cant reach for it.

[shiv]

I will try to respond to Cohen's article
http://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2009/ ... cohen.aspx
in two parts :

Brihaspati It would be a great idea if you also cross posted your review into BRM/SRR as a formal article. I myself have a review of one of Cohen's works on SRR/BRM, and there are others and since he is a heavyweight your contribution will add to the body of literature available on the subject.

Please do not fritter away this work as a mere forum post..

[brihaspati]

shivji, will try after writing up part two.

[brihaspati]

Part two of the response to Cohen

The India-Pakistan Conundrum

There are many reasons why India and Pakistan are seemingly incompatible, despite their shared history and geographical space. Let me present an explanation, and then note how other trends impinge upon an already-dangerous situation.

Structurally, the India-Pakistan relationship is toxic. It is a classic case of what I call a “paired minority conflict.” In these situations both sides see themselves as vulnerable, threatened, encircled, and at risk. They have a “minority” or “small power” complex, which also means that conventional morality does not apply to them. Sri Lanka and the Middle East are the other two outstanding cases of a “paired minority conflict.” All three are self-contained, internally powered conflict machines.

It is easy to see why Pakistanis have a classic small power complex: they are indeed smaller than India, increasingly less capable, their friends are fickle, and when from time to time Indian politicians and officials concede that Pakistan is a legitimate country, Pakistanis feel even more insecure.

The way Cohen defines a "paired minority" complex, is actually applicable to a very large class of international relations or conflict/competition scenarios. The very conflict of cold war between USA and Russia falls into the same category. The fact that both sides were continuously acting from a paranoia that the other side was surrounding it or encircling it, that it was vulnerable to attacks by the other through secret or estimated placement of WMD's, and at risk. Both obviously had a minority/small power complex in the context of the other. And conventional morality applied to neither. Cohen also admits, perhaps inadvertently, that "morality" is determined by the nature of the conflict and perception of threat. If the "morality" of the Cold War is justified by the ultimate aim of the "fall of communism" or "fall of capitalism", why should it be wrong to justify the "morality" of conflicts between India and Pakistan and allies, or Israel and the Arab world?

The second insidious tactic of Cohen is to reduce what in many cases are actually conflict between "fronts" or a cohort of multi-natoin interests on each side, and in some cases between a single naton and a cohort, into two-nation conflicts. We cannot model the ex-conflict in Sri Lanka, or that in the ME, or the Indian subcontinent, as pure conflicts between two national identities. These are tips of the icebergs. Behind the apparent conflicts, there are a host of other powers and nations. Cohen systematically avoids and suppresses any discussion of the larger supporting framework for such conflicts. He does this, because he is perhaps aware, that as soon as the larger framework is brought into the analysis, his theory of a "paired minority complex" falls flat.

In the Sri Lankan case, the larger supporting network of conflict should have taken into account the religious proselytizing angle of the desire of Christianity to replace the "pagan" and especially what it generally terms the "eastern mysticism" and includes Buddhism, the majority religion in Sinhala, the military-economic need for the West to have a toehold near the Indian peninsula and sell arms, the need to check spread of Chinese influence and most importantly to contain spread of Indian influence in the immediate neighbourhood of India. On the other hand the need in China to project itself into the IO, contain or encircle India, and take control of the sea-lanes to ME from SE Asia is also ignored.

In the case of ME, It is Israel which is practically surrounded by Arab powers geographically. Its only survival route is maintaining the hold on access to the sea. However the larger context of the conflict is not the Palestinians versus Israelis. Behind the Palestinians are the entire gamut of Arab powers ranging from Syria, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. Behind these powers themselves are larger networks centred around Russia, USA, and China. Behind Palestine is not only nation state alliances or cohorts, but also religious and belief system cohorts. The same applies for Israel.
The conflict is therefore not a simple case "paired minority complex".

In the case of India and Pakistan, the larger framework is too obvious for Cohen to have omitted. Behind Pakistan, is USA+UK, PRC, Saudi Arabia. Behind Pakistan is a parallel network of faith based support led by Sunni Wahabis. If the USA progresses too much into Pakistan, even Iran and Russia may come around to help out in the survival of a Pakistani nucleus in spite of their own old scores to settle with Pakistan (faith based trauma for the former and AFG for the latter). The only ally that India could rely somewhat during the Cold War was Russia. However, Russia must have realized this weakness in India, and would have exploited this weakness to the full. This would not have made a very happy supporting framework for India. In fact a lot of turnings and twists in Indian policy during the period can be explained by this strange isolation of India. Even the very reasons behind this overwhelming support behind Pakistan, primarily stems from a global ideological self-obsession of the Abrahamic viewpoint - and was never based on practical economic or social considerations. This was the reason, the obvious unsustainability of Pakistan was ignored, and the west made the blunder of relying on Pakistan because of its Islamic fanaticism and reject India.

So none of these conflicts can be explained away as simple "paired minority complex".

But why India? There is a powerful and emerging Indian identity, one that transcends regional differences, a continental-sized economy, and the plaudits of the world, now including the United States. India also has a world-class popular culture and its political parties are constantly redefining and refining a new Indian identity. But the fact remains that until very recently the self-identity of India’s elite was that they were citizens of a loser state? Those who were able to do so left it for more promised lands, to America’s benefit and that of Canada. This is changing rapidly, just as there is new thinking in Pakistan about India, but the core antagonisms still drive the overall relationship, hampering efforts to develop trade, people-to-people, and economic and institutional ties of a level that exists, say, between Taiwan and China.

Cohen once again shows ignorance of historical Indian reality. He equates Pakistan and India's perception of each other. Historically, a section of the Hindu Indian elite has never looked upon the "Muslim" identity as something to be completely destroyed. For specific social origin reasons, these groups have felt isolated or unable to identify with the vast majority of Indian non-Muslim non-elite, and therefore have always looked upon Islamic fanaticism as an instrument of balancing out potential rebellion and rejection by the majority. This elite section wants neither the Muslim identity to grow so strong as to jeopardize its own power base - neither does it want it completely destroyed, because it can be used to keep the non-Muslim
under control. The basic theme here is controlled sustainability.

Pakistan's elite on the other hand is derived exactly from those non-Muslim elite counterpart of the "Hindu" elite mentioned above, who converted or intermarried with invading Arab, Turks, to preserve their ownership of land and political power. Thus Islam has become the sole identitiy under which it can continue its continued semi-feudal hold on the territory and its populations. In their perception, as long as India survives as an independent territiry, it preserves the non-Muslim identity and can become a potentially dangerous distraction and undermine the Islamist claims of superiority and inevitability of Islamic dominance.

In their quest for an identity, some Indians tried to replicate Pakistan’s failure by manufacturing a “Hindu” Indian identity—the so-called Hindutva movement. But there is no all-Indian Hindu identity—India is riven by caste and linguistic differences, and Aishwarya Rai and Sachin Tendulkar are more relevant rallying points for more Indians than any Hindu caste or sect, let alone the Sanskritized Hindi that is officially promulgated.

India is groping now for a national identity that would allow it to approach Pakistan with confidence, but there is no consensus on how to mesh India’s identity with that of Pakistan’s. Indians do not know whether they want to play cricket and trade with Pakistan, or whether they want to destroy it. There is still no consensus on talking with Pakistan: sometimes the government and its spokesman claim that they do not want to deal with the generals, but when the generals are out of the limelight, they complain that the civilians are too weak to conclude a deal. The default option seems to be that Pakistan is now someone else’s problem--in this case the United States’. Not a few Indian generals and strategists have told me that if only America would strip Pakistan of its nuclear weapons then the Indian army could destroy the Pakistan army and the whole thing would be over. This of course is both silly and dangerous—and could lead to a catastrophic misjudgment when the fifth India-Pakistan crisis does come. We were close to one last year, I have no doubt that the people who tried to trigger a new India-Pakistan war will try again.

Cohen makes the same criminal falsification as done by Thaparites - all part of the neo-colonial project of the Anglo-Saxon, to try and deny the existence of any indigenous, pre-Abrahamic Bharatyia commonality and identity. The fact that this project remains incomplete from the times of Maculay or DuBois, and that a modern Thapar or Cohen has to continue desperately trying to achieve this ephemeral target, itself should have warned Cohen of the futility of his efforts. A concept of commonality that exists and is acknowledged to be so, cannot be erased by simply trying to deny it loudly from outside, neither does the votaries of the concept have any compulsion to break out in mass demonstrations to chant that the concept exists. Caste and linuistic differences as they exist today are a relatively modern concept, intensiffied under Islamic disruption of cultural interaction between various parts of the subcontinent and the British colonial project of hardening and constructing divides where they did not exist before. What the "Hindutva" movement represents is a natural process of going back to the roots, and rediscovering commonalities that had always existed in the non-Muslim Bharatyia. Cohen can simply start a new career as a social anthropologist in India by trying to document and closely observe the crucial social rites like exact procedure and ceremonies in marriage, death, birth etc., among the "Hindu" scattered all over the subcontinent.

Cohen does the same trick as Thaparites - focus on subgroups or subidentities to deny the existence of the superidentity. By the same token, no Christian identity exists, no Islamic identity exists. None of the nations of USA, UK or Russia, or even China have any common idenity supporting their respective nationhoods. By that same token, even AFG or Pakistan has no national identity.

Cohen appears to me to be extremely naive in how he defines and handles the identity formation process. Identities exist and are built upon continuously. Identities that have formed over very long periods of historical time, and have defended it against ruthless extermination campaigns, are unlikely to give it up easily. They can be under tremendous political and military pressure to do so, but usually such attempts hardens their identity. Actually the whole colonial project of denying the "Hindu" identity led to their eventual expulsion, just as it had destroyed the Islamic project in India. MKG and JLN could only manage to wrangle power from British hand by posing as the safer alternative to losing the subcontinent to the ideology and national identity represented by Savarkar or Subhasji.

Whether Pakistan exists or not, the convergence back to the pre-Abrahamic Bharatyia roots is an inexorable process. The attempt to stop or subvert it through education was a colonial project but it failed utterly - the most vociferous opponents of the colonial regime were products of the very same system. Pakistan's antics, and its supporters will only enhance and accelerate the process in the long term. The more the west or China tries to prop up Pakistan, the faster is the acceleration towards the "Hindu". I guess the likes of Cohen are doing a great service to the votaries of "Hindutva" - for the more the concept is attacked and denigrated, the stronger it gets.

The structural contradictions in the relationship explain much of the problem. Put in terms of raw politics, India’s political parties do not make this a central issue in governance. In Pakistan there is not much support in the Establishment (or ruling oligarchy, to use the proper Aristotelian label) for an end to South Asia’s cold (and sometimes hot) war.

As the years pass, India and Pakistan have traded places in being insecure and vulnerable: like two sides of a teeter-totter, when either side is down it fears that any concessions will lead down a slippery slope, when it is up, it expects the weaker side to bow. India is presently “up,” but there is no serious consideration of a deal that would bring to fruition the process begun by Atal Behari Vajpayee in the 1990s. Interestingly, it has been the BJP that seems to be more willing to redefine Pakistan in such a way that India could live at peace with it. Both Jaswant Singh and L.K. Advani have talked of “Jinnah’s Pakistan.”

Cohen identifies "raw politics" correctly, but for entirely wrong reasons. As I have pointed out previously, the currently dominant Indian elite would be inclined towards management of a nucleus of Pakistan rather than its destruction or overwhelming development. Pakistan of course woul seek destruction of India as long as it exists for the reasons I have explained above. Unfortunately for Cohen, Jaswant and Advani have fallen out in politics. That is a significant riddle for Cohen to delve into - and if he can solve this he will be a long way towards understanding Indian elite.

Let me list a few other factors that reinforce this paired-minority complex:

* There are groups on both sides that try to disrupt the process when it seems to be reaching a positive conclusion. Some of the bureaucracies and covert agencies on each side need the conflict for their own self interest—the two armies, in particular, would have very little to do (except, perhaps to fight separatists and terrorist groups) if the international border were normalized. On the right, when Jaswant and Advani appeared soft on Pakistan they were roundly berated by the Hindutva hard-liners.

This is a typical assumption of a someone who has never dealt with large groups or organizations of people directly. Here Cohen assumes that the average military man is born with a death-wish, and both Pakistanis and Indians would be extremely eager to risk their lives without any purpose. The armies would like to be well-resourced, but they would not like to accelerate a conflict situation whenever possible.

* The introduction of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of India and Pakistan have not promoted peace—although they may have made all-out war virtually impossible.
*
The presence of bureaucratic pathologies should be noted, in particular the Pakistan army’s narrow vision, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs’ absence of vision.

Cohen compares the incomparable. In Pakistan, the army is the state. In India, the Ministry of external Affairs is not an independent entity and is firmly under the indirect control of the core and coterie around the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The Pakistani army cannot exist without its narrow vision because the state cannot exist without its narrow vision. The Ministry cannot have a wider vision because the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty does not have a wider vision (the only black sheep being IG, even RG(snr) was not tough enough about Sri Lanka).

* The so-called track II dialogues, are more often than not a way of avoiding serious strategic dialogue between Indians and Pakistanis. They often involve those people who were responsible for past bad decisions, yet the same people who ten years ago were eager to do nothing now preach the importance of dialogue and further meetings—conference building measure. As one Indian journalist properly observed during one of these marathon talk-fests, both governments should consider extending the age of retirement by five or ten years since so many of yesterday’s hawks had morphed into today’s doves.
*
There is also an absence of imaginative strategic thinking in India—most officials and politicians seem to follow the advice of P.V. Narasimha Rao, who said that inaction is always preferable, that time will fix most problems.

Has it ever occurred to Cohen that the hawks could be turning into Doves because they have been shown why it would be advantageous for them to do so - by both external and internal powers?

Prime Minister Rao may have been right in some matters, but I don’t think this is the case with India’s chief strategic and foreign policy problem, one that penetrates to the core of Indian politics—the crumbling state of Pakistan. I won’t go into details, but all of the long term indicators for Pakistan are very negative: economic growth, population, demographic trends, sectarianism, governmental coherence, rising discontent among non-Punjabis, and an increase in sectarian extremism within the Punjab itself.

There is one positive trend: for the first time all of the major, relevant powers of the world are concerned about Pakistan. China, the EU and NATO states, America, and others understand that their Pakistan problem is not simply one of containing terrorism, but the integrity of the Pakistani state.

I think that Indians sense this, but the moment for action was five or six years ago. Here, Washington and New Delhi failed each other as they were falling over each other in an attempt to complete an agreement on civil nuclear energy. I supported the deal, but it certainly distracted the United States from what was happening before its eyes. “De-hyphenation” was an Indian objective, and it was successful in the short term—but it contributed to American disinterest in internal developments in Pakistan just as these were becoming pathological.

Exactly six years ago I published a book on Pakistan, and the last sentence concluded: “Before writing Pakistan off as the hopelessly failed state that its critics believe it to be, Washington may have one last opportunity to ensure that this troubled state will not become America’s biggest foreign policy problem in the last half of this decade.”[5] Just before that the 2000 CIA “Global Trends” report, looking ahead to 2015, suggested that “Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement. . . . Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change . . . . and domestic decline would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military. . . . In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.” Most recently, the Australian/American strategist David Kilcullen, predicted that Pakistan might collapse in six months.

Is it too late? It might be, but politics is an empirical science, not a theoretical one, and there has to be one last comprehensive effort to answer the question of Pakistan’s viability.

As for India, it is both part of the problem and part of the solution, but I know that if it does not act in a positive and creative fashion its hopes of becoming a comprehensively great power cannot be achieved. There may be some gratification in seeing your major enemy and rival go up in flames, but not if your house catches fire.

Cohen betrays his concerns and his role as an academic justifier of western perceptions and current requirements. The simple and obvious reason behind the EU, the NATO, PRC all losing their nights sleep suddenly over the possible collapse of Pakistan, is because they lose a long-standing handle to ransom the subcontinent for their own benefits. A fighting and biting Pakistan is a good excuse for both Christianity to barge in as the saviour, as well as the west to continue its interventions to dominate Asia. In the process they provide excuse for China to try and nose in.

What to Do?

Let me conclude with a small “to do” list, addressed mostly to India but also to outsiders who want to be of help:

*
Kashmir is both the cause and effect of this paired-minority complex, it can’t be “solved” because there is no solution as long as present mind-sets prevail. Read the superb new study by Ambassador Howard Schaeffer of America’s many failed attempts coming out shortly from the Brookings press, and instead, look for ways that turn Kashmir into a non-zero sum problem. My suggestion would be to address, more broadly, the looming environmental and water issue, of which Kashmir is an important component. This affects India, China, Nepal, and Bangladesh, this is properly dealt with on a regional basis. Kashmir, as such, is not “ripe” for resolution, but parts of the problem are.
*
Regional trade is another area where India and Pakistan need an excuse to do only what is in their self-interest. In this case there is the problem of the big fish-little fish: Pakistan is big fish as far as Afghanistan is concerned, but a little fish when it comes to India. India of course is the whale as far as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. India stands to gain a lot by giving up a little, a mind set that is common in the business community but not among the bureaucrats.

*
Nuclear proliferation provides us with anotherff opportunity, and if missed, all parties will suffer. India tirelessly avoids the issue by pious accusations in the direction of Pakistan on how not to be a responsible nuclear weapons state. All that India needs to do is to rediscover the Rajiv Gandhi action plan, which not only called for global disarmament—a politically safe thing to with the Bush administration gone—but Rajiv also addressed, if briefly, the prospect of movement at the regional level. This now means China, India and Pakistan, and it should not take more than ten minutes to figure out how many nuclear weapons would preserve deterrence stability for India. Given that India was rewarded with an incredibly generous agreement by the Bush administration, India should do more than simply reiterate its own excellent record. Such a region-wide agreement might include better verification and assurances regarding national protection of weapons and fissile material; it is not that Indian practices are bad (although there is little evidence that they are good), it is that India’s vulnerability to a nuclear weapon from Pakistan is self-evident. It is astonishing that the same Indian officials and “formers” who decry Pakistan as a rogue state and the epicenter of terrorism, seem perfectly happy with Pakistan’s control over a growing nuclear arsenal.
*
Finally, India needs to engage in introspection about he full range of military power that it wields. India is certainly Asia’s third great state, but the book I am now completing will argue that its strategic weight and its military power have been misjudged. Just because a state has done well in one or two areas does not necessarily mean that it will do well in all of them. There are no more than a handful of political and administrative officials who really understand the use of force and the instruments of military power. India cannot remove key threats by force, yet it maintains a huge army and an equally large paramilitary force that are strategically dysfunctional. It sometimes behaves like a timid state for good reason—yet it wants its neighbors to be in awe of its power. No big state will ever be beloved by its smaller neighbors, but India has failed to capitalize, especially in the case of Pakistan, on its real assets—these are its great cultural and economic power, not its army or its nuclear weapons.

The businessmen may be more willing as some of them had always been - for the costs are not borne by themselves but the common Indian. A business man is less likely to be penalized as he is not answerable in the sense an elected legislature or the bureaucracy depedent on that legislature is. By Cohen's arguments, he should start looking at the women and child traffickers from the Indian side first perhaps - as they would be likely to be the most enthusiastic businessmen to come in support of him.

To summarize, India is the dominant power in South Asia, but it is the putative leader of the least-integrated region of the world; its neighbors all struggle, and at least one of them, Pakistan, defines itself in anti-Indian terms. While India must concentrate upon its domestic reforms and restructuring, this process must be accompanied by fresh thinking about India’s regional relations, and the role that outside powers can play in helping these to become more normal.

The agenda I have outlined is already too long, and the problems that India faces in its relationship with Pakistan are very great. I remain optimistic that India will change -- it has done so at astonishing speed in many spheres—and somehow convert an enemy into a partner. India may have to give a little, but it has a lot to gain. The rest of us can stand by, offer suggestions where asked. However, we must also be prepared for strategic failure—another serious crisis with Pakistan, the further fragmentation of that state, or the expansion of the radical Islamist agenda to India itself. I am no Cassandra, but prudence suggests that we not just hope for the best, hope is not a policy.

India can indeed think of a partnership - with the people currently under Pakistani occupation. It has no need or compulsion to have that partneship with the state of Pakistan. In fact, the socio-economic upliftment of the populations under Pakistani rule will only take place once there is not Pakistani army and state between its people and India.

[brihaspati]

Cohen says a strange thing which I probably missed the first time. His last list of agenda for India, appears to me to include a most surprising demand - about global non-proliferation. Is Cohen looking or asking for Indian leadership in the matter? If Cohen indeed represents the forces that I suspect he does, then it is potentially dangerous. Is the West no longer sure of being able to control any nuclear conflict that can start off in any part of the world? Is Cohen indirectly telling that USA no longer controls the Pak nukes?

India perhaps has no alternative to going for more destructive nuke weapons system. For simple nukes of the fission type may not be deterrents any more as far as China or TSP is concerned.

[Rony]

India needs to engage in introspection about he full range of military power that it wields. India is certainly Asia’s third great state, but the book I am now completing will argue that its strategic weight and its military power have been misjudged. Just because a state has done well in one or two areas does not necessarily mean that it will do well in all of them. There are no more than a handful of political and administrative officials who really understand the use of force and the instruments of military power. India cannot remove key threats by force, yet it maintains a huge army and an equally large paramilitary force that are strategically dysfunctional. It sometimes behaves like a timid state for good reason—yet it wants its neighbors to be in awe of its power. No big state will ever be beloved by its smaller neighbors, but India has failed to capitalize, especially in the case of Pakistan, on its real assets—these are its great cultural and economic power, not its army or its nuclear weapons.

[brihaspati]

Well, if Cohen thinks he understands how to use "military force" then he should better go and advise the NATO forces in AFG. Thats where such super skills aer most urgently needed. The NATO is retreating from AFG. Only increasing resources commitments will prevent immediate withdrawal. But even the stabilization that Obama probably had in mind is not going to work out.

Control and victory over Talebs will not happen, unless the fundamental confusion and fatal self-delusion about the ideological drive behind the Talebjabi movement is cleared. The key to the defeat of the Talebs is the liquidation of the theologians who provide the framework of justification for murderous medieval Sadism. As long as the total destruction and liquidation of the framework of support for the theologians and continuation of Islamic education and spread of Islamic ideas are not taking place, money and resources and ideological focus is going to pour in from the Islamic world and ME oil riches. The Islamic diaspora will also continue to provide resources. And finally as long as TSP exists, it will organize, channel and support this world wide Islamic effort to preserve the Jihadists.

[nachiket]

Cohen says a strange thing which I probably missed the first time. His last list of agenda for India, appears to me to include a most surprising demand - about global non-proliferation. Is Cohen looking or asking for Indian leadership in the matter? If Cohen indeed represents the forces that I suspect he does, then it is potentially dangerous. Is the West no longer sure of being able to control any nuclear conflict that can start off in any part of the world? Is Cohen indirectly telling that USA no longer controls the Pak nukes?

India perhaps has no alternative to going for more destructive nuke weapons system. For simple nukes of the fission type may not be deterrents any more as far as China or TSP is concerned.

Did the US ever control Paki nukes? I doubt it. If they did then why didn't we attack Pakistan during Operation Parakram? We presumably did not because the GOI felt that Pakistan would respond with nukes if faced with the prospect of losing Kashmir.

You are right about more destructive nukes. But for a different reason. TN weapons provide more destructive power for the same weight of the warhead as a fission weapon. We wouldn't have to compromise missile range for payload. This is China specific though. TN weapons are not really needed for deterrance against TSP.

[Rahul M]

nachiket, the state of pakistan's nuclear arsenal has been discussed on BRF for a long time.

recently, some noises by the people who count have sounded eerily similar to some BRFites views from early 2000's that post 9/11 pakistan's nukes were controlled by US.

you'll find some discussions here.
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 79&start=0

[brihaspati]

Most countries which developed some sort of nuclear capability did it with simultaneous development of science and technological capabilities (yes, inititally the spead started with theft - Russia from USA, then donation by Russia to China, and then from China to the Islamic countries, and from USA+EU to Israel). The exception is Pakistan - we see no matching rise in scientific and technological capabilities. Therefore, it is very much a foregone conclusion that its nuclear arsenal was developed with foreign help. Who will nuclear weaponize TSP? Not its immediate neighbours - only those countries are more likely to give nuclear weapons technology to TSP which (a) are already in the habit of arming other countries on the sly (b) and who feel that TSP is sufficiently physically distant rom themselves that the nukes cannot be used against the donor.

These two criteria immediately puts USA and China solidly in the picture. Russia would not do this, becuase of its concerns with AFG and its ties with India, in the period concerned.

Now, subsequently, did TSP show any technological and scientific capabilities to match upgradation and maintenance of nukes or missiles. No, except actually "testing" them. There is no obvious signs of this scientific and technological development in the general economy, education and industry. In the beginning, USA perhaps collaborated and allowed PRC to develop the TSP nukes. Over time this probably eveolved into a joint supervisory control over the nukes.

So, just as in NK, it is more likely now that tests are of versions developed by the Chinese, and also put on and maintained by Chinese personnel under direct PLA control. These are also more likely to have been placed to safeguard Chinese control over the KKH, and are targeted at major population centres of India. They cannot be of a range that can strike main Chinese cities - as such a technology will not be given to TSP by the Chinese.

[brihaspati]

Baluchistan has become a part of the discussion now more prominently than ever before. I have always tried to keep Balochistan out from my proposal for incorporation into a future Bharatyia rashtra. I had suggested recognizing an independent Balochistan Republic, with whom Bharat goes into a security and military treaty as part of the recognition process.

Baloch right to self-determination will not succeed unless a powerful nation state with a modern and sufficiently strong economy and military with a global pull, backs it up. This is the fate of all nationalist, separatis, or ethnic movements in the modern age - when military hardware can no longer be produced and sustained on a long term basis without such backing. Whatever, the Balochis may try to do, their cause will not succeed unless one or more of the global and regional "superpowers" actively supports them.

In Kashmir Valley, separatists can only sustain themselves until direct support by TSP, and indirect support by PRC, and possibly also UK+USA continues. In the caseof the Balochis, however, almost all the regional powers with the exception of India have no immediate reason to support them. The mineral and gas resources of Balochistan are equally exploitable by MNC's under a TSP occupation as the Balochis. From the viewpoint of MNC's the Balochis remain fractured, and too volatile or unpredictable to allow a change of regime from TSP into the hands of an independent Balochistan. It is actually better for the MNC's that the region is under an unpopular regime seen as "occupying" by the natives - because that keeps the "occupying" regime more pliable to the interests of the MNC's.

Because MNC interests will be inclined this way, the major western powers will be inclined the same way. And very similar considerations will stop USA or UK from supporting the Baloch independence movement. USA has no interests in the current scenario to support an independent Baloch movement. It needs a much greater emphasis on stabilizing the "northern front" across Pakjab, protecting the support base of Sind in case the Pakjabi TSP government needs to retreat back from the north. So USA will continue supporting the TSP government against Baloch interests until USA is ready to withdraw from AFG after trying to stabilize AFG situation. Things may not go the USA way here, and it will become quite unpredictable for a while for the Baloch situation then.

Only when the north falls to militants and Talebs, will USA retreat and try to stabilize the TSP government in the south. Only then it may think of hedging its bet on supporting an independent Balochistan hoping to use the Baloch hatred towards Pakjabis.

Russia will have no immediate interest in supporting the Balochis even though they supported a faction during Soviet occupation and trained them up to 1979. This is linked also to the Pashtun-Baloch divide within Balochistan. In case of a retreat by USA from AFG, Russia may need to consider utilizing Pashtun sentiments. Russia's interests in Iran also creates problesm ind irectly supporting Balochis.

For PRC, its obvious commitments to the TSP government and Sunni militants as well as military assets held jointly with TSPA prevents it from coming to help the Balochis. The arguments I have given for MNC think also applies to Chinese think connected to Gwadar.

Iran obviously has no interest in sustaining an indepedent Balochistan movement. It is already engaged in fighting a Sunni-militant Baloch group within its own borders.

Now this leaves us with the Saudi -Sunni establishment. They are suspected to have promoted certain groups against Iran. However, they will be tied up in a dilemma to a certain extent, about the balance of power between the currently more effective TSP and the Baloch militants. From the agenda of establishing a Sunni Caliphate, the TSPA is doing a better, and apparently at least for the current moment, a much better and crucially important job. It is skillfully helping to resource, protect and enhance the Caliphate agenda in the north - the strategically important tri-junction between AFG, Kashmir Valley and India. Anything that distracts the TSPA from this course is not supportive of the Caliphate agenda. Saudis will try to increase the Sunni-radicalization of the Balochs using the fact that the majority of the Balochis are Hanafi Sunnis - one of the most retrogressive Shariati schools ever to emerge.

For me the dilemma is to decide between the independence of Balochs on the one hand for strategic necessity, and the consequent consecration of the common Balochis into the hands of Sunni medievalism on the other. I would therefore prefer to have much greater inner conflict between the Pashtuns, Pakjabis and the Balochis for some time and isolate them from all other international support. Recognition, when the Balochis are up for survival should include constitutional guarantees for minimal social and democratic reforms - probably also mandatroily incorporating international or at the least Indian suprevision. There is bound to be a nascent liberal and modernized school of opinion which will be weak in the face of tribal and feudal claims. So land reforms aimed at changing rural power relations have to be forced - a "Roosevelt on Churchill" needs to be pulled off in negotiations.

[brihaspati]

Vermaji of Indian Defence Review projects the timing of Chinese attack as 2012. But he gives no concrete calculations. I do not see his reasoning as very concrete, unless hes is timing it basedon some other calculations not being made public. I am rather sceptical of the 2012 date because of a lot of hype in the apocalyptic fringe about the year.

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2009 ... china.html

What do BRFites think both about the scenario as well as the date?

[John Snow]

I think 2012 is a good muhurtham if the Ughir thing springs up and the discontent of unemployed in PRC peaks, all subject to economic recovery. The attack will have to serve multifold purposes to divert internal dissensions. If HH Dalia lama atains Moksha it could also trigger events...

JMT

[RajeshA]

After the debacle of 1962, India changed her views on China. Gone was the India-Chin Bhai-Bhai. We started arming ourselves. A border conflict with India and loss of territory by India would bury the ruling party in Delhi for ever. So to a large extent, that would not be tolerated by any political entity in India. China would become India's enemy for all eternity. It would also push India into a very tight embrace of USA, the other power China is tussling with. It could lead India to change its policies on active support to Tibetans and Uyghurs, or a fierce policy to get back the lost territories, or a complete overhaul in India's security posture making India into an aggressive beast.

At the moment, China has India as they would like to have us and the best they can expect of us. Of course, in the long term, India would be getting its act together and could match China in infrastructure, economic growth and military even. That is a development the Chinese may not like, but not something they would go to war for.

So China would attack India only if India increases her national power through some sudden quantum leaps. A Re-annexation of PoK could be one such quantum-leap act, Support for Baluchistan could be one such act, A transformation in Myanmar in India's favor could be one such act, or even acquisition or indigenous development of some revolutionary military platform can also be such an act. It is a sudden break out by India that would be of concern in Beijing. That could cause a twitching.

Another reason for attacking India would be some hostile act wrt Tibetans, Uyghurs or some incident in IOR.

If any of the above takes place before 2012, then yes, China could attack, otherwise I doubt it.

I do not really believe that PRC could attack India simply as a diversion from its problems at home. Unlike in 1962, where we were totally unprepared, and PRC could be sure of a quick victory and later magnanimity with territory, in 2009/2012 we are prepared. So PRC cannot make any assumptions of a quick victory. Any other scenario would not be to the taste of PLA.

If PRC can be fought off to a draw even, it would be a big shock for PRC, an eventuality PRC may not fancy as the international downside for PRC would be grave. One thing India has to ensure is that PRC does not occupy any land at all, even land they may be willing to return in magnanimity, as that would be considered a PRC victory and an Indian defeat. In order to ensure that, India would have to escalate the war into territories currently occupied by PRC. We cannot fight like we did in Kargil.

A massive defense capacity by India along the Chinese border would be sufficient to avert a war with PRC in the near future.

However India would someday have to change her posture from one of status-quoist to revolutionary power. There is only so much India can do in status-quo. Someday India would have to challenge PRC for primacy too, or at least in India's near abroad.

[RajeshA]

I hope the Mods do not have against me quoting a dumb animal here! If yes, please delete!

A deaf and dumb porki named Shehz says

Yesterday was East Pakistan, and today it may be Balauchistan.
Tomorrow, if Indian Govt, gives US $ 1 Bil to AZ for a signature, 1 Bil for senators and national assembly ministers (to be distributed amongst them), and another 1 Bil to NS for not opposing, Kashmir will be gifted to them in a heartbeat.

I offer here an alternate strategy.

Around 200 million people and no future is something that awaits Pakistan. Food Security will sooner or later collapse, and there will hardly foreign exchange left to buy from outside.

In 10 years time of steady growth, India would have the moolah to buy off any and every politician in Pakistan, their aunt and the local general. India would be richer, much much richer, and Pakistan would be poorer, much much poorer, and the Ummah would be going through the Peak Oil pangs.

So if we continue with MMS policies towards Pakistan (without signing on anything, that is), where India becomes the lesser evil than USA in Pakistan, in 10 years time Pakistan would be ripe for the picking.

With money India can buy off the politicians and the junta leadership to an extent, that we could impose an arbitrary map, political system and arrangement with India as we like.

$ 7-8 billion would suffice. Why go for war? Just buy the whole of the goddamn pork!

PoK and Baluchistan can be made part of India. Sindh can have an associated status, something like 'Azad Jammu & Kashmir' has in Pakistan and Seraikistan and Pakjab can be included in some form of confederation with India. Of course, all would have to go through brihaspati ji's mental detoxification camps for further progress.

Just a thought, and as Raja Ram's says, take it for what it is worth.

[brihaspati]

PRC has to be broken up into at least four pieces. The Uighuristan, republic of Tibet, Greater Mongolia, and the remnant plains China. For this, all three regions separatists and ethnic nationalities haveto be encouraged. There is already a strong undercurrent of violent resistance and uprising among the Tibetans of the plateau, and HH Dalai Lama's influence is more of an embarassment for such elements - without him, they could act with freer conscience. Also when he passes away, he has promised not to be reborn in Tibet. So the CCP will try to make him reborn in China - and will be a good excuse for the flare up. Once PRC tries something stupid like that, the flareup will no longer stop. Moreover, the "Dalai Lama" would be absent from the scene for a couple of years.

I think if political steps are taken from now on, carefully, we can have a GOI in place that will think on such forward terms and not in status-quo terms.

[brihaspati]

RajeshAji,
I had not considered buying out the very buyable human cargo of TSP elite. I had considered buying out territories like Coco's in the SEAsia thread. However, I do think your suggestion has good merit. Only thing I am worried about is that some other entities, like the Saudis may have a lot of petro-cash to extend the auction process interminably. Where they will be weaker is of course the military side. So we may need a combination of both and not rely only on one.

[RajeshA]

I do think your suggestion has good merit. Only thing I am worried about is that some other entities, like the Saudis may have a lot of petro-cash to extend the auction process interminably. Where they will be weaker is of course the military side. So we may need a combination of both and not rely only on one.

There are ways of course to neutralize Saudi participation in the bidding. They need to be kept busy elsewhere.

• Palace intrigues
• Uprising in the North-East where there are substantive Shias, possible using the good offices of Iran
• Al Qaida pressure
• Media exposures about Saudi complicity in financing terrorist groups
• etc.

Of course, in the mean time, the Pushtun/Taliban pressure on Pakistan polity should remain and increase; as should the arms race; as should lawlessness; as should our unfortunate planning for filling our dams of Western Rivers, as should crime and lawlessness....

The naak men dum scenario would speed up Pakistan's ultimate capitulation to India. They wanted to finish us with a thousand cuts. We will finish them off first with a million frustrations.

[brihaspati]

"Taleban now winning" shouts the Wall street journal.
http://hpb.online.wsj.com/article/SB124 ... 18153.html

Long ago, on this thread, it was my speculation, that Obama's stabilization policy was basically to prepare for a retreat that looks like a victor's magnanimous withdrawal. The time window indicated by military here, seems to be the next 12 months which is shorter than my estimate of 1-2 years.

Two things are going wrong with the AFG plan - (a) stationary deployment of troops of defensive nature which comes from a policy of stabilization. In the AFG theatre, anyone who sits down to protect stationary targets loses initiative. That is the beginning of the end. (b) USA retains the saboteurs behind and beside - it allows the ISI and the TSPA to survive with its Jihadi core, and the continuing international supporting network comprising PRC as well as the Saudis.

To cover up for this retreat, Obama will try to construct a "Good Taleban" and they will try to create a gov of "national consensus" in AFG. Simultaneously they will justify this retreat by having to give greater attention to "eradicating" the "bad Taleban" within northern Pakistan - and thereby shift further east out of AFG.

The only policy that would have succeeded with the AFG Jihadis was a campaign of total annihilation a-la-Alexander. Round up and liquidate - all, even populations that can support regeneration. They cannot of course do an Alexander now - these are not Vietnamese "gooks", these are are the next best thing to "Christians" - "Ialamics".

So, an interesting situation develops 2011. USA can gradually move out fo AFG and concentrate on the Valley and its northern approaches. Or create conditions for a Indo-Pak-(PRC) war. That will provide a good excuse to move out of AFG quickly. They could make it out as the best solution is for both TSP and India to give up claims to J&K and make it a semi-protectirate under the UN with the NATO or US mandated to do "peace-keeping" and longer term "presence". This is the best location to deal with Russia and PRC.

[surinder]

B,
US has not plans of moving out of A'stan. The toe hold it has in a region is very vital. I think the US presence and the bases will remain for 25-50 years. What the US does want, and is not getting, is a stabilization, where they can retreat behind the scenes and rule using proxies. Using carrots & sticks, just as it controls TSP, Arabs, and the rest of the world. For that to emerge, the country must be somewhat stable, and population scared of the US and unable to counter attack. None of this is possible in A'stan. A'stan is too fragile, its population is fluent with violence and willing to go to any extent to rid the land of Amerikhans. Iraq is, as a matter of fact, faring much better for US. Amerikhans are finding out that resistance in Iraq against them was timid, in A'stan it is of a whole different calibre.

But A'stan is very attractive place for US to park itself: Iran on one side, TSP on the other, Russia to the north, PRC to the NE. This is God's gift to Amerikhans, except they don't want to die just staying parked in bases at Bagram.

[Sanku]

Hot of the press, Jaswant Singh speaks the BRF lingo

Nehru, Patel 'conceded' Pakistan to Jinnah: Jaswant
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/nehru ... t/502176/2

"It is ironical that among the great constitutionalists of those times, Jinnah and Nehru became the principal promoters of 'special status for Muslims'; Jinnah directly and Nehru indirectly.

"...The irony of it is galling when sadly, we observe that both of them, these two great5 Indians of their times were either actually or in effect competing to become the 'spokesman of Muslims' in India."