jamwal wrote:What exactly is this access to central Asia and how is it a big deal for us? Serious question.
Jamwal'ji. This is a question with lot of nuances.
Pakistan is the constipation in the constipation suffering west. When Britishers' left United India, they needed a tool (or a fool) to control Central Asia and keep the Russian bear from going south. In effect extension of great game and let's call it great game 1.5 during the cold war and the collapse of the soviet union. Remember the US idea of crimea currently is an extension of the great game.
There is nothing economic here for both western europe and by extension US in supporting Pakistan other than curtailing Russian sphere of influence. That is, the gain is for geo-political influence by locking up Russia. It is already seen with Russia trapped between China (a behemoth) and W. Europe/US. Added bonus of putting a termite on India's growth as a nation and further influence into Indian sub-continent.
Remember as the third reich was falling, one of Hitler's idea was to point out to the europe that they (the germans) have taken care of the jew problem and also attacked soviet union and brought the communists to a standstill and all efforts need to be concentrated on supporting the third reich counter communists. In fact the cold war started even before the war in pacific ended. Creation of pakistan by fUK should also be seen the above light.
Central Asia has both energy reserves and minerals. However the biggest market for both energy and minerals is *not* China but India. Think about it. Samarkand to Lahore is @1650 km by road/train at 80 kmph one can cover that distance in 1 day. And there are direct roads already. Samarkand to Chengdu, there is no direct access. One has to go to Almaty (~1200 km to east) and then cut over to Chengdu over Tibet by travelling another ~1700 km as the crow flies over the tibetan plateau. That is ~3900 km to the nearest major market. In reality, the road will be via muzaffarabad and karakoram highway into sichuan or go all the way to Chengdu via urumqi and the route will be ~4800 km either way.
You see the roof of the world is an inverted bowl and there is no way over it. Only around it. The only major market for the central asia is India. That is central asia needs India more than the other way around.
From the Gelf states perspective, Pakistan is a good plug (read constipation) for the CAR. They gelf does not want another competition to their energy markets into India. Additionally they have a rabid dog that wags its tail for them while barking against their shia enemies. Of course this is the thinking now since the largest consumers to its energy exports are to their east and their ships pass through the Indian ocean.
However the thinking is further changing, pakistan is not a major market for cheen and they are a geopolitical "pakistan". Cheeni tubelights are coming on and realizing that their relation with the rabid dog may end up them losing one of their big growing market called India.
CARs would like the pakistani constipation go away. They can then happily trade down with India. However that will hurt the gelf states. At the same time if the rabid dog acts up too much then India will step in and solve the problem. And then gelf will lose all its leverage. The west could not stop the russians in crimea, leave alone further west in india-pakistan area.
That is why India is in Shanghai co-operative council working with Cheen, working with the CARs and by extension with the Russians and with the West and the Gelf. India has leverage over all of the above by being only passively engaged. For India the major markets are Africa and ASEAN. India has deep friendship with Oman and India is engaging with CSTO and SCC. India saved Tajikistan under project maitri.
For the constipation itself that is pakistan itself, it tries to see what it can do to gain leverage. And hence once in a while the balloon goes up of India-Iran-pipeline or India-CAR pipeline. I always wonder what will gelf states think of Pakistan whenever it floats those balloons.
Paklurks really need to see this.
