shiv wrote:The mere fact that "larger empires have fallen like a pack of cards" means nothing. Zilch. Smaller empires have stood up and are still defiant. If I my maidservant sleeps with me it does not mean that Angelia Joile will fall in love with me or vice versa. There is zero connection between "larger empires falling" and Pakistan. A strawman argument if ever I saw one.
You tell me about the "better policy" to "fix" Pak. I am willing to listen to anyone.
Sir,
It is not a strawman's argument, with all due respect. I request that you reason this out in a calm manner. I agree with you that "size doesnt matter". In fact, thats exactly what I meant when I said that "larger empires have fallen". I did not say that it therefore follows that ALL large empires are fallable or that ALL small entities are fallable too. I was only responding to your point that "size does matter". Honestly, werent you making that point in your earlier post ? Why else would you say that "nothing can be effective against 175 million people"? What was the purpose of bringing up "175 million people", if you werent implying size ? So, when you brought up "175 million people", you were clearly saying that "size matters", which is exactly what I countered and which now you are asserting to point out a fallacy in my argument. Nevertheless, this is a minor point and we can agree that size doesnt matter.
As to your point about a better policy, thanks for inviting me to present my views. This way I am protected from your angry retort that I am not the only Pak expert and that I come here acting all knowing, which I am not. I do agree that I am not a Pak expert and that some of the policy recommendations I make here may not work, but I think the general thrust of what I am saying will be an improvement over our what exists right now.
I will divide my recommendations in two parts. One what the US can do and what India can do differently.
In case of US, it is merely a flaw in their analysis of the entire Islamic threat and Pak situation in that context which has caused their failure in dealing with Pakistan. They have all the infrastructure in place to be able to successfully deal with Pak, if only they can fix their analysis. Infrasturcture means "an aggressive nationalistic population", which by and large unites behind most nationalistic causes and actions, when called upon by their leadership, although sometimes going to extremes which is well illustrated by their misadventure in Iraq. Having a nationalistic and united population that is willing to fight is the foundation of everything, which the US has. Then it is backed by great economic strength, notwithstanding current problems, which in turn is a foundation of a strong military capability that they have. So, if they correct their failure to identify Pak as a vanguard and frontline state and battle front for Pan Islamic expansion, they will go a long way in directing their fire at the right place. They also need to correct their failure to identify the chokepoints and achilles's heals of Pak. They can start off by having their thinktanks, media and other covert communication arms to pop up scenarios where US government is seriously considering "recognizing" all of J&K as Indian territory, thus legitimizing Indian covert and even overt intervention across the line of control, thus delegitimizing internationally, Pak claim over any Kashmir and thereby hamstring Pak from retaliating with nuclear weapons in the event of Indian actions in POK. The mere threat of it will send Pakis, "Salwar shivering", to borrow a phrase from you. Then having the Western human rights agencies issuing damning reports on human rights violations in Balochistan and legitimizing the Balochis struggle for independence and even threatening to de-facto recognize a separate Baloch state (kinda like a recognition of the Lybian rebels), will make the Paki hair stand up inside their "salwars". This along with continued drone strikes and heavily arming a Northern Alliance type militia within Afghan, despite the potential for having Afghan turning into a permanent civil war zone will be enough at some point to bring Paki to its knees. The Americans need not maintain a large military presence in Afghan to do that. The US should accept the fact that an unstable and perpetually at war Afghan without much military presence is in its interest, where it keeps Pak bogged down in a place which everyone says is the "graveyard of even larger empires".
So the US policies are a relatively easy fix. They merely have to get the cloud of cold war history and other fallacies out of their minds and make a good analysis of the situation and they can take care of Pak. It is easier said than done though, but that is all that is needed.
In case of Indian policy, that is not all that is needed. Clearly most enlightened people in India, including many on this forum, have a very clear idea of the nature of Pak and what should be done to fix it. There are millions of enlightened Indians. But unfortunately, for every enlightened Indian there are 7 or 8 unelinghtened Indians, who then elect a government which itself is unenlightened in general. Of course I am not saying that we have occasionally not had leaders and babus who have acted very correctly vis-a-vis Pak. But these have been accidents and exceptions. Our government is not backed by a united and nationalistic population like the US. Therefore, Indian problem is that it is not even at point A. IT does not have the human infra-structure in place to put forward and implement any policies vis-avis Pak. Therefore, Indian problem is much harder to fix and the fix lies all within us, not merely in our faulty analysis or out of stupidity, which is the case with the US.
Therefore, when you assert Sir, that India is ineffective and US is inefective, and therefore, India and US are "equal equal", it is not correct. US problems are eminently fixable while India's are intractable. Again, that is not to say, that US will definitely be successful in fixing its problems vis-a-vis Pak, just because it is easy. Nor is it a definite that Indians cannot solve their own problems, even if they are hard and seem intractable. Some times people cannot ever solve simple problems and sometimes unlikely people solve seemingly intracticble problems. But I am merely stating the fact that US's policy problems with respect to Pak are much easier to fix than our.
And if I were a betting man, I would not put much money on either US or India to develop correct policies to tackle Pak, but I will if I put a nickel on the US, I will only put a penny on India.
So lastly, let us do what we Indians do best. hope for God's intervention. May the good Lord Vishnu cause a miracle, where the Pakis even outdo themselves in stupidity and seriously and consistently antagonize China, which will more likely than not, take care of the Paki problem for good. After all, what else can we Indians do ? We are after all Indians only.
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