Bharat Rakshak

One small step is to promote the urdu in devnagari script.

Manu wrote:Urdu IS Hindi but in a different script and a few Persian Words for embellishment.

Indian dilemma
Both Russia and Iran will be keenly watching how India, which was a soul mate in the late 1990s staunchly supporting the anti-Taliban alliance, reacts to the current US-British-Saudi move. Indian leaders never tired of underscoring that there was nothing called "good Taliban" and "bad Taliban". That was up until a year ago. However, there is bound to be uneasiness in both Moscow and Tehran as to where exactly Delhi stands at the present juncture in the geopolitics of the region.

One thing is clear: a US-sponsored oil/gas pipeline via Afghanistan suits India, though that may undercut Russia and Iran in the energy sweepstakes.

From all accounts, discussions were going on between the security establishments of India and the US for the past several months regarding an Indian military involvement in Afghanistan. Washington has been pressing for a major Indian role. A two-member Indian team, which visited Kabul in early September, claimed they were on a mission sponsored by the government to make an assessment of the layout for Indian military involvement. The team apparently held discussions with top American diplomats and military officials based in Kabul.

Evidently, Delhi was clueless regarding Saudi King Abdullah's secret mediation with the Taliban. This intelligence failure had to happen. Indian diplomats have been somewhat smug about the unprecedented influence they wielded with the Kabul regime, and as happens in heady times, they began blandly assuming the durability of the present Afghan setup.

They worked shoulder-to-shoulder with their US counterparts in Kabul and American thinking inevitably began coloring Delhi's perceptions. It seems the intellectual osmosis ultimately became one-sided. Under constant US encouragement, the inebriating idea of a major military role in Afghanistan and playing the "great game" crept into the Indian calculus. Delhi seems to have incrementally lost touch with the Afghan bazaar and ground realities.

The US-British-Saudi plan to accommodate the Taliban in the power structure in Kabul creates a dilemma for Indian policymakers. To do an about-turn and begin to distinguish "good" Taliban is ridiculous. It will be seen as kow-towing to the US and will be difficult to rationalize. The antipathy towards the Taliban runs deep in the Indian mindset, since no matter the actual character of the Taliban's "Islamism", a threat perception gained ground in Indian opinion regarding "Islamic terror" from Afghanistan. The Indian establishment unwittingly contributed to this by harping on the ubiquitous "foreign hand" in terrorist activities in India. A rollback of the thesis will take time.

Furthermore, India views that the Taliban as an instrument of policy for Pakistani intelligence and as detrimental to Indian regional security interests. All in all, Delhi will feel greatly relieved if the US abandons its plan to co-opt the "good" Taliban.

In the above scenario, both Tehran and Moscow will be looking forward to foreign minister-level consultations with Delhi in the coming weeks. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to visit Tehran in early November. Again, in November, in the run-up to the year-end visit by President Dmitriy Medvedev to India, Lavrov and Prime Minister Vadimir Putin will have consultations in Delhi.

The geopolitical reality, however, is that all three countries have transformed in recent years and their foreign policy priorities and orientations have also changed. They relate today to US hegemony in Afghanistan from dissimilar perspectives of national interests.

Pakistan is crucial to world map

By IRFAN ASGHAR submitted 23 hours 57 minutes ago

Some pseudo-intellectuals are bumming around the world trashing Pakistan and the heavily skewed media is awash with reports making a dark portrayal of the future of this land of the pure. Rumours are doing rounds that Pakistan will be dismantled or erased from the world map, it will be balkanised or fragmented into multiple pieces and that it will be divested of its nuclear capability by the US-led West in collaboration with certain anti-Pakistan powers by and by. All this has made for a general feeling of doom and gloom in Pakistan.

If we have a going-over of the case, what stands out a mile is that all these reports and rumours are highly asinine and nothing short of being hogwash. Pakistan has born to survive and it is destined to be an invaluable part of the world map for keeps. On having mature reflection, two factors come to the fore as prime guarantors of the survival of Pakistan on the world map: To start with, Pakistan has got a valiant and highly-octane military which is quick off the mark and has got peerless chutzpah to insulate the country against external aggression. General Kayani has rose to the occasion and provided the much needed leadership and sense of direction to his people at one of the most difficult times in the nation's history by sending a shot across America's bows. Pakistan's army will make mincemeat of anyone who tried to undo the sovereignty of this country. Moreover, Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons and it is no stranger to unpleasant situations. It has already fought three conventional wars with another nuclear nation next door.

The other most important factor is the geopolitical importance of Pakistan which acts as a bulwark against malicious and venomous designs. Being in the box-seat geopolitically, Pakistan holds all the aces and catches the sight of influential foreign powers. Several foreign powers are always keen on the sustenance of Pakistan and will definitely go an extra mile to support it in its bid for survival against the heinous motives of some other powers. This can be discussed on the following counts;

Firstly Pakistan is located at the junction of great powers. The near future is going to be pregnant not only with the traditional rivalries of US and Russia but also an endless struggle between them for supremacy in regional and global politics. In such situation, the world will not only see the conflict of interests between US and Russia but also efforts by them to make as many friends as possible to solidify their position. And Pakistan will be the pivot of attraction for both powers.

Secondly, Pakistan is located in close proximity to the oil rich ME countries and it can influence the shipment of oil. The icing on the cake is that it lies adjacent to the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. It is going to be a major player in the Central Asia geo-political game. A major geographic issue will be decisive here: both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan lack any sea access. Consequently Pakistani harbours on the Indian Ocean could function as outlets for the new Central Asian energy routes - a major stake which piques the interests of not only China and Russia but also of western powers. The US has entered Afghanistan to occupy the energy resources of Central Asia and Pakistan is well-positioned geographically to emerge as a commercial hub for land-locked Central Asia and beyond. Pakistan's seaports are equidistant from Europe and the Far East.

The most vivid proof of Pakistan's geo-political importance can be gauged from the fact that it is US and NATO's trustworthy ally in the fight against terrorism. Pakistan's co-operation is critical to all US plans. The incontrovertible truth is that war against Al-Qaeda can be won only if Pakistan cooperates with NATO-ISAF forces. This is because Pakistan provides logistical support to the US in the form of fuel and ammunitions. If Pakistan ditches America at this stage in the War On Terror and closes the border to all NATO supply to Afghanistan, its enterprise in Afghanistan will be doomed to failure and it will meet a fate worse than death.

Pakistan is a country whose future determines the success or failure of the whole of the region. In the mid-nineties, Yale historian Paul Kennedy called Pakistan one of the most pivotal states of the world. America thinks of India as a strategic partner for maintaining balance of power against China but Pakistan is a key to the stability of the whole world. It is central to making short work of new threats to the world. Time and again, the West has turned its back on Pakistan. This blunder should not be made again or else it may occasion horrendous consequences.

The writer is a foreign affairs analyst

E-mail [email protected]

SSridhar wrote:People being expelled from Balawaristan to protect Chinese Engineers

Northern areas and Gilgit Police Tuesday expelled 300 suspected people from the area and recovered 450 vehicles.


The step has been taken to ensure the security of Chinese workers and engineers working at Karakoram highway, a private TV channel quoted a police officer in Gilgit as saying.

According to the officer, hundreds of Chinese workers and engineers are executing development work in Karakoram highway and the steps were taken to save them from terrorism and ensure their security.

The suspected people have been expelled due to unavailability of documents, he said, adding that, Police have also confiscated 450 illegal vehicles.

Sources told Online, the action was taken after the abduction of two Chinese engineers from scenic valley of Swat, where a military operation was underway against militants.

Superintendent Police, Gilgit, Ali Sher commenting on the measure clarified that the people expelled had no proof of registration cards, identity cards and passports and were living in Gilgit and its adjacent areas on a special order from the home department.

durvasa wrote:Well, ladies and gentlemen, while this particular incident of driving away innocent Kashmiri locals for settling Chinese residents seems minor, you are seeing the commencement of the successful culmination of the paki's plan to get $100bn (or is it $10bn) from International donors (read China). Where are Arundhati Roy and Harsh Mandar when they are needed?

Pakis are ready to sell Northern Areas and Gilgit to China and protect Pakjab's Honour and Virginity when this apology of a country is about to go bankrupt. Without Indian Kashmir, POK has no intrinsic value to Pakjabis. All the reports from Land of Unkil and Land of the pure have suggested that Pakis have realized the futility of grabbing J&K from cunning Yindoos by force. Pakis are ready to cut short their losses and encash what they can by selling POK.
So be ready to see China controlling POK/NA/Gilgit, cleaning up the Muslim jehadi cancer there and converting it a mini-Tibet in about a decade!

surinder wrote:Right now TSP is able to protect its NA. India cannot invade and take it, as of now. If in the near future, TSP nears collapse, then India might be tempted to retake NA. If that happens, it is my strong sense that China will step in to assert the protection of NA. It will not formally take over, but will declare itself the protector of this land and would tell India that an attack on NA is = attack on PRC. India will most likely back off from NA in that scenario.

I think the future scenario for India in NA does not look rosy at all.

Loss of NA weakened us. Loss of Tibet weakened us. Combination of the two further exponentially weakened us.

Rye wrote:NA/PoK is formally part of India and belongs to India if/when Pakistan becomes and ex-country. Chinese taking over NA will be seen as an act of war by India, but I do not see anyone in India going to war, and if China takes NA, China will only let go of it for something in the NE India/Arunachal Pradesh. Any move by the Chinese in taking control of NA is something to watch out for...the recent news of Pakis making way for chinese in Gilgit indicates this POV is at least partly right. Maybe the pakis are planning to hand over more territory that does not belong to them to the Chinese in exchange for hard cash? They are really desperate.

vsudhir wrote:TSP's western sponsors besides, thanks to the great game hard wiring, will be far more willing to see TSP collapse and balkanize once they're assured that the geopolitcally critical NA won't fall into Dilli's lap. I fully expect them to wink and approve of this covert NA takeover by PRC.

The only ones who can't/won't talk abt it will be the Hurrirats and their islamist cohorts in the valley.

surinder wrote:Please note, NA will not be ceded to PRC. PRC will not assert soverignety on NA. It will merely declare this area as its protectorate. I am pretty confident of this scenario playing. I am sure PRC has already war-gamed the scenario. PRC's has in all wars with TSP, tried to make life difficult for India and limit its elbow room. For India there does not exist any war with TSP which does not involve PRC as a calculation. In fact, I beleive the recent attempts by PRC to humiliate India are directly related to squeeze India because they think India has reduced pressure on the Western front. It is designed to convey to India that cooling on the Western front (TSP) will compensated by heating on the Eastern & Northern.

All is not hopeless: There is a way out of this chakraviyu: It is to stand up and fight. On ther other hand, there is no solution to the problem if all India wants is to avoid pain (which is India's main concern, by and large). If PRC declares NA its protectorate, India should challenge it and be ready for a MOAW (mother of all waars). If it wins, it will have a great future and great peace. If it looses (or does nto fight) then it is will continue on its current course of shrinking. I am afraid India will choose the latter path.

Poet Iqbal had said in an Urdu couplet: Lamho ne galti ki, sadiyon ne sazaa payi. Xlation: Mistakes were made by "seconds", punishment was endured by "centuries". The critical mistake of India to take NA and assert the borders of J&K in 1947, 48, 65, 71 has cost us dear. We will pay for it for a very very very long time.

IMO, India should go for IPI, as it would be beneficial to India. Lets not worry about Pakistan.

Pakistan will have to honour the deal, bcoa it gets them $$.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20081001f ... rgain.html
From Great Game to Grand Bargain
Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008
Summary: The crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan is beyond the point where more troops will help. U.S. strategy must be to seek compromise with insurgents while addressing regional rivalries and insecurities

BARNETT R. RUBIN is Director of Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and the author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan and Blood on the Doorstep. AHMED RASHID is a Pakistani journalist and writer, a Fellow at the Paci?c Council on International Policy, and the author of Jihad, Taliban, and, most recently, Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.

The Great Game is no fun anymore. The term "Great Game" was used by nineteenth-century British imperialists to describe the British-Russian struggle for position on the chessboard of Afghanistan and Central Asia -- a contest with a few players, mostly limited to intelligence forays and short wars fought on horseback with rifles, and with those living on the chessboard largely bystanders or victims. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become involved, and the intensity of the violence and the threats it produces affect the entire globe. The Great Game can no longer be treated as a sporting event for distant spectators. It is time to agree on some new rules.

Seven years after the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan commanders it supported pushed the leaderships of the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan, an insurgency that includes these and other groups is gaining ground on both the Afghan and the Pakistani sides of the border. Four years after Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election, the increasingly besieged government of Hamid Karzai is losing credibility at home and abroad. Al Qaeda has established a new safe haven in the tribal agencies of Pakistan, where it is defended by a new organization, the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. The government of Pakistan, beset by one political crisis after another and split between a traditionally autonomous military and assertive but fractious elected leaders, has been unable to retain control of its own territory and population. Its intelligence agency stands accused of supporting terrorism in Afghanistan, which in many ways has replaced Kashmir as the main arena of the still-unresolved struggle between Pakistan and India.

For years, critics of U.S. and NATO strategies have been warning that the region was headed in this direction. Many of the policies such critics have long proposed are now being widely embraced. The Bush administration and both presidential campaigns are proposing to send more troops to Afghanistan and to undertake other policies to sustain the military gains made there. These include accelerating training of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police; disbursing more money, more effectively for reconstruction and development and to support better governance; increasing pressure on and cooperation with Pakistan, and launching cross-border attacks without Pakistani agreement to eliminate cross-border safe havens for insurgents and to uproot al Qaeda; supporting democracy in Pakistan and bringing its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) under civilian political control; and implementing more effective policies to curb Afghanistan's drug industry, which produces opiates equal in export value to half of the rest of the Afghan economy.

Cross-border attacks into Pakistan may produce an "October surprise" or provide material for apologists hoping to salvage George W. Bush's legacy, but they will not provide security. Advancing reconstruction, development, good governance, and counternarcotics efforts and building effective police and justice systems in Afghanistan will require many years of relative peace and security. Neither neglecting these tasks, as the Bush administration did initially, nor rushing them on a timetable determined by political objectives, can succeed. Afghanistan requires far larger and more effective security forces, international or national, but support for U.S. and NATO deployments is plummeting in troop-contributing countries, in the wider region, and in Afghanistan itself. Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world but for a handful in Africa and with the weakest government in the world (except Somalia, which has no government), will never be able to sustain national security forces sufficient to confront current -- let alone escalating -- threats, yet permanent foreign subsidies for Afghanistan's security forces cannot be guaranteed and will have destabilizing consequences. Moreover, measures aimed at Afghanistan will not address the deteriorating situation in Pakistan or the escalation of international conflicts connected to the Afghan-Pakistani war. More aid to Pakistan -- military or civilian -- will not diminish the perception among Pakistan's national security elite that the country is surrounded by enemies determined to dismember it, especially as cross-border raids into areas long claimed by Afghanistan intensify that perception. Until that sense of siege is gone, it will be difficult to strengthen civilian institutions in Pakistan.

U.S. diplomacy has been paralyzed by the rhetoric of "the war on terror" -- a struggle against "evil," in which other actors are "with us or with the terrorists." Such rhetoric thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous "terrorist" enemy. Only a political and diplomatic initiative that distinguishes political opponents of the United States -- including violent ones -- from global terrorists such as al Qaeda can reduce the threat faced by the Afghan and Pakistani states and secure the rest of the international community from the international terrorist groups based there. Such an initiative would have two elements. It would seek a political solution with as much of the Afghan and Pakistani insurgencies as possible, offering political inclusion, the integration of Pakistan's indirectly ruled Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the mainstream political and administrative institutions of Pakistan, and an end to hostile action by international troops in return for cooperation against al Qaeda. And it would include a major diplomatic and development initiative addressing the vast array of regional and global issues that have become intertwined with the crisis -- and that serve to stimulate, intensify, and prolong conflict in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afghanistan has been at war for three decades -- a period longer than the one that started with World War I and ended with the Normandy landings on D-day in World War II -- and now that war is spreading to Pakistan and beyond. This war and the attendant terrorism could well continue and spread, even to other continents -- as on 9/11 -- or lead to the collapse of a nuclear-armed state. The regional crisis is of that magnitude, and yet so far there is no international framework to address it other than the underresourced and poorly coordinated operations in Afghanistan and some attacks in the FATA. The next U.S. administration should launch an effort, initially based on a contact group authorized by the UN Security Council, to put an end to the increasingly destructive dynamics of the Great Game in the region. The game has become too deadly and has attracted too many players; it now resembles less a chess match than the Afghan game of buzkashi, with Afghanistan playing the role of the goat carcass fought over by innumerable teams. Washington must seize the opportunity now to replace this Great Game with a new grand bargain for the region.

THE SECURITY GAP

The Afghan and Pakistani security forces lack the numbers, skills, equipment, and motivation to confront the growing insurgencies in the two countries or to uproot al Qaeda from its new base in the FATA, along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Proposals for improving the security situation focus on sending additional international forces, building larger national security forces in Afghanistan, and training and equipping Pakistan's security forces, which are organized for conflict with India, for domestic counterinsurgency. But none of these proposals is sufficient to meet the current, let alone future, threats.

The Pakistani military does not control the insurgency, but it can affect its intensity. Putting pressure on Pakistan to curb the militants will likely remain ineffective, however, without a strategic realignment by the United States. The region is rife with conspiracy theories trying to find a rational explanation for the United States' apparently irrational strategic posture of supporting a "major non-NATO ally" that is doing more to undermine the U.S. position in Afghanistan than any other state. Many Afghans believe that Washington secretly supports the Taliban as a way to keep a war going to justify a troop presence that is actually aimed at securing the energy resources of Central Asia and countering China. Many in Pakistan believe that the United States has deceived Pakistan into conniving with Washington to bring about its own destruction: India and U.S.-supported Afghanistan will form a pincer around Pakistan to dismember the world's only Muslim nuclear power. And some Iranians speculate that in preparation for the coming of the Mahdi, God has blinded the Great Satan to its own interests so that it would eliminate both of Iran's Sunni-ruled regional rivals, Afghanistan and Iraq, thus unwittingly paving the way for the long-awaited Shiite restoration.

On September 19, 2001, when then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced to the nation his decision to support the U.S.-led intervention against the Taliban in Afghanistan, he stated that the overriding reason was to save Pakistan by preventing the United States from allying with India. In return, he wanted concessions to Pakistan on its security interests.

Subsequent events, however, have only exacerbated Pakistan's sense of insecurity. Musharraf asked for time to form a "moderate Taliban" government in Afghanistan but failed to produce one. When that failed, he asked that the United States prevent the Northern Alliance (part of the anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan), which had been supported by India, Iran, and Russia, from occupying Kabul; that appeal failed. Now, Pakistan claims that the Northern Alliance is working with India from inside Afghanistan's security services. Meanwhile, India has reestablished its consulates in Afghan cities, including some near the Pakistani border. India has genuine consular interests there (Hindu and Sikh populations, commercial travel, aid programs), but it may also in fact be using the consulates against Pakistan, as Islamabad claims. India has also, in cooperation with Iran, completed a highway linking Afghanistan's ring road (which connects its major cities) to Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf, potentially eliminating Afghanistan's dependence on Pakistan for access to the sea and marginalizing Pakistan's new Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, which was built with hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese aid. And the new U.S.-Indian nuclear deal effectively recognizes New Delhi's legitimacy as a nuclear power while continuing to treat Islamabad, with its record of proliferation, as a pariah. In this context, pressuring or giving aid to Pakistan, without any effort to address the sources of its insecurity, cannot yield a sustainable positive outcome.

In this context, pressuring or giving aid to Pakistan, without any effort to address the sources of its insecurity, cannot yield a sustainable positive outcome.

Rye wrote:Barnett Rubin Article quote:

In this context, pressuring or giving aid to Pakistan, without any effort to address the sources of its insecurity, cannot yield a sustainable positive outcome.

What source of insekurity is he talking about?

Rye wrote: You write nonsense like this expect people to take you seriously? Who is going to guarantee the security of the IPI? The Pakistani army? Taking your idea further, maybe the Lashkar-e-toiba can be provided funds by the Indian govt. to safeguard the pipeline..should also assist them with terrorist attacks inside India. The pakjabis in charge will make sure that there is no energy security for the IPI -- as long as Pakistan is broken up, such ideas seem feasible as the non-pakjabis in Pakistan are not anti-India, else it is delusional.

Riiight, Pakistan has always honoured various deals cut with India -- just look at their behaviour w.r.t the IWT proves you right.

• This will help us enlist Iran against TSP
  With economic interdependence with them we can somehow cow down the concierge army too, getting security guarantees from them for the pipeline. Failing that we must get our boots on the ground through an international coalition of troops in Baluchistan(Priority). Baluchistan has to priority for us to put a stake in ground. Slowly and surely we must come around the view of sending our troops to defend national interests.
  I completely agree that we should extend/connect this pipeline with making one from CA/Russia and enlist them as well for security. We must tie, bind some parts of TSP economically(Local population) and I am certain when their interests would be hurt they will retaliate.
  It is a funny situation as fas as India and America are concerned. All the neighbours abuse these countries However, you ask thema country to live in they invariably chose these very countries.

renukb wrote:

Rye wrote: You write nonsense like this expect people to take you seriously? Who is going to guarantee the security of the IPI? The Pakistani army? Taking your idea further, maybe the Lashkar-e-toiba can be provided funds by the Indian govt. to safeguard the pipeline..should also assist them with terrorist attacks inside India. The pakjabis in charge will make sure that there is no energy security for the IPI -- as long as Pakistan is broken up, such ideas seem feasible as the non-pakjabis in Pakistan are not anti-India, else it is delusional.

Riiight, Pakistan has always honoured various deals cut with India -- just look at their behaviour w.r.t the IWT proves you right.

I have been on BRF since 1998 or so May be this is my 18000+'th post here. Atleast some here remember my prev avatars or so I guess. Some time back I was a very strong opponent of IPI, citing security threats. But I do see light / opportunities where others see darkness.

IPI without US interference will do good for India. It will give you cheap gas, not only that Both Iran and India gets a chance to beat the crap out of TSP, if TSP creates problems in supply. May be we must get part of gas from Russia and Turkemenistan using the same pipeline, make them part of the pipeline security members, with conditions that refusal to supply the Gas is an act of war. May be the pipeline can be jointly monitored by the armies of all parties involved, to ensure security. Also you can add a clause stating that $$ earned out of this deal can not be used for military purposes. Where there is a will, there are ways. Go Figure it out. When 2 people fight 3'rd party wins. China has always been the 3'rd party, all along, be it the fight between India - Pak or US - Russia, and is growing like a big monster. This has to STOP. Our conventional warfare technology has to grow by leaps and bounds in the next decade. US long term interests in OUR region are very clear. They don't want to SOLVE any issues in this region, but keeping alive every problems help them sell their mil hardware to every nation here. Where as India's long term interests lie in resolving all the regional conflicts, perhaps with some compromise.

You know what, name one nation apart from Bhutan that has not been hostile to India. This shows that India is doing something wrong with its neighbours. We need to create a non-hostile neighbour hood. Only this can ensure India's prosperity. With so many hostile nations around, you will always have a drag effect on your growth. Can't pull on like this forever. Economic co-operation is one way to start having good relationships. Providing security assurances is another way to attack the problem of distrust. Hence proposal of a Federation that gives economic and security assurances is the right step in the future.

IPI without US interference will do good for India. It will give you cheap gas, not only that Both Iran and India gets a chance to beat the crap out of TSP, if TSP creates problems in supply. May be we must get part of gas from Russia and Turkemenistan using the same pipeline, make them part of the pipeline security members, with conditions that refusal to supply the Gas is an act of war.

May be the pipeline can be jointly monitored by the armies of all parties involved, to ensure security. Also you can add a clause stating that $$ earned out of this deal can not be used for military purposes.

Where there is a will, there are ways. Go Figure it out. When 2 people fight 3'rd party wins. China has always been the 3'rd party, all along, be it the fight between India - Pak or US - Russia, and is growing like a big monster. This has to STOP.

Our conventional warfare technology has to grow by leaps and bounds in the next decade. US long term interests in OUR region are very clear. They don't want to SOLVE any issues in this region, but keeping alive every problems help them sell their mil hardware to every nation here.

Where as India's long term interests lie in resolving all the regional conflicts, perhaps with some compromise.

You know what, name one nation apart from Bhutan that has not been hostile to India. This shows that India is doing something wrong with its neighbours.

We need to create a non-hostile neighbour hood. Only this can ensure India's prosperity.

With so many hostile nations around, you will always have a drag effect on your growth. Can't pull on like this forever.

Economic co-operation is one way to start having good relationships.

Providing security assurances is another way to attack the problem of distrust.

Hence proposal of a Federation that gives economic and security assurances is the right step in the future.

The road to stability in Afghanistan, it is now clear, runs through Pakistan - specifically the tribal areas that Taliban and al Qaeda fighters use as a sanctuary. Less understood is that the road to stability in the tribal areas, and across the region, also runs through India.

Old fears of India, with which Pakistan has fought three wars since their 1947 partition, are at the root of much of today's dangerous Pakistani behavior. Islamabad's long-running goal of achieving "strategic depth" with a compliant Afghanistan lingers in elements of its army and powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and their support to anti-Afghan Islamic militants.

Even now, with those militants turning their guns on the Pakistani government and with Pakistani forces engaged in long-overdue offensive in the tribal areas, most of Pakistan's military remains deployed in the east - toward India and disputed Kashmir.

The result? When American officials recently pressed Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Kayani to be more aggressive in the tribal areas, he claimed, according to Newsweek, that he lacked the military capability to confront several sizable insurgent strongholds at once.
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Islamabad's fears of India are surpassed only by its fears of ethnic disintegration. Many of its ethnic parts, cobbled together like so many other post-colonial states, have never accepted Punjabi domination of the government and military, which - unlike in India - has prevented the emergence of stable federal structure of more or less equal, autonomous units.

Indeed, among Islamabad's greatest worries is that the tens of millions of Pashtuns on either side of the border with Afghanistan could realize their ancient dreams of an independent Pashtunistan.

Islamabad therefore misreads Indian efforts to promote security and economic development in Afghanistan, including New Delhi's massive $1 billion reconstruction program, as attempts to isolate or encircle Pakistan. The answer from Pakistani-backed militants? This summer's deadly suicide bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.

If old Pakistani fears of India are key to understanding Pakistani behavior toward Afghanistan, then removing those fears is key to changing that behavior.

As the dominant political and economic power in the region, India should take the lead. New Delhi should continue to assure Islamabad that India's only objective is a truly independent, united, stable and drug-free Afghanistan.

Specifically, India could offer credible assurances of the security of Pakistan's eastern frontier, explore mutual force reductions on that frontier and unilaterally open its borders - including the Line of Control that divides Kashmir - to tariff-free trade.

For its part, Islamabad must recognize that a stable Afghanistan to its west and a friendly India to the east will help prevent a catastrophic implosion in Pakistan. Finally assured of a secured eastern frontier with India, Pakistan should build on its recent offensive and deploy enough troops in the west to secure the border with Afghanistan, followed by extensive investments in education and development in the tribal regions.

Islamabad should put an end to financing, arming, training and infiltrating terrorists into Kashmir and other parts of India. This would pave the way for other confidence-building steps - visits of senior military leaders, free trade and joint economic ventures.

The United States could help allay any lingering fears in Islamabad by endorsing Indian assurances of the integrity of Pakistan's eastern frontier. More broadly, Washington should support Pakistan's fragile democracy by focusing aid on economic and social development rather than the military.

With Pakistan finally assured that India no longer poses a threat, India could then consider a truly historic step worthy of a great and growing power - contributing military forces to stabilizing Afghanistan.

Such a deployment would require a joint request from Kabul, Washington and the United Nations. Indian training teams could play a critical role in strengthening the Afghan military and police.

Reconciliation between Pakistan and India and the presence of Indian forces in Afghanistan may seem illusory. But the return of civilian government in Islamabad gives new hope. If attention can be focused on the real and growing terrorist threat to the region - not those imagined in Islamabad - then fear and loathing in Pakistan could finally give way to trust and cooperation in Afghanistan.

Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra, a former foreign secretary of India, is president of the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi. Stanley A. Weiss is founding chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington.

As I have often said earlier, there should be no large scale deployment of Indian troops in Afghanistan unless and until there is a secured, internationally acknowledged land corridor between India and Afghanistan to ensure our supply lines. That means Northern Areas and PoK should become part of India. Moreover Chitral, Kohistan, and few northern divisions of NWFP should be allowed to be used as a buffer area for Indian operations and deployment.

ramana wrote: I still hold that stabilizing TSP is not in Indian interests if not the Western world's.