An alternate view point....basically poohpahs the whole Caroe affair. But offers no evidence. We already have evidence from multiple sources pointing to the contrary.
How America dislodged Britain from Pakistan the title is misleading! it should be "How to extricate the brits from getting the blame for partition of India
Anita Inder Singh
Archival material shows that by early 1951, the Americans were for an understanding with Pakistan. The British could not rebuff the Americans, but they thought Middle East defence should hinge on Egypt, not Pakistan.
THE IDEA of the United States replacing Britain as a world power is familiar. Why and how the U.S. stepped into Britain's place in South Asia in 1954 has been revealed from British and American archival sources since the 1970s. The evidence dispels two common Indian assumptions: first, that the British created Pakistan in 1947 to shore up their military position in the "Islamic" Middle East and the Indian subcontinent; and secondly, that the British influenced the Americans into giving military aid to Pakistan in 1954.
Both assumptions are wrong. Indian and Pakistani archives on the subject are not open to the public. Evidence from a range of British archives after 1940, including files of the British Cabinet, Viceroys, chiefs of staff, military intelligence, and war staff has shown that British officials debated the pros and cons of Pakistan after the Muslim League demanded it in March 1940. But the British preference was always for a transfer of power to a united India, which they could continue to use as the base for imperial defence. Pakistan would only be accepted as a last resort if the British could not persuade the League against it. In that event, they would consider a military alliance with Pakistan, but the general feeling among British officials was that Pakistan would divide the Indian army and destroy the foundations of imperial security.
Despite the creation of Pakistan, in August 1947 the British chiefs of staff hoped for early talks with independent India on its participation in imperial defence. Indian non-alignment ruled that out. But British officials remained against defence ties with Pakistan. They continually turned down pleas by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, and Ayub Khan for military largesse on the grounds that it would offend India without securing any great advantages in the Middle East. They perceived Pakistan as a South Asian power having little influence in the Middle East.
There is no evidence that Olaf Caroe, or any other British official, influenced the U.S. State Department to give military aid to Pakistan. The Indian idea of a British conspiracy to weaken India probably stemmed from London's public endorsement of the American decision to give military assistance to Pakistan. In doing so, London was simply accepting the inevitable — nothing less, nothing more.
Differences over Pakistan
The British and Americans had very different ideas about the role of South Asia — and Pakistan — in Middle East Defence. In the 1950s, Britain's Middle Eastern policy focussed on Egypt. For London, the Middle East comprised Egypt, Iran, Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan. Material on India and Pakistan is listed under the South Asian and Far Eastern departments of the Foreign Office. In contrast, Pakistan is listed in American records under several headings: South Asia, Near and Middle East, Middle East Defence, and Mutual Security.
The one point on which British and American officials concurred was that there was no Soviet military threat to South Asia after 1945. The subcontinent was therefore not a major theatre of the Cold War. This was one reason why the British were unresponsive to Pakistan requests for a military alliance after 1947. They thought India and Pakistan should contribute jointly to imperial defence. They did not revise their strategic planning immediately after Partition, and so clung on to their traditional image of the subcontinent as a single strategic entity. And India was for them the coveted, if elusive, military prize.
Like the British, the Americans turned down Pakistani requests for military aid between 1947 and 1951. They did not rate Pakistan highly as a potential ally and were happy to have the British as their surrogate in South Asia. The Communist takeover of China in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 aroused American interest in Pakistan. These events prompted a reappraisal of the American reliance on the British in South Asia and the Middle East.
On September 18, 1950, George McGhee, then Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs, told British officials that the U.S. had no confidence in Egypt; and, "looking elsewhere for leadership, we were bound to think of Pakistan, which was the most progressive of Moslem countries and was in a good position to point out the inconsistency of backward economic and social conditions with Moslem principles." By January 1951, the State Department was seeing British influence declining in the Middle East but no American security pacts with countries there or in South Asia were then envisaged.
McGhee wanted a military alliance without too much American involvement, but there were few signs of local allies. Only two countries offered the U.S. an opening to the Middle East — Pakistan, which had proclaimed its keenness to join forces with the West, and Turkey, which was already a member of NATO.
Following the assassination of the Iranian Prime Minister, General Razmara Ali, and the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in March-April 1951, the Americans thought of distancing their concerns from those of the reactionary British; "partnership" would serve American interests better than imperial domination.
A U.S. search for allies was now on. On February 26, 1951, McGhee proposed that the Americans consider on "an urgent basis" the desirability of an understanding with Pakistan, which would provide for American training and equipment for its armed forces. On April 3, he told British officials that it was "vital" to have Pakistan in Middle East Defence. The British could not rebuff the Americans, but they thought that Middle East defence should hinge on Egypt, not Pakistan. But on May 2, 1951, McGhee told the U.S. Chiefs that the Middle East could not be defended without Pakistan. The Policy Planning Staff of the State Department suggested in a working paper on May 23, 1951 that Pakistan, Arab countries, Israel, and Iran should be invited to join a Middle East Command.
Going ahead without Britain
Events in the Middle East heightened American discomfiture with the British. In October 1951, Egypt's refusal to join the Middle East Defence Organisation enhanced American interest in Pakistan's inclusion in Middle East defence. Anti-British demonstrations in Cairo in January 1952 only increased Washington's impatience with London. By September 1953, when General Ayub Khan, Pakistani C-in-C, visited Washington with yet another request for military largesse, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told him that "he hoped General Ayub would get what he came for." He was ready to arrange a meeting between Ayub and President Eisenhower in mid-October.
On October 9, 1953, the British were told that the Americans had decided to give military aid to Pakistan. London was stunned. Washington had not consulted them: it had presented London with a fait accompli.
On December 7, Dulles told Prime Minister Anthony Eden at Bermuda that the U.S. was undecided on the form of aid to be given to Pakistan. He did not tell Eden that the Americans were already working on the procedures to be followed to establish a Turco-Pakistani pact. On December 29, 1953, the British embassy in Washington was informed that the U.S. had decided in principle to give military aid to Pakistan within the framework of a Turco-Pakistani alliance. Once more the British were taken by surprise. "This is rather startling," minuted Eden on the telegram from Roger Makin, then British ambassador in Washington. "[W]hat do we think?"
Even as the British thought of objections to the Turco-Pakistani pact, the Americans went full steam ahead. On January 5, 1954, Eisenhower agreed in principle to military aid to Pakistan. And on February 18, he gave formal approval to the State Department's plan.
British indignation at being kept in the dark by the United States was not lessened by their feeling that the Americans were out to replace them as the primary power in the Middle East and South Asia. But they could do little about it.
And so began the process by which Pakistan moved into the ambit of U.S. influence. American plans to give military aid to Pakistan went against British interests. London did not influence Washington at any time on the issue. In February 1954, Washington's decision to give largesse to Pakistan reflected Anglo-American differences over Middle East defence. At the same time, it symbolised America's success in supplanting Britain as the primary foreign influence in Pakistan.
That influence has prevailed into the 21st century. In October 2001, the U.S.' war against the Taliban was launched from Pakistani military bases, and established the U.S. as the dominant South Asian power. That is one of the long-term consequences of America's decision to enter into a military alliance with Pakistan in 1954.
(Dr. Singh is Ford Foundation Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and author of a book, The Limits of British Influence: South Asia and the Anglo-American Relationship 1947-56.)
