South Asia After The Cold War

International Perspectives

Kanti P Bajpai, Stephen P Cohen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367287962
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000312232
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In mid-March 1992, a group of forty scholars, journalists, strategists, and government officials met in Kathmandu, Nepal, to assess the post-Cold War world. The meeting marked both a summing up and a beginning. Many of the conference participants had been associated at one time or another with the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (A CD IS) at the University of lllinois at Urbana-Champaign. Founded in 1978, ACDIS had from its very first year recruited scholars from South Asia (and scholars working on South Asia). Much of this work was supported by a continuing grant from the Ford Foundation (which also contributed major support for the Kathmandu meeting), but lllinois was also "home" for a number of Fulbright and Asia Foundation grantees.1 The meeting in Kathmandu provided an opportunity for these individuals to again meet with each other and with faculty and staff associated with ACDIS.

Part One
Overview

1
Introduction

Kanti P. Bajpai and Stephen P. Cohen

The end of the Cold War terminated the rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union and their allies in Europe. By extension, it terminated U.S.-Soviet rivalries in other regions. In some cases this has led to regional peace, in some it has mitigated regional conflict. However, there are regions that, though not unaffected by U.S.-Soviet changes, have become more conflictual (for example, the Balkans) or whose basic pattern of conflict has remained substantially intact.

South Asia belongs to the last category of regions. At the core of the region's troubles is the India-Pakistan quarrel that seemingly has come full circle since the 1950s and 1960s to rest on Kashmir—but with this difference: the destructive power of both states has grown enormously to include short-order nuclear weapons and sophisticated conventional arsenals. The growth of military power has meant not just a greater capacity to coerce, deter, and defend, but also the increasing realization that the costs of war will be enormous and will probably outweigh any rational geopolitical gains. South Asia is therefore poised between danger and opportunity. This chapter will explore the range of possibilities between the danger of war and the opportunities for stability and peace.

The Security Futures of South Asia

The competition between states can be expressed in five ways. At one end is war. At the other end is integration, which implies the absorption of one state by another, their mutual submergence into an altogether new unit on more or less equal terms (to form a unitary, federal, or confederal state), or at least the conclusion of a positive peace wherein the resort to war to regulate competition is no longer countenanced and a range of state-to-state and society-to-society interactions in the economic and cultural sphere is permitted. Between these limiting points, competition takes three forms broadly: cold war, détente, and entente. Cold war is the pursuit of strategic advantage short of hostilities. At its worst, it is the manipulation of the shared risk of war, that is, brinksmanship. Propaganda, internal political subversion, economic warfare, and maneuvering for allies, though, are the classic elements of cold war competition. Détente is the pursuit of strategic advantage short of hostilities and without resort to the elements typifying a cold war. It is marked, positively, by the search for ways to lower tensions and the codification of rules of the military, political, and diplomatic game. Entente also involves or can involve the pursuit of strategic advantage, but is conceived primarily in economic terms. It is not necessarily the end of competition but the redirection of it into economic areas. It may also be the deferring of competition in the face of yet greater competition with a common adversary.

Neither war nor integration nor entente in their various forms seems plausible in the foreseeable future. Instead, South Asia is likely to traverse the ground between cold war and modes and intensities of détente. South Asia since the end of the global Cold War has remained engrossed in its own cold war. India and Pakistan have manipulated the shared risk of a shooting war. They have engaged in propaganda, internal subversion, and the search for allies against each other. One future for the region, clearly, is the continuation of this state of affairs. A second future is various forms of détente. India and Pakistan could move towards systems of diplomatic and military interaction that would lower the resort to brinksmanship and enhance stability and would moderate propaganda, interference in each other's internal politics, and the negative involvement of third parties as alliance partners.

In order to assess these possibilities, we shall need first to examine the nature of South Asian regional politics and the changes that are in motion. This is the subject of the following section.

South Asian Regional Politics: Structure and Change

First, South Asia is an Indo-centric region. India is by far the most powerful state in the region: no combination of the smaller states can outstrip Indian power. Moreover, India alone borders the other South Asian states: no other pair of South Asians are contiguous.¹ Not surprisingly, virtually all of South Asia's quarrels are between India and the others. The power and geographical structure of the region, however, prevent the emergence of outright polarization: the inability collectively to match Indian power and the absence of common borders mean that India's neighbors cannot organize themselves into an alliance.

The power asymmetry and the geographical Indo-centricity of the region make South Asia a particularly brittle strategic environment. The relative weakness of India's neighbors and their inability to combine amongst themselves encourages them to seek external friends even as they calculate that outsiders can be unreliable in relation to India; and the Indo-centricity of regional disputes, as well as the proclivity of the smaller states to seek outside support, makes New Delhi extremely suspicious of the smaller states.

Certain structural factors can mitigate the effect of other structural factors. Specifically, high levels of interdependence and deep-rooted similarities in national ideologies or mind-sets can soften the impact of power distributions and geographical configurations. South Asia poses a challenge in this respect too. Unlike Western Europe, East Asia, and now Southeast Asia, South Asia does not feature high levels of intraregional economic interdependence. For instance, only about 2 percent of South Asia's total trade is conducted within the region.² Environmentally, the region is much more interdependent: shared hydrological systems and common mountain ranges are sources of opportunities and constraints. South Asia is probably unique in that its patterns of environmental interdependence are not "cross-cutting" but "cumulative." For instance, it is different from the Middle East, where, on a crucial resource such as water, all disputes and possibilities do not center on any one actor.³ In South Asia, India is at the center of virtually all the disputes and possibilities arising out of shared environmental problems and resources, mostly as a result of its geographic centrality. These interdependencies demand cooperation, yet the record is poor, at least in part because interdependence is asymmetric in favor of India. The small states fear that Indian preferences will prevail in any cooperative scheme, and India fears a diplomatic "gang up" among the smaller states or between the small states and outside powers.⁴ Indeed, one of the roots of regional conflict is this Indian perception that, despite its size compared with its neighbors, it is under a strategic threat by a combination of its weaker neighbors, especially Pakistan, and some larger, extraregional power or force. For many years this was seen as the United States and China, in some combination or another; more recently Indian elites tend to focus on the threat from militant Islam in alliance with Pakistan, Bangladesh, or both. These anxieties were heightened by the events following the destruction of the abandoned mosque at Ayodhya, and domestic politics and regional politics became fused in the minds of many Indians. Thus interdependence tends not to mitigate but to be assimilated to conflict arising out of the power and geographical structure of South Asia.

While economic interdependence has been low in South Asia, especially between India and Pakistan, the increasing regionalization of global trading arrangements, the exclusion of both states from these arrangements, the direction of economic reforms in both states, and the pressures within SAARC from the smaller states presage change. South Asians may be moving towards increasing economic interaction and interdependence. At its last summit, after ten years' resistance, SAARC finally instituted a preferential tariff agreement (SAPTA).

Second, ideological differences between South Asian states exacerbate regional divisions. Broadly, India sees itself as the only democratic, federal, and secular polity in the region. The smaller states, in varying degrees and at various times, have questioned the appropriateness of democracy, federalism, and secularism for their societies. India sees the other states as being ruled by authoritarian and illegitimate governments that remain in power by resorting to fundamentalist (Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu), praetorian, Bonapartist, monarchical, or chauvinist appeals and modes of governance and to images of India as a powerful irredentist neighbor. Even when the smaller states see the Indian model as appropriate, they consider India's record flawed. In short, the two sides disagree on the appropriate basis fornation-building and regional order.

This divide over nation-building strategies and regional order has implications for regional politics. The Indian view is that cooperative arrangements with "illegitimate" and "unstable" governments are dangerous and unproductive: authoritarian governments are inherently untrustworthy; any agreements reached with them may not be seen as binding by successor governments; and cooperating with authoritarian governments may help confer a legitimacy on these governments that they do not deserve. Moreover, authoritarian governments in neighboring states are more prone to resort to India bashing as a way of constructing national identities, albeit negative ones, and of distracting attention from their own fallibility. Dictatorial regimes are also prone to oppress their peoples to the point of rebellions that spill over into India and complicate its security.⁵ The smaller states counter with various arguments. They see Indian reluctance to cooperate with undemocratic neighbors as hypocritical (given Indian cooperation with all manner of undemocratic governments) and as New Delhi's way of avoiding any serious attempt to negotiate. They point to no lack of neighbor-bashing in India's democratic polity. And they suggest that democratic India has its share of rebellions that have spilled over into bordering states.

Ideological tensions notwithstanding, South Asians are closer than they have ever been in the past. Over the past five years, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan have opted for democracy. Moreover, all the major countries of the region are run by political parties that are secular-minded even if there are fundamentalist forces at work in their polities. Thus, for the first time since 1947, South Asians appear to be converging on the best path to nation-building.

Third, territorial and border problems complicate South Asian politics. While a number of territorial and border disputes between India and its neighbors have been solved, some remain. The most important is Kashmir, which after twenty years of relative quiescence has become the greatest threat to South Asian peace.

The Kashmir dispute is symbolic of different nation-building strategies and is therefore consequential for India and Pakistan beyond the future of the sociopolitical and territorial entity known as Kashmir. Even if New Delhi and Islamabad were able to agree on Kashmir, the activities of Kashmiri militant groups, substantially outside the control of both governments, would pose a constant threat to any bilateral accords. However independent the militants may be, New Delhi holds Islamabad in large measure responsible for militant activity. Indian leaders worry that during an insurrectionary phase Pakistan may make a grab for Kashmir. At least in part this is because, in 1948 and 1965, Pakistan in concert with insurgents used force to try and wrest Kashmir. In 1965, New Delhi responded by expanding hostilities into a generalized war against Pakistan. It reserves the right to do so again and even to initiate hostilities in order to check the insurgency.

Other territorial and border problems in South Asia may seem minor in comparison with Kashmir, but their symbolism, domestic resonance, and linkage to bigger issues make them important. The most important of these is the India-Pakistan dispute over the Siachen Glacier in Kashmir. Siachen has been the site of a mini-war for close to a decade, and there is little prospect that it is about to end. Its strategic importance is questionable, but it has come to be seen as a test of wills over Kashmir. Inevitably, it has become a domestic political issue. The longer and the more costly the involvement of the two sides over Siachen, the more difficult it becomes to resile from it: the human, material, and financial costs must be justified at home to increasingly skeptical publics. Moreover, while Siachen has never threatened to escalate into an India-Pakistan war, it has added to the complexity of the Kashmir problem and, more importantly, to the lack of trust between the two sides, each of whom sees the other as trying to overturn the status quo along this remote glacier.⁶

Siachen is not the only territorial and border dispute in South Asia. There remain India-Bangladesh differences over the South Moore-Talpatty lslands in the Bay of Bengal and a possible reopening of the India-Sri Lanka Kachchati vu dispute. While these appear to be relatively minor quarrels over more or less worthless strips of land or water, they are important for our d iscussion becau se of India's involvement in both. New Delhi is wary of even minor disputes and adjustments. The domestic politics of territorial and border issues are particularly hard: most recently, the settlement of the Tin Bigha dispute with Dhaka set off a storm of protest in India. Further, Indian governments worry that concessions on smaller disputes may dispose Pakistan and China to harden their positions in their quarrels with India. In the absence of solutions to the smaller and bigger regional border problems, New Delhi feels it must maintain a high level of military capability and readiness.

Territorial and border problems remain serious, but here too there are signs of amelioration. India has been involved in a number of border talks and agreements. The India-China border talks, begun in the early 1980s, continue to be held (even if progress has been very slow). India-Pakistan talks over Siachen have periodically been convened as more people in both countries feel that the fight for position on the glacier has been too costly. Most recently, as noted, New Delhi finally ended the Tin Bigha dispute by leasing out a corridor linking Bangladesh to its enclaves in India.

A fourth characteristic of South Asian regional politics is ethnic conflict. India and Pakistan confront various internal, sectarian conflicts. Internal security operations have entailed extensive use of the two militaries. Moreover, the herniation of conflict over national boundaries threatens to push the two sides towards war. Pakistan, for instance, must deal with the violence in Sindh and the militancy of Azad Kashmiris. Sindhi instability and the activities of Azad Kashmiris impinge on the relationship with India. The presence of Afghan refugees may well complicate Islamabad's relations with Afghanistan. Among others, India must deal with Punjab, Kashmir, and the northeastern insurgencies, the demand for a separate state of Gurkhaland in West Bengal, and resurgent separatist feeling in Tamil Nadu, all of which complicate relations respectively with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. New Delhi must also deal with spillover from Bangladesh (Chakma separatism and Hindu-Muslim communal troubles), from Bhutan (Nepali settlers increasingly restive under the king's Bhutanization policies are migrating to India), from Nepal (the problems of the Terai Indians), and from Sri Lanka (the Tamils led by the LITE).

The movement of people, and the attendant internal and external tensions, is driven not just by domestic quarrels over political authority, but also by economic necessity. Bangladeshis and Nepalis are migrating to India and other South Asian states in search of jobs and land. India's northeast is especially uneasily poised. It is a subregion of fertile land, sparsely populated, relatively rich in natural resources, and contiguous to some of the most densely populated and economically backward areas in the world. The border between India and Nepal and India and Bangladesh is, at the same time, virtually impossible to police. The so-called ethnic problems of regions such as South Asia are therefore multilayered and driven by a variety of forces—internal dissent and repression leading to separatism, civil war, and the s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• Foreword: Post-Cold War Security Issues of South Asia
• PART ONE Overview
• PART TWO South Asian Region
• PART THREE India and Pakistan
• PART FOUR Nuclear Proliferation
• PART FIVE South Asia and Beyond
• List of Acronyms
• Index
• About the Book