Stabilising Af-Pak - Ikram Sehgal
The military challenges for Pakistan posed by COLD START derails any resolve for sustained peace with India, re-constituting Pakistan's strategy to take on all five of India's "Strike Corps" with all our three "Army Reserve" formations presently occupied in FATA, Dir and Swat. Please forgive also our suspicions as to what the many Indian consulates in Afghanistan are doing on our western borders!
Addressing the National Defence College (NDC) Bangladesh on the dire necessity of peace between India and Pakistan, the "Q & A" session meant to last 30 minutes stretched for over an hour. Over two dozen irate Bangladeshi colonels and brigadier generals (including officers from Sri Lanka, Nepal, and air force and navy equivalents) took me to task for being naïve. One could understand why the Pakistanis facing overwhelming Indian military numbers would not be amenable to my proposition. I was stunned by the reaction in Dhaka. Even someone as subservient as Musharraf had enough patriotism and good sense in him not to commit our total "army reserves" to fighting counter-insurgency on our western borders. It is true that without engaging more troops against the insurgents, we will never get the job of eliminating the source of terrorism done. Can this be done with India breathing down our necks?
The original aim of eradicating world terrorism wrongly diverted to Iraq in 2003 by the Bush administration, the US is now focusing back on Afghanistan. However the tendency to gloss over the core question of Kashmir (and the India-Pakistan relationship thereof) derails any objective course of action. However unpalatable it may be politically, Kashmir must factor in any equation for stabilizing this region, if not an agreement at least an arrangement.
Addressing the National Defence College (NDC) Bangladesh on the dire necessity of peace between India and Pakistan, the "Q & A" session meant to last 30 minutes stretched for over an hour. Over two dozen irate Bangladeshi colonels and brigadier generals (including officers from Sri Lanka, Nepal, and air force and navy equivalents) took me to task for being naïve. One could understand why the Pakistanis facing overwhelming Indian military numbers would not be amenable to my proposition. I was stunned by the reaction in Dhaka. Even someone as subservient as Musharraf had enough patriotism and good sense in him not to commit our total "army reserves" to fighting counter-insurgency on our western borders. It is true that without engaging more troops against the insurgents, we will never get the job of eliminating the source of terrorism done. Can this be done with India breathing down our necks?
The original aim of eradicating world terrorism wrongly diverted to Iraq in 2003 by the Bush administration, the US is now focusing back on Afghanistan. However the tendency to gloss over the core question of Kashmir (and the India-Pakistan relationship thereof) derails any objective course of action. However unpalatable it may be politically, Kashmir must factor in any equation for stabilizing this region, if not an agreement at least an arrangement.
posted by temporal at 5/07/2009
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