The writer is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist

mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

Oct 10, 2001

In an interview to Christina Amanpur, President Pervez Musharraf admitted that Pakistan's Afghan Policy has not worked and has to be reviewed. It was a profound admission that has come not a day too soon. It was also a pregnant statement. Its implications are wide-ranging. For, this Afghan Policy was not an ad hoc one like an isolated flower in the desert; it grew out of the basic assumptions and purposes of Pakistan's foreign, and indeed national, policies pursued over 50 years.

What was the starting point of the Afghan Policy that actually dates back to the earliest years of independence? Pakistan has eyed Afghanistan with a mixture of motives in which being the Big Brother attitude was never absent. In later years the phrase made current by a previous COAS was that a union of some kind with it could give Pakistan a 'strategic depth'. Its incongruity should be patent by now: what did this strategic depth avail Pakistan? Afghanistan has been technically amenable to Pakistani advice for almost 10 years. Each Afghan government, otherwise beholden to Pakistan, has disappointed Islamabad and its supporters have had grievances against Pakistan. For a poor under-developed and aid-addict country to nurse imperial dreams can only be unrealistic. Pakistan was not, and is unlikely to be, in a position to develop Afghanistan as a dependency, exploit its resources and draw strategic or any other benefits from that realpolitik vantage point. That was and will remain beyond the capacity of Pakistan. The whole venture should thus be pronounced unwise.

But the policy vis-a-vis Afghanistan did not owe itself to anyone person or a particular government. It grew naturally out of a general policy orientation. The main manifestation of that orientation was the old and lingering need for foreign aid and support by a major or superpower. Its fundamental basis was the assumption that India is a permanent security threat of a radical kind. The only way to deal with India was to go on confronting it militarily by acquiring as much gunpowder as possible and keeping it dry. Since Pakistan's resources are small, it was always assumed foreign aid can fill the gap. But the confrontation with India ostensibly over Kashmir dispute has been conceived as an inevitable, unalterable and permanent requirement. Hence the need for foreign support and aid was also seen as permanent. That was also the basic motive for aligning with the west in the cold war and its extension was the idea of strategic depth which, as a flight of fancy, included even Iran. However the Iran part of the dream was dropped before too long. But to think of subsuming a wholly different entity like Afghanistan into Pakistan, merely on the basis of Islamic fraternity, and that too to confront India, was wholly fanciful.

What has been the net outcome of Pakistan's over 50 years long policy orientation? It gained nothing but frustrations. It has been a story of successive disappointments. Pakistan has had to go through five wars with India if Rann of Kutch and the 1999 Kargil fighting are to be included in the tally. Although Pakistan army has shown flashes of brilliance in specific battles, mainly to its own satisfaction, the net results of the wars did not add any feather to Pakistan's cap. And it could not be otherwise. Here are two unequal nation-states. One has a six to seven times larger resource base, including a higher degree of industrialisation and other scientific accomplishments. The other is much poorer in all relevant departments. Motivated by medieval folk tales about personal valour being the decisive factor in a war, even highly-placed Pakistanis in 1950s thought that thanks to the martial tradition of the Muslims, Pakistan army could go through India in the event of a war like a knife in butter, though it was admitted that what happens after it reaches some distance into the fastnesses of India was unclear.

The fact of the matter is that the folk tales in India too are similar. The larger resource base of India would come into play at some stage. And personal valour would become relevant in only a few hand-to-hand engagements in today's wars. One hopes that Pakistanis in senior positions have now grown out of the infantile notion of subduing India and take Kashmir, or anything else, by force. The two South Asian nations have become nuclear powers, properly so-called. That means that neither side can initiate a war-for no matter what purpose. All their disputes must therefore be treated as stalemated. All the issues of serious contention between them will remain suspended permanently. All their differences and disputes will have to be resolved through negotiations, if at all.

The required negotiations had better be bilateral for two reasons: one because India refuses to entertain any third-party intervention. Indeed that knocks out international mediation. Secondly, it is always better to face facts as they are, dealing directly with parties concerned, if sanity and reasonableness has not left them. If it is true that war is no longer an intelligent option for either side, why not realistically recognise it and reorient policies accordingly.

Pakistanis and Indians have the example of France and Germany before them. These two European neighbours fought three terrible wars from 1870 to 1939 in which millions of French and German men and women lost their lives. But neither side gained anything worthwhile, while the net outcome was grievous losses. Ultimately they agreed to take the only way out: in order to avoid permanent conflict and self-stultification, France and Germany decided to bury the hatchet and reconcile with each other. Pakistan and India have no other sane option.

Insofar as Pakistan is concerned its disappointments and frustrations are not confined to the battlefield. Even more serious were the ups and downs of its relationship with the US and the rest of the West. The old notion of wanting aid with the aim of getting even with India some day has never worked. Foolish would be the great power that would annoy a stable and bigger India for the sake of a smaller and unstable Pakistan. The foolishness part does not apply to anyone else; it fits the case of Pakistan only. Fighting unendingly an enemy far bigger and with more resources is distinctly a zany notion. Life imposes certain restrictions on nearly all the peoples. The limits imposed by geography and resources have to be respected, though human ingenuity can be employed to reduce the natural disadvantages by developing the available resources to the maximum-not for war but for the improvement in living conditions of the people.

Pakistan today is the outstanding example of the unworkability of the pure national security state, at least in the third world. Unthinking borrowing of ideas and tenets from geo-political thinkers and famous generals' obiter dicta are no substitute for commonsense. The fact is that Pakistan's entire mobilisable resources were being devoted to national security. All that effort has yielded little of security and more of avoidable pain. The poor in Pakistan were perhaps always poor; but those below the defined poverty line could scarcely be 5 percent in 1947. Today, after all the so-called development, 40 percent people live below the poverty line. As for security, Pakistan was never less secure than today. What is to be noted is that the military regime has been forced to reverse its major policies just on one telephone call. How secure was Pakistan? Two points emerge.

Insofar as most of Pakistan's policies grew out of a single set of internally consistent security perceptions but grounded in unrealistic assumptions and defective assessments, the strategy of achieving defectively-defined national purposes, including ensuring security to the nation, has simply not worked. Pakistan faces a situation similar to what Germany and France faced after 1945; there was no further go along the old policies. Secondly, if India and Pakistan wish to avoid further frustrations and failures, they must reverse courses dictated by mutual animosity. Let them subordinate national security to the people: let the welfare and empowerment of common citizens at grassroots level be the test of national security, as EU seems to have done in practice. Let South Asia as a region unite for peaceful pursuits and achieve prosperity in freedom. Let every nation's security be strengthened. But the first step is the rapprochement between India and Pakistan; next few steps will bring self-fulfilment nearer.

Alternative option is ever more raucous and competitive soliciting of the US favours by both India and Pakistan. Both will end up, if they have not done so already, as the satellites of the US. Just conceive what might have been the situation if only South Asia could speak with one voice. Today New Delhi and Islamabad can still make a choice. Later, all choices will be made for them-outside South Asia.