US DoD 1999 Forecast: "Pakistan Disappears By 2015"
Asia 2025, a US Defense Department Study produced in summer of 1999, forecast that Pakistan would "disappear" as an independent state by 2015. It further forecast that Pakistan would become part of a "South Asian Superstate" controlled by India as a "regional hegemon". Two Indian-American "South Asia experts" contributed to this study. Much of the forecast in its "New South Asian Order" section appears to be wishful thinking of its Indian contributors.
New South Asian Order:
Here are the Key Points of Pentagon's Asia 2025 Report on South Asia region:
1. Pakistan is "near collapse" in 2010 while India is making "broad progress".
2. Iranian "moderation" in 2010 while Afghanistan remains "anarchic hotbed".
3. Pakistan is "paralyzed" after an "Indo-Pak war 2012".
4. US launches conventional strike on "remaining Pakistan nukes" after the "Indo-Pak war 2012.
5. China "blinks at US-India Collusion".
6. Pakistan "disappears".
Indian-American Contributors:
The list of people who contributed to this study included two Indian-Americans: Ashley Tellis and Rajan Memon. Both of these gentlemen are considered "leading South Asia experts" in the United States. Much of the forecast in "New South Asia Order" appears to be wishful thinking of these two Indian-American contributors.
Ashley J. Tellis is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. He was with the US government think tank RAND Corp at the time the Asia 2025 report was written.
Rajan Menon is currently professor of political science at the City University of New York. He was teaching at Lehigh University back in 1999.
Earlier Forecasts of Pakistan's "Collapse":
Western and Indian forecasts of Pakistan's collapse are not new. Lord Mountbatten, the British Viceroy of India who oversaw the partition agreed with the assessment of Pakistan made by India's leaders when he described Pakistan as a "Nissen hut" or a "temporary tent" in a conversation with Jawarhar Lal Nehru.
Here's the exact quote from Mountbatten: "administratively it [wa]s the difference between putting up a permanent building, a nissen hut or a tent. As far as Pakistan is concerned we are putting up a tent. We can do no more." The Brits and the Hindu leadership of India both fully expected Pakistan to fold soon after partition.
Dire Post-911 Forecasts of Pakistan's Demise:
Many western analysts have forecast Pakistan's demise as Pakistan struggles to deal with terrorism at home. Among them is former President George W. Bush's adviser David Kilcullen.
"We're now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state, also because of the global financial crisis, which just exacerbates all these problems. . . . The collapse of Pakistan, al-Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover -- that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror today", said Bush Iraq adviser, David Kilcullen, on the eve of Pakistan Day in 2009 commemorating Pakistan Resolution of 1940 that started the Pakistan Movement leading to the creation of the nation on August 14, 1947. Kilcullen is not alone in the belief that Pakistani state is in danger of collapse.
Others, such as Shahan Mufti of the Global Post, argued in 2009 that Pakistan is dying a slow death with each act of terrorism on its soil.
Resilient Pakistan:
Pakistan has defied many dire forecasts of doom and gloom since its birth. Some Indian and western writers and journalists present caricatures of Pakistan that bear no resemblance to reality. They portray Pakistan as a artificial and deeply divided failed state. What they fail to see is Pakistan is not one or two dimensional; it's much more complex as explained by Christophe Jaffrelot in his book "The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience".
Political, military, religious, ethnic, sectarian, secular, conservative and liberal forces are constantly pushing and pulling to destabilize it but Pakistan remains resilient with its strong nationalism that has evolved after 1971. Pakistan is neither a delusion nor owned by mullahs or military as claimed by some of Pakistan's detractors.
In a 2015 Op Ed for NDTV titled "What Modi Has Not Recognized About Pakistan", Indian politician Mani Shankar Aiyar recognized Pakistani nationalism as follows:
"..unlike numerous other emerging nations, particularly in Africa, the Idea of Pakistan has repeatedly trumped fissiparous tendencies, especially since Pakistan assumed its present form in 1971. And its institutions have withstood repeated buffeting that almost anywhere elsewhere would have resulted in the State crumbling. Despite numerous dire forecasts of imminently proving to be a "failed state", Pakistan has survived, bouncing back every now and then as a recognizable democracy with a popularly elected civilian government, the military in the wings but politics very much centre-stage, linguistic and regional groups pulling and pushing, sectarian factions murdering each other, but the Government of Pakistan remaining in charge, and the military stepping in to rescue the nation from chaos every time Pakistan appeared on the knife's edge. The disintegration of Pakistan has been predicted often enough, most passionately now that internally-generated terrorism and externally sponsored religious extremism are consistently taking on the state to the point that the army is so engaged in full-time and full-scale operations in the north-west of the country bordering Afghanistan that some 40,000 lives have been lost in the battle against fanaticism and insurgency".
New South Asian Order:
Here are the Key Points of Pentagon's Asia 2025 Report on South Asia region:
1. Pakistan is "near collapse" in 2010 while India is making "broad progress".
2. Iranian "moderation" in 2010 while Afghanistan remains "anarchic hotbed".
3. Pakistan is "paralyzed" after an "Indo-Pak war 2012".
4. US launches conventional strike on "remaining Pakistan nukes" after the "Indo-Pak war 2012.
5. China "blinks at US-India Collusion".
6. Pakistan "disappears".
Indian-American Contributors:
The list of people who contributed to this study included two Indian-Americans: Ashley Tellis and Rajan Memon. Both of these gentlemen are considered "leading South Asia experts" in the United States. Much of the forecast in "New South Asia Order" appears to be wishful thinking of these two Indian-American contributors.
Ashley J. Tellis is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and Asian strategic issues. He was with the US government think tank RAND Corp at the time the Asia 2025 report was written.
Rajan Menon is currently professor of political science at the City University of New York. He was teaching at Lehigh University back in 1999.
Earlier Forecasts of Pakistan's "Collapse":
Western and Indian forecasts of Pakistan's collapse are not new. Lord Mountbatten, the British Viceroy of India who oversaw the partition agreed with the assessment of Pakistan made by India's leaders when he described Pakistan as a "Nissen hut" or a "temporary tent" in a conversation with Jawarhar Lal Nehru.
Here's the exact quote from Mountbatten: "administratively it [wa]s the difference between putting up a permanent building, a nissen hut or a tent. As far as Pakistan is concerned we are putting up a tent. We can do no more." The Brits and the Hindu leadership of India both fully expected Pakistan to fold soon after partition.
Dire Post-911 Forecasts of Pakistan's Demise:
Many western analysts have forecast Pakistan's demise as Pakistan struggles to deal with terrorism at home. Among them is former President George W. Bush's adviser David Kilcullen.
"We're now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state, also because of the global financial crisis, which just exacerbates all these problems. . . . The collapse of Pakistan, al-Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover -- that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror today", said Bush Iraq adviser, David Kilcullen, on the eve of Pakistan Day in 2009 commemorating Pakistan Resolution of 1940 that started the Pakistan Movement leading to the creation of the nation on August 14, 1947. Kilcullen is not alone in the belief that Pakistani state is in danger of collapse.
Others, such as Shahan Mufti of the Global Post, argued in 2009 that Pakistan is dying a slow death with each act of terrorism on its soil.
Resilient Pakistan:
Pakistan has defied many dire forecasts of doom and gloom since its birth. Some Indian and western writers and journalists present caricatures of Pakistan that bear no resemblance to reality. They portray Pakistan as a artificial and deeply divided failed state. What they fail to see is Pakistan is not one or two dimensional; it's much more complex as explained by Christophe Jaffrelot in his book "The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience".
Political, military, religious, ethnic, sectarian, secular, conservative and liberal forces are constantly pushing and pulling to destabilize it but Pakistan remains resilient with its strong nationalism that has evolved after 1971. Pakistan is neither a delusion nor owned by mullahs or military as claimed by some of Pakistan's detractors.
In a 2015 Op Ed for NDTV titled "What Modi Has Not Recognized About Pakistan", Indian politician Mani Shankar Aiyar recognized Pakistani nationalism as follows:
"..unlike numerous other emerging nations, particularly in Africa, the Idea of Pakistan has repeatedly trumped fissiparous tendencies, especially since Pakistan assumed its present form in 1971. And its institutions have withstood repeated buffeting that almost anywhere elsewhere would have resulted in the State crumbling. Despite numerous dire forecasts of imminently proving to be a "failed state", Pakistan has survived, bouncing back every now and then as a recognizable democracy with a popularly elected civilian government, the military in the wings but politics very much centre-stage, linguistic and regional groups pulling and pushing, sectarian factions murdering each other, but the Government of Pakistan remaining in charge, and the military stepping in to rescue the nation from chaos every time Pakistan appeared on the knife's edge. The disintegration of Pakistan has been predicted often enough, most passionately now that internally-generated terrorism and externally sponsored religious extremism are consistently taking on the state to the point that the army is so engaged in full-time and full-scale operations in the north-west of the country bordering Afghanistan that some 40,000 lives have been lost in the battle against fanaticism and insurgency".
Summary:
A 1999 US Defense Department study titled "Asia 2025" forecast Pakistan's collapse by 2015. It further said that Pakistan would become part of a "South Asian Superstate" controlled by India as a "regional hegemon". Two of the study's contributors were "South Asia experts" of Indian origin. Much of the South Asia section of this study appears to be wishful thinking rather than serious analysis. Resilient Pakistan has defied this and many other similar forecasts of its demise since its birth.
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Comments
New Delhi Remains Washington’s Best Hope in Asia
By Robert D. Blackwill And Ashley J. Tellis September/October 2019
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2019-08-12/india-dividend
STRATEGIC ALTRUISM
U.S.-Indian relations underwent a dramatic change soon after Bush assumed the presidency, in 2001. After decades of alienation, Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton, had already made some headway with a successful visit to New Delhi in March 2000. But a major point of friction remained: the insistence that relations could not improve unless India gave up its nuclear weapons, first developed in the 1970s, in the face of opposition from Washington.
Bush sought to accelerate cooperation with India in ways that would overcome existing disagreements and help both sides navigate the new century. Although the war on terrorism provided a first opportunity for cooperation (since both countries faced a threat from jihadist organzations), a larger mutual challenge lay over the horizon: China’s rise. Considering its long-standing border disputes with China, Chinese support for its archrival Pakistan, and China’s growing weight in South Asia and beyond, India had major concerns about China. In particular, leaders in New Delhi feared that a too-powerful China could abridge the freedom and security of weaker neighbors. The United States, for its part, was beginning to view China’s rise as a threat to allies such as Taiwan and Japan. Washington also worried about Beijing’s ambitions to have China gradually replace the United States as the key security provider in Asia and its increasingly vocal opposition to a global system underpinned by U.S. primacy. Where China was concerned, U.S. and Indian national interests intersected. Washington sought to maintain stability in Asia through an order based not on Chinese supremacy but on security and autonomy for all states in the region. India, driven by its own fears of Chinese domination, supported Washington’s vision over Beijing’s.
For India, neutralizing the hazards posed by a growing China required revitalizing its own power—in other words, becoming a great power itself. But Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his successors recognized that, in the short term, they could not reach this goal on their own. India’s fractious democracy, institutional weaknesses, and passive strategic culture would impede the rapid accumulation of national power. Concerted support from external powers could mitigate these weaknesses—and no foreign partner mattered as much as the United States. American assistance could make the difference between effective balancing and a losing bet.
The Bush administration appreciated India’s predicament. After many hard-fought bureaucratic battles, it came to accept the central argument we had been articulating from the U.S. embassy in New Delhi: that the United States should set aside its standing nonproliferation policy in regard to India as a means of building the latter’s power to balance China. Washington thus began to convey its support for New Delhi in ways that would have seemed unimaginable a few years earlier. The United States started to work with India in four arenas in which India’s possession of nuclear weapons had previously made meaningful cooperation all but impossible: civilian nuclear safety, civilian space programs, high-tech trade, and missile defense. That step laid the foundation for the achievement of Bush’s second term, the civilian nuclear agreement, which inaugurated resumed cooperation with New Delhi on civilian nuclear energy without requiring it to give up its nuclear weapons.
https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1211821921479774208?s=20
Pakistan has come into being, rather unnaturally I think. Nevertheless, it represents the urges of a large number of persons. I believe that this development has been a throwback but we accepted it in good faith. I want you to understand clearly what our present view is. We have been charged with desiring to strangle and crush Pakistan and to force it into a reunion with India. That charge, as many others, is based on fear and a complete misunderstanding of our attitude. I believe that, for a variety of reasons, it is inevitable that India and Pakistan should draw closer to each other, or else they will come into conflict. There is no middle way, for we have known each other too long to be indifferent neighbours. I believe indeed that in the present context of the world India must develop a closer union with many other neighbouring countries. But all this does not mean any desire to strangle or compel Pakistan. Compulsion there can never be, and an attempt to disrupt Pakistan would recoil to India's disadvantage. If we had wanted to break Pakistan, why did we agree to the partition? It was easier to prevent it then than to try to do so now after all that has happened. There is no going back in history. As a matter of fact it is to India's advantage that Pakistan should be a secure and prosperous State with which we can develop close and friendly relations. If today by any chance I were offered the reunion of India and Pakistan, I would decline it for obvious reasons. I do not want to carry the burden of Pakistan's great problems. I have enough of my own. Any closer association must come out of a normal process and in a friendly way which does not end Pakistan as a State, but makes it an equal part of a larger union in which several countries might be associated.
In Chinese political culture, the biggest fear is of chaos. The Chinese have a word for it: luà n (). Given these many long periods of suffering from chaos—including one as recent as the century of humiliation from the Opium War of 1842 to the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949—when the Chinese people are given a choice between strong central control and the chaos of political competition, they have a reflexive tendency to choose strong central control. This long history and political culture may well explain Xi Jinping’s decision to remove term limits. The conventional Western view is that he did so to reap personal rewards by becoming dictator for life. Yet, his decision may have been motivated by the view that China faced a real danger of slipping back into chaos. Two major challenges emerged that could have undermined the strong central control of the CCP. The first was the emergence of factions in the CCP led by Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang, two powerful members of the CCP. The second was the explosion of corruption. The rampant capitalism unleashed by Deng Xiaoping after the Four Modernizations policy in 1978 had led to massive economic growth as well as the accumulation of large personal fortunes. The temptation to use these huge fortunes to influence public policies was perfectly natural. If these twin threats of factionalism and corruption had not been effectively killed, the CCP could well have lost its legitimacy and political control. Against the backdrop of these major political challenges and the longer sweep of Chinese history, it was perfectly natural for Xi to reassert strong central control to keep China together.
Mahbubani, Kishore. Has China Won? (pp. 136-137). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.
US-India nuclear deal is one-in-a-lifetime achieving
Chinese policymakers do not believe India's goal of "strategic independence" will prevent a real alliance with US against China
India has huge advantage over China in air and on the sea
In terms of ground forces where India spends its biggest chunk of defense budget, the best India can achieve vis-a-vis China or Pakistan is a stand-off (38 minutes)
https://youtu.be/mBEL-z5_6AA
https://youtu.be/GNapL0APNUY
In a 30-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire to discuss his book ‘India’s Pakistan Conundrum’, Sharat Sabharwal ( ex Indian Ambassador to Pakistan) identified three preconceived notions that the Indian people must discard. First, he says it’s not in India’s interests to promote the disintegration of Pakistan. “The resulting chaos will not leave India untouched”.
Second, Indians must disabuse themselves of the belief that India has the capacity to inflict a decisive military blow on Pakistan in conventional terms. “The nuclear dimension has made it extremely risky, if not impossible, for India to give a decisive military blow to Pakistan to coerce it into changing its behaviour.”
Third, Indians must disabuse themselves of the belief that they can use trade to punish Pakistan. “Use of trade as an instrument to punish Pakistan is both short-sighted and ineffective because of the relatively small volume of Pakistani exports to India.”
https://youtu.be/GNapL0APNUY
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Historically, the relationship between India and Pakistan has been mired in conflicts, war, and lack of trust. Pakistan has continued to loom large on India's horizon despite the growing gap between the two countries. This book examines the nature of the Pakistani state, its internal dynamics, and its impact on India.
The text looks at key issues of the India-Pakistan relationship, appraises a range of India's policy options to address the Pakistan conundrum, and proposes a way forward for India's Pakistan policy. Drawing on the author's experience of two diplomatic stints in Pakistan, including as the High Commissioner of India, the book offers a unique insider's perspective on this critical relationship.
A crucial intervention in diplomatic history and the analysis of India's Pakistan policy, the book will be of as much interest to the general reader as to scholars and researchers of foreign policy, strategic studies, international relations, South Asia studies, diplomacy, and political science.
https://books.telegraph.co.uk/Product/Sharat-Sabharwal/Indias-Pakistan-Conundrum--Managing-a-Complex-Relationship/26726289
Sabharwal, Sharat. India’s Pakistan Conundrum (pp. 148-149). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
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In conclusion, it can be said that Pakistan is neither a failed state nor one about to fail in the foreseeable future. Further, so long as the army remains a largely professional and disciplined force, having at its disposal Pakistan’s rapidly growing arsenal of nuclear weapons, the probability of a change in Pakistan’s external boundaries would remain very low. Therefore, a policy premised on the failure or disintegration of the Pakistani state would hinge on unsound expectations. However, because of the various factors examined in the previous chapters, Pakistan will continue to be a highly dysfunctional state with widespread lawlessness.
Sabharwal, Sharat. India’s Pakistan Conundrum (p. 149). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
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Should India work to break up Pakistan? A body of opinion in India recommends that India should be proactive in causing the disintegration of Pakistan. For the reasons mentioned in Chapter 6, a policy premised on disintegration of the Pakistani state would hinge on unsound expectations. However, let us examine, for the sake of argument, the consequences of heightened turmoil in/break up of Pakistan for India. The unwise policies of Pakistan’s rulers have already resulted in considerable turbulence there. Though the Pakistani state uses terror against India, it is calibrated by its instrumentalities. Heightened chaos in Pakistan leading to collapse of the state authority will not leave India untouched. Let us not forget that Pakistan has continued to pay a heavy price for having caused instability in its neighbour – Afghanistan – something I repeatedly recalled to my Pakistani audiences. Collapse of the state will also present India with a humanitarian crisis of a gigantic proportion, with the terrain between the two countries offering an easy passage to India for those fleeing unrest in Pakistan. At the height of terrorism in the Pakistani Punjab in 2009–10, some of my interlocutors in Lahore were candid enough to say that in the event of a Taliban takeover, they would have no option but to run towards India. Break up of Pakistan could lead to a civil war amongst the successor states or worse still among various warring groups vying for influence, as was the case after collapse of the state authority in Afghanistan, entailing the undesirable consequences mentioned above and perilous uncertainty concerning the ownership of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Alternatively, India may be faced with a hostile Pakistani Punjab in possession of nuclear weapons. In either case, it will be bad news for India.
Sabharwal, Sharat. India’s Pakistan Conundrum (pp. 290-291). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
Note: Mani Shankar spent some time in Pakistan posted as a diplomat, serving as India's first consul-general in Karachi from 1978 to 1982. He's a former federal cabinet minister and current member of Rajya Sabha
"unlike numerous other emerging nations, particularly in Africa, the Idea of Pakistan has repeatedly trumped fissiparous tendencies, especially since Pakistan assumed its present form in 1971. And its institutions have withstood repeated buffeting that almost anywhere elsewhere would have resulted in the State crumbling. Despite numerous dire forecasts of imminently proving to be a "failed state", Pakistan has survived, bouncing back every now and then as a recognizable democracy with a popularly elected civilian government, the military in the wings but politics very much centre-stage, linguistic and regional groups pulling and pushing, sectarian factions murdering each other, but the Government of Pakistan remaining in charge, and the military stepping in to rescue the nation from chaos every time Pakistan appeared on the knife's edge. The disintegration of Pakistan has been predicted often enough, most passionately now that internally-generated terrorism and externally sponsored religious extremism are consistently taking on the state to the point that the army is so engaged in full-time and full-scale operations in the north-west of the country bordering Afghanistan that some 40,000 lives have been lost in the battle against fanaticism and insurgency.
"And yet," as was said on a more famous occasion, "it works!" Pakistan and her people keep coming back, resolutely defeating sustained political, armed and terrorist attempts to break down the country and undermine its ideological foundations. That is what Jaffrelot calls its "resilience". That resilience is not recognized in Modi's India. That is what leads the Rathores and the Parrikars to make statements that find a certain resonance in anti-Pakistan circles in India but dangerously leverage the impact on Pakistani public opinion of anti-India circles in Pakistan. The Parrikars and the Saeeds feed on each other. It is essential that both be overcome.
But even as there are saner voices in India than Rathore's, so also are there saner - much saner - voices in Pakistan than Hafiz Saeed's. Many Indians would prefer a Pakistan overflowing with Saeeds to keep their bile flowing. So would many Pakistanis prefer an India with the Rathores overflowing to keep the bile flowing. At eight times Pakistan's size, we can flex our muscles like the bully on the school play field. But Pakistan's resilience ensures that all that emerges from Parrikar and Rathore are empty words. India is no more able than Pakistan is to destroy the other country"
http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/pakistans-resilience-beats-modis-56-inch-chest-771700
http://www.riazhaq.com/2022/08/indian-diplomat-sharat-sabrhawal-on.html
Retired Indian diplomat Sharat Sabharwal in his recently published book "India's Pakistan Conundrum" disabuses his fellow Indians of the notion that Pakistan is about to collapse. He faithfully parrots the familiar Indian tropes about Pakistani Army and accuses it of sponsoring "cross-border terrorism". He also writes that "Pakistan has shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity". "Pakistan is neither a failed state nor one about to fail", he adds. He sees "limitations on India’s ability to inflict a decisive blow on Pakistan through military means". The best option for New Delhi, he argues, is to engage with Pakistan diplomatically. In an obvious message to India's hawkish Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he warns: "Absence of dialogue and diplomacy between the two countries carries the risk of an unintended flare-up". Ambassador Sabharwal served as Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan from 2009 to 2013. Prior to that, he was Deputy High Commissioner in Islamabad in the 1990s.
https://www.southasiainvestor.com/2022/12/goldman-sachs-projects-pakistan-economy.html
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The Path to 2075
https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/pages/gs-research/the-path-to-2075-slower-global-growth-but-convergence-remains-intact/report.pdf
Country GDP % Growth Rate by decades 2000-2009 to 2070-2079
Pakistan 4.7 4.0 5.0 6.0 5.9 5.3 4.7 4.0 3.4
China 10.3 7.7 4.2 4.0 2.5 1.6 1.1 0.9 0.5
India 6.9 6.9 5.0 5.8 4.6 3.7 3.1 2.5 2.1
Korea 4.9 3.3 2.0 1.9 1.4 0.8 0.3 -0.1 -0.2
Bangladesh 5.6 6.6 6.3 6.6 4.9 3.8 3.0 2.5 2.0
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Country GDP in Trillions of U$ from 2000 to 2075
Pakistan 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.6 1.6 3.3 6.1 9.9 12.3
China 1.8 7.4 15.5 24.5 34.1 41.9 48.6 54.8 57.0
India 0.7 2.1 2.8 6.6 13.2 22.2 33.2 45.8 52.5
Korea 0.9 1.4 1.7 2.0 2.6 3.1 3.3 3.4 3.4
Bangladesh 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.8 1.7 2.8 4.1 5.5 6.3
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Country Per Capita Income in thousands of US$ by Decade-ends 2000 to 2075
Pakistan 0.9 1.3 1.4 2.2 4.8 9.0 14.9 22.5 27.1
China 1.4 5.5 10.9 17.3 24.7 31.9 40.3 50.4 55.4
India 0.7 1.7 2.0 4.3 8.2 13.3 19.6 27.1 31.3
Korea 18.7 28.8 33.0 39.3 53.6 67.7 81.8 95.2 101.8
Bangladesh 0.7 1.1 2.3 4.4 8.4 13.5 19.7 26.9 31.0
#Delhi Won’t Side With #Washington Against #Beijing. #India’s significant weaknesses versus #China, & its inescapable proximity to it, guarantee that Delhi will never involve itself in any #US confrontation with Beijing. #BJP https://www.foreignaffairs.com/india/americas-bad-bet-india-modi
by Ashley Tellis
For the past two decades, Washington has made an enormous bet in the Indo-Pacific—that treating India as a key partner will help the United States in its geopolitical rivalry with China. From George W. Bush onward, successive U.S. presidents have bolstered India’s capabilities on the assumption that doing so automatically strengthens the forces that favor freedom in Asia.
The administration of President Joe Biden has enthusiastically embraced this playbook. In fact, it has taken it one step further: the administration has launched an ambitious new initiative to expand India’s access to cutting-edge technologies, further deepened defense cooperation, and made the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), which includes Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, a pillar of its regional strategy. It has also overlooked India’s democratic erosion and its unhelpful foreign policy choices, such as its refusal to condemn Moscow’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine. It has done all of this on the presumption that New Delhi will respond favorably when Washington calls in a favor during a regional crisis involving China.
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India’s priority has been to receive American assistance in building up its own national capabilities so it can deal with threats independently. The two sides have come a long way on this by, for example, bolstering India’s intelligence capabilities about Chinese military activities along the Himalayan border and in the Indian Ocean region. The existing arrangements for intelligence sharing are formally structured for reciprocity, and New Delhi does share whatever it believes to be useful. But because U.S. collection capabilities are so superior, the flow of usable information often ends up being one way.
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The fundamental problem is that the United States and India have divergent ambitions for their security partnership. As it has done with allies across the globe, Washington has sought to strengthen India’s standing within the liberal international order and, when necessary, solicit its contributions toward coalition defense. Yet New Delhi sees things differently. It does not harbor any innate allegiance toward preserving the liberal international order and retains an enduring aversion toward participating in mutual defense. It seeks to acquire advanced technologies from the United States to bolster its own economic and military capabilities and thus facilitate its rise as a great power capable of balancing China independently, but it does not presume that American assistance imposes any further obligations on itself.
As the Biden administration proceeds to expand its investment in India, it should base its policies on a realistic assessment of Indian strategy and not on any delusions of New Delhi becoming a comrade-in-arms during some future crisis with Beijing.
By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
May 26, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/nuclear-collision-course-south-asia
Security experts are only beginning to sort through the implications of China’s nuclear breakout. They would do well to consider Ashley Tellis’s new book, Striking Asymmetries, which assesses the implications of Beijing’s actions from the vantage point of the rivalries between South Asia’s three nuclear powers: China, India, and Pakistan. In a work that should be required reading for senior political and military leaders, Tellis presents a compelling case why this tripolar nuclear system, which has for decades remained remarkably stable, may be on the verge of becoming far more dangerous.
Tellis draws upon decades of experience in South Asian security affairs, unique access to senior policymakers and military leaders in the three rivals’ defense establishments, and a remarkable ability to make seemingly abstract technical concepts readily understood by those with even a passing interest in the subject matter. The result is the most comprehensive, informed, and accessible assessment to date of this nuclear rivalry—and one that cannot be ignored.
China and Pakistan have a long and close relationship, in part built around their mutual view of India as a rival. India finds itself sandwiched between these two often hostile powers. Yet despite a history of wars and persistent low-grade conflict between India and its two rivals, a general war has been averted since India and Pakistan became nuclear powers a quarter century ago. Moreover, the three countries have not found themselves caught up in a nuclear arms race. Until recently, they viewed their nuclear weapons primarily as political instruments, not as tools for actual warfighting. All three adopted a “minimum deterrent” nuclear posture, maintaining the lowest number of nuclear weapons necessary to inflict unacceptable damage to their adversaries’ key cities even after suffering a nuclear attack.
In keeping with this strategy, the three Asian rivals avoided maintaining a significant portion of their arsenals on high alert. Instead, they stored their weapons in caves, in deep underground facilities, or in other concealed locations. Rejecting American and Russian notions that “retaliation delayed is retaliation denied,” the three countries, especially China and India, forswore the need for a swift response to a nuclear attack. To be sure, they would respond eventually—in days, weeks, or even months—but they did not accept the imperative of immediacy. As a result, these countries have avoided making heavy investments in early warning systems while retaining centralized control over their arsenals.
But the prospects for sustaining this era of minimum deterrence appear increasingly shaky. The tripolar rivalry has not been locked in amber: Tellis describes strongly held beliefs among top security officials in China, India, and Pakistan that their nuclear postures are inadequate. Led by China and Pakistan, with India following in their wake, the three rivals are now on a course that will result in a dramatic expansion of their nuclear arsenals, even if Russia and the United States pursue substantial cuts to theirs.
TWO AGAINST ONE
At the core of Tellis’s assessment are the differences—“asymmetries”— driving the tripolar rivalry. One fundamental difference is that China and Pakistan are revisionist powers seeking to alter the existing order, while India remains content with the status quo. China possesses the most formidable nuclear arsenal of the three, followed by Pakistan, with India trailing.
By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
May 26, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/nuclear-collision-course-south-asia
There is also an asymmetry in the three powers’ strategic focus. Pakistani security officials are obsessed with India, while India’s focus is overwhelmingly on China. China’s sights, however, have shifted beyond regional to global rivalries, principally with the United States. It is this competition with Washington that is driving Beijing’s nuclear breakout. For China, India’s deterrent is rapidly assuming a peripheral role, similar to that played by China in American nuclear planning during the Cold War.
Beijing’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, which includes providing Islamabad with blueprints for a bomb and fissile material, has further complicated India’s position. Pakistan’s leaders are looking to abandon minimum deterrence in favor of “full-spectrum deterrence,” where their nuclear forces cover multiple contingencies in the event of war with India. There are three central factors spurring Pakistani officials to adopt this more aggressive posture. First, Islamabad is aware that its conventional forces are weaker than India’s and believes it has no alternative but to employ, if need be, its nuclear forces to offset this asymmetry. Second, given that India is far larger than Pakistan, Islamabad believes it must be able to inflict greater destruction on India in a retaliatory strike than India will inflict on it. This requires Pakistan to maintain a larger nuclear arsenal to target India’s population and economic hubs in the event of war. Third, Pakistan also hopes that its nuclear forces prevent India from undertaking large-scale military action against it in response to Islamabad’s ongoing support for militant groups in the disputed region of Kashmir.
Tellis shows that accomplishing full-spectrum deterrence will require Pakistan to expand its arsenal substantially. For instance, he notes that stopping a major advance of Indian conventional forces into Pakistani territory would require scores of so-called tactical nuclear weapons, weapons that Islamabad currently lacks.
A FRAGILE PEACE
Although Tellis argues that Beijing’s and Islamabad’s nuclear provocations do not automatically portend growing instability in the region, the evidence he presents suggests otherwise. He finds that Beijing’s growing arsenal will not necessarily place India’s security at greater risk—but describes a set of highly plausible Chinese actions that, in combination with a superpower-sized arsenal, risk undermining India’s confidence in its own nuclear deterrent.
To begin with, Beijing is seeking the capability to launch nuclear reprisals far more quickly than ever before. This requires China to maintain a portion of its force on heightened alert, which may not have posed a threat to India when China possessed a few hundred weapons. But if Beijing placed a significant percentage of its expanded arsenal of 1,000 or more warheads on high alert, the strategic ground would shift considerably. India would now face a neighbor capable of launching a large-scale attack with little or no warning.
India’s ability to withstand a nuclear strike and retain the capacity to inflict catastrophic destruction in response is closely tied to the security of its underground nuclear storage sites. China currently lacks the ability to destroy them—even assuming it knows their locations. That could change, however, once China’s arsenal has more than 1,000 warheads, especially if China improves the accuracy of its weapons. Such a development, combined with Beijing’s adoption of increased alert levels for its nuclear forces, would set alarm bells ringing in New Delhi; Indian officials could conclude that China has the capacity to disarm India’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
May 26, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/nuclear-collision-course-south-asia
India’s ability to withstand a nuclear strike and retain the capacity to inflict catastrophic destruction in response is closely tied to the security of its underground nuclear storage sites. China currently lacks the ability to destroy them—even assuming it knows their locations. That could change, however, once China’s arsenal has more than 1,000 warheads, especially if China improves the accuracy of its weapons. Such a development, combined with Beijing’s adoption of increased alert levels for its nuclear forces, would set alarm bells ringing in New Delhi; Indian officials could conclude that China has the capacity to disarm India’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
China may also enhance its air and missile defenses, making matters even more precarious for India. These defenses would minimize the threat posed by any “broken-back” Indian nuclear retaliation—in other words, an attack that uses whatever weapons survive a disarming Chinese strike. But New Delhi would surely know that employing the remnants of its arsenal to retaliate against China would leave it vulnerable to Pakistani nuclear blackmail. Put simply, India would risk being left with no credible nuclear deterrent to resist coercion by Islamabad.
Tellis is correct to note that China’s development of these capabilities is not assured. Yet during Beijing’s decades-old conventional military buildup, it has sought to match every significant U.S. capability, including stealth fighters, military satellite constellations, aircraft carriers, and cyberweaponry. Tellis recognizes that even if China creates such a set of capabilities, it must still know the location of India’s storage sites in order to target them—and have high confidence that its intelligence is accurate and comprehensive. This uncertainty could restrain Beijing. But at the same time, New Delhi may not feel comfortable simply trusting that its nuclear sites have not yet been unearthed by Chinese intelligence or presuming that Chinese leaders are wary of taking big risks.
NEW DELHI’S DILEMMA
How might India respond to China’s and Pakistan’s nuclear provocations? Tellis points out that India is not without options—but that each path has its pitfalls.
First, he shows that if India wanted to, it could easily match China weapon for weapon. Yet he believes New Delhi would prefer to maintain its minimum deterrent strategy, emphasizing its ability to inflict severe damage on its adversaries’ cities. This stems in no small part from the expense India would incur by following Beijing in its quest to match America’s nuclear arsenal. Still, Tellis acknowledges that India’s arsenal will have to expand its nuclear holdings to possess the warheads needed to inflict unacceptable damage on both China and Pakistan. And as India increases its arsenal, Pakistan is sure to do the same—completing the regional chain reaction triggered by China’s nuclear expansion.
Tellis rejects the “more of the same” option of expanding India’s underground storage facilities, showing persuasively that it would prove costlier to accomplish than it would for China to simply expand the number of weapons needed to destroy them. Rather, he argues, India’s solution is to be found in stealth and mobility. This could be achieved by creating a nuclear ballistic missile submarine force and by shifting more of India’s arsenal to mobile road and rail missile launchers.
By Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
May 26, 2023
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/nuclear-collision-course-south-asia
As for China’s air and missile defenses, Tellis points out that India might address the problem by deploying penetration aid decoys on its missiles. These decoys are designed to present themselves as actual warheads to missile defense radars, thereby inducing the defender to expend precious interceptor missiles engaging false targets. This would offset, if only partially, New Delhi’s need to expand its nuclear arsenal.
The United States could provide India with a reliable thermonuclear weapon design.
Yet even if India were to pursue these actions, it would still face significant challenges. The threat of a Chinese preemptive strike may compel India to develop an effective early warning system to enable it to reduce its arsenal’s vulnerability by sending its weapons out to sea and flushing its land-based missiles from their silos. New Delhi would also have to establish a new command-and-control system to direct the actions of its nuclear submarines. Yet while India is in the process of constructing nuclear-powered ballistic submarines, it still has a long way to go in building a significant force and overcoming the technological hurdles necessary to create a credible seaborne nuclear deterrent. Tellis notes that among these challenges, New Delhi is experiencing problems with its naval nuclear reactor designs.
Then there are India’s nuclear weapons. New Delhi has only conducted a handful of nuclear tests—not enough to validate its thermonuclear designs to offer high confidence that these weapons will perform as designed. Its most reliable weapon has a yield of 12 kilotons, whereas China’s weapons have yields as much as 100 times greater. Addressing these shortfalls may require India to resume testing—and risk incurring sanctions from the United States and other nations.
Tellis hints at a tantalizing solution to India’s problems. The United States could provide India with a reliable thermonuclear weapon design. The trilateral security pact among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States that is known as AUKUS, which will assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, could be expanded to include India. Might the Americans also share their nuclear reactor designs with New Delhi? But for this to happen, India, which has kept the United States at arm’s length practically since its birth, would have to finally and firmly close ranks with the leading Indo-Pacific democracies and formally forsake the nonaligned strategic autonomy it has long enshrined at the heart of its foreign policy.
Aiyar presents a picture of Pakistan that is not just different to, but almost the polar opposite of, everything Indians have been told about and led to believe of Pakistan.
https://thewire.in/south-asia/mani-shankar-aiyar-karan-thapar-pakistan
In an interview to discuss his four years as India’s Consul-General in Karachi, a key part of his recently published autobiography Memoirs of a Maverick, as well as his overall view of Pakistan – a country he has visited 40 times in the last 40 years – Mani Shankar Aiyar says Pakistan is his second favourite country.
In an extensive interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Aiyar presents a picture of Pakistan that is not just different to, but almost the polar opposite of, everything Indians have been told about and led to believe of Pakistan. He shatters the false misconceptions and outright lies that colour the traditional Indian perception of our western neighbour.
This interview is full of the most delightful stories and anecdotes, told with Aiyar‘s riveting sense of drama and laced with his irresistible humour.
Many of his stories will astound Indian viewers because they speak of a Pakistan we know nothing about. They portray a country that far from being narrow and fundamentalist is fun-loving, welcoming of Indians and Hindus and where Islamisation has not impinged on the right of people to drink alcohol in their homes. And, boy, do they!