THE BIGGER PICTURE: India must aid the US goal of
transforming dysfunctional States
An intersting viewpoint.
transforming dysfunctional States
THE UNITED States has bestridden world history in many forms --
idealistic outsider coming to save the world for democracy in 1917,
the world power-in-waiting that saved the world from fascism and
Nazism in the Forties, the frontline State against the dark forces
of communism in 1949-1989, and since then, the world's sole super,
or to go by Hubert Vedrine, hyper-power. But now America, under the
leadership of George W. Bush is shaping up to play an entirely new
role as the world's first `nanny' State. Not only will it collar the
bad guys around the world, but it will nurture transformation in
societies and States whose internal conditions can give birth to
violence and instability. After al-Qaeda's WTC attack, the US
responded by destroying the Taliban and capturing Afghanistan. It
followed this up by pulverising Iraq on suspicion that it harboured
weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it has learnt that though it has
military power that no one State or a combination of them can
counter, it is still some way from being safe from threats from
forces that the US, and indeed the world, barely understand. In the
years since 2001, and particularly in the bitter aftermath of the
Iraqi adventure, the US has realised that it needs a longer term
strategy to make itself secure.
This strategy has been spelt out in the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act passed by the US Congress last week. At one
level, the act spells out the nuts and bolts solutions to the
problem of obtaining, assessing and disseminating intelligence on
time for preventive action. But there are entire sections that spell
out new `nanny' provisions that will help a number of dysfunctional
States to become `normal'.
Among the more prominent of the States mentioned in the legislation
are Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Americans, according to Section
7103 of the act, will assist in promoting the security of Pakistan,
establish its authority in the problem no-go tribal areas of the
Afghan border, facilitate a solution of the Kashmir issue, encourage
democracy, aid Pakistan's efforts to boost exports and modernise its
economy and promote secular primary and secondary education. It is
unclear whether this list is prioritised or whether it intends to
move on all fronts together. Will the US promote democracy as
vigorously as in securing Pakistan? Actually, success or failure on
this front will depend on that decision, because at the heart of any
effort must be the restoration and growth of civil society
institutions in Pakistan.
The plans for Afghanistan are even more detailed and include the
improvement of security by taking on the war lords, boosting human
rights and ending the endemic poverty of the State through a
fiveyear plan the US president must formulate in the next six
months. The recent elections, mooted as the first ever in the
benighted country, is being seen as the hopeful sign that the Karzai
government may have turned the corner.
In its new `nanny' avatar, the US appears to have realised that
there is a direct correlation between the system of government and
the kind of threats it faces. A section relating to dictators has
pointed out that while the US has made short-term gains by dealing
with them, these have "often been outweighed by long-term setbacks".
So, the US is clear that besides democracy, it will encourage
governments of all countries "with predominantly Muslim
populations", including allies of the US, to promote education,
individual rights, democracy, as well as "tolerance for opposing
points of view".
Ever since the US decided to designate Pakistan Major Non
NATO-Military Ally (MNNA), analysts in India have been trying to
figure out just what is happening between Washington and Islamabad.
The big question seems to be whether the new US policy is now being
motivated by a desire to further US security interests, or to assist
Pakistan. The Americans will, of course, say that the two are
interlinked, and the creation of a modern, moderate and stable
Pakistan is the best means of preventing the rise of a Talibanised
State. A close reading of the present US policies seems to indicate
that the US is indeed following a trajectory very different from the
one they followed during the Fifties and Eighties.
This is a consequence of the paradigm shift engendered by 9/11 and
indeed confirmed by the Iraqi venture. The US would have been the
happiest to keep its forces out of harm's way and reduce the enemy
to rubble by precision long-range strikes. That was the inclination
in 1998 when the cruise missile strikes were launched in
Afghanistan, as well as the `shock and awe' strategy in Iraq.
Unfortunately, for them, the US had to learn the hard way that the
new threats could not be handled at stand-off range and required
close-in commitment.
One demonstration of this was the decision to attack Fallujah and
take the casualties as they came. The more humane manifestation of
this will be the US emergence as the `nanny' State, helping deformed
and stunted actors on the world stage to set themselves right. The
move has a special urgency since many of them are now armed with
weapons of mass destruction. The US knows that its own role in the
existence of such States is not insubstantial. But 9/11 has changed
everything and the Americans are now looking at the world with very
different eyes.
India expects that the new US relationship with Pakistan is based on
the proper lessons of the past -- essentially, that short-term
compro mise can often lead to unanticipated long-term costs. In the
Eighties and Nineties, Pakistan sent two crucial US benchmarks --
State-sponsorship of terrorism and nuclear proliferation -- for a
six. The US has since paid a price for the Great Jehad Machine that
Islamabad created, while the costs of the A.Q. Khan nuclear
super-mart are yet to be fully tabulated. Presumably, the US has
realised that Pakistan's actions were not aberrations, but the
psycho-pathology of a State that has been deformed from childhood.
An outcome probably of the fantastic circumstances of its birth and
the early demise of its founding fathers, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali Khan.
There is only one answer to the problem of a Pakistan or an
Afghanistan -- their transformation into stable entities, governed
by a leadership that is forward-looking and secular, and above all
imbued with democratic ideas. There was a time when it was
fashionable for liberals to argue that thrusting democracy down the
throats of the unwilling was, well, undemocratic. Postponing
democracy, no longer looks like a good idea to India where the
far-sighted decision of its founding fathers repaid itself in the
creation of a system whose resilience is a byword around the world.
India, therefore, must aid the US goal of transforming Pakistan and
other such States into democracies. Rolling Eyes Islamabad resents any
implication of Indian hegemony, but fortunately, is unfazed at the
manifestation of its American variety. By itself, India has not
quite been able to deal with Pakistan and has been at its wits end
in coping with its troublesome neighbour. It should be more than
happy at the US intention of maintaining a neck-lock on Islamabad
for the foreseeable future.
There was a time when the international State system allowed
countries to hide behind barriers of 19th century views of State
sovereignty and wreak havoc on themselves and their neighbours. In
today's interconnected world, this can no longer be permitted and
all States need to conform to some minimum standards of
international behaviour to ensure their common security. This,
essentially, is the post-Soviet new world order that we have been
waiting for.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/623_0,0012.htm
--
idealistic outsider coming to save the world for democracy in 1917,
the world power-in-waiting that saved the world from fascism and
Nazism in the Forties, the frontline State against the dark forces
of communism in 1949-1989, and since then, the world's sole super,
or to go by Hubert Vedrine, hyper-power. But now America, under the
leadership of George W. Bush is shaping up to play an entirely new
role as the world's first `nanny' State. Not only will it collar the
bad guys around the world, but it will nurture transformation in
societies and States whose internal conditions can give birth to
violence and instability. After al-Qaeda's WTC attack, the US
responded by destroying the Taliban and capturing Afghanistan. It
followed this up by pulverising Iraq on suspicion that it harboured
weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it has learnt that though it has
military power that no one State or a combination of them can
counter, it is still some way from being safe from threats from
forces that the US, and indeed the world, barely understand. In the
years since 2001, and particularly in the bitter aftermath of the
Iraqi adventure, the US has realised that it needs a longer term
strategy to make itself secure.
This strategy has been spelt out in the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act passed by the US Congress last week. At one
level, the act spells out the nuts and bolts solutions to the
problem of obtaining, assessing and disseminating intelligence on
time for preventive action. But there are entire sections that spell
out new `nanny' provisions that will help a number of dysfunctional
States to become `normal'.
Among the more prominent of the States mentioned in the legislation
are Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Americans, according to Section
7103 of the act, will assist in promoting the security of Pakistan,
establish its authority in the problem no-go tribal areas of the
Afghan border, facilitate a solution of the Kashmir issue, encourage
democracy, aid Pakistan's efforts to boost exports and modernise its
economy and promote secular primary and secondary education. It is
unclear whether this list is prioritised or whether it intends to
move on all fronts together. Will the US promote democracy as
vigorously as in securing Pakistan? Actually, success or failure on
this front will depend on that decision, because at the heart of any
effort must be the restoration and growth of civil society
institutions in Pakistan.
The plans for Afghanistan are even more detailed and include the
improvement of security by taking on the war lords, boosting human
rights and ending the endemic poverty of the State through a
fiveyear plan the US president must formulate in the next six
months. The recent elections, mooted as the first ever in the
benighted country, is being seen as the hopeful sign that the Karzai
government may have turned the corner.
In its new `nanny' avatar, the US appears to have realised that
there is a direct correlation between the system of government and
the kind of threats it faces. A section relating to dictators has
pointed out that while the US has made short-term gains by dealing
with them, these have "often been outweighed by long-term setbacks".
So, the US is clear that besides democracy, it will encourage
governments of all countries "with predominantly Muslim
populations", including allies of the US, to promote education,
individual rights, democracy, as well as "tolerance for opposing
points of view".
Ever since the US decided to designate Pakistan Major Non
NATO-Military Ally (MNNA), analysts in India have been trying to
figure out just what is happening between Washington and Islamabad.
The big question seems to be whether the new US policy is now being
motivated by a desire to further US security interests, or to assist
Pakistan. The Americans will, of course, say that the two are
interlinked, and the creation of a modern, moderate and stable
Pakistan is the best means of preventing the rise of a Talibanised
State. A close reading of the present US policies seems to indicate
that the US is indeed following a trajectory very different from the
one they followed during the Fifties and Eighties.
This is a consequence of the paradigm shift engendered by 9/11 and
indeed confirmed by the Iraqi venture. The US would have been the
happiest to keep its forces out of harm's way and reduce the enemy
to rubble by precision long-range strikes. That was the inclination
in 1998 when the cruise missile strikes were launched in
Afghanistan, as well as the `shock and awe' strategy in Iraq.
Unfortunately, for them, the US had to learn the hard way that the
new threats could not be handled at stand-off range and required
close-in commitment.
One demonstration of this was the decision to attack Fallujah and
take the casualties as they came. The more humane manifestation of
this will be the US emergence as the `nanny' State, helping deformed
and stunted actors on the world stage to set themselves right. The
move has a special urgency since many of them are now armed with
weapons of mass destruction. The US knows that its own role in the
existence of such States is not insubstantial. But 9/11 has changed
everything and the Americans are now looking at the world with very
different eyes.
India expects that the new US relationship with Pakistan is based on
the proper lessons of the past -- essentially, that short-term
compro mise can often lead to unanticipated long-term costs. In the
Eighties and Nineties, Pakistan sent two crucial US benchmarks --
State-sponsorship of terrorism and nuclear proliferation -- for a
six. The US has since paid a price for the Great Jehad Machine that
Islamabad created, while the costs of the A.Q. Khan nuclear
super-mart are yet to be fully tabulated. Presumably, the US has
realised that Pakistan's actions were not aberrations, but the
psycho-pathology of a State that has been deformed from childhood.
An outcome probably of the fantastic circumstances of its birth and
the early demise of its founding fathers, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali Khan.
There is only one answer to the problem of a Pakistan or an
Afghanistan -- their transformation into stable entities, governed
by a leadership that is forward-looking and secular, and above all
imbued with democratic ideas. There was a time when it was
fashionable for liberals to argue that thrusting democracy down the
throats of the unwilling was, well, undemocratic. Postponing
democracy, no longer looks like a good idea to India where the
far-sighted decision of its founding fathers repaid itself in the
creation of a system whose resilience is a byword around the world.
India, therefore, must aid the US goal of transforming Pakistan and
other such States into democracies. Rolling Eyes Islamabad resents any
implication of Indian hegemony, but fortunately, is unfazed at the
manifestation of its American variety. By itself, India has not
quite been able to deal with Pakistan and has been at its wits end
in coping with its troublesome neighbour. It should be more than
happy at the US intention of maintaining a neck-lock on Islamabad
for the foreseeable future.
There was a time when the international State system allowed
countries to hide behind barriers of 19th century views of State
sovereignty and wreak havoc on themselves and their neighbours. In
today's interconnected world, this can no longer be permitted and
all States need to conform to some minimum standards of
international behaviour to ensure their common security. This,
essentially, is the post-Soviet new world order that we have been
waiting for.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/623_0,0012.htm
--
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