Thousands of Pakistanis are now streaming over the border to fight for the Taliban. This means that thousands of Pakistanis–citizens of our ostensible ally–will likely be killed. I would imagine that Islamabad then would be facing tremendous internal pressures if not outright overthrow.
So there goes Pakistan in this scenario–at best neutral, at worst our new enemy.
In this case, maybe it’s time to stop pussyfooting around and take sides. So, what if we just said, to hell with it: India, have at it. Take Kashmir, take over the whole of Pakistan if you want, and we won’t ask any questions. If the Pakistani government has indeed been overthrown, maybe we’ll even soften them up and destroy all of that country’s nuclear capabilities so that you won’t have to use yours. All this on the condition that some of your billion people charge on through to the other side of that country and help us kick out the Taleban and capture/kill bin Laden.
Just how big of a can of worms would this be opening? We could hardly make the Muslim “street” any madder or Muslim governments any more obstructionist. IIRC, India has been aligned toward Russia, so maybe Putin wouldn’t make a fuss. China would certainly be unhappy to see India ascendant, but if India kept out of China’s claimed section of Kashmir, what could Beijing do? And until this recent unpleasantness, we were warming up in our relations with New Delhi anyway.
So, is an overt military alliance with India in the cards, or if not, why not?
I’d ask also ask India and see what they have to say first. It’s entirely possible that the Indians a.) have no desire to “take over Pakistan” and b.) would prefer not to be used as American cannon fodder, especially if it means Bombay gets hit by a Pakistani nuke.
Doghouse, I think you’re OP shows at best a minimal understanding of the issues. You might want to look at a map first http://www.justiceforall.org/kasmap.html . I am by no means an expert on the area, and hope that others more knowlegable jump in.
Pakistan is already facing internal pressure. Look at the number of governments they have had since partition and how many military overthrows. They current government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who himself seized power in a bloodless coup and declared himself president, has faced pressure of internal rebellion for several years already.
The Northern Territories of Pakistan have long had poor relations if not outright uprisings against the Pakistani government. For example, Baluchistan, http://www.javed.com.pk/Baluchistan.html had a full on rebellion against the Pakistani government. Being nomadic pastoralists, the military wiped out their flocks and destroyed their livlihood, and now Afgan refugees have displaced much of the native Baluchistani population. (again, IANAPakistani expert, most knowledge for this issue based on VS Naipaul’s Beyond Belief.)
Pakistan is our ally in this. They are not neutral. My simplistic understanding is Musharraf can either take on OBL with the US or knuckle under and let OBL become a serious player in Pakistani politics.
It’s a long way from India to Afganistan across rugged country and a hostile population. So you’re saying that India should invade Pakistan, fight their way across the country, fight their way through the mountains and take Afganistan. Uh huh, and what are the Pakistani’s going to do in the meanwhile? Remember Pakistan has nukes and do you honestly think the government would not use them if their existence was threatened? You are also assuming that India is capable of taking Pakistan, even though 3 previous wars since partition have resulted in no clear cut victor.
India is not aligned toward Russia. Please check that India is the leading proponent of the non-aligned group. The US and India are not aligned either, so I’m not sure if India wants to be as MEBuckner put it “American cannon fodder.”
China and India have fought over territory far away from Kashmir. The last I recall was the late 1980’s but there have been more incidents. China and Pakistan have good relations. China would not want to see India take over Pakistan and Afganistan. So, in your scenario maybe you’ll end up with China and India in large scale skirmishes if not outright war. Maybe you consider that a bonus, especially since both countries have nukes. Perhaps China decides that if India can get away with expanding it’s borders, then it’s time for China to take Taiwan, northern Burma, encroach on border areas of India, etc.
Let’s see: we’d be encouraging one country with nuclear weapons to invade another country with nuclear weapons. We’d also be encouraging a country to lose (tens of?) thousands of its own citizens to achieve our objectives. Cool. I’m sure the world would continue to support the US after that kind of action.
What is this, a competition to see who can come up with the craziest idea? Sheesh.
A really, really big can of worms. And yes, the Muslim “street” could become orders of magnitude worse. The potential for religious and ethnic strife in South Asia is huge. When India was partitioned in 1947 it caused rather a lot of deaths (estimates vary enormously, but run as high as 2 000 000) and tens of millions of displaced persons.
You don’t, per chance, think you have a somewhat overblown sense of the ability of a US Administration to influence world events ?
The US currently has a very limited mandate from the world community to seek out terrorists and those who harbour them in Afghanistan. That’s it.
If this Administration wants cheap oil and an economy worth describing as such, I’d suggest they forget about “unleashing” anything or anyone - not that it’s in a position to ask very much of India, anyway. Except patience I would imagine, given the present circumstances.
Thanks, China Guy. I can always count on you for a preemptive ad hominem attack. I guess you do it to save time.
I’m not talking about a coup d’etat like the one that installed the current regime and half a dozen like it. I’m not talking about restless natives in the outlying districts of Buttwipistan. I’m talking about a bloody popular Islamist revolution in the heart of Islamabad, on the order of Iran in the late 1970s. Perhaps I didn’t outline this scenario as carefully as I should have, but that’s what I see coming down the pike: an extremist revolutionary government that’s very hostile to the US.
For all the digs you try to get in on my lack of understanding, you don’t seem to have read my OP very carefully. At this point, Musharraf is strung up by his ankles somewhere.
Point taken, but Pakistanis appear to be fighting us already even as their government is supposed to be our ally. Under the scenario I outlined, wouldn’t it at least be helpful for India to tie down Pakistani troops in rearguard action, and hopefully remove the hostile regime altogether?
Please read the OP. This scenario presumes that we would be able to locate and destroy Pakistan’s primitive lineup of nukes.
Were we helping India in any of those conflicts? Or were we actively discouraging them, it being the Cold War and all?
Now you’re demonstrating your own ignorance of the region. India was all buddy-buddy with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, for example, signing a “Declaration of Friendship and Cooperation” in 1976. I believe that Pakistan stood as our ally against what was perceived as a nascant Moscow-Delhi axis.
If a hostile Islamic fundamentalist regime armed with nuclear weapons were installed next door, don’t you think that India would have more cause to be nervous about it than even we would?
Nobody suggested that that China would be happy about India invading Pakistan; I’m asking what, if, anything, they would actually do about it. And again, China has more to fear from a Islamic fundamentalist regime in Central Asia than we do; they might have even more to fear from that, than from a strong, hostile, yet stable regional power on its borders.
Crusoe, hawthorne, and London_Calling brought up legitimate points while I was composing a reply to China Guy. I have to sign off at the moment, but pls read my response and see if it’s clarifying.
I should have made clear at the outset that I’m not talking about trying to bring in India under terms of the current coalition (despite the fact that it looks like it could fall apart any day now). I’m asking if it’s plausible that India could be a deciding factor in this conflict if Islamabad falls to a fundamentalist regime. I stand by my assertion that all the other major powers in the region–China and Russia, mainly–will have a lot more to lose from such a development, let alone India itself.
Fomenting even the potential for nuclear war is completely insane. However disgusting Pakistan’s complicity with the Taleban might be it is far better for their current regime to remain stable as we go about eradicating the Taleban. We do not need either a second theater of action nor the assistance of India with the tasks at hand. I do not think you have clearly considered the logistical nightmare of dovetailing the military forces of the US and India. That alone would fairly well prohibit functional cooperation between our two countries. Add into this the sometimes dubious nature of India’s own stance in the region and you have sown the seeds for an escalation that could rapidly spiral out of control into nuclear chaos.
If Pakistan falls to a fundamentalist regime I think we would have no choice but to, at the very least, go in and remove their nuclear capability. Full extraction of the warheads they possess would be the only acceptable result of such action. The thought of Islamic fundamentalists in possession of nuclear devices is enough to make the blood run ice cold. Again, we do not need nor want India to participate in any of this.
Why not? I think you may be influenced by the Foggy Bottom syndrome–always try to preserve the status quo, even if it’s manifestly falling apart. As I said, I’m suggesting that India will come onto the scene only if the current Pakistani regime falls. In this event, don’t you think India’s assistance would be invaluable–perhaps essential–in order to ensure “full extraction of the warheads they possess”? I think if anything, India would move faster to stamp out this fire than we would.
And what makes you think that, in anticipation of an Indian invasion, the people who would take over Pakistan wouldn’t pre-emptively nuke parts of India in an attempt to disuade India from attacking them back?
This question doesn’t make a lot of sense. If the people who gained control of the nukes were so unstable that they’d launch a preemptive strike against whomever they perceived as a threat, then isn’t that an even stronger argument for taking them out as quickly as possible?
Just because you’ve developed a handful of warheads doesn’t mean that you’ve suddenly become the Soviet Union, with early response capability to annihilate your enemies. If we (the US) know where the warheads are, I should think that we could take them out within a matter of hours. And I’ll bet you that we do know exactly where they are.
If the usurpers think that their nuclear capability would be neutralized within hours, then that’s more the reason they would quickly deploy them. In this case, we would need minutes to neutralize them, not hours.
The key is to eliminate them before they take over. They have already established that they just cannot stand America, and would be all too willing to wipe us out. Yes, I do consider this group to be unstable enough to use a nuke the instant they acquire one.
just in case you’re unaware-India legally owns Kashmir and has owned Kashmir since independence. And as to whether or not they “get it,” it’s really not for the United States to “allow” them anything. The problems with Kashmir are different-this isn’t some sort of Israel & Palestine issue. Although reading posts like yours make me realise that after Israel the most hated enemy of Islamic fundamentalism is India. Moreover, India and the US aren’t on bad relations-since the end of the Cold War they’ve been drawing closer together and Condoleeza Rice’s foreign policy was overtly pro-India.
Pardon me for a moment, I’m just overwhelmed by the “duh” factor here.
OK, I’ve regained my composure.
(Ahem) Dearest minty green, in the past fifty years there has been a most remarkable technological contrivance, called a reconnaissance satellite. I know that you must still be a little groggy from the cryogenic chamber, but do grab a newspaper as soon as you have a chance, old chap.
I know that “unleash” seems a provocative term, as if the US had the power to “allow” India to do anything. I was making a tongue-in-cheek reference to Korean War, back when some hawks (including MacArthur?) were pressing Truman to “unleash Chiang” (i.e., allow him to make war on the Chicoms from Taiwan while we were battling them in Korea). My apologies if my post seemed condescending for that reason.
I would submit, however, that US support for such an Indian action (as far fetched as it might seem right now) would dramatically alter New Delhi’s prospects and incentives.
Just idly speculating . . . if India were to play a decisive, yet restrained and positive role in this war, I’d imagine that it would be hard to argue against giving that country a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.