The Ideal Client State : Pakistan

[sob]

Gwadar port for China: Why Pak is the ideal client state | Firstpost

A news report today tells us that Pakistan's cabinet has agreed to hand over the operation of Gwadar port to China. The onus of running this strategic port in Balochistan near the Iran border has been shifted from the Port of Singapore Authority to China's Overseas Port Holdings.

Despite the official Indian external affairs ministry's statement that we should not overreact to this development, this move shows that Pakistan is the ideal client state for global powers seeking a military foothold in the subcontinent. Despite worries about the stability of Pakistan, the fact remains that it has an efficient mercenary army and nuclear weapons and is ready to do the bidding of any country – the US (since 1950s), China (since 1962) and even Russia (ever so briefly in 1965) – as long as it gets a free hand and arms supplies for use against India.

India is seven times the size of Pakistan in every respect but Pakistan continues in its unending quest to seek parity like the frog in the fable. It can't last, and India's biggest concern must be to figure out what to do if Pakistan implodes, or if decides to launch another all-or-nothing misadventure against India.

Pakistan has convinced itself that its carefully cultivated 'mad mullah' strategy of calculated irrationality is working. In short, Pakistan feels that since India fears its irrationality, it will desist from a forceful response.

We, on our part, have given credence to this by not responding militarily to the Parliament attack (2001), the Kaluchak massacre of soldiers' families (2002), the Mumbai train bombings (2006) and the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks of 2008. I have not recounted many more of the proxy actions like the Jaipur blasts, Delhi blasts, Ahmadabad blasts, etc, but just recounted the more provocative ones. The bigger problem for India is the 'adventurist' mindset in the Pakistani army.

This mindset has several ingredients. First and foremost, over 65 years Pakistanis have been brainwashed into believing that they are Arabs, Turks, Iranians or Afghans and have nothing to do with the Indian subcontinent. They reject any notion of shared history, ancestry or culture. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was feted in India and not Pakistan. One look at the textbooks of Pakistan studies (that the author has) tells you the story. After having ethnically cleansed most of the minorities from Pakistan, the majority there have now turned their murderous attentions to Ahmadiyas and Shias.

Some usual suspects have crawled out of the woodwork to claim that Pakistan is now a changed country. It indeed has changed – but for the worse. Those who abuse India and its plural ethos day in and day out must note that there have been more attacks on the mosques and Imambaghs in Pakistan in last five years than in 65 years in India. In the last few years, over 11,000 Pakistanis have died in sectarian/terrorist violence. The Pakistani Taliban has been regularly beheading Pakistani soldiers. No wonder many Pakistanis wonder what all this fuss is in India over a single such incident.

India's Pakistan problem is thus not merely an issue of external policy, as shown recently when India's Home Minister, no less, accused the principal opposition party and a cultural organisation of the majority community of running 'terrorist training camps' in India. With one brilliant stroke, this worthy has taken the wind out of Indian diplomacy that has for years been asking Pakistan to shut down terror camps operating on its territory.

The next time India complains about yet another 26/11 attack, Pakistan will turn round and point at the alleged terror camps within India. This is not a one-off remark. The newly-anointed Vice President of the ruling party had said much the same thing to a US diplomat, according to Wikileaks disclosure.

With so much has happened we are still grappling with how to tackle Pakistan. This needs to be addressed not by seeing Pakistan in isolation but keeping the Chinese angle in mind.

 

[nrj]

A very good read..

 

[sob]

This is a good analysis by Col. Athale. We need more such discussions rather than just go by the headlines in the news items.