The preceding analysis of the Cold War era is crucial for an understanding of the complexity of the post-Cold War era. There is certainly room for disagreement as to the short-term and long-term impact of the linkage between the global (great power) and regional (Indo-Pakistan) dimensions of the conflict over Kashmir in the Cold War era. Some argue that extra-regional military and diplomatic relationships exerted a constraining force and kept India and Pakistan from one another’s throats over Kashmir. Others interpret these events as militarising a delicate regional balance, dragging India from a non-aligned to an engaged position within global Cold War dynamics and precluding India from ceding to a Kashmiri plebiscite. Wherever one stands great power intrusion in South Asia certainly impacted on the broader Indo-Pakistani dispute with knock on effects on the conflict in Kashmir in the post-Cold War era. A series of ‘unnatural alliances’ born out of Cold War necessity persist today. The end of the Cold War has not spelled the end of the Kashmir dispute. The actors have changed and the international order they operate in has evolved also. However as discussed below powerful international actors such as the US continue to be drawn to various degrees and impact upon the international dimensions of this dispute with constraining and enabling effects on the progression of the Kashmir conflict.
Attention is now drawn towards the international role in the bilateral instruments of negotiation. Numerous actors of which the US is a prominent example have played a part here mainly following policies of action or inaction in coercing? or encouraging India and Pakistan to the negotiating table. The record of meditative interventions in the Kashmir conflict is certainly mixed. In the post-Cold War era limited progress has been made at the bilateral level in negotiating sustained peace and policies of external actors have had a part to play in this. “The conflict has had equally broad impact, however, on a whole range of long-term US policy efforts in the region, including nuclear non-proliferation, promotion of economic development and the protection of human rights.” US policy though reflects Washington’s perceptions of the stake it has in any settlement over Kashmir. The situation in the Kashmir region, released from the constraints of bipolar global struggle, modified the extent of US involvement. Fears of inevitable disinterested decline of US involvement in South Asia in both India and Pakistan proved to be unfounded however exaggeration of the role actively played by US foreign policy is equally misleading. The US in a bid to avoid costly entanglement in this issue has displayed surprising even-handedness between both sides. Perhaps surprising given the Cold War legacy of US ties with Pakistan and estrangement with India. Declarations on US policy in the early post-Cold War era demonstrate a less Pakistan-centred policy on Kashmir to the delight of New Delhi. The US framed the Kashmir question within the bounds of the unrealised plebiscite in the region and human rights violations committed by Indian security troops based in Kashmir thereby striking a balance of criticism. A crucial feature of US policy towards Kashmir was insistence that although the US could, if desired by both parties, provide assistance to any process, it was up to India and Pakistan themselves to initiate and sustain a dialogue. Whilst this appears to be fair to both sides of the border one can perhaps read into this a distinct pro-India slant. India is the status-quo power in the Kashmir conflict and has showed consistent distrust and suspicion towards any possible international intermediary role. The strategy of leaving both sides to reconcile their differences within the Shimla framework has not provided the necessary incentives for reconciliation despite several attempts made by India and Pakistan to settle their differences. Intervening variables in the South Asian region have proven effective in blocking this process and it is to these variables that we turn to next. Therefore “Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been faced with the not inconsiderable task of designing an approach on Kashmir that took account both of its diminished interest in the South Asian region and, at the same time, of the need to find the middle ground among the politically very prickly issues of which the Kashmir dispute was made.”
Terrorism:
The role played by non-state actors in Kashmir complicates an already seemingly intractable situation. Whether militant groups are correctly labelled ‘terrorists’ or ‘freedom fighters’ negates their destructive effects on the fabric of Kashmir. The aims, methods and ethnic constitution of these groups differ greatly and they can be categorised around these criteria. Firstly there are the indigenous militants fighting for an independent Kashmir; secondly there are the Pakistani militants engaged in ‘jehad’ who are supported by Pakistan and by non-Pakistani actors and lastly the mercenaries comprised mainly of Afghanis. These militant groups have brought their conflict outside the confines of Kashmir’s contested borders and have struck with devastating effect at the very heart of Indian power. Also their struggle cannot be bracketed exclusively to the post-Cold War world. Their struggle predates the 1990s and presumably will continue into the future. India sees transborder infiltration as a key issue scuppering past and present bilateral initiatives on Kashmir. Furthermore charges of Pakistani culpability in the terrorist hand are a continued source of Indo-Pakistani friction. The deep and traumatic effects of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 altered US perceptions on militant activity in Kashmir and US policy as well. The attacks in America also induced direct engagement into South Asian affairs via military intervention aimed at regime change in Afghanistan. “The first realization was the fact that the terrorist organisations fighting inside Kashmir are linked well with each other and to the Taliban regime through Pakistan. The very fact that the Taliban regime crumbled like a pack of cards, once the Pakistan military government and its ISI [Interservice Intelligence] withdrew its support, revealed who was the brain behind the organizational support for the Taliban and other ‘Jihadi’ organizations.” US policy regarding these organisations has shown both continuity and discontinuity following the Cold War. Despite India’s best efforts to coerce the US rightly or wrongly into labelling these organisations as terrorists thereby including them on the US’ global ‘watch list’ for such organisations has been met with limited and varying success. The Clinton and G. W. Bush Administrations have proven reluctant to name, shame and sanction Pakistan for its alleged part in these events. That despite conclusive proof of Pakistan arming and funding militant groups with no meaningful US reaction further entrenches perceptions among Indian policymakers of American untrustworthiness and pro-Pakistan bias in South Asia’s affairs. On the other hand, Indian policymakers perceive the US as all too willing to denounce Indian human rights allegations whilst in the process of battling a violent secessionist movement. Despite a global commitment to fight a War On Terrorism and to suppress terrorists and the states that harbour them, American anti-terror policy concerning Kashmir shows a distinct pro-Pakistani bias, a legacy perhaps of the client relationships born out of the Cold War. Although over time this bias stance has shown signs of tipping more to India’s favour, in the face of mere sympathy unaccompanied with concrete action one can understand India’s distrust towards allowing the US a more constructive role in the Kashmir problem. Therefore without firm action on Pakistan the US is indirectly prolonging the regional security dilemma and simultaneously is being sidelined by India from constructive engagement in the Kashmir dialogue.
Nukes:
South Asia’s nuclearisation has featured on the international agenda for decades. Both India and Pakistan attempted secret weapons programmes for years, however, it was in 1998 that this issue gained increased momentum. “The overt nuclearisation of South Asia was a blow to American non-proliferation policies. Washington also began to be concerned with this development because of the unremitting Indo-Pakistan strategic rivalry revolving around Kashmir.” The US has a strong interest in constraining any degree of nuclear conflict in this region because of ripple effects on other Asian regions of strategic interest. The US has tired assiduously for decades to maintain a nuclear non-proliferation regime. By developing nuclear weapons and signalling the possibility of their use, India and Pakistan embittered the US deeply. The subsequent flurry of diplomatic engagement by the US to act on this issue is unrivalled in relation to other US concerns surrounding Kashmir. Some analysts (Kapila) see the portrayal of Kashmir as a ‘nuclear flash point’ as misguided and inherently bias towards certain interests. Was former US President Bill Clinton correct when he declared Kashmir is “the most dangerous place in the world”? Two highly antagonistic states in possession of nuclear arms certainly draws concern, however, the reasons which induced both sides to acquire nuclear weapons merits attention. “Rational Military assessments would indicate that the introduction of nuclear weapons in South Asia resulted from India’s requirements of deterrence against nuclear threats from beyond the South Asian confines, while that of Pakistan emerged as a result of an India-specific deterrent requirement…there is no convincing rationale for Kashmir becoming a nuclear flashpoint especially when India has unilaterally declared a ‘no-first use’ policy. Any irrational nuclear blackmail on Kashmir can emerge only from Pakistan.” This apparent misguided notion of treating Kashmir as a ‘nuclear flashpoint’ has clouded the US approach as evidenced by US action during the Kargil War. Nuclear weapons and the fear of their use has diverted attention away from other issues with more salience such as self-determination for the Kashmiris to be discussed below. The increased attention of the international community in general and the US in particular towards nuclearised South Asia it can be argued encouraged Pakistan to conduct a ‘limited probe’ across the LoC in 1999. Pakistan’s aims in conducting this incursion were mixed. Some can be based on firm evidence however others have to be based on attribution and inference. “The timing of the probe was not insignificant. Since the late 1990s the Pakistani-aided insurgency in Kashmir was increasingly waning. The Indian security forces had the bulk of the insurgents on the run. With the insurgents at bay, India had held three elections in the state for state-level and national offices. Turnout in these elections had varied but had resulted in a popular, elected government with some slim element of legitimacy…The Pakistani leadership feared that this emergent normalcy in the valley, once consolidated, would foreclose the possibility of further incitement to the insurgency…In making this incursion the Pakistani leadership simply assumed that the United States and other major states would step in to prevent an escalation of the crisis. This belief in large measure emerged from the Pakistani assessment that the international community had become quite alarmed about the overt nuclearisation of South Asia. They also believed that these states would bring concerted pressure on India to desist from taking any compellent action.” Coercive diplomatic engagement to diffuse this conflict succeeded in returning the situation to some degree of normalcy. The international role in the wake of South Asia’s nuclearisation in1998 emboldened Pakistan towards adventurism to unilaterally alter the territorial status quo. With the international community voicing grave concern over nuclear weapons, Pakistan saw an opportunity to internationalise the Kashmir issue which had receded from the international community’s agenda but now within a framework of weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan’s false optimism that the major powers would act in favour of its interests were proven false. Subsequently the model followed by the international community of managing the conflict without addressing other non-nuclear issues or taking other purposive steps to engage more deeply simply prolonged the Kashmir conflict. The nuclearisation of South Asia has marked a turning point in the US’s and other Western countries’ approach to dealing with Kashmir within the bilateral Indo-Pakistani framework. These major powers were keen after Kagril that India and Pakistan engage purposively in dialogue and offered the assistance of mediation. However mediation would have had to have been dependent on the willingness of both parties to do so and India, long suspicious of third party interventions, denied such a role since a compromise on its official stance might follow. A qualitative shift though has occurred with these countries being more assertive and coercive to extract a solution on Kashmir. Assessing the role nuclear arms have played in South Asia and the reactions of the US and other concerned powers to them is without doubt wrought with difficulty. What can be asserted with reasonable confidence is that nuclear arms have put Kashmir within broader Indo-Pakistani relations back on the international map. After the 1998 tests the US and China especially has sought to constrain any potential involvement of weapons of mass destruction in the ongoing dispute. The treatment of both sides though has not been even-handed and this has induced India to isolate any international role to the detriment of any possible long-term peace process.
India viewed the US’ condemnation of its decision as misguided without also condemning the circumstances that propelled this decision, namely an acute security dilemma and the need for a deterrent to react to it and seeming US apathy towards India’s security needs. It is worth recalling that India’s nuclear project had in mind a multi-polar threat emanating from Pakistan within the region and from China outside the region. The US’ stance against India with condemnation and the imposition of sanctions attracted opposition from within. According to Newt Ginrich, “This double standard in the Administration’s actions disregarding China’s far more dangerous actions while imposing sanctions on India is appalling. With one hand, the Clinton Administration gives China access to sensitive missile technology, while on the other slaps India for trying to protect itself from the consequences of this improved technology.” Once again, apparent US insensitivity to India’s security has led to India rejecting any possible outside mediatory role and has directly impacted on India’s security with an indirect impact on the Kashmir question.
Conventional arms
US policy in South Asia as well as policies of other significant powers regarding conventional arms have contributed to the longevity of the Kashmir conflict by heightening the South Asian security complex. One can trace a consistent policy with a distinct Pakistani bias with commercial sales and military assistance to Pakistan through both the Clinton and G. W. Bush Administrations. Parts of the Pressler Amendment, imposed on Pakistan in the 1960s??? to stem its nuclear ambitions were repealed by Clinton. “The US State Department, Department of Defence and National Security Council, as well as arms industries in the US lobbied extensively to resume military and economic assistance to Pakistan…It was argued that the Pressler Amendment could not serve the purpose for which it was enacted. Instead of checking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme it accelerated its nuclear weaponising and missile programmes. In the absence of a regular supply of conventional weapons from the US, Pakistan chose to go nuclear for effective security and to counterbalance India’s hegemonic ambitions.” The US did not cede to India’s justified fears that resumption of military aid to Pakistan would disturb the security environment and lead to an arms race with an associated impact on the Kashmir conflict. Attempts to artificially rebalance India’s regional predominance in arms were deeply unsettling in New Delhi. The US Administration’s arguments that injecting military hardware into Pakistan would not upset regional military balances and would strengthen the democratic process in Pakistan seem to be a misconception. Furthermore it seems misguided to give weapons at a time when Pakistan is backing insurgency in Kashmir and using weapons to boost terrorist violence. The present Bush Administration has taken up Clinton’s mantle and continues to supply arms to Pakistan. It is noteworthy that India since the 1980s has engaged in a formidable modernisation of its armed forces and maintains a superiority over the military forces of Pakistan in all fields. The role played by the international agents in arming this region has perhaps in part precluded a bilateral resolution to the Kashmir conflict by making low level conflict a possibility. Nuclear weapons have not constrained such conflicts as evidenced by Kagril. What’s more, injections of conventional weapons have militarised Kashmiri insurgents who continue to destabilise this region.
Plebiscites
The analysis so far has neglected a highly significant actor; the Kashmiri people themselves. US policy and the policies of other major powers have historically framed the Kashmir question around the political will of the inhabitants of Kashmir. The various ethnicities that compose the Kashmiri population have complicated this matter. Sunni and Shia Muslims, Kashmiri Brahmins and Buddhists all live in Indian and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. Politically and ethnically Kashmiris are far from a monolithic entity. Historically the international community has wanted to incorporate the views of the Kashmiri people into any resolution process. What constitutes the will of the Kashmiris and how this should be expressed has changed over time. However the option of holding a plebiscite has often been a feature of the Kashmir agenda. India unilaterally offered to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir to decide its future status after the partition however it was never conducted because Pakistan failed to comply with the ??? UN Resolution requiring a withdrawal of forces before any vote took place. “Historically, Pakistan has always questioned Kashmir’s accession, raising the issue in various international for a for garnering the support of the international community. Its demands were backed by the US on different occasions at the UN Security Council. However the decade of the 1990s saw things changing. In recent years, the US has gradually distanced itself from the Pakistani demand of plebiscite in Kashmir in favour of bilateral negotiations.” This US stance of delinking a plebiscite from any possible resolution of the Kashmir question is indicative of the evolving contours of its foreign policy in the post-Cold War globalising world. This we will refer back to later. Whilst not engaging in speculation as to the ‘what ifs’ had a plebiscite taken place, the current non-confrontationist stance regarding the political will of the Kashmiri people marks a point of departure from the traditional stance of lending credibility to Pakistan’s demand for the annexation of Kashmir. A plebiscite could have offered an avenue of opportunity for the progression of a peace initiative in Kashmir by ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people upon whom any peace initiative impacts directly. Measures granting more political autonomy short of a plebiscite such as political devolution have been followed by India since the 1990s. This has gone some way towards addressing concerns of the Kashmiri people and placating calls from the international community for the traditional plebiscite option. (true???) This has emboldened India’s position that any possible solution has to come from within the ambit of the Indian Constitution. By moving emphasis away from plebiscite option, the international community is validating India’s position as the status quo power in the conflict. The likelihood that Kashmir will be solved according to terms favourable to Pakistan is declining. The lack of top-down international pressure for the plebiscite option reflects perhaps Chinese and American reappraisals of the future role India will play in the world. Pakistan since the 1990s has been marred by political despotism and economic stagnation whereas India has shown real signs of economic progress. India’s star, in short, is on the rise but Pakistan is figuring on the international stage less and less.
Internal dimensions, HRs and military gvts
India has faced indigenous uprisings and secessionist movements from Kashmiris in the post-Cold War era struggling to achieve self-determination by force. India’s record in resisting these struggles has been violent and repressive. Regarding its human rights record, India has been on the defensive in the past in the face of diplomatic pressure from the international community. India has been on the US Congress’ watch list (and now??) and has complained regularly of human rights violations in Kashmir. Uprisings in Kashmir, prompted by many factors inclusive but not exclusive to ineffective administration, political manipulation by state authorities and fruitless election processes, have taken the form of a classic liberation struggle. “The liberation movement has received sophisticated arms from the world market, guidance from the mujahideens and Iran, and political encouragement from within Pakistan.” Categorising these groups as terrorists or freedom fighters depends to a large extent to which party one’s sympathies lie, be it India, Pakistan or the Kashmiri people themselves. Paramilitary violence has not been confined to the Kashmir region however and has on several occasions spilled over on to the streets of New Delhi emboldening Indian security forces to take harsher reprisals in Kashmir. The US reactions to these documented abuses have varied in the post-Cold War environment. At times the US has been highly critical of the Kashmiri human rights record, attracting the scorn of New Delhi policymakers who see such criticism as misconceived and a deliberate meddling in India’s sovereign domain. However with the passing of the 1990s, the US stance on this issue softened perhaps reflecting a less pro-Pakistan bias and signalling the US’ increased ambivalence towards South Asia’s security in general and that of Pakistan in particular. Bringing pressure on India in terms of its human rights violations appeared less and less in US policy perhaps also reflecting pragmatism as Pakistan’s position as a key strategic partner faded. As with other issues discussed above, the US has shown signs of increasing neutrality towards the Kashmir issue thereby leaving India and Pakistan to their own devices to settle it.
On the other side of the border, the US’ relations with the Pakistani President General Parvez Musharraff merit attention. Pakistan represents one of the most difficult challenges for US foreign policy in the contemporary world. On the one hand Pakistan offers valuable help in rooting out Al-Qaeda but on the other hand Pakistan is politically and institutionally unstable, Islamic extremism is entrenched in parts of its territory and Pakistan suffers from economic and social weakness. In the face of this official policy statements from the Bush Administration have been a source of concern to the Indian Government and the Indian people. Policy statements in the past have carried an implicit message that the US will continue to support military rule in Pakistan. In December 2004 General Musharraf addressed the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. The Pakistani President in his speech emphasised that the Muslim world needs to reject militancy and focus instead on socio-economic development. “For this to succeed, the West needs to address the ‘root causes’ of conflict in Palestine and Kashmir which are ripe for solution today’.” To an extent, US attention on South Asian terrorism has been focused too much on Afghanistan. The US claims that it has brought significant pressure on Musharraff’s military regime and the Government of Pakistan has responded with attempts to control cross-border terrorism. For India these attempts have not gone far enough with militants continuing to cross over to India and carrying out terrorist attacks. “Since the US depends on Pakistan for its war against terrorism and Pakistan has indeed cooperated with Washington in the latter’s fight against terrorism and drug trafficking, India’s pleas to the United States to declare Pakistan as a terrorist state have no effect.” Musharraff’s tenable position as a military leader can perhaps go some way towards explaining the apparent inability or unwillingness to control cross-border terrorism against India. Musharraff depends upon vested interests within Pakistan’s military and his domestic support among the Pakistani people is highly influenced by his perceived ability to struggle for Kashmir. No doubt taking decisive action against trans-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan would alienate his position domestically. Terrorist attacks in the past have contained the seeds of igniting wider conflict, especially when they have struck at the very heart of India’s power. “The terrorist attack on India’s Parliament house on 13 December 2001, however, sorely tired India’s patience with US policy…this obliged the Vajpayee Government to call Pakistan’s nuclear bluff by raising the stakes militarily, amassing forces along the entire border with Pakistan and strengthening existing troop concentrations along the Line of Control in Kashmir. The Bush Administration, anxious as it was about the threat of nuclear war in South Asia, seriously took this Indian exercise in coercive diplomacy and sprang into action to avert impending catastrophe.” War clouds similarly gathered after the Kaluchak massacre perpetrated by Pakistani based terrorists in May 2002 but once more US-led diplomatic pressure succeeded in diffusing the tensions. Washington’s stance towards India’s security threat posed by Pakistani-based terrorism has granted some concessions. For example, Lashkar-i-toiba (a Pakistani group with the aim of destabilising Kashmir) was placed on the US’ list of foreign terrorist organisations and Washington forced General Musharraff in January 2002 to declare a war against Islamic fundamentalists. Such declarations though have clearly not been translated into action. “While the US too realises this reality, it has refrained from taking hard measures against the Pakistani military regime, because it entertains the hope that it would help it to eliminate the Al-Queda network and its leader, Osama bin Laden.” Even if however the US did bring significant pressure on Pakistan to end its support for trans-border infiltration against India, it is likely that Musharraff would be reluctant to heed to such diplomatic pressure. From India’s viewpoint, the US’ diplomatic intervention in South Asia has over the past few years shown a change of attitude more towards India’s favour. An example of this is US support for India’s insistence that proof first be obtained that Pakistan-backed infiltration into Kashmir and India is stopped before a renewed peace dialogue is pursued. However, because the Bush Administration has not put more pressure on Pakistan to end its war by proxy and because the US is still hesitant in accepting the universalisation of terrorist acts, the US is continuing with its alleged even-handed posture, giving with the one hand but taking away with the other. Nice synonym kman, like it
The role of China
China is a crucial player in Asia’s broad security dynamics. China has also come to play the role of a conflict generator in Kashmir. The Kashmir issue has the potential to reorientate Sino-Pakistani relations which have shown signs of consistent cordiality in both the Cold War and post-Cold War period. This section aims to divert attention away from the US to analyse how Chinese foreign policy in South Asia has contributed to the longevity of the Kashmir conflict. China has figured into the thematic issues discussed above, however, in this section China’s role in the Kashmir conflict will be discussed on its own merits and in more detail.
According to XXX, China (behind the US) is the second most intrusive power in South Asia and shares with both the US and Pakistan an interest in maintaining the present status quo regarding security. “While the United States record in conflict generation in South Asia has been episodic, China on the other hand has been consistent ever since 1962 to ensure that Pakistan is given the military, wherewithal to challenge India and keep it confined with the limits of South Asia.” Like the US, China has therefore contributed to conflict generation by providing military inputs to Pakistan. It is charged that such military sponsorship has led to Pakistani military adventurism and brinkmanship against India, reconfigured the military balance against India’s natural military predominance and bolstered Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism and proxy war against India.
Leaving the issue of military assistance aside, the Chinese policy on Kashmir has undergone a certain metamorphis in the post-Cold War period. There was a marked decline in framing the Kashmir issue around calls for self-determination. One reasons for this turnaround is the thawing of Sino-Indian relations after decades of hostility. “Therefore, China started projecting Kashmir as essentially a ‘bilateral’ dispute between India and Pakistan. Interestingly, China’s apprehensions about multilateralism persuaded it to shun a role for itself in the dispute-resolution, which reinforced India’s emphasis on bilateralism.” Terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan has been felt in China’s Xinjiang province. Kumar Singh believes that this insurgency reorientated the Chinese position on Kashmir and led China to adopt a more neutral stance in the standoff at Kargil. As a result China called for maintaining the sanctity of the LoC and the territorial status quo in Kashmir. The fact that China’s calls did not criticise Pakistan reinforce the notion that China’s policies towards Kashmir have become more even-handed when compared to China’s posture during the Cold War. This appears to be in line with China’s interests in South Asia since a change in the territ China’s policy on Kashmir therefore aims for the maintenance of the territorial status quo.
The role that China’s alliance with Pakistan played in the Cold War period has been discussed above. It was observed that Pakistan served as a counterweight to India, keeping her constrained within the limits of South Asia. The extent to which the rationale of constraining India motivates the Chinese position vis-à-vis the Indo-Pakistan conflict today is open to interpretation. What is clear is that Sino-Indian relations have been improving, bolstered by improving economic ties. It is on the other hand unlikely that China will concede South Asia as an Indian sphere of influence in light of this recent Sino-Indian cordiality. Such a move would certainly put a stop on China’s long-held aspirations of achieving Asian predominance.
Chinese policy therefore has had to take account of many problems and opportunities regarding the Kashmir conflict. The gradual evolution in China’s policies from strong support for Pakistan during the Cold War to a more dissident, even-handed approach today has been influenced by numerous factors. China has been able to make incremental progress towards friendlier relations with India in less sensitive areas than the Kashmir problem. China also has no coethnics in the Kashmir region and it is unlikely that the Kashmiri territory it has occupied since the 1962 border war will be lost. India continues to rise as an Asian military and economic power. India’s army is highly concentrated in and around the Kashmir region, keeping India’s military might checked to the confines of Kashmir. Any resolution to the Kashmir problem would allow for troop redeployment which could threaten China’s position militarily. Pakistan’s utility as a key player in an Asian counter-encirclement strategy has declined and so has Islamabad’s favour in Beijing. China’s fence-straddling position regarding Kashmir can be cited as evidence of this.
Diplomacy
US policy towards India and Pakistan has shown elements of ‘dissuasion’ which the US has applied to other regional conflicts around the world. The goal of dissuasion is to diffuse conflicts or to limit their impact. "The intent is to control or facilitate the control of situations through the application of military capabilities in concert with other instruments of national and international power." As regards Kashmir, direct application of US military power to diffuse conflicts in Kashmir hasn’t been applied however other instruments of power have been. The dissuasion model employed by the US was highly effective in the diffusion of the conflict in Kargil. Another episode in which dissuasion proved effective was following the terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. Following the attacks, India mobilised its troops to a level unprecedented since the war in 1971. Storm clouds were once again gathering on Kashmir’s horizon and an international diplomatic effort was required once again to reduce the tensions. The diplomatic effort, led by the US and supported by other important powers like Japan and Russia attempted to dissuade India from taking military reprisals that could lead to escalation with potentially disastrous consequences. Tensions reached a climax in early June 2002. Personal diplomacy was successfully employed and a level of stability was restored following high level visits by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to both New Delhi and Islamabad. The diplomatic effort created enough room for manoeuvre for the two antagonists to back down and save face. The diplomatic reaction to this crisis highlights a posture of renewed interest by the international community and especially the US regarding the Kashmir problem. The main motivation behind this interest is fear that a conflict in Kashmir contains the seeds of potential nuclear war in South Asia. The US plays a critical role in diffusing tensions when they broil up but appears unwilling to invest the political capital or take the necessary risks to engage in Kashmir beyond conflict management. The present Bush Administration is continuing the traditional policy that India and Pakistan must come to an agreement on Kashmir through bilateral negotiations and that the US will not mediate. It is noteworthy that since the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 the US simultaneously enjoys good relations with both India and Pakistan. Despite this potential leverage to shape the region’s future, the US continues to see Kashmir through a conflict-containment lens. Policies are pursued that reinforce bilateral rivalry over Kashmir as the defining characteristic of the South Asian environment. It is perhaps because of the mutual cordiality between the US and India and the US and Pakistan that the US avoids entanglement. Developing a sustained policy of engagement in the Kashmir problem would inevitably involve making choices that would anger one side or the other. “Conflict management, while a worthy goal, is ultimately unlikely to produce any long-term benefits due to the underlying factors that inform conflict between these two states.” The US is able to develop relations with both countries in areas amicable to its self-interest whilst simultaneously distancing itself from the zero-sum quagmire that is the Kashmir problem unless a crisis develops which could lead to serious conflict. US interests in India centre on economic development and in Pakistan centre on strategic considerations.
Dissuasion>persuasion
Having discussed the role that international factors have played in contributing to the longevity of the conflict over Kashmir in the post-Cold War era it is valuable to look at how these factors have interacted with the relative positions of India and Pakistan. The aim of this section is to highlight the limitations of international factors when they impinge on bilateral relations. A more detailed examination of how the international factors discussed above come to affect Kashmir when viewed from the Indo-Pakistani bilateral context is out of the scope of this paper. However some examination is necessary since these factors do not affect the Kashmir conflict in a vacuum.
“A yet more powerful explanation for the still prevalent pattern of global reticence to risk entanglement in Kashmir, especially in an uninvited capacity, is the inescapable fact of Indian regional dominance. This dominance invites from India a certain amount of strategic deference. The deference seems natural for a number of reasons, including India’s growing economic clout and the relatively stable performance of India’s political system, but towering over them all are the natural advantages built into India’s vastly greater size and resources relative to Pakistan.” This paper has argued that India is the status quo power in the Kashmir conflict. Regional power asymmetries across many fields which favour India can explain the position of resisting efforts which would alter the status quo. After Pakistan’s defeat in 1971 both parties instituted a bilateral framework within which the future of the Kashmir problem would be settled. Both India and Pakistan agreed at Shimla that ‘neither side shall unilaterally alter the situation’. Analysing the effects of the Accords on either party leads to the conclusion that India’s position on Kashmir was more favourable. To an extent Pakistan was compelled into the Simla agreement (by India AND the int comm.???) because the 1971 war drained much-needed resources. India emerged from the Accords as the status quo power with India’s territorial position firmly in place. Pakistan continued to be the revisionist power, challenging the status quo put in place by the Simla framework. “Three successive defeats made Pakistan realise that it could not wrest Kashmir by force.”, and from 1989 Pakistan increasingly had to resort to insurgency from non-state actors in order to keep its challenge to the territorial situation going.
The legacy of the Simla Accords survives today. India continues to stand by the LoC whereas Pakistan continues to challenge it through diplomacy and destabilise it by backing insurgency.
India defends the status quo and Pakistan challenges it. Offers made by the international community, emanating particularly from the US in the post-Cold War period, to provide mediation in a peace dialogue have been rejected due to India’s insistence upon bilateral negotiation. India’s regional hegemony and India’s will to exclude extra-local diplomatic influences from Kashmir peace initiatives serve therefore to limit the impact of international factors on the conflict.
Having examined how the effects of extra-local diplomatic forces are constrained by local forces, it is also necessary to analyse to what extent which US policy in South Asia is motivated by a desire to pursue active diplomacy regarding Kashmir. Some writers interpret the degree of willingness behind the US Administration to engage in Kashmir in different ways. The US and her allies are not directly threatened by events in Kashmir. Sustained engagement in a highly complex conflict with multiple protagonists would distract from commitments in other parts of the world. The benefits emerging from a resolution to the Kashmir conflict for extra-regional actors like the US who might become involved are also uncertain. “American credibility depends far more heavily on the outcome of other flashpoints. Long-standing U.S. commitments are not at stake. The Kashmir dispute is not equivalent to the cross-Strait quandary. Kashmir's line-of-control (LOC) is not Korea's demilitarized zone (DMZ). Simply put, the U.S. does not have a dog in the Kashmir fight.” Comparing extents of engagement with interests is an exercise wrought with potential difficulty which also must take into account factors which lie out of the scope of this paper. However an examination of US diplomatic involvement in the Kashmir conflict shows some correlation between levels of diplomatic engagement and the seriousness of hostilities. That the US played such a constructive role in diffusing the Kargil episode can provide some evidence for such a correlation. “At a time when Washington seeks solutions to international problems rather than to manage them, behind-scenes-facilitation and episodic crisis management might seem an unsatisfying sop — even an abdication of bold leadership. But management of the Kashmir dispute saves the U.S. from making promises it cannot keep, making commitments that outweigh benefits, and hitching itself to a region whose importance to the U.S must not be over-sold.” By pursuing conflict management and by reacting to tensions when they arise, US policy is contributing to the longevity of the Kashmir conflict. US policy from this analysis is classified as distant and disinterested. Prepared to engage in Kashmir when tensions hold the potential to escalate to nuclear conflict but unprepared to engage when tensions have less serious consequences upon US interests. When tensions are low in Kashmir, the US and other important actors like China endorse the Simla framework. This leaves India and Pakistan to a bilateral settlement that they have not been able to achieve for over fifty years.
Much scholarly discussion on the external influences to the Kashmir conflict focuses on issues of conflict management. It is pertinent therefore to analyse the effects that external efforts of managing the Kashmir conflict have had. Reference will be made to the relevant theories in order to clarify how the character of past efforts to manage Kashmir externally has contributed towards the conflict’s longevity. The following section discusses how and for what reasons the method of conflict management employed in the past has impacted on the Kashmir question. The central line of argument is that, according to the theoretical framework, the US has met the hypothetical criteria for initiating and sustaining a mediatory role. What has actually occurred however diverges from what is assumed in the theoretical literature.
Conflict in the post-Cold War era may have changed in terms of character but the underlying causes and the pressing need to address conflict have not. “In the present [post-Cold War] international system, where the sophistication and destructive capability of weapons make the violent pursuit of conflict both costly and irrational and where there is no adherence to a generally accepted set of rules or a central authority with the power to regulate international behaviour, mediation can be seen as an ideal way of dealing with differences and settling conflicts between antagonistic and fiercely independent states.” In light of this very realist description of the international environment which lacks an accepted framework for dealing with conflicts, conflict management has emerged as an effective instrument for keeping international order and stability. A form of conflict management is mediation by third parties. The approach employed to mediation by this paper rests on J. Bercovitch’s perspective on what it encompasses,”…it involves the non-coercive intervention of a third party who seeks to influence or resolve a particular conflict. This is its primary objective, which mediators fulfil through reliance on persuasion, appeals to logic, the use of information and the application of social-influence strategies. The mediators’ objective of changing, reducing or resolving a conflict legitimates their intervention. The material, political or other resources mediators invest in the process provide the rationale for their own motives and interests. The intertwining of parties’ interests, the mediators’ interests and the overall interest of changing the course or outcome of a conflict is one of the unique features of mediation.”
During the Cold War, India’s regional predominance was constrained by the political dynamics of bipolar rivalries. After the Cold War the pattern of constraining India’s rise to regional dominance continued to a lesser extent. Today...
India’s bid at the UNSC
Numerous international factors have therefore come to influence the continued longevity of the Indo-Pakistani conflict over the Jammu-Kashmir region. The legacy of the geopolitical conditions of the Cold War still factors into the Kashmir conflict. Alliances between the great powers and these South Asian states were bred by the Cold War order and have continued relevance for the Kashmir situation today.
, Volume 26, Number 1, 1 January 2003, pp. 157-167(11)
Titty titty bang bang, the thin white thing: Kashmir the road ahead p.8
UNSC website resos 38,39,47
http://www.ieer.org/comments/dsmt/kashhist.html