Geopolitics and History behind Pulwama
A look into the deeper historical context of Pulwama attack
In the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack, a few questions are pertinent to answer:
- What were the motivations behind this attack and which parties could have benefited from this?
- How was India’s response different from not only responses to terror in the past, but also from the surgical strike carried out in 2016?
- What are the implications of the attack and the subsequent rebuttal?
Answering these questions is important in planning the course for India’s international posturing. This requires an understanding of the parties which have an interest, for or against, India’s current diplomatic and economic status, and how their interests hint at their possible roles in the Pulwama attack.
The party which has the highest stakes in the Subcontinent (other than India itself), is the USA. To appreciate this, one must retrace history to the point of creation of Pakistan.
The ‘manufacture’ of Pakistan served a three-fold purpose for the departing British (and by extension for the Allied Powers):
1. Physical separation of India from Central-Asia and Middle-East.
The land trading route had allowed Indian goods access to Middle-East and beyond into Europe. This separation was a serious blow to trade access for India.
2. Depriving India of important port access from Karachi and Bangladesh into Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal respectively.
From the Ancient period, trade through these two seas had been a driver of the Indian economy, and it would take independent India a while before it recovered from the loss of these two key ports. Looking at the systematic insurgencies in North East, and Jawaharlal Nehru’s apathy to this region, also indicates that the larger British design called for the separation of North East from India.
3. Creation of a base-i.e. Pakistan-for Allied Powers.
Pakistan gave the Allied Powers access to both Eastern and Western seas of India, and also Central-Asia. This was supplemented by further carving out Pakistan-occupied Kashmir from India. The area of Gilgit-Baltistan served as a frontier against the expansion of Soviet Union who, by 1947, had come to control both East and West of the Caspian Sea by occupying Azerbaijan and Kazakistan respectively.
4. Source of military manpower for Allied forces
The hardy community of Punjabis in West Pakistan provided a replacement for the erstwhile British Indian-Army. Indian soldiers had been used extensively by the British in controlling not only India, but also most other parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Post-Independence, Allied Powers no longer had access to Indian soldiers but would continue to engage Pakistani soldiers in various wars in the Middle East.
Pakistan served the purpose of its creation as a base and a source of mercenary militants for Allied Powers (later NATO), rather well. This changed in USA’s Afghan Invasion of 2001. This conflict saw Pakistan’s alliance with the USA come into the way of its ambition to use militants against India. This led to Pakistan protecting various designated terror outfits and high-profile leaders. The USA, due to its interest in continued use of Pakistan as a base in South Asia, decided not to crack down on this policy of Pakistan. This reluctance to dismantle Pakistani terror network has resulted in an almost complete failure of its Afghan campaign.
Following this failure, the interests of USA and Pakistan have diverged significantly. The Pakistani establishment views this failure as a success of its non-state actors, while the USA views this as an embarrassing defeat. Moreover, the unabated presence of terror modules in Pakistan is a threat to the USA’s trade interests in South Asia. That being said, while a stable Asia is in the interest of the USA, and a militarily strong India is needed to counter-balance China’s growing power, an overly assertive India is against USA’s interests. As such, the USA is looking for a means to allow India a ‘checked’ growth in power.
After India and USA, the third big player in South-Asia is China. China is very much looking to establish complete influence over Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. But China’s relationship with Pakistan is not a new phenomenon. China had early on recognized Pakistan as a way of keeping India in check. Pakistan was one of the first countries to end relations with Republic of China(present-day Taiwan) and establish bilateral ties with People’s Republic of China(present-day China) in 1951. The partnership increasingly took on an anti-India slant. Following the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Pakistan ceded the Trans-Karakoram tract to China as a gesture of goodwill to end border disputes. This gave way to a culture of transferring land for monetary remuneration by Pakistan. China has even gone to the extent of carrying out infrastructure construction in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Most recently, China was given Balochistan’s Gwadar port on a 99-year lease.
In the past, the Sino-Pakistan alliance served China as a way to counter India and as an in-roads into closer ties with the USA. Currently, this alliance serves two purposes:
- To encircle India territorially and keep it occupied in petty border conflicts
- To establish direct access to the Middle East (via Pakistani-occupied areas like Gilgit Baltistan and Balochistan), for easier access to trade and oil.
There is a third party with major interests in South-Asia. That is the Muslim world — specifically Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia views Pakistan as a source of military manpower to carry out its dirty work across the Middle East, but more importantly, Pakistan also serves the function of being a proxy for Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear capability. It is an open secret that Pakistan’s nuclear capability was purchased from China. It is speculated that the payee in this transaction was not Pakistan, but in fact Saudi Arabia. Saudi could not directly possess nuclear weapons given that it would compromise NATO’s stand against Iran developing nuclear weapons. Hence, this was the arrangement which was arrived upon. For these reasons, Pakistan was called “Saudi Arabia’s closest Muslim ally” by Robert Lacey in his book Inside the Kingdom.
Another reason why Pakistan is important for Saudi is that the Islamic State of Pakistan serves as a foothold for expansion of Muslim religion in the Subcontinent. Saudi investment is accompanied by an expansion in Islamic education institutions and an increase in orthodoxy, as has been seen in Malaysia and Indonesia over the past three decades. The case is no different in India and the rest of the Subcontinent, and having an Islamic neighbor of India as a close ally only helps this cause.
Hence, other than India itself, there are three major powers with stakes in South-Asia — USA, China and Saudi Arabia. China and the US find in Pakistan a handle through which to control India. Saudi Arabia finds in Pakistan a source of military manpower and a doorway into Islamisation of India.
All three powers have enough intelligence assets in Pakistan such that it is not only plausible but likely that they would have had prior knowledge of this attack. Why did they allow Pakistan to carry on regardless? How would this attack have aided their interests? US President’s statement that future attacks against India “would be extremely problematic” indicates Washington’s realisation that their attempted pinprick crossed one line too many. China too has had to distance itself from Pakistan (other than opposing the designation of Mazhood Azhar as a terrorist). And it is alleged that Saudi has retrieved its nuclear assets from Pakistan post-Balakot, out of fear that they could be destroyed by an Indian airstrike. Why did these respective countries backtrack? Moreover, has Pakistan’s intent of announcing the shift of their attention from Afghanistan to India been served?
These questions will be addressed in my next article on the topic. For the time being, this article will close with the video of Pakistani Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed speaking of Pulwama as ‘Pakistan’s finest hour’ at a public forum in Pakistan.
