The U.S. Balancing Act in South Asia

Andrew C. Winner    

he history of U.S. policies towards both Pakistan and India has involved both stated preferences for one state or the other as well as the perception, in Islamabad and New Delhi, that Washington is favouring one or the other through a variety of policy decisions. Perhaps the most famous instance of this was then-U.S. national security advisor Henry Kissinger's tilt towards Pakistan during the 1971 war, as part of a larger policy of balancing the Soviet Union by opening to China.1 The most recent instance is the concern in Pakistan that, in the wake of the 1998 nuclear tests and relatively short-lived outrage amongst nonproliferation advocates, Washington has begun courting New Delhi as a strategic partner against both anti-western radical Islam in southwest Asia and against China in east Asia.

                The issue for the United States in the coming decade is not one of whether to lean towards one side or the other but rather, how to balance a variety of U.S. national security interests that are primarily global in scope but that have elements connected to South Asia. This is easier said than done. Even if the United States does not explicitly express a preference for one state or the other over time, both states will perceive that favouritism exists. This will be particularly true in Pakistan, which views India as its primary security threat. India will be concerned not just about U.S. policies towards Pakistan but also about US policy towards China. In fact, New Delhi has and will continue to push for a de-linking of U.S. policy towards India from that towards Pakistan in part, because of New Delhi's desire to be seen as a player on the larger global stage. Some key U.S. think tanks are also recommending that the new administration de-couple India and Pakistan Policy.2 While this type of recommendation appears sensible on the surface, it is too simple a construct to apply. In some interest areas, U.S. policy will indeed have to treat India and Pakistan differently. The U.S. simply has different interests to pursue with each country in areas such as democracy, terrorism, and stability in the Persian Gulf. However in other areas, such as nuclear nonproliferation and particularly in crisis stability, policies towards the two must be inextricably linked. Again, the difficulty is balancing these various interests and the policies pursued in advancing them. This article outlines U.S. interests that have relevance for South Asia over the coming decade. It then analyses their intersections and speculates on what the Bush administration's priorities will be in pursuing these various interests.  

U.S. Interests and Strategy since the End of the Cold War  

The end of the Cold War competition with the Soviet bloc forced the United States to consider anew its national security interests, the potential threats to those interests, and its grand strategy. In large part, two events in the early 1990s set the tone for this reconsideration. The first was Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. assembling and leading a coalition to reverse that invasion, and the discoveries by the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) of the extent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes. The second event was the ongoing turmoil in the Balkans, culminating in the Dayton peace accord and the deployment of U.S. military forces, under a UN mandate, as part of a peace-keeping force in Bosnia. More recently, the use of  NATO airpower and the deployment of peacekeepers in Kosovo have underscored the fact that the United States will continue to be drawn into regional conflicts in certain areas of the globe.

                The reassessment resulted in a newly articulated U.S. national security strategy that eschewed a clear list of national interests. Instead, it put forward a laundry list of challenges to U.S. national security, including ethnic conflict, proliferation of WMD, large-scale environmental degradation, and population growth. Under the rubric of "engagement and enlargement," the strategy sought to sustain American security with military forces that were ready to fight, bolster America's economic revitalization, and  promote democracy abroad.3 As might be expected in such a public document, hard choices were not identified, nor were conflicts noted among particular goals. The long lists of areas of interest and policies in the succeeding documents made identification of priorities difficult.

                However, the military strategy (which emerged from a first year defense review) that supported this national security strategy was clearer. It focused, in the first part of the 1990s, on two sets of issues. The first was preparedness to fight and win a major regional war in both the Persian Gulf (basically a repeat of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait) and on the Korean peninsula. The assumption in these scenarios was that potential adversaries would consider early and extensive use of WMD to offset U.S. conventional military prowess, given the lessons of Operation Desert Storm. The second set of issues was a preparedness to assist in lesser contingencies, often involving peace enforcement, peace-keeping, and/or the delivery of humanitarian assistance. These missions were considered secondary and would be dropped if necessary if both major regional contingencies occurred simultaneously or required assets tied up in peace-keeping activities.

                Throughout the course of the 1990s, it became clear that requirements for fighting and winning two major theatre wars, at least within acceptable risk levels, exceeded existing capabilities, particularly if the pace of secondary operations such as peace-keeping was high. The second Clinton administration defense review, the Quadrennial Defense Review made four significant changes to U.S. military strategy. First, it lowered requirements. U.S. forces were required to fight and win two major theatre wars (MTWs) nearly simultaneously; in other words, sequentially. Second, it de-emphasized U.S. involvement in peace-keeping missions. Third, the strategy began to include the potential of a near peer competitor arising that could challenge the United States directly in the mid-term against which the United States must hedge with research and development. Although not stated explicitly, this potential competitor is widely assumed to be China. Finally, it began to emphasize more starkly the dangers of asymmetrical warfare against the United States in both the potential regional contingencies and other instances as well.

Basically, the strategy recognized what potential adversaries of the United States realized following the Gulf war - that no state in the near to medium term could match America directly through force of conventional arms. Potential adversaries, therefore, began concentrating even more heavily on developing asymmetrical strategies, including terrorism, the use of WMD, and the possibility of using cyber attacks to counter the United States' high technology edge. The U.S. experience in Mogadishu in 1993, where it lost eighteen of its most highly-trained soldiers to militias in a highly chaotic street battle, also heightened awareness in Washington that high technology and airpower would not suffice to meet all the challenges in the future.5 It also lessened the U.S. taste for engaging heavily in multilateral peace-keeping and peace enforcement operations, causing strategists to look elsewhere for new missions for the U.S. military. Of course, despite this dislike for such missions, the U.S. continued to become involved due to its own view of the requirements for global leadership and, in cases like Kosovo, the need to preserve the credibility of the NATO alliance.

Once beyond the two major theatre wars, the focus of national military strategy has become one of countering asymmetrical threats, including attacks on the U.S. homeland. Terrorist attacks on U.S. forces abroad, like the bombing at the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996, heightened awareness of how exposed U.S. forces and installations were when conducting forward presence missions. Improved ballistic missile capabilities by potential adversaries who might be involved in MTWs - namely Iran and North Korea - heightened concerns about proliferation of both WMD and missile delivery capabilities. As mentioned above, the continuing revelations by UNSCOM throughout the 1990s about Iraq's capabilities shocked even the United States.

On the diplomatic side, the end of the Cold War and improving relations with Russia gave impetus to both the arms control and nonproliferation agendas, complementing in many ways the military concern with WMD. The end of the Cold War competition meant to many that strategic weapons in the arsenals of both the United States and Russia could be reduced significantly, thereby living up to the requirement in the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty for nuclear weapons states to take effective measures to end the nuclear arms race.6 In addition, the demise of the Soviet Union brought about a renewed concern about proliferation of nuclear weapons capabilities because Ukraine, Belarus, and Khazakstan all had the potential to become nuclear weapons states by retaining portions of the arsenal of the former Soviet Union that were deployed on their soil. The success in getting these three states to forgo retention of nuclear arsenals encouraged nonproliferation advocates in Washington, leading them to push the broader nonproliferation agenda more vigorously.

                This focus on nonproliferation was kept at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy for much of the Clinton administration. However, a rigorous nonproliferation policy has not commanded enough bipartisan support in the U.S. to make it the singular focus of U.S. foreign policy. A quick example of countervailing pressures can be seen in the case of China. While Beijing was clearly engaging in activities that ran counter to U.S. nonproliferation policies, including the transfer of both missile and nuclear technology to Pakistan, other U.S. interests with China, such as trade and the desire for strategic stability in the Taiwan Strait, kept this issue from dominating the relationship. Moreover, despite the longstanding U.S. interest in nonproliferation, it is a difficult policy to pursue in a universal manner.

In fact, historically the U.S. has never pursued an undifferentiated nonproliferation policy, particularly on the nuclear front. While initially the United States had some moments of high-mindedness, such as the placing of all nuclear capabilities under international control through the Baruch plan in the early days of the Cold War, realpolitik has always been part of nonproliferation policy. In fact, some analysts and historians argue persuasively that the Baruch plan was not as high-minded as it seems in retrospect and was in fact designed to constrain Soviet and nascent Chinese nuclear capabilities while preserving the U.S. monopoly on the technology to produce nuclear weapons.7  

U.S. Interests and Strategy - Priorities of the Bush Administration  

After an extended dispute over the U.S. presidential election, Texas governor George W. Bush was ultimately declared the winner. Now seven months into his administration, the broad outlines of a new U.S. national security and foreign policy are emerging. The extended transition initially slowed consideration of many issues, but the Bush team now appears to be on track. However, like many new administrations, including those who take over from a different political party, the Bush foreign policy team is discovering that there are limits to how much it can break from the policies of its predecessor. Despite the constraints of budgets, allies, and difficult situations in various parts of the world, the Bush administration has articulated some clear and clean breaks from the past.

The first area of emphasis for the Bush administration is on developing and deploying a missile defense system designed first and foremost to protect the United States from what Washington sees as a growing ballistic missile and WMD threat from a small number of hostile states including Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Over the past seven months, the administration has broadened this vision and begun talking about a missile defense system that could also cover U.S. allies and perhaps even friends. As part of this effort, it has been made clear that the United States will either withdraw from or substantially modify the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. This indicates continuity with the Clinton administration in terms of the focus on WMD but a different way of approaching it - through an emphasis on unilateral military capabilities vice multilateral regimes or agreements.

Second despite some false starts and protests from friends and allies, the Bush administration has continued to say that it will reduce, to the degree possible, U.S. military involvement in operations other than war - in other words peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations.8 Instead, in the near-term the military will focus its energies on deterring major theatre wars and preparing to fight and win them should deterrence fail. Interestingly, the focus on major theatre wars remains for the near-term, but the Clinton administration requirement to fight two nearly simultaneously has been dropped, in large part to free up resources for missile defense and what has been termed "transformation" -- the changing of the military to be better prepared to deter and fight future conflicts.

This is the third difference -- an increased focus on reorienting the U.S. military, in terms of both strategy and capabilities, for future contingencies. While all of the official reviews are not yet done and a formal, Congressionally mandated defense strategy document has yet to be published, the outlines of such a reorientation are becoming clear. Again, missile defense as part of a broader emphasis on defending U.S. territory is going to reap many resources in the revamped strategy and defense budget. This will be part of a focus on countering asymmetrical threats (seen as the threat of the future), ranging from weapons of mass destruction to terrorist strikes to cyber attacks. In addition, the military is going to focus on developing capabilities that would enable it to deter and if necessary dominate any strategic competitor that could arise in the medium to long term. The claim by President Bush during the campaign that the military is going to skip a generation of weapons systems now appears to be a bit hyperbolic, but the Pentagon will be devoting significantly more resources to research and development on new capabilities and systems.

As outlined briefly above, under a Bush administration countering WMD is seen primarily as a defense task, and a critical one in three areas of concern: MTWs, use by rogue states or non-state actors, and potential use by a future peer competitor. WMD should be deterred, countered, defended against. Nonproliferation policy, while a complement to what in the U.S. Pentagon has termed "counter proliferation" is not likely to command as high a priority in a Bush administration. As part of the refocus, the Bush administration has made it very clear that it does not support certain elements of the global nonproliferation regime pushed by the Clinton administration and associated arms control agreements, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the U.S. Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. While a Bush administration understands, like all U.S. administrations since World War II, that it serves U.S. interests for fewer states to have nuclear weapons, broad nonproliferation policy is being supplanted by one that focuses on states who have ongoing quarrels with the United States and are seeking to acquire nuclear capabilities. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea top this list.

In sum, the national security strategy of the Bush administration, with its underlying military strategy, is focusing on preparing for a major theatre war, countering asymmetrical threats to the U.S., its deployed forces and its allies, and preparing for a future peer competitor. In all of these areas, weapons of mass destruction are an important component. Such a set of strategies is being accomplished by changing the focus of military spending and operations to de-emphasize U.S. participation in peacekeeping and crisis management operations. In addition research and development on countering weapons of mass destruction and other asymmetrical threats is being increased, even at the expense of replacing current generations of weapons that are becoming obsolete. On the diplomatic front, the administration is emphasizing relationships with traditional allies (although not without some setbacks in areas such as the environment) and appearing to promote unilateral action, or at most action in concert with a few traditional allies, when crises occur. It is, putting less stock in arms control treaties and multilateral legal undertakings, preferring unilateral adjustments of capabilities perhaps combined with broader transparency measures.    

Implications for U.S. Policy Towards South Asia  

While the above is an admittedly broad brush outline of U.S. interests and strategies under the Bush administration, it is not difficult to see how such a set of interests and policy priorities will affect U.S. relations with both Pakistan and India. Obviously, the U.S. has ongoing relations and interests that are specific to both Pakistan and India, and these will not suddenly be forsaken. However, they will be pursued in the context of, and be influenced significantly by, these higher order interests and policies.

On the military side, the United States will focus on deterring and preparing for a major theatre war, either one on the Korean peninsula or in the Persian Gulf. Neither India nor Pakistan plays a significant role in the U.S. focus on these near-term contingencies or preparations to address them. Korean contingency is remote both geographically and politically from South Asia, and the only connection would be the use of U.S. assets prepositioned on ships based in the Indian Ocean or the transit of the Indian Ocean by U.S. navy forces on their way to the Pacific theatre.

In a future conflict in the Persian Gulf, neither Pakistan nor India is likely to be a direct player. While an improved overall relationship with Pakistan may assist the reputation of the United States with Islamic countries generally, other variables will have a much greater impact on that issue including progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process (should it ever resume). It could be argued, perhaps, that Pakistan's support for the Taliban in Afghanistan keeps Iran off-balance and reduces the likelihood that they would directly challenge U.S. interests in the Gulf, but again other factors (U.S. military capabilities, Iranian domestic politics) will have a much greater influence on decisions in Tehran. Finally, the prospect that Pakistan could or would provide military capabilities in the Gulf that would cooperate with U.S. forces in deterring adventurism by either Baghdad or Tehran is highly unlikely. First, the U.S. Pakistani relationship is simply not at that point currently and has many issues to resolve. Second, given other concerns, particularly India, Iran, and instability in Afghanistan, it is unclear whether Islamabad would have any interest in filling this role. Finally, it is unclear whether the Gulf states would currently be willing to have substantial numbers of Pakistani troops on their soil for extended periods of time.

                India's role in either preventing or participating in any future Gulf conflict is unclear at best. While India has a growing economic interest in seeing that the free-flow of oil from this region remains steady, its political and military ability to contribute to this goal is extremely small in the near to medium term. Indian development of a true blue water navy capability is years off, and even if the next cruise of the Indian aircraft carrier were to the Persian Gulf, it would not have a measurable impact on stability in the region. In terms of U.S. policy, relations in the region are complex and strained enough without Washington bringing in another player with potentially divergent points of view and an ongoing antagonistic relationship with an Islamic country - Pakistan. The U.S. has a complex enough task in figuring out how to achieve its goals vis-a-vis Iran and Iraq, keep relations on keel with Saudi Arabia and other key GCC states, and facing down the political challenges from Baghdad and Tehran without adding New Delhi to its calculations in the Gulf.

                For the United States, the other link to Pakistan and India that relates to a potential major theatre war in the Persian Gulf region is the concern about terrorism in the Middle East. As noted in the U.S. State Department's latest publication on terrorism, Washington is concerned about terrorism emanating from two regions - South Asia and the Middle East.9 The trail of evidence on the bombing of the USS Cole has only reinforced this concern, as it appears likely that the perpetrators have links back to Osama bin Laden, who is currently residing in Afghanistan.10 As noted in the State Department report, increasingly terrorist organizations from the two regions are linked. The issue of terrorism for the United States is twofold. First, it is an asymmetric strategy that adversaries can use against the United States homeland and against deployed forces and U.S. installations worldwide. Second, terrorist attacks against U.S. forces deployed in the Persian Gulf region are a direct attack on the U.S. strategy for deterring and preparing to fight a future war in that region. While terrorist attacks, like that on the Cole, will not drive the U.S. from the region, they may threaten host governments enough to cause them to rethink their willingness to allow U.S. forces to be based on, or deploy to, their territory.

Therefore, combating terrorism is likely to remain at the top of the national security and diplomatic agenda for the Bush administration. For Pakistan, this means that the United States will continue to press it to be less sympathetic to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It will also expect Islamabad to use whatever leverage it has to press for the extradition of bin Laden to the United States or a third country were he could be prosecuted. For India, the focus means that Washington and New Delhi will have a topic that at least generically they can discuss - terrorism in and emanating from South Asia. However, this discussion will not become a core element in U.S.-Indian relations and practical limits to U.S.-Indian cooperation on this topic will quickly become evident. On the U.S. part, its focus is on terrorist activity that may be based in South Asia (specifically Afghanistan) but that is carried out elsewhere. New Delhi's focus, not surprisingly, is on Kashmir. While it will delight in U.S. pressure on Pakistan on any and all issues, New Delhi will limit Washington's involvement in events on the ground in Kashmir.

A second U.S. focus in the coming decade, preparing for a potential peer competitor in the medium term, could potentially have an impact on Washington's relations with both India and Pakistan. Since it is widely recognized that this potential competitor is China, the relationship of both Islamabad and New Delhi to Beijing will come into play. This focus, however, should not be over-emphasized. While a Republican administration will likely be somewhat tougher on Beijing in certain areas such as relations with Taiwan and proliferation, it will not be declaring China an enemy or be constructing a containment policy anytime soon. No consensus exists on the proper policy towards China in the United States. Even with a Republican-controlled White House and (half of) Congress, China policy will remain a mix of engagement, competition, and some defense preparation for something worse. For this reason, hopes by some analysts in both Washington and New Delhi that the two will work together to contain China is fanciful at best.11 In fact, if the United States ever decided to attempt to contain the growth of Chinese power, then East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) would be the focal point rather than South Asia.12

For India, this U.S. policy of engaging but also hedging with Beijing may prove frustrating. Washington is going to have significant issues with Beijing in the coming decade, not least of which are Taiwan and the construction by the United States of a missile defense system. Those front burner issues, combined with the worry about China's potential as a global adversary, will mean that Washington will continue to consider Beijing more important than New Delhi. It will continue to consider the impact of its policies on China before it will consider their impact on India. For example, in the case of missile defense decisions, the U.S. understands, and may take some minor steps to ameliorate, Chinese worries about missile defense deployments. The fact that Chinese responses to a U.S. missile defense deployment, including modernization and expansion of its nuclear arsenal, has a domino affect on India's nuclear thinking will be recognized but will be much lower on Washington's list of worries, if it appears at all. All of this despite the relatively kind words that New Delhi had about President Bush's statements on missile defense and the highly publicized trip by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to India to consult on these issues.

For Pakistan, Washington's policies on China are likely to continue to be focused on technology transfer in the WMD area. The Bush administration will be tougher rhetorically on Beijing about the transfer of either nuclear or missile technology to Pakistan and elsewhere. It will draw brighter lines about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable, and it will be less likely to accept vague assurances from Beijing. That said, it will still remain a difficult issue, and Washington's leverage with Beijing will continue to be limited. In particular, however, the Bush administration will be eager to ensure that China does not proliferate missile capabilities that could defeat future U.S. theatre or national missile defense systems. This means that any suspected future transfer of missile technologies to Pakistan will come under significant scrutiny. If evidence of such transfers is found in the future, it is likely to be harder on Pakistan than on China simply because of the disparity in U.S. interest in the two states and because the United States has more potent sanctions it can apply to Islamabad without significant repercussions in the U.S.

The more general U.S. concern about weapons of mass destruction in South Asia under the Bush administration will have two areas of focus. The first area will be ensuring that the nuclear and missile capabilities in both Pakistan and India do not proliferate further, either to other states or to terrorist organizations. This means that the focus will be on the export control policies of Islamabad and New Delhi and on the physical safety and security of their nuclear arsenals. This concern meshes nicely with the second likely area of focus - that of lowering the chance that nuclear weapons would be used in any future conflict. Achieving both of these goals requires more detailed discussions with both countries about the development of their nuclear doctrines and arsenals and a corresponding lowering of pressure on them to reverse their programs and give up their nuclear capabilities. Bush administration official have suggested that the United States should change its focus and cease trying to get India to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.13  This does not mean that a Bush administration will openly accept India and Pakistan as nuclear weapon’s power,but will, however, be less shrill in its denunciation of the 1998 tests and more pragmatic in its approach to nuclear developments on the subcontinent This will all come as part of a policy of renewed engagement with both India and Pakistan and a further easing of sanctions that were imposed after the 1998 nuclear tests.  

Conclusions  

Despite seven months in office, the Bush administration has yet to outline a comprehensive and coherent set of foreign policy goals for South Asia. However, statements by incoming officials who will be responsible for the region and actions like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Henry Shelton's July 2001 visit to India show that it will have at least, a different tone from that of the Clinton administration. In fact, General Shelton followed up hints by other administration officials that the U.S. sanctions on India initiated after the May 1998 nuclear tests might be lifted in the near future.14 It is likely that similar sanctions may also be eased for Pakistan although the issues for Islamabad are a bit more complex because of the coup and some U.S. policy and legal requirements for a return to democracy before certain restrictions can be lifted. This is in line with statements by key administration officials that sanctions will not be utilized as frequently as a tool of policy and that they will be applied only when they have a good chance of success.

Taking as a starting point the broad goals, interests, and strategies laid out by the Bush administration in its first seven months, one can begin to see how U.S. interests and strategies will affect U.S. relations with Pakistan and India. Despite early visits to India and diplomatic interaction with Pakistan, both states should not expect that they would be among the highest priorities for the Bush administration. They likely will be dealt with in the context of higher priority interests areas, including concern about major theatre wars, countering asymmetrical threats to the United States, and preparing for a potential future global adversary. This is not to say that India and Pakistan will be ignored or that a Bush administration will not be mindful of the unique historical, cultural, and political context in which Washington relates to Islamabad and New Delhi. It simply means that Islamabad should not expect some renewed special relationship like that during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and New Delhi should not expect a Bush administration to attempt to build a new strategic partnership between the United States and India. In this sense, it is unlikely that any actual tilt will occur towards either state.

Washington will be taking a more traditional view of national security and foreign policy over the next four years, focusing on issues that fundamentally affect the security of the United States, its treaty allies, and its traditional friends. For Islamabad, this means a continuing focus on international terrorism and what the government of Pakistan can do to address Washington's desire to get at Osama bin Laden and hem in terrorist training and planning activities that take place in Afghanistan. A return to democracy will be a continued requirement due to legislative strictures, but a Bush administration is likely to be relatively less concerned about a continuing behind-the-scenes role for the military once civilian rule is restored. On proliferation, the Bush administration will likely shift the focus to one of preventing further horizontal proliferation and possibly beginning to address crisis stability measures. For New Delhi, there will be interest by the Bush administration in seeing what broader cooperative activities can be started that address Washington's interests in both the Persian Gulf region and southeast Asia. However, the Bush administration is going to want specifics on what India can do for it before moving too far. As with Pakistan, Washington will likely be less concerned with pressing India to reverse its nuclear course and be more concerned with preventing further horizontal proliferation. Although New Delhi is likely to be less interested than Islamabad in discussing these issues, the Bush administration may also try to engage India in discussions about stabilizing measures to reduce potential problems of crisis stability in the future.

All of these areas, however, will come in the context of higher priority goals and interests for the United States. For good or for ill, South Asia is more likely to remain an object of policy than a subject of policy under the Bush administration.