Q&A
‘Intelligent Pakistani generals recognise India’s strength’ with Anatol Lieven, Chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King’s College, London analyses pressing geopolitics in his book Pakistan: A Hard Country.
As participants at the Bonn Conference pledged continued support to stabilising Afghanistan, Lieven spoke with Sameer Arshad about tense US-Pakistan ties, Afghanistan’s future – and how India-Pakistan dynamics might just pan out:
How will recent Nato airstrikes killing Pakistani troops impactUS-Pakistanrelations?
The attack on Pakistani troops does not transform the landscape between the US and Pakistan – but it marks further worsening of an already decaying relationship. There was never a chance that Pakistan would launch a military offensive against the Afghan Taliban or the Haqqani network, as the US was demanding. The key question now is whether Pakistan will continue its blockade of Nato supplies to Afghanistan. If so, there’ll be an end to US aid to Pakistan and increased US military pressure along the border. If not, the relationship will return to a troubled but partly cooperative state.
In the longer term, the question is whether the US will seek a peace settlement with the Afghan Taliban or commit itself to a permanent military campaign against them by the Afghan National Army – with Pakistan on the opposite side.
How different are the Afghan Taliban from the Pakistani ones?
The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are very close in their ideology but face different directions. The Afghan Taliban are fighting the US and the Karzai government in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban are seeking Islamist revolution in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban are a loose coalition of different groups, the Afghan Taliban are more united…
Pakistan will not get an Afghanistan wholly controlled by the Taliban and under Pakistani influence. The strength of non-Pashtun ethnicities and the US, India and Russia’s opposition make that impossible…But India is also unlikely to see a united Afghanistan under a friendly government which excludes the Taliban and exercises real authority in the Pashtun areas.
You’ve mentioned India – in your book, you write of a changed mindset amongst Pakistani generals vis-a-vis India. Could you elaborate?
There has not been any fundamental change among the vast majority. But some of the more intelligent Pakistani generals recognise that India’s growing strength – and their weakness – mean Pakistan cannot possibly prevail in this contest. Such figures may have a genuine will to seek compromise – as General Musharraf demonstrated after 2002.
If it proves impossible to persuade the high command to give up most of its positions on Kashmir, then they may be more flexible on secondary issues like Afghanistan.
Would the ISI let tensions with India cool?
The ISI is immensely powerful in areas where it has a direct role, like support for militants in India and Afghanistan…the ISI is not supreme within the military itself. It is subject to the high command and the other intelligence service, Military Intelligence, balances it. It would not be in a position to block the high command’s majority decision.
You say regarding Kashmir, India could get the greater part of what it has wanted by offering concessions – what does that involve?
Any settlement will have to recognise Indian sovereignty over the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and the LoC as an international frontier. This would mean on central issues, India had won. In return, as with the British in Northern Ireland, on every secondary issue – cross-border institutions, human contacts, trade, large-scale demilitarisation – India should be prepared to show the greatest possible flexibility. I don’t know whether this would work – but nothing else would.
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIBG/2011/12/09&PageLabel=16&EntityId=Ar01601&ViewMode=HTML
‘Intelligent Pakistani generals recognise India’s strength’ with Anatol Lieven, Chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King’s College, London analyses pressing geopolitics in his book Pakistan: A Hard Country.
As participants at the Bonn Conference pledged continued support to stabilising Afghanistan, Lieven spoke with Sameer Arshad about tense US-Pakistan ties, Afghanistan’s future – and how India-Pakistan dynamics might just pan out:
How will recent Nato airstrikes killing Pakistani troops impactUS-Pakistanrelations?
The attack on Pakistani troops does not transform the landscape between the US and Pakistan – but it marks further worsening of an already decaying relationship. There was never a chance that Pakistan would launch a military offensive against the Afghan Taliban or the Haqqani network, as the US was demanding. The key question now is whether Pakistan will continue its blockade of Nato supplies to Afghanistan. If so, there’ll be an end to US aid to Pakistan and increased US military pressure along the border. If not, the relationship will return to a troubled but partly cooperative state.
In the longer term, the question is whether the US will seek a peace settlement with the Afghan Taliban or commit itself to a permanent military campaign against them by the Afghan National Army – with Pakistan on the opposite side.
How different are the Afghan Taliban from the Pakistani ones?
The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are very close in their ideology but face different directions. The Afghan Taliban are fighting the US and the Karzai government in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban are seeking Islamist revolution in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban are a loose coalition of different groups, the Afghan Taliban are more united…
Pakistan will not get an Afghanistan wholly controlled by the Taliban and under Pakistani influence. The strength of non-Pashtun ethnicities and the US, India and Russia’s opposition make that impossible…But India is also unlikely to see a united Afghanistan under a friendly government which excludes the Taliban and exercises real authority in the Pashtun areas.
You’ve mentioned India – in your book, you write of a changed mindset amongst Pakistani generals vis-a-vis India. Could you elaborate?
There has not been any fundamental change among the vast majority. But some of the more intelligent Pakistani generals recognise that India’s growing strength – and their weakness – mean Pakistan cannot possibly prevail in this contest. Such figures may have a genuine will to seek compromise – as General Musharraf demonstrated after 2002.
If it proves impossible to persuade the high command to give up most of its positions on Kashmir, then they may be more flexible on secondary issues like Afghanistan.
Would the ISI let tensions with India cool?
The ISI is immensely powerful in areas where it has a direct role, like support for militants in India and Afghanistan…the ISI is not supreme within the military itself. It is subject to the high command and the other intelligence service, Military Intelligence, balances it. It would not be in a position to block the high command’s majority decision.
You say regarding Kashmir, India could get the greater part of what it has wanted by offering concessions – what does that involve?
Any settlement will have to recognise Indian sovereignty over the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and the LoC as an international frontier. This would mean on central issues, India had won. In return, as with the British in Northern Ireland, on every secondary issue – cross-border institutions, human contacts, trade, large-scale demilitarisation – India should be prepared to show the greatest possible flexibility. I don’t know whether this would work – but nothing else would.
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIBG/2011/12/09&PageLabel=16&EntityId=Ar01601&ViewMode=HTML
if u know
Now since the whole world knows the games being played by the ISI in sponsoring terror in India as well as Afghanistan, especially through their notorious 'S' Wing, why doesn't Pakistan have the courage to admit it openly? 
