I take your case, since at the time of agression in '47, Kashmir was not a part of India.
Siachen was an unoccupied area, India chose to occupy it. Kargil OTOH was in the Indian side of the LoC, and the Pakistani Army chose to occupy the bunkers constructed by India! There is a major difference b/w Siachen and Kargil.
Malay,
My objective in pointing out India's aggression in 1971 and Siachen (semantics really when it comes to comparing it to Kargil since the entire territory is disputed, and Kargil was unoccupied at the time) is to point out that India has been the aggressor without provocation as well as Pakistan, not that India is to blame more than Pakistan. That therefore negates the entire premise the author uses to support his argument, and your point that I initially responded to, that a strong and stable Pakistan has 'always sought to undermine India'.
The 'undermining' has been done by both sides, with far more success by India. It is unfortunate that some actually continue to believe that a weak Pakistan is in India's interests - it unfortunately also validates a lot of suspicions Pakistanis have that India does not and will not accept a strong and prosperous Pakistan.
Hang on Agno, I disagree, Pakistan did not fulfill its own obligations as well-demilitarization. But lets assume that even if India chose to rule out the recommended legal and diplomatic solutions, does Pakistan get full authority to constantly try and change the status quo by force?
You said Pakistan's strategy regarding Kashmir has changed over the years. I ask you-how? They used irregulars and Army in '47, '65, '99, what was the difference? What was the change of strategy?
Therein lies the problem, had Pakistan not decided to use terrorists to put pressure on India, because it could not match India's military conventionally, such a situation would not have occured.
You are completely missing the point of having a large nation, even if divided right at the center. Then Pakistan would have truely been a counterweight to India, now its not.
I disagree that Pakistan did not fulfill its obligations. The posts in the UN resolutions thread indicate that Pakistan did indeed fulfill its obligations, and that it was in fact India that did not, as noted by the UN official's comments in that thread.
Pakistan had claim to the territory, it was recognized by the UN, and India chose to declare the issue closed unilaterally. What route did Pakistan have to claim what she believed to be rightful hers, when India closed all doors to a diplomatic and peaceful resolution? Remember that even now your country refuses to even officially recognize there is a dispute, let alone try to resolve it.
The situation in 47 was not similar to what occurred later on. In 47 the effort was initiated by the locals and the Tribals, with Pakistan stepping in, in terms of some material and organizational support, after the effort started (it was very limited and quite pathetic in fact, given the lack of resources, military and economic, that Pakistan herself faced in those early days). India was not involved at that point, and therefore the argument that it was a means to circumvent the relative strength of the Indian military is incorrect. Once India did militarily go into Kashmir, Pakistan also chose to send its Military in, so it in fact met the challenge head on.
With respect to the later efforts at helping start an uprising in Kashmir, one must understand that the objectives were to make Indian occupation both patently unpopular and expensive, not start a war. No sane individual seeks out war, and Pakistan was no exception. As I argued above, India had closed all doors to a diplomatic resolution of the dispute, and the support for the insurgency was an attempt to change that stalemate, while avoiding war.
Unfortunately it didn't work in 1965 (avoiding war), though it panned out in the second phase of the insurgency. Nonetheless, at this point I find overtly supporting a militant movement to be counterproductive, and its seems many in the Pakistani establishment are thinking along those lines as well.
Now about the larger nation - I do not think that mere territorial size lends to strength. Were the two wings not separated by a hostile nation, I would agree with you, but within the context of the geo-political dynamics of South Asia, Pakistan and Bangladesh are better off and more secure as independent nations.
