Nuclear weapons are not all. As Pakistan keeps independence next to India and Kitay
For over half a century, Islamabad has repeatedly entered various situational unions, at the same time managed to even change allies or be friends with representatives of hostile blocks during the Cold War. Pakistan is now a nuclear state and is at the intersection of a truly murderous geopolitical triangle.
No one undertakes to predict whether Pakistan will be able to turn between drops that have every chance of becoming radioactive, but focus examined Pakistan's path, which resists and continues to withstand powerful opponents. The most famous world public conflict with the participation of Pakistan is a dispute with India for the Jamma and Kashmir region. Pakistan himself was formed as the lands of the British colony, where Muslims lived compactly.
So all Pakistan became Muslim, but not all Muslim territories were part of it. Some of the territories were part of the states where Muslims were simply one of the minorities, in part, they were not compact enough, and in the principality of Jamma and Kashmir, despite the vast majority of Muslim population, the decision on self -determination was made by the elite. And more favorable conditions were offered to her by the Indian authorities.
This caused a civil conflict in which Pakistan intervened, which, for its part, led to a full interstate war between India and Pakistan during 1947-1949. The war ended with the UN intervention and the freezing of the conflict on the front line at the time of decision. In the region itself, the UN plan had to pass plebiscite on self -determination, which, as is often in world history in such cases, it did not happen.
After that, wars of varying degrees of intensity broke out in the region several more times. In 1963, there was an interesting case. Pakistan, in order to drag China to his side, gave him some of Jamma and Kashmir, where the population who professed Buddhism was compact, so it was culturally close to China. In the Chinese version, this region is called Aksay-Ci. So Islamabad involved China into this confrontation.
However, surprisingly, the conflict did not develop, and tensions in the region remained bilateral. The conflict between China and India occurred in the Ladakh region, which is also claimed by the PRC, but this is a completely different story.
According to Amita Kumar, the analytics of the Indo-Pacific Studies Program of the Institute of Taishashashashi, this step of Pakistan helped him in the war of 1965, when India, which at that time had a more powerful army, turned out to be drawn in maneuvers, fearing the opening of the Second Front, but in 1971 China took a neutral position, which led to catastrophic consequences for Pakistan, but later. In 1965, a new war broke out between India and Pakistan.
At that time, the Pakistan forces supported the Muslim uprising in Kashmir (Gibraltar Operation), but the fighting was quickly terminated by the decision of the powerful states. The UN Security Council issued resolution # 211, which obliged the parties to stop the fire immediately. The US and the United Kingdom ceased to supply the weapons to the parties to the conflict, and the USSR was a mediator. As a result, in January 1966, a peace agreement was signed in Tashkent.
Pakistan and India abandoned territorial claims and removed their troops from the controversial territory, but the world in the region lasted only five years. In 1974, India conducted a successful nuclear test (the operation was named "Buddha's smile") by entering the nuclear club. Pakistan has now led territorial contradictions with a nuclear state. Both countries began to be careful.
The situation was such that Pakistan had a more powerful army, but the enemy had a deadly weapon of mass destruction, so the complete defeat of India could no longer be dealing. Instead, the use of nuclear weapons against a neighboring state is a technically difficult solution. And it is the use of nuclear weapons in the offensive war - the function is more than controversial.
Still, the volume of the nuclear arsenal and the quality of its delivery, which India owned, did not make it a superpower, but rather gave some political advantages at the regional level. In the end, in its doctrine, India stated that nuclear weapons could only be applied in response to a nuclear blow to India itself.
That is, nuclear forces were not directed against Pakistan, who tried to demonstrate that he was not afraid of Indian nuclear weapons, having exacerbated in 1989, informally supporting the rebellion of Muslims in Kashmir, who declared falsification of the election by the Indian authorities in 1987. However, the escalation of the conflict was avoided. In 1998, a successful nuclear trial was already Pakistan, equalizing the strategic forces of both parties.
Almost immediately, Islamabad tried to use the newly received trump card. In the best traditions of the Cold War, Pakistan decided to use the proxy for its purposes. However, at the turn of the millennium, the situation has changed significantly. India not only established parity, but also began to ahead Pakistan as the quality and number of armed forces. And the war in 1999 demonstrated it. In the 21st century, the advantage of India.
India is now a developed economically nuclear state with a powerful army that holds a prominent place in world geopolitical schedules. India is claiming the world political pinnacle, in particular the place in the UN Security Council. Pakistan fights at least for maintaining the status of a regional leader. In addition to problems in the south, the northern borders of Pakistan are also restless.
Since 1947, disputes over the line of Duran - an internationally recognized border between countries that have not recognized Afghanistan - have continued between 1947. It is clear that Pakistan did not solve this problem far more weaker than the powerful empire. In particular, its population is united by the Islam of the Sunni direction, but it is not uniform ethnically. One of these large ethnic associations is Pushtuns who live in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the context of the civil war in Afghanistan, which has been going on since the 1970s, Pashtuns have become a good instrument of influencing events in a neighboring country, but over time, the processes of political influence went in a reverse direction. Problems began to come from Afghanistan to Pakistan. And this happened, in particular, with the support of Pashtuns. It was in their territory that the shelter # 1 in the world of Osama Ben Laden found the shelter.
According to the analyst from Karachi Tauseph Ahmed Khan, the life between the two fronts influenced the political development of the country. All power in the state was in the hands of the military. Since 1958, when, as a result of the military coup, the Commander -in -Chief of the Pakistani Army usurped the power of the incumbent president, all democratic procedures have become almost formality.
Sometimes democratic leaders came to power in the country, but they could only get fixed with the military. You can manage Pakistan only if you like the military. Well, if you also use folk support, but you can do without it, but the commitment of the military is a must -have element in the Pakistan system. The apogee of the power of the authorities of the military has already mentioned the proxy with India in 1999.
Then, after successful nuclear tests, the General Staff of Pakistan himself decided to conduct a military operation. The President of the country was not even aware. When, after the failure, he tried to encroach on the army hegemony, it ended with a military coup and ascension to the post of First Musaraff, the same Chief of General Staff, who essentially failed the latter at that moment a major conflict with India.
The dominance of the military expectedly led to the unhealthy roll in the country's budget in the article of defense expenditures. However, significant resources thrown into the military power of the country did not bring it not to safety at the borders, but did not even save its territorial integrity. In 1947, Pakistan went beyond internationally recognized borders, occupying part of Kashmir.
However, in 1971, another conflict with India for these lands led to the separation of Eastern Pakistan, where although Muslims lived, they considered themselves a different ethnic group, depressed by a military junta, which mainly consisted of natives of Western Pakistan. The question remains whether this crisis would arise if Pakistan went democratic. After all, after the bloody war, Pakistan lost his oriental lands, on which a new sovereign state - Bangladesh was proclaimed.
Although, on the one hand, territorial losses are always the failure of the strategic policy of any state, however, on the other hand, given the way of formation of states in British Hindustan (on the map simply drawn lines, not taking into account ethno-cultural features, but the very idea of the section The Hindustan in two states emerged at the late stage of the national liberation struggle on the basis of the conflict between the leaders of the national liberation movement), the process of Bangladesh formation can be considered a logical historical process, and not the result of decisions made in Islamabad.
However, whether it would happen without a series of military coups and invasion of Kashmir, it is difficult to say. It was likely that you could avoid bloodshed or at least minimize it. Permanent conflict with India, ambiguous relations with China and instability in the north, where he tried to spread the USSR, on which, for his part, India oriented in the Cold War, Pakistan pushed to rapprochement with the United States.
In the 1950s, Pakistan even joined pro-American security associations in Asia, Seato in 1954 and the Baghdad Pact in 1955. In Washington, without a special choice, they closed their eyes to the peculiarities of democracy in a country, which was perceived as an example of a moderate Muslim state. In 1971, Pakistan was a mediator in establishing a notorious diplomatic bridge of Nixon-Kissonger from the PRC. The paradox that was not supported by China or the US in the same year.
The result of the loss of the eastern lands has already been the result. Therefore, in the short term of the desired success, this seemingly historical role of Islamabad did not bring. Washington's cooperation became especially after the invasion of the USSR in Afghanistan in 1979. At that time, Pakistan became the logistics base of the United States in support of the Afghan resistance movement. A significant trump card in the conditions of enemy nuclear status.
At that time, few people paid attention that their militants also prepared a PRC in Pakistan. After the release of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the subsequent collapse of the USSR in Islamabad, even began to think about building their own geopolitical system in the region where Pakistan would take a prominent place.
The intelligence service of the country actively contributed to the formation on the basis of refugees with the destroyed war of Afghanistan the powerful power of resistance, youth movement of students of Islamic education, which became known as a Taliban in the world. In 1996, the graduates of the Pakistani Madras, mainly from the territory of Pushtuns, seized power in Kabul and quickly took control of almost all of Afghanistan.
Then the idea of building a gas pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistani ports on the Indian Ocean was relevant. In the future, this route had to develop a wider logistics corridor. In fact, Islamabad conceived a significant geopolitical turn. The new realities of international relations in Central Asia, the main designer and beneficiary of which Pakistan would have become, would be a logical completion of Islamabad's efforts over the last twenty years.
Since humiliation in the war in Bangladesh, Pakistan's military authorities have spread its attention to the north, became closer to the United States and succeeded there. However, this did not happen. If you look on the other hand, it was an ambitious plan for a regional country to expel one of the world's Hegemon from Central Asia - the Russian Federation, as it then also established relations with the new world leader in the United States.
Yes, Pakistan helped the United States in confrontation with the USSR in Afghanistan. The Policy Policy Employee in Tabadlab (Islamabad) Riaz Hohar notes that Washington Islamabad did not become a full ally of Washington. Pakistan constantly tried to follow his line, including China, occupying a softer position than the White House demanded. Islamabad chose a sovereign path and tried to fly to the top alone and as a result he was beaten by the fate of mythical Icarus.
The key link in the incredible Pakistan plan was the unstable Afghanistan, which at the end of the century also settled the leader of Al Caya, Osama Bin Laden. This became a significant factor in failure, since on September 11, 2001, Al Caida provoked NATO invasion of Afghanistan, which led to the collapse of the Taliban regime. Pakistan again became needed by the Western Alliance and even gave him some help, but not quite voluntarily.
It is interesting that after a successful nuclear test that would be the pinnacle of success for the country where the military is ruled, Pakistan has suffered two defeats in a row - on the battlefield with India and in international politics in Afghanistan. It began for Islamabad of the XXI century, which has not yet brought him anything good.
NATO policy in Afghanistan was not too successful, but in the context of a civilizational confrontation of radical Islam against the Western world, the Pakistani junta was between a hammer and a sledgehammer. The former adviser to Pakistan Hussin Nadim believes that the Pakistani authorities did not trust the Americans, which caused constant problems in cooperation between the two countries. To say that in the 150th-shaped poor country, radical ideas are popular-it is very mild to say.
On the other hand, the military, whom no one chose with NATO, whose civil society they still have a military junta. This state of affairs led to destabilization of the country. On the territory of Pushtuns, their talibs were used for raids on NATO contingent, whose top has been linked to Pakistana military intelligence since the war against the USSR, but who had already managed and managed who has become a difficult issue even for diplomats and special services of other states.
In such circumstances, Pakistan became vital for the support of a powerful state. And here he became useful for his ancient relations with the PRC. Dr. Nishank Motwani from the Middle East Institute of Harvard School Kennedy states that it was the PRC who played a crucial role in the development of nuclear weapons. Islamabad is unable to build his own logistics corridor trying to become a key element of the Chinese corridor to enter the Indian Ocean.
It is about the Chinese-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC). Its key element should be the Sinjiane-Gadar oil pipeline, which will bring China to the Indian Ocean, which in the face of China's confrontation with India for Beijing is quite relevant. It is enough to invest in a country that stands on the verge of decay. Since 2013, Beijing has invested $ 62 billion in this project.
The idea of building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan has been reviving recently, this time with the participation of the Russian Federation. This project is called Tapi.
For Pakistan's military power, the main advantage of cooperation with the Middle Kingdom is the same argumentation as for most participants in Bri initiative - the Chinese do not ask unnecessary questions about ways to keep power, the main thing is that they are reliable and the authorities provide stability in the country and create favorable conditions for Chinese economic residents.
When Pakistan gained statehood in 1947, he gave way to his neighbors and even India with China (in the latter then the civil war was raging at that time) only the size of the territory. Islamabad did not join any military-political alliances and tried to pursue a fully sovereign policy. A special type military dictatorship has been established in the country itself.
Publicly not always occupied by the military, and throughout Pakistan's history, there were quite long sections of peaceful coexistence of civilian governments, which relied on popular support with the military. Pakistan's international power was the conduct of nuclear tests in 1999 against the background of the seizure of power in neighboring Afghanistan, loyal to Pakistan. Then Islamabad even tried to become one of the world, at least regional centers of influence.
However, Pakistan for a long time was destined to be at the height of glory. The lack of a strong foundation in the country's power in a pile with a non-systematic international policy without any strategy has led to a stunning fall. Neither the socio-economic model of Pakistan nor his international politics justified.