Pakistan’s Future: Retrospective and Prospective – Stephen P. Cohen

Pakistan’s Future: Retrospective and Prospective – Stephen P. Cohen

The Regional Context

Interestingly, it was not until quite recently that there was serious research on violence in Pakistan’s environment. Whether one looks at internal order or relations between Pakistan and its neighbors, the evidence is that this is one of the most violent (or least peaceful) regions of the world. This the data is provided by the Global Peace Index (GPI), which characterizes South Asia as one of the most violent regions of the world, even more so when considered on a per capita basis.

According to the GPI, Southern Asia (including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) ranks 17 out of 19 of the UN defined regions, making it the third most violent region in the world. South Asia ranks behind Middle Africa and Northern Africa (GPI 2.387) as the “least peaceful” states; on the other end of the spectrum, Northern Europe ranks as the most peaceful with a GPI of 1.474. The index looks at domestic violence and the prevalence of violence between states, While one may quarrel with the definitions, the index does show trend-line for each state (and for pairs of states).

With four wars and frequent crises, India and Pakistan are right up there with the most dangerous pairs in the world, and the regional nuclearization raises the stakes should there be a new war or crisis. Pakistan itself is second only to Afghanistan in terms of violence; India comes in third, while the most peaceful South Asian state is Bhutan at 1.481. Former British India (today’s India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), has a GPI of 2.484; higher than that of even Northern Africa.

In my forthcoming book I also draw upon World Bank research that shows that South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. Common sense and academic theory tells us that regions that are well-integrated, with shared values and economic interests, are less likely to support conflict between their member states—and also that those states that are tied into the global economy are more likely to make their people prosperous.

Pakistan and India: contrast but similarities

This dangerous pair, India and Pakistan, have important similarities which makes their enduring rivalry even more tragic.

Both states aspire to a democratic order, which means that their governments, the press, and the political communities must balance the requirements of law and order with respect for individual liberties and freedoms. India, with its deeper tradition of judicial engagement, does this better than Pakistan, where the courts are again learning the importance of this balance; in years past the Pakistani courts rubber-stamped whatever the military and the security services asked for. This is changing, and it is both exciting and frustrating to see the Pakistani courts learning how to protect constitutional norms without interfering unduly in the law and order responsibilities of civilian governments. Of course, the greater learning process is going on within the army, and what Pakistanis call “the deep state,” which still writes its own laws and selectively engages with terrorists to suit its own views of who is a terrorist and who is serving the interests of the state. This approach is unsustainable, as I have told my friends in the Pakistan army “you cannot run Pakistan, but you won’t allow the civilians to run it either.”

Second, Pakistan, like India, must grapple with a federal system, where law and order issues are divided between the center and the provinces (or states in India). As in the United States this has raised enormous problems, as the states/provinces strongly resist central authority. In an autocracy this can be imposed—we have seen this in Pakistan during each spell of military rule, and in India during Indira Gandhi’s emergency; we also saw it in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; the chief lesson of history is that imposition from the center does not work over the long term as there are a thousand ways in which regional leaders can sabotage a diktat coming from on high. In the long run, central governments need the active support of provincial (or state) governments to succeed. They must build up and strengthen local police forces, local forces that know local problems.

We see the tensions in this process in both states. India has been unable to create a full-blown Homeland Security establishment, and is routinely frustrated by state resistance. In Pakistan the government in Islamabad must demonstrate that police reform (or expanding the power of the police) is not aimed at the army or the provincial governments, the failure of the army to establish order after it has cleared territory under the control of violent extremists is striking, and has its roots in the army’s historic resentment of alternative armed organizations, going back to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s still-borne Federal Security Force. The army holds that it must retain a monopoly of the legitimate use of force, but this is no solution: it degrades the army’s value as a fighting force and it breeds resentment against the army itself, it also makes the army reluctant to take on its own citizens, whether in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or the FATA.

Third, there is an Islamic dimension to the regional security problem. Why have we seen the radicalization of religion all over the world in the last twenty-plus years? In 1992 I predicted that both religious fanaticism and ethnic separatism would grow as a result of the decline in the appeal of communism to the angry and the dispossessed middle classes of the world. This has come about, not only in the Islamic world but in parts of the West, even in Jewish Israel, and in those parts of India, where Hindu extremism persists.

Today Pakistan is at the center of the resurgence of both radical Islamism and ethnic and linguistic separatism, the two combine in the shape of the TTP—the Tehreek- Taliban Pakistan. That their Islamic extremism is supported from the outside is well-known, and this is true of radical Islamic groups all over South Asia, notably in India, Bangladesh, and even Sri Lanka. In the case of Pakistan the civilizational divide between moderate and temperate Islam and the radical variety runs through the heart of the country, Samuel P. Huntington got it exactly wrong when he described a civilization boundary between Islamic Pakistan and Hindu India. Moderate Pakistan has more in common with India than with the radical Shi’ism of Iran or the Sunni al Qaeda.

Pakistan vs. India: a Hundred years’ War?

Pakistan and India were created as independent states in 1947. Unless something surprising happens, they will reach a hundred years in a state of war (either hot or cold), and the outstanding disputes between them will not be resolved. This is the subject of my forthcoming book, but there are worse outcomes than the continuation of the present rivalry. There are veto groups exist in both countries that will actively work to prevent normalization, whether over Kashmir, the lesser disputes (Siachen, Sir Creek, and the disposition of the Indus waters Treaty). Nor can any outside power broker a major agreement between the two countries. The United Nations, The United States, and the Soviet Union all tried at one time or another, none are willing to try again—it is up to Indians and Pakistanis to reach a strategic accommodation.

While it has been evident since 1947 that they have much to gain by cooperation, this has not happened to any significant degree. As I said, they are part of the least integrated region in the world, and their hostility is the main cause of this lack of economic, political, or commercial integration. Further, both countries are aggressively expanding their nuclear arsenals and delivery systems, a major war between the two would result in tens of millions of deaths and would doom them both to a wretched future.

On the plus side, recent agreements between India and Pakistan—reached without any outside pressure or encouragement—are very promising. This includes agreements over trade and visas for tourism and family visits. This is unprecedented, but only brings India-Pakistan relations back to where they were in the 1950s.

One of the motives (on the Pakistani side) for entering into these agreements was the deterioration of its relations with the United States over the last two years. I won’t go into the details, but revelations about American drone strikes, attacks, the raid on Abbottabad to seize Osama Bin Laden, and the actions of a CIA operative in Lahore all brought Pakistan’s relations with America to a major crisis. Both sides have now (late 2012) drawn back from the brink, but one strategic lesson of this year-long crisis was the Pakistan security establishment felt that it had to improve relations with New Delhi because the security community thought they were heading for an expanded crisis with American forces still based in Afghanistan.

Looking Ahead

Pakistan is politically important because it is going to be the world’s fifth largest state, it will have over a hundred nuclear weapons, because it is rich in internal problems, and because its environment is now so unsure. Looking ahead, the external chief danger to Pakistan could come from its entanglement in Afghanistan, where it has supported the Taliban for many years. With the partial American withdrawal scheduled for 2014, Pakistan has one year in which to decide whether it will support an integrated Afghan government (by pressuring the Taliban and other groups with roots in Pakistan to participate in a new coalition government), or whether it is prepared to back one side in a new civil war, with India possibly supporting non-Pushtun groups, as in the 1990s. This time, however, a new civil war might also draw in the United States and even China (let alone Iran and Russia), and the question is whether Pakistan will be alone in supporting one faction, while other Afghan groups, perhaps backed these four or five outside powers. Even then, victory for a Taliban government in Afghanistan could damage Pakistan; Islamabad have to manage the backlash of Taliban-like ideologies and forces within Pakistan itself, as is happening already. A less-likely but ideally the best future would be a coalition between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan as part of a larger regional settlement, where the two states would share the burden of maintaining order in Afghanistan and developing that state’s political and economic institutions. Both share the regional perspective of the old British Raj, yet they have rarely been able to act upon this common interest.

While developments in Afghanistan are of immediate importance, in the long run they are less important than trends in India-Pakistan relations. Working together in Afghanistan, and building on recent agreements, could lead to a “new normal” for India and Pakistan, despite their creeping nuclear arsenals. In fact, these arsenals might give each state the confidence to engage in normalization, and move on to a dialogue on such contentious issues as Kashmir and water resources. This now seems unlikely, given the weak political leadership in both countries and the existence of veto groups in each. As I said a few years ago, the two hardliner groups are the ISI in Pakistan and the Ministry of External Affairs in India, but I’d have to add the Indian army to this list, when it came to Siachin where it has publicly stated that it would oppose any compromise with Pakistan, and also the Indian Home Ministry.

While normalization would be desirable, there is also the possibility of a straight line projection of the last sixty five years into the future—an India-Pakistan rivalry without end, and the region remaining bogged down in a series of quarrels and mini-conflicts. I can see many Indians accepting this. New Delhi will just wait out Pakistan indefinitely, rather than accommodate either a civilian or a military regime that itself is unwilling to yield on its claims on Kashmir, on water, and on the status of Indian Muslims.

There is a worse future, however. In The Future of Pakistan I did not look out much further than 2016. I believe that Pakistan will muddle through for several years, but what comes after that? Apocalyptic scenarios abound: regional breakaway, civil war, sectarian violence that paralyzes the state, a miscalculated adventure against India (or against American forces in Afghanistan). All of these would take place under the shadow of a hundred-plus nuclear weapons; the theft or misuse of some of these weapons create still another range of nightmare scenarios.

As far as this scenario goes, India has the greatest stake in a normal and peaceful Pakistan. But does the Pakistani “deep state” want to be rescued—or does it believe that it can survive while remaining India’s long-term rival? Are there enough Indians who see normalization with Pakistan as important enough to forget (but not forgive) such recent traumas as Kargil and the Mumbai attacks?

While India has to decide how much it wants a normal Pakistan as a neighbor, Pakistan has to choose between being like an isolated and feared North Korea, or like a prosperous and secure South Korea. It could challenge India peacefully and economically, as South Korea has successfully challenged Japan, but a dead-end North Korea-like Pakistan will prompt many states, not just India, to move from a policy of alignment to one of containment. There are signs of a hostile policy towards Pakistan in the United States, in the past one of Pakistan’s greatest supporters. In the absence of American support can China substitute, as it has in North Korea? For a liberal, modern Pakistan, Chinese support in the absence of ties to America, India, and the West, is a dead-end policy.

While outsiders can offer advice and, when asked, assist Pakistan and India, in the end it is their responsibility to manage it wisely, Pakistan has the most to gain from a successful normalization process and, by far, the most to lose if it should once again break down.

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The author is Fellow at Brookings Institute (USA) and author of The Future of Pakistan (2011).