Obama’s India visit will feed Pakistan’s sense of insecurity

When it comes to the United States, Pakistan is an oft-spurned lover. In Islamabad, no discussion about Pakistan-US relations can be complete without a blow-by-blow account of the occasions on which Pakistan, the supple and whimsical bride, has been left at the altar by the American groom — whose brooding machismo won’t allow it to commit to a long-term relationship.

Every time Pakistan has been in a jam with India, the US has chosen to look the other way. Pakistan’s grouses with the US can be acknowledged by everyone under the sun, but that acknowledgement won’t change US’ interests in India.

Pakistani complaints about how it is treated by the US have come to constitute the very foundation of Pakistan-US relations.
The real fuel to the fire that is burning a hole in the hearts and minds of Pakistanis (the hearts and minds that US public diplomacy laboriously strives to win) is the blossoming courtship between the US and India. As fading global American power seeks anchors in an increasingly multipolar world, the growing perception that India — despite all its attendant and existential challenges — is going to be a vital economic power in the world, draws great attention in Washington DC.

The US-India relationship, in the epic words of Right Said Fred has “legs that go on for miles and miles.” India’s place in the American calculus is stable, sustainable and deep-rooted. Why? Primarily because American interest in India is driven by qualities that India wants to be known for — trade, commerce, innovation, creativity, and enterprise. The dominant narrative of India in the US is one of economic potential and hope. Pakistani envy at the strong roots of this organic relationship is understandable.

America’s interest in Pakistan is not driven by qualities that any country wants to be known for — terrorism, poverty, instability and conflict. The dominant narrative of Pakistan in the US is of insecurity and fear.

Pursuing Indian hegemony in South Asia by economic, social and political means is but natural. Deepening those natural advantages is also consistent with the theme of a “natural alliance” between the US and India. However, there are limits to the utility of this depth. US-Indian defence cooperation, which has steadily increased over the last decade, is approaching something of a new dimension.

US officials speak of US military sales to India not just as commercial transactions, but rather as strategic choices, that enable cooperation and mutual areas of interest like counterterrorism, maritime security, and proliferation issues. They talk of wanting to facilitate technology transfers through more licenses, and through relaxing export controls.

India is on the cusp of acquiring 10 C-17 military transport aircraft and hundreds of engines and other spare parts at a cost of $5.8 billion. Two US firms are the front-runners for the $10 billion contract for 126 fighter jets that the Indian air force is buying.

Those planes aren’t being bought to assert air superiority over Nepal or the Maldives. Those noses mostly point westward, to where I live along with 180 million Pakistanis. They make me nervous. I can only imagine how nervous they make the boys in khaki in Rawalpindi. That nervousness has been at the beating heart of Pakistan’s behaviour in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, and allegedly in other places where former or current proxies of Pakistani policy have struck.

Some of the insecurities Pakistan harbours are natural, and will not go away. Forever the smaller nation carved out of what Sardar Patel lamented was the vivisection of Mother India, Pakistan needs to sustain an out-sized influence in the region in order to construct a national narrative of stability and security.

India’s ambitions and the US appetite to whet and feed that ambition in terms of defence and security cooperation constitute unnecessary stimulants for Pakistani insecurity. The US is routinely clobbered by Indians for providing military aid to Pakistan that Indians claim will be used against India. For Indians to make this complaint as India buys US hardware expressly to counter whatever meagre (relatively speaking) resources Pakistan invests on its border with India is beyond just schadenfreude.

It is fundamentally counter-productive to Indian national security. We have already seen the impact that Pakistani insecurity, whether real or imagined, can have on India, on the region, and beyond. If US-India defence cooperation stimulates further insecurity in Pakistan, why should we expect anything different?

The bitter truth is that there is no weapons system that the US can sell, no assurance that the US can provide and no warm embrace that the US can grip either country with that can make a transformational difference to national security in either Pakistan or India.

That transformational change in South Asia can only be achieved through the realisation and pursuit of a natural alliance, much more organic and productive than the one India and the US pursue with each other. This is the natural alliance between Pakistan and India — two countries with shared language, culture, food, faith, and history. Two countries that are certainly on different trajectories, but that, by dint of geography and circumstance, share a common destiny.

Obama’s visit to New Delhi is a welcome sign that the US government is not oblivious to India’s importance. However, India’s true arrival as a global power will not be marked by any country’s leader visiting India. Instead, it will be marked by the reception an Indian leader gets in Pakistan. Only when Pakistan welcomes an Indian Prime Minister to Islamabad and Karachi with the kind of pomp and circumstance that Obama will be afforded in New Delhi and Mumbai will we know the true measure of India’s soft and hard power.

Mosharraf Zaidi served as a staff member and advisor to governments, multilateral organisations, and non-governmental organisations for nearly 15 years. He writes a column for The News in Pakistan