It's just a flesh wound

at TOI Indrani Bagchi

India betrayed an adolescent approach to foreign policy in this region, when foreign minister SM Krishna "welcomed" an $800 million cut in military aid by the US to Pakistan last week.

Talking to journalists he said, "With reference to the special circumstances between India and Pakistan, and how India has consistently taken the view that it is not desirable that this region had to be heavily armed by the US which will upset the equilibrium in the region itself, to that extent India welcomes this step."

That the comment was gratuitous was instantly evident. As a senior government official observed, "we appear to be rolling back our own stand on de-hyphenation." In the past decade, India has gone to great lengths to "de-hyphenate" itself from Pakistan. Foreign governments have repeatedly been beaten on the head when they attempted to link India with Pakistan. So for India to make that linkage was felt to be "unnecessary."

On the other hand, India has also repeatedly made the case to the US that its continued and increasing military aid to Pakistan was counter-productive both in the bilateral context with Pakistan and in the regional dynamic. Bilaterally, India's longer term strategic goal is to achieve "normal" relations with Pakistan. This has been clearly articulated by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh himself. That underlies the process of engagement currently on with Pakistan. "Engagement is a commitment to our shared geography. They have not done enough on terror. (But) We need to keep engaging them," he told editors recently.

US' military aid to Pakistan army makes this vision counterproductive. It keeps the Pakistan army on a seemingly permanent dose of "weapons-grade Prozac" in other words, it contributes significantly to a pervasive sense of denial in the military establishment. It not only allows the army to throw a spanner in the dialogue process with India as they did during the Krishna-Qureshi talks in Islamabad in July 2010, but perpetuates the feeling in the army that the Pakistan state is subservient to the interests of the army, notwithstanding all their recent comments to the contrary.

The weapons, and the money to buy them that the US has been funneling to Islamabad has, for long, been diverted from counter-terrorism activities to arm themselves against India. For Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf not only acknowledged it, but also justified it. This, in the view of Indian policymakers, inserts a wholly unnecessary element to the India-Pakistan dynamic. As former army chief General V P Malik said, "It's the misuse of the aid, which is used to augment their conventional war capability against India that makes such aid counterproductive."

Regionally, the weapons aid allows the Pakistan army to play its traditional double game with the Taliban and other terrorist groups. It allows them to divert their own funds towards build-up of nuclear weapons capability. Some Pakistan watchers have also accused the army of diverting funds to providing cover and help to terrorist groups. This is something the US too has had first hand experience of. Four bomb-making factories of the Taliban emptied out within days of the CIA notifying the ISI about their existence last month, according to reports. It led Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House of Representatives' powerful intelligence committee to say, "Pakistan needs to understand that there is no such thing as a good terrorist...They're playing this very dangerous game of destabilization by having elements of the ISI and the army sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida elements."

However, India's "welcome" of the aid cut may be premature, said officials. They observed that the US has only "held back" or deferred some of its military aid to Pakistan. According to reports of the US Congressional Research Service, within the 2010 supplemental appropriations, US Congress provided $349 million in military and economic assistance to Pakistan, $5 million more than what the Obama administration had asked for. In fact, if you add the "coalition support fund" military reimbursements, the US provided a total of $4.5 billion for Pakistan for 2010 alone. To add to this, in October 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced an increase in US foreign military financing for Pakistan to $2 billion over a five year period, a $100 million annual increase from the current level. This is yet to be approved by Congress.

(These statistics don't take into account covert USA military aid through secondary sources which began after the 1965 war, after the USA officially blocked certain types of military aid to Pakistan. Arms from the Vietnam war were diverted to Pakistan 1965--75, whilst Iran also played an important host as a secondary supplier to Pakistan up to 1979.......this covert military relationship has continued for 46 years, and NOW since 2001, a % of the logistics that are meant for the occupation forces which go through Pakistan are off loaded and given to the Pakistani military free for services rendered........so true USA military aid can be as high as $6/7 billion equal to or surpassing USA military aid to Israel !!!!!!!!! This aspect needs to be focused on by Delhi and analyzed.

Pakistan is a failed state that is over militarized thanks to the USA)

Therefore, the $800 million "cut" is actually less than a drop in the ocean. And the US state department has also confirmed that the aid would be restored once Pakistan takes some "corrective" steps. Pakistan understands what it takes for the US administration to turn the spigot back on. Sources here said, the ISI chief, Shuja Pasha's hurried trip to Washington this week was intended to start the process of repair.

Fundamentally, the US hasn't changed its view of the importance of military aid to Pakistan. There are already skeptics of the new US action against Pakistan. Daniel Markey of the Council for Foreign Relations said, "In the near term, this will complicate US counter-terror missions and the war effort in Afghanistan. Over the long haul, it increases the chances that we will face a nuclear-armed Pakistani state that is increasingly fragile and at odds with America."The Indian point of view may just be a voice in the wilderness.