U.S. Needs New Effort to Ease Indian-Pakistani Tensions, CFR Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States needs to begin a long-term diplomatic effort to help India and Pakistan resolve their long-standing dispute over Kashmir — a region that has the potential to become a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed rivals, according to a Council on Foreign Relations report released today (see GSN, Oct. 22).

The report, prepared by a CFR task force that included former U.S. Ambassador to India Frank Wisner and former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Nicholas Platt, outlines several recommendations by which the United States can help India and Pakistan resolve the Kashmir dispute and reduce regional tensions. The report also sets out a number of recommendations for new U.S. policies toward India and Pakistan individually to help improve bilateral relations and to help resolve U.S. national security concerns posed by the region.

“After a half century mainly on the periphery,” the report says, India and Pakistan “have become far more important for U.S. national security interests.”

In its report, the CFR task force called on the United States to begin a long-term diplomatic effort to “assist — not to mediate or arbitrate” India and Pakistan’s dispute over Kashmir.

“Given the fact that India and Pakistan are now nuclear armed, the possibility of a conflict involving the first use of nuclear weapons since 1945 remains all too real. To date, neither government appears to have made the political decision that its national interest would be served by movement toward genuine detente and a Kashmir settlement — except on its own terms,” the report says.

To help launch a bilateral process to resolve the conflict, the United States should urge Pakistan to permanently prevent cross-border terrorism and to modify its current negotiating stance with India — a stance that sets progress on the Kashmir dispute as a precondition for working on other Indian-Pakistani issues, the report says.

With regard to India, the United States should urge New Delhi to “reach an understanding” with the regional Kashmiri government and increase economic development in the region, the report says. It also recommends that the United States call on India to reduce the level of its military forces in the region and improve their human rights records.

In addition, the United States should also call on India and Pakistan to begin broader nuclear discussions “without holding these to progress on the Kashmir dispute,” the report says, adding that such talks should include discussion on the establishment of nuclear risk reduction centers. During a speech earlier this month at the Middle East Institute in Washington, South Asian expert Michael Krepon also stressed the need for Pakistan to cease viewing nuclear discussions as a bargaining chip in the Kashmir dispute (see GSN, Oct. 16). 

The report also calls for the United States to work to work India and Pakistan into the international nuclear nonproliferation regime and to pressure the two countries to implement stricter export controls to prevent nuclear proliferation.

“Any further leakage — such as the reported Pakistani assistance to North Korea’s uranium enrichment program — should have serious consequences for bilateral relations … and not be swept under the rug,” the report says.

In addition to providing recommendations on how the United States can help India and Pakistan resolve their dispute over Kashmir, the report also outlines measures to help Washington improve its individual relations with each of the two countries. 

Describing Pakistan as “one of the most complex and difficult challenges facing U.S. diplomacy,” the report calls on the U.S. Congress to approve a White House proposal to provide Pakistan with a five-year $3 billion economic and security aid package (see GSN, June 24). While the White House has proposed that the aid be divided equally between economic and defense aid, the CFR task force recommended that the aid package be slanted toward economic concerns — with two-thirds of the proposed funding provided as economic aid and one-third provided for security assistance. The report also recommends that any U.S. assistance to Pakistan over a “baseline” of $300 million annually for five years be conditioned on Islamabad implementing economic and political reforms and fulfilling nonproliferation responsibilities.

The report praised the growing improvement in U.S.-Indian relations, saying it “marks a major turning point.” To continue to improve relations, the United States should consider India a “friendly” country for the purpose of approving the export of controlled military items and should ease restrictions on U.S. dual-use exports to India. Washington should also increase its political, military and intelligence cooperation with New Delhi, the report says.

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