India, Pakistan and the US Pivot to East Asia

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-270114.html

There are many in Washington who would be quite pleased if India in failing to 'keep up' with China would be driven into the arms of the United States. This process has already been underway for some years. It would have probably happened sooner but for the policies of Indira Gandhi.

The US has long been dancing the delicate two-step between India and Pakistan, pretending to be friends with both and yet often stabbing Pakistan in the back. The Pakistanis have all but had it with their Washington 'allies', and it will be interesting to see if they tilt toward China in the coming years.

It was the foreign policy issues surrounding Pakistan in the 1970's that led to an open door between China and the United States. Both wished to back Pakistan contra India in the Bangladesh War. For the first time since 1949 the US and China found they possessed a common interest.

The US continued to support Pakistan especially under General Zia in the 1980's and of course after the death of Mao in '76 and the rise of Deng Xiaoping the world changed for China. It's not the same country anymore. The notion that it is still 'communist' has been an operative joke for thirty years. It's simply the name an authoritarian elite has chosen to retain.

But over the last decade the world has changed again and the US is in the process of creating a new Asian Front, a new Cold War. Pakistan stands to lose and 'the most dangerous country in the world' will become even more volatile if that's possible.

Will Pakistan in the 2020's be the Afghanistan of the 1980's? A nasty civil war with regional players involved? This time the US, India, China, Iran and Russia?

I hope not.

Post-Colonialism is still wreaking havoc. How many more fictitious countries will have to break apart? It's a near constant in Africa and the Partition of India is still proving one of the great disasters for world peace and geopolitical stability. Pakistan should have never been paired with what is today Bangladesh. But even within 'West' Pakistan we find a forced union, the cultures of Central Asia clashing with the world of the Indian Subcontinent. Jinnah's dream has failed.