Many Measures, No Confidence!

Customary shake, usual bake!

Raju Korti

Looked from any angle, Pakistan is a nation with the proverbial two sides of a coin. The Head is set face to face with India and the Tail invariably or variably – depending on political expediencies and the mood of its hardliner Army – facing the United States of America. That, of course, is peripheral to the issue in discussion.
The immediate trigger for this blog is yet another foreign secretary-level talks have gone through diplomatic charades and consigned  to the inconclusive and senseless dustbin of the turbulent history of the two nations constantly at each others’ throats. The diplomatic tenacity between the two countries has meandered through a series of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) that have done precious little to reduce fear of attack by both (or more) parties in a situation of tension with or without physical conflict.
History tells us that CBMs emerged from attempts by the Cold War superpowers and their military alliances -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact -- to avoid nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. In the Indo-Pak context, the CBMs haven’t had much of a connotation.
Among the scores of exchanges India has had with Pakistan, the closest one to have fructified was the Agra Summit in 2001 where, eventually, both the sides had veered round to the fact that Kashmir was the core dispute. But as it turned out, the wily Musharraf, who almost talked himself into an Indo-Pak extradition treaty during the course of the summit, left in huff and puff after Advani queered the pitch by throwing in the Dawood Ibrahim issue. I recall having seen on TV Musharraf turn red before coming out with “Advaniji yeh bahot chhota tactic ho gaya”.
Musharraf, who was yet to arrogate to himself the status of a CEO then, made a very pertinent suggestion on how the issue could be approached by eliminating irritants and zeroing in on the options that could be taken forward. It made a lot of political sense but India’s PR was a disaster and what could have otherwise ended as a watershed development in the chequered history between the two countries, reverted to status quo.
It is against this backdrop that the latest nuclear confidence-building measures have to be viewed as a stabilising force for enhanced security, and safety of nuclear facilities. The Track II process might be touted as “some success”, but in the endgame, its validity remains questioned.
An impressive range of CBMs – both military and non military – in the two decades have been overtaken by a Kargil in 1999, the massive mobilization of troops in 2002, and not to speak of the relentless terror unleashed from the Pakistani soil.
The air, road and railway linkages, the hotlines between the two countries have more or less come a cropper. The hotlines have been hardly used when required most and when matters came to the boil, it was saber rattling all the way what with the two countries staring at the horrific prospect of a nuclear war. The border crossings and trade has been almost next to nothing. There has been a specious argument in favour of a disproportionate emphasis on military CBMs with non-military CBMs not getting due appreciation.
Many CBMs originally crafted to address the stabilization between the two countries post the nuclear tests of 1998 remain only in the realms of “acceptance in principle”. The fact is they will remain so unless dominant issues mentioned in the composite dialogue are resolved. Obviously, it is a case of cart being pit before the horse. While CBMs do have the potential to create trust between two nations, trust is also called for in the very inception stage. One feeds off the other, and in the current scenario, when political will in both states appears to be waxing and waning intermittently, CBMs which are difficult to establish but easy to disrupt, have not been fully effective. There is a lack of verifiability in many CBMs which leads both countries to fall victims to mistrust, suspicion and misinformation on a variety of issues.
CBMs have been particularly ineffective, if not absent, during the times of conflict because despite declarations to that effect, neither country has moved beyond the point of “conflict avoidance”. Recall that the ceasefire effected in 2003 was violated by Pakistan in 2008. Worse still, government on both sides often deploy CBMs as a political tool to win over their respective constituencies which can be very damaging in the longer run.
Post-Abbottabad, it is not only anti-American sentiments that run deep in Pakistan: India, to many Pakistanis, is still perceived to be a greater threat to Pakistan than Al Qaeda or the Taliban, clouding the atmosphere for the civilian government's talks with India.
The CBMs have so far been a case of a cart being put before the horse. No way can the talks gallop until the core issue is addressed. And all said and done, it never will be.