{"id":31883,"date":"2018-10-29T11:39:16","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T06:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=31883"},"modified":"2018-10-29T11:39:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T06:09:16","slug":"sign-of-geopolitical-whirlwind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/sign-of-geopolitical-whirlwind\/","title":{"rendered":"Sign of geopolitical whirlwind\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/signs-of-a-geopolitical-whirlwind\/article22475169.ece\">Sign of geopolitical whirlwind<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With a New Year tweet from his handle accusing Pakistan of \u201clies &amp; deceit\u201d in return for \u201c33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years\u201d, U.S. President Donald Trump \u2018appears\u2019 to be radically resetting his administration\u2019s Pakistan policy, with implications for the rest of South Asia.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A clever ploy?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A less worrisome interpretation of Mr. Trump\u2019s outrage would be that it is a clever ploy to gain more leverage in a region where the U.S. is seemingly losing ground<\/p>\n<p><strong>Losing ground to China<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is steadily losing its Afghan war, losing ground to China in the region, and China is increasingly interested in politically managing the potential outcomes of the Afghan war<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pakistan had the best of both<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And Islamabad so far is seen to have had the best of both worlds \u2014 being China\u2019s closest ally, while remaining a non-NATO ally of the U.S. In that interpretation<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pakistan\u2019s options: just wait it out<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>So how is Islamabad likely to deal with an apparently belligerent Trump administration?<\/li>\n<li>Will it fall in line or decline to act against the Taliban and the Haqqani network, widely considered to be Pakistan\u2019s proxies in Afghanistan?<\/li>\n<li>Any tightening of the noose around the Taliban is likely to be viewed by the Pakistan army as a strategic blunder, the implications of which would outlast the irresolute U.S. commitment in Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li>So the reasoning likely to be, why not wait out Mr. Trump\u2019s occasional rage?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Ill-timed outrage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The U.S. may also have ill-timed its outrage<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Caving into U.S. demands would have grave implications for the much-weakened civilian government in Islamabad, especially when all eyes are on the general elections later this year<\/li>\n<li>The government, then, is likely to brave Mr. Trump\u2019s wrath, or smooth-talk its way out.<\/li>\n<li>The response from Islamabad has so far been verbal, with threats of suspending military and intelligence cooperation with Washington<\/li>\n<li>However, it should be noted that American aid and reimbursements (for expenses incurred by Pakistan in the war on terror) have been declining over the past several years.<\/li>\n<li>If so, the impact of the U.S. withholding aid may not be exceptionally damaging for Pakistan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Beijing\u2019s role<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That said, it would be instructive to watch what role Beijing would play in this war of nerves between its strategic adversary and closest ally.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sharper fault-lines<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Notwithstanding how Pakistan responds to the U.S., the latter\u2019s strong-arm policies have implications for South Asia.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Implications for South Asia: many emerging geo-political fault-lines <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pakistan has been steadily moving towards China from the American camp: this will now be a far quicker shift.<\/p>\n<p><strong>China-Pakistan-Russia axis <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The emerging China-Pakistan-Russia axis is set to play a dominant role in the regional geopolitical order. All three members of this axis have scores to settle with the U.S.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Role of Iran<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The role of Iran \u2014 which also has hostile relations with the U.S. even as it maintains a crucial strategic partnership with New Delhi \u2014 in this grouping would be interesting to watch.<\/p>\n<p><strong>India-Russia relations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And what would it mean for India-Russia relations? Is it the beginning of the end of the special relationship between the two countries, signs of which are already apparent? Moreover, the closer India gets to the U.S., the more each of these countries would display their discomfort towards India.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Other side: India, US and Japan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The emerging counter-pole is to be led by the U.S., with India and Japan on board, and the increasingly cautious Western powers taking a rather subdued interest.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Saudi Arabia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The one U.S. ally that has immense influence in Pakistan is Saudi Arabia with which India also maintains a close relationship.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Question<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The question then is two-fold: Will the Americans choose to use Riyadh to put pressure on Islamabad, and will the Saudis want to do that at a time when China-Saudi relations are on the uptick? Many of these compelling scenarios will play out in various ways in the days ahead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Implications for India<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Could affect India negatively: <\/strong>Even though the American rhetoric against Pakistan is viewed highly favorably in India, the freezing of U.S.-Pakistan relations could potentially have negative implications for the country, certainly in the medium to long term.<\/p>\n<p><strong>End of the indirect influence: <\/strong>This will mean the end of the indirect influence (through the U.S.) that India has traditionally managed to exert on Pakistan, especially on terror-related issues<strong>. Stronger China Pakistan ties<\/strong>: Second, the ever-strong China-Pakistan ties, without the balancing effect of the U.S. in the region, could push India further to the wall<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chinese maneuvers:<\/strong> Finally, what happens should there be an India-Pakistan crisis like the Kargil conflict of 1999? For one, American \u2018absence\u2019 would embolden Chinese maneuvers against India, and more so, China will be a far less pro-India broker than Washington ever was.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dealing with Washington without shutting down others<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>New Delhi\u2019s best bet would be to deal with Washington without closing its doors to Moscow or Beijing, such fine balancing would require a great deal of diplomatic acumen, strategic foresight and long-term thinking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Real intent of Washington must be considered<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In any case, New Delhi should also closely consider the real intent behind Washington\u2019s ire at Islamabad: it\u2019s the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani network the Americans are after, not so much India-centric terror groups<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cautious optimism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Put differently, New Delhi should view it as a clash between Pakistani and American geopolitical interests, and not get involved itself. To its credit, then, the response from New Delhi has been guided by \u2018cautious optimism\u2019.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A sharper geopolitical competition in the region could also adversely impact the overall sub-systemic stability in the region: when hard-nosed geopolitics takes over, focus on infrastructure development, market access, development of regional organisations, and regional conflict resolution mechanisms is bound to suffer. And that\u2019s precisely what India needs to carefully consider; for unlike both China and the U.S., India is deeply invested in stability in South Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sign of geopolitical whirlwind\u00a0 Context With a New Year tweet from his handle accusing Pakistan of \u201clies &amp; deceit\u201d in return for \u201c33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years\u201d, U.S. President Donald Trump \u2018appears\u2019 to be radically resetting his administration\u2019s Pakistan policy, with implications for the rest of South Asia. A clever&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/sign-of-geopolitical-whirlwind\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sign of geopolitical whirlwind\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704929649},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}