The combined talents of the people of India and Pakistan, with the fitful help of a long list of others, have been trying for over 50 years to resolve the Kashmir issue. This essay offers no ready-made answers but rather suggestions on where to begin to look for them. Experience with other recent peace processes teaches valuable lessons about how would-be peacemakers need to approach their task and the ways in which third parties can help.
On July 14, 2003, Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Before serving as foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah was heavily involved in discussions on Afghanistan's future government. Previously, he was chief spokesman and deputy foreign minister of the Northern Alliance. Born to a Pashtun father and Tajik mother, he is also a trained medical doctor, serving at the Sayyed Jamaluddin-i-Afghani Eye Hospital for Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Washington, Middle East, and Arab Countries
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The July 2003 state visit to China by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India, the first by an Indian prime minister in a decade, represented a major step forward in New Delhi's relations with its giant neighbor and competitor. Dramatic increases in bilateral trade set the stage for nine bilateral agreements covering trade, education, easing of visa regulations, and development projects. The artful language of the agreements suggested progress on the long-standing Sino-Indian border dispute. More substantial relations between India and China are good news for regional stability, although this relationship will remain wary, and China's strong interest in Pakistan will continue to be a constraint.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
With five states scheduled to go to polls this fall, political activity is moving into high gear in India. The state elections will provide a good barometer of popular sentiment toward the government and are being treated as a 'test run' for the national elections due in 2004. The state elections will largely determine how the major contenders deal with the volatile issue of Hindu nationalism. How relations with Pakistan figure in the election depends largely on the outcome of current India-Pakistan peace efforts. But the key issue to watch is the ability of the current ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Congress party, its principal opponent, to hold together a coalition. This will not only be central to their electoral strategies, it will also determine the next government's freedom of action in making national policy.
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
Two months after Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's offer to extend “the hand of friendship” to neighboring Pakistan, the two countries are exchanging ambassadors and have begun restoring transport links, but discussions on their underlying dispute have yet to take shape. The next few months provide a crucial opportunity to begin a serious peace effort. Should this window of time pass by without progress, however, internal politics in both countries may rule out another try for a year or two.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars against each other since 1947, the first two of which were over Kashmir. In the past fifteen years, the two countries have been embroiled in four military crises, which the United States has played an increasingly assertive role in managing and resolving. A chief component of recent American administrations' foreign policy goals in South Asia, including the current Bush administration, has been to avert the fourth war in the subcontinent. However, attitudes in India and Pakistan are changing, and the internal situation in Kashmir is more fluid than it has been for years. After September 11, America has been able to maintain close ties to both countries. Washington should move beyond managing the crisis and help develop a road to peace in the region.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, America, South Asia, Washington, India, and Kashmir
One of the major challenges facing Washington is how to limit unintended consequences of the war on terrorism in South Asia that could otherwise imperil both the U.S. counterterrorism strategy and the goal of preventing further conflict between India and Pakistan. Senior U.S. officials understandably hoped last fall that the war on terrorism would provide a new opportunity to draw in both India and Pakistan, to strengthen U.S. ties to each, and to nudge them to resolve their differences. Washington expected to expand cooperation with a rising India on a host of issues, while succoring a fragile Pakistan as a reward for abandoning an Afghan policy inimical to the war on terrorism.
Topic:
Security and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, South Asia, Washington, and India
Pakistan has become a strategic U.S. ally in the war against al Qaeda. For now, Washington's support of General Pervez Musharraf's military regime is untempered by any insistence on the restoration of democracy. But military rule is likely to increase hostility between Pakistan and India and undercut efforts to root out Islamic extremists, who have been the armed forces' political allies in the past.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, America, South Asia, and Washington
THIS PAPER REPORTS THE RESULTS OF A STUDY of the potential to apply the principles and practice of threat reduction cooperation to countries beyond the territory of the former Soviet Union. The study, which was funded by the MacArthur Foundation, focused on the application of concepts and tools used in the former Soviet Union to the region of South Asia. The research was designed to explore what might be done cooperatively to enhance the security of the nuclear assets of India and Pakistan, lest they fall into the hands of terrorists or leaders of rogue states who would use them to threaten other states or peoples.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Lee Feinstein, David Albright, James C Clad, and Lewis A Dunn
Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The shifting geopolitical furniture on the subcontinent since last September's terrorist attacks has placed the United States in the unaccustomed position of having good relations with India and Pakistan at the same time. This has helped to forge a consensus in the United States on some of the core challenges India and Pakistan face, and on the approach Washington must pursue to advance its long-term goals for the region.