Ranjit B Rai
This is a letter from America after President Trump has done a deal with Kim Jong Un. It was the talk at the FDR Library and was asked why India and Pakistan cannot do such a peace deal.
IDF was stumped and answered that its not easy and it is connected with Pakistan’s Army with China nowAfghansistan. Eyebrows were raised so IDF had to explain.
Leaders with strategy can do wonders, even if peace be for the short term, but wonders happen only after a strategy is devised and followed to the hilt. Businesses live by strategy. India is still groping for a strategy to deal with Pakistan as many and even Rand predict Pakistan will fail by 2025, the way it is going. India feels it can wear Pakistan down. Time means little in India.
This is also wishful thinking and IDF has to meet one who can predict more that 5 years and China is an elephant in Pakistan’s room, that India has done a peace deal with on the borders. This gives respite to CPEC on the border is the Chinese view.
But who could predict how much has changed in US North Korea relations in months. Or what President FDR did in the 1930s when USA and the world were in deep economic depression. FDR gave a new deal and helped farmers and sent poor to work and toplant millions of trees to make USA richand to industrialize in four years. In 1991 FM Dr. Manmohan Singh did open economy to stave off a failed economy. India did not follow through with a strategy for famers or industry to open to FDI but just hoped for ‘Ache Dins’ for shining India that BJP Money Bags late Minister PromodMahajan coined. Not much has changed. Poverty is at 30% and young have no jobs or social security, that FDR gave poor. Communal strife seems more.
But President Trump has shown and executed a wonder with North Korea to make it move towards de-nuclearisation.
So IDF asks, has Prime Minister Modi failed with Pakistan for short term peace on the border or in Afghanistan where India has opposed TALIBAN tooth and nail hoping to revive the defunct Northern Alliance (NA) it had as a friend in the 1980s with Russia. China and Russia have now boarded the Taliban bus which USA wanted to join ??? USA leans on India a lot and has stopped aid to Pakistan and Pakistan continues and on to its elections next month. PM Modi did not meet Pakistan President at SCO meet in BEIJING.
PM Modi had invited Pakistan leadership to India and visited leadership there, but India has failed to understand and talk to the Deep State Army in Pakistan which controls policy for India and Afghanistan. IDF doubts India’s leadership has attempted a viable strategy, or offered a branch to the people of Kashmir but left it to the Army and its Infantry Chief Gen BipinRawatto fight all the political fires on the border and in the Valley, and LOC and what Pakistan calls working boundary in J&K near Jammu on the International boundary, that BSF guards.
PM Modi has globe trotted and hugged many leaders and made friends far away to raise India’s stature, but India’s neighbourhood seems peeved with India as PM talks down to people and mentions names of past leaders in derogatory terms as if they did nothing, not behooving a true leader. Biographies of great Leaders tell this.
On the other hand President Donald Trump has just departed Singapore immediately after holding talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and signed an upending of relations in a ‘comprehensive document’. It sounded like the 1972 SimlaAgreement which saw peace in India with give and takes, and hopes, but India never followed up over Kashmir and its has now complicated itself to implement Art 370 or abrogate it ! IDF asks did India lack a strategy ?May be BJP-RSS will come with two third majority in 2019 or earlier and change the Constitution. It could be a strategy but there is gamble in that.
Trump has expressed his willingness to invite Kim to the White House, after the latter committed to ‘complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’ in the joint document signed on 12 the June, which Secretary of State USA Pompeo like India’s NSA negotiated and media said China will not allow and may even de-rail it.
In Afghanistan after killing 70, the Taliban were able dictate a welcomed Three Day Cease Fire for Ramzan’s Id. This shows Taliban has gained more power with successful attacks on Government forces including the Afghan Army and Police and US Forces and the public. The Taliban has also targeted the Indian Embassy with minor successes. India hates the Taliban and Pakistan which hates India almost like Kim Jong Un hated Trump but both have struck a deal for temporary gains. China is also agreeing to import $ 50 bill more from USA, another trade strategy of Trump. But China is bidding for time. India could also do with a quiet cease fired border, which only the Deep State in Pakistan can agree to.
One learns strategy as the main tool in the Navy which is a strategic force so it cannot help in Kashmir like Army does, but keeps China guessing in the Maritime field.
“Vive La Difference” as the French would say.
Pakistan is run by its Army and the ISI that support the Taliban which is largely founded on the strength of its Jehadi terrorist policy as the “Home of Terror” and have used the courage of Jehadi volunteers to keep the entire Indian Army and political set up busy, to the detriment of attending to the true rise of India. Now Pakistan has a close ally in China to fund and needle India which is stronger in the only field than China called the Geographic Seas by the Indian Navy’s attributes. But for how long is Indian Navy going to be the factor to keep China thinking is the question unless the Navy is funded and expanded and nourished.
The story of how Pakistan’s leadership led by Generals like Pervez Kayani and Musharraf learnt how to sort out the powerful Soviet Army and throw them out of Afghanistan has been explained by PrasunSengupta in Trident Blogspot . He lists and shows how funds came from USA, Saudi Arabia and PM Mahathir in Malaysia and the same bitter pill of terror has been hurting USA, India and the whole world. The Pakistani Army has used drug money as ammunition to keep Taliban attacking President Ghani’s weak Army, foreign troops, Indians and the Administration and controls half of Afghanistan.
But a solution can be attempted through Pakistan either with war or with talks. Today’s wars do not gain much as USA’s wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria have shown.
However every insurgent agency including Taliban looks for political power and Pakistan leans on war lords and Poppy trade in millions of dollars in Afghanistan for terror attacks to show their muscle to the world and society. Afghanistan and the world looks to India for help and most nations except India have talked to Taliban. This distrust of one another is a de-stabilising factor.
In the 1980s the Northern Alliance (NA) propped up by Russia and Indian Intelligence and Army with arms made sure North of Afghanistan did not fall to Taliban and Pakistan. Does India still live on hopes of NA which is non-existent as Russia is now leaning on Pakistan. The Indian Army has little say now except to train the Afghan Army whose morale and wages are on the decline. If GOOD TALIBAN is the answer in Afghanistan it cannot be achieved without a definitive India Pakistan strategy and one of no talks till terror abates is like which came first the Chicken or the egg. The challenge to chalk a strategy is enormous. Shan Na Varuna.