Pakistan Has No More Excuses for Supporting Terrorism

The following article originally appeared in Foreign Policy on February 15, 2019.

On the afternoon of Thursday, Feb. 14, a massive explosion rocked a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. At least 40 personnel belonging to the CRPF—a 300,000-strong paramilitary force under the Ministry of Home Affairs involved in law-and-order and counterterrorism duties—were killed as a suicide bomber drove an SUV reportedly loaded with about 600 pounds of explosives into their bus. Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the group’s role has been confirmed by Indian officials. The assault comes weeks before India’s general elections, which are expected to be held in March and April.

The next morning, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security—consisting of the prime minister and four senior ministers—held an emergency meeting and, as a first step, announced the revocation of “most favored nation” trading status for Pakistan. India had granted this status to Pakistan in 1996, although Pakistan had never reciprocated. But this is just one of the retaliatory measures likely to be taken after the worst act of Islamist terrorism in India since the Mumbai attacks in 2008.

The full article can be read here.

The Definition of Insanity Is U.S. AfPak Strategy

The following article originally appeared online at Foreign Policy on October 1, 2015. An excerpt is below and the full text can be accessed here.

The central problem confronting the United States in the region is no longer al Qaeda or the Taliban. It’s the Pakistan Army, which has always pursued its own objectives over those of the country it is meant to defend. The Army has a 40-year history of supporting terrorists against Afghanistan, India, and (more recently) Americans. Even in the absence of a smoking gun, there is little doubt that the Army and its intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, sheltered Osama bin Laden and protected Taliban leader Mullah Omar. This policy of supporting terrorism has been driven by a warped ideology, political imperatives, and corporate interests. The Army has long used Islamism and imagined foreign threats to consolidate its political primacy and shore up its commercial interests, which range from cement to telecommunications.

An App Won’t Solve India’s Bloated Bureaucracy Problem

The following article appeared on Foreign Policy on September 26, 2015. An excerpt is below and the full text can be accessed here. 

Technology offers considerable hope in overcoming many of India’s challenges, given the rapid rate of change. At about 19 percent, India has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates among major economies. That said, some 30 million users, or roughly 2.5 percent of India’s population, are coming online annually, and that figure is set to accelerate. Facebook wants to tap into that market, in part with its Free Basics app, which allows users access to pared-down Internet services at no cost. But for India’s poor, the difficulties in getting online — including language barriers, illiteracy, and poor infrastructure — are more complicated than just affording the price of a phone or computer.

The implications of expanded Internet access for media dissemination, education, and entertainment are self-evident. It’s not just about enabling Indians to watch more cat videos. Digital access is critical to integrating India’s citizens — particularly the poor — into the economy. For example, efforts underway toward financial inclusion, biometric identification, and digital access have the potential to overhaul India’s massive and wasteful subsidy regime. Better identification, more bank accounts, and expanded online access can cut out middlemen and corruption and can ensure that the poor receive what they are owed by the state. There has been significant progress: So far, some 900 million people, or roughly 72 percent of India’s 1.25 billion people, have signed up for a national biometric identification scheme begun under Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh. And Jan-Dhan Yojana, Modi’s signature effort to enable access to banking, credit lines, and insurance, has resulted in the creation of more than 180 million bank accounts (though critics have noted that many are left unused). While basic mobile services are widespread and cheap in India, enabling access to cost-effective broadband will be necessary to tap the full potential of these efforts. [Read the full article.]

Myanmar Is Pivoting Away from China

The following article originally appeared in Foreign Policy on June 15, 2015. An excerpt is below and the full text can be accessed here. 

Beijing’s effort at currying favour with Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD is borne partly of desperation, and indicates how swiftly Beijing’s stock in Myanmar is falling. China was Myanmar’s main backer and largest investor during its years of international seclusion, supporting strategic infrastructure projects such as oil and gas pipelines, ports, and dams. Between 1988 and 2013, China accounted for a whopping 42 percent of the $33.67 billion in foreign investment that flowed into Myanmar. But the nature of these projects — including concerns about forcibly-relocated populations, land confiscation, environmental hazards, and the inflow of cheap goods and labor — made China unpopular with the Burmese public (the extent of such sentiments is impossible to determine, in the absence of reliable public-opinion surveys.)

Myanmar’s military was even more reliant on China: Almost 60 percent of the country’s arms imports during that same period came from the Middle Kingdom. And until recently, the military remained favorably disposed to their northern neighbor. Yet Beijing appears to have ruined the one good relationship it had going in the country. The suspension of the Chinese-backed Myitsone dam on the Irrawaddy River in 2011 — a project initially agreed between Myanmar’s military junta and the state-owned China Power Investment Corp. in 2005 — hurt ties. But it was the killing of five Chinese citizens by Myanmar’s air force in March, while conducting raids on rebels along the border, and China’s response, that has significantly widened the rift with the military. Although Naypyidaw offered a grovelling apology, Beijing’s provocative decision to stage live-fire military exercises along the border in early June further tarnished relations with its one real constituency in Myanmar. [Read more.]

The Big Lie Americans Tell Themselves

This article, excerpted below, originally appeared in Foreign Policy on August 9, 2014. It was republished in Newsday and The Chicago Tribune ("The American Lie about Genocide") and the Minneapolis StarTribune ("U.S. Intervention in Northern Iraq: Incoherent") on August 11;  the Sun-Sentinel ("The American Lie about Genocide") on August 12; Dawn (Pakistan) ("The American Lie about Genocide"), O Globo (Brazil) ("A Generation of Americans Believe that America Has Always Fought Genocide") and The Peninsula Qatar ("This is the American Lie on Genocide") on August 13; the Yomiuri Shimbun's Japan News ("U.S. Record of Stopping Genocide Dismal") on August 14; The News Lens (Taiwan) ("America's Biggest Lie") on August 16; and the St. Paul Pioneer Press ("Why Do Americans Believe that Genocide Prevention Has Been a Core National Interest?"), Tulsa World ("America's Longstanding Lie on Genocide") and Arkansas Online ("Do We Care about Preventing Genocide?") on August 17. 

With few exceptions, the U.S. response to grave humanitarian crisis since it emerged as a major power in the 1870s have ranged from tacit support and indifference to post-facto condemnation. Probably the first example was in the 1880s,when then President Chester A. Arthur recognized and supported Belgian King Leopold's claims to the Congo. Leopold's brutal rule -- indiscriminate violence against local populations, collective punishment, and mutilations, led to the death of several million Congolese, if not more. Despite decades of lobbying for the United States to take a strong position against Leopold, Washington remained reluctant. Teddy Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, said "it was a literal physical impossibility to interfere" and called the idea of campaigning for intervention "imbecile."

In subsequent decades, U.S. presidents more isolationist than Roosevelt refused to stop Japanese atrocities in East Asia, Turkey's genocide in Armenia, or European colonizers' large-scale killing of civilians in places like Southeast Asia. Joseph Stalin's forced deportation of some 6 million minorities in the Soviet Union in the 1930s -- ethnic cleansing in its truest sense -- did not diminish the admiration for him by some in the highest levels of U.S. government, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt's vice president Henry A. Wallace (who later tried to make amends by publishing an article called "Where I Was Wrong").

What about the Holocaust? U.S. war efforts certainly contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany and put an end to the most horrifyingly industrialized genocide in history. But American popular lore often overlooks the fact that on December 11, 1941, Adolf Hitler first declared war on the United States -- and not vice versa. The United States' humanitarian intentions -- despite having learned about Auschwitz and other concentration camps -- were an afterthought.

It gets worse. The United States managed to win the Cold War against the Soviet Union while preserving its moral high ground. But that period may have marked a nadir for the United States when it came to genocide and ethnic cleansing. As Princeton professor Gary J. Bass documents in his 2013 book The Blood Telegram, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger tacitly supported the Pakistan military's ethnic cleansing in East Pakistan in the early 1970s, which led to the deaths of at least 300,000 people. It wasn't until an opportunistic intervention by India in 1971 -- which the United Nations overwhelming condemned -- that the mass killings stopped.

And when the Khmer Rouge conducted its reign of terror in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, leading to the death of up to 25 percent of its roughly 7 million people -- proportionally the largest genocide of the 20th century -- Washington remained aloof. Because of its then geopolitical interests at the time with regards to opening up to China and spurning the USSR and Vietnam, Washington opted for a policy of non-intervention, a morally indefensible stance. The United States was even critical of the 1978-1979 invasion of Cambodia by a pro-Soviet Vietnam that ended Pol Pot's reign.

Similarly, when Saddam Hussein used chemical and conventional weapons to kill estimated 100,000 ethnic Kurds in Iraq in 1988, Washington -- having recently made overtures to Baghdad, with which it then had a common adversary in Iran -- did not even impose sanctions much less intervene.

From Bombay to Jerusalem

This article - excerpted below - originally appeared in Foreign Policy on July 2, 2014. 

The crisis in Iraq lies at the intersection of India's broader interests in the Middle East -- or, to use New Delhi's preferred parlance, West Asia. While Indian political leaders and diplomats often emphasize their cultural affinity to the region -- Persian was the court language of the Mughal Empire; trade links go back centuries -- India's interests in the Middle East today encompass the safety and security of its large diaspora, its dependence on energy imports, and its complex but finely balanced defense and intelligence ties with several regional powers. While these are all consequences of India's growing international profile, they also expose the country's vulnerabilities to energy supplies, remittances, and international terrorist activity. Over the course of his tenure, Modi will have to weigh the merits of adopting a more high-profile role in order to proactively shape the Middle East's future. But a more diplomatically or militarily active India would risk abandoning what has so far been a fruitful, if low-key, approach to the Middle East, one that has enabled New Delhi to -- perhaps uniquely -- cooperate with Tehran, Riyadh, and Jerusalem.

Uncharming and Offensive

China’s ham-fisted attempt at international comity at the Shangri-La Dialogue is a worrisome harbinger of regional aggression. 

The following article originally appeared on Foreign Policy on June 4, 2014. An excerpt is below. The full text can be found here.

SINGAPORE - — By the standards of Asian security summits -- generally carefully choreographed and stilted affairs filled with coded messages and platitudes about cooperation -- the May 30-June 1 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore was extraordinary. There had been much speculation as to how China would respond to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's keynote address at this annual event organized by the London-based think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, and how Beijing would represent itself in the aftermath of its November extension of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over disputed
islands in the East China Sea and recent run-ins with the Philippines and Vietnam over contested territory in the South China Sea.

Much to the surprise of many in attendance, China opted to field a large delegation that included 12 officers of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) -- twice as much brass as the official U.S. delegation. And the officers, along with Chinese civilian officials and scholars, were omnipresent, speaking up and challenging speakers at every session in a bid to present Chinese viewpoints on everything from disputed territory and cyber espionage to defense spending and international law.

This may have been intended as a charm offensive, but it proved not very charming and somewhat offensive.

Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Modi

Does India’s new prime minister actually have a foreign policy?

The following article originally appeared on Foreign Policy on May 19, 2014. An excerpt is below. The full text is available here.

Narendra Modi is set to be India's next prime minister after an election won conclusively by his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The combative chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, he has often been written off as a novice on foreign affairs. Commentators in India and abroad have dismissed him as having "little foreign policy experience," and consider him unlikely to change the "broad contours of Indian foreign policy" -- which have traditionally involved steady, balanced relations with several partners. Others paint him as a "hardliner," given his right-wing base, or have generously over-interpreted portions of his party's election manifesto that have implied changes to India's nuclear posture.

Yet few actually listen to what Modi himself has said about his foreign policy. He has delivered at least three speeches dedicated to international affairs and security since having been anointed his party's prime ministerial candidate in September, and discussed the subject in several interviews. But this has been largely ignored by New Delhi's cognoscenti. (For his part, Modi dismissed much of the speculation about his foreign policy as anuman, or conjecture.) 

Does 'South Asia' Exist?

The following article originally appeared on Foreign Policy's 'AfPak Channel'. An excerpt is included below and the full text can be accessed here. 

While a confusing construct, the term ‘South Asia' persevered in America's strategic consciousness, despite the inevitable dehyphenation of India and Pakistan. Among non-specialists in the counterinsurgency era, it was often used as a casual and more politically-correct synonym for AfPak, marginalizing not just India, but also Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, all important countries in their own rights. I recall reviewing the syllabus of a graduate studies course on South Asia at a major American university two years ago, and you could have been forgiven for thinking that the India-Pakistan border constituted South Asia's eastern frontier.

A real concern is that a conceptual resurgence of ‘South Asia' -- especially as an outgrowth of ‘AfPak' -- could be accompanied by the conscious or subconscious rehyphenation of India and Pakistan, and the prolonged side-lining of other states in the region. As the anonymous genius behind the Twitter handle @majorlyp has caustically written:

Indians are Indians and Pakistanis when caught in tight situations (like in Airports) are Indians too. In other circumstances they are South Asians. Being "South Asian" offers many advantages. Such as an overwhelming numerical advantage.

Example: When faced with the question "Is radicalization a problem"? South Asians can reply with a straight face "Only 170 million, or less than 10% of the South Asians are radicalized". Which sounds entirely reasonable.

The author writes in somewhat cruel jest, of course, but like the best parody, there is more than a grain of uncomfortable truth in what he says. Will U.S. discourse related to South Asia come to be dominated by the problems of terrorism, Islamist extremism, nuclear proliferation, and anti-Americanism at the expense of the incredible opportunities and challenges associated with dynamic economic growth, raucous democracy, immense social and cultural diversity, and broad support for a U.S.-led international system? Let's hope not.

The Great Sino-Indian Alpine Tent Party of 2013

My article on the Chinese border incursion at Depsang appeared in Foreign Policy on May 8, 2013. An excerpt is included below. The full article can be accessed here.

The incursion will undoubtedly provoke greater skepticism in India about China's peaceful intentions. In recent years, an aggressive China has had a poor record of managing its disputed borders. Unlike Japan or the many Southeast Asian countries, India has been reluctant to identify itself as a U.S. partner in any attempt to hedge against China's rise. Yet repeated Chinese provocations, as well as concerns about India's ability to compete economically and militarily with China, might force India's policymakers to cooperate more closely with other states that share its concerns. Moreover, India's accelerating defense modernization might produce additional confrontational Chinese responses, perpetuating a classic security dilemma.

Although the incursion may not have had domestic political implications in Beijing, it does raise worrying questions about China's ability to destabilize the region. For example, it is plausible that the PLA's advancement was the product of a simple civil-military disconnect. This is a problem that bedevils every government with a strong military, but a more transparent system of governance -- such as in the United States or, for that matter, India -- would have certainly limited the damage.

The question of transparency also cuts the other way. China cannot expect other governments to muzzle their media as it does. For example, a recent editorial in the Chinese newspaper Global Times about the incursion blamedthe Indian government for "indulg[ing] Indian media habits," fomenting "border hysteria," and writing "nonsense." Instead of blaming the foreign press, it would benefit Beijing to become better attuned to public sentiment in countries like India -- not exactly its strong suit. As Harvard University professor Joseph Nye recently noted, this is not the kind of problem that can be solved with more Confucius Institutes.

As China's new leadership continues to consolidate itself, its recent missteps with India -- coming at an otherwise opportune time in bilateral relations -- ought to provoke some introspection. Many in India, as in other Asian states, are willing to cooperate with an increasingly affluent China. But actions like April's incursion will only give more weight to the perspectives represented in an influential 2012 Indian foreign-policy paper that noted: "The better way of responding to limited land-grabs by China" is to respond in kind. Surely that's not an outcome China's leaders want.

Gentle Giant

Why isn't India spending more on its military?

My article on India's defence spending originally appeared on Foreign Policy's web site. Two excerpts are included below and the full text is accessible here.

As late as 2000, India's spending on defense, at $15.9 billion, outstripped China's official military budget of $14.5 billion, although China's actual expenditure that year was estimated at three times that amount. The disparity has only increased with the growing resource gap between China and India. In its most recent budget, the Indian government's spending on defense stands at $37 billion (excluding military pensions), keeping it on track to be the fourth-largest defense spender by 2020, surpassing Britain, France, and Japan. But such expenditure increases have not even kept pace with the overall growth of India's economy, let alone the military modernization of its competitors. Defense now accounts for just 1.7 percent of India's GDP, which is less than in many European countries, and down from almost 3 percent in the late 1990s. And while China's defense budget this year is more than three times larger, its actual spending will undoubtedly be even higher.

As for the threat environment, the question is not whether India is able to compete man-for-man, dollar-for-dollar, and gun-for-gun with its principal adversaries, but whether it is in a position to deter their adventurism. Nuclear weapons have arguably played a stabilizing role in this regard: The prospect of India becoming embroiled in a conventional war with either China or Pakistan since its 1998 nuclear tests has become ever more remote. It also helps that India enjoys increasing numerical and technological superiority vis-à-vis Pakistan, although that has so far failed to completely deter terrorist attacks emanating from that country.

China is another matter altogether, given its rapid rise and military modernization. Yet the last few years have seen the Indian military steadily rebalance toward its northeastern frontier. This shift has seen India redeploy its frontline combat aircraft to bases in the northeastern state of Assam,increase the range of its strategic missiles, and set up two new army divisions along the Chinese border. In 2010, India's national security advisor hinted that the country was amending its no-first-use nuclear doctrine, a move widely interpreted as a signal aimed at China. And last month, India's defense ministry approved the creation of a mountain strike corps, an 89,000-strong force capable of offensive operations against Chinese territory.

While none of this seems to suggest that India is standing idly by in the face of China's military modernization, the release of the two countries' military budgets in such quick succession points to a fascinating divergence. If anything, it is New Delhi's Central Secretariat -- rather than Beijing's Zhongnanhai -- that appears to have taken to heart Deng Xiaoping's famous dictum: "Hide your strength, bide your time, and do what you can." Perhaps it is no surprise then that India, unlike the other Asian giant to its north, finds it unnecessary to constantly assuage its smaller neighbors about the veracity of its peaceful rise.

India's Ocean

Could New Delhi's growing naval force change the balance of power in the Pacific?

The following article was published by Foreign Policy on December 6, 2012 and reproduced by Gulf News on December 10, 2012 ('High on confidence on high seas') and by The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) on December 9, 2012. An excerpt is included below.

...India is far more likely to become a regular naval presence in the Pacific than many previously imagined, due to its rapidly expanding economy, improving military technologies, and growing energy interests. The Indian Navy has historically been the smallest and most poorly-resourced of India's three military services, in keeping with the country's security preoccupations at home and its unresolved land border disputes with Pakistan and China. It has just 60,000 active personnel and a $7 billion annual budget, roughly a quarter of the strength and resources of China's People's Liberation Army Navy. Its long-range capabilities come from a single aircraft carrier, a second-hand amphibious transport dock, 14 German- or Russian-designed diesel-powered submarines, and about 20 destroyers and frigates.

But power is relative, and this seemingly small flotilla today constitutes the largest naval presence in the Indian Ocean after the U.S. Navy. Beyond the United States and China, only Japan, South Korea, and perhaps Taiwan boast even comparable capacities for the region, although their navies are more narrowly focused. But India's navy dwarfs those of other countries embroiled in territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. The two strongest rival claimants to China, Vietnam and the Philippines, boast just three active frigates between them. The temporary presence of even a small Indian squadron in the Pacific could make a meaningful difference to the region's balance of power.

India's growing interests, resources, and technological capabilities will likely lead it to increased naval activity east of the Strait of Malacca, the critical junction of the Pacific and Indian Oceans through which 40 percent of the world's trade and most of East Asia's oil imports flow. India is conducting sea trials of an indigenously-designed nuclear-powered submarine, which will significantly increase its navy's operational range. In the next two years, India will induct a second aircraft carrier and modern French submarines into active service, to upgrade its aging fleet. The navy's share of the defense budget has steadily grown from less than 15 percent of India's annual military expenditure in 2000 to 19 percent in 2012, outpacing India's overall defense spending. And the 2009 agreement to purchase P-8 aircraft from the United States, capable of interdicting ships and tracking submarines, signals India's technological ambitions in the high seas.

Perhaps more importantly, India is able to work with other regional navies. Beginning with basic exercises in the early 2000s, the Indian Navy's collaboration with the U.S. Pacific Command has evolved into complex war games. In 2004, India tested its ability to respond to regional crises in coordination with the United States, Japan, and Australia by performing humanitarian relief operations in Southeast Asia following the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. And the Malabar series of naval exercises between India and the United States, which have also involved Japan, Australia, and Singapore, has strengthened the Indian Navy's ability to work closely with partners far from its shores. Contrast this to China: Beyond dustups with Southeast Asian countries, and with Japan over disputed islands -- which only generate further suspicion of Chinese military intentions -- Beijing is also quick to break off military ties, like it did after Washington sold weapons to Taiwan in 2010.

None of this means that India is looking to pick a fight with China in the South China Sea, particularly as India has no territorial stakes there. Other facets of the Sino-Indian relationship -- the fragile boundary talks over disputed Himalayan territory and bilateral trade of more than $70 billion and growing -- are of far greater importance to New Delhi. At the same time, renouncing claims to its assets in Vietnam in response to perceived Chinese pressure could embarrass the Indian government, both domestically and internationally. When confronted with pressure from Beijing -- as during the Dalai Lama's 2009 visit to the disputed border town of Tawang or periods when China has refused to issue visas in some Indian passports -- New Delhi's response has generally been to stick to its guns.

Graveyard of Empiricism

An article co-authored with Javid Ahmad appeared on the Af-Pak Channel on foreignpolicy.com on December 13, 2011. Excerpts are below. The full article can be read here.

A number of questionable assumptions about the Afghan people - concerning their attitudes to foreigners, their history, their society and their values - go unchallenged. Historical analogies and socio-economic data are regularly manipulated by various parties to validate their own biases and preconceptions, and readings of Afghan history are, when not completely erroneous, unapologetically Western-centric. For example, one common view that has gained circulation among think tankers, policymakers, and Congressional staffers, is that a majority of Afghans are inherently hostile to the United States. And yet, this viewpoint is not borne out by polling data, however imperfect. The last poll conducted by ABC News, the BBC and ARD German TV, for example, says that nearly seven in 10 Afghans support the presence of U.S. forces in their country.

Another, perhaps more damaging, misperception is of Afghanistan as the ‘Graveyard of Empires': a historically insignificant strategic backwater where great civilizations - inevitably European ones - ended up mired in ruinous war. But even a cursory examination of the region's history makes a mockery of this now entrenched concept. During his conquests, Alexander of Macedon spent about two years solidifying his control of what is today Afghanistan and Central Asia, referred to in his day as Bactria and Sogdiana. In fact, his army chose to reverse its course in today's Punjab, over two hundred miles to modern Afghanistan's east, after the Battle of the Hydaspes. The 19th century British Empire, despite an initial setback, won subsequent engagements against the Afghans in its bid to create a buffer zone to British India's northwest. And the defeat of the Soviet military in the 1980s was only made possible with American, Pakistani, and Saudi support.

The Graveyard of Empires canard also largely ignores non-Western history. Ancient and medieval Afghanistan was in fact at the heart of a number of major civilizations, including the Greek Bactrian states, the Kushan Empire, which was a contemporary of imperial Rome, and the Ghaznavid sultanate from the 10th to 12th centuries, whose rulers made regular military forays into the subcontinent. The great Mughal Empire, at its zenith perhaps the most prosperous realm on earth, had its foundations in what is today's Afghanistan, when its progenitor Babur established a presence in the region between Kabul and Peshawar. Count, on top of all this, several centuries of sustained Persian rule over the region.

Pulling U.S.-Pakistan Policy out of the Shadows

My post on U.S. Pakistan policy appeared on Foreign Policy's Af-Pak Channel on September 30, 2011. An excerpt is below. The full text can be accessed here.

The big difference between the 1990s and today is the presence and role of the United States in South Asia. In the 90s, Washington was completely disengaged from the region, turning a blind eye to the rise of the Taliban and even indicating an interest in doing business with them, all of which resulted in the unfortunate consequences he details. But 9/11 permanently changed all that: the United States can no longer afford to completely disengage from the region. Actively containing Pakistan is an entirely different prospect from ignoring and sanctioning the country. As such, Washington cannot presume that a tougher line on Pakistan today will have the same consequences that it did in the years before 9/11.

On balance, Washington probably underestimates its leverage with Pakistan. The United States has an unparalleled range of military, diplomatic, economic and socio-cultural tools at its disposal, and enjoys global reach and influence. Given the new realities that will mark the relationship by the end of next year -- a diminished U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, continuing unilateral strikes against terrorist targets, and a credible alternate supply route to Afghanistan -- Washington can probably afford to be more bold in employing them. However, the tendency to err on the side of caution, as Schake and Miller argue, may yet prevent Washington from fully exploring viable alternatives to its current dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan. It would be a tragedy if U.S. policymakers were still engaged in similar discussions five years from now.

A More Important Final Four Match

My article on the World Cup 2011 semi-final between India and Pakistan appeared on The AfPak Channel on foreignpolicy.com on March 29. An excerpt is included below. The full text is available here.

"If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world at this moment," George Orwell wrote in 1945, "you could hardly do it better than by a series of football matches between Jews and Arabs, Germans and Czechs, Indians and British, Russians and Poles, and Italians and Jugoslavs, each match to be watched by a mixed audience of 100,000 spectators." Certainly, international sport has all too often amplified the worst aspects of jingoistic behavior, but this Wednesday's Cricket World Cup semifinal between India and Pakistan, ­ to be held in a suburb of Chandigarh, the capital of the Indian state of Punjab,­ promises to prove Orwell wrong, much as previous such encounters between the two teams have done. Cricket, in fact, perhaps best illustrates why the India-Pakistan relationship may be among the world's most misunderstood.

[...]

The fate of the two cricket teams has also eerily reflected the overall trajectory of each country, never more so than during the last World Cup. In 2007, both India and Pakistan crashed out in the first round after surprise losses to Bangladesh and Ireland, respectively. In India, the media slammed the country's cricket stars for being money-grubbing fame seekers, spending far too much time seeking endorsements and filming television commercials. Cricket players, it was believed, embodied the worst of self-indulgent Indian consumerism.

The Pakistani team, by contrast, was criticized at home for spending too much time in ritual prayer and proselytizing. One of its star players, Yousuf Youhana, long the only Christian on the team, had converted to Islam some time earlier, changing his name to Mohammad Yousuf in the process, and credited his religious conversion with his spectacular form entering the World Cup. Chaos and rumors also abounded when Pakistan's coach, an Englishman named Bob Woolmer, was found dead in his hotel under sinister circumstances, with allegations of murder bandied about in the press and the country's rumor mill.

Developments since 2007 only served to reinforce national narratives of rise and decline. India is now home to the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world's richest cricket league, which holds a glitzy television-friendly competition each spring. But the IPL's reputation has been tarnished by credible reports of corruption on a massive scale, even leading to the resignation of an Indian minister. Meanwhile, the fate of cricket in Pakistan took a tragic turn for the worse with an armed attack in broad daylight on the visiting Sri Lankan team's bus in Lahore in 2009, fortunately with no fatalities to players. As with other such incidents in recent years, a conspiracy theory immediately gained currency, with rumors circulating in Pakistan that the attack had been planned by Indian intelligence to deny it co-hosting rights at this year's World Cup. Although this rumor proved unfounded, the absence of a successful follow-up investigation meant that international cricket in Pakistan was interminably suspended. Pakistan has since been forced to play its home games in Britain or the UAE and the elites, who can afford to travel to London or Sharjah to watch games, have readily adapted. For the moment, it seems the average Pakistani cricket fan has been the biggest victim, denied the opportunity to watch live international cricket in a country where the sport is a national passion.