Posts Tagged Nawaz Dangerous for Pakistan Armed Forces

Indians cheered news of the successful Agni-V test; and learned of political clearance to raise a Mountain Strike Corps in the east to be headquartered at Panagarh. Each of India’s three armed services is moving to modernise itself.ed news of the successful Agni-V test; and learned of political clearance to raise a Mountain Strike Corps in the east to be headquartered

Gwynne Dyer: The return of Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan

by GWYNNE DYER on MAY 16, 2013 at 10:03 AM

Yesterday, India jubilantly tested the long-range Agni-V ballistic missile for the second time, en route to the missile’s induction into the Strategic Forces Command in several years. But trouble looms on India’s borders. In the recent monsoon session, Defence Minister A.K. Antony stood before Parliament to defend the government against the charge that it is permitting Chinese encroachment along the border and Line of Actual Control. Ground realities are difficult to discern from New Delhi, but much of the Indian media seems fearful that the Chinese are winning a slow border game of chicken. To the west, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif continued to make conciliatory noises towards Delhi while also chairing a National Command Authority meeting, which affirmed its support for “full spectrum deterrence”.

To deal with this rough neighbourhood, India has embarked on an ambitious military modernisation programme. Indians have triumphantly witnessed progress on a nuclear ballistic missile submarine, the Arihant, whose reactor recently went critical; watched the aircraft carrier Vikrant set off from dry dock; cheered news of the successful Agni-V test; and learned of political clearance to raise a Mountain Strike Corps in the east to be headquartered at Panagarh. Each of India’s three armed services is moving to modernise itself.

But can India afford it all? The defence budget for 2013-14 grew by 5 per cent over the previous year, with defence capital acquisitions growing by 9 per cent. But, with inflation averaging more than 5 per cent since February, and the rupee depreciating by 14 per cent against the dollar over the same period, that modest nominal budget increase is actually a real budget decrease for defence. In a time of austerity, strategic planning is about prioritisation. How should India prioritise its future military modernisation to meet its envisioned security requirements? Each of the three services can claim urgent need.

In each of his previous terms, he tried very hard to make peace with India, but was thwarted both times by the Pakistani army. The current military chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is due to retire at the end of this year (after a three-year extension in office), Nawaz Sharif  wants large-scale Indian investment in Pakistan (including pipelines bringing oil and gas from Iran and Central Asia). He would let Pakistan cut the military budget down to size. And it would end the army’s tacit support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is all about ensuring that Pakistan has a friendly government in Kabul to give it “strategic depth” in its long cold war with India.

That weakens the legitimacy of his victory, but with the support of some candidates who won as independents he will have no trouble in forming a majority government. The question is: what will that government do?

It’s a good question, because Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country of 160 million people that has borders with India, Afghanistan and Iran. 

Everybody knows that Nawaz Sharif is conservative, pro-business, and devout – during his second term, he tried to pass a constitutional amendment that would have enabled him to enforce Sharia law—but he hasn’t been tremendously forthcoming about his actual plans for his third term. And some of the things he did say have caused concern in various quarters.

The thing that most worries the United States is his declaration that Pakistan should end its involvement in the U.S.-led “war on terror”. The army in unhappy about his proposal that the government should negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban (who conducted a campaign of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings against the “secular” political parties in the recent election) rather than just fighting them.

And everybody is wondering what Nawaz will do about the economy. The country’s balance of payments is in ruins, and it cannot meet its foreign debt obligations without negotiating new loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Those loans would come with onerous conditions about balancing the budget and fixing the tax system, and they wouldn’t come at all without American support.

Pakistan is technically a middle-income country, but during the outgoing government’s five years in office power shortages grew so acute that most regions are facing power outages for up to 12 hours a day. Millions of vehicles fuelled by natural gas have been immobilised by gas shortages. The country desperately needs foreign investment, but the plague of Islamist terrorism frightens investors away.

Finally, the United States will be withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan next year, and Nawaz Sharif will have to decide what he wants to do about the Taliban in that country (who still have the tacit support of Pakistan’s army). The key to all these puzzles, oddly enough, may lie in the incoming prime minister’s determination to improve relations with India.

India has seven times Pakistan’s population and a booming economy, and it long ago lost its obsession with the agonies of Partition in 1947 and the three wars with Pakistan that followed. But the Pakistan army continues to be obsessed with the “threat” from India—in large part because that justifies its taking the lion’s share of the national budget. If Nawaz could fix Pakistan’s relations with India, a lot of his other dilemmas would also be solved.

The Taliban will inevitably be part of any post-occupation government in Afghanistan, but without Pakistani support they will have to strike a deal with other forces rather than just taking over. That outcome would greatly mollify Washington and make it easier for Islamabad to get new loans from the World Bank and the IMF. It would also make it easier for the government to negotiate some kind of domestic peace settlement with the Pakistani Taliban.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.