DailyTimes editorial on US/India/Pakistan relations

EDITORIAL: F-16s and US policy vis-à-vis India and Pakistan

The sale of F-16s to both India and Pakistan gives an indication of the contours of America’s South Asia policy which has been evolving since the late 1990s but has begun to precipitate since September 11, 2001. It has three broad salients: South Asia, India and Pakistan. At the level of South Asia, the US wants a cooperative framework that can allow the region to gel better. For this it needs better Pakistan and India relations. So it is working both with Islamabad and New Delhi to improve its own ties with the two and simultaneously using improved linkages for impacting bilateral ties between India and Pakistan. The peace process forms the most important link in this policy framework.

With India, the US is developing strategic ties; with Pakistan, it requires turning the country around and keeping it secure. Its relations with India cover a much-broader ambit — political, economic and military; with Pakistan, the primary aim is to monitor the country and keep it on the track where General Pervez Musharraf guided and put it since September 13, 2001. Pakistan also, in this policy thrust, becomes a very important state in the “war against terrorism”. This necessitates give-and-take within a framework in which Indo-US relations do not undergo any unnecessary and avoidable friction. In any case, the idea is to improve US ties with the two while also nudging them to improve their own ties and become less suspicious of each other’s motives. The policy has worked fairly well for the US until now.