[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
REASSESSING AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY IN SOUTH ASIA
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 26, 2011
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Serial No. 112-54
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
VACANT
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
RON PAUL, Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DAVID RIVERA, Florida
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Aparna Pande, Ph.D., resident fellow, Hudson Institute........... 6
Mr. John Tkacik, Jr., president, China Business Intelligence
(former Chief of China Analysis in the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research, U.S. Department of State)........................ 15
Mr. Sadanand Dhume, research fellow, American Enterprise
Institute...................................................... 29
Mr. Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center, The Atlantic
Council of the United States................................... 37
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Dana Rohrabacher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations: Prepared statement............... 3
Aparna Pande, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.......................... 9
Mr. John Tkacik, Jr.: Prepared statement......................... 17
Mr. Sadanand Dhume: Prepared statement........................... 31
Mr. Shuja Nawaz: Prepared statement.............................. 39
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 62
Hearing minutes.................................................. 63
REASSESSING AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY IN SOUTH ASIA
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TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Rohrabacher. On the record. I'm not going to repeat
what I just said. So anyway, I want to welcome all of you,
welcome our witnesses and thank our witnesses for joining us
today.
U.S. policy in Southwest Asia needs to be changed and
changed quickly because we are currently funding people who are
directly responsible for killing Americans. The purpose of
today's hearing is to explore how we get out of this particular
mess.
The main powers in Southwest Asia are Democratic India,
Bankrupt Pakistan and Communist China. The latter is not
located in the region but is always there stirring the pot due
to its alliance perhaps with Pakistan and its rivalry, mutual
rivalry, with India.
Afghanistan, which has been the focus of U.S. involvement,
is part of a larger regional contest. This is a truism that has
failed to be apparent to many Americans over the years. The
India-Soviet alignment alienated the United States during the
Cold War, resulting in what was clearly an adversarial
relationship between the United States and India.
China's occupation of Tibet and invasion of the Himalayan
India certainly escalated tensions in that part of the world,
and when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. and
Pakistan worked together to support Afghan insurgents against
the Soviet occupation.
Following the Russian withdrawal in 1989 the U.S. shifted
its focus away from Southwest Asia. The Pakistan-China
friendship, however, as we begin to focus away, deepened and
became more intense as both parties targeted India as their
major enemy. China now is a natural ally of Pakistan which, of
course, has manifested a gut hostility toward India since the
founding of that country. That is the power dynamic that is at
work in Southwest Asia.
China arms Sri Lanka, Burma, Bangladesh and pours money
into these states to influence their alignment. Nepal on
India's northeast border has recently been taken over by a
malice movement which has ties to Beijing.
All of this is a dangerous rivalry, one that the United
States was unfortunately drawn into when devising a Cold War
strategy, but that strategy must be dramatically and
immediately changed because the times have changed. The Cold
War is over and we have been on a pathway that was directed by
those policies established during the Cold War for far too
long.
With U.S. support, Pakistan has played a major role in
creating the Taliban. Islamabad independent of U.S. interest
hoped to use this radical element of the Taliban as a vanguard,
its own vanguard, to gain control of Afghanistan and to
strengthen their position against India.
After 9/11 the United States used both carrots and sticks
in an attempt to focus Pakistan to break with these terrorists.
In the latter category, the carrots and sticks, basically we
moved to improve relations with India as we saw Pakistan
conducting themselves in a way that was totally unacceptable to
our interests. So we moved to improve our relations with India
and also, for example, sought a role for India in Afghanistan's
reconstruction. Ties were further advanced with the
ratification of the United States-India Agreement for
Cooperation on the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy in 2008
which China, of course, denounced.
The Mumbai attack on 2010 which was linked to a Pakistan-
based terrorist group with links to the ISI--that's the Inter-
Services Intelligence system there in Pakistan--reminded both
India and the United States that they had a common enemy. So
did the continued and close military cooperation between
Pakistan and China remind us that perhaps Pakistan was slipping
away from being a friend into being an adversary.
Pakistan has acquired Chinese fighters, frigates,
submarines, armored vehicles. Pakistan's nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles are based on Chinese technology which was
provided by Beijing as an explicit act of proliferation. China
is building more nuclear reactors in Pakistan along with
military air fields, ports and other strategic infrastructure.
As far as relations with Pakistan, they have been getting
worse rather than getting better, and in the wake of the
discovery that Osama bin Laden had been living in a Pakistani
garrison town for 5 years, the Obama administration has
rightfully withheld $800 million in aid to Islamabad.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen
has confirmed, and it is well-known, that the ISI has a
longstanding relationship with a number of terrorist groups,
and it is funding and training these terrorists who are at this
moment killing Americans and coalition partners in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have called on the Afghan Government to
expel U.S. forces and to join a Pakistani-Chinese alliance. So,
friends, our Pakistani friends are there asking the Afghans
just to drop us and join the Chinese and Pakistanis.
I have proposed legislation H.R. 1792 to end all aid to
Pakistan, and have also offered amendments to both the Defense
and State Department authorization bills to do so, but what
needs to be seriously discussed is a fundamental shift in
America's Southwest Asia strategy, a break with the Cold War
policies that no longer apply.
What is the best way for the United States to protect its
security, its interests, and its values in Southwest Asia?
Well, these are questions that we hope to answer today, and
that's what this hearing is about.
I will be introducing the witnesses for their testimony in
a moment. But, first, open remarks from Ranking Member
Carnahan.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rohrabacher follows:]
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Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for organizing this
hearing on this key topic, particularly at this time. And thank
you for our panel of witnesses for being here to lend us your
expertise and your knowledge on this issue.
Obviously, relations between the U.S. and Pakistan are
clearly strained right now. Many folks in this county still
find it hard to believe that top government officials or
military leaders in Pakistan were not being straightforward
during the time we were trying to find Osama bin Laden.
We've seen the latest sign of tension was the
administration's decision to suspend nearly $800 million in
counterterrorism funding to Pakistan. And the chairman has
rightly stated that that was the correct action of the
administration.
Given the mounting concerns over a series of decisions made
by the Pakistani Government and the military, suspension of a
portion of the U.S. military aid was the right thing to do.
We need to ensure that every dollar of the U.S. taxpayer
funded assistance is being used properly. This vigorous
oversight role for all of U.S. foreign aid is critical to the
success of our programs there. It's a key component to building
infrastructure and capacity in Pakistan.
Officials throughout the country have to do better from
rooting out corruption to vigilantly pursuing terrorists. The
government and military absolutely have to step up and do a
better job.
Pakistan faces enormous economic, security, development and
political challenges. And I believe that it's critical that the
U.S. and the international communities stay engaged and our
people stay engaged in Pakistan. As we look toward the post
2014 draw-down of U.S. troops in Afghan, we need to ensure that
we are making decisions that move Pakistan, Afghanistan and the
region toward more stability and not less.
Diplomacy and development are key. They're going to
continue to be key compounds of our policy in the region
especially after 2014. I'm very interested to hear what our
witnesses have to say as to the best way forward and how our
strategy in Pakistan and the region should unfold in the months
and years ahead.
Thank you for being here today to testify. And I want to
give a little bit of a disclaimer here. I have a second hearing
going on right around the corner. I may have to step out
briefly. But I'm going to do my best to juggle both hearings
today. So again thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. We will now proceed
with our witnesses, the first of which is--and you all will
forgive me--my better talent is something to do with surfing in
California. My worst talent has something to do with
pronouncing names, and please forgive me if I--and you might
correct me to the right way. Shuja Nawaz. Is that the right
pronunciation?
Mr. Nawaz. Shuja Nawaz.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Then he's a native of Pakistan,
now a U.S. citizen. First director of South Asia Center at the
Atlantic Council in Washington. He has worked for Rand
Corporation and U.S. Institute of Peace and the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, and we also have with us
over at this side--please tell me how to pronounce your first
name.
Mr. Pande. Aparna.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Aparna. Okay. Aparna Pande, a research
fellow with the Hudson Institute Center on Islam, Democracy,
and the Future of the muslim World. A 1993 graduate of Delhi
University. You hold a master's degree in history from St.
Stephen's College, Delhi University and then a master's in
international relations as well, and you've received a
doctorate in political science from Boston University, and you
have a book explaining Pakistan's foreign policy. Boy, we'll be
interested to hear that, and escaping India I might add. It was
published in March 2011 by Routledge, and then John Tkacik.
Mr. Tkacik. That's correct.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Retired Foreign Service
officer, businessman, policy commentator with over 35 years
experience in China, Taiwan and Mongolia, he spent 24 years in
the Department of State and in diplomatic and counselor offices
in Taiwan and China, and was the Chief of China Analysts in the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research before he retired in 1994.
He joined the Heritage Foundation in 2001 where he was a
senior fellow in Asian studies. He has edited two books,
Reshaping the Taiwan Strait and Rethinking One China. He is
fluent in Chinese and has degrees from Harvard and Georgetown
Universities. He's currently president of the China Business
Intelligence, and then Sadanand Dhume, got it, is a resident
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a South
Asian columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has worked as a
foreign correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and
my friend, Bertil Lintner. Is he still there?
Mr. Dhume. Bertil's still there, but the magazine isn't
though.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But the magazine isn't. Bertil is there,
but the magazine folded. Okay, and was a fellow at the Asian
Society here in Washington, DC. He has a political travelogue
about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, My Friend, The
Fanatic, travels with a radical Islamist, has been published in
four countries, has a B.A. from Delhi University and a master's
degree from Columbia and Princeton, and we should go from right
to left. Which right? This right. Okay. From her, she'd be on
the lefthand side.
Why don't we start with you. If you could try to condense
it down to 5 minutes that would be helpful and then we'll go to
questions and answers after that. So you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF APARNA PANDE, PH.D., RESIDENT FELLOW, HUDSON
INSTITUTE
Mr. Pande. Good afternoon, I would like to start by
thanking the chairman and the committee for having me here
today.
Any attempt at a certain American grand strategy will face
some difficulty in South Asia. This is because it will be
difficult to place either India or Pakistan into set categories
or strategies. During the Cold War, Pakistan was more
interested in being part of a grand strategy, but India adopted
the policy of nonalignment.
Today, while India may appear more interested in partnering
with the United States, Pakistan will resist being part of any
grand strategy. Therefore, instead of a grand strategy, it
might be better if they were country and region specific
strategies.
The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has been one of differing
expectations and that is often why both sides feel let down.
Pakistan's leaders have always feared an existential threat
from India and believe that the aim of India's foreign policy
is to undo the creation of Pakistan. Pakistan has always seen
the United States as the ally who would provide assistance to
help Pakistan gain parity with India and ensure its safety and
integrity against any Indian attack. In return for supporting
some American policies, Pakistan has sought U.S. aid and
support against India especially in the context of Kashmir and
Afghanistan.
For the United States, however, Pakistan was just one part
of its larger containment strategy during the Cold War era.
Post 9/11 Pakistan was invaluable for the war in Afghanistan
and against terrorism. For the United States, the relationship
has been tactical and transactional, not strategic and long
term. Further while desirous of peace in South Asia, the U.S.
has never seen India as an enemy or threat.
Pakistan seeks in China a strong ally who would build
Pakistan's economic and military resources, to help achieve
parity with India and a country that has an antagonistic
relationship with India and hence would support Pakistan in any
conflict with India. While China has been a close Pakistani
ally since the 1950s, Chinese assistance has been limited to
the military-nuclear area, in facilitative development and
trade related investment. The investment has been targeted in
such a way as would benefit China in the long run. For decades,
Indian policymakers viewed American policy as that of an
offshore balancer to counter so-called Indian hegemony in South
Asia.
Starting with the Bush administration, there was a change
in policy beginning with a desire to treat India and Pakistan
differently. Economic, security and defense ties have grown in
the last decade.
Over the years, the U.S. has provided vast amounts of aid
to Pakistan. However, most of this aid has been military in
nature. It is only in 2009 that with the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act
a significant amount of nonmilitary aid was offered to
Pakistan.
If the United States withdraws all its assistance,
especially nonmilitary aid, and walks away from Pakistan, there
will be further destabilization of the country and the region.
This move will negatively affect American operations in
Afghanistan.
Without an American presence or assistance, Pakistan will
be even less reluctant to act against terror groups operating
from its territory. This means that if any future attacks in
India are traced back to Pakistan, then without an American
stake in the region, it will be difficult to dissuade either
country from taking military action.
The threat of nuclear proliferation to terrorists is
another issue that directly threatens U.S. foreign and domestic
interests. Further, Pakistan's economy is weak and has yet to
recover from the devastating floods of 2010 and the massive
refugee crisis. Pakistan's depends on outside support both from
U.S. and multi-lateral institutions like IMF, World Bank and
others.
Pakistan's foreign and security policies have traditionally
been and continue to remain the domain of the military
bureaucratic establishment. Civilian politicians have rarely
had any say and have been unwilling or unable to change the
direction of these policies.
While the Pakistani security establishment's world view
does not match that of the American, boosting the civilian side
of the Pakistani state which shares the American world view is
critical. In the long run, U.S. policy would benefit by weaning
Pakistan away from its fundamental orientation and ideological
driven identity and world view by helping the civilian, secular
and liberal elements in the country. In this context non-
military aid that furthers the growth of a modern middle class
and civil society is well worth the investment. Non-military
aid less thinly spread that is targeted to impact the lives of
large numbers of people is also going to have a higher payoff.
Moving ahead, the relationship with Pakistan is going to be
difficult. But it will be beneficial to both parties concerned
if one tried to find areas of agreement. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pande follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, and we will have some
questions for you later on.
John, would you like to proceed?
STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN TKACIK, JR., PRESIDENT, CHINA BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE (FORMER CHIEF OF CHINA ANALYSIS IN THE BUREAU OF
INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE)
Mr. Tkacik. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher and members of
the committee. I am honored to be here to testify before you on
what may be the most important dimension of America's grand
strategy in South Asia which is the strategic relationship
between China and Pakistan.
I've entitled my presentation ``The Enemy of Hegemony is My
Friend'' because China views the United States as the hegemon
in the world and Pakistan views India as the hegemon in South
Asia.
At the outset let me say that in the 21st century there can
be no more profound a strategic alliance than one in which the
members exchange nuclear weapons, materials, technology and
delivery systems between themselves and aid each other in their
development.
This is the kind of relationship that China and Pakistan
have. In fact, the United States only has one such relationship
and that's the so-called special relationship with the United
Kingdom. China and Pakistan's relationship although it appears
that China's far more tolerant and abetting of Pakistan's
further proliferation of nuclear weapons and delivery systems
to third parties such as North Korea and Libya. These are only
two examples of the peculiar strategic relationship that China
and Pakistan have.
Recently there has been considerable speculation in the
news that somehow China recently has come to eclipse the United
States as Pakistan's most important ally. But this is
unfounded. It's unrealistic. It betrays an misunderstanding of
Pakistan's strategic relationship with China.
China has always been Pakistan's most important strategic
ally. And the intensity of Pakistan's relationship with the
United States has always been a subfunction of Pakistan's all-
consuming strategic calculus about India.
The relationship between China and Pakistan goes back, of
course, to the 1962 war between China and India which was
rooted in China's occupation of the Aksai Chin portion of the
India-claimed portion of Kashmir 6 years earlier.
Mr. Chairman, as you're aware, the United States cooperated
with India in the 50s and 60s to support a large Tibetan exile
nation based in India. China came to regard Pakistan as a
strategic ally to India's geographical rear and Pakistan for
its part had likewise come to see China as a counterweight to
India.
In the 1965 First Indo-Pakistani War after Pakistan was
soundly defeated, China immediately provided Pakistan with a
considerable amount of war materiel including at least an
armored division's worth of T-59 medium tanks and two air wings
of MiG-19 jet fighters. This was weaponry that China at the
time was not in a position to give away. But China could not
tolerate strategically India's preeminence in the subcontinent
if China were to consolidate its legitimacy in its occupation
of Tibet.
From that time on, China-Pakistan alliance has been the
single most important military relationship that either of the
two nations has had since the 1950s. I won't go through the
history of it, but I will say, before my time is up, that
China's complicity in providing Pakistan with nuclear weapons
technology, nuclear weapons materials, including fissile
materials, China's provision to Pakistan of ballistic missile
technology and when the United States put pressure on China to
stop, China managed a very subtle but quite apparent trade
between North Korea and Pakistan.
North Korea gave Pakistan ballistic missile technology in
return for which Pakistan gave North Korea uranium separation
technology and weapons technology. This was all revealed by
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to a friend of hers before
she passed away. And the Washington Post had two articles on it
that I thought were quite revealing. We can discuss it if you
wish when the time comes.
Let me move right to my conclusion. For the United States
to achieve a true strategic partnership with Pakistan, the
United States must then share Pakistan's posture toward India.
It follows that subduing India also demands acquiescing in
China's ultimate hegemony in Asia.
In reassessing America's grand strategy in South Asia, the
United States must first reassess its total global grand
strategy. If the United States can live with an Asia under
Chinese hegemony and with a crippled India, then America can
have Pakistan's enthusiastic partnership against the Taliban or
whomever else it wants.
But decisions like this are, as they say, above my pay
grade. Instead they are the proper focus of the Congress and
the Executive. I would only say that both the Congress and the
Executive should look at South Asia's strategy in the context
of its broader global strategy. And I'll leave the rest of my
presentation to the questions. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statemeent of Mr. Tkacik follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dhume.
STATEMENT OF MR. SADANAND DHUME, RESEARCH FELLOW, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Mr. Dhume. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Rohrabacher and Mr.
Ranking Member Carnahan and all of the committee members. It's
an honor to be here.
I would argue that there is in fact--we do have the
contours of U.S. grant strategy in South Asia and I would say
that pillars of that sort of to understand what U.S. policy
should be in the region we could actually look back at another
part of Asia where U.S. policy was very successful which is
Southeast Asia from I'd say between 1966 until about the late
90s. And just as the U.S. in Southeast Asia was instrumental in
prevailing over Indonesia and Malaysia, for example, to end
their squabbles and presiding over three decades of outstanding
economic growth, rising prosperity, opening market economies
and so on, I think that ought to be--that provides a kind of
template for what should be U.S. grant strategy in South Asia
where the U.S. has been arguably much less successful.
So I'd say that this grant strategy has four pillars as I
see it. The first, of course, is to take a leaf out of
successful U.S. strategy in Southeast Asia to preside over a
period of peace and prosperity.
The second key factor here is that India is naturally the
fulcrum of U.S. policy in South Asia quite simply because of
its size, because of its economy, because of the fact that its
economy is increasingly open and it has private sector
companies that are driving it, because of very close people to
people ties between the U.S. and India, particularly the large
Indian American community from whom you have two members over
here. For all these reasons, democratic India as you said is a
natural American partner in the region which acts against both
the hegemony of authoritarian China and also acts as a kind of
firebreak against a rise of radical Islam as an ideology
unfortunately much of which is emanating from Pakistan.
The third leg of this grant strategy apart from taking a
leaf from Southeast Asia and using India as a fulcrum would be
making sure that Pakistan stops spreading terrorism both in its
neighborhood and beyond and making sure that Pakistan nuclear
weapons do not fall in the hands of any terrorist group.
And finally, the fourth leg would be greater economic
integration.
Now when I look at these sort of pillars the one that seems
most problematic which you alluded to also, Mr. Chairman, is
Pakistan and the current state of that state. I'd say if you
were to sum up what the U.S. needs to achieve in Pakistan very
simply it is to change the nature of the Pakistani state. And
by this I mean it has to go from being a state where the Army
and the Army's intelligence agency, the ISI, play a
disproportionate role that destabilizes its neighbors, both
Afghanistan and India, to one where Pakistan's legitimate
security interests are respected such as its borders. But its
capacity to destabilize its neighbors and effectively keep
India hobbled which plays into Chinese ambition is restricted.
And that has to be the central goal of U.S. policy in South
Asia. For the foreseeable future, it has to be changing the
course of Pakistan.
Now you spoke of carrots and sticks and I agree
wholeheartedly that American carrots have not entirely been
successful, $20 billion of aid, and you still find Osama bin
Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a garrison town. So I agree that
the method has not been entirely successful.
But I would add that instead of taking away all the carrots
which would be shortsighted, we need a combination of targeted
carrots and bigger sticks. You can't take the sticks off the
table. But you can't take the carrots away either because the
alternative which would be a Pakistan that is disengaged from
the U.S. would hurt their elements in Pakistani society. And
they do exist. Liberal secular elements in Pakistani society
who want their country to focus on development and the
betterment of its citizens. And those people need to have the
support of the United States even while the Army is turned into
something that we would recognize as resembling a more
``normal'' military, one that is concerned with guarding its
own borders and less with destabilizing its neighbors. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dhume follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. Exactly 5 minutes.
Very impressive.
Mr. Nawaz.
STATEMENT OF MR. SHUJA NAWAZ, DIRECTOR OF THE SOUTH ASIA
CENTER, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES
Mr. Nawaz. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Carnahan, members
of the committee, I'm honored to be invited to speak to you
today. With due respect, Mr. Chairman, I cannot see any signs
of a ``grand strategy'' of the United States in South Asia. In
my view, we've been improvising all along and now as we
approach the end of military operations in Afghanistan, we seem
to be trying to do too much in too short a time.
I'm reminded of Lewis Carroll's sentence in Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland: ``When you don't know where you are
going, any road will take you there.'' It is sad and
regrettable that today after expending billions of dollars in
the region and losing thousands of American lives and many
multiples in Afghan and Pakistani lives in the ensuing
conflicts we are still grasping for a ``grand strategy.'' Our
local alliances have been marked by expediency. It is time to
change that situation.
In my detailed testimony I've examined the genesis of the
U.S.-Pakistan relationship in the past decade or so and
identified the causes of our current problems in the region. In
the interest of time, let me identify now some practicable
suggestions as we move ahead.
First, the United States must stop seeing everything
through the military lens alone and stop aligning with corrupt
leaders who will use aid to line their own pockets at the
expense of their citizens and who dissemble with us and lie to
their own people even after agreeing to certain courses of
action with the United States.
The United States must put its interactions with civilian
leaders and civil society on a much higher plane than it has to
date. And it must increase its effort to help Pakistan rebuild
its civil society and institutions so they can reclaim the
space that's been taken away by long military rule.
Despite the occasional contretemps, the Pakistan military
still values its ties to the United States. But this
relationship must be based on respect and a very frank
assessment of needs on both sides. Stopping the Coalition
Support Funds will be a good start. Replacing it with an agreed
military aid program with clearly identified and defined
objectives and expectations will change this from a
transactional relationship to a consistent and a sustainable
one.
The military IMET program, the International Military
Education and Training Program, must be deepened to extend to
attachments with U.S. forces of the ``lost generation'' of
junior Pakistani officers who were cut off from the world at
the time that Pakistan was under sanctions.
The United States' private negotiations with Pakistani
interlocutors have to be frank and tough but rest on honesty
and mutual respect. Influencing local leaders via leaks and
public statements via the news media produces an unintended
consequence: Support for an ever present and widening net of
conspiracy theories.
The Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill is a strong signal of a change
in the U.S. view of this relationship. But it needs to be
refocused on economic development and longer-term sustainable
signature projects along the lines of development financing
from the United Kingdom. We must build civil institutions
through a civilian equivalent of The IMET program.
Economics lies at the heart of potential interdependence
within the region, as one of my colleagues here has said. The
United States can and should encourage opening of borders to
trade people. The trade dividends for India and Pakistan alone
could rise from a current level of $2 billion a year to $100
billion a year: Much more than any potential U.S. aid to the
region.
Seven out of ten persons polled in India and Pakistan want
to have better relations with the other country. The United
States can and must leverage this latent goodwill as suggested
recently by Secretary Clinton in her speech at Chennai. Once
the people can move across borders freely, the ability of
interested parties to foment conflict will be reduced
considerably.
As we prepare to exit Afghanistan, both India and Pakistan
could be persuaded to work together to ensure that Afghan
territory will not become a battleground for their narrow
interests. A radical Taliban regime in Kabul would allow the
Pakistani Taliban to use sanctuaries to attack the Pakistani
state from across the Afghan border. Let us try and build on
that common understanding of The Taliban threat.
Finally, we should also consider widening the aperture to
see how we can engage China and even Iran to use their
respective influence and economic ties with Afghanistan and
Pakistan to create stability. China has a huge economic stake
in the stability of the region and also fears radical
extremists contaminating its own border region.
Mr. Chairman, I'm grateful that this committee is focusing
on this issue and thank you for allowing me to share some of my
views with you.
The prepared statement of Mr. Nawaz follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much to our witnesses, and
what we will do is I'll start off with a few questions. We'll
go to our other members of the committee and then the ranking
member will be rushing back from his hearing right across the
hall and we appreciate his diligence in doing just that.
Now I'm trying to--Did you say that China and Pakistan have
always been--Or was that you? Okay. So you believe that China
and Pakistan have always been best friends.
Mr. Tkacik. Well, I think since the 1962 Indo-Pakistani, I
mean, Sino-Indian War.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Sixty-six.
Mr. Tkacik. 1962.
Mr. Rohrabacher. 62, okay.
Mr. Tkacik. China has viewed India as an enemy as an
adversary.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Tkacik. In the 1950s, India and China were sort of on
the same ideological sheet of music. They were both supported
by the Soviet Union. They both considered themselves
socialistic states. But in 1957 when China began to build roads
through The Aksai Chin Territory of Kashmir, which is I'm not
even sure if the Chinese even knew they were in Kashmir at that
time, India began to get a little bit upset. And by 1962 when
the Sino-Soviet ideological split burst open, India decided to
side with the Soviet Union. And that was sort of when the----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. So you're suggesting that the
Chinese-Pakistani relationship is longstanding and not
something new.
Mr. Tkacik. Yes. At least a half century.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I guess what Americans don't understand is
that we've had military bases in Pakistan. Did we not have an
Air Force base up there? And we have been--And I think you also
testified that or one of you testified that the Indian Army or,
excuse me, the Pakistani Army had been equipped by China with
all their tanks and such, but we were providing Pakistan with
arms at that same time.
Mr. Tkacik. I believe.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Now if my memory serves me correctly,
Nixon didn't turn around our relationship with China until the
early 70s. So there was a time period in the past when China
was America's worst nightmare and Pakistan was China's best
friend?
Mr. Tkacik. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And we were friends of Pakistan?
Mr. Tkacik. Well, you recall that Francis Gary Powers I
believe took off in his U-2 from an airbase near Peshawar to go
over the Soviet Union. And at that time, yes, we had a very
close strategic relationship with Pakistan. However, in the
1960s, our relationship with Pakistan was a bit strained
because the two--primarily because of the first Indo-Pakistani
War in 1965.
And by 1969 when Henry Kissinger first and President Nixon
first looked at the possibility of a Soviet nuclear strike on
China the United States then and only then began to look at
India as a Soviet ally and Pakistan as a conduit to China. And
you'll recall that Henry Kissinger who made his famous secret
trip to China in 1971----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I see.
Mr. Tkacik [continuing]. Exactly 40 years ago went through
Pakistan.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So the actual change in relationship with
China which is something I--this is a new revelation to me and
I'm glad that we have these hearings for that purpose. So
you're suggesting that it was our relationship with Pakistan
that helped open the door to a more positive relationship with
China, and now that China is becoming more adversarial and
appears to be less friendly to the United States and our
interests, what does that mean about the Pakistani
relationship?
Mr. Tkacik. Well, I would simply reiterate that Pakistan
and China are very close, natural allies. I do not think that
it's going to be possible to have a strategic cooperative
relationship with Pakistan unless we basically decide that we
are going to have an equally strong and cooperative
relationship with China.
When you look at the South Asian subcontinent in order to
have a strong, cooperative relationship with China and Pakistan
you basically have to sacrifice India. Now it's up to you all
to decide.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes. Well, let me just note that I as the
chair--the chair believes that we face the two major enemies
that are faced with the United States. The two major threats
are radical Islam which we know which is murdering our
citizens, murdering other people as well, and China which is
emerging as not a friendly power but instead actually a hostile
power to the United States, and if that is the case, does that
not mean that if Pakistan has this being tied at the hip to
China should we not then suggest that it's time to become more
acquainted with India than with Pakistan? Yes, sir.
Mr. Nawaz. Mr. Chairman, I think it's a little more complex
than that. It's not a linear equation. The United States and
China certainly have a lot of co-dependence particularly on the
economic side. And we must not ignore that in the relationship.
Secondly, China, as I mentioned in my remarks, is equally
scared of Islamic extremism in the region, in the neighborhood,
as well as in its western territories in Xinjiang. And the last
thing that the Chinese would be interested in is having a
strong basis of Islamic extremism anywhere close to their
borders.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But Pakistan--But is that not what
Pakistan is all about now? I mean this is--Let's be fair about
it. The ISI and the military we thought were forces in Pakistan
that were moderate forces actually have been allied with
radical Islam all along, and it has actually been the more
moderate forces in Pakistan represented by The Bhuttos and
others that were not oriented toward radical Islam. But they
were enemies of the military.
Mr. Nawaz. Mr. Chairman, the Chinese have a strong interest
in a stable, moderate Pakistan on their borders precisely for
that reason that it would eliminate the possibility of radical
extremist taking over that state.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I'm sure they're willing to pay for it
because I think we're done, willing to pay for it ourselves.
Yes, madam. You have one.
Mr. Pande. I would like to say that Pakistan has more of a
mythical notion of the Chinese-Pakistani relationship than
China does. That's the point I want to make that Pakistan seeks
a lot more in China. China has never been as ``good'' an ally
or as faithful an ally as the Pakistani narrative makes it out
to be.
China has provided economic aid, some military and nuclear
aid. But from the 1990s China has also started stepping back a
bit. China and India ties, especially the economic ties with
India, have improved. And China has been reluctant to walk into
any India-Pakistan disputes purely on the Pakistani side. So
China has nuanced its relationship in the last two decades.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Can I ask you a question before Mr.
Rivera? But we'll go back and forth in this. But does China
give a significant amount of nonmilitary aid to Pakistan and,
if so, what is it?
Mr. Pande. Very limited. It is infrastructure development
like highways and ports, The Gwadar Port, Karakoram Highway.
About $300 million for grant and loan assistance between 2004
and 2009 but not much more. So it's very, very limited
nonmilitary. It's mainly infrastructure and trade.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But a limited amount.
Mr. Pande. Very limited.
Mr. Rohrabacher. That's compared to the United States.
Mr. Pande. Minuscule compared to the United States.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Oh my. Okay.
Mr. Dhume. I'd just like to respectfully disagree with Mr.
Nawaz on China and how much it's willing to live with radical
Islam. Whereas I agree that it's not in Chinese interest to
have its western regions such as in Xinjiang destabilized,
China has been quite happy to live with Pakistan whose
government has in fact aided and abetted Islamist groups for
decades. And this has not been something that the Chinese have
not used their influence to end this. And in fact at the United
Nations they have been more than happy to use their influence
in the other direction to protect some of these groups that the
United States and India would like to see proscribed.
So I think the Chinese at a conceptual level, yes, they
don't want to have radical Islam in their territory. But
they're willing to play a sophisticated game that tolerates
these elements of Pakistan.
Mr. Rohrabacher. They're willing to give a nuclear weapons
capability to someone who is a radical nutcase.
Mr. Rivera.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have just a few
questions. I know how important this issue is given recent
events in the world and given the state of relations between
Pakistan and India in particular.
If we were to say that Pakistan's relationship with China
on a scale of one to ten was a ten--whatever that means ten--
how would you rate on a scale of one to ten the importance of
Pakistan's relationship with the United States from Pakistan's
perspective? I'll start over here on a scale of one to ten.
Mr. Pande. I'd like to differentiate a bit between the
civilian elements and the military within Pakistan.
Mr. Rivera. From the government's perspective, if you were
sitting here as the prime minister, what would be--Your
relationship with China is a ten. You're now Pakistan. How
important is your relationship with the United States on a
scale on one to ten?
Mr. Pande. Between a five and seven.
Mr. Rivera. A five and seven.
Mr. Tkacik.
Mr. Tkacik. I would say about a five.
Mr. Rivera. About a five.
Mr. Dhume.
Mr. Dhume. I would say about an eight. They're both very
important.
Mr. Rivera. About an eight.
Mr. Nawaz.
Mr. Nawaz. I would say about eight and heading toward five.
Mr. Rivera. Okay. So between five and eight. So then my
question is if obviously the relationship with China could be
as much as twice as important to them as the relationship with
us what then given that fact that their relationship is twice
as important with China than it is with us what then are the
pressure points that we have at our disposal if our
relationship is about half as important to them as China. Where
are our pressure points? Is it foreign aid? Is it trade? Is it
perhaps U.S. aid to India, however that might manifest itself?
Is it military aid? Where are our pressure points given that
reality vis-a-vis China?
Mr. Nawaz.
Mr. Nawaz. I think it's not just a question of pressure
points. It's also a question of leverage.
Mr. Rivera. Where is our leverage?
Mr. Nawaz. The leverage is economic to a very large extent
and----
Mr. Rivera. Trade?
Mr. Nawaz [continuing]. Increasing military to a large
extent.
Mr. Rivera. When you say economic, you mean our trade
relations with Pakistan?
Mr. Nawaz. If the U.S. opens up trade access for Pakistani
goods, it means we have to give them much less aid. And they
can make the money on their own and profit from it. That's
number one.
Number two, on the economic side, it's not just the U.S.
assistance. The U.S. has tremendous leverage through the
international financial institutions, so the IMF, the World
Bank, the Asian Development Bank. It works both ways. We can
shut off that spigot or we can----
Mr. Rivera. So financial institutions and trade.
Mr. Nawaz. Yes.
Mr. Rivera. Mr. Dhume.
Mr. Dhume. I'd say the U.S. has tremendous leverage and in
essence if the U.S. were to turn its back on Pakistan I think
not only would Pakistan's economy which is already hurting, not
only Pakistan's economy----
Mr. Rivera. Turn its back how? Withdrawal of what?
Mr. Dhume. If it were to decide that it--with a cutoff
date. If it were to cut off support for Pakistan in the
international financial institutions such as the IMF and the
World Bank. It were to publicly call Pakistan out on past
actions of both nuclear and nonproliferation and support for
terrorism.
I think the U.S. has a tremendous ability to threaten
Pakistan's economic well-being and also its legitimacy.
Mr. Rivera. So cut off aid and international financial
institutions.
Mr. Dhume. And legitimacy in the international system.
Mr. Rivera. I don't know how concerned they are about that.
But certainly money I'm sure they're concerned about.
Mr. Tkacik.
Mr. Tkacik. Well, I think we're in a bit of a difficult
situation because frankly we're extremely exposed in
Afghanistan and my understanding is about 80-90 percent of our
logistics supporting our troops in Afghanistan go through
Pakistan. So if you were to put pressure on Pakistan, I can
imagine what kind of pressure Pakistan could put on us.
So if you want to avoid or if you want to have leverage on
Pakistan you've got to remove the Pakistani leverage on us. And
I worry then how we're going to do that. This is a very
complex, strategic game that we have before us and you have
to----
Mr. Rivera. So as long as the troops are there, we have no
leverage.
Ms. Pande.
Mr. Pande. It's economic, both nonmilitary aid. That means
what U.S. provides and international institutions like IMF.
It's military aid. It's also trade and it's leverage with the
India-Pakistan relationship in Afghanistan.
Mr. Rivera. Okay. My next question, what is the state of
bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran and its southern
quadrant?
Mr. Nawaz.
Mr. Nawaz. This has always been a very interesting and
problematic relationship.
Mr. Rivera. What is the state today?
Mr. Nawaz. It is problematic and still very interesting
because of conflicting interests in the border region between
Iran and Pakistan. There is an insurgency asking for an
independent Greater Balochistan and it has found support inside
Pakistan allowing a group called Jundallah from operating from
Pakistani bases.
Mr. Rivera. So it's not a close relationship.
Mr. Nawaz. It's close in some areas but not close on
others.
Mr. Rivera. Okay. So problematic he said, would that be
accurate? Would everyone agree with a problematic relationship
between Iran and Pakistan?
Mr. Dhume.
Mr. Dhume. I'd say that traditionally it has not been. I
mean it's been warm. But I'd say that one of the big problems
has been that since the Iranian revolution you've seen the rise
of an extreme kind of Sunni fundamentalism in Pakistan which
specifically targets Pakistan's Shia minority and that has
created sort of a bit of tensions between them.
Mr. Rivera. Tensions. My light is on. Sorry, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you so much for your indulgence.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And Judge Poe.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here.
To me, Pakistan has proven itself, has proven itself, to be
an untrustworthy ally of the United States. After $20 billion
of aid over the last 10 years, I'm not sure we have a whole lot
to show for it. Pakistan has still not gone after key targets
like Al Qaeda. Pakistan was either unwilling or unable to hand
over Osama bin Laden. That was in plain sight to everybody in
that area.
If Pakistan was truly on our side in the fight against
terrorists, that it should have commended our work and taken
out the Number One Terrorist in the world. Instead the
Pakistanis arrested CIA informants that helped us get him. Some
kind of friends they are.
In June, Pakistan tipped off terrorists making IEDs not
once but twice after we gave them information and told them
where the terrorists were so they could go capture them. And
all of a sudden the terrorists disappeared.
The latest Pakistani show of friendship came over the
weekend at the World Without Terrorism conference hosted by the
world's leading terrorist state, Iran. And the Pakistanis told
the Iranians that they wanted to be an ally and pledged their
work toward working and expanding relations with Iran.
It's time for us to take a look at the money we're giving
away to Pakistan. Over the last 10 years, Pakistan has not
helped us get any closer today in eliminating terrorists. It's
possible that our aid to Pakistan is actually hurting more than
it is doing good.
And not all the problems can be solved by throwing money at
people especially Pakistan. The billions of dollars that we
give them, what do we have to show for it? I believe it's time
we reevaluate all aid, military and foreign aid, to Pakistan.
Pakistan has become the Benedict Arnold nation in its
relationship with the United States.
I have a couple of questions and if I mispronounce your
name I apologize. My name is Ted Poe. I've been called Tadpole
and the whole thing, a lot of things worst than that.
But, Mr. Tkacik, I have a couple of questions about China,
Pakistan, North Korea on the development of nuclear weapons. Do
you see that train or line going to North Korean nuclear
development coming from Pakistan? There have been accusations
for years that that's where they got their start or help.
Mr. Tkacik. Well, I think that relationship has been very,
very clearly documented not just in the intelligence that the
United States has collected but also in basically the public
record.
There is no question in my mind that China has been the
facilitator of the exchange of nuclear weapons technology from
Pakistan to North Korea in exchange for North Korean ballistic
missile technology to Pakistan. I can say that people that have
had direct knowledge of the intelligence have confirmed that to
me.
It's been in the newspapers. And again as I mentioned and
I've documented in my presentation here when Mrs. Bhutto, when
former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, made her comments to a
journalist friend of hers she couched it in terms of--and I
should find it here--she said, ``I have done more for my
country than all of the members of the Pakistani Armed Forces.
I was the one that went to North Korea and exchanged nuclear
weapons technology for the ballistic missiles.''
And then she----
Mr. Poe. I'm sorry to cut you off. I only have a few
minutes. But I just wanted to hear that from you once again to
clarify the information.
Military aid, foreign aid, two separate types of aid we
give to the Pakistanis. There have been reports that some of
the military aid we give to the Pakistanis to help fight the
bad guys actually turns out to go into the hands of the
military for other purposes, maybe even to reinforce the
military along the border with India.
Any one of you want to weigh in on that accusation against
the Pakistani military? Mr. Tkacik.
Mr. Tkacik. I mean I look back at right after 9/11. The
biggest, most prominent terrorist attack was by Pakistanis
against the Indian Parliament in New Delhi in December 2001.
This could have started a nuclear war between these two
countries.
Now China was involved in this and China had made an
arrangement with Pakistan to get Pakistani nuclear weapons. In
the overall strategic context of this, why would China want
Pakistan to have nuclear weapons in this kind of a situation?
Well, we were the ones. The United States were the ones
that immediately after 9/11 had to broker the peace between
Pakistan and India after the New Delhi attacks. This was the
Pakistani military I believe that was behind this. And one has
to ask oneself what is the strategic game going on here.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. If you have any other questions, you're
welcome to go right ahead. The chairman took a few extra
minutes.
Mr. Poe. That's it for now.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Got it. Let me ask some things
here. Are there any documented cases where India attacked
Pakistan in these last five decades? I mean we know about
Mumbai and we know that the terrorists actually had a
connection with the military in Pakistan, and we know that in
Kashmir there have been weapons and such shipped into Kashmir.
Now, by the way, I personally believe that the Kashmirian
people deserve to have a referendum and to determine their own
destiny, and I think that we could deflate that situation if
India would permit that.
So I'm not siding. I'm not just forgetting anything wrong,
but by and large I can't remember any time when the Indians
were attacking the Pakistanis. Can you enlighten me to that?
Mr. Nawaz. Mr. Chairman, strictly speaking and technically
speaking, in 1971 the Indian army invaded what was then
Pakistan and what was then East Pakistan in support of the
independence movement of the Bangladeshis.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. But we know now that that wasn't an
invasion because government is what the people of the country
want.
Mr. Nawaz. Right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And obviously the people there did not
want to be under Pakistan.
Mr. Nawaz. That's quite correct. But technically since it
was still the state of Pakistan.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Were there any other examples?
Mr. Nawaz. Apart from that, there are no known examples.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So this is pretty clear cut, who's
committing violence against whom in that part of the world. I
don't know why it's taken the United States--Well, I was in my
Cold War mentality all that time. So it seems to me that it's
very clear now that the Government of Pakistan and its intense
belligerence toward India is willing to commit acts of violence
and be part of--actually support acts of violence against
India.
What would we expect of any other country except to defend
itself? Is there anything that India can do that would bring
down this level of intense belligerence on the part of
Pakistan?
I don't find that same intensity of belligerence by Indians
against Pakistan, but they are justifiably outraged when their
people are killed.
Mr. Dhume. Mr. Chairman, India is a status quo power in the
region. India still has many problems. It's still a poor
country. But it has a rapidly growing economy and it's a fairly
stable democratic policy. And India does not seek an inch of
Pakistani territory.
I think India's view on this is essentially defensive. And
if you go back and look at some of the most startling terrorist
attacks over the past decade, including the one on Parliament
and including The Mumbai attacks, India has shown restraint in
this regard.
I think what India could do and which Mr. Nawaz also
alluded to to lower the temperature in the region is frankly
use economic, people-to-people and using their soft power in
India leads in publishing movies, music and so on which are
vastly popular in Pakistan. And many Pakistani writers,
musicians, actors and so on are vastly popular in India. So
there is a positive side to their relationship between the two
countries. And I think that India has had a fairly good record
on this and could be encouraged to continue in that regard.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Ms. Pande, you wanted to add.
Mr. Pande. I want to add onto to what Mr. Dhume said that
we need better economic ties and more trade. If Pakistan and
India open or give each other Most Favored Nation status,
especially from the Pakistani side, that would build a
constituency in Pakistan which would no longer see India as an
enemy but would see India as being trustworthy. This would
build more trust between the two countries. And that would
hopefully spread from the middle class to other sections of
society especially the establishment and the government.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well--Yes, go right ahead.
Mr. Nawaz. Mr. Chairman. If I could add, Mr. Chairman. I
think the United States has a very key potential role to create
an enabling environment for the current dialogue between India
and Pakistan and also to reprise a role that it played when it
created an institution that nobody talks about but which has
been one of the abiding treaties between India and Pakistan,
the Indus Water Treaty, that the U.S. helped underwrite and
that the World Bank underwrote in the end. And that still
exists to this day under; which they stopped fighting over the
rivers that came through Indian territory into Pakistan. And
that conversation continues. The trade talks are continuing.
Talks in counterterrorism have begun. The foreign secretaries
are meeting today and tomorrow the foreign ministers will meet.
The U.S. can play a huge role in helping underwrite this
level of confidence among each other. And echoing what Mr.
Dhume said, India being the superior power, the economic and
military power, in the region can show what my friend, Peter
Jones from the University of Ottawa, calls ``strategic
altruism.'' I think that would be one way of undercutting the
extremism point of view inside Pakistan of India as an enemy.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I hope that's more than what I would call
unrealistic idealism. Benevolence I don't know where
benevolence has really worked to change belligerence in the
past. I know that when you help friends you do cement that
friendship and that bond.
But I don't know about--I don't know examples in history
where acts of a benevolence to one's adversary and one who
hates that person has actually been able to calm that hatred.
And in retrospect I think we need to take a look again at
what's been going on and some mistaken impressions that we have
in the United States. The first mistaken impression was that
the Pakistani army and the Pakistan Government were a bulwark
against radical Islam.
Is there any one of you that believes that now? I mean I
can't see how anybody in their right mind could now accept
that. And we've been fed that for two decades and we've
accepted it. And obviously the Pakistani military has been part
of the radical Islamic movement and a facilitator of violence
by the radical Islamic movement. And we need to make sure that
that is part of our decision making process and how we deal
with that.
I also would suggest that if we--during this time period
would none of us here--you're the experts--have been able to
come up with an example where India was engaged in a military
action that it was initiating an act of aggression of Pakistan
as compared to the multiple instances that you can see where
the Paks have gone out and let their people go into Mumbai and
slaughter people, et cetera.
And, by the way, it wouldn't surprise me if we know now
that The ISI was harboring Osama bin Laden all of these years.
Would it surprise anybody to think that maybe The ISI knew that
he was planning to attack the United States and slaughter
thousands of our people? I don't think it would surprise
anybody.
Well, we have been acting like fools then, haven't we?
We've been acting like fools. A fool is someone who does
something to aid someone who is trying to do something that
will harm you and harm that person. If they had been guilty of
all of these acts of military aggression or terrorist
aggression during that same time period the United States has
been providing them military support, billions of dollars of
military support.
Now that's got to be stupid in anybody's book. And I would
hope that it's about time, number one, to end that altogether
and perhaps to start easing toward a relationship with India
which seems to be more of a benevolent soul in all of this
rather than a belligerent force.
And I think it behooves the United States to be more inside
with people like that rather than thinking we're going to buy
them off and make them nicer by giving money to a bunch of
gangsters.
Mr. Carnahan, go right ahead.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr Chairman. And again my
apologies for having to go back and forth between hearings. But
I wanted to start with Mr. Nawaz and again thank you for being
here.
You wrote last month about Pakistani-U.S. relations and the
need for the Pakistani Parliament and the military to work
together, not separately and the need for the government to own
the plans so that it can be shared with the people of Pakistan.
Your statement really underscores the complexity of the
internal challenges in Pakistan.
I wanted to ask. What are the prospects for achieving
security and diplomatic progress in Pakistan given these many
challenges?
Mr. Nawaz. Congressman, it's not going to be a one-shot
deal. There's no silver bullet answer. This really demands a
very consistent, longer-term approach which I believe has
already been begun with the U.S. through the Kerry-Lugar-Berman
initiative.
I think a longer term consistent relationship is the way to
influence and change particularly if we're going to stop
looking at Pakistan through the security lens. And if we want
to strengthen the civilian side so that all the things that the
United States sees as positive in the relationship with India
we can then see as positive in the relationship with Pakistan.
I think that's really going to be key.
The counterfactual as my colleagues on the panel have also
alluded is really not very acceptable because you cannot
contain such a vast population and particularly a country that
has nuclear weapons and particularly a country that is home to
many homegrown insurgencies and radical elements that are
fighting each other as well as the state. So you cannot expect
to innoculate the rest of the world from that if we were to cut
ties and say, ``We are done. Thank you very much.''
Mr. Carnahan. Which really gets to my next question. I'll
start with you, Mr. Nawaz, but I want to ask the rest of the
panelists. Because some have advocated increasing our
disengagement with Pakistan, I wanted to ask your opinion about
that, the effects that would have in Afghanistan.
Let's start with you, Mr. Nawaz.
Mr. Nawaz. Congressman, Mr. Tkacik had already alluded to
that. There is not just for dependence for the next few years
while we are engaged in kinetic operations in Afghanistan for
both the air line of communication and the ground line of
communication but in the longer run, too, for stability in the
region.
I think it's very critical that we not end this
relationship abruptly which would also further strengthen the
hands of those in Pakistan who believe that this is what the
U.S. does all the time. And that's rhetoric that has been used
against this relationship within the country. And it would give
them strength.
Mr. Carnahan. Mr. Dhume.
Mr. Dhume. Thanks. I think that the single most important
thing in Afghanistan, the stabilization of Afghanistan, is for
Pakistani strategic elites to recognize that they cannot think
of Afghanistan as a colony, that Afghanistan is an independent
country and that though Pakistan would have legitimate interest
and would have a stake in having a peaceful and friendly
neighboring country, it cannot go back to post Pakistani policy
in the mid 90s until 9/11 which was backing this brutal
Islamist regime, The Taliban, in order to subjugate Afghanistan
and turn it into a client state.
My worry is that unless the U.S. is able to show, resolve
and show, that it's in Afghanistan for the long haul the
natural temptation in Pakistan would be to feel that history
can be rolled back and Afghanistan can once again be turned
into a kind of puppet like it was in the past.
Mr. Carnahan. Mr. Tkacik.
Mr. Tkacik. Well, I mean, as I said earlier, this is a very
complicated situation and as long as we are exposed in the
massive way that we are in Afghanistan we are vulnerable in our
relationship with Pakistan. I have my own ideas in how to get
out of it. But I'm afraid it's too complex to go through in
just a 5-minute sound byte.
Mr. Carnahan. Dr. Pande.
Mr. Pande. A couple of points. One, the logistic
relationship: U.S. is still dependent about 35 percent on
Pakistan. Safe havens: A number of the terrorists have safe
havens in the Pakistani northwest tribal area and disengagement
or walking away would cause problems for American operations
and American troops both in Afghanistan and outside. A
destabilization of Afghanistan actually would also cause a
destabilization in Pakistan and the broader regions who are
strategically important to us.
And then economic reasons which would destabilize Pakistan.
Any reduction in the nonmilitary aid or trade with Pakistan
would cause instibility.
Mr. Carnahan. One additional question.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Feel free to ask as many as you'd like.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Leon Panetta told members of the Senate Armed Services
Committee during his confirmation hearing last month, ``This is
a difficult challenge. The relationship with Pakistan is at the
same time one of the most critical and yet one of the most
complicated and frustrating relationships that we have.''
What do you feel needs to be the primary areas we need to
focus on between these two countries to mend some of this anger
and distrustfulness between them? Dr. Pande.
Mr. Pande. The nonmilitary aid which the United States
provides actually helps to build a modern middle class, a more
civilian liberal elements. And those elements actually are in
favor of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship as well as in favor of
better ties with India and do not view the U.S.-India
relationship as being antithetical to Pakistan. So I believe
that nonmilitary aid which is targeted, which is visible, which
helps build this middle class and civil society will actually
benefit United States and benefit the region and build a
different Pakistan as compared to today.
Mr. Carnahan. And one of the other concerns that I think a
lot of folks have heard here and in Washington is that where
Pakistan is among the largest recipients of aid from the U.S.,
yet the view toward the--the positive view of the U.S. is among
the lowest of any country that we're dealing with. Again as to
that complicated nature of how we break through to the public.
Could you comment on that?
Mr. Pande. Actually building the middle class that I talk
about or the civil society, those sections actually have a
positive view of the United States. And it's that section which
I believe the nonmilitary aid if it's focused and targeted
would help change that perspective. But it's a long-term
process.
Mr. Dhume. I would say that we should not be terribly
unrealistic about changing Pakistani mass public opinion in
favor of the U.S. If you look back on the figures it was
about--the U.S. had a favorability rating of about between 10
and 12 percent in 2002 and even now it's between 10 and 12
percent which is among the lowest in the world. So that's $20
billion later The favorability rating is the same.
So I think that if we sort of look at it in terms of
getting the average man on the street to stop thinking in terms
of the U.S. being this scary, crusading power out to grab
Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the conspiracy theories that Mr.
Nawaz alluded I think that may be based on the evidence we have
so far. Pretty unrealistic.
But what we can do and what we ought to do is try and
strengthen the hands of Pakistan's democrats so that this
military--I mean even if they hate the U.S. or even if they
hate India why had it become a problem? It becomes a problem
because then they train and equip and send people across to
blow up cities and slaughter civilians.
The problem is that we have to remove that capacity. It
will only happen over time if democrats are allowed to run the
country. And the army has its normal role which is a role of
defending its borders and ceases to be a destabilizing force in
the region.
Mr. Carnahan. Any others want to comment on that?
Mr. Nawaz. If I may.
Mr. Carnahan. We'll go to Mr. Tkacik and we'll close with
you.
Mr. Nawaz. If I may, I want to refer to the Pew Global
Attitude polls on Pakistan. There is consistently in all the
polls a paradox, one, something like 59 or 60 percent
Pakistanis that consider the U.S. an adversary. But there is
also a much under reported section of the same poll that
identifies six out of ten Pakistanis that want improved
relations with the United States. And that's the group that Mr.
Dhume is referring to. There's a 35-million middle class in
Pakistan which is a potential ally because they want the same
things that we want, a better life, improved prospects for
themselves and their kids.
The India-Pakistan polls have almost the same kind of
range. Seventy percent of Pakistanis polled by a joint poll
conducted by Indian and Pakistani newspapers said they want
improved relations with India. Seventy percent of Indian--72
percent of Pakistanis. Seventy percent of Indians said they
want improved relations with Pakistan.
So there is a reservoir that can be tapped, but it's not
going to be done overnight. And I don't think it's a function
of money alone. It's a function of consistency, honesty,
respect.
Over the last 10 years, the Government of Pakistan has been
feeding its own people an anti-American point of view on the
Drones, complaining about the Drones while they privately
approve the U.S. Drone attacks. That needs to come up into the
open. If the U.S. goes open with the Drone weapon system and
acknowledges it and shares information about it, then that will
not happen in Pakistan. The people will know why the Drones are
operating and against whom.
So that's just one illustration of how you build respect
and honesty. Ten years the government has been feeding
something to the people in Pakistan that has fed their anger
against the U.S. Now we have to maybe take not 10 years but 5
years at least to try and change that direction.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
And Mr. Tkacik.
Mr. Tkacik. I think I agree with my fellow panelists. I
would just point out that my impression was that there was a
rather strong blip in support of the United States during the
floods when the United States aid to Pakistan was more than
everybody else combined. It was surprising to me.
I recall that China's aid was less than 10 percent of what
the United States gave. But it's interesting to me that China
focused its aid and its benevolence not on the people of
Pakistan but on the military and on parts of the government.
And over the last 50 years when you have a situation where
the military and The ISI have some place else to turn to from
the United States which is to say China you have very little
leverage over them and how they behave. And I have to think
that in considering any kind of grant strategy for Eurasia much
less a strategy for South Asia you have to deal with the
pernicious impact of China's involvement.
Let me just add one thing that I meant to add earlier on. I
take some exception to Mr. Nawaz's statement that the Chinese
are very worried about Islamic fundamentalism in their far
western territories. I would have to say that the Chinese have
figured this out already. The Chinese have bought off the
Pakistanis. They've bought off the Afghans. They have bought
off the Iranians.
This is not news, but it's something that's been going on
for the last 20 years. The Chinese are not stupid in this
regard.
Virtually all the unrest that you see in Chinese Muslim
areas, primarily in Xinjiang, are ad hoc demonstrations by
locals. You never see an instance in China where Muslim
separatists, Muslim activists, have been armed by the Iranians
or armed by The Hezbollah or armed by Pakistani ISI. You never
see it.
You do see cases where American troops have been killed by
weapons that are supplied by the Chinese. But you never see a
situation in China where Chinese Muslim separatists are armed
by what you would think would be the logical choice, Pakistan,
Iran and fundamentalist Islam around the world.
What I mean to say is that in Pakistan if you cannot offer
the military an attractive alternative to Chinese support
you're not going to have much leverage with them. And in this
case I'm afraid that the military has their interests. They
will pursue those interests without hesitation. And if they
can't get support from the Americans on that they will get it
from some place else, which is to say--where they've always
gotten it from--the Chinese.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you all very much. You've given really
broad perspectives to this conversation, this debate, that's
obviously going to continue. But we really appreciate you being
here and lending your time and your expertise today. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. I'll just have a few
more questions and a few more pieces of information that we'll
share with each other. I do appreciate all of you and I'm going
to give each one of you 1 minute to summarize what you think is
an important point for us to leave this hearing with, so you
might be thinking about that as I go on with whatever I'm going
to say here.
Let me just note that I have learned. Thank you for coming
today. I have learned from each of you information that has
broadened my understanding of South Asia.
The idea of the depth of China's involvement with Pakistan
even before, meaning even back as early as the 60s, was
something I was not fully aware of, and I would just have to
say that what's fascinating, however, if we have a bad image in
Pakistan and the Chinese don't, yet they give a minuscule
amount of support compared to what we're providing in the tens
of billions of dollars, maybe that might suggest that the
strategy of winning over someone with--winning over a
belligerent government by being benevolent to their people is
not necessarily a strategy that works.
I know that there's a lot of people who felt that's what we
should do with China and that all we have to do is make China
prosperous, and China will then become part of the family of
nations and a nonthreatening part of the family. And, in fact,
people have always heard me earlier say that that it was the
theory of hug a Nazi and you'll make a liberal.
Well, that didn't work with China, and clearly China has
become ever more belligerent as it becomes ever more powerful,
and it is using its influence again interestingly enough. China
is not only Pakistan's ally. But am I inaccurate when I say
they are Iran's ally?
So what does that mean? The Chinese have allied themselves
with the most virile and anti-Western elements in Islam, and
maybe they see it as being their way of flanking us and
destabilizing the United States' position in the world.
The one thing for sure is that we cannot afford to be a
dominant force in the world in the far-off reaches if what it
means is that we must have our military in action in those
parts of the world. Our own bank is going bankrupt.
One thing that I've learned here is that if there is a
change in Pakistan it means that we must have a change in
Afghanistan as well. Having spent considerable time in
Afghanistan and knowing the Afghan people the way I do, I would
suggest that if we're waiting to change them or if we're
waiting to change Pakistan, that's a strategy that won't work.
What we've got to do is realize we've got to change our
policy, not change their way of governing and their way of
life, and in Pakistan or in Afghanistan at least we have
attempted to force a tribal society and a village society to
accept central power over their lives--the same thing the
Russian were trying to do, only we have replaced the Russians
now.
We will not succeed as they will not succeed, and maybe it
is time for us to pull out of Afghanistan immediately so that
our people will quit losing their lives and losing their limbs,
and that we will quit spending billions of dollars for a
strategy that cannot work.
Maybe that's the same way we should think about Pakistan.
We've tried our best, and maybe it's time to play Alexander the
Great here with the Gordian knot that he was supposed to untie.
And how did he untie it? All the other leaders around the world
had come there and been unable to untie the knot because they
tried to work out the intricacies as you say how complicated it
really is, and Alexander the Great took his sword and cut the
knot in two and it fell apart. Maybe we have to be as decisive
as that or we will be relegated to history.
Our policy toward Asia is going to determine the position
of the United States, and it seems to me from what I've learned
today and what we've been talking about in terms of the anti-
Western reality in Pakistan's Government, military, and
actions, is that it is time perhaps for us to have a policy
that is based on embracing a democratic party, meaning India,
rather than a belligerent, hostile, anti-democratic force which
is what we see working in Pakistan today, meaning radical
Islam.
So that's just a thought. I wonder if there's anything
more. I came out with a lot of knowledge. Thank you for
testifying, and what we'll do is we'll--did we start with you
at the beginning? We'll end up with you at the end. So why
don't we start over here. Each will have a 1-minute summary of
what you would like to leave, the most important idea you'd
like to leave today.
Mr. Nawaz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again thank you for
inviting me here today.
I would only go back to reiterate that I share your
concerns and can understand the anger not just in this House
but in the American people at a time when we are facing serious
economic difficulties at home, when assistance is not used the
way it ought to be.
But I should warn also that the solution is really not to
withdraw from the scene. The U.S. has an international role.
The role has to be one of creating an environment and a
relationship with people, not with a group or an individual or
single institution in a country that we need to be allied with
for whatever reason.
And our mistake in the region was that when we wanted an
ally that could deliver what we needed over the short run which
was invariably a military or an autocratic ruler in Pakistan.
And I think that shouldn't color our relationship with the
people of Pakistan or the people of the region.
As I indicated in my comments to you, the people of the
region whether they are in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or India want
a better life. They want the same thing that I find when I
travel in the heartland of the U.S. And we should try and look
to see how we can serve their aspirations so that they can
become partners, our partners, in the global stage rather than
cutting them loose. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
Mr. Dhume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity.
To sum up I'd like to say that I think it's crystal clear
that the policies of the past 10 years have been disappointing
and the results have not been what we should have expected. In
short, $20 billion has not got us what it should have.
That said I'd say that what we face in Pakistan is really a
case of two bad choices, one worst than the other. And at this
stage I would say that simply walking away is a worse option.
Instead what I would encourage is more targeted engagement and
engagement that all takes place under the overarching goal of
changing the nature of the Pakistani state which means getting
rid of the influence or diminishing the influence of the army
and The ISI on national life, focusing on that, and being
willing to use military force such as Drone strikes to go off
to targets in Pakistan where the Pakistani military appears
unwilling to do so itself. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you.
Mr. Tkacik. I mean I would add a point that maybe nobody
has mentioned before which is the key point of leverage in both
Pakistan and I think China in a global strategy is attaching
the legitimacy of the people who have power in those countries.
The military in Pakistan uses nationalism rooted in the
ancient, well, ancient, 60-year-old dispute over Kashmir to
legitimate its authority in Pakistan. It does not use the
consent of the governed as a root of its legitimacy.
Likewise in China, decision makes root their legitimacy in
nationalism. The Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy is rooted
in making China a global super power again. Insofar as they can
do that, they say we have the right to rule China. There's no
question of the consent of the governed.
I think in any broad national strategy that the United
States is going to come up and here I agree with Mr. Nawaz who
says, ``If you don't know what you want then it doesn't matter
what strategy because whatever if you don't know where you're
going any road will get you there.''
But if you have a broad national strategy of saying, ``We
want this kind of regime, Pakistan, China, to be weakened and
to more responsive or indeed completely responsive to the needs
of the people you have to attack their legitimacy.'' And this
is not a matter of weapons. It's not a matter of aid. It's a
matter of propaganda and I think it's something that we can
use.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Mr. Pande. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to state two
points: One that the U.S.-India relationship will be the
defining partnership of the 21st century and you mentioned
that; and second that the U.S.-Pakistan is a complicated
relationship. But moving forward maybe one needs to look at--
take a more realistic aspect of the relationship and try and
see where there are some strategic or shared interests and work
on those and also help build as I stated earlier the secular
liberal middle class which actually is in favor of the U.S.-
Pakistan relationship. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I want to thank all the witnesses. Thank
you, Mr. Carnahan. This hearing was meant to expand our
knowledge base and our understanding and open up a dialogue
that hopefully will filter out into the decision making offices
throughout this city and maybe throughout the world. I think
we've come up with some ideas that will benefit people.
So, with that said, I thank you all. This hearing is
adjourned. Off the record.
[Whereupon, at 4 o'clock p.m., the subcommittee was
adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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