The American Posture Toward India and Pakistan

Abstract

Difficulties abound in India and Pakistan, but the twenty-year-old American effort to develop a constructive posture toward both of these large South Asian nations remains valid and important for the coming decade. The problem is to find equilibrium in conflicting drives for nationalism, security, and development. Deep-running nationalism in India and in Pakistan hungers for psychological self-sufficiency but also fuels the continuing confrontation between the two countries. This confrontation further affects their respective views of security needs. To add to the complexity of the situation, the rivalries between them are components of their relationships with the Soviet Union, with Communist China, and with the United States. The prospective post-Vietnam roles in Asia of China, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States are of concern in the subcontinent; they could, for example, influence India's nuclear policy. Finally, both India and Pakistan give very high priorities to economic development, in which outside powers also have a clear stake. Collapse of the development process would have ramifications far beyond the subcontinent. Local efforts are, of course, the key to development but foreign assistance is also essential. Present development assistance levels are virtually the lowest in the world, per capita. If not increased, their inadequacy will have consequences that cannot fail to enmesh more affluent parts of the world. Thus, such questions as development administration, fiscal policies, debt management, trade policies, and aid levels call for high priority attention. Whether there is well-based and continuing progress in the subcontinent through this decade will have much to do with the possibilities of stabilized peace in the rest of Asia.