Grand Strategy and Regional Conflict: Nixon, Kissinger, and Crisis in South Asia

Abstract

The release of the 1971 Foreign Relations volume on South Asia details the American response to the most significant geopolitical event on the Indian subcontinent since India and Pakistan became independent nations in 1947. The brief war that ended the crisis resulted in the dismemberment of Pakistan, the creation of the nation of Bangladesh, and the resurgence of India's power and stature nine years after its humiliation in the Sino-Indian border war. Nixon's fabled “tilt” toward Pakistan brought the Indo-American relationship to its nadir.1 The recorded Oval Office and telephone conversations between President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger—which constitute the most revealing documents in this volume—underscore that behind the tilt were deep personal antagonisms toward India and respect for Pakistan based on simplistic impressions of Indians as weak and cunning and of Pakistanis as masculine and trustworthy, indifference to the bloodshed inflicted by the Pakistani army on the Bengalis, and the insistence on interpreting the crisis within the framework of a global geopolitical structure which necessitated supporting Pakistan and restraining India. Grand strategy—Pakistan's role in the U.S. opening to China, the anticipated thaw in Sino-American relations, and the closer ties between India and the Soviet Union—determined U.S. diplomacy.2