War, No-War, and the India-Pakistan Negotiating Process

Abstract

R ELATIONS BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN have always been a minefield of utual recriminations, communal antagonisms, and military confrontations. This debilitating rivalry provides the main justification for both countries to pour their limited resources into defending against real or perceived threats posed by the other side. Since achieving independence in 1947, three Indo-Pakistan conflicts have been fought, and both sides recurrently express fears that a fourth-and perhaps final-conflict will erupt, if diplomacy and conciliation fail. Despite this grim record, India and Pakistan have regularly engaged in negotiations aimed at reducing tensions and resolving contentious issues. Progress in these negotiations has been fitful. While there have been some noticeable successes, the two sides have never come to terms on their most pressing security needs-what Ayub Khan referred to as from fear of each other and freedom to protect our respective frontiers.' The political and strategic uncertainties which currently threaten the stability of South Asia underscore how critical the dialogue between India and Pakistan has become. With over a hundred and twenty thousand Soviet troops stationed in nearby Afghanistan, the evolution of a quasi-alliance system that pits India and the Soviet Union against Pakistan, China, and the United States, and a regional arms race that could escalate to the nuclear level, the rivalry between India and Pakistan has taken on immense significance in the global security environment of the 1980s. This paper will analyze the dynamics of Indo-Pakistan negotiations. Although the primary focus is on the current series of diplomatic maneuvers, the record of past negotiations will be analyzed in order to discern the attitudes and assumptions which the two sides bring to the negotiating table. While specific issues such as the disposition of the disputed territory of Kashmir loom large in a historical treatment of Indo-Pakistan relations, the emphasis will be on the negotiating process per se, rather than on the details of particular disputes. It should be understood that the fate of Indo-Pakistan negotiations has always been subject to variables that have been brought to bear at a given moment in history. These variables include