SEATO Research Articles

1960년대 말 한국의 SEATO 가입 검토 연구

This study addresses the question of why the South Korean government sought to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in the late 1960s, despite the existence of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. The research identifies South Korea's consideration of SEATO membership as a response to a series of security threats faced by the country after 1968, such as the January 21 Blue House raid, the capture of the USS Pueblo, and the implications of the Nixon Doctrine. In response to these threats, the South Korean government sought to reinforce the U.S. security commitment to South Korea by attempting to revise the ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty and to establish new multilateral security organizations in Asia, such as the Asia-Pacific Treaty Organization (APATO). However, these efforts faltered, leading the South Korean government to consider SEATO membership as a last resort to strengthening its security through alliances. Despite SEATO not providing a qualitative improvement in U.S. security commitments, membership could have functioned as a dual safety net alongside the ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. However, South Korea's attempt to join SEATO was based on the strategic miscalculation that SEATO would persist and strengthen, and it did not foresee the U.S. opposition to Korean membership. From the U.S. perspective, any expansion of security commitments in Asia was untenable, and South Korea's SEATO membership was seen as an unacceptable policy extension. In conclusion, the failure to join SEATO marked a turning point where South Korea's security policy shifted from prioritizing alliances to prioritizing self-reliance, leading to the full-fledged emergence of the self-defense policy in the 1970s.

REVISITING THAILAND'S PARANOIA: SEATO AS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST VIETNAM SYNDROME

During the Cold War, the opposing stances of the US and USSR caused a bipolar global system that lacked a unipolar centre of power, leading to a stronger centrifugal pull. The Vietnam War made Southeast Asia a hotbed for these tensions. Following the fall of French troops in Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the US aimed to solidify its position and successfully created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) through the efforts of Secretary of State Dulles and like-minded nations. To explain the political implications, the Michael Brecher geographical framework has been chosen. This framework highlights the dominant and subordinate systems of international relations during the Cold War period and describes the operation and evolution of SEATO. By incorporating guidelines into the charter, the treaty zone became a space where signatories could resolve their issues. This reference framework helps to identify the causal determinant in the stimuli of an individual signatory. Despite being a group of countries with varied interests, the interaction between the US and Thailand during the Vietnam War showed that Thailand's skilful aggregation of marginal gains resulted from its inherent paranoia against the Vietnam syndrome. Furthermore, the study reveals that Thailand had a significant influence in shaping Washington's policy for Southeast Asia and used its gains as a launching pad to control the spread of Communism. Bibliography Entry Javed, Tauseef, Sun Jiandang and Ayisha Khurshid. 2023. "Revisiting Thailand's Paranoia: SEATO As a Safeguard Against Vietnam Syndrome." Margalla Papers 27 (1): 138-154.

On the Politics of Viruses and Visibility

On the Politics of Viruses and Visibility

THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT AND PAKISTAN IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The idea of Non-Aligned Movement was originated in the 1950s and was founded in 1961. It is a forum of 120 states from the developing world who wanted to remain impartial during the Col War era. The Cold War divided the world into two blocks named Capitalist and Communist Block. The core objective of the Non-Aligned Movement was to avoid the polarization of the world and to bring peace and stability through multilateralism. Pakistan being on an important strategic location played a significant role during that era. Although She joined the Capitalist block in the early years as it was important for her security from India in the East and signed different defense treaties with the US and its allies. However, during the 1960s and 1970s those defense pacts which were assumed to protect Pakistan from India failed. Pakistan withdrawn from those pacts and joined the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979. This research will discuss the historical background of Pakistan in global geopolitics, its relations with different regional and ideological groups, its decision to join Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). It will also highlight the integration of Pakistan into Non-Aligned Movement, its role, and the future of NAM and global settings. Keywords: Non-Aligned Movement, NAM, Pakistan, Cold War, Peace, South Asia, Foreign Policy.

The Evolving Russo-Pak Entente-Cordiale: Challenges for the Future

Historically, the Russo-Pak relationship had aforeign policy context and a legacy that went through the historic eras of pre-partition Great Game between the British Indian and Czarist Empires,and the post-partition Cold War between the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States of America (USA).Pakistan on its creation sided with the American led West through Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) or Baghdad Pact, plus, the partnerships against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and in the War on Terror. The US military and financial aid and the support by the International and Asian financial institutions for Pakistan is decades old—albeit now with a friction over Afghanistan, Russia and China. Still, the transactional-cooperation remains over Afghanistan through the air-corridorthatis useful for Americans in many ways. American influence, assets and the air-corridor is a deadly mix in Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban know thatthe drones, jets and aircrafts using the corridor take-off from and land at Qatar without ever landing in Afghanistan. Moreover, intelligence sharing is part of Pak-US operational cooperation with a possibility of a military base too. The context of Pak-US cooperation is the centuries old British era Frontier Policy. It remained until the American strategic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Therelationship since then has deteriorated and the perception of each other is not harmonious despite the tactical cooperation in Afghanistan. The reason is the strategic choices made by Pakistan and America lackingcongruence over China, Russia, Afghanistan and India.Theinteractive-arm-twisting of Pakistan is an indicator. The restis the detail of Pakistan’s New Frontier Policy.

Güneydoğu Asya Antlaşması Teşkilatı’nda (SEATO) Tayland’ın Statüsü

After World War II, when Thailand began to feel communist pressure on it, Thailand started to be interested in political and military global blocs. In this way, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization also gained the status of a lifesaver for Thailand. From its establishment in 1954 to its abolition in 1977, Thailand opened its own lands to SEATO member countries and especially to the United States. This has reduced Thailand to the level of an American satellite for the states in the region. Thailand has been the most important country under SEATO’s protection. The reason is that Thailand is the most open and vulnerable country against communist invasion. Thanat Khoman, who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand at that time, appears as the most important figure in this process. Thanks to Thanat, Thailand followed a western-oriented policy to save itself from communism. SEATO was the most visible organization of this policy. During its time as a member, Thailand has always had a hesitation to trust SEATO. This crisis of confidence negatively affected to Thailand’s domestic and foreign policy. In this study, Thailand’s expectations from SEATO and how SEATO policies affect on Thailand, as well as the transformation of Thai foreign policy during the existing of the pact have been examined.

Geo-politics, American Security Alliance and the North East Asian Regional Stability

This paper elaborates the geo-politics, the American security Alliance and the North East Asian regional stability during the Cold War period (especially in the early decades after the outbreak of the Cold War in Asia). The American security alliance in the North East Asian region is different with the American security alliance in the other region. The American formed bilateral security alliance with the pro-American powers in the North East Asian region; The U.S.-Japan Alliance 1951, The U.S.-South Korea Bilateral Agreement 1953 and the U.S.-Republic of China (Taiwan) in 1954. These bilateral agreements that were signed in the early years of the Cold War still effective and play their role in the today regional power configuration. The objectives of the study are: to explore why the American security Alliance with his alliance state in the North East Asia is totally different with the American security alliance in the other region. In the other region the American created multi-lateral alliance, such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in North Atlantic/Europe and SEATO (south East Asia Treaty Organization) in South East Asian region. There is no NEATO (North East Asia Treaty Organization) in the North East Asian region. This study concludes the factor of geo-politics, domestic and leadership factors in the American alliance state in the North East Asia and the structure of communist powers in the North East Asia influenced the American to create the bilateral security alliance rather than a multi-lateral. The Bilateral security structure give the American more power in controlling security decision and creating better degree of North East Asian regional stability.

Cold Wars: Asia, the Middle East, Europe

Cold Wars: Asia, the Middle East, Europe

Small State Intelligence: New Zealand in SEATO Security Affairs

This article aims to shed light on how and why small states enter into cooperation alliances with greater powers. It does so by assessing the intelligence and security cooperation activities of New Zealand in the Pacific basin as a small state during the Cold War era. It also assesses its relationships with the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States, as well as its role within the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), an understudied international organization operating for collective defense. The article offers a threefold analysis involving financial costs, the quest for shelter and diversification. It argues that New Zealand utilized its alliance relationships with SEATO members to seek shelter and gain information with limited expenditure and less effort. Using original data from the archives of New Zealand and the UK, the article reveals that New Zealand's foreign and security policy commitments in the Pacific were shaped by the country's geographical remoteness and the limitations of its diplomatic capacity.

When art was political: Historicising decolonisation and the Cold War in Southeast Asia through curatorial practice

In Asia, and in Southeast Asia in particular, the Cold War was far from cold, witnessing the most deadly conflicts and political massacres of the second half of the twentieth century. Also, the clash of ideologies there did not follow a binary logic but included a third force, nationalism, which was rooted in the anticolonialist movements of the interwar years and played a significant role even in countries that decolonised peacefully after the end of the Second World War. The Cold War thus overlapped with the twin process of decolonisation and nation-building, which had its founding moment at the Asian-African Conference at Bandung in 1955, where the non-aligned camp, which advocated a neutral position vis-à-vis the two rival blocs, coalesced (one year ealier, the anticommunist Southeast Asia Treaty Organization had been established). Postcolonial aspirations to national progress that tied socioeconomic development to the civic and cultural elevation of the citizenry were widely shared among newly decolonised countries. By the mid-1960s, however, the utopian ‘Bandung Spirit’ had lost ground to Cold War realpolitik; intra-Asian and communal conflicts fomented by Cold War enmities (the Sino–Indian War of 1962, the Indo–Pakistani War of 1965, Indonesia's anticommunist purges of 1965–66) along with the escalation of the Vietnam War and the consequent exacerbation of regional divisions, belied governments’ earlier commitment to human rights, Third World solidarity and world peace. The authoritarian involution of several Asian countries that were often American allies, redoubled by the opening of their economies to multinational corporations, led many artists and intellectuals to embrace political activism. The conception of art as a revolutionary instrument in the service of the masses had been famously articulated by Mao Zedong at the Yan'an Forum in 1942. In China, Mao's prescriptions on art were sidelined, though never officially repudiated, only in the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the adoption of a socialist market economy, by acknowledging the necessity ‘to respect and guarantee the creativity of individuals’.

Fifty-Plus Years of Watching Asia: An American Perspective

Fifty-Plus Years of Watching Asia: An American Perspective Sheldon W. Simon (bio) As a prelude to this personal rumination on the issues in Asian international politics that have occupied my professional life, I wish to express appreciation to See Seng Tan for asking so many well-qualified colleagues to contribute their own assessments to this compendium. My fascination with Asian politics began as an undergraduate in the 1950s at the University of Minnesota, where on a cold, snowy morning in January, Professor Werner Levi—a German-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who held three doctorates, including one in politics—stated that the world’s future would lie in Asia. A combination of ancient civilizations, historical grandeur, and a strong work ethic among its populations, he argued, would transform Asia in due course into the world’s most dynamic region. He went on to say that those of us who planned for a career in public affairs should consider becoming students of Asia. I was convinced. Upon completing my PhD in political science, I took a position with the U.S. government for three years analyzing Soviet and Chinese commentary on Asia. During this time, I honed the research interests that characterized my subsequent academic life—the interface between the great powers and Asian states as well as the dynamics of the developing Asian actors in dealing with great-power pressures and blandishments. Of course, the Asia-Pacific was home to three of those great powers—the United States in the aftermath of World War II, China under the aegis of its Communist Party, and the Soviet Union. This essay addresses these dynamics in two sections—one on the security arrangements in North and Southeast Asia and one on recent U.S. relations with states in both subregions—before concluding with some final thoughts. Northeast and Southeast Asian Security Arrangements From an American perspective, it is useful to divide the analysis of East Asia into its northern and southern components. The United States’ Cold War and post–Cold War attention to the region may be assessed through its security arrangements. For Northeast Asia, this would be the ongoing presence of U.S. forces in the aftermath of World War II. Japan and the [End Page 74] Republic of Korea (ROK) became junior partners in Washington’s East Asia strategy opposing the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and North Korea. Thus, the U.S. hub-and-spoke security arrangement came into existence. Unlike NATO, a multilateral European military alliance requiring each member to come to the others’ defense in the event of an attack, Washington was unable to effect a similar arrangement between Japan, the ROK, and the United States. Korean bitterness over Japan’s colonial legacy meant that Seoul was unwilling to engage in any security agreement with Tokyo. The alternative was separate U.S. bilateral defense treaties between the United States and each country. The United States was the “hub” and its bilateral partners were the separate “spokes.” These spokes for the most part did not interact militarily with each other. For example, until recently, the Japanese and ROK navies only directly interacted with each other through U.S. intersession in multilateral maritime exercises such as the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC). By contrast, the Southeast Asian states assayed a number of times to create multilateral institutions beginning in the 1950s—for example, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the Association of Southeast Asia, and Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia (MAPHILINDO). None were successful, but all demonstrated a realization among non-Communist elites in the region that some form of political collaboration was necessary to deal with both extraregional and intraregional challenges from China, the Soviet Union, and North Vietnam. Southeast Asian leaders were also concerned that Western states might leave the region as the Indochina wars of the 1950s and 1960s ended with Communist victories. Southeast Asian leaders conceived a new regional organization in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), composed of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. In the mid-1960s, Indonesia’s president and founding father Sukarno had attempted to destroy Malaysia, which he saw as a neocolonialist country...

Contested American hegemony and regional order in postwar Asia: the case of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

Contested American hegemony and regional order in postwar Asia: the case of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

Dephasing India's Look East/Act East Policy

India's policy was launched in the early 1990s as part of a concerted effort to elevate the strategic importance of Southeast Asia in the country's foreign policy agenda. The policy has been described as going through various with accelerated pace and process of interaction in moving from one to the next, marked by a broadening and deepening of India's interaction with the region. This has culminated in the most recent phase under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which has rebranded the policy as to signify a more pro-active and action-oriented approach towards the region. However, has there been any real and substantive change in India's engagement with Southeast Asia in moving from one phase to the next? Does this narrative of phases in India's post-Cold War engagement with Southeast Asia hold any substance? This article deconstructs the narrative of phases in India's Look East and now Act East policy and argues that India's eastward engagement has not been a process of simple linear progression. As such, while the concept of phases in India's Look East policy serves as a useful narrative device, it does not capture the nuances of India's post-Cold War re-engagement with Southeast Asia, which has been far more complex than this narrative suggests. Keywords: Indian foreign policy, Look East, Act East, Southeast Asia, ASEAN. The year 2017 marks twenty-five years of dialogue partnership, fifteen years of summit-level relations and five years of strategic partnership between India and ASEAN. The relationship between India and Southeast Asia has come a long way from the days of mutual mistrust rooted in concerns over India's naval ambitions in the 1980s; (1) New Delhi's support for Vietnam following its invasion of Kampuchea (Cambodia) in 1978 and recognition of the Heng Samrin regime in 1980; (2) and Indian perceptions of ASEAN as an instrument of neo-colonialism and a reincarnation of SEATO [South-East Asia Treaty Organization] following its creation in 1967. (3) Undoubtedly, India's economic interactions, institutional linkages and security cooperation with Southeast Asian countries have grown in leaps and bounds in the post-Cold War period. The policy, which was launched in the early 1990s as part of effort to re-engage with Southeast Asia, has been characterized by Indian scholars and policymakers as evolving through various phases, with accelerated pace and process of interaction in moving from one to the next. (4) This has been marked by a broadening and deepening of India's engagement with the region: broadening as the policy has expanded beyond its initial geographic focus on Southeast Asia to encapsulate the broader East Asia and now Indo-Pacific region; and deepening to expand beyond its initial focus on economic integration towards greater political interaction and security cooperation. This has culminated in the most recent phase under Prime Minister Narendra Modi who assumed power in 2014 and rebranded the policy as to signify a shift towards a more pro-active and action-oriented approach to the region. (5) However, is the recently rebranded Act East policy real? In other words, has there been any real and substantive change in India's engagement with Southeast Asia under its most recent phase? More broadly, does the narrative of phases in India's post-Cold War engagement with Southeast Asia hold any credence? One could argue that the various phases of the Look East policy are rooted in domestic political rhetoric rather than foreign policy shifts as new governments have sought to differentiate their policymaking approach from previous administrations. Notably, the first corresponds with the Congress (Indian National Congress) government of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao that came to power in 1991, while the second was unveiled by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government in the early 2000s after it assumed power in 1998-99 and continued under the Congress government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004. …

Asia. The Eurasian core and its edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the history of the world By Ooi Kee Beng Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015. Pp. 254. Map, Illustrations, Index.

The Eurasian core and its edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the history of the world By OOI KEE BENG Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2015. Pp. 254. Map, Illustrations, Index. doi: 10.1017/S0022463416000552 This book is a delightful and rare opportunity to listen in on a series of dialogues between two renowned scholars, Wang Gungwu and Ooi Kee Beng, on a variety of interesting topics and global issues. While for the most part the answers and responses in these dialogues are principally Wang's to questions raised by Ooi, the two agree that the book is the latter's. Ooi Kee Beng sets the scene for these dialogues and gives his reflections and useful background information on them in the prologue, introduction and epilogue. His dialogues with Wang are organised into five chapters. While the content of the dialogues is very wide-ranging, some crucial topics can be mentioned here to give a flavour of each of the chapters. Chapter 1, 'Of cores and edges', reviews human history and highlights the core of Central Asia (nomadic Eurasia) in world history. China, the Mediterranean, South Asia and Western Europe all remained edges. The tensions and conflicts between 'nomadic' societies (Xiongnu, Turks or Mongols) and agrarian counterparts (Chinese or Indian) continued until the twentieth century. During this long period, Chinese dynasties remained essentially continental and mainly agrarian, except for the Mongol Yuan and the Manchu Qing, the latter being both agrarian and nomadic. The dialogue goes on to focus on China, covering a range of topics, such as Confucian order, Confucianism, state Confucianism, the Chinese interpretation of democracy, and the role of imperial literati. Chapter 2, 'The two-ocean Mediterranean', turns to early Southeast Asia, a maritime periphery in world history that was continually dominated by continental power struggles. Mainland Southeast Asia was more impacted, while the Malay world was left more alone. The continental expansions into the Southeast Asian maritime world such as the Thai, Chinese (Zheng He), Chola (Tamil) expeditions were only temporary invasions. While from the fifteenth century onward Southeast Asia turned itself into a semi-Mediterranean, it was not seen as a region until the Second World War, when it became strategically significant, first as embodied in the South East Asia Command (SEAC), followed by the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and finally, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Chapter 3, 'Southeast Asia and foreign empires', continues the discussion on the concept of Southeast Asia. Various Chinese conceptualisations of the area or part of the area later coined as Southeast Asia including Nanhai, Dongyang, Xiyang and Nanyang are placed in their historical contexts. Wang points out that it was the Japanese who first put the South China Sea under one jurisdiction and speculates that in fact, both the Kuomintang's Republic of China and the People's Republic of China accepted the Japanese legacy of the South China Sea region. Nation and nationstate constitute the latter part of the chapter, in which Wang insightfully clarifies the evolution of nation-states across the world. In Southeast Asia, the state came first, while nation was constructed by state. Chapter 4, 'China's struggle with the Western edge', discusses China's dealings with the West. Indeed, 'the West' was not monolithic, and many Wests existed. While China learned from either West A or B, the sense of belonging pushed China to seek inspiration from its own past. And that is why Confucianism still matters to present-day China. Since the West is maritime and thus global while China is still continental, China now seeks to navigate the sea to become a global power. The Chinese maritime initiatives, including redefining and appropriating soft power, can be seen in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. …

Perkembangan Five Power Defence Arranggements dalam Menanggapi Dinamika Keamanan Asia Tenggara pasca Perang Dingin

The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) is a regional security institution in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom as its members. As one of the oldest, and still existing, regional security institution in the Southeast Asia region, FPDA’s existence seems to be unheard of, compared to the region’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or even the Cold War’s Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Although FPDA was created in the height of the Cold War, as well as in response to the potential hegemonic Indonesian threat to former British colonies, the institution is still exist even after both original existential threat wanes. In the end, how the FPDA can maintain its existence in the changing security dynamics in the region, especially after the end of the Cold War, is an interesting piece of puzzle to be solved.

China's Engagement with Regional Security Multilateralism: The Case of the Shangri-La Dialogue

Making sense of the implications of China's rise has become something of a scholarly industry. Given its scale, civilizational legacy and its place at the heart of the global economy, this is entirely appropriate. In International Relations (IR) debate the main focus is on whether China's economic growth is likely to lead to conflict with the United States and its allies. Some commentators argue that war between a dominant and rising power is almost inevitable, (1) while others contend that it can be avoided. (2) More liberally minded scholars make the case that China's interests are not well served by contesting power with the world's largest military, which also happens to be its biggest customer. (3) At the heart of this particular debate about the implications of China's rise is the extent to which a more prosperous and powerful China is likely to be a status quo or revisionist state. (4) Will a richer and more confident China accept existing arrangements or will it seek to rewrite the rules of the game? This question is of interest in many spheres, from trade policy to monetary arrangements, international institutions to development programmes; whether China supports or changes the established order has implications across almost every imaginable international policy field. One of the most important developments in international security policy in the post-war period has been the emergence of multilateral security cooperation as a core part of almost every state's security arrangements. Prior to 1945, apart from some ill-fated experiments at the League of Nations, multilateral security cooperation barely existed. Groups might form strategic alliances--as they did so disastrously prior to the First World War--but there was nothing resembling the scale, volume or frequency of the gatherings that now so routinely occur. States today regularly gather in multilateral groupings to collaborate on a vast array of security matters. This includes everything from cooperation to combat non-traditional security concerns such as infectious diseases and organized crime to multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/ DR) training missions, from institutionalized summitry to gatherings of defence college heads. Prompted by the expansion of security challenges caused by globalization, changes in the understanding of what constitutes a security threat and broader normative shifts in world politics--perhaps the most important being the strong norm curtailing the use of force--multilateralism in security policy has become core business for all states. In Europe the embrace of multilateral approaches to security began shortly after the end of the Second World War. In the nascent structures of what became the European Union (EU), such as the Council of Europe, the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), states began to work collectively to advance commonly held security aims. In East Asia, the turn to multilateralism was rather more circumspect. During the Cold War, security arrangements were almost entirely in the hands of states themselves or organized through traditional bilateral alliances. Efforts such as the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) were very much the exception and at the margins of strategic influence. Beyond these, perhaps the only example of an institution associated with security multilateralism was the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that was founded in 1967. Intended to provide an international framework to produce more harmonious regional relations, and as a bulwark against communist insurgency, this new body had some security dimensions. (5) Yet it was still principally a means to support the broader state and nation-building projects of societies newly liberated from European and Japanese imperialism. Since the mid-1990s, however, East Asian states have made up for lost time and have created a wide range of multilateral processes and institutions with security as a key part of their purpose and rationale. …

Pakistan’s Army: Running and Ruining a Country

Pakistan’s Army:Running and Ruining a Country C. Christine Fair (bio) Aqil Shah’s The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-67-472893-6 (hardcover) T.V. Paul’s The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World New York: Oxford University Press, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-19-932223-7 (hardcover) C. Christine Fair’s Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War New York: Oxford University Press, 2014 ISBN: 978-0-19-989270-9 (hardcover) T.V. Paul, a professor of international relations at McGill university, and Aqil Shah, a long-time scholar of democratization in Pakistan, have written two very different but ultimately complementary accounts of the Pakistan Army—The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World and The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan, respectively. Both books describe Pakistan’s long-standing security competition with India and exposit the primary means through which Pakistan has sought to impose its will on India: a reliance on Islamist proxies, an ever-expanding nuclear arsenal, and alliances with countries like the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia, among others. Whereas Paul focuses on the policies pursued by the military and their sequelae, Shah focuses on how the institution of the army came to dominate the Pakistani state. Whereas Paul places the blame for Pakistan’s development largely on the United States, Shah holds the army accountable for its ruinous role in the troubled state. The Warrior State examines the roles of war and war-making in the development of Pakistan in particular and several other historical and contemporary nation-states in Europe and Asia. Paul finds that although the experiences of many countries suggest that war-making helped spur national development and consolidation, Pakistan’s own trajectory has been an outlier. Despite pursuing militarized security for some six decades, Pakistan is insecure and politically fragmented. The book describes how Pakistan’s political elite pursued militarized security at the expense of the country’s political, human, and economic development. Oddly, for the most part, Pakistan’s citizenry has supported these policies and has rallied around the army’s incessant warmongering and selfish claims on the state’s budget. Paul argues that great-power patrons such as the United States—and to a lesser degree China—have played a preeminent role in undermining Pakistan’s development, security, and ultimately stability. These patrons discouraged the Pakistani elite from forging state policies that would enhance social, economic, and political development and incentivized [End Page 163] them to instead pursue geopolitical goals and a narrow strategy of military security based on hyper-realpolitik assumptions. In doing so, these elites have neglected other potential national goals and, in turn, have undermined the state’s very viability. In summary, Paul contends that because of the interests of great powers, Pakistan’s political elites have “had both the motive and the opportunity to pursue such policies” (p. 3). Like Ayesha Siddiqa and Husain Haqqani before him, Paul puts forward the argument that Pakistan is a rentier state that has lived “off the rents provided by its external benefactors for supporting their particular geostrategic goals” (p. 18). He further argues that Pakistan’s alliance with the United States through the Mutual Defense Pact of 1954, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) was “the beginning of the geostrategic curse” (p. 117). The Warrior State’s overarching argument is important and compelling. The book’s logical conclusion is that the United States and China are responsible for a large share of the burden for enabling the recklessness of this crisis-prone state. Yet this argument is not without some important problems. First, Paul implies that the United States sucked Pakistan into its alliance strategy. With India being unwilling to join hands with the United States, the latter was “desperately looking for strategic partners in Asia-Pacific. … Sensing a major opportunity, the Pakistani elite began discussions with Washington and in 1954 they struck an alliance” (pp. 116–17). At times, the book implies that the United States was predatory in its approach to cultivate Pakistan as a partner. However, until the mid-1950s...

The India-Pakistan Nuclear Dyad and Regional Nuclear Dynamics

Nuclear weapons in various stages-in established armories, latent capacity, or merely embryonic potential-are alive, well, and thriving in Asia. Ashley Tellis has very aptly written that given the contested geopolitics of Asia, which is defined by several enduring rivalries, many unresolved territorial disputes, significant local power transitions, and now the continent-wide anxieties provoked by the rise of China, it is not surprising that nuclear weapons have retained their critical importance.1 To put the South Asian dimension of the nuclear environment in its correct perspective, it is critical to view the disputes, rivalries, and players involved in a historical and regional context. This essay begins with a brief historical overview of the regional dimension of India-Pakistan nuclear dynamics and then looks more specifically at the perspectives and nuclear policies of India and Pakistan, as well as on China's nuclear policy vis-a-vis India. Finally, the essay concludes by asserting that the India-Pakistan nuclear dyad must be understood within the context of broader nuclear dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region.The Regional Dimension of India-Pakistan Nuclear DynamicsBefore 1947 the Indian subcontinent was surrounded by the buffer states of Afghanistan, Tibet, and Burma, and the external players in the region were Britain and Russia. Soon after independence, Pakistan fought a war with India and occupied a part of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan later joined the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), bringing the United States and its alliances into the subcontinent in an effort to resist the influence of the Soviet Union. Tibet was taken over by China in the 1950s, introducing China as an important actor in the South Asian geopolitical and strategic environment. In the mid to late 1950s, China also occupied Aksai Chin, a part of Jammu and Kashmir, which in 1962 led to the Sino-Indian War. Two additional wars between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 ultimately involved both the United States and Soviet Union. Then, in the late 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan met with an insurgency supported by the United States and China, among others.Consequently, while the Cold War was raging, South Asia experienced four major wars. This count excludes the wars in Afghanistan; the breakup of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh; the persistent involvement of the United States, the Soviet Union, and China on the subcontinent; and the nuclearization of China and its entry into the United Nations and the UN Security Council. Was all this due to the creation of the India-Pakistan dyad and the India-China dyad, or was it instead the product of the great game between the United States, Soviet Union, China, India, and Pakistan? Can we today forget this recent history and simply look at the subcontinent's dynamics through the lens of the Cold War binary? The Cold War superpowers possessed a deep-rooted ideological rivalry, but they had no disputed territory between them and no enduring history of armed conflict against each other. Can Cold War binary dynamics therefore apply to the India-Pakistan-China nuclear trio, which do have territorial disputes and have fought wars? For the reasons stated above, it would be a misplaced logic to apply the Cold War binary dynamics to the India-Pakistan-China triad.IndiaIndia's tryst with the atomic bomb is almost as old as the bomb itself. In 1944, Homi Bhabha submitted a report on nuclear energy, and a year later the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research was established. Early Indian leaders after independence understood the dual use of atomic energy. They established the Atomic Energy Act in April 1948 and later created the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in 1954. In 1956, India's Apsara was the first nuclear research reactor in Asia to be operationalized. At that stage, India could have opted to build its nuclear weapons program, but its leaders chose to profess nuclear disarmament, little realizing that the nuclear genie was already out of the bottle. …

‘Zero Plus Zero Plus Zero’: Pakistan, the Baghdad Pact, and the Suez Crisis

The Suez crisis of 1956 created a grave challenge to the fledgling Baghdad Pact. Each of the four Muslim members of the alliance, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey, faced domestic pressures to withdraw after the United Kingdom joined Israel and France in attacking Egypt. For the Pakistani government, the crisis came at an important juncture in its national development. After a decade of championing pan-Islamic causes, Pakistani foreign policy had, by 1955, shifted to a much more openly pro-Western position, highlighted by Pakistan's joining ofboth the Baghdad Pact and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. The Suezcrisis threatened to undermine this new policy and the fragile coalition government led by Prime Minister Suhrawardy. After an initial period of equivocation, Suhrawardy emerged as a staunch defender of the Baghdad Pact, hoping to save his government, but in the process opening deep rifts within his own party.

Norm Subsidiarity and Regional Orders: Sovereignty, Regionalism, and Rule-Making in the Third World1

This paper proposes a new conceptual tool to study norm dynamics in world politics. Termed norm subsidiarity, it concerns the process whereby local actors create rules with a view to preserve their autonomy from dominance, neglect, violation, or abuse by more powerful central actors. After a theoretical discussion of the definition, motivations, and effects of norm subsidiarity, the paper offers a case study of normative action against Cold War alliances (especially South East Asia Treaty Organization) by a group of Third World leaders led by India's Jawaharlal Nehru at the Bandung Asia-Africa Conference in 1955. It then offers examples from Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa to highlight the practice of norm subsidiarity. The paper contributes to the literature of international relations in three main ways. First, it reminds constructivist international relation scholars of the importance of understanding norm creation as a bottom-up process, marked by significant contestations and feedback. Second, it highlights the normative behaviors of Third World countries and their regional institutions, a neglected aspect of the literature on norm dynamics. Finally, the theory and practice of norm subsidiarity shed more light on the agency role of Third World countries in world politics.