Warrior State

V Paul T

Description

Seemingly from its birth, Pakistan has been struggling to build a proper democracy and a secure state. Today it ranks 133rd out of 148 countries in global competitiveness. Its economy is as dysfunctional as its political system is corrupt; both rely heavily on international aid for their existence. Taliban forces occupy many key areas of the country and engage in random violence. It possesses over a hundred nuclear weapons that could fall into terrorists' hands. Why, in an era when countries across the developing world are experiencing impressive economic growth and building democratic institutions, has Pakistan been such a conspicuously weak state? In The Warrior State, noted international relations and South Asia scholar T.V. Paul untangles this fascinating riddle. Paul argues that the "geostrategic curse"-akin to the "resource curse" that plagues oil-rich autocracies-is at the root of Pakistan's unique inability to progress. Since its founding in 1947, Pakistan has been at the center of major geopolitical struggles: the US-Soviet rivalry, the conflict with India, and most recently the post 9/11 wars. No matter how ineffective the regime is, massive foreign aid keeps pouring in from major powers, their allies and global financial institutions with a stake in the region. The reliability of such aid defuses any pressure on political elites to launch the far-reaching domestic reforms necessary to promote sustained growth, higher standards of living, and more stable democratic institutions. Paul shows that excessive war-making efforts have drained Pakistan's limited economic resources without making the country safer or more stable. Indeed, despite the regime's emphasis on security, the country continues to be beset by widespread violence and terrorism. In an age of transnational terrorism and nuclear proliferation, understanding Pakistan's development, particularly the negative effects of foreign aid and geopolitical centrality, is more important than ever. Painstakingly researched and brilliantly argued, The Warrior State tackles what may be the world's most dangerous powder keg and uncovers the true causes of Pakistan's enormously consequential failure.

Sujets

• Pakistán
• Pakistan

Informations

• Publié par: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
• Date de parution: 06 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184006247
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WARRIOR STATE
PAKISTAN IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
T. V. PAUL
CONTENTS
List of Tables and Maps
Maps
1. War and Development
2. The Causes
3. A Turbulent History
4. The Garrison State
5. The Geostrategic Urge
6. Religion and Politics
7. Comparing Pakistan
8. The Warrior State Today
Notes
Acknowledgments
Copyright
LIST OF TABLES AND MAPS

Table
5.1. Material Power Capabilities: India and Pakistan (2011)
Maps
1. Pakistan: Administrative Divisions
2. Kashmir
3. Pre-partition Princely States
4. Expanse of Mughal Empire in India
1. Government of India, Copyright 2014.
2. The responsibility for the correctness of internal details rests with the publisher.
3. The external boundaries and coastlines of India agree with the Record/Master Copy certified by Survey of Indie
4. The spellings of names in this map have been taken from various sources.

1. Government of India, Copyright 2014.
2. The responsibility for the correctness of internal details rests with the publisher.
3. The territorial waters of India extend into the sea to a distance of twelve nautical miles measured from the appropriate base line.
4. The administrative headquarters of Chandigarh, Haryana and Punjab are at Chandigarh.
5. The external boundaries and coastlines of India agree with the Record/Master Copy certified by Survey of India.
6. The state boundaries between Uttarakhand Uttar Pradesh, Bihar Jharkhand and Chattisgarh Madhya Pradesh have not been verified by the Governments concerned.
7. The spellings ofnames in this map have been taken from various sources.

1. Government of India, Copyright 2014.
2. The responsibility for the correctness of internal details rests with the publisher.
3. The territorial waters of India extend into the sea to a distance oftwelve nautical miles measured from the appropriate base line.
4. The interstate boundaries amongst Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya shown on this map are a interpreted from the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act. 1971 , buthaveyettobeverified.
5. The external boundaries and coastlines of India agree with the Record/Master Copy certified by Survey of India.
6. The state boundaries between Uttarakhand Uttar Pradesh, Bihar Jharkhand and Chattisgarh Madhya Pradesh have not been verified by the Governments concerned.
7. The spellings of names in this map, have been taken from various sources.
1

War and Development
ON MAY 2, 2011, in a daring surprise military operation, 33 US Navy SEALs entered the compound of the residence of Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad, shot and killed him. The US helicopters carrying the SEALs had evaded Pakistani radars when they penetrated the country s airspace. Bin Laden had reportedly been living in the compound for more than three years, just eight hundred yards from the elite Pakistan Military Academy. It is incredible to believe that elements of Pakistani intelligence and military did not know that the world s most wanted terrorist had been hiding in Pakistan for so long and so close to an important military facility. In the tumultuous aftermath of the bin Laden incident, civil-military relations in Pakistan deteriorated dramatically by fall 2011, although recovered somewhat by 2012 with the civilian government surviving the crisis. In recent years, Pakistan has approached economic collapse on several occasions, relying on life-saving support by external actors such as the United States, International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and Saudi Arabia. Natural disasters such as devastating floods have added to man-made miseries. The country is riven by a m lange of conflicts that pit competing ethnic and sectarian groups against each other. It is beset by violence between the state and terrorist networks, violence that intertwines with the conflict over US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan. A continuing conflict between the elected civilian government and the judiciary added another challenge to the mix. Pakistan s condition poses major challenges to international and regional security, especially in the areas of transnational terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Pakistan is already the world s fifth largest nuclear weapons state, with about 110 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, and the prospects of these weapons falling into the wrong hands has generated a great deal of international concern.
Such developments raise some fundamental questions: Why has Pakistan become a theater of internecine violence? Why has its condition been so problematic for international security for so long? Why has it emerged as a failing state, a state that cannot provide minimum law and order, control various competing societal forces, and survive economically without external support? Why does it remain a garrison or a heavily militarized warrior state, with an intense focus on narrowly defined national security concerns while several erstwhile military-ruled countries in Asia and Africa have become democratic and others reaped the benefits of increased global trade and investment? What sets Pakistan apart?
The story of Pakistan s checkered existence has ramifications that extend far beyond the Pakistani border. This book attempts to examine the role of war and war-making in the development of nation-states in the developing world, and the Pakistani case has much to tell us. Pakistan has devoted considerable energy into military security. Indeed, it is essentially a warrior state in many respects. But the outcome in the Pakistani case has been paradoxical. More than six decades of intense pursuit of military security has made Pakistan less secure and unified as a coherent political unit. Ironically, European history tends to show the opposite outcome: war-making was an engine for national development and consolidation. In Pakistan, however, it has not done so. The puzzle is why not. In this book, I compare Pakistan to historical and contemporary nations in order to examine the problems that war-making creates for state-building in our era. What the case shows is that excessive war-making efforts can have perverse effects on a developing country, as limited resources of the economy are siphoned off for military purposes with little, if any, long-term value for the larger society. Moreover, the public may not successfully demand economic and social reforms unlike in many war-making societies of historical Europe and contemporary East Asia.
In the post-World War II world, rapid development has come to states that engaged in deep economic interactions with the world market and transformed the competitiveness of their societies and economies by instituting universal education, health care, quality infrastructure, and land reforms. States that pursued extreme ideological or realpolitik goals have not fared well. Countries that received economic assistance from abroad for their strategic position as allies of the great powers benefited only if their leaders pursued a developmental state approach and undertook transformative policies internally. The contrasting experiences of several US allies-Japan, Israel, South Korea, and Taiwan versus Pakistan, Egypt, and the Philippines-attest to this.
For over six decades, the Pakistani elite pursued several geopolitically oriented policies at the expense of political and economic reform. The result has been domestic stagnation and even chaos. Pakistan s domestic instability, in turn, has worsened regional and global peace and security. Some of these policies looked successful from a short-term, tactical point of view, but in the long run they have only distorted the country s development and imperiled its national security (not to mention its unity). The policies of its great power patrons-the United States and China-have helped make Pakistan s development sluggish and make the state less secure. They have discouraged the Pakistani elite from undertaking the painful economic and social reforms necessary for rapid and equitable economic and political development. In fact, the elite s policies have resulted in the creation of a violent, insecure, and ideology-driven polity which is neither strong, nor prosperous, nor stably democratic, nor unified. The security they seek has been as elusive as ever. Why do elites pursue warrior state policies that do not produce long-term benefits to their society?
The answer I offer in this book, in a nutshell, is that Pakistan s elite has had both the motive and the opportunity to pursue such policies. The political elite s strategic ideas and ideological beliefs about statehood, development, and power are major factors in determining what kind of state strategy they will follow. If these ideas are based on hyperrealpolitik assumptions and deeply held ideological beliefs, devoid of prudence and pragmatism, they tend to produce unintended consequences that are often negative. Hyper-realpolitik assumptions prioritize narrow military security as an end in itself and above all other national goals, including economic welfare, irrespective of the consequences. An imbalance exists between means and ends in the security strategy and national goals that the country pursues as well. However, ideas alone are insufficient to explain national behavior over a period of time. For the elite to pursue its strategic ideas, it requires the right material and nonmaterial assets and the appropriate strategic circumstances. But provided those assets and circumstances, an ideological state with an intensely realpolitik approach to the world is free to act on it. The combination of ideas and circumstances, motive and opportunity, tells us why a country would pursue a warrior state strategy. The second important question is why that strategy does not produce desired outcomes, in contrast to the many strong, coherent, and prosperous states that emerged from war-making in historical Europe and postwar East Asia. Pa