--- On Sat, 20/12/08, Perry E. Metzger <[email protected]> wrote:
> From: Perry E. Metzger <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [silk] BW: How Risky Is India?
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Saturday, 20 December, 2008, 12:00 AM
> "Badri Natarajan" <[email protected]> writes:
> > Speaking for myself, it feels like I'm getting a
> dim sense of the points
> > you're trying to make, without fully
> understanding. I can sort-of
> > understand the point about Pakistani identity being
> linked to Indian
> > failure, but I'm really not grasping why economic
> success and stability in
> > Pakistan won't fix the problem (which is sort of
> what Perry was trying to
> > say I think)
>
> It is indeed one of the things I was saying.
>
> I was also saying that I didn't see why the success of
> India meant the
> failure of Pakistan, though I can see how the failure of
> Pakistan
> could lead to the failure of India. This latter could
> happen if
> Pakistani despair were to lead to increased Pakistani based
> terrorism,
> which in turn could lead India to engage in self
> destructive actions.
>
> I do not think any likely level of terrorism could damage
> India
> directly, but India could easily engage in the sort of
> self-defeating
> strategies the US has adopted, or worse. It is also, plain
> and simple,
> unpleasant to border a disintegrating country -- desperate
> people do
> desperate things.
>
> Looking at a higher level, economic theory tells us that
> the whole
> game is not zero sum. India's economy would be better
> off if Pakistan
> developed, just as the US and Europe are better off because
> India and
> China are developing. Increased development leads to
> increased wealth
> for everyone. Wealth is good, both because of its direct
> benefits and
> because people who have a lot to lose tend to cooperate
> more and fight
> less.
>
> Perry
> --
> Perry E. Metzger [email protected]
I believe that the point is that if Pakistan does better economically,
especially due to some sort of better economic trading relationship with India,
that will be a section of Pakistan, that section which is in any case probably
favourable to a state of coexistence between the two countries.
However, the sections of Pakistani society that drive terrorism today will
probably, according to this analysis, continue to drive terrorism. They may
even be indirect beneficiaries of the better economic climate, but in this
view, which Shiv has articulated very painstakingly in his book, there are
sections of Pakistani society - the Muslim-first die-hards, the Army and its
vested interest in keeping the Indian bogey alive and thereby keep its access
to funds and the levers of state power - which will continue to finance and
foster terrorism.
So, in this view, nothing will change. Economic improvement will only mean more
money at the disposal of the seminarists and mullahs, and for the Armed Forces
budget.
Not attractive, but regrettably plausible.
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