A Pragmatic Watchdog

IF India and Pakistan do not review their bilateral attitudes, they will sink deeper into the morass of military rivalry, says a Republican legislator who does not want to be identified. "The growing financial cost of the seemingly interminable animosity between India and Pakistan will further weaken their ability to tackle glaring social and economic problems that should be an embarrassment after 50 years of Independence."

바카라 웹사이트The legislator adds that Pakistan's "boastful announcement" of its testing of the Ghauri missile is not helpful to the cause of peace. Nor was it helpful that Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee said his new government intended to exercise the nuclear option. "That declaration provoked Islamabad into conducting the test, despite attempts at dissuasion by the US. The danger of a destabilising build-up of missiles hangs over the region."

바카라 웹사이트Michael Krepon, who heads the Henry L. Stimson Centre in Washington, calls it a "slow motion race between India and Pakistan. Both sides are proceeding in a deliberate fashion, which suggests that both governments are aware of the risks. But clearly there is movement and it is a movement in the wrong direction."

But not everyone in the US is expressing anxiety. Says Ashley Tellis, an analyst at Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California: "The Ghauri missile is not for fighting conventional wars. It is designed to produce a strategic deterrent over the long term. There are good reasons for Pakistan to do what it did. It has a fairly high degree of stability and will not go up in smoke at the slightest excuse. The Indian programme, on the other hand, is designed to solve certain conventional weaknesses. Both India and Pakistan have to consider the costs of what they are doing. But the US shouldn't be concerned that it will automatically lead to instability."

바카라 웹사이트The US has a very small role in all this, insists Tellis. The MTCR has little value for weapons developed in-house, which is what India is doing. "The US' ability to control the agenda is therefore limited. Pakistan gets some assistance through China and the US has been less than successful in trying to influence the Chinese. Is China's assistance to Pakistan reason enough to base Sino-US relations on? Washington has decided not to do that and this policy has been vindicated with Pakistan being fairly responsible so far. American ambassadors in both countries have been talking with India and Pakistan but it is something beyond their immediate control."

The US has, of late, started reflecting a softer, gentler and more rational tone towards India than when nuclear issues dominated US-India ties less than a couple of years ago. Says a State Department official: "We do not believe that there is an arms race between India and Pakistan. But we want to prevent one from starting and have been advising both governments that security does not require them to develop nuclear weapons... that's why we've been applauding the resumption of the dialogue between the two countries and its expansion. We have said that we regret the Pakistani testing of the missile and have requested both countries to show restraint."

Another State Department official adds that the US would keep trying to draw India into a nuclear weapons control programme but would not let New Delhi's refusal to relinquish its nuclear option sour Indo-US relations. Citing the responsibility shown by the new Indian government, he repeats what Bill Richardson, US ambassador to the UN, said recently in Delhi: "We don't have a one-issue agenda. We'll continue to persuade India and Pakistan not to flex their nuclear muscles and to seek India's signature on CTBT."