The US has decided to go ahead with the sale and delivery of eight US made F-16 fighters to Pakistan in a deal valued at $699 million. This was due to concerns that Pakistan was not sufficiently targeting the Haqqani militant group hostile to the US in Afghanistan. India is deeply concerned as the F-16 aircrafts were hardly suitable against counter terrorist operations and will be used by Pakistan upsetting the fragile peace and military balance in South Asia. Even the State Department has expressed concerns that Pakistan’s ongoing military operation against domestic terrorists along its border with Afghanistan, known as Operation Zarb-e-Azb, is overlooking Haqqani network targets. The US efforts to use such combat air power in Vitenam, Iraq and Afghanistan was not effective in counter terrorism roles as they are strategic assets in the conventional wars fought so many times by Pakistan and India in the last six decades.
Another worrying issue has been that Pakistan‘s close friend and massive aid provider, Saudi Arabia, plans purchasing “off the shelf” Pakistani nuclear weapons to counter Iran, thus upsetting fragile peace in the volatile oil rich Middle East. It may be recalled thay Pakistan clandestinely acquired nuclear arsenals from China and North Korea with finances from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s head of intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal had said that whatever Iranians had, they would have too! Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the US‘s staunchest allies in waging war against Iran and Afghanistan and this deal is being finalised with the tacit support of the US.
The US needs to realise that Pakistan is the cradle of Muslim terrorism. It has democracy as the weakest institution against the powerful Pakistani army and the dreaded ISI, and there were fears including that of the US, that its small tactical nuclear bombs would fall in the hands of the terrorists within Pakistan. Since Pakistan had recently upset Saudi Arabia for not intervening in the Saudi war in Yemen that has both Sunnis and Shias in sizeable number with its ground forces, giving nuclear weapons to Saudis now would have the balming effect! But what Pakistan has failed to realise is that the Wahabi Sunni Saudis are dumping Pakistan against predominantly Shiite Iran in a sectarian war. This is so as Pakistan’s population is over 70% Sunnis and nearly 30% Shias and the country’s armed forces also has a similar content. This mixed ethnic population is highly conducive to terrorism as Sunnis provide shelter, intelligence, training and finances to attack Shias whether in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran or elsewhere.
India’s apple cart was further destabilised by Russia’s strategic decision to sell MI-25 helicopters and other military equipment to Pakistan, eyeing the US withdrawal from the Jihadi melting pot, Afghanistan, and letting Pakistan fight these Jihadis in this region to keep away from Chechnya and Russia’s aching under belly, the CIS.
Another deep concern of regional imbalance worrying India is the report that Pakistan was negotiating with Russia the purchase of unspecified numbers of Sukhovi 35 fighter aircrafts as both the Russian Sukhovis and the US F-16s would be diverted against India and Afghanistan in future conventional conflicts.
China is offering a massive investment in infrastructure, military hardware and economic aid to Pakistan in her bid to acquire access to the blue waters of the Arabian Sea through Gawadar Port to contain both the US and Russia and keep an eye on Iran and India. It has, along with North Korea, helped Pakistan acquire nuclear arsenals as well. Naturally, all these genuine concerns pose serious geo-strategic challenges to the Indian and the South Asian security. One strategic analyst has questioned, “Why was Pakistan becoming the 23rd. province of China?”
China has become a major arms seller to Burma, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, Thailand and some African countries. It has given nuclear technology to Pakistan to counter India and checkmate the US and Russian support to India. These sales have become the focus of considerable attention and pose a moderate threat to US interests. The Chinese weapons are cheap and it is willing to transfer nuclear technology where its interest to checkmate the US and Russia exists. Some indications from West Asia point out that the Chinese were planning to join the war in Syria and Iraq siding with the Russians and Assad. In that eventuality, this regional conflict would spin towards World War III.
The Chinese cruisers and aircraft carriers have already entered the Mediterranean Sea. While 80 Ughyars have been arrested fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, China suspects the Uyghur militant group and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which have been trained by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
The ISIS chief Baghdadi has threatened China to stop the oppression of the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang or else be prepared to face serious consequences. China also needs to realise its effort to link Nepal by rail and road through Tibet are acts of expansion rather than aid as geographically, Nepal’s life line runs from India and not China.
China’s maritime dispute in the South China Sea has been a matter of grave concern of peace in the region. Much to the discomfort of the Asia-Pacific region and the US, China, it is reported, has deployed advance surface to air missile batteries in the disputed Woody Island in the South China Sea. This will indirectly make war murkier in West Asia and elude peace in South Asia.
The superpowers are muddling up in the Turkey-Syria-Iraq-Kurdish conflict in West Asia. The US has been for too long embroiled in Iraq, Libya and Syria, killing over 500,000 men, women and children. While the Russians support Assad in Syria to fight against ISIS, the US and NATO allies want to remove Assad. The EU and NATO are siding with the US in this conflict. The Chinese are the latest to enter the war arena.
The conflict of the superpowers’ interests is creating unsurmountable human rights tragedies and an exodus of refugees to the EU via the ingates of Turkey. Over the years, the demographic imbalance in the EU would have serious security, social, human and economic implications negating peace, tranquility and prosperty. In this war, the social and economic fabric of Syria and Iraq have been shattered and Turkey too is feeling the pinch as the nations involved in the war are being dismembered. The Kurds and the terrorist outfits like ISIS have acquired strength and ruthless notoriety, surging an influx of refugees, shady economy through human, drugs and arms trafficking and control of many oil fields in Iraq.
The US intervention in South Asia was Pakistan-Afghanistan centric. The US intervention in the Middle East is Iran centric and that was the reason it did not oppose Pakistan selling nuclear arms to Saudi Arabia to checkmate Iran. The US and NATO are now Syria- Iraq centric. This US shift is intriguing as it is the oldest democracy in the world that supports human rights but it supports the despotic rule of the Saudi royal family, while it fought against the despotic rule of Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi in Iraq and Libya respectively. Furthermore, it is now figting to overthrow the despotic Assad in Syria.
What are the gains? Perhaps the supermacy over the Russian declining ascendancy with hordes of refugees moving to Europe while many may find dubious routes to enter the US, Canada or Latin America. Superpowers sell arms, create regional imbalances, and sell arms to rivals, intervene to restore peace and the vicious cycle goes on, further containing emerging superpower China. In this game of chess, it is only the poor who suffer the untold miseries while arms sales bring big money to superpowers.
What should be done is not easy to pronounce. The superpowers and the UNO should de-escalate and deactivate war and declare Iraq- Syria as demilitarised zones, isolate and disarm terrorists, ensure autonomy to Kurds, stop the refugee influx to the EU and other countries and rebuild devastated countries. India and many neutral Asian, Latin American and African nations will be too willing to undertake the UN peacekeeping missions in Syria and Iraq conflict zones to rebuild their economies from scratch and give peace and hope a chance to survive. The UN and the superpowers cannot eradicate terrorism globally but they must contain it to fight hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy and poverty. It is indeed wishful thinking- more so if Donald Trump gets elected as the next US President.
