ISLAMABAD – The importance of the India-Pakistan border has remained lowfor the United States for many decades, but experts say it is gaining newstrategic meaning as part of its emerging Indo-Pacific strategy, whichredefines U.S. resources and partnerships in the region.
Kashish Parpiani, a Mumbai-based expert with the Observer ResearchFoundation, highlights that the historically conflicted boundary betweenIndia and Pakistan also forms the territorial demarcation line between theU.S. military’s central command and its Indo-Pacific command and thusplaces India and Pakistan into two separate strategic military zones.
Traditionally, India wasn’t allowed to participate in central command eventhough it had concerns that transverse its western border in the region,but now that has changed.
After its last 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, the United States decided thatIndia would get increased access to U.S. Central Command. The 2+2Ministerial dialogue is the highest-level institutional mechanism betweenthe two countries that allows for a periodic review of the security,defense, and strategic partnership.
Richard M. Rossow, Senior Adviser of Indian Policy Studies at the Centerfor Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said in a commentarypublishedlink onDec. 20 that this decision will provide “more balance to the ‘Indo-Pacific’partnership.”
Parpiani said providing India more access to U.S. Central Command will meangiving India “more than a keyhole view into the U.S. military developmentsin the region—with respect to its allied relations with Pakistan.”
“It’s a matter of [the] U.S. agreeing to more transparency on its relationswith Pakistan. [It] can be seen as a gesture of providing an assurance toIndia.”Why the Spotlight?
India shares 2,065 miles of international land border with Pakistan,according to the Indian government (pdflink). This includes450 miles of disputed area known as the Line of Control, a de facto borderthat emerged as a ceasefire line between the two countries after theirfirst war of 1947-48, according to the Council on Foreign Relationslink.It is one of the most militarized borders in the world.
India and Pakistan have fought four wars on this border and the regioncontinues to be an active ground for multiple non-state actors that operateagainst the Indian state from Pakistan’s soil. Many of them like the HizbulMujahideen, Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Harakat ul-Mujahidin,Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Lashkar-e Tayyiba are identified by the United Statesas Foreign Terrorists Organizations, according to a CIA listlink.
Meanwhile, the border also has a substantial Chinese presence in thedisputed Gilgit-Baltistan region and China’s ambitious Belt and RoadInitiative (BRI) passes through it, a major cause of worry for both Indiaand United States, according to Alice Wellslink,the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and CentralAsia at the U.S. Department of State.Eyjaz Wani, another Research Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation,said China has invested in many projects near the Line of Control in thedisputed territory held by Pakistan and that India perceives China’spresence in the disputed territory as “direct violation of India’ssovereignty over the region.”
A Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) report shares Wani’s concerns andmentions that under President Donald Trump, Washington has raised an alarmover the BRI.
“Meanwhile, the United States shares the concern of some in Asia that theBRI could be a Trojan horse for China-led regional development and militaryexpansion,” said the CFR reportlink byAndrew Chatzky and James McBride.
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Chatzky and McBride also mention that India believes the BRI is a plan todominate Asia and feels “unsettled” with China’s decadeslong embrace ofPakistan.
“The United States views India as a counterweight to a China-dominated Asiaand has sought to knit together its strategic relationships in the regionvia the 2017 Indo-Pacific Strategy,” said the report released on Jan. 28.
Parpiani said that as a major conflict theatre of global strategicrelevance, the border is important for the United States for the samereason it is for its global adversary, China.
He believes that the Indo-Pacific strategy makes the India-Pakistan borderextremely important because without resolving the historical disputedborder issues between the two South Asian rivals, a holistic view of theIndo-Pacific strategy is not possible. Parpiani’s holistic approach wouldaddress all of India’s concerns and actually enable it to play the role itshould as a strategic partner of the United States.Addressing India’s Concerns
India’s concerns on its border with Pakistan arise out of the tensesecurity situation in the region, and Parpiani said if the United Stateswants to cultivate India as a strong strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific,it’ll have to address India’s concerns with Pakistan on its western border.
“India’s eastward commitment to the American calculus on the Indo-Pacificregion stands impeded by India’s continued focus on its western frontier.Pakistan’s use of subversive statecraft to exacerbate the conflict in andover Kashmir, is the central reason,” said Parpiani.
Kanishkan Sathasivam, a Massachusetts-based geopolitical analyst callsIndia’s threat perception vis-à-vis Pakistan as “misplaced” and believesthat it distracts India from playing the role it ought to play as a U.S.ally.
“During the Cold War, the U.S. believed India should have been allied withthe West against the Soviet Union, but [it] refused to do so because of itshostility with Pakistan which was an ally of the West.
“Now, in the post-Cold War era, again the U.S. believes India should standwith the U.S. and its other Asian allies against China, and treat China asIndia’s primary source of threat, but India continues to be ‘obsessed’ withPakistan over any and all other issues,” he said.
Parpiani highlights this as a gap that the United States recently startedto address by cultivating India as a better strategic partner as part of aholistic Indo-pacific strategy. The EPOCH Times
