India Pakistan And The Secret Jihad

Praveen Swami explores the history of jihadist violence in Kashmir, from 1947/8 to 2004, and expertly shows how the recent explosion of conflict was part of a long-running secret war in the state.

Former American President Bill Clinton Referred To Kashmir As The Most Dangerous Place On Earth. In 1999 Nuclear-Armed Powers India And Pakistan Fought A War Over Kashmir, And Again In 2002 They Came Close To Another. The Kashmir Dispute Represents One Of The World S Oldest And Most Intractable Conflicts, Having Befuddled Policymakers Since The Partition Of The Subcontinent In 1947. Author Arvin Bahl Attempts To Analyze This Conflict In The Context Of International Relations Theory, Drawing On A Variety Of Sources, Including Interviews With Leading Figures Of The Indian And Pakistani Establishments.Bahl Argues That The Question Of The Kashmir Dispute Is Really The Question Of Why The Liberation Of The Kashmir Valley From Indian Rule Has Been A Foremost Pakistani National Interest Since The Partition. Realism, The Dominant Theory Of International Relations, Argues That Regardless Of Era, Region, Ideology Or Domestic Politics, States Will Behave In The Same Ways When Faced With Similar Situations In The International System, Namely They Will Try To Maximize The State S Interests. Yet, Pakistan S Quest For Control Of The Kashmir Valley Represents A Case In Which A Country S Foreign Policy Cannot Be Explained By Realism, And Realism S Main Assumption Of The State As A Rational Actor Appears To Be Violated. The Kashmir Valley Has Little Strategic Importance To Pakistan, Pakistan Has Almost No Chance Of Obtaining It Against A Much Stronger Power That Dismembered It In A Previous War And Its Economy Is Being Destroyed By Military Confrontation With India, Which Also Threatens Its Security.This Study Attempts To Explain The Puzzle Of Pakistan S Seemingly Irrational Policy Behavior On Kashmir By Developing A Framework Combining Liberal And Constructivist Approaches. Constructivists Emphasize The Importance Of Ideas, Ideologies And Identities When Observing How States Behave. The Ideology That Pakistan Was Founded On, The Two-Nation Theory, Makes Ending Indian Rule Over The Kashmir Valley Of Utmost National Interest. For Pakistan To Concede That A Muslim Majority Region That Is Contiguous With It Can Be A Part Of India Would Be For Pakistan To Accept That There Was No Need For The Partition Of The Subcontinent Along Religious Lines And The Creation Of Pakistan In The First Place.Liberals Focus On Understanding Domestic Politics In Order To Understand A Country S Actions In The International System. The Pakistani Military, The Country S Most Powerful Institution Since Its Formation, Has Used The Conflict With India To Bring About And Legitimize Its Dominance Of The Country.South Asia Gained Prominence In American Foreign Policy After The 9/11 Attacks And The Standoff That Ensued Between India And Pakistan In Early 2002. Thus, This Study Concludes With Policy Recommendations, Primarily To American Policymakers, For Dealing With Pakistan And Kashmir Based On The Analysis Developed In The Preceding Chapters.This Book, We Hope, Is An Eye-Opener For All General Readers. It Will Be Found Immensely Useful And Informative By Students, Researchers And Teachers Of History, Political Science, International Relations And South Asian Studies.

For nearly 60 years, India and Pakistan have been battling over the Kashmir region. Three bloody wars have been fought openly - but both countries have also been fighting in the shadows. Having interviewed over 1000 militants in war-torn Kashmir, reporter Arif Jamal now presents a news-breaking account of Pakistan's secret battles with India. From the early 1980s, when the Kashmiri conflict lurked in the background of the CIA's proxy war in Afghanistan, to recent Kashmiri connections to terrorist financing and training, Jamal has much to reveal.

Islamist militants based in Pakistan have played a major role in terrorism around the world and pose a significant threat to regional and international security. Although the Pakistan-militant connection has received widespread attention only in recent years, it is not a new phenomenon. Pakistan has, since its inception in the wake of World War II, used Islamist militants to wage jihad in order to compensate for severe political and material weakness. This use of militancy has become so important that it is now a central component of Pakistani grand strategy; supporting jihad is one of the principal means by which the Pakistani state seeks to produce security for itself. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the strategy has not been wholly disastrous. It has achieved important domestic and international successes, enabling Pakistan to confront stronger adversaries and shape its strategic environment without the costs and risks of direct combat, and to help promote internal cohesion to compensate for its weak domestic political foundations. Recently, however, these successes of Pakistan's militant strategy have given way to serious problems. The militant organizations that Pakistan nurtured over the decades are increasingly exceeding its control; continued support for jihad diverts scarce resources from pressing domestic projects, impeding the country's internal development; and the militant campaign's repeated provocations have led India to adopt a more aggressive conventional military posture. As Paul Kapur shows in Jihad as Grand Strategy, these developments significantly undermine Pakistani interests, threatening to leave it less politically cohesive and externally secure than it was before. Thus, despite its past benefits, the strategy has outlived its utility, and Pakistan will have to abandon it in order to avoid catastrophe. This will require not simply a change of policy, but a thoroughgoing reconceptualization of the Pakistani state.

How did a nation founded as a homeland for South Asian Muslims, most of whom follow a tolerant nonthreatening form of Islam, become a haven for Al Qaeda and a rogue's gallery of domestic jihadist and sectarian groups? In this groundbreaking history of Pakistan's involvement with radical Islam, John R. Schmidt, the senior U.S political analyst in Pakistan in the years before 9/11, places the blame squarely on the rulers of the country, who thought they could use Islamic radicals to advance their foreign policy goals without having to pay a steep price. This strategy worked well at first--in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad, in Kashmir in support of a local uprising against Indian rule, and again in Afghanistan in backing the Taliban in the Afghan civil war. But the government's plans would begin to unravel in the wake of 9/11, when the rulers' support for the U.S. war on terror caused many of their jihadist allies to turn against them. Today the army generals and feudal politicians who run Pakistan are by turns fearful of the consequences of going after these groups and hopeful that they can still be used to advance the state's interests. The Unraveling is the clearest account yet of the complex, dangerous relationship between the leaders of Pakistan and jihadist groups—and how the rulers' decisions have led their nation to the brink of disaster and put other nations at great risk. Can they save their country or will we one day find ourselves confronting the first nuclear-armed jihadist state?

What Happened to Governance in Kashmir? examines the policies, strategies, and tactics followed by the Indian state and the ‘client’ governments in Srinagar to manage the conflicted state of Jammu and Kashmir during 1948–89 . It shows how the policies deployed to ‘create order in disorder’ functioned inversely and turned Kashmir into a smoldering volcano which erupted in 1989–90. The author argues that as the issue of dispute and policy framework has been constant, the clash between the status quoist state and the society was inevitable. The crisis deepened along with technological, economic, cultural, and social changes. Based on a variety of contemporary sources, this book deals with many aspects of Kashmir’s governance through different political phases. It shows how the personal proclivities and decisions of each prime minister/chief minister played a role in determining the pattern of rule and the course of history with consequences felt many miles downstream.

Pakistan and America have been gripped together in a deadly embrace for decades. For half a century American presidents from both parties pursued narrow short-term interests in Pakistan. This myopia actually backfired in the long term, helping to destabilize the political landscape and radicalizing the population, setting the stage for the global jihad we face today. Bruce Riedel, one of America's foremost authorities on U.S. security and South Asia, sketches the history of U.S.-Pakistani relations from partitioning of the subcontinent in 1947 up through the present day. It is muddled story, meandering through periods of friendship and enmity. Riedel deftly interprets the tortuous path of relations between two very different nations that remain, in many ways, stuck with each other. The Preface to the paperback provides an inside account of the discovery of Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout that led to the al Qaeda leader's demise. Accusations of Pakistani complicity in harboring bin Laden once again dramatized the ambivalence and distrust existing between two nations that purport to be allies. Riedel discusses what it all means for the war on terror and the future of U.S.- Pakistani relations. Praise for the hardcover edition of Deadly Embrace "Mr. Riedel, who has advised no fewer than four American presidents, knows power from the inside—something he is keen to share with the reader.... His book provides a useful account of the dysfunctional relationship between Pakistan and America." — The Economist "Bruce Riedel has produced an excellent volume that is both analytically sharp and cogently written. It will engage both specialists and the interested public. Essential reading."—Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama bin Laden I Know "Riedel lucidly provides an overview of the last thirty years of Pakistan's internal politics, its relationship with the United States, as well as the various i