United States and Pakistan in the 21st Century

Geostrategy and Geopolitics in South Asia

Syed Tahseen Raza

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000218176
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

This book historically maps and examines the evolving, contemporary geostrategic and geopolitical imperatives of the United States within Pakistan and the South Asian region, especially after September 11, 2001. It offers a detailed and theoretical account of the rapidly changing context of US foreign policy towards Pakistan after 2001. The history of the US-Pakistan relationship has been a complex and inscrutable mix of cooperation and conflict has turned even more challenging after 9/11. This book covers the latest developments and relevant themes from world politics as it discusses the impact of the unprecedented rise in religious extremism in Pakistan, stemming from the US War on Terror as well as Pakistan's economic vulnerability and military dictatorship, India's offer to support the US in its war in Afghanistan, Pakistan's nuclear capability, and the US administration's decision to end financial aid to Pakistan. The study highlights the fact that, from the receding of British influence in the region through the Cold War and post-Cold War phases to the post-9/11 period, US-South Asia policy has been informed by the theoretical paradigm of the grand strategy of primacy.

This topical book will be useful to scholars and researchers of international relations, politics, political studies, strategic and defence studies, security and peace studies, foreign policy, area studies, and South Asian studies. It will also interest diplomats, politicians, policymakers, security experts, journalists, and think tanks interested in India, Pakistan, and the United States on issues of international politics, world affairs, and terrorism.

1

GEOSTRATEGY, GEOPOLITICS, AND FOREIGN POLICY

A theoretical understanding

The word ‘geopolitics’, with its varied attached meanings since the time it was first coined by Kjellen, had its popularity tremendously revived at the hands of the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Kissinger’s diplomatic use of this term as a synonym for ‘the game of balance of power politics by the super power played out across the global political map’¹ was much more sophisticated and nuanced as compared to what Kjellen originally used this word to mean – simply signifying a general concern with geography and politics. Currently, in the era of drones, supercomputers, and artificial intelligence, geopolitics continues to carry its sheen unabatedly and may mean different things to different people. As such, it is important to make sense of it in a historical setting. This chapter, therefore, begins with a discussion on geostrategy and geopolitics; along with explaining the root of these terms, an attempt is made to understand them in a proper perspective – how the concepts of geostrategy and geopolitics have originated, how the meanings attached to them have changed through different times, how they are conceived now, etc. Next, a theoretical understanding of foreign policy is discussed so as to understand the basic guidelines which are aimed to be achieved through the foreign policy behaviour of a state. For obvious reasons, an attempt has been made to theoretically understand the foreign policy of the United States.

Geostrategy and geopolitics: general theoretical framework

The term ‘geo-strategic-politics’ is actually an umbrella term composed of ‘geostrategy’ and ‘geopolitics’. Strategy and politics are arguably the most widely and frequently used terms in the literature of International Relations. ‘Geo’, the prefix in both these terms, marks the underlying importance of ‘Earth’, i.e., ‘the physical place’ where the actions take place or the theatrics are enacted. Though the word ‘geo’ here may also be indicative of not just real ‘physical presence of place’ but the ‘mere imagined’ or ‘understood to be’² place as well, as the scholars of critical geopolitics uphold, to begin with, we will consider the word to be restricted to mean the physical entity, i.e., the particular location of the Earth. Simply speaking then, ‘geostrategy’ and ‘geopolitics’ are concerned with those issues of politics and strategy which have, among other things, the most decisive impact of the factor of ‘the physical location of the Earth’.

Now we will address ‘politics’, which is among one of the most widely used terms; in a way, there is no escape from politics. A popular aphorism attributed to Pericles the great Greek strategist aptly opines ‘you may not be interested in politics but politics is always interested in you’.³ What, then, makes politics so important? A brief look at the nature of politics brings to light that politics actually starts from the needs and ‘wants’ of the ‘people’. It is because of the compelling nature of their needs and wants that people come together, because coming together and forming a group makes their task of achieving their needs and fulfilling their wants easier. However, in the course of achieving these goals when the groups are formed, a serious problem is confronted: the resources are limited, but the needs and demands of people are not limited. Even if there are just enough resources for all or the resources are unlimited, the various groups will try to have as much as possible for their own group. One group will try to have more than the other group or will try to be the first in appropriating the resources. The groups, then, will try to pursue some policies and actions which will help them fulfil their needs and wants according to their desired intentions. This will lead to claims and counter-claims. Though there is no unanimous agreement among scholars of politics on what constitutes the basic element of politics, it is agreed by all of them that the existence of groups is the basic element of politics.

Politics begins with not only the very existence of groups and from disagreements among them, but it also arises with the efforts of individuals to create such relationships under which their needs and wants may be fulfilled to the maximum possible extent. It is for this reason that Quincy Wright in her definition of politics says that it is ‘the art of influencing, manipulating or controlling major groups so as to advance the purpose of some against the opposition of others’.⁴

The scope of politics is very wide; it is all-inclusive and extensive. However, for our study, we mark out the following three most essential elements of politics⁵:

1. the existence of groups
2. disagreements between groups
3. the efforts of some to influence or control the behaviours/actions of others.

International politics, as we all know, is politics in relationship between nations.⁶ In international politics, these groups are the nations and states which have their own interests. The interest of each of these groups, called nations, is called ‘national interest’.⁷ The conflict, disagreement, or differing aim of these nations in order to fulfil their interests or corner a better share of the available limited resources is what leads to inter-state or inter-national conflicts. Nations, therefore, pursue their national interests commensurate to the power and the consequent influence they have. The element of power remains very important. International politics is a process of adjustment of relationships among the comity of nations on the basis of power. Nations having greater power are in a better position to achieve their national interests. The three underlining themes of international politics or the three most important elements in international politics are, therefore, as follows⁸:

1. national interest
2. conflict
3. power.

‘National interest’ is the main objectives before the nation whose fulfilment is of prime importance for the nation to exist. Thus, national interest is the raison d’être of the state.⁹

The second important element of international politics, i.e., conflict, is the situation under which the nations have to pursue their interests.

The third element of international politics, i.e., power, is the means of international politics. It is through the means of power that nations can bail themselves out, in the muddling course of conflictual terrain, to reach the goalpost of their national interest. The omnipresent nature of conflict is what keeps international politics going. Power is the currency of international politics. It ensures the achievement of national interest in international politics. Therefore, each nation tries to increase and consolidate its power. Thus, international politics becomes a process in which a nation tries to have an advantageous position in the struggle for the fulfilment of its national interest among other competing nations through the means of power.

Geostrategy and geopolitics are the means through which nations try to pursue their aim of increasing and consolidating their power so that they can achieve their aim of fulfilling their national interest. These two terms underline the importance of ‘geo’, i.e., the location of the place more physically in the classical sense and in some different sense during the current time.

Understanding geostrategy and geopolitics

The concepts of geostrategy and geopolitics have a long history. They have always been pursued by the great powers in their statecraft. Those who continued to manage their control over strategic areas maintained their power over others. Loss of strategic areas preceded the loss of power and prestige of great empires.¹⁰ In more modern times, due to the indiscriminate advancement in military and other technologies, the ultimate importance to the ‘location’ of a place may have lessened in some sense but is still very important from the point of view of strategy. The scientific and technological advancement might change the thrust of geostrategy and geopolitics, but the ideas behind these concepts will always be in vogue. Those who fail to understand this teaching of history are doomed to learn it the hard way.¹¹

The concepts of geostrategy and geopolitics, though widely used, are actually very controversial and thus may be considered to belong to the category of ‘contested concept’.¹²

Geopolitics is not only controversial, but at times it seems to be ideologically motivated by many. From associating this concept to a particularly crude form of ‘geographic determinism’¹³ to understanding it as nothing more than the justification of international aggression, the concept of geopolitics oscillates between the perceptions of those ideologically motivated and those who are pragmatically practical. For a considerable period of time during the interwar years, this concept was so vilified because of its association with Hitler’s Nazism that the word became an academic taboo. Part of the reason for this is that since geopolitics was used and popularised extensively by the Nazi strategists, this concept was considered to be responsible for all the bloodshed wreaked by Nazism. For any academic study, the terms in focus first need to be critically understood. Therefore, we will first explain these terms in their entirety separately.

Geostrategy

Geostrategy is a common theme in the literature of states’ relation with one another, particularly in the field of geopolitics. It is a form of foreign policy which is guided primarily by geographical considerations, i.e., how the geographical factors apprise, restrain, or affect the planning in political and military spheres. In simple words, strategy¹⁴ is a noun that means ‘a plan designed for a particular purpose’,¹⁵ and it can also mean ‘the process of planning something or carrying out a plan in a skilful way’.¹⁶ Though the purpose for whose accomplishment, strategy is devised can be quite broad, yet this word is so much attached to the military activity that strategy is also used generally to mean ‘the art of planning and directing military activity in a battle or war’¹⁷. As strategy is a plan to achieve a particular purpose, it is concerned with matching means to ends, which implies how best to use the resources to achieve a particular purpose. Here the objective is the country’s geopolitical aims – how best a country can achieve its geopolitical objectives, which can be local, regional or global.

Geostrategy in its normative sense advocates for a foreign policy which is based on geographic factors. In its analytical form, it aims to describe how foreign policy is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Geostrategy, geopolitics, and foreign policy: a theoretical understanding
• 2 Making of United States’ geostrategic thinking and South Asia
• 3 Geopolitical Interest of the United States in South Asia: situating Pakistan
• 4 United States and Pakistan: an overview of past relations
• 5 United States’ involvement in Pakistan since 2001: confounding problems or moving towards solution
• 6 Engaging Pakistan post-9/11: United States’ policy instruments
• 7 Effectiveness of United States’ policy towards Pakistan post-9/11
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index