PAKISTAN-INDIA FEUDS UPSET U.S. STRATEGY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807270003-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: November 6, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807270003-8
ARTICLE APPEARED WASHINGTON POST
~ 6 November 1986
ON PAGE 4 - .
Pakistan-India Feuds
Upset U.S. Strate
Washington's Balancing Act Threatened
By Richard M. Weintraub
J Washington Pat Foreign Service
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 5
-As it moves to reassert a U.S.
role in South Asian regional politics,
the Reagan administration suddenly
is finding the effort complicated by
new recriminations between Pak-
istan and India over U.S. military
and nuclear policy in the region.
In a careful balancing act, the
administration is trying to widen its
relations with India while maintain-
ing the United States' close stra-
tegic ties to its neighbor and bitter
rival, Pakistan.
But no sooner had
Defense Secretary
Caspar W. Weinberger
NEWS
ANALYSIS
completed what is viewed in New
Delhi as a generally successful visit
there last month than he came to
Pakistan and started talking about
supplying this country with U.S.
early warning radar aircraft-a
theme that has set political alarm
bells ringing here and in the Indian
capital.
A further round of fingerpointing
began with a report in yesterday's
Washington Post about Pakistan's
nuclear program.
India and Pakistan are accusing
each other of playing dangerous
political games, and language dif-
ficulties are sharpening the prob-
lem.
While administration officials
have spoken only about the possi-
bility of supplying an airborne early
warning system to Pakistan, this
suggestion quickly was translated
into a much more solid proposal in
the often imprecise press of the two
capitals.
After the Post cited U.S. intel-
ligence reports assaying Pakistan
had enriched uranium to 90 oer-
cent-a critical step in building a
nnrtear hnmh-Indian nurlnar of-
ficials ouickly warned that India,
too, could and would enrich urani-
um for weapons.
While . admitting today that the
reports could cause problems when
Pakistan's new $4 billion aid pack-
age comes before Congress, Pakis-.
tani officials wondered aloud why
-India was not being held to the-
same standards when they publicly.
threaten to use a capability Pakis-
tan does not even admit having.
In this region, the language of
weaponry is often imprecise.
Following press reports earlier
this year that the United States
might funnel advanced Stinger anti-
aircraft missiles through Pakistan
to Afghan rebels, people here began
speaking of almost any shoulder-
fired antiaircraft weapons as "Sting-
ers." Now, any airborne early warn-
ing system has come to be called
"AWACS."
In the case of early warning sys-
tems, the general terminology is
potentially confusing because it fails
to distinguish between top-of-the-
line and less sophisticated systems
and the different threats they would
pose to India.
U.S. diplomats in New Delhi have
scrambled to allay Indian fears that
any deal on an early warning capa-
bility for Pakistan has been struck.
They also have pointed out that no
decision has been made on any type
of system, much less the state-of-
the-art AWACS. Nevertheless, In-
dia's ambassador to Washington has
warned that a sale could jeopardize
newly warming ties between the
United States and India.
In Islamabad, President Mo-
hammed Zia ul-Haq, sensing domes-
tic and international implications in
a U.S. operational role in Pakistan,
quickly called in reporters to tell
them that he is interested in an ear-
ly warning capability. But he "cat-
e8orically denied that Pakistan
would offer a base on its soil to any
other country and clarified that
AWACS planes would be manned by
Pakistani personnel," according to
the newspaper Dawn.
Pakistani officials also moved
quickly today to deflect the nuclear
issue.
Orbis Isn't theft time these
reports have come to our attention. The
U.S. comes to us at least once a year with
anxious inquiries based on some intelli once
report or another " said a highly placed
Pakistani official. "I am sure the U gov-
ernment has waited and watched and found
the re orts invalid.
"It is a constant struggle to make sure
relations between the two countries are not
undercut by reports of a questionable na-
ture. Now the U.S. government has a prob-
lem [when it has to go befor' Congress[.
The government of Pakistan is well aware
of U.S. law. Any violation will lead to dis-
continuation of the aid relationship and Pak-
istan is doing nothing that will jeopardize
that relationship."
With the United States embarked on a
neW long-range policy, underscored by
Weinberger's recent visit, to reestablish a
closer relationship with India, such visible
reminders of U.S. ties to Pakistan as the
early warning system or a planned naval
visit to Karachi underscore the difficulty of
the task. A naval task force, led by the nu-
clear carrier Enterprise, was scheduled to
arrive in Karachi Thursday, but the visit
was postponed at the last minute because of
rioting there.
The Reagan administration's balancing
act in South Asia is complicated by the legal
requirement that the United States not give
aid to countries possessing or developing a
nuclear weapons capability.
The United States has an important stake
in strategic cooperation with Pakistan, part-
ly because of this country's role as a base
for U.S. policy in Afghanistan, and partly
because of Pakistani links with the Middle
East. As a result, Washington is now Pak-
istan's major arms supplier, providing it
with some of the most sophisticated weap-
ons in the U.S. arsenal.
At the same time, the United States also
has recognized that it has left an open field
for the Soviet Union in India, Pakistan's
neighbor, its foe in four wars and builder of
the world's fourth largest military machine.
U.S. planners who look beyond images of
poverty and backwardness see an Indian
military that is effectively trained, equipped
with increasingly modern weaponry and
determined to be self-reliant.
While New Delhi still buys modern weap-
ons from the Soviet Union and the West, it
has embarked on a program of developing
its own tanks, ships, missiles and aircraft.
The United States sees India's desire to
build its own sophisticated military hard-
ware as a vehicle for expanding American
influence as a counter to the Soviets'.
Continued
tl/
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The U.S. argument is simple: over time,
if there is no counterweight, a predominant
Soviet influence could develop in India even
though Indian planners want to maintain a
neutral stance in world politics.
It is primarily the United States that can'
supply the super-computers, the advanced
avionics, the graphite composites for air-
frames, the missile-tracking equipment and
the other high-technology items the Indians
eagerly seek.
The problem, according to observers of
the situation, is that short-range strate-
gists, especially at the Pentagon, some-
times do not mesh closer and longer-range
goals, leaving a policy that ends up arguing
with itself.
This, they say, is what seems to have
happened with the Weinberger visit to India
and Pakistan.
In New Delhi, by all accounts, Weinber-
ger had good sessions with Indian officials,
clearing away some mutual misconceptions.
Indian officials described what they wanted
and, while the U.S. side made it clear that
not all the Indian requests could be met,
there was ample negotiating room.
Within hours of his arrival in Pakistan,
Weinberger was speaking publicly about a
possible offer of early warning systems.
They would fill what he and other Pentagon
officials say is a clear need to counter Soviet
and Afghan government pressures on Pak-
istan from across the Afghan border.
Indian military planners see it another
way.
Writing in a major Indian daily newspa-
per, Air Commodore Jasjit Singh, deputy
director of India's Institute for Strategic
Studies, has argued that Pakistani targets
are so close to the Afghan border, and the
terrain so mountainous there, that no early
warning system is likely to help meet the
threat from Afghanistan. Indian defenses,
on the other hand, would be severely com-
promised, Singh wrote.
This region is the meeting point for the
Middle East and Asia, and is a little bit of
both, a problem with which policymakers
have wrestled long before Washington
started trying its hand. To try to isolate
policy issues of the Middle East from those
of Asia, or vice-versa, can be a difficult, if
not impossible, task.
"Regardless of the professed justifica-
tions, the real effective role of the AWACS
[U.S. or Pakistani] in Pakistan would be
directed against Indian and Soviet air-
space," Singh added, noting that "during
peacetime, AWACS in Pakistan would be
able to monitor the flight profile of virtually
every single aircraft of the Indian Air Force
since the range covers almost the entire
spectrum of IAF deployments."
"This would help build up a complete pic-
ture of the flying effort, training patterns
and operational tactics of the Indian Air
Force within a short span of time unless a
major redeployment deep inside Indian ter-
ritory is arranged in time," Singh wrote.
During wartime, observers point out, the
capabilities of the airborne early warning
radar systems would multiply the effect of
Pakistan's much smaller air force against
India-a fact that also has not been lost on
Indian planners.
With Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
scheduled to visit India this month, U.S.
officials here now can only hunker down in
anticipation of an expected flood of Mos-
cow-related activity and then prepare for
congressional questions about the nuclear
programs of both Pakistan and India, hoping
that in the interim they can continue their
balancing act.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000807270003-8