Why should the Pakistanis be worried? Well, you must first accept that you’ve not experienced severe and durable paranoia until you’ve experienced that of Pakistani officials and generals toward India, and vice versa. Indeed, in the midst of a nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan and a 5-year-old civil war in the country’s tribal agencies, Pew Research reported in July 2010 that its polling found 53 percent of Pakistanis view India as their number one enemy, with 27 percent naming the Taliban and 3 percent al-Qaeda. With this mindset, then, the Pakistani government and military believe that India’s expensive, extensive and growing Afghan presence is a direct and even existential strategic threat to their country.
In their one-sided confrontation with India‘s overwhelming military power, Pakistan’s political leaders and generals have long prized Afghan territory as an area where Pakistani forces can retreat and regroup if India invades from the east. This idea has long been ridiculed by Western strategists, but it’s a central tenet of Pakistan’s strategic doctrine. And now, in less than a decade, this area of limitless strategic depth has been transformed into a second military frontier with India, one that puts Pakistan in a strategic vice with Indian forces on each side.
The seriousness with which Islamabad views this issue is seen in the fact that, per the media, up to 30 percent of Pakistan’s ground forces are now stationed on the country’s western border. This redeployment degrades the country’s strength on its border with India and has been made to fight what Islamabad believes are rebellious, India-supported militants in its tribal agencies and Balochistan Province.
Pakistan’s military considers India’s embassy and consulates as intelligence centres that are running covert operations into Pakistan’s Pashtun agencies and—with the help of Indian army engineers and border police—are training, arming, funding and picking targets for Balochistan’s tribal insurgents in their low-level war against Islamabad. (NB: It’s likely that Islamabad is even now responding to its perception of India’s intervention by stepping up the tempo of the Kashmir insurgency.)
Pakistani generals also worry that India’s growing and deliberately flamboyant military ties with Israel—that the Pakistani media call the ‘Indo-Israeli nexus’—means the two countries are working together to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear capability, and will use Afghanistan as a base from which to do so. ‘We have strong evidence,’ a Pakistani foreign ministry official said in March, 2010, ‘[that India] is using Afghanistan against Pakistan’s interests and do destabilize Pakistan.’ Now none of this need be true, of course. But it clearly is how the Pakistanis perceive the intent of India’s presence in Afghanistan. And perception is always reality.
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roxtggub
I’m not sure where you are getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning more or understanding more. Thanks for wonderful info I was looking for this info for my mission.
John Smith
Here is a different approach India can take to win them all. Since Muslim nations are never at ease with each other when the external threat is absent. India can leave Afghan with NATO at the same time. After a while the quarrel about who is a good Muslim will break out between different branches of Islam, India can return to Afghan as a good mediator. This strategy will avoid the danger of nuclear flash point between India and Pakistan, as well as establish India as a good partner to all Muslim nations.
Fuzair
So the Pakistanis are paranoid, are we? How come there is no mention of Ayni Farkhor Air Base in this article? The only IAF base outside India? And the recent military training exercises carried out by the IA and IAF there?
And I’ve heard reports of a second IAF base being planned outside India as well.
Singh
Read the following link at pakistan defence forums of all places, for an answer on the Ayni airbase. Your information seems to be slightly outdated.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/india-defence/65021-why-indian-air-force-tajikistans-ayni-air-base-idle.html
As for India planning a second airbase outside India, without any concrete proof, you may as well say India is planning a thousand airbases. I sense a hint of paranoia here, what do you think?
Linda
It?s rlelay helpful for me which I have ever seen.Its presented well and nicely written which easy to understand.Thank you very much for the information
Anon
Michael Scheuer: “A good deal of the Indian media portrays India’s activities in Afghanistan as successfully winning Afghan hearts and minds and building a long-term welcome for India. This is unlikely.”
India is interested in preventing Pakistan, its longtime enemy, from gaining too much influence here.
Fortunately for India, that interest actually appeals to nearly three-quarters of the population, which has a somewhat unfavorable or worse view of Pakistan and tend to blame it for their country’s problems.
These Afghans tend to view India’s aid work here as motivated primarily to curb the interests of Pakistan, something they strongly support, further bolstering India’ s reputation as a benevolent neighbor.
India has managed to become one of the most-liked foreign countries in Afghanistan — with almost three-quarters of the population finding India somewhat favorable or better — after committing just $1.2 billion to the country.
Though some of India’s success in winning over Afghans has to do with historical ties between the two countries, when it comes to administering aid, India is often simply better than the U.S. at developing projects that locals find more tangible and effective.
Nine years into the war, the U.S. has now begun shifting toward an Indian aid model, focusing on projects that produce brick-and-mortar results.
India outdoes U.S. aid efforts in Afghanistan
Tom A. Peter GLOBALPOST 9 September 2010
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/100908/india-outdoes-us-aid-efforts-afghanistan