Summary
Highlights
The speaker, an employee of the US Government, provides a disclaimer that her views are her own. She introduces the topic: the interactions between Russia, the United States, China, India, and Pakistan, focusing on interventions and the importance of understanding alignments and primary adversaries. The discussion will cover a series of limited wars, particularly the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971, which led to both expected and unexpected long-term consequences. The lecture's game plan involves examining pivotal decisions, team alignments, interactions, and strategic plays.
Pivotal decision number one was Mao's conquest of Tibet and Xinjiang in 1950. China built roads through Tibet, enabling troop deployment and effectively shrinking the buffer zone between China and India, leading to territorial disputes like the Aksai Chin Plateau and Arunachal Pradesh. Pivotal decision number two was the US's 'pactomania' under Eisenhower, aimed at containing the Soviet Union. The Baghdad Pact, which included Pakistan, led to a US-Pakistan military aid treaty. This move horrified India, with Prime Minister Nehru viewing it as US arming Pakistan against India, poisoning US-India relations for the Cold War's duration.
A pivotal situation was the escalating friction between Russia and China. After acquiring atomic weapons in 1964, Mao openly challenged Soviet territorial gains and their influence. Mao harbored historical grievances against Stalin's policies regarding Japan, Mongolia, and the Korean War. Khrushchev's de-Stalinization and pursuit of peaceful coexistence with the West further angered Mao. The Sino-Soviet split became public in 1960. Russia, in turn, resented China's refusal to grant naval bases and Mao's unconsulted actions during the Taiwanese Strait crises, raising fears of nuclear conflict. The Vietnam War exacerbated tensions, as both sought influence while impeding each other's aid efforts. The Sino-Soviet border conflict of 1969 solidified their mutual animosity, re-shuffling global alliances with China viewing Russia, not the US, as its primary adversary.
Alliances are defined loosely as mutual defense pacts. Stalin initially viewed Nehru as a colonial lackey, but Khrushchev saw India as a counterbalance to China. Nehru, favoring Fabian socialist policies and critical of US segregation and colonialism, aligned more with Russia. India's early generosity to China, including recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, was met with China's road-building and repression of Tibetan culture, leading to the Dalai Lama's flight to India. The 1962 Sino-Indian War, simultaneous with the Cuban Missile Crisis, saw China seize Aksai Chin, infuriating India. This defeat spurred India to militarize and seek Russian support, while Pakistan, seeing China's potential, cultivated an alliance with Beijing, including rumored nuclear assistance. The US struggled to maintain alliances with both India and Pakistan, often alienating one by supporting the other. This led to a complex web of shifting primary adversaries, where India and Russia aligned against China, and Pakistan and China aligned against India. The 1969 Sino-Soviet conflict made Russia and China primary adversaries, giving the US a swing position to align with China against the Soviets.
India's 1962 defeat to China and Nehru's death in 1964 emboldened Pakistan to launch the 1965 war over Kashmir. The US imposed an arms embargo on both sides, disproportionately affecting Pakistan due to its reliance on US military aid. The war ended with the Soviet-brokered Tashkent Declaration. Pakistan's relationship with the US was problematic; the US sought listening bases and temporary alliances (e.g., mail to China, aid in Afghanistan), but often withdrew support or neglected human rights and nuclear proliferation concerns. The U2 incident in 1960 and the 1965 arms freeze led Pakistan to strengthen ties with China. The 1971 Bangladesh War for Independence highlighted these tensions; a humanitarian crisis in East Pakistan, caused by Pakistani military suppression of election results, was downplayed by the US to facilitate Nixon's diplomatic opening to China. India, angered by US inaction, signed a military pact with Russia and intensified its nuclear weapons program. Pakistan's involvement in the Afghan-Soviet war in 1979 again made it crucial to the US, leading to massive aid funneled through the ISI, which also supported insurgents in Kashmir, creating long-term problems. The historical record shows that these limited wars and interventions consistently led to boomerang effects and unintended escalations, including nuclear proliferation.
The US attempted various strategies, including brokering the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, a rare successful agreement between India and Pakistan. However, US diplomatic efforts to reconcile India and Pakistan failed due to their deep-seated post-Partition animosity and the erroneous belief that the China threat would unite them. India's alignment with Russia, not the US, after the 1962 war further complicated matters. Both India and Pakistan adeptly played the great powers for aid, often without aligning with US interests. When great powers aligned, as in the 1965 Tashkent Agreement or the 1999 Kargil conflict, regional issues could be temporarily managed. Public support and denial thereof also served as instruments, as seen in US support for Portugal over India in the Goa issue, or India's silence on Soviet interventions. UN Security Council vetoes by Russia supported India's positions on Kashmir and the Bangladesh War. Economic aid, though substantial from the US, often lacked gratitude or desired political outcomes, leading to unintended consequences like India's self-sufficiency in food. Military aid consistently backfired, driving India towards Russia and Pakistan towards China, and fueling conflicts like the Kashmir insurgency. The deployment of carrier battle groups, like the USS Enterprise in 1971, proved ineffective and alienating. Sanctions and embargoes, frequently deployed by the US, failed to prevent nuclear proliferation in India and Pakistan, ultimately proving too late and leading to a complex post-9/11 reliance on Pakistan.
Trading territory, as Pakistan did with China in 1963, likely for nuclear assistance, is another instrument. Funding insurgencies is a common tactic where external powers support separatist movements to pin down adversaries, without bearing direct costs. The US's belated support for Tibetan insurgents proved ineffective due to China's established road system. China, from 1962 to 1979, funded various insurgencies against India (Mizos, Manapuri, Naga, and Naxalites). Pakistan supported the Kashmir insurgency, which remains a frozen conflict. India, in turn, is accused of funding Baloch and Pashtun insurgencies in Pakistan. These frozen conflicts exacerbate poverty, hinder economic growth, and deepen animosities, demonstrating how external actors can maintain conflict without direct involvement. The speaker suggests that Kashmir, Korea, and Palestine are examples where 'veto players' easily disrupt peace. A key takeaway is to identify common enemies and primary adversaries accurately, reassess assumptions frequently, and recognize that some problems may not be feasible to solve. While great powers can, small and medium powers can collectively influence global order.
The speaker addresses whether the US should have chosen between India and Pakistan. She explains that during the Cold War, the US's primary enemy was the Soviet Union, and Pakistan's strategic location was crucial, leading to a sometimes bumpy, but necessary, alliance. The relationship with India is now changing due to China's emergence as India's primary adversary, aligning with current US strategic interests. The allure of the Soviet Union for newly decolonized countries like India was its Fabian socialist policies, promising equality, and its narrative contrasting with Western capitalism and colonialism, despite the USSR's internal brutalities (e.g., Gulags) which were not widely known or publicized. The Soviet Union's early industrial growth also appealed. The speaker emphasizes that Gorbachev was a true believer in communism, aiming to improve it rather than abandon it. Explaining Kremlinology, she advises reading widely, including primary sources in local languages, and paying attention to what leaders, even dictators, say and do. She reiterates that the Sino-Soviet split was driven by deep-seated territorial disputes and historical grievances, not merely ideological differences. She also highlights the challenges of navigating complex alliances, noting that State Department and CIA analysts are highly skilled but policy decisions can still lead to difficult outcomes, like the US overlooking the Bangladesh genocide for diplomatic access to China.
The discussion continues with the question of whether the US's decision to base U2 planes in Pakistan was worth alienating India. The speaker states that at the time, comprehensive surveillance of Soviet nuclear capabilities was deemed essential. She also discusses the continuous unearthing of new historical details about events like World War II and the Cold War, emphasizing the value of conceptual insights applicable to current problems. She advises reading books that cite sources in the language of the country being studied to avoid a Western-centric bias. The panel ponders whether Cold War proxy wars, though horrendous, prevented a larger direct conflict; the speaker views them as terribly costly in terms of lives and economic development in the Third World. She identifies the 1954 US-backed coup in Iran and the refusal to allow free elections in Vietnam as significant miscalculations with long-lasting negative consequences. The speaker also attributes Europe's peaceful post-WWII integration to generous peace terms and a focus on trade rather than territorial disputes. She questions the idea of stopping Lend-Lease to Stalin during WWII, stressing the need to defeat Nazi Germany. The conversation then covers the 'modernity' of international law, which emphasizes existing borders over historical claims, a principle violated by Putin in Ukraine. The speaker believes China's current alignment with Russia and its shift away from international cooperation will negatively impact its long-term growth and stability. She predicts the 'Xi-Putin bromance' will unravel, possibly with China asserting claims over Siberia, echoing their territorial disputes and China's resource needs. The lack of an 'Industrial Revolution' in China before Europe is attributed to Europe's unique geography, competing states, and institutional innovations like insurance and banking, rather than China's lack of capacity. She also notes that China's long history of civilizational success made it resistant to adopting foreign ideas and reforming.
The speaker discusses the difference between limited and unlimited objectives in warfare, using Bismarck's wars as an example of achieving strategic goals through limited objectives and Putin's war in Ukraine as an example of unlimited, genocidal objectives. She highlights that the devastating nature of World War I ironically led to more unlimited objectives as the war progressed. The speaker clarifies that her author name, S.C.M. Paine, was chosen to avoid gender bias and emphasize the content of her work. She praises the quality of officers and analysts she has taught at the Naval War College, emphasizing their dedication. She shares her personal journey into Soviet and Chinese studies, driven by curiosity and a desire to understand 'cruelty' in Russian history, which she attributes to a historically dangerous geopolitical position and a culture of coercion. She references Solzhenitsyn's descriptions of systemic cruelty in the Gulags and how the Russian language reflects this. Finally, she outlines her current project: a book on the Cold War from 1917 to 1991, aiming to provide a comprehensive historical account integrated with strategic concepts like limited war and primary adversaries, serving as a 'baton pass' to the next generation of strategists.