Summary
Highlights
Sarah Paine introduces the lecture as a story of three protagonists (Russia, the United States, and China) and their interactions with India and Pakistan. The lecture will cover interventions in others' problems and the importance of understanding alliances and adversaries. It will also examine a series of limited wars, including the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971, and their unexpected long-term consequences.
Mao's conquest of Tibet in 1949 and 1950, securing vast mineral resources and strategic road systems. This move eliminated the buffer zone between China and India, leading to disputed territories like the Aksai Chin Plateau and Arunachal Pradesh, and creating a permanent adversary in India.
The United States forms bilateral relationships and regional groupings like the Baghdad Pact to counter the Soviet Union. The US military aid to Pakistan, part of this pact, deeply concerned India, who saw it as an immediate threat. Eisenhower later acknowledged it as a poor decision, poisoning US-India relations for the Cold War's duration.
Mao's growing animosity towards the Soviet Union after acquiring atomic weapons in 1964, criticizing Soviet territorial gains and past actions. The USSR's own grievances against China, including China's refusal for naval bases and its aggressive actions in the Taiwanese Strait, led to a public Sino-Soviet split in 1960 and border conflicts in 1969. This reshuffled alliances, making China and the USSR primary adversaries instead of sharing the US as one.
Khrushchev saw India as a counterbalance to China, and Nehru, favoring Fabian socialist policies and disliking US segregation and support for colonial powers, leaned towards Russia. India generously recognized China, including its sovereignty over Tibet, but China's repression of Tibetan culture and its 1962 invasion of the Aksai Chin Plateau deeply angered India. This led India to seek an alliance with Russia and double the size of its army, permanently changing its foreign policy.
Following India's defeat in 1962 and Nehru's death, Pakistan attempts to resolve border issues with India, leading to the 1965 war. The US imposes an arms embargo on both nations, disproportionately affecting Pakistan. The war ends with Soviet mediation in the Tashkent Declaration, leaving Pakistan in a worse position and India's military reputation restored.
The US's relationship with Pakistan was opportunistic, focusing on intelligence gathering and aid during periods of strategic need. Revelations about U2 spy flights from Pakistan and subsequent Soviet threats, combined with US arms embargoes, soured relations. Pakistan felt betrayed and canceled the lease for the Badaber listening post in 1968, seeking closer ties with China.
India also held grievances against the US, particularly regarding American segregation and its perceived support for colonial powers. Nehru and Indira Gandhi viewed capitalism as a path to imperialism, further distancing India from the US. This led to India aligning with Russia and upgrading relations with Vietnam, further complicated by India's actions in Kashmir.
While China gained territory in the Sino-Indian War, it created a permanent enemy in India, losing potential leverage for global order. The 1971 Bangladesh War for Independence, triggered by Pakistan's annulment of election results and subsequent genocide in East Pakistan, presented a humanitarian crisis. The US, prioritizing its secret negotiations with China to counter the Soviets, notably remained silent, outraging India and pushing it into a military pact with Russia. This demonstrated the intricate balance of interests and consequences of Cold War diplomacy.
The fall of the Shah of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 renewed Pakistan's strategic importance to the US. In exchange for significant aid, Pakistan's ISI funneled funds to anti-Soviet insurgents, some of whom were anti-Western, and diverted funds to Kashmir, creating long-term problems. The US, prioritizing its anti-Soviet stance, overlooked Pakistan's nuclear proliferation efforts, which were aided by China, highlighting the complex and often contradictory nature of Cold War alliances.
One instrument of national power is establishing useful treaties, such as the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty brokered by the US between India and Pakistan, benefiting both nations despite a lack of enduring gratitude toward the US. However, broader US diplomatic efforts to reconcile India and Pakistan failed due to deep-seated animosities stemming from partition and differing views on who posed the greater threat. Only when great powers align, like the US and Russia during the 1965 Tashkent Agreement, can collective action be effective in de-escalating conflicts.
Publicly supporting or not criticizing allies is another instrument of power. The US supported Portugal's claim over Goa, alienating India, while India remained silent on Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Russia's UN Security Council vetoes on Kashmir and the Bangladesh War were valuable to India. Despite the US providing more economic aid than Russia or China, India and Pakistan favored their respective allies. US aid during the 1967 Bihar famine, though significant, generated no gratitude due to President Johnson's last-minute delivery spurred by India's non-aligned stance.
Military aid often produces unintended boomerang effects. US aid to Pakistan pushed India towards Russia, and aid to India alienated Pakistan, driving it towards China. Aid to Pakistan's ISI in Afghanistan also funneled support to insurgents in Kashmir. The deployment of the USS Enterprise during the 1971 war angered India without affecting the war's outcome. Sanctions and embargoes, frequently used by the US, failed to prevent nuclear proliferation in India and Pakistan, highlighting their limited effectiveness when strategic interests override non-proliferation goals.
Funding insurgencies is a potent but costly instrument. The US belatedly aided Tibetan insurgents after China had secured its control. China funded various insurgencies against India from 1962 to 1979, and Pakistan continues to support insurgents in Kashmir. These actions create "frozen conflicts" where external powers avoid direct costs, while local populations suffer immense human and economic tolls. These conflicts, like those in Kashmir, Korea, and Palestine, empower "veto players" who can easily disrupt peace, leading to intractable problems and hindering economic growth.
The lecture concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding alignments, identifying primary adversaries, and continually reassessing assumptions in foreign policy. In ethnically diverse regions, expect veto players and the difficulty of solving some problems. While great powers can achieve significant outcomes when they align, the aggregate wealth and influence of small and medium powers can also demand attention from larger nations, offering a positive outlook for collective action.
Paine discusses the US's historical dilemma of choosing between India and Pakistan during the Cold War. Pakistan's strategic location made it a crucial ally against the Soviet Union for intelligence gathering. However, the end of the Cold War and the rise of China have shifted dynamics, with India now viewing China as its primary adversary, aligning US and Indian interests against a common threat.
Paine explains the appeal of socialism to decolonizing nations like India, stemming from the devastating experiences of World War I, the Great Depression, and colonial exploitation. Marxism offered a plausible explanation for global inequalities and a path to development, especially given the perceived failings of Western capitalism and democracy's moral contradictions like segregation. However, the reality of communist practice, particularly in the Soviet Union with its gulags and lack of liberty, was often obscured by propaganda.
Paine, drawing on her experience studying Soviet and Chinese archives, highlights the challenges of understanding closed regimes. She advises paying attention to what dictators say publicly, as it often reveals their true intentions. She also emphasizes broad reading and archival research to uncover unknown unknowns. Discussion also covers the inherent brittleness of dictatorships, contrasting them with democracies where leadership transitions are institutionalized and transparent.
Paine speculates that if Chiang Kai-shek had won the Chinese Civil War, a stronger China-India relationship might have formed, significantly altering global dynamics. She also discusses the Non-Aligned Movement and its unintended consequence of encouraging nuclear proliferation, as countries sought deterrence without a great power's nuclear umbrella. The 1962 Sino-Indian War was a turning point for India, highlighting the limits of non-alignment and driving it toward developing its own nuclear capabilities.
Paine discusses US Cold War miscalculations, including deposing Mossadegh in Iran, which generated long-lasting resentment, and its policy in Vietnam. The US's refusal to push for free elections in Vietnam, fearing Ho Chi Minh's victory, demonstrated a contradiction between its democratic ideals and strategic interests. The purging of China experts during the McCarthy era left the US blind in Asia, hindering its ability to navigate complex regional dynamics.
Paine challenges the notion that proxy wars were merely "letting off steam," rather describing them as horrendous conflicts that caused immense suffering and limited development in the Third World. She observes parallels between the first Cold War and contemporary global conflicts, suggesting that the current era is a "second Cold War" characterized by renewed great power competition and regional instability, prompting military-age males to flee conflict zones.
Paine discusses why China did not experience the Industrial Revolution first, attributing Europe's unique context of fragmented states, intense competition, and robust institutions for trade and finance as key drivers. She notes that China's historical civilizational greatness might have paradoxically impeded its development by fostering resistance to foreign ideas and internal reforms. The 19th-century peasant rebellions and the communist system further hindered China's progress until economic reforms in the 1980s. She suggests that Xi Jinping's current policies, prioritizing party control over economic growth, risk undermining China's long-term prosperity.
Paine explains the distinction between limited and unlimited objectives in warfare. Limited objectives, such as gaining territory without regime change, were exemplified by Bismarck's Prussian wars. Bismarck's strategic use of limited wars allowed him to gradually overturn the European balance of power without provoking a broader coalition against him. In contrast, unlimited objectives, like Putin's in Ukraine, which seeks to eliminate Ukrainian culture, lead to more devastating and protracted conflicts. World War I, though initially fought with limited aims, escalated to unlimited objectives due to the massive loss of life.
Paine concludes by discussing her current book project on the Cold War, which spans from 1917 to 1991. The book will examine the strategies of great and medium powers, focusing on conceptual frameworks like "limited and unlimited war" and "frozen conflicts." She shares her personal motivation for studying Soviet and Chinese history, driven by childhood curiosity about the Cold War and a desire to understand the deep-rooted cruelty she observed in Russian society, which she suggests is linked to a history of living in a dangerous and undefensible region.