South Asia: A Strategic Assessment

Americans have long viewed our involvement in South Asia as peripheral to the pursuit of our vital interests. As a consequence, the region excites little interest in American policy or academic circles, and is regarded as an area of hopeless poverty, primarily important as a center of nuclear weapons and missile technology proliferation. This paper reviews U. S. national interests in South Asia, and threats and opportunities related to those interests. We present an evaluation of current U. S. strategy and develop policy recommendations. We focus exclusively on Pakistan and India, and analyze national interest from the point of view of leaders of those states. Despite the complex problems we face in structuring policies toward South Asia, we will argue that the United States can take advantage of positive trends in the region and significantly enhance its position at low cost through well-focused application of our global influence. In working to achieve U. S. policy objectives, we take into account the history of mistrust and hostility between the two major nations, marked today by on-going insurgencies fueled by covert cross-border support from both sides, and a nuclear arms race of limited, but troubling, proportions With a legacy of three wars and near-constant tension over Kashmir, India and Pakistan have expended significant diplomatic and military resources constraining each other. The legacy of domestic strife within each of these two huge, diverse populations, however, also forces leaders to devote considerable resources to maintaining internal stability, and is fostering a strong desire to spur economic growth as a means of easing internal tensions.