Pakistan India And The Kargil War Politics Essay

Pakistan India And The Kargil state of war governing EssayThis paper go out show a shot summary of the Kargil war and an psychometric test of the through with(predicate) the lenses of the parliamentary rest theory and patriotism. The paper will also focus origin altogethery on how the theories apply to Pakistan since it was the true aggressor in this dispute. Both of these ideas bear for an examination of what causal factors led to the warfargon, how the war was persuadeed, and how it came to a swift end. They will also ease us better or beneathstand the conflict, and appropriate conclusions to be drawn from the conflict with regard to U.S. interests, conflict pr n 1thelesstion, and conflict resolution. oscilloscopePakistan has unsuccessfully ch in allenged India come acrossled manipulate aparts of Kashmir through wars and negotiations since its establishment in 1947. In May 1998, Pakistan conducted its archetypal nuclear test and introduced a new and dangerous dy namic to the trouble of Indias contested sovereignty in Kashmir. With Indian and Pakistani soldiers guarding their respective borders and Pakistans long proxy war over against India through tin for Muslim militants, tensions in Kashmir wee-wee been kept at a eternal boil.1Kashmir, a region diswholee in the midst of Pakistan, India and China, resides in an extremely mountainous bea that contains some of the highest peaks in the world. In this region, the Line of Control (LOC) is the recognized border surrounded by India and Pakistan. The LOC, albeit under a different name, was established afterwards the First Kargil warfare (1947-1948) and was again agreed upon by Pakistan and India as part of the Simla Agreement in 1972. This sympathy gave the LOC its name and also stated that neither the Indians nor the Pakistanis would contest the border through military means.2Since the agreement, the border has been heavily guarded on deuce sides for a majority of the year. During t he exceedingly cold winter months, when roads and supply routes father impassable and risk of an offensive attack from either side was minimal, some(prenominal) the Pakistani and Indian guards abandoned their posts and returned in the spring.However, during the winter of 1998-1999, Pakistans army, along with the process of mercenaries and mujahedeen, crossed the LOC and pushed into Indias portion of Kashmir.3Slowly, through the cold winter, they took over the Indian outposts and take away into their positions in Kargil and along a cardinal hundred kilometer portion of the LOC and waited for Indian pull backs to return.4In February 1999, at the same time as the winter invasion, Pakistan and India were signing the Lahore Declaration which out bendd peace, nuclear stability, trade, and unimpeded travel between the two countries.5 war erupted just a few months afterward and after numerous bloody battles, the Pakistanis and their mujahedeen assistance were pushed back across the li ne of control. By July 14, 1999, the war was over but both(prenominal) sides had suffered significant casualties. egalitarian PeaceOur goal is to turn this time of American influence into generations of classless peace. This requires America to remain engaged with the world and to project our strength with habit and with humility.President George W. Bush, Speech to the State Department, Washington, DC February 15, 2001The democratic peace bid contends that because they be democratic, democratic states will non fight (or initiate) international wars against individually different.6The idea was a premise in Immanuel Kants 1795 literary work, Perpetual Peace, and still give wayed by Georg William Friedrich Hegel and some others. For the some part, take holders of democratic peace cite that in democracies, the race rule through their elected officials and in an autocracy, most of the run resides with one person. In turn, democracies argon more liable(predicate) to se t up peace because those that would be doing the fighting typically choose non to fight. Given the choice, citizens atomic number 18 more likely to have a desire to avoid the frightening loss of brio, resources and accumulation of debt. Furthermore, elected officials ar unwilling to wage war because a loss would significantly impact chances at reelection.7On the other hand, autocracies may suffer from these losses and debt, but according the Samuel Kant, war does non affect the rulers table, his hunt, his places of pleasure, his court festivals, and so on.8This idea has its doubters that base their cases on proper(postnominal) historical examples and the lack of statistical significance when historical conflicts ar analyse quantitatively. Doubters also argue that supporters adjust definitions in order to adapt and assume when either a historical or new case risks not fitting into the peace proposition. For instance, what is a land? What is a war or a conflict? And so on. Many researchers agree with the idea that democracies are less likely to go to war with each other, but are as equally war prone as autocratic states. season this basic premise is the subject of some debate, the real benefits of this theory are encapsulated in how democracies behave, statistically, when they do enter into conflict.The Kargil War is an excellent case to interpret through the lens of the democratic peace proposition because this war provides historians and organisational scientists a chance to look at the rare case of struggle democracies and see if the singularity theoretical premises hold true. One characteristic demonstrated by examining disputes between 1816 and 1976 was when democracies are involved in conflict, thither is less chance of all out war than when two non-democracies are in conflict.9Another interesting and related finding from the same set of data was foreign cooperation revealed a positive associated to constraint.10While the Kargil War wa s not part of this survey, it does fit these two conclusions. During the war, there was fear from neighboring countries and all over the world that it would escalate into all out war and sign nuclear war. Obviously, it did not. While a number of reasons prevented the escalation, two significant ones were the cabal of constraint on the part of the Indians and foreign relations. During the fighting, then President level Clinton asked the Indian PM to keep exercising the restraint the Indian regimen had shown this far.11The Indian PM replied that India had no intention of escalating the war and assured President Clinton that the air strikes were taking place within the Indian territory.12Pakistan, on the other hand, who had hoped to internationalize the Kashmir have it away in its favor by sending emissaries or pleading for support from China, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States, but found it had very few international supporters.13Quite the contrary, legion(pred icate) countries voiced support for India rather of remaining neutral. China, a long time friend of Pakistan, expressed its hopes that the two countries would peacefully settle down their issues.14Russia also sided with India and denounced the actions of Pakistan.15Foreign cooperation, ultimately, led to Pakistans withdrawal from Indian territory after discussions with President Clinton on July 4, 1999.16A finding by Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman summarizes the two ideas mentioned to a higher place and the outcome of the Kargil War very well they found that negotiations, or conservation of the consideration quo are more likely if either the initiator or the target is democratic it is not necessary that they both be democratic.17This status quo is exactly the outcome of the Kargil War. Even today, the Indian and Pakistani military are at their posts guarding the LOC, the exact same positions as before the Kargil War. nationalism nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-decept ion.George Orwell, The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George OrwellNationalism is a difficult term to grasp and an even harder term to define. When people discuss nationalism, they may be referring to flying the flag of their country or patriotism. Many definitions focus nationalism on politics, culture, religion or geography. other definitions use it as a modern idea or moderate it for use with advanced societies and not the third world, or vice versa. much accepted views contend that Nationalism is primarily a governmental principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.18Furthermore, nationalism is created by a well-knit sense of shared national identity and is sine qua non for a possible modern state, that it alone can provide the solid basis of self-assertion between the citizens to motivate each other to sacrifice herself/himself for others.19Further examination shows there are a large(p) deal of connections and interdepend encies between nationalisms, nations, and states. They are all connected by cultural and political aspects which are hooked on their own building blocks of language, history, and hundreds of other social factors.20Finally, nationalism is the conspiracy of all of these things in the pursuit of legitimacy.21As any country has acquire through great success, tragedy, or war, nationalism is a living and take a breath entity that can be harnessed, strengthened, abused, or broken. This can happen in a number of different ways. With respect to the countrymen in Pakistan, the nationalism has been almost continually abused since the country was established in 1947. Examples of this abuse include the sectionalisation of British India where Muslims flocked to East or West Pakistan and tremendous loss of life resulted in clashes between Hindus and Muslims, the loss of Eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh), and numerous wars lost to India. tho the Pakistanis are a proud people and have had their share of successes, most notably the successful test of a nuclear weapon in 1998. This Muslim bomb was a source of pride and nationalism for all Muslims and certainly the Pakistanis.The successful tests of Pakistans nuclear weapons in 1998 and the associated boost in flag-waving(a) pride essentially paved the way for the invasion of Kashmir. Kashmir, while on Indias side of the LOC had a predominantly Muslim population. This arrangement has been deemed unacceptable by Pakistan and Muslims in Kashmir ever since the division of British India. Pakistan had fought wars over the contested knock down (e.g., 1947 and 1967) and had lost to superior Indian military strength. Nationalism played a large parting in these offense actions. Indias rule over Kashmir was in direct violation of an important nationalist sentiment if the rulers of the political unit belong to a nation other than that of the majority of the ruled, this, for nationalists, constitutes a sooner outstandingly intolerab le breach of political propriety.22Pakistans attempt to gain control of Kashmir was thwarted by a number of factors. As with the previous two attempts, it was thwarted by a superior Indian military even though it took the Indians by complete surprise. Additionally, its attempt to gain outside support for its nationalistic struggle was unsuccessful. As written above, many countries failed to see that Pakistan was nerve-racking to gain control of land occupied by Kashmiri Muslims and instead saw Pakistan (again) attacking their sovereign neighbor.As the United States stepped in, an outside force was introduced that served to influence the political nationalism of Pakistan. In our world(prenominal)ized world, this attack on India risked international trade and foreign direct investment along with government to government support.23Pakistans leadership knew they were losing the war and as international sentiment shifted to Indias favor, the Pakistani government may have realized that these global implications will have a trickledown effect to other aspects of nationalism, most notably through economic losses to an already impoverished country.24The loss of the war in addition to the communicate image of untrustworthyness to the world would have further deepened the wounds to Pakistans nationalism.25Alas, Pakistan chose to only impact its nationalism through the loss of the war instead of compounding the losses with other factors.U.S. interests, Conflict Prevention and Conflict ResolutionThese theories as applied to the Kargil War demonstrate a number of different findings with respect to U.S. interests, conflict saloon and conflict resolution. An examination of the democratic peace theory shows that when a democracy is involved in war, the wars are typically shorter and are more likely to end through mediation. Kargil is an excellent example where diplomacy played two critical roles. First, it helped end the aggressive attacks by Pakistan and second, it helped ensure India would not conduct a counterattack into Pakistan. This process worked because many aspects of the Kashmir issue are political problems and must be resolved politically. Unfortunately, Kashmir has a long history with many different versions depending on which side of the border you are on.26This leads to dangerous propaganda that influences and drives nationalism. This nationalistic spirit has led Pakistan to cling to the Kashmir issue. Kashmir is central to Pakistans Islamic national hotshot and almost all Islamabad regimes, both democratic and authoritarian since Pakistans beingness in 1947, have used the Kashmir issue to consolidate their position.27While this may be true, Kashmir has not been represented at Indo-Pak negotiations because the Indians have resisted such trilateral meetings. It would appear that popular voice of Kashmir has been silenced by both India (who does not want to hear what they have to say) and Pakistan (who wants to decide for them). In an y case, both the democratic peace theory and nationalism ideas show that all parties must be present for a formal conclusion to a conflict and a true representation of the enemy must be do to the people.When considering what conclusions can be drawn from the Kargil War, there are commonalities that exist between U.S. interests and future conflict prevention. It is well documented that Pakistan has maintained constant support of insurgents who regularly attack Indian positions and played a large role in the Kargil War.28Of course these insurgents are now known as terrorists and are fast becoming a source of regional instability and global terrorism.29The result of the financial support are anti-terror laws in both Pakistan and India which are far more draconian than the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act in the United States.30These laws thereby impact the nationalism and freedoms of the peo ple in both countries. Prior to future diplomatic talks between the two countries, a third party (hopefully representing of every country in the world) must dispose Pakistan to stop supporting terrorists and put an end to the proxy-war in India. Strong actions against terrorists could be used as requisites for aid which could serve the country Pakistan a great deal. Aid could support the education and human resource development and provide financial resources for health care, the supply of clean water, and the development of social and visible infrastructure.31These steps, over the long term, could help to stabilize Pakistan and the region and perhaps one day remove the stigma that has plagued Pakistan for years.ConclusionTheories of conflict can help one examine a conflict through different lenses and develop an understanding of causal factors associated with why conflicts start, escalate, deescalate and respond to stimuli like foreign encumbrance and support. The Kargil War, as seen through the lenses of democratic peace and nationalism, is a very coordination compound war with a tremendous amount of history driving actions by both countries. Pakistans actions during the Kargil War were truly a cause for fury and it is no surprise that India has resisted any further negotiation with Pakistan regarding the Kashmir issue. To be stabbed is one thing, to be stabbed in the back is another.32It would seem that democratic peace, in this case, means the constant boil or status quo will continue for years to come.33Bibliography fetch editions and RANDAhmad, Khurshid. Pakistan Vision and Reality, Past and Future. The Muslim World 96, no. 2 (April 2006). http//www.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu (accessed January 16, 2010).Bahl, Y. Kargil trespass Pakistans Plight, Indias Victory. New Delhi, India Manas Publications, 2000.Chenoy, Kamal. Contending Nationalisms. Harvard International Review 28, no. 3 (Fall 2006). http//www.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.d b.erau.edu (accessed January 16, 2010).Das, Runa. Explaining Indias Nuclearization Engaging realism and Social Constructivism. 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