Failed isolation: Three pillars supporting India's Pak policy have fallen

For several years now, the official Indian view on Pakistan has been threefold. First, it has largely tried to isolate it diplomatically, calculating that an Islamabad without friends is one that will be less likely to make trouble in the region. Second, it has chosen to hit back at every provocation, though the nature and messaging around this retaliation might be driven more by domestic political requirements than any cold logic of deterrence. And third, it has assumed that the country’s economic destiny is permanently downwards, with no growth engines to speak of — which will in turn render it increasingly irrelevant.

 

It may be time to revisit the utility of this approach and the truth of the assumptions underlying them. If nothing else, the sudden centrality of Pakistan’s leadership in enabling negotiations between Iran and the United States (US) over the crisis in the Persian Gulf should serve as an indicator that such a revision is overdue. On social media, Pakistanis, even many of those unfriendly to the military-led establishment, which has reasserted its control over the country, are rejoicing. Meanwhile, the Indian leadership cannot exactly try to subvert this effort rhetorically, since arranging for hostilities to cease in the Gulf is after all a major global good that would benefit this country’s economy as well.

 

A more analytical approach is needed. Can it really be said that a policy of diplomatic isolation has succeeded if, a decade into it, the Pakistanis have several times now demonstrated their ability to transcend any such isolation? After Operation Sindoor last year, their establishment demonstrated messaging resilience, which undermined Indian military successes in penetrating Pakistani air defences and attacking its airfields. And certainly, being considered a reliable enough intermediary that the two belligerents whose conflict has rocked the world economy will go to your capital to talk seems to me to be the very opposite of diplomatic isolation.

 

The question of deterrence is also up in the air. After successive steps up the escalation ladder over the past decade, India has in essence now declared that it will no longer pause before any response to future terrorist incidents on its soil to determine if Pakistan’s establishment is directly responsible. This leaves us in a dangerous place, struggling to control escalation under the nuclear threshold.

 

Finally, it is hardly the case that Pakistan’s economy is doing well. But till the crisis hit, it was not collapsing. It is able to achieve and secure bridge financing from multilateral agencies; its dramatic rollout of solar power means that post-Gulf crisis fuel price inflation, while harsh, has had a less pervasive impact on welfare than would otherwise have been the case; and, while it remains to be seen if the turbulent local political environment will permit it, there is a general sense of optimism surrounding the possibility of successful exploitation of the country’s mineral resources.

 

Finally, it must be recognised that Pakistan’s establishment, whatever its relative lack of sophistication — and while many in India have argued that General Asim Munir does not have the breadth of view of his predecessors, even he has been able to promote himself to field marshal and they could not — has nevertheless demonstrated a certain diplomatic confidence over the past couple of years. It has secured relative economic stability at home, and then repaired relations with some important partners, including Saudi Arabia and the US.

 

In fact, they seem to have gone further: Alongside Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they seem to be pushing for an informal strategic bloc that includes Saudi Arabia and Egypt as well. This would be a Sunni-dominated bloc of 500 million people and a gross domestic product of over $3 trillion. The four foreign ministers have met three times since the beginning of March, with the Turkish foreign minister suggesting they were essentially seeking ways to combine their strengths without any particular formal alliance commitments. Of course, Pakistan does have a formal commitment with Saudi Arabia now — which, in turn, is the main financial backer of Egypt’s military-led government.

 

There are no easy answers for how New Delhi can respond at this stage. But an acknowledgment that its current policy has not succeeded is at least a first step. A reconsideration of how to deal with a Pakistan that is more effective than expected, and has escaped multiple diplomatic, military, and economic traps, is overdue. After all, the military establishment in Rawalpindi will certainly have been emboldened by its successes, and that is not usually a good sign for India.