Magnificent Delusions (12 page)

The British, who had better cultural and historic knowledge of the subcontinent than did the Americans, tried to warn the Americans against veering too close to Pakistan. Her Majesty's government also realized that arming any side in South Asia could aggravate an already emotive conflict. During a meeting with Dulles in Bermuda in December 1953, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden conveyed London's doubts about the usefulness or wisdom of the United States inserting itself into the India-Pakistan situation.

Dulles informed Eden that the United States “definitely” wished to help Pakistan but had yet to decide on what arms to provide. Dulles needed fighting men in South Asia for his encirclement of Soviet communism, and the Pakistanis were ready to join the crusade. India, he said, did not have “the right not only to remain neu
tral herself but to prevent other countries from lining up with the West.”
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Ultimately, then, Dulles ignored Eden's advice. The United States and Pakistan signed a Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement on May 19, 1954, under which the United States “was to make available equipment, materials, services or other assistance with such terms and conditions as may be agreed.” The government of Pakistan agreed to use American weapons “exclusively to maintain its internal security, its legitimate self-defense or to permit it to participate in the defense of the area, or in the United Nations collective security arrangements and measures.” In a sop to India, Pakistan affirmed that it “would not undertake any act of aggression against any other nation.”
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The progovernment
Times of Karachi
described the significance of the aid as Pakistan's declaration of choice in the “ideological conflict that overshadows the world.”
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But both Pakistan's Islamists and the left wing criticized the agreement. On the one hand, the Islamists saw it as a betrayal of the Pan-Islamic ideal. They liked the idea of a stronger military but did not want restrictions on the purposes for which that military may be used. The leftists, on the other hand, resented the fact that Pakistan had become a member of the Western bloc, which would unnecessarily limit the country's international options; they feared Pakistan's militarization at the expense of development.

These opposing voices to close military ties with the United States helped Muhammad, Mirza, and Ayub voice a new argument to the Americans about their value as partners: if the United States failed to prop up Pakistan's Western-trained civil servants and military officers with economic and military assistance, Pakistan would fall under the leadership of either the mullahs or the leftists, a contention similar to one that these leaders had earlier made when seeking US wheat. At that time, the State Department had told the NSC that in the absence of US support, the “present government of enlightened and western-oriented leaders” could be replaced by those likely to be “far less cooperative with the West.”
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A
LTHOUGH THE
Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement enabled the transfer of US weaponry to Pakistan, Dulles still faced opposition to helping Pakistan militarily. US media and congressmen worried that supplying American arms to a country in conflict would fuel instability and regional discord. “The real danger in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent is not so much from outside aggression as from unstable economies,” argued one
Washington Post
editorial, adding that “India now devotes 45 percent of her budget to armament, and Pakistan 60 percent. Even if the US should attempt to assuage India's fears by offering her equal military aid, the result could hardly be other than to promote increased military expenditure in both countries.”
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Just as some predicted, soon after the possibility of military supplies to Pakistan opened, Pakistan's relations with both Afghanistan and India began to deteriorate.

Moreover, the major military challenge from communism was seen as coming from East, and not South Asia. Communism had run over China in 1949; by the early fifties the rise of the Viet-Minh in French Indo-China was presented as the new battleground in the East-West conflict. The South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) was created in September 1954 to address the potential threats in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Dulles proposed including Pakistan in the organization because doing so helped its primary goal of securing military equipment for its armed forces; Pakistan joined SEATO. The only problem was geography: East Pakistan, with its eastern border with India and Burma, was distant from the region where SEATO was designed to provide security, whereas West Pakistan was even farther.

Columnist Walter Lippmann drew Dulles's attention to this irony in an exchange that provides insight into the flawed reasoning behind Pakistan's inclusion in American grand strategy. At a dinner party in Washington Lippmann questioned the efficacy of SEATO and told Dulles: “You've got mostly Europeans, plus Pakistan which is nowhere near Southeast Asia.” The secretary of state retorted by saying, “I've got to get some real fighting men into the south of Asia.
The only Asians who can really fight are the Pakistanis. That's why we need them in the alliance. We could never get along without the Gurkhas.”
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Dulles was, of course, wrong, because the Gurkhas are Hindus from Nepal, not Pakistanis. Nineteenth-century British theories about the martial races of the subcontinent had obviously influenced Dulles's views. In an 1897 book, Lord Roberts of Kandahar had argued that certain ethnic groups in the subcontinent were natural warriors, whereas others were not. Pashtun and Punjabi Muslims from what is now Pakistan and the Gurkhas were both listed as martial races. Thus, the US secretary of state had embraced the thesis but had forgotten its details. When Nehru snubbed him, he became convinced that Pakistani Muslim warriors would better safeguard America's interest in the region. A racialist concept British officers used as their guide when recruiting troops for a colonial army thus exercised undue influence in US foreign policy during the 1950s.

Dulles soon found out that any hopes he had of seeing Pakistan's martial Muslims fighting alongside Americans against the communists would not be fulfilled before Pakistani demands for gratis military equipment had been met. An American team under Brigadier General Harry Meyers was sent to Pakistan to determine Pakistan's military needs from a technical standpoint. The team's assessment that at that stage, $29.5 million in equipment would be enough for Pakistan's military was far below Pakistani expectations.

No one in the US government at that time knew that Pakistan's senior-most generals held several meetings at army headquarters, commonly called the GHQ, in Rawalpindi to war-game for the Meyers team visit. The meeting's participants included three men who would later serve terms as Pakistan's president.

Between them, Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, and Yahya Khan (then only a brigadier) ruled Pakistan for sixteen years, from 1955 to 1971. They had expected the Americans to turn on the spigot of aid immediately after the Mutual Assistance Agreement and Pakistan's membership in SEATO. Their plan involved impressing their superpower ally with their political commitment to its global cause, followed by presenting the visitors with a list of military items they
sought from the United States, which they hoped would be provided soon.

Based on minutes in GHQ archives, “Note that the name of India is never to be used, even in internal discourse,” says an account of the meeting. “This would be fatal and would ruin the prospects of getting any assistance from the USA.”
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In addition to concealing any intention of using US-supplied weaponry against India, the meeting's participants were to ensure that every Pakistani who met the Americans spoke with one voice. The meeting's premeditations were to be treated as a state secret. The group met at least three times before meeting the American delegation.

Face to face with the US team, General Ayub welcomed them with a speech about Pakistan's commitment to the anticommunist cause and the country's strategic location. Pakistan offered to fill the “power vacuum in the Middle East” that the end of British rule in the Indian subcontinent created. He also spoke of the Soviets' “covetous eye” and US dependence on Middle Eastern oil. But the mid-level Pentagon officials were not policy makers; they were in Pakistan for a technical study and did not have the mandate to promise large quantities of US weaponry.

Disappointed Pakistani civilian and military leaders separately approached their respective American interlocutors. They said that Pakistan could not afford to accept US military assistance at low levels, and the military aid program should not become known as “mere token.” That, they argued, would discourage other countries from becoming US allies. “Disillusionment within Pakistan” would threaten the government that had staked its future on the bold decision of allying with the West.

The United States, Pakistani leaders argued, should be prepared to treat Pakistan like Turkey—with liberal defense support and direct contributions to the sustenance of its forces. Otherwise, making the Pakistani public understand Pakistan's alliance with the United States would be impossible.
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This led even the normally supportive US Ambassador Hildreth to observe that though there was some merit in the Pakistani government's viewpoint, “they always overstate their virtues.”

After all, the Pakistanis were effectively saying that US aid to Pakistan had to be massive to be useful. Only after Pakistan received large doses of aid would it be able to do something in return for the United States. Moreover, there should be no expectation that the government's popularity at home would legitimate its foreign policy with the United States. The sense of security and prosperity that American aid would provide was instead supposed to help legitimize the Pakistan government.

Somewhat irate, Dulles decided to privately address the “exaggerated expectations of certain Pakistan officials which have been self-stimulated and publicized without any US encouragement.” He told his ambassador in Karachi to remind his interlocutors of “Pakistan's own responsibilities.”

Dulles explained that it was not within the financial capabilities of the United States to create a “well balanced expanding economy” merely with the support of “massive financial donations”; instead, Pakistan's people and leaders had to build it largely through their own efforts. He also asked that “there should be no misconception in Pakistani minds” that US assistance “is without cost or effort to our people” or that “U.S. resources are unlimited.”
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Although this may have been the first time that one of the American leaders most supportive of aid to Pakistan was forced to explain political facts of life to Pakistani leaders and officials, it was by no means the last.

Dulles went on to explain that Turkey had received priority because it was a “vigorous self-reliant ally,” geographically contiguous to the Soviet Union, “under direct and immediate threat,” and prepared to “take its stand and defend its territory regardless whether it received US assistance.” Turkey, therefore, could not be compared to Pakistan: Ataturk's Western orientation was unambiguous, and the Turks had given military bases as part of NATO and had suffered more than seven hundred fatalities fighting alongside the Americans in Korea.

But this clarification did not change Pakistan's perspective that it could draw unlimited American support only if the Americans realized Pakistan's strategic importance. The generals and bureaucrats in Karachi concluded that they needed the prospect of a more
immediate communist threat in order to get the Americans to act. So Prime Minister Bogra met Dulles in Washington soon after this communication and reiterated Pakistan's demand for greater military aid. Dulles attempted once again to convince him that alliance with the United States was not the silver bullet for Pakistan's problems.

The most significant discussion between Bogra and Dulles during their meeting related to their differing interpretations of their respective military obligations. Dulles stressed the anticommunist character of SEATO, underscoring that Pakistan should not expect SEATO support in its conflict with India. The United States had made that clear at the outset, and for the Pakistanis to continue expecting that the US position would change was unfair and unrealistic.

“We could not say, nor could we ask the U.S. Senate to accept the concept,” Dulles said, “that any dispute in the area would be considered a threat to the peace and security of the U.S.” Bogra retorted that Pakistan was only one nation among the treaty signatories that might fear aggression from a noncommunist country. According to him, the US view of the treaty “tended by implication to condone aggression from a non-communist country.” But this argument amounted to virtually renegotiating the terms of the treaty on the basis of a signatory's expectation.