Ask the Expert: Malou Innocent

Lauren Blankenship from Berean Christian Academy asks:

"If there was one policy regarding [U.S.] relations with India that you could change, what would it be? What are your thoughts on sanctioning Pakistan or India?"

Malou Innocent, Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute, answers: 

The only thing I would change about U.S. policy toward India is the assumption that the Indians will do our bidding and effectively check a rising China. Let me explain. Some U.S. officials and American academics believe (with history on their side) that states maximize their security by gaining power at the expense of rivals. With regards to China and the United States, these people also believe that a rising challenger in Asia will intrinsically diminish America's relative power in that region, since as China's power gradually increases, America's power will proportionally decline. Great power strategy by some measures is still considered zero-sum (as compared to the field of free market economics). For China and the United States, the threat perceived from a rising China is predicated on the conviction that once China reaches economic and military parity with the United States, its leaders will come to realize that its strategic interests can best be reached by accumulating a preponderance of power within Asia. This is where India comes into play. India is one of the only powers in Asia that can pose a formidable deterrent against Chinese aggression. India is set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2050. Demographically, India will possess the manpower necessary for conventional military dominance. Also, India is a nuclear power. Thus, it's believed that If India is able to continue its current rate of economic growth, that Asia will remain divided between two contending great powers. And if the region is able to remain divided, then China will be unable to achieve regional hegemony and America will not be excluded from the region entirely.

It's questionable whether the Indians will meekly bow to U.S. pressure. It's also the case that when India and America have drawn closer, Pakistan and America grow farther apart. To this day, Pakistan's strategic considerations are driven by the existential threat from India, a dynamic now exacerbated by India's rising influence inside Afghanistan. India is the largest regional donor of aid to Afghanistan. In August 2008, India pledged to give $450 million, in addition to the $750 million already given since 2001. With India on one side and an India-leaning government on the other, Pakistani defense planners feel encircled. This mixture of divergent strategic interests and regional uncertainty has motivated India and Pakistan to turn Afghanistan into a proxy playground. It's been alleged that India's external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), uses Indian consulates in Afghanistan to secretly funnel weapons to separatists in Balochistan, and according to U.S. intelligence, elements of Pakistan's national intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), provided support to pro-Taliban insurgents responsible for the July 7th bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, despite official denials and a counter-insurgency campaign being waged against other Taliban elements at home. But U.S. policymakers do not have the luxury of choosing sides in this regional dispute. India has proven a vital partner for Afghanistan, and U.S. cooperation with Pakistan is critical for the success of its mission in Afghanistan. U.S. policymakers must soothe Pakistani fears of Indian hegemony, and work to resolve their festering hostility over Kashmir.

As for the last question, sanctions rarely achieve the objectives we seek. The record of unilateral sanctions in particular is quite poor. We've maintained a sanctions regime against Cuba for five and half decades. Castro's regime is still in power. We've had sanctions against Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, and those punitive measures have rarely caused the target regimes to make meaningful changes in policy. Indeed, the United States has better luck engaging those countries, as we've done with Vietnam, as we did with China in the 1970s, and recently with North Korea. But Washington's objective with Pakistan is to gain their support for its policies in the region. Because U.S. economic assistance is part of a larger strategy for advancing U.S. policies, stopping aid completely would shut a vital intelligence link needed to neutralize regional terrorism. Thus, not only are sanctions ineffective more generally, but with Pakistan in particular it would prove detrimental to continued cooperation with the Pakistani government and for advancing U.S. interests in South Asia. America and India are an alliance of the world's largest democracies. Sanctioning India is out of the question.