Author: Husain Haqqani
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: August 17, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/10762.html
Introduction: Pakistan will incur a $ 5 billion
to buy jets unable to isolate or even kill individual terrorists and gain
no significant advantage over India's quantitative or qualitative military
advantage. The US will realise that Pakistan's military has always taken military
aid without ever fully giving US what it desires
The Bush administration has justified its
decision to sell 36 F-16 Falcon fighter jets to Pakistan on grounds that it
would increase US "access and influence" in Islamabad.
Pakistan's military regime, which will incur
a debt of $ 5 billion to purchase the planes made by Lockheed Martin, considers
the deal a boost for Pakistan's security. Close examination of the deal and
of the history of similar US-Pakistan deals indicates that the stated goals
of neither the US nor the Pakistani rulers are likely to be advanced with
the F-16 purchase.
If anything, the F-16s are a pay off from
Washington for General Pervez Musharraf's military regime - a sort of "toys
for the boys" gift - that is expected to extend the regime's survival.
That is all that concessional arms transfers under previous pro-US Pakistani
military regimes have achieved
Let us first look at the F-16 deal from the
perspective of Pakistani national security. Not long ago, General Pervez Musharraf
declared that the greatest threat to Pakistani security comes from extremist
ideologues and terrorists within the country. Domestic extremism in Pakistan
would be fought more effectively with investment in the neglected social sectors.
Five billion dollars could go a long way in expanding education, healthcare
and poverty alleviation programs.
If the purpose is to locate and liquidate
hardened terrorists, the F-16 Falcon is not the best weapon to identify, isolate
or even kill individual terrorists. Most major Al-Qaeda figures arrested in
Pakistan and handed over to the US were arrested in major Pakistani cities.
The F-16's sophisticated air-to-air, air-to-surface
and anti-ship missiles have little to contribute in the battle in the neighbourhoods
of Westridge, Rawalpindi (where Khalid Shaikh Muhammad was found) or Defence
Society, Karachi (where Ramzi bin Al-Shibh was caught). They have limited
value in Waziristan or other tribal areas on the Afghan border.
Pakistan's traditional security threat is
believed to come from India but here too Pakistan will not get a bang for
its buck. The Pentagon's statement accompanying notification of the F-16 sale
to the US Congress has stated unequivocally that Pakistan's F-16 purchase
would "not significantly reduce India's quantitative or qualitative military
advantage" and that it would neither affect the regional balance of power
nor introduce a new technology in the region.
Mr John Hillen, the US assistant secretary
of state for political-military affairs told a recent congressional hearing
that the version of the plane being sold to Pakistan "will not be nuclear
capable" and explained that the Pentagon's notification to Congress had
"enumerated the technologies that were not, that would usually go with
an F-16, that are not part of this deal." According to Mr Hillen, these
withheld technologies "include ones that would allow the F-16 to be used
in offensive ways to penetrate airspace of another country that was highly
defended."
If the F-16 will not enhance Pakistan's military
capability against domestic terrorism or confer it some qualitative or quantitative
advantage in its unfortunate perennial conflict with India, why add to Pakistan's
debt burden for such expensive jets? Mr Hillen's explanation, repeated in
private and public conversations by other American officials, focuses on US
influence over Pakistan.
The military is the most powerful institution
in Pakistan and military sales, backed by large American credits, are a means
of pleasing the Pakistani military. This, in turn, is supposed to secure leverage
for the United States.
The US has dreamt of leverage over Pakistan's
foreign policy in return for military equipment and economic aid ever since
the days of the cold war alliances, SEATO and CENTO.
Contrary to the assumption of American officials
that military aid translates into leverage, Pakistan's military has always
managed to take military aid without ever fully giving the United States what
it desires.
If Pakistan's security policy was determined
by a representative government and not by a Praetorian army, the ability to
make independent foreign policy decisions would be a good thing from Pakistan's
point of view even if that is not what the Americans seek.
But given the ascendancy of the military in
Pakistan's decision-making, the military aid relationship with Washington
has become a contributing factor to Pakistan's internal dysfunction.
The availability of weapons systems that enhance
the Pakistani military's prestige and therefore its ability to continue to
dominate national life - offered by the US to secure limited Pakistani cooperation
in US grand strategy- allows Pakistan's military rulers to believe that they
can continue to promote risky domestic, regional, and pan-Islamic policies.
It undermines the Pakistani military's willingness to negotiate realistically
with India without bolstering Pakistan's actual military prowess against its
much larger neighbour.
The people of Pakistan, and the long-term
US-Pakistan relationship, would benefit far more if Washington made it clear
that its support for Pakistan's security would be contingent upon Pakistan
having an elected government that determines Pakistan's real security needs
in a transparent manner.
The writer is director of Boston University's
Center for International Relations.
haqqani@bu.edu
