US President Donald Trump had a telephone chat with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night and, according to sketchy reports on Wednesday, both invited each other for an early visit.

Indian reports described the late night call in Delhi as a warm conversation, but there was no readout like the one when Trump, as president-elect, called Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and reportedly paid gushing compliments to Pakistanis.

That the new presidency has fixed its foreign policy priorities on Russia and China, albeit with different objectives, is well known. But, according to worried American analysts, this could be precisely the moment when things go wrong with India and Pakistan, a time when tensions simmering below the distracted world’s gaze could erupt into a catastrophe.

Also read: Pakistanis worry that President Trump may favour India

Many would remember that a terrified world was riveted to the Cuban missile crisis when China and India got into their 1962 sideshow.

Did Donald Trump speak to his South Asian interlocutors about this worry or about terrorism, Kashmir and the need to bring peace between them? Who knows? People closely watching the region want the new president to be ever vigilant with a nuclear-tipped South Asia.

Retired US Admiral James Stavridis believes Trump needs to address the strained India-Pakistan relations right away. Stavridis was tipped to be Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential choice last year and was later said to have been in Trump’s list for secretary of state.

“The set of foreign policy challenges headed like a freight train at the Trump administration is obvious: the Islamic State [group] and the associated tragedy of Syria; a bubbling North Korea led by an unpredictable dictator with a fistful of nuclear weapons; an angry China hypersensitive about Taiwan and the South China Sea; and Russian cyber-activity roiling domestic political waters alongside Moscow’s ongoing occupation of Crimea and destruction of Syria.

“But flying under the radar is a dangerous problem not receiving a great deal of attention: Pakistan,” Stavridis wrote. The comments were available on the NDTV website this week.

“The nation also faces a virulent terrorism problem from the Pakistani Taliban, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians and troops over the past five years. Since 2006, more than 60,000 Pakistanis have been killed in terrorist events — essentially two 9/11 tragedies per year in a country with a population much smaller than the United States.”

Describing the fraught situation following the terror attack in Uri in September, he said: “Looming over all of this are the issues associated with Pakistan’s long, unsettled relationship with India.”

Admiral Stavridis prescribed measures that include deepened engagement with Pakistan while keeping India as a close friend. Greater military and civil society incentives for Pakistan could help roll back the threat to Afghanistan posed by Afghan Taliban.

“The Trump administration should increase military assistance to Pakistan in the counterterrorism fight on the Afghan-Pakistan border. A long source of frustration for US military planners — including during my time as Nato’s supreme allied commander responsible for combat operations in Afghanistan — has been Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban.”

According to Stavridis, such incentives could include more robust intelligence sha­r­­­­ing; better surveillance and strike te­­ch­nology; and joint operations. “Wash­ing­t­on’s efforts to sell weapons, surveillance, and intelligence systems to Islam­abad have been uneven to say the least. Setting out a coherent, reliable pipeline of military assistance and sales would be helpful.”

Analysts George Perkovich and Toby Dalton, who recently published their impo­rtant book on the tensions in South Asia — Not War, Not Peace? — believe Trump or even China could do little if the leadership in India and Pakistan continued to push their luck in a dangerous standoff.

“China wants stability in South Asia. It will quietly press Pakistan to curtail terrorism and is unlikely to participate in military adventurism against India. But Beijing will also not reward Indian bullying by pressing Pakistan to give in on Kashmir. Meanwhile, the American policy under the incoming Trump administration is likely to depart from past conventions but in unpredictable directions. One day the administration may offer to negotiate Ka­­shmir but the next, it could join efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally,” Perko­vich and Dalton wrote in the Herald this week.

“No one will do the hard work for Pakistani and Indian leaders. They must decide if and when their people deserve more than reliance on luck and business-as-usual to avoid a devastating war.”

Published in Dawn January 26th, 2017

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