South Asian Crisis Of 1971 And U.S.-Pakistan Relations

The crisis of South Asia happened in 1971 was a regional crisis in the era of Cold War Transformation which had vital international influence.Not only did the crisis mould a new political pattern in the sub-continent,but it also influenced profoundly the foreign strategies of America,China,and Soviet Union as well as the regulations of relations of great powers caused by strategic orientation.The Nixon government took priority of Realism as the political philosophy in its foreign policy when dealing with U.S.-Pakistan relation.But the United States could make itself out of the dilemma to make a choice between geographic politics and the idea of Moralism which was opposed to dictatorship and preached liberty,democracy and human rights,Tilt to the regime of Yahya Khan essentially reflected American structural tension in its strategic arrangement in South Asia,its contradiction in considering global strategic logos and Regionalism,the contradiction between the realistic political choice and the moral goals of the Cold War.This dissertation starts with the available literatures in the U.S.,India,and Pakistan about the crisis in South Asia and the history of the U.S-Pakistan relation, and then bases its arguments on the declassified archives from U.S.,Pakistan,India and Bangladesh.especially the U.S.declassified archives including Foreign Relations of United States,CIA files,The Richard M.Nixon National Security Files 1969-1974:India-Pakistan War of 1971,Microfilm Reels and so on.This paper uses the"Double Logics"of the Cold War:International and Native,and then puts the global level of the U.S.-Soviet power struggle.This dissertation studies under the new framework of the dimensional interaction within three variables,namely,Regional dimensions of the struggle between India and Pakistan,the internal dimension of the desperate confrontation between the West Pakistan Junta and the radical nationalism group of East Pakistan.Through the analysis,we could find how the interaction of great power's foreign strategy and regional state's political behavior,and then we could also study the reason why Pakistan's domestic system deficiencies,which were caused by political turmoil spill over to the international arena,for which the great powers to intervene and local war was caused.The dissertation is divided into three parts,namely,introduction,body and conclusion.The introduction makes a systematic review of the academic research history of U.S-Pakistan relation in the 1971 South Asia crisis,based on this,the research objectives;the meanings the topic selection and discourse patterns of the thesis are explained.Closed linked with research objectives proposed in the introduction,the conclusion part makes a concise summary on the analysis of historical facts presented in the body part,which strengthens the theme of the thesis. In addition,the body part is exposited in five chaptersThe first chapter makes a foundation for the following chapters by analyzing the international background and regional causes for the south Asia Crisis.The rudiment of the strategic pattern in the south Asia in the period of Cold War was caused by the global cold war atmosphere and the conflict between India and Pakistan in the region of south Asia.Observed form a global perspective,the conflicting situation between the partners of Soviet Union and India and the partners of the United States and Pakistan was caused by intertwined permeation of outer force and regional conflicts in south Asia.Facing the globally surging political changes,Nixon and his foreign counselor Kissinger put South Asia and Pakistan in new positions in their new strategic plans when they undertook regulating American foreign strategies.The sub-Continent of south Asia and Pakistan slipped into the abyss of violence and war in the domestic state of conflicts and chaos despite the fact that globally a reformed political and economic alteration was gestated in the 1960s.The second chapter studies the political situation in Pakistan and how the United States and Pakistan relied on each other from the consideration of their respective benefits before the outbreak of the crisis.In order to pave the way for the Constitutions in Pakistan,Yahya Khan promised to hold a general election,which was held as scheduled after long time suffering from series of political turmoil in addition to natural and man-make calamities since the foundation of the state of Pakistan.But the smooth general election could only be regarded as the initial steps towards the Constitution in Pakistan;the subsequent political disputes showed the difficulties to merge the beneficial and ideological discrepancy between the military regime and West Pakistan and East Pakistan.Compared with the turbulence in Pakistan,the United States was making every effort to excavate the diplomatic channels which thawed the Sino-U.S.relationship,reversing the disadvantaged situation to Soviet Union.What Nixon relied heavily on and eventually made breakthrough on was Pakistan Channel.An essential issue for the Nixon government to consider was how to deal with domestic political crisis in Partisan and maintain the valid function of the Pakistan Channel simultaneously.The third chapter investigates the vibrating political situations after the crisis and Nixon government political considerations at the initial stage of the crisis,especially the underlying strategic motivation of American foreign policy to Pakistan.Yahya Khan began to undertake his political reconstruction plans after initially stabilizing the situations in East Pakistan,trying to remove the marks left in minds of Pasta tins by the East Pakistan political prospects,but unfortunately,the resistance from the civilians in East Pakistan was not eased at all.At the same time,the problem of refugees got more and more serious,and the domestic violence overflowed the boundary of the territory and escalated into transnational crisis.The India government adopted the guidelines of combining public diplomacy and secret actions, and confronted publicly with the military regime led by Yahya Khan by declaring its support and sympathy to the resistant fighting of East Pakistan and acquiescing the establishment of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh.After the outbreak of the crisis,the Nixon Administration's policy transform from nonintervention to a limited intervention.In determining the Government of Pakistan as the bottom line of crisis policy,how effective alleviating the crisis,also promoting the global strategy through the Key State-Pakistan was the basic policy starting point.Of course,as we study the crisis policy of the United States,we should also be noted that the establishment of policy,which was the result of political compromise among White House,National Security Council,which was controlled by Nixon-Kissinger,and the Department of State,the Department of Defense,CIA,and even the Congress.The fourth Chapter highlights the dissertation.After Kissinger's secret visit to China,the Sino-U.S.secret diplomacy that shocked the world become the"Surprise Diplomacy".It was the"Diplomatic Revolution"of the Cold War,and then opened a new era of the Cold War.But it was also the diplomatic initiatives which had considerable costs and risks,and then accelerated the process of the Alliance between the Soviet Union and India.At the refugee problem,the political reconciliation about East Pakistan,Nixon deliberately planned attempt to defuse the crisis,but these efforts failed,and South Asia"powder keg"hair-triggered.Faced with the growing threat of war draws near,the Nixon Administration made the ultimate decision to suspend arms sales to Pakistan.Nixon had every effort to avoid war,including the punishment to the state which provoked the war effort and the analytical assessment for the outbreak of the war at the escalation of the crisis phase,but the performance of the above-mentioned policies were difficult to stop the war approaching pace, especially the"Tilt"Policy had worked.The fifth Chapter unfolds the Third Indo-Paki War and the new international structure of South Asia after war.Third India-Pakistan war was the peak of the crisis. The war lasted for 14 days,which showed game interactive features about the development of the war,Pakistan's domestic political changes,and great-power diplomacy.Therefore,this war is not only the third war between India and Pakistan, but also the power struggle and strategic competition around the subcontinent among the United States,the Soviet Union,and China.As we said the international impact of the war,it has promoted the emergence of a new balance of power in South Asia.On the one hand,Strategic triangle formed and became the most important international structure of the triangular relationship in the period of the Cold War.Its formation was the development of the situation in South Asia plays an indispensable role,directly affect the balance of power in South Asia,so that balance of power in-depth development of the South Asian region,strengthening the consolidation between the Soviet Union-India and the US-Pakistan strategic confrontation;On the other hand, after the war The overall pattern of the South Asian region formed the asymmetry balance of power between India and Pakistan.For the two states,although direct confrontation about ideology,philosophy,national security is not the elimination,but India and Pakistan also recognize more clearly through the means of war can not achieve its strategic objectives of external and can not solve the Kashmir issue. Between the two countries have to reflect on war,the means of resorting to war to take a more restrained attitude,how in the nuclear era,through the war,access to each other's dominant position are the India-Pakistan war in 1971,after the consideration of important strategic competition.