US Think Tanks Idea to Balkanise Pakistan-Ravi Rikhye's Views

A 1985 Study By The BDM Corporation

Forwarded by Mandeep Singh Bajwa

Note: for every mention of "soviet Union" in the paper, replace with "United States": you will then be reading a paper updated for 2008.

Plan To Change the Map of India-Pakistan & Afghanistan Region (or Dismemberment of Pakistan (1985) – proposed by BDM Corporation (Subsidiary of FORD), Intelligence Analysts), under the New World Order.

SCENARIO OF THE FUTURE

A Soviet military presence in Afghanistan – thus positioned on the Pakistan border – would not be so disturbing if South Asia did not have a history of violent settlement of conflicts. The inherent belligerency between India and Pakistan has produced three wars in less than 40 years. The details of the disputes evolved from religious and territorial issues which have neither disappeared nor been diminished by an arms competition that has acquired a raison d’etre all its own.

India’s rise to the status of a regional superpower, a posture which now rivals that of its occupier, Britain, has consistently been at the expense of Pakistan. The In the initial confrontation between 1947-48, Pakistan did well to hold the high ground while the prize – the value of Kashmir –went to India. The 1965 war was as indecisive as it was costly to both. Despite lackluster showing by the Indian Army, what kudos the Pakistan earned in terms of that performance were lost in the rematch six years later when the Bangladesh revolt and Indian invasion resulted in a humiliating defeat in the West and the loss of East Pakistan.

India’s test of a “peaceful” nuclear device in 1974 did not soothe the regional rivalry. Its symbolic value for Indian prestige stimulated a crash program by Pakistan which in turn has caused New Delhi to take on a crusade against nuclear proliferation. Rather than become involved as a signatory to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, India has taken on the self-anointed role of regional enforcer. In the fall of 1984, there was growing evidence that the Indian military had developed preemptive options and was urging an attack on Pakistan’s developing nuclear facilities. In an address to an army commanders’ conference only weeks before her assassination, the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi complained that “Pakistan’s nuclear program has brought about a qualitative change in our security environment.” Subsequent reports, both on the accelerated pace of Pakistan’s nuclear development and on heightened efforts to increase its survivability by constructing underground facilities probably means that an Indian preemptive option may not be infinitely applicable. In any case, the number, location, and protection of those facilities probably means that an Indian attack could neither be as small nor surgical as the precedent of the Israeli strike against the lone Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

But there is no shortage of excuses for war (like U.S. has demonstrated).. Earlier in 1984 the Indians were blaming Pakistan for fomenting revolt among the Sikhs--charges noticeably absent since Indira Gandhi’s death. Between July and October there occurred an escalating series of border clashes with Indian patrols penetrating 60-km across the uninhibited but disputed territory of the Siachin Glacier, high up the Himalayan Rim. Interestingly, it was during this same period that the cross-border raids by Kabul ground units reached their peak in frequency and magnitude.

There has never been a paucity of conflict scenarios between India and Pakistan, but with Soviet offensive power ensconced in the Afghan regional pivot, new and more dangerous possibilities arise. Such scenarios are new in that they could involve a joint or at least a coordinated Indo-Soviet effort. They are more dangerous in the sense that combined Indo-Soviet capabilities permit them to contemplate aggressive military actions with not only a higher pay-off than either could achieve alone, but also with substantially-reduced risk.

The Soviets and Indians manifest a growing interest in the violation of Pakistani air-space, which is shared consequence of engaging quite different targets. For the Soviets, the concentrated insurgent base camps just across the border (where air-strikes could have a more significant effect than on dispersed and hard-t-acquire targets in Afghanistan) must look increasingly attractive as they become frustrated with their inability to close down the infiltration routes from the resistance sanctuaries into Afghanistan. Whatever the immediate military valu, the collateral effect of terror upon the civilian refugees would likely push these settlements further and further from the border—thus decreasing the proximity of te mujahideen to a key source of their support. Given the high percentage of rebel arms which are of Chinese origin, the Soviets may also feel compelled to interdict the most conspicuous route of supply – the Karakoram Highway linking China and Pakistan.

Attack from the air is a necessity for any attempt to take out Pakistan’s budding nuclear program. The problem for either India or Soviets in this regard is the active resistance of Pakistan’s air force. But in this scenario, the two countries have an incentive to act in concert. A carefully coordinated air offensive attacking simultaneously from two different directions would overwhelm Pakistan’s interceptors. With fighter strikes limiting the defenders sortie rate, the bombers of Soviet strategic aviation could inflict punishing blows against Pakistani AIRBASES. After this initial surge provided meaningful air-superiority, Indian and Soviet forces would have an uninterrupted ride for subsequent attacks and could concentrate against their respective targets. In such a campaign, India, and the USSR could achieve via joint action that which neither could accomplish individually (at least with high confidence of success and acceptable loss).

THE INDO-SOVIET VICE

A far more ambitious and permanent solution to the joint irritant of Pakistan would be a combined Indo-Soviet invasion.. In its relatively brief history, West Pakistan has never been realistically threatened by abject dismemberment—until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It is not evident that either the Soviet Union or India desires the disappearance of Pakistan. However, their past behavior (Soviet support for the Baluch uprising of the early 1970’s and the Indian invasion of Bangladesh) certainly does not rule this out as a possible, if unlikely, contingency. In the wake of a devastating air offensive, a simultaneous Indo-Soviet ground assault from opposite directions with converging axes would be unstoppable. An Indian attack out of the Punjab toward Islamabad (a’ la 1965) coupled with a Soviet drive out of the Khyber (utilizing absolute firepower superiority to suppress the opposing infantry; air assault to enfilade defense strong points and seize key terrain; and attack helicopters to retard reinforcement and maneuver) would force the main body of the Pakistan army to fight back-to-back. Options facing the Pakistanis would be unacceptable—defend in place under the prospect of ever-tightening encirclement , or withdraw south and abandon the capital and Kashmir. A second Indian offensive—a deep armored sweep across the Sind desert (a’ la 1971) that linked up on the Hinus River north of Karachi with a mirrored Soviet move through the lightly-defended Baluchi crest—would seal Pakistan’s fate.

Against India alone. Given current force deployment, the Pakistanis have a reasonable prospect of making a good account of themselves (accepting some territorial loss for a lot of Indian blood in a protracted series of attrition battles).. The same is also true concerning the Soviets, given the terrain on the Afghan frontier and assuming substantial Pakistani redeployment prior to take on both simultaneously, with quantitative and qualitative inferiority on the ground and without adequate air protection, invites defeat within weeks if not days.

REAPING THE BENEFITS!

For the aggressors, the outcome would offer enormous strategic benefit. Using the Indus River as the primary partition of responsibility. Kabul could re-establish its historic claim to the northwest frontier and be confident that, however long its internal insurgency lasted, the “miscreants” possessed neither sanctuary nor source of supply. The Soviets could bring the “fruits of class struggle:” to a newly established People’s Republic of Baluchistan which would, of course, ask for protection in exchange for Soviet port access on the Indian Ocean (Gawadar). India could complete its quest for the Kashmir and administer as an autonomous region whatever was left.

Other than short-lived economic sanctions and even briefer condemnation by irrelevant international bodies, the risk of outside interference to such a short, decisive campaign would come from only two significant antagonists – China and the U.S.

For China, her proximity to this potential battle zone does not translate into deployable power. Between Pakistan and the adjacent province of Sinkiang lies an enormous mountain range. With only a few infantry division in this province and an antique air force what China cannot provide prior to hostilities will not come. With the mountain passes closed by weather, the only militarily significant land route linking China and Pakistan is the Karakoram Highway. An 800-km road which took 20 years to build , its 99 bridges and 1,708 culverts make it one of the world’s most attractive targets for air interdiction.

For the US, strategic timing, not tactical geography, is the most critical limitation. With advanced warning, the US Air Force could redeploy enough US assets to correct the aerial imbalance, redress some point defense deficiencies, and establish a symbolic ground presence. But realistically, the warning time prior to hostilities is likely to be too short and the assets the US can deploy after the shooting starts is not whether the Soviets and Indians would actually initiate such a campaign, nor how they would operationally implement it—but that it is a consequence of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that this scenario is even available for conjecture. It is a contingency which did not exist five years ago.

The most likely scenario, however, is that the Soviets—by carefully orchestrating their military posture next door, tightening the political –strategic vice of the Indo-Soviet bloc, and periodically allowing the counterinsurgency war to spill over the border—will convey to the Pakistanis a heightened sense of the danger they are in. Given an overdose of threat perception, Pakistan might find it convenient to do the Soviets’ dirty work for them by closing down the frontier passes, keeping the refugees from creating a unified and effective infrastructure, and inhibiting the external flow of arms to the rebels.

Afghan armed resistance may go on for decades. That notwithstanding, if the Soviets can militarily or politically seal off sanctuaries in Pakistan, the intensity and effectiveness of the guerilla activity will fall to a level, the Soviet “pacification by terror” campaign can achieve its intended results over time.

THE AMERICAN OPTION

The motile challenges to US regional policy aggravated by Soviet action in Afghanistan offer contradictory dilemmas. Should the US provide the arms modernization necessary to backstop Pakistan’s self confidence in the face of growing blackmail while discouraging its proliferative ego trip for an Islamic bomb”? Should the US prepare contingency forces for a credible regional commitment without forward deployment; attempt to wean the Indians from the lure of Soviet largesse while resisting their hegemonic ambitions to “paper train” the Russians while their troops make a mess in Afghanistan?

But the most pressing policy issue is what the United States will do to help the Afghan people. David Isby, one of the most informed commentators on the Soviet War in Afghanistan describes the expectation of a mujahid after listening to President Reagan state his support for the jihad over Voice of America.

Being an educated man, and knowing what the Americans had done to aid people fighting communism in the past, he went outside to look upward for the black C-130s he thought would be arriving with what the Afghans needed to keep fighting. The black C-130s never arrived.

The US faces not only a policy decision but moral choice. To proclaim a “crusade for freedom” and then offer nothing but rhetoric is not just hypocritical—it is contemptuous of every American value. It is time to put up or shut up. And there is no clearer litmus test than supporting the Afghan resistance with the one armament that every observer of the war has noted they need most—a man-portable surface-to-air missile. When the Soviet Union feels free to arm Marxists and terrorists all over the globe with its latest weaponry, and when the US has a massive stock of surplus Redeye missiles (which are being replaced with the new Stinger), why does the US continue the charade of dribbling third-party SA-7s to the Afghan Resistance?

America can make the Soviet invasion extremely costly by aiming directly at the military assets, which most typifies the war—Soviet air power. An unwillingness to provide that minimal assistance will foreordain the success of the Soviet “time and terror” strategy. America’s future deterrent to Soviet aggression in the third world will be no more credible than in December 1979, and Afghanistan will not be a prologue but a precedent.

This article on page 103 shows two maps of Pakistan under the caption of “A Scenario of the Future?”

Top Map - Pakistan graphically depicting “Joint Indo-Soviet Air Offensive”

· Preemptive attacks on Pakistan’s major airbases

· Soviet bombing of refugee camps and air assault seizure of key passes.

· Indian Strikes on Pakistani nuclear facilities

· Soviet interdiction of Karakoram Highway

Bottom Map - Pakistan graphically depicting “Ground Campaign for the Dismemberment of Pakistan”

· Creation of independent “Peoples Republic of Baluchistan” with USSR Naval Base and Force Deployment Treaty

· Absorption of northwest tribal territories into Afghanistan

· Absorption of West Kashmir into India

· Administration of Sind /Punjab autonomous zone by India.

References:

The above contains only relevant partial article (only the last 4 out of 16 pages ) “Afghanistan’s Ordeal Puts a Region at Risk,” by James B. Curren and Phillip A, Karber, published in Armed Forces JOURNAL International, pp. 78-105, March 1985.
NOTE:

All these events happened during Reagan Administration, including the existence of folks called NEOCONS. I was witness to the work that GE received under a Military Contract called “Operation Desert Shield,” a huge contract awarded to several others as well (Raytheon, Westinghouse, Lockheed-Martin, and more). Simply replace the word “Soviets” with “American” and it brings you from 1980 era to events beginning of 21st Century.
2. Just imagine who is occupying Afghanistan right now, and these thought came from two American Defense/Intelligence Analysts, working for BDM Corporation (a subsidiary of FORD) of MacLean, VA. Only juxtapose Soviets with the word American to relate what is going on in Afghanistan at presents and the direction of the blowing winds engulfing Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Iran. All these countries are surrounded by Military bases now possessed in

a region called “Petrolistan.” Complete details are posted in a 30-page PDF File posted at www.environmentaldirectory.info (after logging select Houston to acquire this 30-page document with graphic maps showing most of the important U.S. Military bases in this region as part of the New World Order.

According to University of California Professor, and president of Japan Policy Research Institute, (author of BLOWBACK and The Sorrows of Empire), U.S. now possesses more than 750 Bases around the globe to enforce the New World Order, as we have seen after September 11, 2001.

3. This quest would be incomplete without connecting the above information with a Known World Oil Reserves Map published by British Petroleum (BP) that is posted on the web at to learn where McCain acquired the “110 –year” military occupation of Iraq:

http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_fullscale.php?mapID=505&theme=6

4. “The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals,” by Alfred E/ Eckes, Jr., University of Texas Press, Austin & Toronto, 1979. ISBN Box 0-292-78511-9. (pbk)

5. “RESOURCE WARS- The New Landscape of Global Conflict,” by Michael T. Klare, Owl Books Henry Holt and Company, 2001. ISBN 08050-5576-2. (pbk)

6. “OIL, POWER & EMPIRE: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda,” by Larry Everest, Common Courage Pres, Monroe, Maine 2004. ISBN 1-56751-246-1.(pbk)

7. “CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN,” by John Perkins, A Plume Book, published by Penguin Group, New York 2004. ISBN 0-452-28708-1. (pbk)

8. “Forbidden TRUTH: U.S. - Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden, “ by Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquie, and published by Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, New York 2002. ISBN 1-56025-414-9. (pbk).

9. “The PENTAGON’S NEW MAP – War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century,” by Thomas P.M. Bennett, Berkeley Books, New York 2004. ISBN 0-425-20239-9. (pbk).

10. “The ISLAMIC BOMB: The Nuclear Threat to Israel and the Middle East, “ by Steve Weissman & Herbert Krosney, NYT/Times Books, New York 1981. ISBN 0-8129-0978-X

11. “ROGUE STATE: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, by William Blum, published by Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine 2005. ISBN 1-565751-374-3.

12. "After Iraq: A report from the new Middle East - and a glimpse of its possible future," by Jeffrey Goldberg, pp cover and 68-79. published in "The ATLANTIC Magazine, January/February 2008. Cover had the map of New Middle East as envisaged by the Neocons and Zionocons.

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RAVI RIKHYE'S ANALYSIS OF ABOVE BMD STUDY:--




The BMD Corporation Paper On Pakistan - I



To save our readers from trying to follow the editor's complicated way of reasoning, he's going to state his opinion straight out. And that is what the BDM paper suggests is easily the worst idea anyone has had in many a day if the aim is to enhance the security of the US and India.

A quick review of the editor's credentials on the matter of breaking up Pakistan. He's said for 40 years Partition 1947 has to be undone or else there will be no peace in South Asia. A divided subcontinent makes as much sense as a United States broken into three hostile countries. Following the 1861 pattern, think of a United States of America, a Confederate States of America, and a Western States of America. The USA and CSA have fought several wars, remained armed to the toofers and ready to fight another one; the CSA has decided as the weaker power it must use terror and subversion to cut the USA down to a size CSA can live with, and has over 20 years launched a massive terror campaign in which the WSA, very afraid if a strong and growing USA, willing joins while attempting to plausible deniability. Last, lets put China in Canada's place: hostile in every way to the USA, wanting to become the global superpower, close ally of CSA and becoming steadily more entrenched in the WSA.

If anyone sees this a recipe for peace and stability in North America, then your editor will have to admit, yes, at least these people are being logical about a South Asia broken into seven countries.

The editor has repeatedly also said that the reintegration of South Asia would best take place by peaceful means, but peaceful means are far, far harder to implement than war, and that war followed by peaceful means would work well.

Okay, so are we clear the editor is not wussie peacenik fascist liberal as far as Pakistan is concerned?

Once we are clear, he hopes that even if the perpetual advocate for war says BDM plan is a bad idea, readers will pay a little more heed than usual to his homilies, lectures, and raves/rants.

The biggest flaw in the BDM plan is that it does not account for the georeality of South Asia. We are not criticizing BDM, all it did was to boldly sketch out a new idea to whack the Soviet Union. We cannot expect BDM to get into every nuance of the situation.

BMD's preferred outcome is (a) NWFP as part of Afghanistan, reliant on the US; (b) independent Baluchistan relying on the US for its existence; (c) West Kashmir reunited with India; (d) Punjab/Sind as autonomous zones under Indian control.

The first difficulty is that the Indus River is not India's frontier with West/Central Asia. It is India's Main Line of Resistance, if you will. Once an enemy crosses the Indus, militarily, politically, whatever, its a straight run to Delhi and the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which for the last 1000 years has been India's center of gravity. India's buffer is Afghanistan, Baluchistan/NWFP are where it needs to fight its battles so that the Indus is NOT crossed.

The second is, while we do not blame BMD for thinking Kashmir is a very big deal to India, Kashmir is the least of India's concerns. West Punjab/Sind are vital to India because they are the agrarian/light industrial/heavy industrial/trade counterparts to East Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat/Maharashtra. In economic, political, cultural terms, the very provinces BMD would have as autonomous zones are the ones that have to be reunited fully with India. Kashmir falls of its own accord, in that case, and India dominates Baluchistan/NWFP And works to integrate them back into India, perhaps giving them autonomy over everything except defense, foreign affairs, currency, and communications.

Quite aside from the bigger question of India and US working together in terms of costs and opportunities, much as Indians love America - in fact India may be the only country left where people overwhelmingly love America - the fastest way to arouse all India into one giant, mad fury against America is to suggest a Baluchistan dominated by the US.

Next flaw: NWFP The fastest way to create mass mayhem in Afghanistan is bring NWFP into Afghanistan. Its the best way of positively, absolutely, completely guaranteeing that the West loses Afghanistan. Afghanistan, like so many countries in the world is a confederation of different tribes. The Pushtoons are the most powerful at this time. Join NWFP to Afghanistan, and the Central Asian tribes will go banannas. They will quit Afghanistan soonest.

Then, there's the small problem that NWFP is the cancer that devouring Afghanistan. The Taliban, Afghani and Pakistani are dominant in the NWFP and on their way to becoming independent - not tomorrow, but eventually. This cancer will now be part and parcel of Afghanistan, and the first thing the Taliban will do is fight to get the west out even more viciously and vehemently than they are now.

But with an autonomous Baluchistan under US patronage how will the Taliban get supplies? Through Baluchistan, people, and through Iran. Baluchistan is for the most part inaccessible, wild country and sparsely populated. Perfect for infiltration. Oh yes: did we mention if you strengthen the Baluchis they will go after the Baluchi parts of Afghanistan next. We'll be fighting Iran not just in Iraq, but in Baluchistan/Afghanistan.

Next: The Taliban will seek to expand in the proposed India-controlled autonomous zones of Sind and Punjab. They are already starting to wage war there. Much of the anger and bitterness that drives Pakistanis comes from the 1971 defeat and from their inability to gain Kashmir. So now we're going to have somewhere around 80-million Punjabis - if you count the Punjabis settled in Sindh and incorrectly counted as Sindhis even more despairing at the loss of Pakistan, and all the more determined someone is going to pay, specifically, India and the US. The first thing the Punjabis are going to do is join with the Taliban to fight US/India in Baluchistan, NWFP, Kashmir, Sindh, and Punjab. You are going to make sure that instead of a few million extremists in Pakistan, you get 150-million extremists.

BTW, southern Sindh/Karachi will be very happy to join India. This is the one area that will really take off economically if Pakistan breaks up. More on that another day.

We'll conclude this tomorrow, but we hope we've convinced you that breaking up Pakistan is not a bright thing to do. Tomorrow we'll focus more on military/security matters as reinforcing counterpoint to our geostrategy argument of today.



0230 GMT July 29, 2008



Please read this paper first Today we post a paper originally written in 1985 by the BDM Corporation of Mclean, Virginia, on how the Soviets working with India might end the problems Pakistan was creating for the Soviets and the Indians. For everywhere it says "Soviet Union", replace with "United States" and you will have updated the scenario to 2008. To access the paper, click on ANALYSIS above.

Mandeep Singh Bajwa sent it to us and we are not going to embarrass him by asking any questions as to what it officially means to the US and Indian Governments.

Suffice it to say that both governments have begun a study of how to handle the problems Pakistan is creating for them. From a study to actual action is a very long way indeed. You must absolutely not draw any inference that the Indian Government is in any way committed to reshape the subcontinent in partnership with the US.

Nonetheless, the Indian Government has finally realized something your editor has been saying for 40 years: the Partition of India created a situation in which India and Pakistan would forever be in conflict and only one solution existed, that Pakistan be brought back to the Indian Union.

The reaction then and all the way to the start of the 2000s? Only one person actually said anything to your editor, the others went around with a cartoon caption above their heads which showed a squirrel looking at an acorn.

Mr. K. Subhramanyam, the dean of Indian national security studies and the editor's mentor, one day said in his typically laconic style: "I say, we are barely managing with our 100-million Muslims and you want to add another 100-million?" This is back when Pakistan had much fewer people than it does today. "And following your logic, we'd have to integrate Bangladesh back into India, so there's another 50-million Muslims".

Well, we needn't go into the debate the editor had with his mentor; suffice it to say his mentor wasn't at all convinced, and said that it was a bad idea. If he, the most aggressive Indian nationalist intellectual around from the 1960s through the 1980s didn't buy the editor's thesis, you can imagine what others thought. Very little, actually, aside from the cartoon we mentioned.

But since about 2006 attitudes in India have dramatically changed. The seeming end of the Kashmir insurgency was supposed to usher a new era of peace. Instead, Pakistan paused only to appease the US, which was demanding an end to Pakistani support of Afghan and Kashmir insurgents.

We have mentioned and alerted readers that a new campaign against Indian Kashmir has begun. Further, and this is a much dangerous situation, Pakistan has begun a terror bombing campaign that covers most of India. In the years 2004-2007, only one country in the world had more civilian deaths at terrorist hands than Iraq. Yes, that country was India.

There is a growing determination that India can no longer go on firefighting, that a once-and-for-all solution has to be found. And it is not a coincidence the US has also come to that conclusion.

Today we are not saying a word of comment on the proposition presented by the BDM Corporation. Read the paper and we'll discuss it tomorrow. Keep only this in mind from the editor's side: the focus on the GWOT is about to shift from Iraq to South Asia. That's the new battlefield.