Arming Pakistan

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publius42

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Since ‘war on terror,’ Pakistan imported more arms from US than previous 50 yrs

...This startling data figures in a report prepared for the US Congress last week based on a study by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) and raises concerns that the aid Pakistan receives from US under the “war on terror” package may be more suitable for gaining conventional advantage over India.

In fact, last year alone, the value of imports was $3.49 billion — the value of total imports from 1950 to 2001 was $3.63 billion.

“The rise of Pakistan to its new status as a major arms purchaser from the United States is particularly noteworthy given the difficulties the United States has had with Pakistan since the 1970s over its successful effort to produce nuclear weapons,” the report notes.

...

The report notes that while the main reason for the huge leap is the $1.4-billion deal to purchase 36 F-16 fighters, other major deals include 115 Self-Propelled 155-mm Howitzers, a possible cause for worry to India as it is already decades behind in its artillery modernisation plan.

Other big-ticket agreements include six C-130 military transport aircraft, surveillance radars, military radios, and interestingly over 2000 TOW anti-tank missiles, 100 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, three Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning systems and an equal number of maritime patrol aircraft.

“The Department of Defence has characterised F-16 fighters, P-3C patrol aircraft, and anti-armor missiles as having significant anti-terrorism applications, claims that elicit skepticism from some analysts,” says another recent CRS report on US-Pakistan relations.
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OK, which terrorists are out practicing maneuvers in their fleets of ships and columns of tanks?

We're arming an unpopular dictator in a huge Muslim country which has nuclear weapons. Anyone sense some blowback coming from this one? Even without the whole India issue, it's a risky move. It will be interesting when we have to go to war with them to look back and see who was in favor of arming them, so everyone chime in. ;)
 
Well, we made the dictator take off his army suit and put on politician's clothing. He has no political support. It's the beginning of the end for him. Somebody is about to get all of our cool military hardware and Pakistan's nukes. Our support for an unpopular dictator will probably mean that whoever that person is, a major qualification will be hatred for America.

This situation is extremely dangerous.
 
If we had truly committed to the war in Afghanistan (thanks Rummy and Cheney) we could have gotten rid of Osama and be done. But we screwed around with Rummy's idiot military theories and then charged off to Iraq.

Now we are bribing the Pakistan military with boy toys to let us still muck around in Afghanistan.

It's a mess, someday we may have to launch a pre-emptive strike on their nukes. Now that will be a bigger mess.
 
Our support for an unpopular dictator will probably mean that whoever that person is, a major qualification will be hatred for America.
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Most likely. It seems we have learnt nothing from supporting the Shah when he was the dictator of Iran, since we can't seem to stop supporting some of the world's worse dictators who end up eventually overthrown and replaced.
 
I'm afraid this is leaving us with two and only two options. Either elect someone like Ron Paul that wants to make nice, take our boots off their land and hope they don't hate us if we actually apologize, and leave them alone, or elect someone that will actually reduce an attacker to a smoldering crater before they can hurt us. Right now I would say that is Thompson.
 
Hindsight's 20/20...

Relationships change...between nations or individuals.

I was certainly in favor of giving the Afghani muj a few Stingers in the 80's.

I also gave my gf at the time a Chaka Khan CD. I wouldn't do that anymore, either.
 
Either elect someone like Ron Paul that wants to make nice, take our boots off their land and hope they don't hate us if we actually apologize, and leave them alone, or elect someone that will actually reduce an attacker to a smoldering crater before they can hurt us. Right now I would say that is Thompson.
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Thompson will not do that. Anyone who believes that he would does not understand Thompson. He is a clone of our current president on the war issue. He will keep us in the war, on a limited scale, spending billions or trillions on the military-industrial complex, and never actually commit to winning.
 
unregistered said:
Thompson will not do that. Anyone who believes that he would does not understand Thompson. He is a clone of our current president on the war issue. He will keep us in the war, on a limited scale, spending billions or trillions on the military-industrial complex, and never actually commit to winning.
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i agree. i think the person closest to that "strategy" is giuliani. of course the problem with that policy is that you would have to do it to every country in the middle east, you couldnt just do it to our current "enemy" (whatever that means anymore). you just do it to one, and the rest of the middle east is gonna go more insane than it already seems to be.

note: i didnt say this is giuliani's policy, just that, if any of the candidates were to have that as a policy, he is the one who would have it.
 
Always seems like a good idea at the time...

Hindsight's 20/20...
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Yes, and there were good, prudent reasons to back the Shah, and then Saddam when the Shah was overthrown and we needed to counterbalance the backlash government. There were good reasons to back the Afghan freedom fighters when the Russians decided to settle the question of whose proxy Afghanistan would become by invading. And then there was good reason to invade and overthrow the backlash government when it harbored Osama.

I'm just saying, we can look AHEAD a bit in this case. Sure, supporting the dictator in Pakistan seems prudent (remember Dana Carvey?) when we're in a war next door in Afghanistan and it's spilling over the border in remote areas. Maybe he can help us, right? It always seems like a good idea at the time, and then come the problems with the backlash government.

Forgive me for assuming I have 20/20 foresight, but it's all going to happen again. Backing the dictator will turn lots of people against us, they'll end up with a government which opposes us, every problem encountered will be blamed on us in the government propaganda, and we'll wind up having to fight the backlash government. I think giving them billions of dollars worth of military hardware will prove, in hindsight, to have been a mistake.

Just wondering if any of our more interventionist folks here are willing to say whether it seems like a good idea or a mistake, so we can look back in the archives in a few years with the benefit of hindsight and discuss it.
 
As someone who has done tours in both S. Korea and Germany, I can tell you that sometimes our "interventionist" policies are the only way to fly.

Did we arm Afghanis? Sure we did. And we watched the red horde go slinking back over the border.

And we dealt with the "backlash" when it came. Again, the nature of relationships sometimes means change.

The Cold War was real. Intervention won it for us without a hot war.

Was arming Musharaf the right thing to do? Who knows at this point...Pakistani troops haven't proven overly helpful in the WOT.

We'll certainly see.
 
Most likely. It seems we have learnt nothing from supporting the Shah when he was the dictator of Iran, since we can't seem to stop supporting some of the world's worse dictators who end up eventually overthrown and replaced.
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We have a winner!!!!! It amazes me on a regular basis how stupid our foriegn alliances are sometimes.


Hindsight's 20/20...

Relationships change...between nations or individuals.
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Yeah hindsight is 20/20 and but you would think with a hundred years of history to look at someone might think to themselves hmmm.... it hasn't worked so far what makes me think it will work this time around.
 
India has a LOT more to fear from this than we do, at least for now. I don't think they want anti-tank and anti-ship missiles or F16 fighters to help us find terrorists in caves. They want those to deal with India.

By the way, when I heard that Pakistan was cooperating with us against the Taliban shortly after 9/11, I thought it was a good idea, probably the best idea at the time. I didn't really think about the fact that they might want some missiles in exchange, or the fact that cooperating with us against other Muslims would not be politically popular, making it increasingly difficult to support the dictator, who came to be seen as our puppet.

I'm now seeing the wave of backlash coming, and starting to think this was all a big mistake. Once our guy is gone, we'll have a bunch of people who don't like us and have our weapons, and we (and India) will have to deal with that situation.
 
elect someone that will actually reduce an attacker to a smoldering crater before they can hurt us. Right now I would say that is Thompson.
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There's no smoldering crater candidate from any party. Forget that. Might be a good policy, but it's not on the menu. W's probably closer to that than anybody else and he's not close enough.
 
Economist Ludwig von Mises identified three features of government intervention in the domestic economy: (1) unintended consequences, (2) negative consequences from the policymakers' standpoint, and (3) proliferation of new interventions as correctives for past interventions. The same applies in foreign policy. All foreign policies bring results not intended by those who author the policies. And some of those results are regretted by the policymakers. Further, the undesirable consequences are frequently grounds for further intervention.
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more of the same. boringly cyclical and very childish. ssshhh your not supposed to be noticing so they can just go on in folley blowing billions allowing the rich to get richer while poor are none the wiser nor more wealthy.
 
Did we arm Afghanis? Sure we did. And we watched the red horde go slinking back over the border.

Interesting what if, if that was a good thing. We helped create the Taliban from this. So what if the Soviets, soon to fall apart stayed there and we weren't part of an enterprise that soon targeted us.
 
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Pakistan borders Iran and China and the land varies from coastal areas to mountains to deserts... they need a lot of different gear.

The harpoon missiles are probably the most serious items on that list, and I have to admit I paused for a second when I saw them among the other stuff, but the Iranian navy is just begging to be "harpooned".

The Iranians have a fairly respectable navy, but I don't know that I have ever heard anything good about the Pakistani navy. I guess they need something to even the odds.

The Chinese, Indians, and Iranians all have lots of tanks, so I don't understand the uproar about the TOW missiles. They have other uses besides being used to knock-out tanks anyway. Pakistan has a fairly large army, so 2000 antitank missiles is not really that impressive of a number.
 
they need a lot of different gear.
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How did their need become the responsibility of US taxpayers?

the Iranian navy is just begging to be "harpooned".
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Iran and now Iraq are under Shia control, like Pakistan. I suspect those harpoons are to be aimed at India, not fellow Muslims. They certainly don't have many anti-terror applications.

The Chinese, Indians, and Iranians all have lots of tanks, so I don't understand the uproar about the TOW missiles.
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Well, the "uproar" in the article I posted might have to do with India wanting to keep their tanks, since it came from an Indian publication.

They have other uses besides being used to knock-out tanks anyway.
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Buying the temporary loyalty of a nuclear armed Muslim dictatorship comes to mind, but are there any anti-terror applications?
 
<strategic discussion>

India and Pakistan are long term enemies. Won't change any time soon. India and Pakistan went eyeball to eyeball in a nuclear showdown at the beginning of the Bush II administration. Somehow Powell talked them both off the ledge. Immediately thereafter the US began selling goodies to Pakistan which was previously avoided. Historically India is the militarily superior party. Pakistan is able to stand up only to India because of its big firecrackers. The US no doubt opted to sell tasers (metaphorically speaking) to Pakistan which gave the country an additional step in the continuum of force. Please note India has a fair amount of shore line.

Was it a good idea long term? Who knows. Short term it worked. When your immediate concern is stopping a nuclear confrontation you tend to discount the future.

</strategic discussion>
 
How did their need become the responsibility of US taxpayers?
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The article states that they are buying the F16s and implies that the other deals are being done under similar terms. How is the US taxpayer paying for it again?

I know we have given them some freebies as well, but they are an ally in the region. Who cares if everything has a specific "anti-terror" purpose? (whatever the hell that means). Pakistan has to be prepared for conventional conflicts just like every other nation. "If you want peace, prepare for war" and all that good stuff.

As for Iran not being a threat to Pakistan because some of their populations practice similar types of islam, that's overly simplistic and plain not right. These are tribal cultures more than religious cultures and the folks in Iran (Persian, Azeri, Gilaki and Mazandarani, Kurdish, ect...) don't have much in common with their Pakistani neighbors (Punjabi , Sindhi , Pashtun (Pathan), Baloch , Muhajir, ect...). They may be less likely to fight with each other than with the Indians, but the Pakistanis have stay vigilant against the Iranians as well. It's a cutthroat business over there and it helps to have nice weapons (and allies with nice weapons).

We are too deep into world affairs to retreat into isolationism. That sort of policy leads to world wars.
 
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