Regional Studies. please note: For permission to reprint this chapter, Bangladesh and Pakistan: From Secession to Convergence?

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1 Edited by Ashley J. Tellis and Michael Wills Regional Studies Bangladesh and Pakistan: From Secession to Convergence? Frédéric Grare please note: For permission to reprint this chapter, please contact To purchase the print volume Strategic Asia : Domestic Political Change and Grand Strategy in which this chapter appears please visit < or contact 1215 Fourth Avenue, Suite 1600 Seattle, Washington USA

2 executive summary This chapter analyzes the evolution of Bangladeshi and Pakistani domestic politics and the potential impact on their respective security, the security of India, and U.S. regional policy. main argument: Both Bangladesh and Pakistan are experiencing a weakening of their political parties, a growing assertiveness of their respective armies, an erosion of democracy, and a strengthening of Islamist organizations. Islamist organizations still depend on the army s goodwill in Pakistan but have emerged as kingmakers in Bangladesh, fulfilling the social role the state left empty. Both countries are at risk of becoming hubs of international terrorism as a result of increased political violence and Islamist militancy. Regionally, rapprochement between these two countries would be detrimental to India and beneficial to China, since Beijing could neutralize New Delhi through a series of bilateral alliances with countries on India s periphery. policy implications: If complacency or complicity of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani elites continues, both countries risk allowing a tiny minority those identifying political Islam as their primary political identity to ultimately determine both the bilateral relationship and the stability of the region. Even a low level of hostility between India and Bangladesh arising from Islamic activism on the border would likely strengthen relations between Dhaka and Beijing. China would benefit from an even more complete series of alliances in India s immediate neighborhood, de facto neutralizing New Delhi. Long-term U.S. interests would be better served by a genuine democratization process in both Pakistan and Bangladesh. Unless current U.S. policy toward Pakistan changes, Islamabad s increasing leverage will make it more difficult for the U.S. to apply pressures with regard to specific issues such as terrorism.

3 South Asia Bangladesh and Pakistan: From Secession to Convergence? Frédéric Grare Bangladesh and Pakistan are in turmoil. Although for different reasons, both countries are experiencing a weakening of their political parties, a growing assertiveness of their armies, and an erosion of democracy. As a result, Islamist organizations are growing more powerful in both countries. Islamist organizations still depend on the army s goodwill in Pakistan. In Bangladesh, however, Islamist organizations have emerged as kingmakers, fulfilling the social role the state left empty. Political violence has increased and Islamist militancy is on the rise in both countries. Partly as a reaction, phenomena such as ethnic nationalism have reappeared in Pakistan. As a result, Bangladesh and Pakistan could become hubs of international terrorism. In Bangladesh, corrupt and inefficient political practices have created a political vacuum that has been filled by Islamist parties that have used the polarization of the system to impose themselves as kingmakers. In Pakistan, the army has manipulated Islamist parties as a means to pressure the more mainstream political parties. This manipulation is also designed to influence Pakistan s foreign policy, both at the regional level (particularly toward Afghanistan and Kashmir) and at the global level (particularly using cooperation on the war on terrorism to leverage relations with the United States and Europe). Moreover, the risk remains that the Pakistani army may partially lose control of some of the extremist organizations it still supports. Finally joint activism of Bangladeshi and Pakistani Islamist organizations on the Bangladesh-India border could make them the vector of a new rapprochement between Dhaka and Islamabad. Frédéric Grare is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He can be reached at <fgrare@carnegieendowment.org>.

4 212 Strategic Asia This chapter analyzes how changes in Bangladesh s and Pakistan s domestic politics have influenced their respective foreign policies. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section analyzes Pakistan s and Bangladesh s grand strategies, describes their respective relations with India, and examines the consequences for each country s domestic politics. The second section examines the self-destructive tendencies apparent through the evolution of both countries political systems and the role of their armies; a main focus of this section is on the use of Islamist organizations by other political forces and the resulting consequences for the nature of political violence. Finally, the third section assesses the impacts of these evolutions on the national and regional security of the main South Asian actors, including India, and resulting implications for U.S. policy. Bangladesh s and Pakistan s Grand Strategies and Drivers of Political Change Bangladesh s and Pakistan s grand strategies have several common characteristics but also major differences. For both countries, India is the key focal point. India s aspiration for regional leadership fueled by the country s size, population, industrial and technological advancement, military power, and defense production is viewed with suspicion by Dhaka and Islamabad. Both countries share an interest in preventing India from becoming too dominant (an outcome neither country is in a position to significantly influence) or, at the very least, from dictating terms to its smaller neighbors. Although their respective relations with New Delhi are very different, both Bangladesh and Pakistan must seek out regional partners and allies to compensate for the asymmetry of power vis-à-vis India. Because Bangladesh owes its existence to the Indian intervention of 1971, Dhaka does not perceive India as an existential threat. Although Bangladesh needs to balance the power of its giant neighbor, Dhaka has not developed the same degree of aggressiveness toward New Delhi as Pakistan has. By contrast, the Pakistani leadership particularly the military is averse to a dominant India. Deeply resentful of India s role in the secession of East Pakistan, Pakistan still sees evidence that India has not yet accepted the partition of the subcontinent. In terms of geography Bangladesh is nearly surrounded by India, except for an outlet through the Bay of Bengal in the south and a common border with Myanmar in the east. While good relations with India are thus imperative, Bangladesh must balance India s superior power by maintaining equally good relations with China and, despite painful memories, with

5 Grare South Asia 213 Pakistan. Overwhelmingly Muslim, Bangladesh enjoys good relations with the Muslim world. Going far beyond religious ties and cultural affinities, this Muslim inclination is a vital component of the country s integration within its regional environment, including Southeast Asia. This Muslim identity also helps Bangladesh overcome some of the geopolitical constraints already mentioned and guarantees continuous assistance from rich Muslim countries. With one of the highest population densities in the world, Bangladesh lacks land and natural resources, making economic development a domestic security imperative. The need for large-scale economic assistance is therefore a component of the Bangladesh s grand strategy and a driver of the country s foreign policy. Consequently, nonalignment has long been the only strategy that would allow Bangladesh to reconcile the country s security imperatives with the need for economic development. 1 Pakistan faces a security dilemma similar to that of Bangladesh. From the time of its formation in 1947, Pakistan was deeply divided. Early on, the Pakistani leadership played up the notion of the Indian threat, hoping to use this as a powerful unifying factor that even Islam had been unable to provide. India soon seized the opportunity to exploit Pakistan s ethnic divisions, which were exacerbated by the dominance of the Punjabi in the Pakistani army and state bureaucracy. India not only used the Pushtunistan issue to put pressure on Pakistan in the late 1950s and during the 1960s by establishing an initially informal and later, after 1965, formal alliance with Afghanistan but also played a crucial role in securing Bangladesh s independence by providing military intervention in The latter therefore underscores the essentially domestic character of Pakistan s vulnerabilities, in particular its ethnic divisions, which neither the systematic development of a popular perception of an Indian threat nor later policies of Islamization were ever able to fully balance. This initial dilemma remained unchanged after The partitioning of Pakistan forced the leadership to develop somewhat problematic and artificial Middle Eastern and Central Asian identities. This development exposed the country to the additional hazards of these two regions security problems, in the process drawing the inner divisions of the Muslim world into Pakistan. Sectarian movements and jihadist organizations became 1 Dilara Choudhrury, Bangladesh Foreign Policy Outlook: Regional and International Setting, in South Asia and the World, ed. Emajuddin Ahamed and Abul Kalam (Dhaka: Academic Publishers, 1992), The Pushtunistan issue concerns the dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the border and political status of territory in western Pakistan that is home to large Pushtun populations. Following Pakistan s independence in 1947 Afghanistan has refused to recognize the boundary established by the British colonial government, known as the Durand Line.