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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat does the U S get from its alliance with Pakistan?
I'm not a huge fan of Modi but India has a genuine democratic tradition and is a much larger hedge against China than Pakistan. And let's not forget they let OBL hide there while we went on wild goose chases looking for him
dalton99a
(81,376 posts)They also transferred nuclear technology to North Korea
applegrove
(118,456 posts)Ponietz
(2,934 posts)As it is, chances of a stolen or misplaced nuke crossing the Pakistan-Iran border in our lifetimes have to be better than even.
elleng
(130,699 posts)Sneederbunk
(14,275 posts)RockRaven
(14,883 posts)Supposedly it's a realpolitik thing, or was once upon a time, but there's also inertia. The risk-averse move is to not change things because whatever happens next gets blamed on whoever made the change.
Gaugamela
(2,494 posts)See Sibel Edmonds, and here.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/pakistanprofile
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fbi-whistleblower-hastert_b_277704
In a nutshell, certain Americans and Turkish citizens were apparently involved in a nuclear arms racket. Edmonds, working as an interpreter after the 9/11 attack, uncovered this. She was gagged by Ashcroft. After testifying in a closed hearing, Sen. Grassley stated that her testimony was corroborated by what they already knew, and deeply disturbing. Basically, were trying to keep certain members of our own government and intelligence community from selling nuclear weapons secrets on the black market to Islamic extremists.
At least, thats my take.
crickets
(25,949 posts)Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Pakistan is more likely to take direction from the US than India. Truman respected this fact, so much that he went to the airport to greet Nehru. The Dulles brothers demanded that India accept American military on their land and they only buy weapons from the US.
For that reason, Pakistan is in the sphere of US influence.
Pity Stevenson didn't win instead.
LeftInTX
(25,083 posts)India did not....
India by the way is a "socialist" country...It's in their constitution.
They were close allies with the Soviet Union.
I think the relationship is outdated...
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,708 posts)There have been lots of socialist democracies in NATO or more precisely countries that had socialist and democratic governments while in NATO.
LeftInTX
(25,083 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 16, 2021, 11:53 AM - Edit history (1)
As you know India and Pakistan are "new" countries, founded in 1947. Poverty has been an issue in India. Indira Gandhi came up with these programs to eradicate poverty, including putting the word "socialist" in their constitution. She had great ideas, but it didn't really work. Her father Jawaharlal Nehru, was also left leaning. India in practice is capitalist. Their social programs tend to be poorly funded and overpopulation remains an issue. As matter of fact, some rural parts of India are still a bit feudal.....
Nehru was a contemporary of Mohandas Gandhi, who also was left leaning. Nehru was founder of the Congress Party, which is the left leaning political party in India. Congress advocated for one India as opposed to two nations. They did not support a religious state for Moslems. Congress Party has not been relevant for awhile and now Modi's conservative BJU Party now dominates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawaharlal_Nehru
Indira's grandson is active in Indian politics, but he struggles for relevancy. If Congress Party wins elections again, he will probably be the prime minister....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahul_Gandhi, but right now Congress Party isn't doing too well.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Moslem...during the time leading up to the British leaving, he founded another party: All-India Muslim League. Jinnah supported a two state solution, The Moslems were also a bit more loyal to the British crown. They were more eager to serve in the British military....Jinnah would get his two states and become the first prime minister of Pakistan...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_Jinnah
The name "Pakistan" is a interesting:
The name Pakistan means literally "a land abounding in the pure" or "a land in which the pure abound", in Urdu and Persian. It references the word پاک (pāk), meaning "pure" in Persian and Pashto.[23] The suffix ـستان (transliterated in English as stân after stem word ending in a vowel; estân or istân after a stem ending in a consonant) is from Persian, and means "a place abounding in"[24] or "a place where anything abounds".[25]
The name of the country was coined in 1933 by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, a Pakistan Movement activist, who published it in a pamphlet Now or Never, using it as an acronym ("thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKISTAN" , and referring to the names of the five northern regions of the British Raj: Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan.[26]
Israel started out as a socialist movement...and we know how that turned out....
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,708 posts)It technically means government ownership of the means of production. Fitting a nation into that narrow definition is challenging. Without researching how much government ownership of major industries there is in Sweden I would say it's a very wealthy, small, and homogeneous country with a very generous welfare state. It's not really a model for us or India.
LeftInTX
(25,083 posts)It's more socialist like Israel is "socialist"...
Israel started out as a socialist movement....(I don't know anything about Israel's constitution)
roamer65
(36,744 posts)PM Imran Khan has placed them firmly under the Sino-Russian sphere of influence.
LeftInTX
(25,083 posts)I really don't know much about Pakistan politics, except that their leaders pay lip service to the US, but then they allow the underbelly to take over..
roamer65
(36,744 posts)From a Pakistani friend of mine that is his opinion of him.
JI7
(89,237 posts)and Pakistan is also one of the reasons Biden saw our being in Afghanistan as not getting anywhere because militants were always able to find refuge in Pakistan .
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)nations can bring to these nuclear powers engaged in constant religion-based hostilities is good. It's not just the billions in that part of the world. Even a small nuclear war would adversely affect the entire planet.
haele
(12,635 posts)Both India and Pakistan are tribal-religious nuclear nations. And they have had it in for each other for centuries. I remember when Bangladesh was originally East Pakistan due to the Raj.
Kashmir is the current geographic proxy for conflict.
However, as Pakistan has been sliding into Islamic Emerate (what an euphemism for radical islami-evangelicalism) status for a couple decades now, I don't know how much US can influence them. It used to be "soft power" -education and economics- which helped tribal areas, but the GOP has decided that MIC and government corruption was the way to go since Reagan, Russia and China are taking our place.
India is going to be in a tight place pretty soon, especially since Russia and China don't care about the stability of Pakistan insofar as they can make money and bulldoze villages and farmland for their own infrastructure projects.
Kashmir is a crossroads area between mountains and river transport. China is especially interested in controlling that region.
Haele
lindysalsagal
(20,560 posts)We need to try to work with enemies. That's called statehood.