142. Telegram From the Embassy in Pakistan to the Department of State1
65. Subject: (U) Afghanistan, Pakistan, the USSR, and the United States.
1. (C) Summary: The Soviet rape of Afghanistan during the last week of December 1979 has qualitatively changed the geo-political situation in South Asia. It has made Pakistan’s worst-case analysis come true and produced a profound sense of unease in a nation already wanting in sense of purpose and security. Differences in perceptions in South Asia, fanned by reports of outside military aid for Pakistan, may exacerbate relations between India and Pakistan as well.
2. (C) South Asia can be a fertile area through which to channel our regional response to the Soviet grab; Pakistan, in particular, needs help, and if it is perceived to be adequate, to be funded, and to be carefully orchestrated—with full consultations—such help as we may provide should be welcome here. But the regional and world situation is much more complicated than the environment in which the 1959 bilateral agreement was formulated, and we can be sure that actions meant to reassure Pakistan are in fact reassuring in Islamabad (and salutary in Kabul and Moscow) only if we consult closely, fully, and continuously with Pakistan. Beyond South Asia, the Soviet actions in Afghanistan pose a critical juncture in U.S.-Soviet relations, and it is in arenas other than South Asia that the main U.S. response should be registered. End summary.
3. (U) Background: During all of the last century of the British Raj in South Asia, a dominant theme in British geo-political policy was to make safe the Empire’s Indian realm by ensuring that at no time was a power inimical to British interests permitted to determine the destinies of the Kingdom of Kabul at the head of the best land route into South Asia from the west and north. As Czarist Russian influence filled out the vast Central Asian reaches—epitomized by sweeps of swashbuckling Cossacks—the British fought numerous small and several major campaigns in the harsh topography of Afghanistan to underline their determination. In 1880, the issues were significant enough to play a role in the return to power in England of Gladstone.
[Page 409]4. (U) The British aim was to keep Afghanistan a buffer, in the classic sense, and so it remained through the end of April 1978 when a Communist-led, armed forces-mounted coup d’état in Kabul swept aside the traditional power structure and imposed, for the first time, a government subservient to the rulers of Moscow. The buffer was gone, and the heirs to the British Raj in South Asia—Pakistan in particular, India slightly removed—reflected in varying ways their concern over its demise.
5. (C) Still there was hope that Afghan nationalism would temper the Marxism of the new Afghan rulers. The growing strength of a home-grown Afghan insurgency against the rulers of Kabul gave hope that in the short run those rulers would be too preoccupied to meddle farther afield, while in the long run they might even be replaced.
6. (U) All of that has changed with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on 25–27 December and the subsequent installation in Kabul of a puppet government whose power rests exclusively on gun barrels of Soviet armor—the latter-day Cossacks. For Afghanistan, and for the nations of South Asia generally, the Cossacks have finally arrived, and nothing will ever be the same again.
7. (C) Implications: For Pakistan, Soviet actions at end of December 1979 are a worst-case analysis come true. Much has been written, in official and academic circles, about Pakistan’s inherent sense of insecurity and inferiority. Born of a negative—a desire to carve out an area for Muslims to live their lives free of Hindu dominance—Pakistan has been dominated by the quest through the 32 years of its existence to preserve its independence through the manipulation of outside forces.
8. (C) Pakistan has successively chosen patrons in hopes of creating a constituency outside South Asia which would remain interested in and committed to Pakistan’s integrity and independence. The relationship with the U.S., dating back to 1954, had the USSR as its focus; this remains the core of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship despite the disappointments of the Pakistan side about U.S. “failure” to defend Pakistan against India. The post-1962 Pakistani relationship with China had India, the USSR, and the U.S. as its focus; it remains a shared Pak-Chinese perception vis-à-vis both India and the USSR and has weathered successfully the transformation of the U.S.-Chinese relationship from hostility to friendship.
9. (C) Later Pakistani fascination with the Islamic and non-aligned worlds reflects both a further effort to diversify support for Pakistan from beyond its borders and a distrust of a seemingly unreliable USG. Playing a role on the international Islamic stage gave Bhutto—during a period of national reconstruction following the 1971 Bangladesh debacle—an opportunity to court Arab and Persian oil money as a way of compensating for the decline in American assistance levels. The end [Page 410] of the Nehru-Nasser relationship enabled Pakistan to crack through India’s long blockage of Pakistani efforts to use its Islamic heritage to forge bonds with the Arabs.
10. (C) The decline into irrelevance, and finally collapse, of CENTO in 1979 enabled Pakistan to shed the only substantial block against its entry into the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a Third World forum valuable in Pakistan eyes, however lame (and pro-Communist) its recent deliberations in comparison with the great NAM days of the early 1960s. A determined multilateralist, with a strong anti-Western bent, Foreign Advisor Agha Shahi has given these multilateral impulses renewed vitality during the present martial law government’s 30 months at the helm, adopting for himself the international role—albeit diminished—that Bhutto had sought and expanding Pakistan’s influence in the Group of 77, the UN, the Islamic Conference, and the NAM.
11. (C) Pakistan’s role in the non-proliferation field since the explosion of an Indian device ended South Asia’s nuclear virginity in 1974 has also been an important element of its quest for security. This has featured regular promotion of a South Asia nuclear free zone—opposed by India but supported by a growing number of UN members, including the U.S. In later years, it has also included a decision to develop Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities to the threshold of a nuclear device—and consequent nuclear parity with India—as an additional pressure on India to come to terms on a nuclear-free regime for the region. This last has brought Pakistan directly into conflict with American non-proliferation objectives, straining the Pakistan-U.S. tie and depriving Pakistan of most U.S. assistance.
12. (C) Pakistani isolation and weakness: As Pakistan enters the 1980s, it feels weak, threatened, and isolated, notwithstanding its persistent efforts to enhance its security. Its patrons appear unreliable or stretched to their maximum utility. The United States seems less interested in playing a role in the region than it once did, and its energies seem sapped by a failure of consensus within, by its non-proliferation concerns, and by the Iranian distraction. The prospect of an Indira Gandhi government or alternatively continued instability in India is worrying. Whatever comfort Zia and Agha Shahi may derive from solidarity with the Iranian revolution, the Ayatollah is no substitute for a strong and friendly Shahinshah in Tehran. And to the north, the Russian bear gets nastier, more aggressive, and less restrained. In Islamabad, meanwhile, the Soviet Embassy seems bent on a new activist campaign to sow dissent and discord.
13. (C) Domestically, Pakistan’s political fabric is fragile, having once again backed away from popular elections which, without PPP participation, would doubtless have produced Janata-like instability in the classic Pakistan pattern. The country has failed to evolve a viable [Page 411] compact for the self-government of its disparate and dissimilar regions. And despite a renewed commitment by this leadership to the language and spirit of traditional Islam, it has failed to evolve a national ethic to transform the negativism of its founding impulse into a viable and enduring nationalism in positive terms.
14. (C) All of this is made worse by the knowledge that Pakistan’s Armed Forces are not what they ought to be. Weakened by obsolescence and financial constraints, haunted by a losing record on the battlefield, and distracted from its military pursuits by its direct involvement in running the country for nearly half its 32 years, the Pakistan Armed Forces have lost considerable effectiveness. They march smartly but appear increasingly afflicted with inefficiency in performing their military duties. While it would be perhaps dangerous to over-generalize, the American Mission’s experience on 21 Nov. in awaiting ‘rescue’ by a Pakistan Army whose ability to move and to communicate any more efficiently than Napoleon’s is instructive, and worrying.2
15. (C) A further complication for Pakistan in even responding to likely Western offers of assistance and support is the variegated nature of the interests Pakistan pursues abroad in search of security. Asked on 31 Dec. by a Western journalist how best the U.S. could help Pakistan in the present time, Agha Shahi unhesitatingly replied, “settle its differences with Iran.” This would uncomplicate the situation for Pakistan. On the one hand, Pakistan doubtless welcomes the possible new Western embrace events in Kabul may produce; on the other, it finds the prospect of too public an embrace embarrassing and counter to its pursuit of acceptability and support in and from other quarters and sources. Some indeed fear such an embrace will increase Soviet bellicosity.
16. (C) Pakistan’s options are limited, however, all talk of accommodation with the Soviet Union notwithstanding. Only the United States, and to a lesser degree, China can provide the hardware Pakistan needs and the international support it yearns for at the present time. But the conservative Islamics—especially the staunchly anti-Communist Saudis—can provide Islamic legitimacy and the bankroll to fund the military purchases and the development projects Pakistan so desperately needs.
17. (C) The heart of Pakistan’s problem of insecurity, however, lies deep at home, not abroad. Thoughtful Pakistanis, even in the immediate wake of Soviet actions in Kabul, do not really expect Soviet armored columns to proceed through the Torkham and Chaman checkpoints, down the Khyber and Bolan Passes and onto the Indus Plain. However, [Page 412] the presence of these latter-day Cossacks in Kabul, the ruthless determination with which they were deployed to topple a government, and the expectation that they will in fact fan out through the country, are a source of unease whose full impact has yet to be felt on Pakistan’s internal divisions and unresolved domestic pressures. It will haunt the leadership, and it will dominate public attention, forcing much of Pakistan’s international and policy focus through a one-issue prism.
18. (C) Sense of purpose: Pakistanis as a whole do not have much faith in their nation or in its rulers. They routinely assume that Pakistan has little control over its destiny as a nation, and there is wide-spread acceptance that everything that happens in Pakistan is the result of maneuvers by forces engaged in a larger game outside the country. They are prepared to credit or blame the United States for almost every development, from the rise of the Islamic Jamaat-i-Islami to the fall of Bhutto and the postponement of elections. Some of this is standard Third World fare, a legacy of anti-Western independence movements in which all flaws were blamed on the former ruling power; independence in this case simply removed the former ruler and replaced his pressures with diversified pressures associated with regional intrigue or super power politics. Some of it is simply a mirror of a South Asian Islamic sense of insecurity in a hostile Hindu world. Some of it is obviously a flight from responsibility, a “cop-out.” But a large part of it simply reflects Pakistan’s pre-occupation with the search for outside support and a tacit acknowledgement—correctly—that Pakistan cannot go it alone.
19. (C) U.S. response: In our response to the events in Afghanistan, we need to be aware of the limits of the Pakistan ability to stand up to the Soviet threat and even to accept our offers of support. The reserved Pakistani response to our public reaffirmation of the 1959 bilateral agreement and the public hints—unconfirmed by any official notifications or consultations—that we are prepared to do things in the arms aid area which would assist Pakistan is illustrative. Most editorials in the government and the independent press have come out against acceptance of “unreliable” U.S. military aid, counselling a cautious approach to any embrace of the USG, and principal reliance on multilateral organizations including the Non-Aligned Movement and the Islamic groupings. GOP response thus far has been cautious—and skeptical. Pakistan is not the same place it was in 1959, when it would have welcomed warmly such public posturing by the U.S. In 1980, such USG pronouncements, without the benefit of full consultations with the Pakistanis, mis-judge this Pakistani sensitivity as well as the new situation in the region.
20. (C) Pakistan is, of course, a useful channel through which to demonstrate our concern for the situation in the region and our [Page 413] determination to stand with our friends, but our actions must be substantive—they must go beyond what we might have been willing to do in 1978 or earlier in 1979. Moreover, they must be the result not of unilateral U.S. decisions, broadcast to the world, but rather of close consultation with the Pakistanis. The 1959 bilateral rests on a shared perception of the threat from the USSR, which continues. But we and Pakistan have drifted far apart on our perceptions of other aspects of the world situation, notably (but not exclusively) the Iran situation, nuclear non-proliferation, etc. U.S. actions aimed at reassuring Pakistan can achieve this purpose only if they are perceived to be reassuring in both Islamabad and Washington. They are not apt to be reassuring if they cause alarm in Pakistan or create false expectations here and false fears in India. Confidence in our efforts to reassure can be guaranteed only by close and meaningful and continuous consultations, if not by special emissaries, then by quiet diplomatic exchange.
21. (C) Pakistan and U.S.: As for steps remaining to be done, the agenda is potentially rich.
—We have already reaffirmed the applicability of the 1959 bilateral in public; we need to do it formally, either by diplomatic note or, better, by inclusion of this subject in a letter from President Carter.3 We need quickly to engage in substantive discussions with the GOP on GOP needs, and I would add, we must be prepared to go much further than we have so far indicated if our will is not to be challenged and our aid discounted. Cash sales do not aid make. What we have said in public thus far has confused, rather than clarified, and it raises the prospect of our being wrongly blamed for one thing in Islamabad and for the reverse in New Delhi—to no one’s advantage except Moscow’s.
—We probably need to consider GOP appeals to support the Afghan exiles in their continued fight against the Soviet-backed Government of Afghanistan. We should be mindful, however, that the exile community in Pakistan increasingly represents little more than itself and controls or is involved in activities only along the border. They have little relationship with or responsibility for the success of anti-regime insurgents operating deep inside Afghanistan. Aid to refugees—now nearing 400,000—is another matter.
—We need also to consider the whole of our support relationship with Pakistan, not just arms sales, however dramatic, symbolic, and relevant they may be. Our focus should be on arms and the means to pay for them, on economic assistance and debt rescheduling, as well as on P.L.–480 and other non-FAA disbursements. And we should not under-estimate the value of political support through consultations [Page 414] and agreed gestures. But we should, more importantly, look beyond the region to the U.S.-Soviet relationship which it seems to me is brought into a critical juncture by the Soviet rape of Afghanistan and should be the principal forum in which the American reaction should be played out.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800009–0322. Confidential; Immediate; Limdis. Sent for information to Colombo, Dacca, Kathmandu, Karachi, Lahore, New Delhi, Moscow, Beijing, London, USNATO, and Kabul.↩
- See footnote 10, Document 102.↩
- The proposed letter is Document 159.↩