Abstract
In this chapter, Ebert and Blarel examine the drivers of Pakistan’s failed efforts to contest rising India since overt nuclearization of both rivals in 1998. They apply the perspective of Maoz and Mor’s evolutionary approach to rivalry maintenance to demonstrate how the secondary regional power’s dissatisfaction, perceived symmetry, and dysfunctional learning have contributed to the persistence of contestation. The model reveals how the cognitive denial of failure to achieve revisionist goals, tied to a bounded rationality within the military institution, the political benefits of warmongering, and the possession of nuclear weapons have driven Pakistan’s contestation of India’s regional dominance.
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Notes
- 1.
See Ganguly’s chapter on India’s regional leadership in this volume.
- 2.
See Jones et al. (1996, 163) for a definition of militarized interstate disputes. Dispute-density approaches most critically argue that even the resolution of key disputed issues, international court decisions, peace agreements, and other indicators of possible rapprochement have in many cases not correlated with the absence of militarized disputes, thus disqualifying perception-based measures as indicators of rivalry maintenance (Bennett 1997).
- 3.
For an overview, see Thompson (2015).
- 4.
In another, more recent study, Maoz explained the recurrent initiation of conflict in rivalries with reference to what he calls the “can” and the “must” syndromes, with the former representing the perception of armed conflict as an effective and efficient policy instrument, and the latter the conviction of the dissatisfied state that violent conflict constitutes the only option to secure itself in the face of a threatening environment (Maoz 2009).
- 5.
For alternative overviews of the South Asian capability distributions, see Tellis (1997, 12–34), who focuses on the ability of both rivals to achieve rapid and decisive victory in war.
- 6.
Figures 9.1 and 9.2 draw on the CINC database version 4.0, see COW (2015). Data is available until 2007. Membership of the region is based on membership in the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation as of 2007. For the theoretical underpinning of the database, see Singer et al. (1972). The CINC is a composite index merging six variables associated with national capabilities: nominal total population, nominal urban population, the number of military personnel, military expenditures, national primary energy consumption, and national iron and steel production. The CINC authors understand “power” as “the ability of a nation to exercise and resist influence,” recognizing that this is a “function of many factors, among them the nation’s material capabilities. Power and material capabilities are not identical; but given their association it is essential that we try to define the latter in operational terms so as to understand the former” (COW 2010, 3). The composite index understands demographic, industrial, and military indicators as “the most effective measures of a nation’s material capabilities,” which “reflect the breadth and depth of the resources that a nation could bring to bear in instances of militarized disputes” (COW 2010, 6). Thus, the indicator emphasizes the resources available to a state in a time of militarized interstate conflict, and the capabilities that allow states to influence other states within an industrialized system. It is commonly used to determine system polarity (Lemke 2010, 37). While the CINC entails only a narrow scope of power resources, several authors point to interlinkages between various sources of power. For example, Lemke argues that the strong correlations between the CINC and measures such as GDP justify forgoing the latter (ibid.). For a recent comprehensive overview of the concept of asymmetry in IR, see Womack (2015).
- 7.
- 8.
India’s GDP (at constant 2005 USD market prices) grew from USD 354 billion in 1991 to USD 1.6 trillion in 2014 (World Bank 2016). Annual economic growth averaged 6.6 percent between 1991 and 2014, showing between 2004 and 2014 the highest decennial growth rates since independence. India’s economy gradually integrated into the global economy, with its trade-to-GDP ratio increasing from 16.7 percent in 1991 to 48.7 percent in 2014, complemented by growing foreign direct investments and foreign remittances. Total revenue collection (direct and indirect taxes, excluding grants) increased tenfold between 1991 and 2012, allowing Delhi to increase military expenditure from USD 19 billion in 1991 to USD 50 billion in 2014.
- 9.
On the opportunity costs of the conflict with India, see Nawaz and Guruswamy (2014).
- 10.
The former advantage, however, only persists as long as Pakistan does not have to commit substantial forces in the region bordering Afghanistan.
- 11.
This trend has further substantiated Indian concerns about growing Chinese–Pakistani relations. In his recent assessment of these relations, former National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon (2016) concluded that “much of what we have seen in the strengthened China–Pakistan alignment in the last decade is a reaction to the rise of India.”
- 12.
The India–Pakistan rivalry thus constitutes what rivalry scholars call a “complex rivalry”: a “group of at least three states whose relationships are linked by common issues, alignments, or dispute joiner dynamics in which there is a threat of militarized conflict and includes persistent long-term interactions and collective animosities” (Valeriano and Powers 2016, 552). India has been locked in a rivalry with China since the Sino-Indian war in 1962, and Pakistan has engaged in a rivalry with Afghanistan since its independence in 1947. Thus, both countries’ most pivotal bilateral relations are placed in a rivalry context. Notably, complex rivalries engage more often in war, including in a disproportionately high number of major power wars, and compete predominantly over positional disputes, which makes them particularly relevant for the study of contestation (ibid.).
- 13.
For a detailed analysis of the evolution of contestation in South Asia, see Blarel and Ebert (2015).
- 14.
In this time period, only the rivalries between China and Japan and Israel and Egypt experienced more frequent and more severe high-level disputes (Diehl et al. 2005).
- 15.
This corresponds with the finding that rivalries including territorial disputes are “the most persistent and least likely to terminate swiftly” (Goertz and Diehl 2000, 251).
- 16.
The 1971 war was “a mixed instance where both the challenger and defender took military initiatives. Although India took the initiative in supporting the secession of East Pakistan, it was Pakistan that opened the conflict on the Western front” (Paul 2006, 616).
- 17.
Saran noted that Modi and his two predecessors were aware of these effects of heightened tensions with Pakistan.
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Ebert, H., Blarel, N. (2018). Power, Territory, and Learning: Explaining Pakistan’s Persistent Contestation. In: Ebert, H., Flemes, D. (eds) Regional Powers and Contested Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73691-4_9
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