Skewed prediction about S Asia’s future

One does not need to endorse US intelligence’s assessment concerning Pakistan or the South Asian region in general. However, it is still important to note that these assessments and issues they identify as being of import, and how particular issues are portrayed, are indicative of how external players view ongoing developments in our part of the world.

The Global Trends report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) is one relevant document to pay attention to. Although unclassified, published every four years, the document provides long-term strategic analysis input to a newly-elected US president, and intelligence input to a broader policy communities and security experts. The latest version of this report published last year included regional annexures, including one focused on discussing emerging trends in South Asia.

Broader factors considered of most relevance to the region include the planned drawdown of international forces in Afghanistan, the deepening US-India relationship, and China’s OBOR initiative. The assessment also highlights the lingering terrorist threat within the region, which combined with the ongoing rivalry between India and Pakistan, will remain an issue of foreseeable concern.

The discussion surrounding emerging trends vis-à-vis India and Pakistan is however problematic. The NIC acknowledgement that the BJP is increasingly leading the Indian government to incorporate Hindutva into policy, may spark increased communal tensions in India, and further complicate relations with Pakistan and Bangladesh. However, this realisation does not seem to deter the NIC’s prediction that the US and India will grow closer than ever in their history.

Moreover, India’s rising power is also considered important to boost regional trade and infrastructure investment in Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The fact that India has often acted like a hegemon with its neighbours, is not given much heed. Yet, the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka, Hindu militancy in Nepal and Bengali migrants provoking restiveness in Assam still complicate India’s relations with its other neighbours too and not just Pakistan. The longstanding problems in Kashmir, or the Naxalite challenge which is being exacerbated by the lopsided Indian development policies, did not receive much attention either.

Conversely, the NIC assessment is more alert to the multiple internal security threats facing Pakistan. Combined with sectarian divisions, terrorism, identity politics, mounting environmental concerns, weak health systems, gender inequality, and demographic pressures, the unfolding situation in Pakistan seems rather disconcerting. The assessment does not seem much confident in Pakistan’s ability to curtail militancy, even though this problem is not considered an existential threat. Although the NIC’s assessment of Pakistan does not reflect on the ever-hardening US stance towards Pakistan, it does note that the country is now trying to maintain a diverse set of foreign partnerships, to obtain economic and security assistance from.

The NIC’s assessment becomes more balanced when it goes beyond its own strategic biases within the region. It notes, for example, the continued reliance on coal is an issue of concern, as over a dozen of the world’s most polluted cities and some of the world’s largest slums are found in this region only. It rightly emphasises the need for education and jobs for the large youth populations across the region. Otherwise, inadequate allocation of resources, coupled with social discrimination, can cause major social instability across the region. Then, there is of course the added threat of climate change, including flooding, droughts and the challenge of sharing the region’s threatened waterways.

It would have been good to see the Global Trends assessment for South Asia transcend its own geostrategic biases while deliberating potential future trends. Such impartially remains a prerequisite for identifying more collaborative possibilities and regional integration, which is vital not only for economic uplift, but also managing climate threats, by more sagacious management of the interlinked river systems of the Ganges, the Indus and the Brahmaputra.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2018.

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