Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

These errors of American policy, which were repeated in other places, arose very largely from two factors: (1) American ignorance of local conditions which were passed over in the American animosity against Russia and China, and (2) American insistence on using military force to overcome local neutralism which the mass of Asiatic peoples wanted. The ignorance of local conditions was well shown in the American bungling in Cambodia and in Pakistan.

In Cambodia a neutralist regime was primarily concerned with maintaining its independence between its two hereditary enemies, the Thai to the west and the Vietnamese to the east. The American militarization of both Thailand and South Vietnam was used by these countries to increase pressure on Cambodia, which, in spite of its pro-Western desires, was driven to seek support for its independence from China and Russia. This opened a wedge by which Communist pressure from North Vietnam could move across Laos and southward into Cambodia, between Thailand and South Vietnam, a possibility which would never have arisen if United States aid had not been used to corrupt and to militarize the two exterior states in the trio. At the same time, North Vietnam, with a greater population than South Vietnam (16 million to 14 million in 1960), has a deficiency of food, while South Vietnam, like all the delta areas, is a zone of rice surplus and thus a shining target for North Vietnamese aggression, especially when the agricultural collapse of Communist China made any food supply from the north almost hopeless.

In the west, where Burma is also an area of rice surplus, with much of the population dependent upon the export of this commodity at a remunerative price, this factor alone was sufficient to tie Burma into the Communist bloc. The collapse of the world price of rice at the end of the Korean War left Burma with an unsellable surplus of almost two million tons. Within the next three years (1954-1957) Burma signed barter agreements with Red China and Soviet Europe by which Burma got rid of over a third of its surplus each year in return for Communist goods and technical assistance. These returns were so poor in quality, high in price, and poorly shipped and handled that Burma refused to renew the agreements in 1958.

SOUTHERN ASIA

Farther west, in southern Asia (the correctly called Middle East, extending from the Persian Gulf to Burma) American bungling also opened many opportunities for Soviet penetration which the Communists generally failed to exploit with sufficient skill to earn any significant rewards.

The American error in southern Asia can be expressed very simply the key to that area was India; the United States acted as if it were Pakistan. The reason for this was equally simple, but should have been sternly resisted, and might have been except for Dulles. India was determined to be neutral; Pakistan was willing to be an ally of the United States. Dulles tried to make Pakistan the key because he preferred any kind of ally, even a weak one, to a neutral, however strong. But the choice undermined any possible stability in the area and opened it to Soviet penetration.

From the broadest point of view the situation was this: The rivalry between the two super-Powers could be balanced and its tensions reduced only by the coming into existence of another Great Power on the land mass of Eurasia. There were three possibilities of this: a federated and prosperous western Europe, India, or China. The first was essential; one of the others was highly desirable; and possibly all three might be achievable, but in no case was it essential, or even desirable, for the new Great Power to be allied with the United States. A strong and prosperous neutral in at least two of the three positions would box in the Soviet Union and force it to seek its needs in an intensive rather than extensive expansion, and in an economic rather than a military direction. A Soviet Union which was not boxed in would expand outward extensively, and by military means as much as any others. It would seek its needs, as it had done in eastern Europe in 1945-1948, by bringing more resources, including manpower, under its control as satellite areas.

If the Soviet Union were boxed in by allies of the United States, it would feel threatened by the United States, and would seek security by more intensive exploitation of its resources in a military direction, with a natural increase in world tension. If, on the other hand, the Soviet Union were boxed in by at least two great neutral Powers, it could be kept from extensive expansion by (1) the initial strength of such great Powers and (2) the possibility that these Powers would ally with the United States if the Soviet Union put pressure on them. On the other hand, in such a situation, the Soviet Union would be likely to turn to intensive expansion within these boundaries in economic and social directions, not only from the demand within the Soviet Union but also because of its own increased feeling of security from the existence of buffer Powers between the United States and itself.

Some solution such as this had been directly seen by Marshall and Acheson in regard to China in 1948-1950 but had been destroyed by the aggressive Stalinism of Mao’s China and the errors leading to the Korean War. In the west the possibility had been destroyed by the immediacy of Soviet pressure which had shifted American emphasis from European Union to American alliance with Europe and from economic revival there to NATO. And in southern Asia the possibility had been lost by Stalin’s early pressure on Iran which led Dulles to regard Pakistan instead of India as the key to the area.

The necessity for choice between these two arose from the partition of India before independence in 1947. In India, as in Palestine and earlier in Ireland, partition before independence received a strong impetus from the Round Table Group, and in all three cases it led to horrors of violence. The cause, in all, was the same: lines which seem to divide different peoples on the map often do not do so on the ground, because peoples are intermingled with each other, there are always third or even fourth groups which belong to neither, and their positions are often marked by separation in levels in a social hierarchy rather than by separation side by side in geography.

In India’s case, the partition was a butchery rather than a surgical process. Imposed by the British, it cut off two areas in northwestern and northeastern India to form a new Muslim state of Pakistan (cutting right through the Sikhs in the process). The founders of the two states, Gandhi in India and Jinnah in Pakistan, both died in 1948, the former assassinated by a Hindu religious fanatic, so that the two new nations began under new leaders. In the postpartition confusion, minorities on the wrong side of the lines sought to flee, as refugees, to India or Pakistan, while the Sikhs sought to establish a new homeland for themselves by exterminating the Muslims in East Punjab. In a few weeks, at least 200,000 were killed and twelve million were forced to flee as refugees, in most cases with almost no possessions. An additional problem arose from the Indian princely states. Most of these joined the dominion enclosing their territory, but two acute problems arose: in Hyderabad, where a Muslim prince ruled over a Hindu majority, and in Kashmir, where a Hindu prince ruled over a Muslim majority. Hyderabad was settled when Indian troops invaded and took over the area, but Kashmir, on the border of Pakistan itself, could not be settled in such a summary fashion without precipitating war between the two dominions. Fighting broke out, but was eventually suppressed by a United Nations cease-fire team. At this writing, Kashmir still remains a cause of enmity and controversy unjoined to either state.

The death of Jinnah in 1948 left Pakistan, which was so largely his creation, in confusion. Its two sections were separated from each other by 1,100 miles of India territory, its boundaries were irrational, its economic foundations were torn to shreds by the partition, raw materials were left separated from their processing plants in India, irrigation canals separated from their reservoirs, herds separated from their pasturage, ports cut off from hinterland, and traders from their markets. Pakistan looked with yearning on Kashmir, but at the same time feared the greater size and population of India; forced by its insecurity to regard the army as the chief representation of the state, it built its unifying ideology on Islam at a time when belief in Muhammad’s teachings was dwindling everywhere. It had no recognized capital city, but began administration from Karachi, and could not agree on a constitution until February 1956. By that time Pakistan was filled with corruption and unrest. Its first Five-Year Plan for economic development was breaking down, foreign exchange was lacking, and inflation with food-hoarding threatened. The Five-Year Plan (1955-1960) failed to make any improvement in living conditions, since its disappointing 2-percent-a-year increase in production was absorbed by an increase of similar size in population. In October 1958, martial law was established and the commander in chief, General Muhammad Ayub Khan, became president and quasi-dictator as martial-law administrator.