Further moves to resolve the Kashmir issue will remain on the back-burner for some more time. However, the Pakistani generals may not be averse to discussing additional confidence-building measures in the military field and it would be in India’s interest to agree to do so. As the spectre of a Taliban backlash is gradually receding in Pakistan, the army can be expected to persist with its policy of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds in Afghanistan in covert aid of the Taliban militia. India must continue its efforts to build international consensus for an amicable resolution of that war-torn country’s nightmarish problems.

The clearest lesson to emerge from the civil-military imbroglio in Pakistan is that, as long as the Pakistani armed forces remain far more powerful than the country’s legitimate security considerations warrant, repeated military coups will continue to haunt Pakistan’s fledgling democracy. Premier think-tanks in the West, like the Council for Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, which have consistently but rather naïvely been supporting the Pakistan army, ostensibly in order to strengthen democracy, need to re-assess their warped analyses.

Pakistan is now recognised as the mother nation for spreading extremism through state sponsorship. Concerted international efforts must be made, in the interest of Pakistani democracy and regional stability, to ensure that the army cannot further build itself into an even more powerful force. India must influence the West to refrain from conducting business as usual with the Pakistan military and from encouraging it in any manner, despite the so-called global war on terrorism.

... contd.