 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We are joined today with Atul Bharadwaj and we are going to discuss Secretary of State Tillerson's visit to the region, Pakistan as well as India. Atul, you must be following Tillerson's visit. He has said various things and various fora. We do not know what Trump and Tillerson seems to think, whether there is even a consistency in what they say. Regarding Pakistan, are they again lovey-dovey with Pakistan after having threatened it earlier? Trump had given various threats. Now they are saying they are in love with Pakistan. Do you see a change in policy or do you think this always been hot and cold has been always a US policy with regard to Pakistan? But the underlying issue is Afghanistan and they cannot break with Pakistan. The Americans have established themselves in Pakistan. They have deep roots in Pakistan. They control their elite, both their military as well as the civilian elite is controlled by America in many ways. So that relationship would not break. They may change the nature of the relationship because they need India more than Pakistan. Because their geopolitical imperatives are directed towards Asia Pacific now. So in that respect, they see India as a pivot. The kind of relationship that they developed with Pakistan immediately after the world war, they are now developing with India. So India is actually playing, is becoming America's Pakistan. So that the major thrust of the relationship is defense in this particular case also. With Pakistan, the relationship was largely defense oriented. They did not do anything to alleviate poverty in Pakistan. Poverty in Pakistan. I'll just make one correction. It's strong to call it defense. It's really offensive. Yes. As for the US is concerned, it was really offensive. It is offensive. They used Pakistan as a proxy to balance India. Whenever they wanted to extract something from India, they would use Pakistan and they did use Pakistan in that respect. And also in West Asia, also against Russia, at the time China was thought to be an ally of Russia and therefore it was also part of the largest Seattle, Cento, NATO ring of alliance. Yes, but the Pakistan was basically used for that particular purpose. Their entire political structure was handed over to the military to serve the American imperial interests both in West Asia and otherwise. So we saw how in Afghanistan, there was a collaboration between the US and Pakistan in creating Taliban. So now similar things they've done in Syria. So this kind of an arrangement has been going on with Pakistan for a long time. But now their orientation has changed. Changed to India and because of the pivot towards Asia Pacific, as you said, and primarily because China is a new competition. So that's where it is really headed. But at the same time, they are in Afghanistan. Trump has said he'll continue to be in Afghanistan. They have decided to relaunch Phoenix 2 version, which is hunt and kill court and court terrorists, which is what Phoenix 1 was, you remember, against the Vietnamese communists. And that was where it came from. It's a very similar blueprint. Now they've unfolded for Afghanistan. And the important part of that is that if you want to stay in Afghanistan without Pakistan support, it's going to be difficult for them. Now they don't really have good relations with Russia. Therefore, to get support from Russia on the other side is going to be difficult. Those Central Asian republics are there. But there is really not an easy supply line to run in that direction. And also Iran is their other mortal enemy at the moment. So given that, it seems that if they want to stay in Afghanistan, they require the Pakistan military, Haqqani network noises aside. That still is something that they have to do. Again, as it was earlier, the U.S. concern is basically to fragment the Eurasian land mass. And Iran is an important hub there. So if you actually see what they're doing by staying in, killing a few terrorists doesn't matter to them. They may launch Phoenix 2. They're basically, it's largely because war has become a habit with them. So rather than using war for a geopolitical purposes here, they're just doing it because out of fun, because it is game for them. But the larger geopolitical issue is that they want this Eurasian land mass to be fragmented. Now in that respect, Iran becomes important. Their involvement in Balochistan becomes important at the moment. Now this is the other part of the question that I wanted to come back to, which is that India seems to believe that if it can downgrade Pakistan in American views, it's won a diplomatic victory and the geo-strategic victory over Pakistan. Now the reality is the U.S. would like to still keep, as you said, Pakistan in one pocket and therefore the view that somehow they will ostracize Pakistan and only come with us doesn't seem to be happening. So that would you consider that that is unlikely to happen? And Tillerson would like India and Pakistan both to help the U.S. case in Afghanistan, rather than go with one against the other. Policy, if you see, let's go back to 62 war and just prior to 62 war in early 60s, and in 59-60s, the time when Milka Singh was being felicitated in Pakistan and other things, a similar policy was adopted. The whole lot who were actually pushing India towards war with China were at the same time also asking India to be friendly with Pakistan. So that time there was a movement that India and Pakistan should be together to counter China and that was Pakistan was largely being guided by American considerations in pushing for this friendship and there were a lot of Indians who were pushing for this friendship at that particular time. So that could happen again. No, that's correct. But looking at it today, China is too deeply economically involved in Pakistan for Pakistan to walk away from China and join the U.S. bandwagon against China. At the same time, all the economic gaming that Americans have done, they're very clear that China's economic ascendancy in the world cannot be stopped and therefore this is in some sense a more defensive barrier they're trying to create to contain China. This is more a containment of China policy in the 50s. It could have been an offensive policy to actually do a regime change in China. Economically today, Pakistan is very clear that the Chinese economy is much bigger and it provides a much more support than the American economy. Pakistan may not do a direct action against China but what it can do is it can quieten vis-à-vis India and that's what the American can help achieve. You know, that one front is quiet and India can probably concentrate more on its eastern front. So what you're saying is if Pakistan goes down in its rhetoric and at the same time India has also reduced its rhetoric because as you know, it's at this point India needs Pakistan as an enemy, not for external reasons but for internal reasons so that it can vilify every person who opposes the current government as an agent of Pakistan. So this is the current hypernationalist agenda being pursued internally. So therefore it is not in this government's interest to reduce rhetoric against Pakistan. So this government at the moment will not reduce the rhetoric against Pakistan but gradually you've seen this you know when in during the Dokalam crisis which happened there was nothing happening on the Pakistan front at that time. So the Pakistan front was absolutely quiet at that time. So what is being done is like there are the Americans, the RAND Corporation which has come out with a study and which says that India is going to be the infant terrible in the SCO, the Shanghai Corporation organization and it's going to give hard time to China. So they think that with both India and Pakistan there, China is going to now there is a countervailing power within the Shanghai Corporation organization, SCO. So these people are, so these games are being played you know at all those levels. Their primary focus now is not West Asia, their primary focus is Asia Pacific and China as you rightly said. They want to counter, China the counter because China is now moving into the next stage of creating petrol yuan. Dollar is being challenged. Dollar is being and that's the next step that Xi Jinping is going to take and there's going to be tremendous amount of external pressure on him because of this is that he's going to take this next step of a frontal attack on dollar. Let's discuss it some again on another day. Thank you very much for being with us and looking at Tillerson Visit that it is not an either or game that the United States is trying to play but it would like to balance both sides and have both Pakistan, India in its pocket. So that's the message that Tillerson comes with what this government will do or not do we have to see. At the moment they seem to be playing the American line vis-a-vis China but with Pakistan they still have they would like to raise the rhetoric for maybe other reasons as well. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. 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