 Good afternoon. We're going to begin and others may join us. My name is George Perkovich. I'm a vice president for studies here at the Carnegie Endowment, a longtime South Asia security wallet. It's a real pleasure to welcome you here and particularly for this occasion. As you know we're going to have Ashley tell us present on his new paper our India Pakistan peace talks worth a damn Ashley doesn't need an introduction but he's the Tata chair for strategic affairs here at Carnegie prolific author as many of you know and and he's written this paper which I hope everyone will read it's the kind of thing that people like to comment upon but often not read before they comment upon so I want to encourage you in the Carnegie tradition to actually to read the work. Ashley's going to do a you know a synopsis of the paper and then Alyssa Ayres will be the first commentator. Alyssa is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations for India Pakistan and South Asia. Her work focuses mostly on India's role in the world and US relations with South Asia. She has a book coming out January 2nd India's role on the world stage which I also urge all of you to read and then comment upon and we're all looking forward to that. She will be followed by Roger Mohan who is the director of Carnegie India prolific columnist with Indian Express author of many books on largely on security issues in South Asia and India's role in the world and then I will comment third and I already introduced myself so I will get out of the way at this point. I will urge people to turn off their phones or put them on airplane mode whatever it does that makes them not ring and disrupt the meeting and let me now invite Ashley to come up and get us on the way. Thanks a lot. Well thank you George for hosting this event and for agreeing to preside on it and thank you to both my colleagues Alyssa and Roger for offering to comment on the paper. My friends tell me that I've written a provocative piece and a controversial piece so if that is so then I hope even more than ever you take a chance and actually look at it because I have had a range of responses since the piece became public. Most of which were actually quite favorable but even those that were very favorable sort of urging me on didn't quite capture what the argument was about. They liked the title and I think they liked what they thought the inference from the title was but not necessarily the argument that the title encapsulates. What I'm going to do today is to spend a few minutes not regurgitating the paper in any detail because it is quite a dense paper and there are many layers to it but I do want to lay out the scaffolding of the argument so that if we disagree we at least know what we are disagreeing about and if we agree hopefully that agreement will be such for the right reasons. So let me start by admitting up front that the India Pakistan rivalry is one of the truly great tragedies of Asian politics. The fact that you have a fifth of mankind in this part of the world unable to break out of what has been fairly into the sign competition for close to 60-70 years now is not something that should bring satisfaction to anyone even if you don't have an intimate relationship with the region. All by standards and even more so the participants are agreed that this enduring rivalry should end peacefully. And most people actually believe that dialogue is the best device towards that end. My question in this paper is fundamentally about whether dialogue can deliver the exit that everyone believes all the parties to this competition should be seeking for. So it's not a paper that is arguing that an India Pakistan dialogue is worthless. I mean you'd have to be a real curmudgeon to believe that if you did so in some fundamental way. Still less the paper is not arguing against the benefits of peace. I mean you'd have to be a Philistine to believe that. This paper is about a very specific question. Whether dialogue in the face of deep antagonisms of interest. Can provide a viable exit for India and Pakistan from their current and the conclusion that it argues is that whether we like it or not dialogue cannot offer a path to peace in the absence of fundamental changes in the national positions held by each side today. But both the proposition and the qualifier extremely important to keep in mind. Dialogue cannot offer a path to peace in the absence of fundamental changes in the national positions held by both sides. And this qualifier is extremely important because the current national positions held both in India and Pakistan are deeply colored by the strategic circumstances confronting the state. India has terrific strategic advantages and therefore does not feel compelled to change its national positions. And Pakistan has deep grievances but is unable to take those grievances and translate it into changes in outcome. And because what you have is essentially irresistible force and immovable objects you end up in a situation where no matter how much both sides engage in dialogue and peace talks simply become continued victims of our hopes and our expectations but really with nothing to show on the ground. That's the essence of the thesis of the paper and I want to walk you through some of the core arguments that lead me to this point of view. Let us start with the proposition that the India Pakistan competition as it exists today is not a competition that is built around a single issue of contestation. If it was built around the single issue of contestation it would be much easier to deal with. Because if you have a discrete problem you can think of a solution set that allows you to address that discrete problem. But because the problems span multiple dimensions ideological, territorial and power political simultaneously it becomes very hard to disentangle one from the other. The history of this rivalry is well known. It starts off with a dispute about ideology. It starts off with a dispute about competing notions of nationhood competing notions of nationhood that gave rise to the birth of the nation Pakistan in the face of Indian opposition and perhaps even British Indian opposition to begin with. And that opposition is translated into two states that then that begin to fight over issues of territory. And there are many issues of territory of which the priorities over Jamun Kashmir become really the crystallization of the focal point of those big ideological differences. Now these territorial differences which have persisted now for many decades have persisted despite serial wars. India and Pakistan have fought wars. And none of these wars have brought these territorial rivalries to a denouement that has been peaceful. They have been intensified further by internal convulsions within each country. And today the crisis between India and Pakistan is amplified by the internal conversion that is currently taking place in the state of Jamun Kashmir. One could arguably make the point that if the situation in Jamun Kashmir was settled internally the dispute between India and Pakistan over Jamun Kashmir could be relegated to the status of the sites as it was between 1971 and 1987. But so the internal convulsions tend to amplify dynamics that otherwise exist between these two countries. And worst of all these dilemmas are inflamed by continuing changes in the balance of power. And what it there is an implicit sometimes an explicit argument in the paper that emphasizes that the changing power balance is making the resolution of these dilemmas between India and Pakistan harder and harder to manage. All this is a way of saying that the persistence of the disputes as they exist, whether they are territorial or ideological or power political, does not imply that the disputants are actually equals. You're really dealing with disputes between two unequally sized and oddly positioned entities. India is the biggest state, but it's the biggest state that is actually quite content with the status quo. Pakistan is the smaller state and is not content with the status quo. Now ordinarily this differential should settle the issue because if you have a big state that is content to the status quo then in practical terms of real politics there's no dispute. I mean the smaller state may be discontented but in fact there's very little it can do about it. And so the dispute essentially becomes a notional one. Except that in the case of India and Pakistan it did. Why is that? It's because during the Cold War you had a very interesting asymmetry where Pakistan the smaller state and the more discontented state actually over performed relative to India which was the biggest state that was continually under performing. And so Pakistan's capacity to levy challenges to India throughout the Cold War was actually sustained because the power political balance was not as truncated as one would believe by a simple comparison of nominal GNP. And because Pakistan was in a sense enabled to punch above its weight its ability to mount that challenge in a sustained fashion throughout the Cold War was much greater than the Pakistanis themselves believed capable at the time of Pakistan's creation in 1947. The interesting story however is that the dynamic is now shift. India the largest state which had underperformed for decades is now slowly recovering its mojo. It's becoming more and more powerful as a result of economic growth as a result of greater global recognition and a greater international model. This enables India to amplify its power capabilities more than it did previously. But once again we are in an odd patch where we are between the times where India is overperforming sufficiently enough to unnerve Pakistan but not overperforming so much as to compel Pakistan's acquiescence. But the shadow of the future hangs upon India and Pakistan. Pakistan can see that this Hercules that exists next door is only going to become even more powerful in time if the current trends begin to hold. And therefore the growing Indian overperformance that we have seen at least in the last 30 odd years is sufficient to intensify Pakistan's fears, undermine its claims to equality and intend to intensify the doubts about its own standing relative to India. Not to mention the legitimacy of its own claims with respect to territory and others. How does one square the circle if you're Pakistani? Unfortunately for India and for Pakistan, Pakistan seems to have gravitated to a solution that does not find easy antidote and that is jihadi terrorism under the shadow of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in Pakistani hands have unfortunately for India and equally unfortunately for Pakistan become not simply a deterrent but a license. A license that enables Pakistan to conduct a low intensity warfare campaign against India that allows it to do three things simultaneously to reinforce the claims that it has over Jammu and Kashmir with greater impunity than it would have if it didn't have nuclear weapons. It reinforces the claim to equality with India because as long as India and Pakistan keep going at it, the hyphenation between India and Pakistan becomes even more deeply entrenched and in a perverse sort of way it actually enhances Pakistan's protection because jihadi terrorism could in principle help to undermine India's rise. Now when one looks coldly at the facts one discovers that it will take a lot more than jihadi terrorism to undermine India's rise. But that fact notwithstanding if you are a country bereft of choices you can understand the appeal that jihadi terrorism has for a country like Pakistan and when you throw in other volatile elements into the mix like the Pakistani military's desire for revenge because of losses suffered from 1971 onwards then the imperatives to sort of bring India down through a thousand cuts become even more appealing. So this is all part of the analysis of the paper. It however ends up in a place that I think people sometimes don't expect. It ends up saying that even though Pakistan thinks of jihadi terrorism under the cover of nuclear weapons as a form of strategic bargaining the effort to bargain strategically through the use of instruments of terror has now reached its limits of success. And the argument essentially hinges on two propositions. One after 9-11 the legitimacy of terrorism as a modality of political change has been fundamentally delegitimized in the international system. Pakistanis may be irked by this transformation because from a Pakistani point of view terrorism is a weapon of the weak and therefore there should be no reason by any form of subconventional warfare is considered illegitimate. But unfortunately for Pakistan the standards in the international system are always set by its strongest powers. And the day the United States became a victim of international terrorism from that day on international terrorism was ruled illegitimate. And from 9-11 onwards we've been in the anti-terrorism business and whether others like it or not they have also felt compelled to be in the anti-terrorism business. So if you want a state like Pakistan with very few options to deal with India's power its growing power and the fact that it holds all the cards you certainly end up in a post 9-11 world with the only instrument that gives you some hope for being able to change the status quo now suddenly being declared as an illegitimate instrument of political change. These just happen to be the facts whether you like them or not is a different proposition. But if you have to cope with these facts then Pakistan's strategy for change has really in a sense hit the limits of its success. The second reality and this again is unchanging and will become even more compelling in the future is that India has demonstrated the capacity to resist Pakistani terrorism without changing its position on any of the fundamental disputes. And this should not be surprising because the core differences in capability between India and Pakistan are so overwhelming that the best Pakistani terrorism can do to India is essentially irritated perhaps infuriated but really not bring it down to its knees. In fact the irony is that even in the peak years when India has suffered severe ravages of subconventional conflict India's economic growth has been affected only partially. And there is now an emerging debate about how much that growth has been affected and even if one takes the best case of the studies that I've cited in the paper which is one to two percent growth the real question from the point of view of Indian policymakers is is the sacrifice of one to two percent growth enough for us to be able to hold on to our stated geopolitical interests. And unfortunately for Pakistan the answer from New Delhi is yes we can sacrifice one to two percent growth if the alternative is allowing us to hold on to what we believe is genuinely ours. So we end up in an unwelcome situation which is an enduring stalemate and the stalemate derives on the fact that Pakistan can inflict interminable pain on India but cannot compel its render. India can resist Pakistani challenges but at least for the moment cannot independently compel a change in Pakistan's grand strategy. Now this is a accurate depiction of the state of the relationship. What can dialogue do? The argument that I make in the paper is that dialogue can at best help to manage the conflict but it cannot resolve it and it certainly cannot resolve it in the face of what are fundamental divergences of interest. Now one can also make the point that these divergences of interest are only amplified by the Pakistan military's benefits from continued conflict and then that takes you into a detour which requires you to explain the relationship between the Pakistani military and the Pakistani state, the relationship between the Pakistani military and the Indian state and the paper does all of that. The paper does all of that. But the important thing to keep in mind is that even if you had a Pakistan military that was completely normal as long as Pakistan had deep rooted grievances about ideology, territory and power politics it would be extremely hard to break out of the trap that India and Pakistan find themselves in. So there are two ways and I want to come towards the end of this presentation but there are two ways to think about normalization. The best case way of thinking about normalizing normalization is that both sides seek normalization. Both India and Pakistan of course want to have a normal relationship with each other but the catch is they want that normalization on very different terms. India wants a normal relationship with Pakistan which involves a Pakistani ratification of all the current realities and a normalization that flows upon that ratification. Whereas Pakistan wants normalization but only normalization that is contingent upon fundamental revisions of the political order. I have no tricks in my kit bag to tell you how to square the circle. Now of course there is a more pessimistic way of thinking about normalization and pessimistic way of thinking about it is one side wants ratification normalization that is India the other side does not for whatever reason and you can find attributes in the Pakistani army's preferences Pakistani weaknesses in the political system and so on and so on but this is the real tragedy the real tragedy is whether you have a best case theory of normalization or whether you have a worst case theory of normalization you end up in the same which is it is extremely hard to break out of the conundrum that both countries find themselves in. So in these circumstances you know if I cannot find optimism about the prospects of peace you must forgive me because I am a prisoner of structural circumstances that not only compel and bind the two nations but actually bind and compel analysts to if analysts are willing to be honest about it. So this is not a this is a piece that I tried to write which would involve finger pointing but without moralizing. So it points fingers into what I think are the analytical tectonic planes which are preventing the kind of reconciliation that everyone wants. But I was trying to do it without moralizing in the sense of saying that you know one person is in the right and the other person is in the wrong. We may have different views about that but even if we don't the fact that there are such sharp contradictions and interests I think put both parties in a position where it will be extremely hard to break out of this of this trap. So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the bottom line that the paper ends up with which is India is the biggest power but it seeks no change in the status quo. It has the resources to hang on to the status quo indefinitely in the face of both domestic and foreign pressure and it is highly unlikely that external pressure on India to change course is likely to be forthcoming any time soon and there are different reasons which are discussed in the paper. Pakistan on the other hand has a much harder role to play. It's the weaker power that seeks to change the status quo but it has no means of doing so other than nuclear shadow terrorism or an appeal for dialogue. Unfortunately for Pakistan nuclear shadow terrorism may hold the promise of foreign intervention but not really because when push comes to shove the international community is ready to intervene to dampen crises but very rarely is the international community willing to go beyond a dampening crisis to actually resolving the dilemmas between the two countries on terms that Pakistan would find beneficial and the appeals to dialogue which is the best Pakistan can do depend fundamentally on whether India is willing to give those appeals for dialogue or space to play and even if India concedes to dialogue it is almost unlikely to accept the premises of dialogue and end up with outcomes in Pakistan. So if any dialogue takes place with Indian acquiescence the dialogue is going to take place only as a cover to enable Pakistan to come to terms with what are inescapable realities which is the status quo and the Indians will modulate their interest in dialogue to the degree that they can modulate it but India is not going to be party to any dialogue that results in a fundamental undercutting of its core interests in what it currently has. So if this is the the world in which we find ourselves at least when they talk about India and Pakistan is there an exit and I try to think through what the exits might be for purposes of the presentation I did not develop this in the paper so let me just flag what the possibilities are and I'll try and rank order them and see the contradictions all too clear. I think there are four possibilities one is that Pakistan accepts the current territorial and geopolitical realities without India seeks peace and moves on with its life. This is you might think of this as the Musharraf option because this is essentially a Musharraf tried to do when he became president. The second possibility is India gives into Pakistan on all the critical issues in the hope of appeasing the Pakistani military and the Pakistani polity. I don't think any prizes will be given to people who bet that this is a realistic outcome. The third possibility is that India resolves its internal grievances with the Kashmiris and others peacefully and become successful externally in the process making Pakistan irrelevant to security competition and the fourth possibility is that Pakistan continues to needle India in the hope of compelling negotiations to change the status quo at the risk of conflict in the hope that there will be external intervention on Pakistan's behalf. Those are essentially your four possibilities in the menu of choice. Now when you rank order these the contradictions become extremely apparent. If you're India your first preference is to resolve the internal grievances successfully while becoming successful externally and just leave Pakistan sort of in the dust. That's preference number one. Preference number two is that Pakistan accepts the current territorial realities and seeks and accepts peace on India's terms. The fourth the choice is Pakistan continues to needle India in the rank ordering and then the last choice of course is that India gives into Pakistan on critical issues. So if you were to rank order these these would be the four choices of India's perspective. If you were to rank order these from Pakistan's perspective you get obviously an entirely or worse order. The first choice from a Pakistani point of view is that India gives into Pakistan on all the critical issues. The second choice is that Pakistan continues to needle India because India will not give into Pakistan on the critical issues. The third is that Pakistan reluctantly accepts the current geopolitical realities and comes to terms with them and then the fourth and the worst choice from a Pakistani point of view is that India solves its internal grievances successfully becomes a successful great power and sort of leaves Pakistan to Fenferda. If you synoptically arrange this rank ordering the symmetry is quite amount because it tells you how little the solution space is for a negotiated outcome and for anyone who has sort of done elementary decision theory right you know that when you have negotiating and bothering the only way you get an outcome is that there is sufficient intersection in the Venn diagram. If that intersection is tenuous then it becomes extremely hard to do. So anyway the paper ends up with an argument that says in this kind of a world the US does not have very pleasant choices and it ends up essentially making the point and you can read the argument in the paper and there are four arguments that I lay out for the United States which is it can do nothing it can encourage dialogue for whatever it's worked it can press India to give up on some of its claims and be less updated or it can press Pakistan to give up on its jihadi terrorism and seek an understanding with with India and I come out on the side of pressing Pakistan because I go through the logic and I show that all the others are not particularly palatable from the viewpoint of Indian interests. So I hope this if you haven't read the paper that this provokes you enough to read the paper and if we have a continuing disagreement that we at least focus on the disagreements that are real as opposed to the disagreements that I imagine. So thank you very much. So with Ashley laying this out so logically I think you've all if you have not read the report yet this gives you a flavor of how carefully he pulls together his argument. This is not a short report he puts this together very carefully point-by-point, partial historical evidence, an argument about strategic competition to come to what is a fairly bleak conclusion about as you heard the utility of peace talks to deliver an outcome and I do want to emphasize that as Ashley did because it is important it's not that Ashley is saying talks don't matter under any circumstances. He's not saying that at all. After reading this report I found myself thinking you know I agree with the logic of which he lays this out. I agree with the conclusion that the present circumstances, the present assumptions of the Pakistani military, the present strategic aiming of Pakistan to change the status quo measured against India's present aim which is to maintain it really does create this kind of problem in which it's hard to see an outcome that dialogue can deliver. So I definitely encourage everybody to read this for the very careful historical backdrop that he provides. There's a lot of reference material there that I think will be useful for some people. I also agree with the argument that Ashley lays out in the report that the likelihood of external coercion being able to deliver any outcomes from peace talks between India and Pakistan is not particularly significant. And that this has become, he didn't mention the word China in his presentation just now, but that this asymmetry and inability of the international community to help coerce a negotiated peace outcome has become all the more difficult. With China's increasing role as Pakistan's protector that has made things difficult, for example in the UN Security Council, the effort to designate international tariffs, for example. And I also agree with Ashley's conclusion that from India's perspective the likelihood of talks themselves being a factor or a force in bringing about a change in the Pakistan military strategic aim, if not bleak itself. So you can see how he puts this all together and then reaches a conclusion that absent a significant change of strategic aim. In Pakistan, the peace dialogue between India and Pakistan simply can't amount to much. But then I would ask the question as follows, does that mean that there is literally no utility at all for New Delhi to maintain peace talks with Islamabad? To me, I'm not sure that the answer to that question posed slightly differently is no. In fact, I think it's worth talking through what talks could be useful for. Ashley has a section sort of near the end of his report where he lays out some sensible factors that talks represent, but of course are very limited in that they are not able to bring about a negotiated peace. And I accept that. But I also think that there is some pretty useful outcomes from these two factors. So let me just lay them out for you first. The importance of having some kind of ongoing talks or dialogue to serve as a circuit breaker or a safety valve. I actually think this is a pretty important factor. This matters a lot. You've got a range of different kinds of engagement, whether that starts from NGOs and civil society groups to business groups to ongoing cricket matches to formal talks, government to government. This creates not only channels of communication to help push ahead, try to convince, try to relay messages, which it obviously does, but these steps also create different elements that can be ratcheted back in times of crisis. And again, Ashley does mention this, but sees this element, the role of performing a circuit breaker or safety valve as something useful but not necessarily game changing. I think it's probably a little bit more important than Ashley gives it credit for. If you look at the channel lineup, in other words, in what's ongoing right now between India and Pakistan, it's pretty slim. So these two countries could probably use some more circuit breakers, build that kind of broader range of engagement to guard again or opportunities to ratchet back in times of another crisis. And the likelihood of another crisis is unfortunately exists. The second factor that I think is fairly important and much more important for India actually than Pakistan in the present reality, India because it is now beginning to take its place as a global power, is this question of appearances. I think appearances matter on the world stage. Ashley refers to this issue as something as one of reputational concern. The fact that peace talks could help both India and Pakistan improve their global reputations as, quote, unquote, responsible entities. When I read this and think about it, it seems to me that this element is probably much more important for India right now as New Delhi starts to think through its own desire to rise globally, how it thinks about its own leadership on the world stage, not only within its own region, but as a potential player across the Indo-Pacific and in thinking about other questions of conflict and crisis around the world. Is India a country that can play a role and take stances on global conflicts? Yes, it can. But of course doing so may imply that other countries may say, well, you know, this is a big crisis in South Asia, but what is India doing about that? Well, you know, to be caught trying to solve a problem is always more helpful than to not be caught trying. So as I mentioned, Ashley kind of frames those two factors as sensible but useful primarily only for managing conflict rather than delivering a resolution. I'm not sure that it's worth discounting that. We're looking at tensions that have extended across basically seven decades, so we shouldn't underestimate the utility of just managing conflict. Maybe managing conflict is as good as it gets for now, so why not keep trying? Ashley also mentioned, and I think this is an important factor to keep in mind, that the post-911 world, things have changed. Public opinion has changed on the world stage as Ashley referred to about sub-conventional conflict. If you look really at where the world has turned post-911, I think you would probably agree that public opinion in the United States after watching so many different terrorist attacks, seeing awful attacks in India that later are traced back to groups they're operating from within Pakistan, the Mumbai attack, of course, six Americans perished then, citizens of Israel perished in that attack as well. American public opinion has turned on this question and is now much more supportive of India's call for terrorism to end in order to see some sort of greater progress in limiting the tensions or looking for some sort of resolution between Pakistan. If you step from that observation to thinking that what the United States should do, this is where I also find myself agreeing with Ashley's conclusion, though I do think that having ongoing talks has its own point of utility, but I do agree with Ashley's ultimate conclusion for the United States. When I look at this scenario of tension and conflict, every conceivable scenario of conflict escalation I can think of is triggered by, has a precipitating event that some form of a terrorist attack is traced back to groups that are based in Pakistan. That should lead us really to the conclusion that the most important step the United States could take to try to create an environment for some kind of a dialogue process between the two countries would really be to support all efforts to dissuade and prevent terrorism emanating from Pakistan in the first place. And I would argue that that's where our utmost energies should be focused. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the report and what it means. I would definitely encourage everybody to take a look and I would also encourage everybody to think about the usefulness of talks as a method for managing conflict, even if they can't in and of themselves bring about a negotiated resolution. Thanks, George. I'd be delighted to be here on this panel with Alison, George and to discuss Ashley's paper. It's never easy to disagree with Ashley because I think he lays it out so clearly. I mean, you have to really work hard to find faults with his reasoning. But I think the paper is a good analysis. The mark of a good paper and assessment of a policy paper is how best it unpacks a complex problem and presents a path out. I think Ashley does it quite well. I would think the hallmark, I think the ultimate effectiveness of a paper is to make you see something that is so obvious but you're not seeing. For me, at least, I mean, it's really a very interesting paper because I spent much of my adult life covering India-Pakistan talks. That is from about 1980 when I kind of started writing columns for newspapers till now. Covering India-Pakistan talks has been a major part of my adult life and I think I spent a lot of time myself trying to negotiate. I mean, in track two, of course, thanks to our American funders, we had a good time with Pakistani friends in Bangkok, in Ottawa, in Bahrain, in London. You name it, I mean, there's no place we didn't go to. And great evenings with our Pakistani friends are good drinks and good conversation. And we all get along very famously when we're not in the government. So I think it's also, I think, the great warmth that you see between Indians and Pakistanis is also about a tragedy that you might have good ideas, but the difficulty of actually producing those positive outcomes. So I think it's having done this, I mean, I think in track two, I've been participant in track two, covered officially track one negotiations, engaged the retired diplomats, talked to the people in the government about what goes wrong in these negotiations. I think looking at all that, I mean, I think I fully agree with the proposition that the talks are fit. I mean, I think because the energy that we have spent on negotiating with Pakistan, Pakistan has spent negotiating with India, really has produced very little at the end of the day. So I think I would just wanted to make three sets of comments on this tragedy. One first is the nature of the tragedy. That is, if you look at these negotiations over the last 30, 40 years, I mean, I think at least since 1980, then we came so often so close to agreements but could never close them. At that, we talked about Musharraf. If you see Manmohan Singh's last press conference when he said, look, we were very close to a deal, but he couldn't do it. We've seen recently a book by Shamsaran from a foreign secretary how everything was done on the CHN agreement, the CHN dispute or CHN is one of the major issues between India and Pakistan. Manmohan Singh and Musharraf were so close to signing the agreement, Shamsaran as a foreign secretary, Shankarman as a high commissioner had actually negotiated, worked it out with the Pakistani military, I mean, dots crossing the eyes and dotting the T's. Everything was done. Kundo the deal. Kashmir, of course, you had the negotiation between Tariq Aziz and Sati Lambak, which produced a framework that was seemingly the best way out, but yet Kundo it. I think this tragedy of actually, even when there was political will, I think there were moments when Indira Gandhi negotiation of peace and friendship treaty to Ziaval Haq's, Ziaval Haq's, Rajiv Gandhi's attempts at doing things with Ziaval Haq first and then Benazir Putto, Gujaral's, what Gujaral doctrine, you had Manmohan Singh, Bajpayee and the present leader. Everyone has tried in their own different ways to construct an outcome that both sides can give at it. So why is it that we can't close? We're so close but can't close. I would say that takes me to the second point, which is really, I think there is a problem of seeing India-Pakrishnan negotiation as a negotiation between two states. These are not France and Germany. These are not two European-style countries where, as Ashley says, you can negotiate out a discrete set of problems. That is, if you don't understand partition in the subcontinent, you don't understand the politics of the subcontinent. But the partition has a great tragedy that produced extraordinary bloodletting in Punjab, in Bengal and then the series of accumulated grievances since then. Today it is that rooted sense of injustice, which both sides have nurtured. Pakistan has its own set of grievances. India has its own set of grievances. And that these are not going to be resolved in a classical negotiating framework. How much Americans wanted or others wanted because the nature of the dispute is very different. Dear Professor Stephen Cohen, I mean, he's not here. He used to talk about India-Pakrishnan conflict as a communal. So communal not in the way Americans think about communal. It's about Hindu-Muslim riots with tanks. At least since the 1980s now, it's about doing it under the shadow of nukes. But the context underlying it is still about the deep-fell grievances that have arisen from partition. And I think this gets further complicated, I think, by the nature of the internal dynamic in India and Pakistan. We often blame the army there. We have crazies in our own country. And you could keep blaming someone or the other. But the fact is, there are enough spoilers on both sides. I mean, it's not just only Congress negotiates good deeds. I mean, Bajbhai tried. Mr. Modi landed on a short notice in Lahore. So you have, actually, the internal dynamics in both. And you say, army is the problem, then Musharraf is an exception. So I think it is the traditional explanations of an external relations. You have the balance of power issues. You have the great power intervention. You have, in fact, I was one of my fanciful suggestions, building on Alisa's work, actually. Alisa has written a lot about Punjab. I mean, I think those of you who are interested in subnational solutions. Subnational solutions to India-Pakistan problem. That is saying, Delhi and Islamabad can't negotiate. But maybe Lahore and Chandigarh or Amritsar can actually negotiate. In fact, there was interesting between 2004 and 2007. There was this negotiation between Amritsar Singh with Bakker, Chief Minister of Punjab and the Chaudhary brothers. Extraordinary things happened, including a marriage. We won't go into details of that. But I think there were interesting possibilities that were laid out. But yet, even they began something but couldn't close. So therefore, I think that we have to go back to the source of this partition and what the bitter legacies of partition that actually make India and Pakistan a very different set of countries and not merely two states which have a territorial problem or a problem of terrorism. And to understand, I think, India-Pakistan negotiations, why they don't succeed, I would also, one of my former diplomat colleagues in India told me, if you want to understand India-Pakistan differences, go back and look at the negotiation between the Congress and the Muslim League before the partition. That the difficulties of... I mean, the many people today feel that, look, it need not have happened. They were out the solutions to the concerns of the Muslim League and the Congress. But eventually, the Congress and the Muslim League could not close the deal and therefore you have your partition. The deep rootedness of this is something, the historically rooted problem between India and Pakistan. And this, I think, is not going to be overcome by negotiations. Formal negotiations or even informal negotiations which actually produce interesting possibilities as I said, of Sati Lamber, Tharik Aziz. So where does that leave us? I mean, I think that brings me to the third and concluding point, which is about India. That I think India should, from now on at least, see that negotiations whether you talk or not talk to Pakistan is a perennial debate in India. Every time there's a terrorist act, we say, we're not going to talk. Decent interview, we say, no, no, we must talk. So I think instead of focusing on whether we should talk or not talk or getting angry and not talking or feeling lovey-dovey and talking, I think we should move away from talks or no talks to actually doing things unilateral. I mean, unilateralism is a bad word, I mean, certainly after Bush. But my thing is about a positive unilateralism that sometimes it's not worth negotiating. Sometimes trade liberalization can be done unilateral. Visa liberalization can be done unilateral. So there are a lot of good things that India can do on its own. There was a famous thesis in Washington long ago called Arms Control Without Agreements that you can actually produce outcomes without having to have the two joint secretaries, two foreign secretaries, you know, kill each other across a negotiating table, that there are possibilities India's larger power can actually do things unilateral, which can alter the dynamic, produce a set of outcomes in Pakistan because India's ultimate goal must necessarily be a transforming Pakistan or making Pakistan more amenable to a reconciliation and to overcome the tragedy of partition. And I think it's in India's interest as the increasingly dominant state, the more richest state, the more largest state, I think it's in our interest whether it is to rise more rapidly on the world stage that we have to find the reconciliation with Pakistan, which also has a domestic dimension, which is of easing the Hindu-Muslim tensions within India. So therefore I would say that we must keep trying. We have no choice. That we must find a way to normalize the relationship with Pakistan, but the obsession so far has been to talk or not to talk. And I think not enough attention has been paid to what are the other ways in which we can influence the outcomes of Pakistan. And I think that's where the emphasis should be and I think to moving towards that goal, of course Ashley slays the logic of negotiating with Pakistan. I will be brief and then I will go to the next slide. I will be brief and try very hard not to repeat any of the very astute things that everybody said. I'm reminded when Raj had talked about how one has to go back to partition to understand the humanity or the human drivers of all of this. I think it's bright and I think about as one travels these days as an American, people are always trying to figure out what's going on in the U.S. And I don't think you can understand what's been happening in the U.S. at least the last year without going back to the Civil War and Reconstruction. And if you look at the way the politics line up and how that lays over with a map of the U.S. and the Civil War, it's that kind of depth of things that can't really be delineated by political positions that inform part of what's going on. And so I think from the standpoint of that empathy to what Raj is saying, there's a lot here. I would just concur with what everybody said about the analysis in the paper. It's formidable. It's for students. It's a great way to see how excellent analysis is done. And one should engage it and try to debate it, but it's quite a formidable analysis. Toby Dahl and I wrote a book last year, Not War, Not Peace, that kind of tried to look at the problem from the other angle. What were India's options to compel Pakistan to do some of these things? And we came up with a conclusion that's similar from the other angle. That's why we call it Not War, Not Peace. That you may be able to prevent a major war, but you kind of can't compel the change in Pakistan that would bring the peace. So it's interesting you come from opposite angles to get at a similar conclusion. But that leads me to Raj's point in a lot of ways. Total capitulation in international confrontations or conflicts is extremely rare. It's especially rare if it's not paired with total defeat. And nuclear weapons prevent total defeat in the sense where one would be a victor and the other would be a clear loser. So in a way, that's not an option. There's an additional problem that again goes to something that Raj alluded to, which is in the absence of a perceived willingness to address grievances through diplomacy or other means as Raj talked about, that creates perverse incentives as well. It especially creates incentives for violence. And our own country is not immune to that, where people increasingly feel on whichever side their grievances aren't being addressed, they're totally dissatisfied, and you need a few hothead leaders, and you get violence. So that can be an argument as Alyssa was suggesting, and I think it's a good safety valve or other reasons why you might want to keep a dialogue process going, even if you don't have the illusion it's going to solve the problem, but it can help kind of manage the underlying pressures and compulsions that Ashley referred to. I think another point that often gets lost in these discussions is, and it's related, what about the Kashmiri Muslims? In other words, they're people, they're human beings, they've suffered enormously from all sides, from actions of the Indian state, from actions of the Pakistani state or Pakistani actors, from their own governments in attention, and I think we always have to remember that there are real people here and they have real interest, and to the extent that they're Indian citizens, that presents special burdens on India, which can often get lost if the discussion is just about the Indo-Pak context in the equation. I think it's very important to remember that, and then relatedly, something that Ashley referred to as well, is what does it do to India internally? Ashley talked about, you can analyze and say that all of this may, at the worst case, cost India one or two percent of GDP, but GDP isn't the only or maybe even the primary indicator of society's well-being and its quality, and so there are many ways in which this ongoing, seemingly unending conflict about prospect of and can kind of vitiate life in India, because there's an internal cost that was, actually didn't take that on, but I would just say that it's something that needs to be brought into the picture as well. So where this leads me and where I would conclude is I thought, as usual, Ashley's possible exits, the four ways that he listed, was brilliant and then listing them in order, how they're obversely seen in India and Pakistan, but it occurred to me, and this could be quixotic as well, is that kind of by ranking them that way, it suggests each is in either or, but it occurs to me that you could try several simultaneously, and that then opens up the opportunity for what Roger was talking about with unilateral action. So Ashley's third option, India resolves its internal grievances with the Kashmiris, kind of makes it fun and relevant. Well, arguably it's in India's interest to try to do that in any case. I would argue it's not going about it in a very productive way, perhaps the opposite, but in any case, if one were really dedicated to that task of trying to improve the situation on the ground, it's intrinsically valuable but then could help contribute to the acceptance of territorial reality in Pakistan over time. There's less manifest grievance for Pakistan to be defending. And so then in some process through other unilateral actions, you start kind of creating momentum, you're improving the situation. In India, you're trying to take the air out of Pakistan's arguments, and then maybe you're actually in a negotiation where you don't have the illusion that there's a single concession that could be made that would switch Pakistan. But if there is a Pakistani leadership that's looking for a way out, it's not going to capitulate. So it's going to need some thing to which it can point that were gains that were acquired in order to finally recognize the reality that I think Ashley laid out. It would take a very brave leadership and a very talented apparatus, or apparatchiks, to pull that off on both sides. And Rajakana highlighted all of the failed attempts for various reasons. So one would be very careful and dubious about this. And as a former long-serving senior Indian official, when Toby and I were writing the book, Paul said, look, whoever would do this would have to accept that this is the end of their political career. They're not going to be Prime Minister again. And those who would be conducting it, it's not an accident why they're former officials who conduct these kinds of talks. But I'm not being optimistic, but I'm suggesting that if they are going to get out of this tragic situation, it'll probably be a combination of the things that Roger talked about, Alyssa talked about, and a combination of Ashley's three out of his four, in any case, rather than one or the other. But let me stop there. Let me, again, thank Roger and Alyssa and Ashley. And then let's open it up. And then as questions provoke a conversation here, we can continue a conversation here too, but also be responsive to questions. Please raise your hand, identify yourself. I'm not one of those who agree, who would argue, make it a question. I think statements are okay. But I think brief questions or statements add a courtesy to your colleague in the audience. Let's start here and then go back to Michael. We'll work our way around. Thank you very much for this panel. It's outstanding. I learned a lot, and I think everyone has contributed a lot to the understanding of the situation. Ashley has done a great job of analyzing the situation for some positions as to where we are. The best solution that everyone has offered is that we saw the dilemma of Kashmir internally, and that was basically the problem. But I'm very pessimistic with the current government following the Hindu nationalist agenda that that is even possible. And so the question really is very different. How long, ultimately, if you look at the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the economy that caused it, how long can Pakistan sustain economically its position? I think you have to make a distinction between the impact of what is happening in terms of the conflict with India, the secular future of the Pakistani economy and the Pakistani politics. I would argue that the direct costs to Pakistan of continuing conflict with India are actually less high than the indirect costs. The indirect costs are actually quite low because Pakistan can sustain this campaign against India. The direct costs of low intensity conflict against India are low enough that Pakistan can continue this campaign indefinitely. Problem arises from the blowback effects of that strategy on Pakistan. And the blowback effects come to, you know, Hillary Clinton's fabulous line of, you can't sort of breed snakes and expect that they won't sort of attack you. So that's one important blowback cost. The second blowback cost is less obvious but equally important, which is it weakens the institutions of democracy and democracy because the more competition with India grows roots, the stronger the national security state in Pakistan becomes. The stronger the national security state in Pakistan becomes to the neglect of democratic institutions, I think Pakistan's long-term prospects begin to lead. So I'm not one of these who believes that, you know, the collapse of Pakistan is on the anvil or one can put an easy timeline to collapse. I think Pakistan has many enduring institutional characteristics which are found mostly at the societal level in the state. But the danger to me is that the corrosion of Pakistan as a sort of healthy polity will persist as long as it takes its bearings from the direct costs of conflict with India needs to start thinking about the ricochet effects beyond just simply direct costs because when Pakistani military officers convince themselves that the jihadi option is a low-cost option, what they're really talking about is direct costs. And then you can come away sort of consoling yourself that, oh, it really doesn't cost as much because we do much more pain on the adversary than on ourselves. But once you start pricing in the real costs of conflict, then I think you get a very different story. But my fear is that given Pakistan's political structures, it is hard for the political market to effectively price the real costs of conflict because the costs of conflict are borne differentially by different groups. And the people who bear the costs of the group do not have veto powers over the pursuit of the policies. So even if it is understood that this juncture between who pays the costs and who bears the benefits in Pakistan is sufficiently large that this policy, even if it harms the nation as a whole, could persist for quite a long time to come. I mean, this is, you know, there's a whole literature in America about elite groups and elite capture. I mean, this is a classic example if you want of how elite capture takes place and sort of distorts the entire cost-beating to society as a whole. Swaminathan. Swaminathan. Yeah, I mean, let's come here and then Marvin and Michael, you had your hand up, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Swaminathan Ahir at the Times of India. Two issues. First, is there not a shadow of radical Islam international falling on both the countries? And is that perhaps a larger factor which prevents any kind of peace settlement than what the two countries might want to do each other? Within Pakistan, any moderate voices tend to get gunned down. So, you know, anybody who wants to make that transition is in trouble. Within India, we have not had a radicalization of the Muslim community so far. You had George Bush at one point of time saying happily, you know, India has 180 million Muslims and no terrorists. That was never quite true and may become less and less true and with the Modi government making Muslims more and more fearful, the chance of that happening is significant. So it seems to me that the rise of radical international Islam becomes a major shadow over any kind of resolution of the two countries bilaterally. And secondly, if you just look at history, even if two states manage to reach a settlement, there will be rejectionists on both sides. The Tashkent Agreement was immediately rejected by Pakistan. Whatever Aajbhai was trying to do, and Agra was rejected by Aghwani, what Sharmal, Sheikh or Manmohan tried to do, there was immediately rejected by the Congress party. So even if there is a negotiation, I think any negotiated settlement will fail. So I think it's appropriate to be pessimistic and Raja Mohan's thing of the rules of partisan are going to prevent a settlement. Take just one comment on that. I think that is absolutely truly abstract. The challenges posed by radical Islam, where I see a very practical manifestation of that is actually in Jammu and Kashmir. Because in the response of the Indian state to Jammu and Kashmir, we essentially have two theories which are butting heads. Conventional wisdom is how to deal with the genuine protest that is coming from Jammu and Kashmir, irrespective of what is happening in Pakistan. That is the liberal Indian position. Deal with them on the basis of insomnia, negotiate some sort of a way out of the current crisis. But there is another narrative which is not altogether wrong, but I don't think it's as right as this government believes it is, which is that radical Islam has now taken hold in Kashmir. And the only way to deal with radical Islam is with the full force of the coercive might of the Indians. Now if that is your theory, then the chances of doing what George and Raja have sort of talked about immediately begin to distinguish. I've always had that the hardest challenge for the Indian state to deal with is peaceful disobedience on the part of Kashmir. Peaceful disobedience is something the Indian state finds very arbitrary. Once you begin to have armed disobedience, then you open the door for essentially highly militarized solutions. And to the degree that there are now fractions in the Kashmiri resistance movement, including in Hisbul, I mean there was a time when Hisbul actually was a genuinely Kashmiri movement which really wanted nothing but a better deal for the Kashmir. Today I'm not sure I can comfortably say that describes the Hisbul today because through many of the interrogations of Hisbul detainees in the last year and a half, which was one of the factors actually by the Trump administration declared Hisbul an FDA, we began to discern links that Hisbul had with groups that we would never imagine when Quadra is happening. So in that sense, if radical Islam is actually grown, then it only sort of empowers those in the Indian state today who believe that this talk about negotiations on the Kashmir is liberal path. We don't have the luxury of engaging in this stuff. The only way you deal with this is really, you know, with the Patapagat. I think that that's just tragic not only for the Pakistanis and Indians, but for some. Often, as you say, I mean it often in other cases then produces more radicalism, especially if it's fueled by a kind of special contempt by the governing parties who create a vicious. Radical Islam is really just one of the many external factors that cost a shadow over South Asia. I mean, I don't know how many of you heard the Pakistani foreign minister who's here recently, Khoja Abbas, where he said, look, you guys, Italian-Americans, you guys started the radical jihad against the Soviet occupation and we were willing acclombuses in that. And that left a legacy. Therefore, today you're blaming me. I'm not actually, I'm a victim, I'm not a... So I think there are multiple ways of constructing this history that you could say, man, you know that till the 70s or 80s, there was no early 80s, there was no radical Islam. And once the Afghan war against Russian occupation, American reaction to it, Ziaval Haqq in Pakistan, that you created a new circumstance, you know, holy wards if you read Steve Goldsberg. So I think James Cooley's book on that, it was between Americans and the Russians. How do you instrumentalize radical Islam? It was a Reagan doctrine, you undermine the Soviet Union. It worked, but then there are unintended consequences. We're all dealing with it. So I think, and that's why I think it's important to focus on the tragedy, the external circumstances, the internal circumstances, the partition. I produced a condition today that makes it difficult to go forward. And I think that is a reflection. I think that is, rather than identify just one factor as a problem. Marvin and then Michael, so right behind, one behind the other. And that is that, and that assumption is that this territorial dispute is at the core interest of both countries. I don't subscribe to that. I think that case can be made here that this is, this became an artificiality at the service of vested interests in both countries. To perpetuate this conflict, I think a stronger argument can be made as to why the failure to resolve this conflict in fact threatens, as nothing else does, the core interests of both countries. The danger of nuclear exchange would grow directly out of the failure to resolve this conflict. The opportunities that exist here for truly growth economically and in so many other ways of both countries is thwarted by the failure to resolve this conflict. So that, and I would say here the idea that somehow this is embedded in a legacy, you know, comes to mind our other conflicts too where everyone thought it was, it was fordained that they had to always be at war. So I would, I would say, well where does this leave us in terms of negotiations? And it seems to me it doesn't lead in a straight line anywhere obviously, except to the recognition of this very fact and the willingness to, to make this the centerpiece of one's political career on both sides. It requires the kind of leadership here that is, is, can, but it's got to happen on both sides and it's got to happen presimultaneously. And I think of the Irish conflict which 200 years until they, they came to the conclusion that all of this here had to take a back seat to the fact that both communities were not surviving as it were. So I think that it's not an alternative to what you're saying is such, but it should leave the question here as to where, where our emphasis should be. And if we say it is fordained, it is the birthright of both countries, then we, we doom ourselves to this. I don't think either country can afford this because otherwise I think they doom themselves. Michael, right behind you. I haven't yet read the paper, I promise to. But what I, so you may have already dealt with this. I'm hearing from you that the national security state in Pakistan, which is a problem to a resolution, is a monolithic force. Maybe in the book you've qualified that. I didn't hear that qualification from you today. My sense, and I'm limited as to how many and who Pakistani military guys I can talk to, I just had a visa denial after it had been authorized. That's new. What it suggests to me among other things is a confirmation of what I have heard from talking to people, which is the national security state isn't monolithic. That we're all familiar with civil military divide. That's easy. But divisions within the national security state are hard. I believe they exist. I believe these divisions are becoming sharper as the Trump administration tries to instill Pakistan's choices without the usual qualifiers. So I'd like to hear a qualifier from you with respect to the national security state. My question is, would you apply your LUD? Even if there are divisions, it doesn't affect the outcome, by the way. But there are divisions, and there's something to work with there. So does your analysis also apply to the nuclear competition? It's hopeless. Different reasons for competition. A different extent of the competition, which are reversed, that's kind of strange. There's nothing here to work with. And so be it. Or would you qualify your argument about the utility of talks when it comes to reducing nuclear dangers? Let's start with the question of the monolithic nuclear state. I have actually a quite extensive section in the report when I talk about the phenomenon of Musharraf. Because I find Musharraf to be quite fascinating as someone who broke the conventional mold about policymaking with respect to it. It comes there, of course, through a very torturous process, which we all know. And it's not that I am not aware of the differences within the national security structure. But I'm always struck by the fact that the differences at the end of the day do not seem to have fundamental value when it comes to the pursuit of certain national policy. So for example, I'll give you a simple example. From 2001 onwards, we were quite aware that there were differences of view within the Pakistani army with respect to the double game that Pakistan played with us on the Taliban. Simply because US intelligence was so sophisticated that we became aware of these differences. And within the US establishment, there were many debates about which faction is in the ascendancy. Because everyone was hoping they could parse from the perceived ascendancy to the outcome. Except that we were struck time and again that no matter who was up or who was down or who was supposed to be on the sidelines, the outcome was always consistent. Which is when it came to the Pakistani state making certain choices with respect to these groups, the outcome remained the same. Which leaves me with the question of, as an academic, I'm very intrigued by the idea that there are divides. As a policymaker, I have to scratch my head and say, what good is that academic insight to me? If at the end of the day, there is a sort of dreary uniformity in the outcomes that the Pakistani state perceives. So today, when I look at the Pakistani military, we have a sort of back of the envelope assessment of which core commander seems to be more liberal in terms of policies towards India. I mean, I can actually sit down and map that out. But at the end of the day, does this change the Pakistan Army's core policies towards India when it comes to support for India, when it comes to support for our Kami network, and so on and so forth? Maybe it does when you go down the serial list towards the end. But certainly, when you're looking at the serial list for the top five or the top six, irrespective of the differences within the establishment, it doesn't seem to reflect in the outcomes. And if it doesn't reflect in the outcome, then it creates a real policy dilemma, which is, is there a strategy that you can develop that allows you, as it were, to empower your friends against your enemies? And I'll tell you, just watching the U.S. government now for 17 years, I have found it impossible to devise a policy that says, I'm going to construct a strategy that allows me to bring Generals X, Y, and Z closer to where I am because the outcome would be different in terms of policy. Now, I don't know how much the Indian government knows about the Pakistani military. I suspect they know a lot, perhaps even more than we do. But if you are an Indian policymaker, I expect that you have a similar dilemma, which is, how do you pick and choose your allies within the establishment? And how do you create exquisitely subtle policies so that you appeal to one faction within the establishment and not another? That, to me, is the question through which I don't have a good policy sense of whether we can achieve it. We wind up, essentially, having policies that cope with the lowest common denominator of impact on us. And if the lowest common denominator of impact on us is dealing with the Jihadi group, which happens to be supported by the government, the fact that there may be good guys in the Pakistani military who think that this is a crazy policy. I mean, it's nice to know, but it doesn't give us much leverage with respect to the choices we make. On the nuclear side, there's a conversation that we can't have as transparent as I would like. But you know what I'm saying. The problem with the nuclear competition is that it is an asymmetric competition and that the competition is taking place, essentially, on genuine defaults pretenses. I don't know whether the false pretenses are deliberately inculcated pretenses because they serve bureaucratic interests or whether there is a genuine misperception about what is going on on the other side of the hill. If it is a genuine misperception about what is going on on the other side of the hill, do we honestly believe that a dialogue between the two sides will cure the misperception? I'll give you a simple example from a different context that might answer the question. There was a moment when M.K. Narayanan was a national security adviser and Pakistani fears about what India was doing in Afghanistan were on the rise. And so what M.K. did was he decided the Indians were getting all sorts of complaints from the Pakistanis from the press and others that India is up to no good. So M.K. Narayanan decides to call Mohammad Durrani, who was the Pakistani NSA, when he visited and said, you know, General Durrani, I'm going to be for a spy. I'm going to do something that is most unspiled. I'm going to show you everything that we are doing in Afghanistan. And Durrani walked away from the meeting saying, G, I'm shocked but not surprised because there was far less there than he had expected. Apparently, once he goes back to Pakistan, nobody quite believes this story. For very obvious reasons that there is such a deep, rooted fear about what Pakistan was up to that there was simply no way to assess the bias. And this is what we classically call bias, right? I mean, it's either motivation or cognitive. But if you're so overwhelmed by the reality that you see, that there's no way to assess those facts, that you could literally metaphorically create a situation where the Indians and Pakistanis sort of simultaneously open their nuclear orders of battle and say, this is what it is. What do you think the response is going to be? The Pakistanis are going to look at the Indians and say, you're pulling a fast one on us. You haven't shown us the real order of battle, right? And it's that problem that I think is going to be very hard to negotiate. Now, the point that Alissa makes, which I am not dealt with as deeply as I should have, which is, is there hope in an iterated dialogue that takes place interminably for some slow change to occur over time? So if you are a Robert Axelrod sort of fan, you could say, yes, these prisoners' dilemmas are so wicked that when you have just four or five iterations, everyone is going to defect and they're going to throw up their hands in the air. But suppose we condemn them to have not four iterations, but 4,000 iterations, would we be better off at the end of it? Arguably, yes. The problem we have is when the iterations involve real losses to terrorism, right, it becomes hard to find leaders who are willing to sort of run the gamut for those 4,000 iterations. Now, God bless them, but Manmohan Singh actually had that view. Manmohan Singh was, I can't escape Pakistan. Pakistan can't escape me. No matter what the Pakistanans do, I'm going to stay engaged. But you have the equal plausibility, a new gentleman who is in office who says, hey, I can't bear the costs of this stuff indefinitely. I have to do something. What would you have me do? Send the jaguars across the border or stop sending the diplomats? Stop sending the diplomats seems to be the easier thing to do. So that's what I'm going to do. So it's those dilemmas that I think are not quite answered by the fact that they might be real divisions within the Pakistan. Or at the business end of dealing with Pakistan, you simply have to deal with the outcomes, not the things inside. I just want to make one last point. I want to make just one last point to Marvin. I agree with what you've said. But I think the problem is not the centrality of territory. I think the problem is that territory has become a proxy for much deeper fears and dreams. There are fears on the Pakistani side about India, its power, its reception in the world, and the very real danger that India's trajectory will be such that Pakistan will simply cease to. And India's grievances that Pakistan just can't seem to get over it, no matter what India does. Pakistan can't seem to get over it. So to my mind, the territory is useful only insofar as it's a tangible point of difference that one can sort of engage. But I agree with you that it's, in my judgment, has never been a cause in the simplest extent. It's rather a very complex proxy for things that are happening on the business. And if you buy this theory of the conflict, then I think the conflict only gets worse, not better. Because as the divergence between India and Pakistan begins to deepen, unless the Pakistani state begins to make some hard choices about how it wants to cope with this rise in India, I think simply a sort of commitment to open-ended competition is not going to get Pakistan where it wants. The costs for Pakistan are going to increase, go direct and indirect. And India will have even less incentives to deal with Pakistan as a... Oh, that's no consolation, but I think that's my thing. That was wrong. We have more time than I thought. Let's take this lady here and then the gentleman next. We'll take two at a time and that way we should deal with it. Hi, thanks. First of all, I think in reference to what Raja mentioned, because the trauma of India and Pakistan is mutually shared, I feel like the obsession of India with Pakistan and Pakistan with India is also very mutual. So let's call this paid-as-paid. Also, you mentioned Raja Asif's recent conversation about how they're trying to tackle with the terrorism issue. And I would be very careful as someone who's talking about peace talks or conversation, saying Pakistan uses terrorism as a support system or as a cushion against India when Pakistan has recently come out in several avenues and several ways. It has come out and said we want to fight terrorism. We don't take responsibility and we don't possess or we don't have ownership of terrorism. How it's difficult to talk about terrorism in Pakistan without bringing up Afghanistan, obviously. So my question would be to you. First of all, let's also critically think about the historical analysis of who has historically, since the 50s at least, benefited from the India-Pakistan conflict. Is it just Pakistan who's been benefiting? Is it just Pakistani military? Or do we also have a lot of other foreign interests or vested interests that have benefited both financially and politically? So my question, I guess, to you is in this global narrative of where Pakistan is constantly pitted against India in all conversations and India's pitted against Pakistan, is it really so much of Pakistan feels bullied and Pakistan's upset and Pakistan's hurt? And is it really a discontentment issue? Or is it a global narrative that has brought the two countries to be pitted against each other? And also, your thoughts on India's reluctance to have these talks when it actually went to India, came back unsuccessfully and so was Khajas' position on this. So your thoughts on why India refuses to, other than they're not interested, what's India's position? My question is that although Mr. Ashley Telles has said that there is no chance of Pakistan weakening its stance against India, my belief is that the Pakistani army has held a martial law in Pakistan forever. The only thing is that there are civilians who are there who do their bidding and there are people who in uniform who do their bidding. That's one question. On the second side you have a few million guys coming out of Madrasas every year. They are not able to perform anything other than the jihadi task. That suits the army. Now my question is like this. Is it in India's interest that Pakistan implodes and India helps it to break up? Because from our experience with Bangladesh, when Bangladesh and India Pakistan were together before 1971, they held together. After they broke up, we do not have the same relationship with Bangladesh. Bangladesh is playing ball with us. India has recently given them 4.5 billion dollars of aid. And will it be in India's interest that India helps to break up Pakistan into different states? Although it sounds outrageous for me to say this, but is that likely to at least weaken this problem or weaken Pakistan in this problem? I'll tackle that. When I think the answer to that is no. I think obviously it would be in India and frankly the United States and all countries in the region and the world. All of us to see a healthy stable Pakistan that's focused on economic growth and generating prosperity and better human development for all its citizens. I think that focusing on some kind of effort to break up a country allows you to support none of the above. So my answer to that would be no. It did not. There was a civil war in Pakistan and India intervened at a very critical stage, but India did not go in and break up Pakistan. I would totally disagree with that framework. So one-time thing doesn't mean it's going to happen again. I'm sure a lot of people like the idea you're saying that India should break up Pakistan. I'm sure a lot of people in Pakistan believe they should break up India. You can say that the purpose of Jihad, the terrorism is to break Pakistan, break Kashmir from India. So I think there was a foreign minister we had called Jeswant Singh. He said map making in South Asia should stop. At the time the too many lines have been drawn, redrawn. Therefore the thing is how do you find some measure of reconciliation and reconstruction in South Asia? But I think the point is one of the things that comes out of the paper, Pakistan might try hard but it can't break up India. India might try hard but it can't break up Pakistan. So therefore where do you go from there? That is the... Tonight I concur with what the listeners have completely on the break up question. The most insane Indian politician now think of a Pakistan break up option. I mean there were people in the 50s who thought that Pakistan would naturally break up and become part of India. I think after 71 that idea died. And today across the Indian political spectrum I don't think it's a violent idea. And for a very simple reason, even if you are not philosophically opposed to breaking up, the pragmatic reasons to break up are over banking. You cannot control the outcome. The last thing India needs is greater chaos and so on and so forth. I don't think that's a realistic option. Even for a very hard-nosed government like that. Too earlier points that you're perhaps going to be right that we should be careful when we talk about Pakistan and the agency that Pakistan exercises with respect to this year. In the paper I've been very careful to identify the intelligence services and the military and not necessarily the state. But in the presentation I lapsed into what can only be described as an economizing abstraction, right, where I just talked about Pakistan. Only because I think the Pakistani military is the embodiment of the state in national security matters. And therefore, but the point is well taken. I mean I do not mean to lump 160 million people as somehow having decision-making authority over this choice. So I do that in a way. The second point with respect to the global narrative, I disagree with that. Not because I don't think there's an element of truth to the fact that India and Pakistan are subordinate states in the international system. They don't often have control over all their destinies. And they make their choices within certain parameters that are often defined by others. But I don't think we can reach the stage when we sort of deprive them of all agency altogether so that these are victim countries acted upon by the choices of others with no sort of, you know, with no ability to shape their own destinies. I think both countries have made certain choices. They've made those choices for various reasons. And while those choices always interact in a larger environment. So for example, Rajah's point that the growth of Jihad in Pakistan was old greatly to the choices that the United States made in the early 1980s with respect to the war with the Soviet Union. You can't, I mean, you would have to be truly dishonest to deny that the U.S. made those choices and that those choices had a feeder effect, right? But on the other hand, we don't want to ever reach the point where we somehow conclude that those choices were hoisted on a hapless Pakistani military which had absolutely no alternative. Remember, Zia understood the consequences of that choice. He played the United States. Remember the first deal which was the peanuts offer from Carter, where Zia holds out because he says, yeah, yeah, I want to do this too. But I'm not going to do it for 400 million. If you come back with 4 billion, okay, then we have a conversation. So it's absolutely true that Pakistan, like India, has been constrained by many choices. But I don't think we want to emphasize constraint to the point that they don't have any agency whatsoever. Third point, when you talk about what is India's role. See, don't, let me not give you the impression that in this struggle about dialogue, India has never aborted the dialogue and sort of left things happy. If you look at the last several years, India has done it much more than Pakistan, right? But you've got to understand the context within which that happened. For India, it's happy to have a dialogue with Pakistan sort of ad infinitive. But there are two things that had to happen for the dialogue to be sustained. One is the dialogue cannot coexist with strategies of coercion. Because that undermines the Indian state's interest in the dialogue. And two, India will not carry a dialogue if the dialogue is built on the presupposition. That at the end of the dialogue will be something other than a ratification of the steps. If Pakistan is hoping for a dialogue that will end up in a fundamental revision of the status quo, that is not a dialogue that India will sustain. And the only reason India will sustain a dialogue that is conducted on those pretenses is on the expectation that Pakistan must be given a sufficient period of time to sort of change its mind. But the Indian objectives and dialogue are very clear. India is satisfied with the status quo. India wants the status quo to be ratified through a peaceful process. And if dialogue gets to that ratification, India is all for dialogue. So if Pakistan genuinely wants a dialogue that leads to a different ending, India is not going to be parking to that process. And that's why the only dialogue that actually proved to be so productive was the dialogue that Musharraf did. Because what did Musharraf do? What Musharraf does is that he breaks with over 15 years of accumulated Pakistani policy to say, I'm willing to live with the status quo. Let's just change the package. I don't want any territorial revision. Just change the overarching structures of governance and sovereignty. And if you give me that, that's something that I can live with. Now, whether he could have... That includes Pakistan's keeping... Oh yes, of course, absolutely. So no fundamental changes on either side. The only thing that changes is the fact that there would be no boundaries, no hermetic boundaries. There would be a scaffolding of joint governance or joint mechanisms or whatever they talked about. But essentially it was ratifying the realities as they existed. And it's no surprise that India said, wow, that's a deal we can live with. And the struggle to my mind so far has been getting both sides to that deal. We had that once... At the same time. At the same time. At the same time. I'm not quite sure whether that deal is available even today. Right? I mean, it's a genuine question. Payana didn't ratify it. Right. But I think that's so. When you think of India and dialogue, that is really important to keep that in mind. But for India, there is an outcome. There is a destination. If the dialogue deviates from that destination, that's a dialogue that is a message. Gentlemen, I'm sorry we're not going to be able to get to everybody, but this gentleman here and then the man in... Hi, good afternoon. My name is Sky Christiansen. I work with UNDP. My question is about one of the regional dynamics, which I think might change one of your premises. Melissa talked a little bit about China. And it seems to me that one of the things which is consuming a lot of oxygen right now in Islamabad and to its lesser degree, perhaps, but quite a bit in Raul Pindi, is, you know, Orbor, CPEC, and that entire project. And I mean, China is really not interested in keeping snakes either. They're not interested in radical Islam. They're certainly not interested in instability. So, and security establishment in Pakistan has quite a bit of economic interest in that entire project. So I wonder if you see that changing that calculus and whether Pakistan's military really has that unchanging calculus or is this something that could be evolving. And I think if we look at what they've been doing in the tribal areas recently, a very controversial thing where they've been moving some JUD groups into the political sector and kind of out of the shadows, as well as what the foreign minister was talking about a week before last. Do you see that changing the dynamic and then the outcome? I haven't read the paper, but I most certainly will in light of the incisive discussion that I've heard today. I wanted to sound a note of caution, particularly in light of your last comment, actually. And that is that, you know, it's understandable that in the context of a discussion about India-Pakistan dialogue, we would see Kashmir as an object. Jammu and Kashmir, excuse me, as an object, as a football. But of course, Jammu and Kashmir from the point of view of its people and particularly the people of the valley is a subject with agency. And it has a particular point of view here, particularly when the question is territory and sovereignty. And it seems to me that any attempt to arrive at a solution, even the wonderful solution you were describing that we almost came to between the two major parties is going to be doomed unless there's a recognition of the agency and, you know, and the role of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. So that's just really a note of caution, not a question. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think two points. I'm not holding my breath on the Chinese positive contributions which in stability because, you know, we're actually, George and I are working on some biology project. There's something called a designer. So you can have designer snakes that only bite in one direction. So I don't think Chinese have any problem if the snakes in Pakistan only go into India. The refusal to certify or do anything about Masouda's in the UN secret tells you something about it. So I think even for the Americans until recently, look, it's only when terrorism began to bite the Americans that there's a great war on terror, that as we discussed in the 80s, I mean, you're quite happy to use terror against the Russians because for a good cause, of course. That actually you had every congressman came to South Asia, spent to Peshawar, you know, dealt with the noble, you know, freedom fighters. We've seen all that. I mean, so I'm not, so I think for Pakistan, China is internally stable. Even with all the problems in Xinjiang, they're quite stable. So I don't think there's a compelling need for them to change Pakistan's course. They would want like the Americans in the earlier course. Give us in our terrorists what to do with India. Maybe balancing India is not a bad thing. So I think there is never this abstract notion of general terror, general stability, but one of what does it mean for me? So that's what, as Ashley said, it affects different countries in the region, different sectors in a country differently. Therefore, I don't see China's in a great rush to play the role that Americans could not play. So I'm not going to. The other question that was asked, I mean, agency, there is agency in agency. When you overestimate your agency, you become a victim of not being able to take a deal when it is available. And that's part of the problem. Kurtz thought they had agency. They had said elections. They had looked, they were going to, Americans are going to bless them with a separate state. You saw what happened last few days in the Kurdish question. Kurtz is a much bigger population, much longer grievance. So when the larger guy's supporting you, drops you, there's no more agency. You can be forever bitter, but not actually being able to do a deal when you can do a deal. So I would not, yes, Kashmiris have an agency in India. There are a whole lot of people who have struggled against an Indian state starting from the Nagas, who announced it on the day of India's independence. But different people are finding different accommodations within India. I mean, I think that is where I think wisdom lies. But if you think you have an agency, therefore, and that agency is going to remain with you forever, then I think you're asking for trouble. The issue with China in the region of India, I mean, it doesn't end with a kind of broad brush set of pressures on terrorism at large. The long-must-get example in 2007, this was of immediate urgent importance to the Chinese state when some Chinese nationals have been kidnapped. They applied pressure, well, this problem went away. But we've seen in the intervening years that the other problem of many other types of terrorists that continue to operate from within Pakistan, actually, that hasn't been an urgent priority for the Chinese government. I don't think that they will be across the board a force for taking Pakistan to target all terrorist groups wherever they are operating inside the territory of Pakistan. Just a quick sentence. I concur with everything that the listener just said on the China question. Because to me, the heart of the issue is, if there was no China in their rivalry, a kind of positive dynamics that you would otherwise be led to expect, become plausible. Because there is a China-India rivalry that's independent of Pakistan, what happens with respect to Pakistani support or Pakistani military support with terrorists takes on a very different complexion. And China's incentives change. Like to suppress it. On the agency question, I agree with you completely that we should not forget that the inhabitants of the valley have agency. But as Raja said, you don't want to overplay your hand. One of the good things that Musharraf did in the process of the back job was that he tried to accommodate the issues of agency by sort of giving the folks in the valley the blessing to actually negotiate with Delhi again independently. I mean, this was a real change from Pakistan's previous position, which is you have to talk only to us. And, you know, we will decide together what the outcome for the valley is. But Musharraf makes the break and says, no, it's perfectly fine to negotiate with Delhi in parallel as I'm negotiating with Delhi. And I think, would India be better off with a lighter touch in the valley? I certainly think so. But I think it becomes harder and harder to convince the Indian state about the virtue of a light touch. If the dangers of radical Islam become more and more pronounced in their consciousness. And that's what worries me about the recent sort of twist in Hisbal's evolution. Because it only provides license to the Indian state to deal in very, very heavy-handed fashion. And once that happens, then all the agency of the moderates and those who are sort of caught in the crossfire will be abridged without a second thought. So that is something that worries me. But it's not within the hands of those people who purportedly have agency either, right? So this is the tragedy of this whole process. Tragedy is a good word to end on in this episode. And so I want to thank all of you for coming and for the outstanding comments and questions. And I want to thank Raja and Alyssa and especially Ashley for offering this paper and stimulated this excellent discussion. So thank you once again. We look forward to return. Thank you.