# Pakistan's Generals and America's Forever Influence | In Our Defence | S3 | Ep

An episode of [In Our Defence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1617244439), 22 May 2026, 59 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72113368/22_may_26_defense_22_may_128.mp3

Pakistan did not just become America's ally after 1947 – it slowly became a state whose military and strategic establishment learned that survival depended on staying useful to Washington. In this episode of In Our Defence, host Dev Goswami and national security expert Sandeep Unnithan trace how Pakistan evolved into a geopolitical rentier state: trading geography, military cooperation and strategic access for money, weapons, political backing, and regime stability. We break down: -Why the United States backed Pakistan after independence -How Pakistan's military became deeply tied to Washington -Why Pakistani generals realised pleasing the US was often the key to surviving domestically -The Cold War origins of the US-Pakistan partnership -How this relationship pushed India closer to the Soviet Union -What the Imran Khan cipher controversy actually revealed -Whether the US played a role in Khan's removal -The rise of Asim Munir and Pakistan's military establishment -Why Pakistan may still prioritise US ties even at the cost of China Tune in! Produced by Taniya Dutta Sound mixed by Aman Pal

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is India Today Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
[0:08] Speaker 2: takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
[0:12] Speaker 2: Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
[0:16] Speaker 2: and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
[0:19] Speaker 2: to decode all things to do with India security and
[0:23] Speaker 2: explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
[0:27] Speaker 2: stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength.
[0:32] Speaker 1: This is in our Defense.
[0:35] Speaker 2: Welcome to a Defense. There were two bombshell revelations this week,
[0:40] Speaker 2: so to speak, about Pakistan, one which in fact was
[0:44] Speaker 2: a bombshell revelation, the other one pretended to be one
[0:47] Speaker 2: but really wasn't. Two news reports, one by the website
[0:52] Speaker 2: called drop news that sorry, drop site correct myself, Drop
[0:57] Speaker 2: site News that posted a cable that talked about how
[1:02] Speaker 2: US if it had not engineered, at least it was
[1:06] Speaker 2: in the know and was pushing for Imran Khanzausta as
[1:10] Speaker 2: the Pakistani PM a few years ago. And the second
[1:13] Speaker 2: was a Reuter's report that said that Pakistan had placed
[1:17] Speaker 2: some fighter jets and an entire regiment of soldiers in
[1:20] Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia as part of their mutual Defense Pact that
[1:23] Speaker 2: was signed last year. The bombshell one was the first one.
[1:26] Speaker 2: The second one, while it's actually big news, but it
[1:29] Speaker 2: was actually something that was reported a month ago. In fact,
[1:31] Speaker 2: it was how the Foreign Ministry, which had said that
[1:34] Speaker 2: a contingent of Pakistani armed forces were in the were
[1:37] Speaker 2: in the country as as part of the pact, and
[1:40] Speaker 2: this this was happening around in and around the Iran War,
[1:43] Speaker 2: the run war is what actually gives context to the
[1:45] Speaker 2: second report. So while even though it wasn't a bombshelle
[1:48] Speaker 2: as such, it's still something that I think deserves to
[1:50] Speaker 2: be talked about on this episode. And this episode will
[1:54] Speaker 2: then sort of, you know, dissect Pakistan's relationship with the
[1:58] Speaker 2: US right from its book to what we've been seeing
[2:01] Speaker 2: in the last four years. And for that I have
[2:03] Speaker 2: with me my guest San Are you.
[2:06] Speaker 3: Hey, They've got to be back?
[2:07] Speaker 2: Interesting because you had just after Trump's visit to China,
[2:13] Speaker 2: you have the PM going to the UAE and then
[2:17] Speaker 2: on a five nation tour in Europe. You have this
[2:21] Speaker 2: revelations that have come out and Trump is saying I
[2:26] Speaker 2: will bomb Iran, then is saying and meeting Posian. I
[2:29] Speaker 2: was one out away from Iran and that piece is
[2:32] Speaker 2: still elusive.
[2:33] Speaker 3: So interesting week, right, interesting week, as always, they've twenty
[2:38] Speaker 3: twenty sixty twenty of geopolitics, and I can assure you
[2:43] Speaker 3: there's no better sight, uh you know, for news channels,
[2:46] Speaker 3: for guys like us in the news media, than an
[2:49] Speaker 3: American president stuck in a quag my are and running
[2:53] Speaker 3: out of options. That's what happens, and he's wildly swinging
[2:57] Speaker 3: in every direction.
[3:00] Speaker 2: So suddenly this episode, I thought, we'll focus on Pakistan.
[3:03] Speaker 2: We've talked about Pakistan and within pieces over several different episodes,
[3:07] Speaker 2: and for people some of a closer closed listeners and
[3:10] Speaker 2: viewers who track almost every episode, some of the things
[3:13] Speaker 2: that we talk about that you will say on this
[3:15] Speaker 2: episode might be a bit of a repeat. But what
[3:18] Speaker 2: this episode I think will end up doing for our
[3:20] Speaker 2: listener in US is give a full picture of Pakistan
[3:23] Speaker 2: and especially its relationship with the US, because that is
[3:25] Speaker 2: the one that is the most concerning to us. Concerning
[3:28] Speaker 2: not in the negative sense, but the one that concerns
[3:30] Speaker 2: is the most. Is what I'd rather say. Like I
[3:32] Speaker 2: said at the top of the episode, there were two
[3:34] Speaker 2: news iments that happened. The second one, like you also
[3:37] Speaker 2: messaged me about this that this is not not really much,
[3:40] Speaker 2: but the timing was very very curious because it happened
[3:42] Speaker 2: right as that cable was doing violent social media. So
[3:45] Speaker 2: that makes you wonder yearly kai am because Pakistan Missaiaga.
[3:52] Speaker 2: But we'll still talk about that, the fact that Pakistan
[3:56] Speaker 2: is playing mediator in the ongoing US run war while
[4:00] Speaker 2: it has the contingent of soldiers and some fighter jets
[4:04] Speaker 2: in Saudi Areaba as part of its defense fact. But
[4:06] Speaker 2: a bit later, we'll also talk about the cable. What
[4:09] Speaker 2: the cable specifically says about the events of the last
[4:11] Speaker 2: four or five years, what it says about how Imran
[4:15] Speaker 2: Khan was ousted, how a Simunir came to where he
[4:19] Speaker 2: is right now. But that also after we have the
[4:23] Speaker 2: background first for our lesseners and us, and this is
[4:26] Speaker 2: something which is very interesting because you've talked about this
[4:29] Speaker 2: and that actually led me to read much more about this.
[4:33] Speaker 2: Let's go back in nineteen forty seventh in the you
[4:35] Speaker 2: have the world has two new countries in India and Pakistan.
[4:39] Speaker 2: This is just a few years after the World War Two.
[4:42] Speaker 2: Britain is on its way on its decline. Basically the
[4:46] Speaker 2: part of decline, the British Empire is fading away. You
[4:49] Speaker 2: have two new superpowers back then, at least you have
[4:52] Speaker 2: the US and the USSR. We are about to enter
[4:57] Speaker 2: a period that will be known famously as the Cold War.
[5:01] Speaker 2: Like I said, India Pakistan, two new countries, Ginna and Pakistan.
[5:05] Speaker 2: You have Nehru and his cabinet in India trying to
[5:07] Speaker 2: build India's constitution starting from there, how does Pakistan end
[5:14] Speaker 2: up in the US's fold. And I also want you
[5:19] Speaker 2: to talk about what you've briefly referred to previously is
[5:21] Speaker 2: the British strategist doctor Olaf Caro, who wrote the thesis
[5:25] Speaker 2: called Wells of Power Power which talk about access to
[5:28] Speaker 2: Middle East and oil fields and how Pakistan was so
[5:31] Speaker 2: crucial for the rest right.
[5:32] Speaker 3: Absolutely so they I mean, if you look at it
[5:34] Speaker 3: the geography of Pakistan itself, it's bound by Iran on
[5:40] Speaker 3: one side, India on the other, and most importantly it's
[5:45] Speaker 3: wedged into between India and Central Asia. So it's like
[5:49] Speaker 3: a buffer state. When the West looks at Pakistan, it
[5:51] Speaker 3: sees a buffer state between India and Central Asia. Now
[5:56] Speaker 3: it prevents a direct land access between the Soviet Union
[6:02] Speaker 3: and India a land bridge. They were paranoid about the
[6:05] Speaker 3: Soviet parer. In nineteen forty five, right, the Soviet Union
[6:09] Speaker 3: had become one of the premier land army in the world.
[6:13] Speaker 3: It had a massive army, you know, millions of man
[6:17] Speaker 3: soldiers strong. They had defeated, destroyed the German Empire. They
[6:23] Speaker 3: had attacked Japan, they had literally captured a million man
[6:28] Speaker 3: army of the Quantung Army in Manchuria. So they were
[6:31] Speaker 3: looking at the most gigantic land empire. They were looking
[6:35] Speaker 3: at a Eurasian par and you know, as strategists have
[6:38] Speaker 3: spoken about Eurasia being the heartland, and any country that
[6:42] Speaker 3: controls the heartland Eurasia, this region between Europe, including Europe
[6:48] Speaker 3: and Asia, this massive land mass, that country will dominate
[6:52] Speaker 3: world affairs. And one of their biggest worries was that
[6:57] Speaker 3: if the Soviet Union kept advancing beyond Central Asia, then
[7:02] Speaker 3: it would reach the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
[7:05] Speaker 3: And they were very keen on the Soviet Union not
[7:08] Speaker 3: reaching India, as the British Empire had planned for several
[7:14] Speaker 3: decades before that. So the whole Great game, what is
[7:17] Speaker 3: the whole Great game about? The Great Game was about
[7:20] Speaker 3: Britain insulating its Indian It's so called jewel in the
[7:24] Speaker 3: Crown from two empires, the Chinese Empire and the Russian Empire. Now,
[7:28] Speaker 3: this Russian Empire was growing rapidly. All of the Russian
[7:32] Speaker 3: Far East is lands that the Czars, the Grand Princes
[7:36] Speaker 3: of Russia have gobbled from the Chinese dynasty, the Manchus,
[7:41] Speaker 3: for instance, they reached Vladivostok Bay, just kept moving eastward.
[7:46] Speaker 3: They even crossed the Bearing Street and went into and
[7:49] Speaker 3: captured Alaska. Even Alaska is famously known sold to the
[7:52] Speaker 3: United States. But this entire Russian Far East was land
[7:59] Speaker 3: that was grabbed from the Chinese by the Czars in
[8:02] Speaker 3: the nineteenth century. The British were worried that the Russians
[8:06] Speaker 3: would end up into India, and that's why they set
[8:08] Speaker 3: up the Great Game. They created buffer states between India
[8:11] Speaker 3: and Russia. Afghanistan became a very crucial buffer state on
[8:17] Speaker 3: the northwestern flank. Tibet became another crucial buffer state in
[8:21] Speaker 3: the northeastern flank and the northern flank. Now, after the
[8:25] Speaker 3: Soviet after the Second World War, Britain as an empire collapses,
[8:29] Speaker 3: it becomes what it is an island with a couple
[8:32] Speaker 3: of colonial possessions around the world. The Americans are the
[8:37] Speaker 3: new Britain. Yeah, they are the new empire, but not
[8:40] Speaker 3: with territory, but with influence and the ability to project power.
[8:44] Speaker 3: And way back in nineteen forty six itself, you start
[8:46] Speaker 3: seeing assessments Indie classified papers very clearly you see the
[8:50] Speaker 3: British General Staff saying that between India and Pakistan, if
[8:54] Speaker 3: we want basis in West Asia, India might not give
[8:58] Speaker 3: us basis, but Pakistan surely will give us basis. So
[9:02] Speaker 3: that if you extrapolate that to the creation of Pakistan itself,
[9:06] Speaker 3: it was one big colonial project to ensure that there
[9:11] Speaker 3: would be a near permanent presence of the colonial powers
[9:16] Speaker 3: in the region. And if you see the thing Pakistan
[9:20] Speaker 3: has always been, you know, giving basis to the US,
[9:23] Speaker 3: which was from you know, from the fifties onwards, and
[9:27] Speaker 3: not exactly a physical military base, but it allowed YouTube
[9:31] Speaker 3: flights to take off it it was engaged in operations
[9:35] Speaker 3: against the Soviet Union. So that was the big triumph
[9:39] Speaker 3: of the US in the Cold War is to flip
[9:41] Speaker 3: Pakistan towards NATO, SENTO, Seatto, these alliances Pakistan was part of.
[9:49] Speaker 3: It was more pro West than it was close to
[9:53] Speaker 3: China or to the USSR, and that was a big
[9:56] Speaker 3: triumph for the West. They wanted Pakistan on their side,
[10:01] Speaker 3: and Pakistan played that part very willingly right through, you know,
[10:05] Speaker 3: until present date. And what you see is that post
[10:09] Speaker 3: the dictators, I say that the first is of course
[10:13] Speaker 3: the field Marshal Ayub, He's the first dictator. Then second
[10:17] Speaker 3: you have. But it's from the second dictator on that
[10:20] Speaker 3: is Yaya Khan, that Pakistan becomes truly useful to the West.
[10:25] Speaker 3: And as we've discussed in previous episodes in our Defense
[10:28] Speaker 3: that Pakistan's biggest utility is to be useful to the
[10:32] Speaker 3: United States in all of these great games that they've
[10:36] Speaker 3: been playing around that, all of Karo's well wells of part.
[10:39] Speaker 3: They need a country like that which will provide unstinting
[10:44] Speaker 3: support bases, whatever you want, you know, mercenaries, fighters, And
[10:49] Speaker 3: then post Yaya Khan in the seventies, you see after
[10:51] Speaker 3: under General Zia, when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan begins,
[10:57] Speaker 3: Pakistan becomes the frontline state in this war against the
[11:00] Speaker 3: Soviet Union in Afghanistan. So seventy nine to eighty eight,
[11:04] Speaker 3: it's a front line state, and that template is then
[11:07] Speaker 3: replicated by every dictator who comes after him. So you
[11:11] Speaker 3: have Zia in seventeen nine to eighty eight, you have
[11:14] Speaker 3: Musharaff two thousand and one to well, the assistance continue
[11:18] Speaker 3: still about twenty twenty one, but musharaff Is leaves the scene,
[11:20] Speaker 3: but the Pakistan military is still pulling the streams. And
[11:24] Speaker 3: now you see this new phase which begins round about
[11:28] Speaker 3: twenty to twenty two. I would put it at twenty
[11:30] Speaker 3: twenty two, which is when Asi Muni comes in. Munir
[11:33] Speaker 3: is the third dictator in Pakistan. He's not an overt dictator.
[11:38] Speaker 3: He's a covert dictator. He calls the shots from behind
[11:41] Speaker 3: the scenes. He is the most powerful man, possibly post
[11:45] Speaker 3: powerful military man who has never taken, you know, overt
[11:50] Speaker 3: power like in the past. You had to have Zia
[11:54] Speaker 3: Musharaff takeover power and declare themselves martial law administrators, doing
[12:00] Speaker 3: all of that without actually wielding any part. He's still
[12:03] Speaker 3: the chief of defense forces, he's a field marshal and
[12:07] Speaker 3: all of that, but he's the one who's actually calling
[12:09] Speaker 3: the shots. And you see that very clearly in the
[12:12] Speaker 3: negotiations with Iran and stuff. So the template that's been
[12:16] Speaker 3: established for Pakistan is that it's a country that will
[12:19] Speaker 3: never have an economy, w will never be able to
[12:22] Speaker 3: fend for itself. It will never have the kind of
[12:25] Speaker 3: resources to do so it is a rentier state, right
[12:28] Speaker 3: And what is a renier state. Renier state is a
[12:31] Speaker 3: state that does not have the ability to pay for itself,
[12:35] Speaker 3: but it relies on external assistance. And so you have
[12:39] Speaker 3: the United States, China, all of these important sponsors, donors,
[12:45] Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia, u A. And how does Pakistan make itself useful?
[12:49] Speaker 3: It plays mediator, it plays collaborator, it plays you know,
[12:55] Speaker 3: one country against the other. What's in it for me?
[12:58] Speaker 3: You know, that's the whole tone and tenor of the
[13:02] Speaker 3: Pakistani deep state, which is you know, run by the military.
[13:05] Speaker 3: So if you see this whole thing of Pakistani politics
[13:09] Speaker 3: right from forty seven to present day, almost eighty years,
[13:13] Speaker 3: it is a policy of it's a rentier state kind
[13:17] Speaker 3: of policy. Earlier, they had dreams and visions of being
[13:20] Speaker 3: a very you know, developed, progressive country. But then somewhere
[13:24] Speaker 3: in the eighties and nineties they figured that this is
[13:27] Speaker 3: a shorter way. And you know, when you're looking at
[13:29] Speaker 3: militaries running the show. Militaries don't care for the big picture, right,
[13:33] Speaker 3: They only looking at protecting their own existence, and they
[13:37] Speaker 3: start seeing every threat as a military threat and then
[13:41] Speaker 3: they move accordingly to you know, tackle those threats. So
[13:46] Speaker 3: that that's the story of Pakistan. And actually, unfortunately it
[13:48] Speaker 3: takes a bad term for unfortunate for the people of Pakistan.
[13:52] Speaker 3: It takes a turn for the worse when the military
[13:54] Speaker 3: takes over. And so I would say that it is
[13:58] Speaker 3: the Zia years over the last fifty years that actually
[14:02] Speaker 3: puts the military completely in control of the state of Pakistan.
[14:06] Speaker 3: There is no independent agency for the politicians. The political
[14:10] Speaker 3: class are weaked, They get weaker by the day, and
[14:14] Speaker 3: they are now more or less resigned to you know,
[14:16] Speaker 3: living under perennial military rule, whether they're in power or not.
[14:22] Speaker 2: A good point about military is not being very good
[14:25] Speaker 2: at the long long game, long picture. That reminds you
[14:27] Speaker 2: of a headline written an article written by Shaker for
[14:30] Speaker 2: the print. I forgot the exact headline, but it basically
[14:33] Speaker 2: said mirrored what you said, that Pakistan can be tactically brilliant,
[14:38] Speaker 2: but strategically it's bad.
[14:40] Speaker 3: Basically, yeah, yeah, tactically brilliant but you know the study,
[14:44] Speaker 3: so they will pull out a tactic like say Kargil.
[14:46] Speaker 3: If you look at Targil dispassionately, I mean, it's hard
[14:49] Speaker 3: for me to look at it dispassionately because of the
[14:51] Speaker 3: lives lost in it. We have hundreds of Indian soldiers died.
[14:54] Speaker 3: But if you look at it dispassionately, it was a
[14:56] Speaker 3: tactically brilliant military operation, strategically flawed and it has caused
[15:03] Speaker 3: great ruin for Pakistan. We've lost our soldiers. Pakistan has
[15:07] Speaker 3: lost many more soldiers than that. But you know, this
[15:11] Speaker 3: is the thing in the Pakistan military. It's almost a
[15:16] Speaker 3: it's you know, irrespective of whether the military loses, wains
[15:21] Speaker 3: kills its countrymen, they become stronger after every conflict. So
[15:26] Speaker 3: it's a it's a very peculiar kind of system where
[15:31] Speaker 3: despite the losses in Sindhur, I was talking to again
[15:35] Speaker 3: Jen Shankar about what would Operation Shindu two point zero
[15:39] Speaker 3: look like, and he said it should not be kinetic
[15:42] Speaker 3: because what happens is when you hit and it's very
[15:45] Speaker 3: easy to strike at Pakistan, but when you do so,
[15:48] Speaker 3: you only strengthen the Pakistan military. The military ends up
[15:51] Speaker 3: becoming stronger and you look at post seventy one, they
[15:55] Speaker 3: lost half of the country. Right for initially there was
[15:59] Speaker 3: a lot of anti Pakistan army sentiment. Uh. They had
[16:03] Speaker 3: to hide and they were, you know, on the back foot,
[16:06] Speaker 3: and took advantage of that. He became the martial ordinance.
[16:12] Speaker 3: It became possibly the first civilian dictator in Pakistan. But
[16:15] Speaker 3: then he rapidly blew it. He lost ground, became deeply unpopular,
[16:22] Speaker 3: and he was unseated by his own prodigy, General ziaulhak.
[16:28] Speaker 3: So the Pakistan military is able to bounce back every
[16:31] Speaker 3: time and become the savior of Pakistan. We're holding Pakistan
[16:36] Speaker 3: together this uh, and anyone who would you know, look
[16:40] Speaker 3: at it. And Shaker of course has looked at Pakistan
[16:42] Speaker 3: very closely over nearly half a century. Anyone who sees
[16:45] Speaker 3: that knows that this is a The army causes the
[16:49] Speaker 3: biggest damage to Pakistan. It cannot with you know, it
[16:52] Speaker 3: cannot see independent institutions, function, judiciary, UH, political the political class, media,
[17:00] Speaker 3: all of this. And today you're looking at a Pakistan
[17:02] Speaker 3: which is you know practically that it's a basket case
[17:05] Speaker 3: run by the military, with a broken economy, no independent media,
[17:11] Speaker 3: no legislatures, no judiciary, nothing. Everyone is under the jackboot
[17:17] Speaker 3: of the military. And it's in this kind of scenario
[17:20] Speaker 3: that these revelations have emerged.
[17:23] Speaker 2: In fact, I can even just a picture or think
[17:26] Speaker 2: of what a Pakistani jurneal would be thinking. So when
[17:28] Speaker 2: the US is exiting Afghanistan, the biggest threat is for
[17:31] Speaker 2: Pakistan because they know, shit, now we do not matter anymore.
[17:35] Speaker 3: Now what do we do?
[17:36] Speaker 2: So they have to invent something to make them relevant
[17:39] Speaker 2: to the US. And low behold you have that happening
[17:41] Speaker 2: right now.
[17:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely Iran. So which is why when you know,
[17:45] Speaker 3: literally when the first opening shots against Iran were fired
[17:49] Speaker 3: and Muni suddenly became active in twenty twenty five, I said,
[17:52] Speaker 3: I said, oh my god, he's going to start offering bases.
[17:55] Speaker 3: He's going to offer Pakistan to the United States for
[17:58] Speaker 3: its war against Iran. And they have a nearly a
[18:00] Speaker 3: thousand kilometer border. But there are wheels within wheels in Pakistan.
[18:04] Speaker 3: If you see that story in that drop side news
[18:07] Speaker 3: UH put out, they seem to suggest that Muni was
[18:11] Speaker 3: very harsh on Iran when he was e g I
[18:13] Speaker 3: Si and which is one reason why he was removed.
[18:16] Speaker 2: As g I said, very short so we'll go we'll
[18:21] Speaker 2: get to that cable. And in fact, the article itself
[18:23] Speaker 2: is brilliant. I would already recommend for our lesson and
[18:26] Speaker 2: us to go through it read it. We'll have a
[18:28] Speaker 2: link in the show notes. Uh that the cable is
[18:31] Speaker 2: just one part of the article. The article actually captures
[18:33] Speaker 2: a broad picture of things that have happened in Pakistani
[18:37] Speaker 2: in the last four years, last four years and just
[18:40] Speaker 2: how Asimuni came to being where he had very very
[18:44] Speaker 2: his very interesting in the tidbits by the way, the
[18:47] Speaker 2: fact that when his period assessor, General Bajuwa was about
[18:51] Speaker 2: to leave office, the first list of officers he gave
[18:54] Speaker 2: to the government, uh formal im guessing to the government
[18:58] Speaker 2: for its successor did not actually we have Asimuni because
[19:01] Speaker 2: Arsimuni had a falling out within Rankhan. The article literally
[19:04] Speaker 2: explain how Asimunid ended up becoming army chief. But I'm
[19:08] Speaker 2: guessing that's the story for some other day.
[19:09] Speaker 3: And yeah, we've talked about this in the past, Dave.
[19:11] Speaker 3: You know, I mean, at what point did Aarsimunir drop
[19:15] Speaker 3: his glasses? Yeah, you know, I suspected to around the
[19:19] Speaker 3: time that he was later to become Army chief late
[19:21] Speaker 3: twenty twenty two. Before that he was spectically word glasses
[19:25] Speaker 3: limless glasses. And after that, as soon as he becomes chief,
[19:29] Speaker 3: he drops his last soup, you know, I tend to believe.
[19:33] Speaker 3: And then he starts wearing elevator shoes as well, if
[19:35] Speaker 3: you noticed, to appear taller. There's a lot of I mean,
[19:38] Speaker 3: of course, the Pakistan military is very good at you know,
[19:41] Speaker 3: projecting image and stuff like that. But could it be
[19:44] Speaker 3: possible that there was an external hand behind all of
[19:47] Speaker 3: this propping up? Let's look for a guy in Pakistan
[19:51] Speaker 3: who's amenable to us. And you know what's the crux
[19:53] Speaker 3: of that whole cable, the cipher, the so called the
[19:58] Speaker 3: Pakistani is called it ciphers, that diplomatic cable, which is
[20:01] Speaker 3: actually written by the US ambassador, by the Pakistani ambassador
[20:06] Speaker 3: in the United States back home in twenty twenty two,
[20:10] Speaker 3: saying that Donald low came and he threatened me literally
[20:13] Speaker 3: said that look, we don't want Imran Khan there. So,
[20:16] Speaker 3: I mean, if you look at the cable on the
[20:19] Speaker 3: face of it, it doesn't allege any big, grand conspiracy.
[20:23] Speaker 3: It kind of strengthens a lot of suspicions that people
[20:27] Speaker 3: have had that. The US administration, Biden and first and
[20:32] Speaker 3: then Trump later was not very in favor of Imran
[20:36] Speaker 3: Khan because he tried to do something that few civilians
[20:40] Speaker 3: have done in recent past, which is an independent foreign policy.
[20:45] Speaker 3: You cannot run an independent foreign policy in Pakistan. You
[20:48] Speaker 3: have to do something that is always pro Us, right,
[20:53] Speaker 3: and you've seen that over the decades, as I explained,
[20:57] Speaker 3: and Imran kan possibly try he thought he had agency
[21:03] Speaker 3: and he was caught in the wrong place the wrong time,
[21:05] Speaker 3: it seems. February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, when the
[21:10] Speaker 3: invasion of Ukraine Grand Hand he reached Russia and he
[21:14] Speaker 3: was he was there and that you know, and the
[21:16] Speaker 3: next day you had his you know, pictures in the
[21:18] Speaker 3: papers and the Americans must have been horrified, Oh my god,
[21:21] Speaker 3: have you lost our eternal, dependable trust ally to the
[21:26] Speaker 3: Russian Federation and worse the Chinese. But you know, there's
[21:28] Speaker 3: another interesting story quickly they is of how you have
[21:33] Speaker 3: a very very significant project in twenty fifteen, the China
[21:37] Speaker 3: Pakistan Economic Corridor, right, and that is it's yeah, that's
[21:42] Speaker 3: completely gone now. Twenty fifteen is Rahil Sharif, followed by Baju.
[21:48] Speaker 3: I think Sharif had six and then Bajwa had another six.
[21:52] Speaker 3: It was almost twelve years that these two generals were
[21:55] Speaker 3: ruling Pakistan. I mean not ruling, they were army chiefs.
[21:59] Speaker 3: But the China Park Economic Corridor came up in their time.
[22:02] Speaker 3: And look at it now, money takes over in twenty
[22:05] Speaker 3: twenty two. The pack is dead. This is exactly what
[22:09] Speaker 3: the United States wanted, right. So while so under Baju
[22:14] Speaker 3: general's Baju and Sharif, you see a pro China tilt,
[22:19] Speaker 3: but under Muni, now that tilt is gone and it's
[22:22] Speaker 3: you know, they're completely into the US camp. And this
[22:25] Speaker 3: is exactly what Washington wanted.
[22:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, talking about the military versus civilians in
[22:33] Speaker 2: Pakistani civilians government in Pakistan, would you say, Sane, I
[22:38] Speaker 2: have what I believe that the US would always prefer
[22:43] Speaker 2: a military regime instead of a civilian regime for the
[22:46] Speaker 2: very simple reason of what you described earlier, that the
[22:48] Speaker 2: generals don't really have a voter base to answer to.
[22:52] Speaker 2: They don't have to worry about building Pakistan's economy, they
[22:55] Speaker 2: don't have to worry about building roads, they don't have
[22:57] Speaker 2: to worry about the population in general, they have to
[22:59] Speaker 2: worry only about their cantonments and their basis, which makes
[23:03] Speaker 2: them more amenable to doing stuff that would end up
[23:06] Speaker 2: hurting Pakistan in the long run but pleasing US in
[23:08] Speaker 2: the short run, which is why the US would very
[23:10] Speaker 2: well absolutely there.
[23:11] Speaker 3: You know, we have in India, we have s WC,
[23:14] Speaker 3: which stands for Southwestern Command based in Jaipur. In Pakistan,
[23:18] Speaker 3: s WC, you can say, means single window Clearance, right,
[23:23] Speaker 3: and that's the Pakistan military for the United States, right.
[23:26] Speaker 3: And we've joked about in the past about how every
[23:29] Speaker 3: park dictator has to figure out what the US wants
[23:32] Speaker 3: and U has to deliver on that. So it is
[23:34] Speaker 3: the allure of having a dictator who's a single window
[23:38] Speaker 3: clearance in not in Islamba then ravel Pindi, who will
[23:42] Speaker 3: do the you know, bidding of the United States. And
[23:45] Speaker 3: that's what the US wants. They lectures you know about
[23:48] Speaker 3: democracy and you know, judiciary and freedom of expression and
[23:53] Speaker 3: speech and free and fair elections and all of that,
[23:57] Speaker 3: and they do business with dictators. And in twenty twenty
[24:01] Speaker 3: four February twenty twenty four, one of the most rigged
[24:04] Speaker 3: elections in Pakistan's history, where one political party is kept
[24:09] Speaker 3: out of the elections. It's candidates are not allowed to
[24:12] Speaker 3: contest on their official symbols. They win a landslide as
[24:17] Speaker 3: independents and of course they can't and the elections aren't canceled. Navasha,
[24:22] Speaker 3: it becomes the prime minister. You know, I mean, this
[24:25] Speaker 3: kind of double standards you have to give it to
[24:27] Speaker 3: the United States is very good, and they're all looking
[24:30] Speaker 3: in the other direction. They don't care. So while they
[24:33] Speaker 3: you know, preach and they lecture one set of things
[24:36] Speaker 3: on the ground, you see it happening in Pakistan real time.
[24:39] Speaker 3: You have a former Prime Minister Iran Khan who's in
[24:43] Speaker 3: prison is literally blind in one night, a solitary confinement
[24:47] Speaker 3: for a year, he's literally blind in one night. They
[24:50] Speaker 3: say that it's almost fifteen percent loss of vision. It's almost,
[24:55] Speaker 3: you know, like how the Muggals would blind their arrivals
[24:59] Speaker 3: and in some case is their brothers. And it's that
[25:01] Speaker 3: kind of a you know system literally in Pakistan now
[25:04] Speaker 3: it's tragic that the most popular man in Pakistan today
[25:08] Speaker 3: is behind bars and is literally you know, half blind.
[25:12] Speaker 2: Which is something I've always wondered some deeper is would
[25:15] Speaker 2: you in hindsight say that Imran Khan perhaps was a
[25:19] Speaker 2: little too bold, because what I've always thought of, Yeah,
[25:26] Speaker 2: you are popular, Yes, you know you have the mandate,
[25:29] Speaker 2: but isn't a politician's job also being shrewd, also being practical.
[25:34] Speaker 2: It is. You may not like it, but it's a
[25:36] Speaker 2: fact that Pakistan has been to behold into the US
[25:39] Speaker 2: for several decades. Now, that's been your country's history. You
[25:42] Speaker 2: are that country's top most politician, you are its prime minister.
[25:46] Speaker 2: Or would it not have made more sense for Imran
[25:48] Speaker 2: kan to have kept us in its good books? Because
[25:51] Speaker 2: the report that we're talking about also talks about this
[25:53] Speaker 2: with the period when he went to Sorry, when the
[25:55] Speaker 2: CIA chief visited and he refused to meet him, say
[26:00] Speaker 2: that I only interact with my equals, which is your president.
[26:02] Speaker 2: I'man not interacted with you. You're a lowly bureaucrat. I
[26:05] Speaker 2: mean that sort of behavior you do that nothing There
[26:07] Speaker 2: was a bit fool I think there was a build
[26:09] Speaker 2: up to that.
[26:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, and in hindsight, yes, of course they've I think
[26:12] Speaker 3: the Imran Khan might have been a little rash. He
[26:17] Speaker 3: possibly underestimated the ability of the US to cause him
[26:21] Speaker 3: great harm politically, and today he's uh. I mean, at
[26:26] Speaker 3: least his party and his followers argue that it is
[26:28] Speaker 3: actually the United States that conspired to get him into prison.
[26:32] Speaker 3: And you know, they engineered this London plan. Yeah, the
[26:36] Speaker 3: London Plan and all of that. They engineered that. And
[26:38] Speaker 3: if you look at it, this a lot of evidence
[26:40] Speaker 3: to suggest that this is possibly the case. I mean,
[26:42] Speaker 3: the cable per se doesn't prove anything. I mean, it
[26:46] Speaker 3: just says that there was Luke came and said this,
[26:49] Speaker 3: and but that's what all ambassadorized. Yeah, you know, you
[26:54] Speaker 3: you're free to draw your conclusions.
[26:56] Speaker 2: To have on the topmost US diplomat saying that, hey,
[26:58] Speaker 2: if your primers will loser, is the trust vote in
[27:01] Speaker 2: Parliament will be very happy.
[27:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's I'm sure they agree. They because you know,
[27:07] Speaker 3: given the course of action that Imran Khana taken, the
[27:11] Speaker 3: US wasn't very happy with his kind of independent attitude.
[27:15] Speaker 3: And Imran Khan, if you look at the other ones
[27:17] Speaker 3: or the wiki leaks more than a decade ago when
[27:19] Speaker 3: they came out, I think in twenty ten eleven, Imran
[27:23] Speaker 3: Khan comes out the spelling of roses in that if
[27:26] Speaker 3: you see that he's the one guy who's the assessment
[27:30] Speaker 3: is that he's incorruptible, and he's you know, ideologically very
[27:33] Speaker 3: you know, strong and all that, and these kind of
[27:36] Speaker 3: things would scare the US a lot. But the other
[27:40] Speaker 3: thing is that every couple of years there is a
[27:43] Speaker 3: memo gate or there is a cable gate. You had
[27:46] Speaker 3: if you remember they even bought twenty eleven, was it
[27:48] Speaker 3: you had memo gate, which was the again the the
[27:54] Speaker 3: Hussain Hakhani who was the ambassador in Washington, Pakistani ambassador
[28:00] Speaker 3: relaying a cable to the US saying that you know,
[28:02] Speaker 3: they wanted help Zardari were he was ambassador when Zadari
[28:07] Speaker 3: was the president, that they wanted help from the US
[28:10] Speaker 3: to kind of reign in the Pakistan military. And this
[28:12] Speaker 3: was I think after Osama bin Laden had been found
[28:15] Speaker 3: in Abbattabat. So the Pakistan military freaked out because you
[28:19] Speaker 3: had this other ra Kahani was the chief at that time,
[28:23] Speaker 3: very powerful chief Musharaff's protegy. The only the first DG
[28:30] Speaker 3: I s I had to become army chief. And Husain
[28:33] Speaker 3: Aakhani has not been able to return to Pakistan because
[28:37] Speaker 3: of the Pakistan military and so the military has become
[28:40] Speaker 3: really hard line now and you know it was in
[28:46] Speaker 3: a sense it was Musharaf that opened up the media.
[28:50] Speaker 3: He allowed you know, TV channels to come up and
[28:53] Speaker 3: you know all of that, and those guys of course
[28:55] Speaker 3: turned on him and ousted him. And now it's Pakistan
[28:59] Speaker 3: is under lockdown literally because of the indirect military rule.
[29:04] Speaker 2: Yeah right, right, we moved to the Iran War now
[29:07] Speaker 2: and Pakistan's role in it, and also then talk about
[29:11] Speaker 2: how India should be locating at all of this product
[29:13] Speaker 2: a quik play.
[29:14] Speaker 4: Let's move to Asam, where the employment challenge is even
[29:17] Speaker 4: more complex. On paper, its economy has done well. RBI
[29:21] Speaker 4: data shows that Asam recorded a forty five percent growth
[29:25] Speaker 4: between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty five, and that's
[29:28] Speaker 4: one of the reasons why ementhal biswas Sharma and the
[29:30] Speaker 4: BJP were re elected. And this, mind you, forty five
[29:35] Speaker 4: percent growth when the national average is just twenty nine percent.
[29:38] Speaker 4: The per captain income also rose almost doubled, from eighty
[29:43] Speaker 4: six thousand in twenty twenty one to about one point
[29:46] Speaker 4: eight LAC in twenty twenty six. Yet Asam remains outside
[29:52] Speaker 4: India's top fifteen states by GDP. It's per captain income
[29:56] Speaker 4: remains among the bottom ten. Manufacturing and that's crit contributes
[30:00] Speaker 4: only twelve point five percent to state value added and
[30:05] Speaker 4: this is far far below the national average.
[30:07] Speaker 2: Of fourteen point eight percent.
[30:09] Speaker 4: Now, Jimentha gave over one like government jobs one hundred
[30:13] Speaker 4: thousand government jobs through transparent recruitment, and he restored public
[30:17] Speaker 4: crusts after the recruitment scams that we saw earlier.
[30:20] Speaker 2: But government jobs are finite.
[30:23] Speaker 4: What ASAM really needs one hundreds of employment engines in
[30:27] Speaker 4: the private sector, including the MSMI or medium, small and
[30:31] Speaker 4: micro enterprises, tourism known for it, agro processing, logistics, and
[30:37] Speaker 4: local enterprise.
[30:44] Speaker 2: Welcome back something before the break. We've talked about the
[30:47] Speaker 2: news report that came out earlier this week that basically
[30:51] Speaker 2: said that the US had hinted to Pakistani diplomats that
[30:55] Speaker 2: they would very much prefer Pakistan that was not run
[30:58] Speaker 2: by Prime misteram Ran khan Uh. There was another report
[31:02] Speaker 2: that came out just as this cable was was making
[31:06] Speaker 2: the run social media, a riter's report that said that
[31:09] Speaker 2: Pakistan deployed around eight thousand soldiers and some fighter jets
[31:13] Speaker 2: in Saudi Arabia. This is part of the Saudi Pakistan
[31:17] Speaker 2: Defense pact that they had signed last last year, which
[31:21] Speaker 2: basically says if one of the either of them gets
[31:24] Speaker 2: attacked by any countries, the other would come to the
[31:26] Speaker 2: other the latter one latter is aid, this is happening
[31:29] Speaker 2: as they run. More is going on in the Paust
[31:32] Speaker 2: right now, but going on in in in the west,
[31:34] Speaker 2: in the west West Asia. Now. The writer's report is
[31:38] Speaker 2: not new. I mean when the report interestingly says that
[31:42] Speaker 2: it says in the deployment the extent of which is
[31:45] Speaker 2: being reported here for the first time year, as Inriuter's
[31:50] Speaker 2: very interesting sentence in the report Saudi Minutes. The Saudi
[31:54] Speaker 2: Defense Ministry itself last month actually said that there's a
[31:57] Speaker 2: contingent of Pakistani soldiers and some enter in our country
[32:01] Speaker 2: as part of the agreement. So one questions and the
[32:05] Speaker 2: why destroyers reported only in the middle of this week,
[32:09] Speaker 2: And second, the largest question is what people have been
[32:11] Speaker 2: talking about. Is Pakistan really then somebody who can play
[32:18] Speaker 2: mediator in the US around negotiations.
[32:21] Speaker 3: Well, Pakistan's credentials are deeply suspect. They you know, it's
[32:26] Speaker 3: ability to play a mediator role is suspect simply because
[32:32] Speaker 3: it is literally beholden to one side, which is the
[32:34] Speaker 3: United States, and at the same time it's playing with
[32:38] Speaker 3: the Iranians. It's allowed Iran to park some of its
[32:41] Speaker 3: aircraft there. We've seen all of that, but it's the
[32:44] Speaker 3: whole It's a weak country. That's the fundamental premise of
[32:48] Speaker 3: this whole thing of questioning Pakistan's credibility as a mediator.
[32:52] Speaker 3: It's been countries in the past. You have countries like
[32:55] Speaker 3: kata Oman that have been mediators who don't really have
[32:59] Speaker 3: any skin in the game per se. But Pakistan has
[33:01] Speaker 3: enormous stakes in that. And as we discussed earlier, it
[33:05] Speaker 3: is a country that is trying to make a quick
[33:08] Speaker 3: buck out of conflict, right and that's also the case
[33:11] Speaker 3: over here. And they will make money out of the Americans,
[33:16] Speaker 3: they will make money out of the Iranians, because that
[33:19] Speaker 3: has been GHQ rawal Pindi's whole strategy all along. And
[33:23] Speaker 3: as for the timing of that report, I mean, we've
[33:26] Speaker 3: discussed it more than a month back. We went down
[33:28] Speaker 3: into the details of the units. They've been very some
[33:32] Speaker 3: very bright Indian endless who pulled out literally which units
[33:35] Speaker 3: have been moved out of Pakistan where, and But the
[33:38] Speaker 3: timing of this only leads one to believe that this
[33:41] Speaker 3: was some great distraction operation. It was one of like
[33:44] Speaker 3: one of those decoy flares that come out of fighter
[33:46] Speaker 3: jets too, you know, lure missiles away. It was precisely that,
[33:51] Speaker 3: on the day that this story was broken by drop
[33:55] Speaker 3: site News, this report, you know, suddenly appears in Reuter's
[33:58] Speaker 3: and Reuters the report's coming out of Pakistan. If you
[34:03] Speaker 3: want to know what ghq Rawlprindy is thinking, you just
[34:06] Speaker 3: pick up the Reuters datelines from Islambad and I'll tell
[34:09] Speaker 3: you exactly that. They all seem to be dictated by
[34:13] Speaker 3: dgespr is running the show there in Reutters. It would
[34:16] Speaker 3: seem there's no other explanation for this kind of a
[34:19] Speaker 3: dated story. A one month old story suddenly does the
[34:23] Speaker 3: rounds and is being picked up, and it's been retweeted
[34:26] Speaker 3: like why now why today? You know? And who gains
[34:29] Speaker 3: from this? Of course it's the park Army thing. So
[34:32] Speaker 3: that's so much for Reutter's. But the other thing is
[34:35] Speaker 3: of Pakistan as a country that is always striking deals.
[34:41] Speaker 3: It's like that famous real estate guy from New York
[34:45] Speaker 3: who wrote a book The Art of the Deal. Who
[34:48] Speaker 3: that is? Yeah, I wonder what you're doing, right, Yeah,
[34:53] Speaker 3: building a ballroom. But you know this is Pakistan in
[34:59] Speaker 3: twenty twenty two or twenty twenty four before Sindhor, a
[35:03] Speaker 3: few months before Sindur is telling the Chinese that we
[35:07] Speaker 3: will allow you to militarize Guadhar in Balochistan if you
[35:12] Speaker 3: give us second strike capability, which is ability to fire
[35:17] Speaker 3: nuclear weapons from underwater, which is through a nuclear submarine
[35:21] Speaker 3: or a conventional submarine. And then I was going back
[35:24] Speaker 3: to the old India Today story that I did that
[35:26] Speaker 3: this was something that had been in the works for
[35:29] Speaker 3: twelve years or so, that submarine deal, right, those eight
[35:33] Speaker 3: Hunger class submarines way back then, done that story about
[35:38] Speaker 3: how Indian analysts, some very bright analysts who said that
[35:43] Speaker 3: this was actually a very interesting three stage deal where
[35:46] Speaker 3: the first part would be of the shelf submarines, the
[35:50] Speaker 3: S twenty eight class submarines, which would be conventional versions
[35:54] Speaker 3: of the Kilo class Juan class Chinese submarines. The second
[36:00] Speaker 3: batch of these four submarines would be built in the
[36:03] Speaker 3: Submarine Rebuilt facility in a place called Ourmara in Balochistan.
[36:09] Speaker 3: Four of them now, out of the four submarines to
[36:12] Speaker 3: be built in Pakistan. The last two would be of
[36:15] Speaker 3: a separate class of submarines called the S thirty. And
[36:20] Speaker 3: they had got down the details of S thirty and
[36:22] Speaker 3: they said S thirty is not an ordinary conventional submarine.
[36:26] Speaker 3: It is a very large conventional submarine which has the
[36:29] Speaker 3: ability to launch ballistic missiles. And it's a Chinese version
[36:34] Speaker 3: of the old Soviet Golf class submarine, which was a
[36:38] Speaker 3: very unique kind of submarine. I don't know many people
[36:40] Speaker 3: know of Project Azorian, which was Howard Hughes creating a
[36:46] Speaker 3: ship to go in the Pacific and pick up a
[36:50] Speaker 3: Soviet submarine that was at the bottom three kilometers at
[36:53] Speaker 3: the sea floor because it had nuclear weapons on it
[36:57] Speaker 3: and the Americans wanted to study it, so they actual
[37:00] Speaker 3: they picked up the Glomar Explorer. That was the ship
[37:02] Speaker 3: that they built. Fascinating Cold War store, one of the
[37:04] Speaker 3: greatest Cold War stories. So the submarine that they want
[37:08] Speaker 3: to pick up was a Golf class. It's a conventional
[37:10] Speaker 3: submarine which fires nuclear ballistic missiles. The Chinese had reverse
[37:15] Speaker 3: engineered this as the King class submarines. There's only one
[37:20] Speaker 3: of those in existence. That submarine. It's more of a
[37:23] Speaker 3: trials platform. They fire their Julang one Gulong two submarine
[37:28] Speaker 3: launched ballistic missiles. So, like we discussed last week, we
[37:32] Speaker 3: fire ours from a special pontoo. The Chinese fires their
[37:36] Speaker 3: from a conventional submarine. So it turns out that this
[37:39] Speaker 3: is the submarine most likely that were the last two
[37:42] Speaker 3: units of this thing. So this deal is not an
[37:44] Speaker 3: ordinary deal. But possibly something seems to have gone wrong
[37:48] Speaker 3: with that deal, because if Muni is asking for second
[37:52] Speaker 3: strike capability very explicitly from the Chinese, then something has
[37:56] Speaker 3: happened to that original deal and they possibly were on
[38:00] Speaker 3: either a nuclear submarine and from the Chinese or this
[38:06] Speaker 3: you know, King class Chin class submarine with ballistic missile,
[38:11] Speaker 3: but very clear that they are looking at second strike
[38:14] Speaker 3: capability in a very big way and the price has
[38:17] Speaker 3: to be right for Baluchistan and for Guada, and they're negotiating.
[38:21] Speaker 3: So this is the thing. The Muni is in the
[38:24] Speaker 3: American camp, but he's negotiating with the Chinese as well.
[38:27] Speaker 3: So that's the Pakistani They've gone strategy riding two motorcycles.
[38:35] Speaker 2: I can't sustain that for long though, can you? You
[38:37] Speaker 2: end up falling?
[38:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's the nature of the Pakistan military. You know,
[38:43] Speaker 3: you look at it any which way. Did you think
[38:47] Speaker 3: that Yaya would get away with, you know, genocide in
[38:50] Speaker 3: East Pakistan later Bangladesh? Did you think that Ziya would
[38:54] Speaker 3: be able to, you know, play this long war, you know,
[38:59] Speaker 3: stockpile opens drugs, all of that, inject Islamism into Pakistani
[39:05] Speaker 3: society and get away with it. Do you think Musha
[39:08] Speaker 3: would get away with playing this double game?
[39:11] Speaker 5: You know?
[39:12] Speaker 3: But for the Pakistan military, you know, like this is
[39:16] Speaker 3: the scholar what is the name of the American scholar
[39:20] Speaker 3: Christine Fair see see Christine Fair came up with this
[39:24] Speaker 3: thing where she says that for Pakistan Pakistan army, defeat
[39:29] Speaker 3: means not fighting. It doesn't mean the end or you know,
[39:32] Speaker 3: when you surrender or something like that. You can have
[39:35] Speaker 3: a seventy one moment, but you have to keep fighting
[39:37] Speaker 3: even after that. Right. So for them and every dictator
[39:41] Speaker 3: is you know, comes with this thing that I am
[39:44] Speaker 3: God's gift to Pakistan. I will now solve all their problems.
[39:49] Speaker 3: Everybody comes with that notion and they leave the country
[39:53] Speaker 3: in far werstate than when they took over. And this
[39:57] Speaker 3: is you know money's thing as well, You've seen it
[39:59] Speaker 3: with money. Then you go back it's the same strap pushure.
[40:03] Speaker 3: Before that is Zia and before that is Yaya. It's like,
[40:06] Speaker 3: you know, history is literally that groundhog Day of Pakistani dictators.
[40:10] Speaker 3: And so that's why Christiane face book on Pakistan the Army,
[40:16] Speaker 3: it's a very good book. It's called Fighting to the End.
[40:19] Speaker 3: If you see that, it's all these generals on this
[40:21] Speaker 3: merry go round and they go around.
[40:25] Speaker 2: That's right, right. I'll come to India now and I
[40:31] Speaker 2: live at that into two separate discussion points. One would
[40:34] Speaker 2: look at the history of the last few decades and
[40:37] Speaker 2: the second would be right now of what we are
[40:39] Speaker 2: seeing and what we're doing about it if we look
[40:43] Speaker 2: at the history. So in school, I was naively made
[40:47] Speaker 2: uh made taught, and I believed that there was a
[40:52] Speaker 2: thing known as the non align movement. It's only when
[40:54] Speaker 2: I joined journalism i read history I realized, oh that
[40:57] Speaker 2: was a scam, right, but it did exist on paper
[41:01] Speaker 2: at least Under Prime Minister of Ahlal Nehru, India decided
[41:06] Speaker 2: to pursue the path of during the Cold War where
[41:09] Speaker 2: it said it would not site either with the US
[41:11] Speaker 2: or with the USSR in the two camps that the
[41:14] Speaker 2: world was into back then. However, it is a fact
[41:17] Speaker 2: also that India has always been aligned very very closely
[41:21] Speaker 2: to the Russians two USSR back then Russians now critics
[41:25] Speaker 2: have said, I mean, of course, it's you know, vision
[41:29] Speaker 2: is always better with twenty twenty look back at history.
[41:32] Speaker 2: But critics have always said that if India had been
[41:35] Speaker 2: more aligned with the US back then, you would have
[41:38] Speaker 2: had a much more developed country today, you would have
[41:40] Speaker 2: had a much better economy, you would have had much
[41:42] Speaker 2: open economy back much earlier than you did eventually nineteenety one.
[41:46] Speaker 2: But my thought then that do you think that the
[41:49] Speaker 2: alignment with Russians wasn't as much natural as it was
[41:53] Speaker 2: forced by the fact that the US was just with
[41:56] Speaker 2: Pakistan along.
[41:57] Speaker 3: Well, you have so they the thing is that the
[42:02] Speaker 3: US chose a side and through the Cold War they
[42:06] Speaker 3: thought Pakistan was a far more useful ally than India,
[42:09] Speaker 3: and India for them was you know, the socialist and
[42:14] Speaker 3: it was you know, always taking a stance that was
[42:17] Speaker 3: contrary to the United States. And there have been books
[42:20] Speaker 3: that have been written on this. And post nineteen seventy one,
[42:23] Speaker 3: we were firmly into the USSR, the USSR camp. So
[42:28] Speaker 3: while we might have been non aligned. We were for
[42:32] Speaker 3: all practical purposes literally a Soviet ally and you have
[42:36] Speaker 3: the Treaty of Peace and Friendship that was signed by
[42:39] Speaker 3: US in August nineteen seventy one. And the Soviets did
[42:41] Speaker 3: come to our assistance because the Soviets also were, you know,
[42:46] Speaker 3: being out maneuvered by the Americans. You had in the
[42:49] Speaker 3: sixtiesne that grand breakup of the USSR and China never
[42:54] Speaker 3: imagined that nineteen sixty and so it was only natural
[43:00] Speaker 3: Nixon and Kissinger did, is like to reach out to
[43:02] Speaker 3: Mao and to form an access against the USSR, and
[43:08] Speaker 3: so to counterfeil that, to counteract that China US proximity,
[43:16] Speaker 3: the USSR reached out to India. So it was an
[43:19] Speaker 3: alliance of convenience, it was. It benefited both countries enormously.
[43:24] Speaker 3: It gave us veto power in the UN Security Council.
[43:28] Speaker 3: The Soviets literally stooped through us. Is you know, had
[43:31] Speaker 3: our backs during seventy one in numerous ways. I mean
[43:35] Speaker 3: it's not just the vetos in the UN Security Council,
[43:38] Speaker 3: but it was also sending you know, assets into the
[43:42] Speaker 3: Indian Ocean to you know, after the seventy the seventh
[43:45] Speaker 3: fleet and all of that. So the USSR was a
[43:49] Speaker 3: very very staunch ally of India. They wanted to see
[43:54] Speaker 3: India grow because I think in their minds also they
[43:57] Speaker 3: saw India as a country, which was where they were
[44:02] Speaker 3: in the nineteen twenties. Right. So, if you've see in
[44:05] Speaker 3: the twentieth century the two countries that have had two
[44:09] Speaker 3: large countries that have had the most astounding transformation from
[44:14] Speaker 3: agrarian societies to industrialized societies. The first one is the
[44:19] Speaker 3: USSR in the twenties under Stalin and thirties, and the second,
[44:22] Speaker 3: of course is China in the latter half of the
[44:25] Speaker 3: eighties and the nineties. Now India is the third country
[44:29] Speaker 3: right down that path. So they saw India as the
[44:31] Speaker 3: kind of thing, and they saw us as more reliable
[44:35] Speaker 3: than the Chinese, you know, to the USSR. The Chinese
[44:39] Speaker 3: that stabbed them in the back, you know, in the
[44:41] Speaker 3: way that they had you know, you know, deceived them
[44:45] Speaker 3: in all of this, and that's why they broke up.
[44:47] Speaker 3: And they if you talk to the Russian analysts, they
[44:50] Speaker 3: say that we broke up with the Chinese because we
[44:51] Speaker 3: saw their true intent. So the Chinese went on to
[44:56] Speaker 3: the US and they carried out another great deception, which
[44:59] Speaker 3: is possibly I think one of the greatest deceptions in
[45:02] Speaker 3: the last hundred years or so, which is to convince
[45:04] Speaker 3: the United States that if you invest in us, if
[45:08] Speaker 3: you invest in our economy, in our markets, you give
[45:10] Speaker 3: us access to technology, we will become a democracy. And
[45:15] Speaker 3: lo and behold, the product of that is Sijin pain, right,
[45:19] Speaker 3: whom Trump has gone and you know, met and been
[45:23] Speaker 3: so nice to and you know the way, Yeah, well
[45:27] Speaker 3: he got two hundred boeings. That's about it. That's all
[45:31] Speaker 3: that the American president got. So here it is Sheijin paying,
[45:35] Speaker 3: that imperial Mao like figure talking to an American president
[45:43] Speaker 3: far diminished, caught up in a coagmire which he has
[45:46] Speaker 3: no answer out of. And you know, I sketched that
[45:48] Speaker 3: cartoon about a month ago, Trump on Fire, and it's
[45:53] Speaker 3: literally playing out in plain side. But then again, I
[45:56] Speaker 3: must say one thing about the United States there, and
[46:00] Speaker 3: this is something that a lot of people, you know,
[46:03] Speaker 3: seem to think that, oh, you know, the US is
[46:06] Speaker 3: like the UK after the Second World War. The UK is,
[46:10] Speaker 3: you know, once it lost its colonies, it became nothing.
[46:12] Speaker 3: And I've heard very respectable authors say the same of
[46:16] Speaker 3: the United States. No, absolutely not. The United States is
[46:19] Speaker 3: one of the most resilient countries in the history of
[46:21] Speaker 3: the world. They have the ability to bounce back from
[46:26] Speaker 3: defeat and catastrophe in a way that few countries can.
[46:30] Speaker 3: I mean, you look at them, the way they've bounced
[46:32] Speaker 3: back after well, not Korea. Korea was a draw. Vietnam.
[46:36] Speaker 3: They've bounced back after one of their biggest strategic defeats.
[46:40] Speaker 3: They bounced back after that. They bounced back after Iraq
[46:44] Speaker 3: two thousand and three, went on to twenty eleven. They
[46:48] Speaker 3: bounced back after Afghanistan humilating we draw in twenty twenty one,
[46:53] Speaker 3: and I'm sure they'll bounce back after this Iran you
[46:56] Speaker 3: know thing that Trump has gotten them into because it's
[46:59] Speaker 3: an extremely resilient country and it's possibly the only it's
[47:03] Speaker 3: a giant. It's a military, technological, you know, country of
[47:09] Speaker 3: the kind that we've never seen in history. It's both
[47:11] Speaker 3: a military superpower economic superpower. China wants to get there.
[47:16] Speaker 3: China wants to be another United States and displace the US.
[47:20] Speaker 3: The Soviet Union tried, but it couldn't become anything more
[47:23] Speaker 3: than maybe a source superpower or a military superpower. Could
[47:27] Speaker 3: never become an economic superpart. So that's the strength of
[47:30] Speaker 3: the US. And so even you know, in our case,
[47:34] Speaker 3: India and the US strange democracies. There's a book that's
[47:38] Speaker 3: been written about that. People tend to say, oh, you know,
[47:40] Speaker 3: the US is. Yes, of course Trump has caused a
[47:42] Speaker 3: lot of damage to India US relations, But then you
[47:47] Speaker 3: have to look at the US as being one of
[47:50] Speaker 3: the biggest markets for India, biggest investors. They don't claim
[47:56] Speaker 3: our territory, They have no you know, terrior in a
[48:00] Speaker 3: way that China does. So the US is actually, if
[48:03] Speaker 3: you look at it, they may have issues with US.
[48:06] Speaker 3: They have you know, when they're pursuing their own interests.
[48:09] Speaker 3: They may not see India in the same way that
[48:10] Speaker 3: we see our rise. So there will be contestation. But
[48:14] Speaker 3: in the long run, I would think that the US
[48:16] Speaker 3: is more beneficial to us than say, the Chinese.
[48:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you're right. This was going to
[48:21] Speaker 2: be my second point is what we're doing with the
[48:23] Speaker 2: US right now. For the last I think two decades now,
[48:27] Speaker 2: we've sort of understood that, you know, we need to
[48:30] Speaker 2: be a build warma ties with the US without obviously
[48:34] Speaker 2: you know, hurting or risking your ties with the.
[48:38] Speaker 3: Or even you know, at the risk of compromising your
[48:42] Speaker 3: own independence. Yeah, yeah, which always struck that fine balance.
[48:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have been doing that, and I think
[48:48] Speaker 2: what you are saying is what you're seeing right now,
[48:50] Speaker 2: the sort of acrimony that's just a brief pause that
[48:53] Speaker 2: in the long project that you see, it may be
[48:55] Speaker 2: a setback of a few years, but I think it
[48:58] Speaker 2: will sort of eventually get back on track. But my
[49:00] Speaker 2: point there deep is what we've discussed so far on
[49:04] Speaker 2: this entire episode. The US is the US's equation with Pakistan.
[49:08] Speaker 2: Were seeing it play out in real time. It's sort
[49:10] Speaker 2: of closeness not with Pakistan, but also part of the
[49:13] Speaker 2: Pakistan and deep state, the military, et cetera. That obviously
[49:16] Speaker 2: is a very big risk factor for US. You briefly
[49:19] Speaker 2: refer to the ninety seventy one more where basically what
[49:21] Speaker 2: happened was the US almost sort of threatened India militarily
[49:25] Speaker 2: by sending an aircraft carried into our backyard. The Russian
[49:29] Speaker 2: help was that the Russia also sent a fleet of
[49:31] Speaker 2: its warships to the region to sort of tell us, hey,
[49:33] Speaker 2: if you get involve them, you're going to get involved.
[49:35] Speaker 2: But Basically what happened was the US was almost telling
[49:38] Speaker 2: India that if you don't back off, you're going to
[49:40] Speaker 2: maybe attack you. I think it also helped that the
[49:43] Speaker 2: US did not like in the ra Gandhi that much
[49:45] Speaker 2: back then. But that's a separate story. But my points
[49:48] Speaker 2: in Deep is that that risk then always exists, even
[49:51] Speaker 2: though you may not, even though it would be foolish
[49:53] Speaker 2: to think that in something like an optional for example,
[49:56] Speaker 2: the US would send its military. That exists. So as
[50:00] Speaker 2: India builds, even though it's paused right now, builds aumatized
[50:04] Speaker 2: with the US. What have you seen in terms of
[50:07] Speaker 2: the firewalls we've put in to ensure that that eventual
[50:10] Speaker 2: help to Pakistan in terms in a hypothetical large scale
[50:14] Speaker 2: conflict never comes.
[50:16] Speaker 3: Well, you know, they firstly that during seventy one there
[50:19] Speaker 3: was a third sleeping partner as well in that India
[50:23] Speaker 3: in the US Pakistan relationship, and that was China. Now Chinese,
[50:28] Speaker 3: it now emerges, had not deployed along the northern border
[50:35] Speaker 3: with India deployed their forces despite Kissinger telling them. Kisinja
[50:39] Speaker 3: was literally telling the Chinese ambassador in New York that listen,
[50:43] Speaker 3: you have to deploy there. Please deploy We would like
[50:47] Speaker 3: it very much if you would deploy it there, because
[50:49] Speaker 3: he wanted to get pressure off Pakistan in East Pakistan, right,
[50:54] Speaker 3: Kisinja is a pride guy. Now, why did the Chinese
[50:57] Speaker 3: not deploy their forces over there. It's because the Soviets
[51:01] Speaker 3: had deployed all along their border with China. Wow. So
[51:05] Speaker 3: it was that that was the you know, the pressure
[51:08] Speaker 3: that the USSR had applied not only on the sea
[51:12] Speaker 3: front where they sent submarines after the US seventh Fleet,
[51:16] Speaker 3: but they had also applied this pressure on China to
[51:20] Speaker 3: warn them that if they moved in, they would And
[51:23] Speaker 3: this was just a few years after the Usuri River
[51:26] Speaker 3: clashes sixty eight between sixty nine between the USSR and
[51:30] Speaker 3: China where they actually fought. This is the first time
[51:32] Speaker 3: the two nuclear armed states were actually fighting using their militaries.
[51:36] Speaker 3: They didn't use the air force, but they were border
[51:38] Speaker 3: clashes between the two and the Chinese were really worried
[51:42] Speaker 3: that if they moved. Mao was in power, and he
[51:45] Speaker 3: was worried that if he moved there and across the
[51:49] Speaker 3: Indian border, the Soviets would walk in. Right. So, you know,
[51:55] Speaker 3: countries like this, dictators only understand military power now stalin
[52:01] Speaker 3: all of that, you can't scare them with well, non
[52:04] Speaker 3: violent movements, you know, those kind of things don't scare dictators,
[52:08] Speaker 3: they don't scare empires. Right now, coming back to our
[52:14] Speaker 3: strategy with visa US and Pakistan, we have to handle
[52:18] Speaker 3: it in a way that doesn't compromise our interests and militarily,
[52:23] Speaker 3: short of the US coming in, flying in and sending
[52:27] Speaker 3: in a carrier strike group or more carrier strike groups
[52:30] Speaker 3: to the aid of Pakistan, if there was a future
[52:33] Speaker 3: such conflict, I don't see any big threat. And as
[52:38] Speaker 3: we've discussed in the past, Pakistan as a conventional military
[52:41] Speaker 3: threat does not exist for India in the way it
[52:44] Speaker 3: did in the past. We have now built up the
[52:46] Speaker 3: kind of capabilities to rapidly paralyze their military's ability to strike,
[52:51] Speaker 3: which is, if you hit the air bases, if you
[52:57] Speaker 3: hit their seaports, their submarine bases, the air force and
[53:01] Speaker 3: the navy is unable to move. If their force and
[53:04] Speaker 3: the navy are unable to move in a twentieth century
[53:06] Speaker 3: twenty first century conflict, you don't think the army is
[53:09] Speaker 3: going to move. The army will not move without air
[53:12] Speaker 3: covered air superiority, right, so that automatically puts the army
[53:17] Speaker 3: out of the equation. And the army knows this that
[53:20] Speaker 3: you can keep pushing terrorists across the border low intensity conflict,
[53:24] Speaker 3: but a full scale armored assault or something of the
[53:27] Speaker 3: kind that they attempted in sixty five and in seventy one,
[53:30] Speaker 3: that's out of the question because they'll get hit so
[53:33] Speaker 3: hard that they will lose a lot of equipment. And finally,
[53:37] Speaker 3: you know, the conflict termination happens when one side runs
[53:40] Speaker 3: out of equipment and it's unable to replace that equipment,
[53:43] Speaker 3: as we've seen in plenty of wars, and that's possibly
[53:47] Speaker 3: going to happen with Pakistan as well. What we should
[53:50] Speaker 3: worry is if there is a US China Pakistan lineup
[53:55] Speaker 3: of the kind that we saw in seventy one and
[53:57] Speaker 3: we don't have the Russians on our site.
[54:02] Speaker 2: That's a scary thoughts on Deep and I rather not
[54:04] Speaker 2: think about that, right, but I think we'll end the
[54:09] Speaker 2: episode on that note. It's a fantastic discussions in Deep,
[54:13] Speaker 2: great insights, I think, and I think there's an episode
[54:16] Speaker 2: to be done on Russia, actually ussr Russia India's equation
[54:20] Speaker 2: with that because you know, people in the newsroom often
[54:24] Speaker 2: you know, wonder that why is India so sort of
[54:27] Speaker 2: you know, why does it seem to be siding with
[54:31] Speaker 2: Russia when it comes to the Ukraine War? Why is
[54:34] Speaker 2: it not going with the West, and you know, sort
[54:36] Speaker 2: of pull pulling Russia?
[54:38] Speaker 3: And aswer to that, it's the strategic second strike capability
[54:42] Speaker 3: which the Russians have helped us build. And that second
[54:45] Speaker 3: strike capability is something that ensures the survival of a nation,
[54:50] Speaker 3: and any country that helps you do that, you will,
[54:54] Speaker 3: you know, have a certain sense of obligation towards because
[54:58] Speaker 3: and even if you look at it, the kind of
[55:00] Speaker 3: technologies that the Russians have been willing to share with
[55:03] Speaker 3: us is something that no country in the world will
[55:06] Speaker 3: allow you to do. They have trained our reactor specialists
[55:13] Speaker 3: in Okab, African top which is one of the most
[55:16] Speaker 3: sensitive establishments in the Russian Federation, which is where all
[55:22] Speaker 3: their reactor engineers and all that have train. They have
[55:25] Speaker 3: given us access to a lot of technology. At times,
[55:28] Speaker 3: I feel that we are unable to absorb all of
[55:30] Speaker 3: that technology because we don't understand the importance of this.
[55:33] Speaker 3: So many times it's that we have an al thirty
[55:36] Speaker 3: one FP engine production line for the last twenty years
[55:41] Speaker 3: in Corporate Odisha, and we have not able to make
[55:44] Speaker 3: a single engine fighter around that. You know, things like that,
[55:47] Speaker 3: I think we at times, I blame ourselves for not
[55:51] Speaker 3: absorbing that technology fast enough. But you know, the kind
[55:54] Speaker 3: of trust and camaraderie that we have with Russians, something
[55:59] Speaker 3: that again with the USSR and continued with the Russian Federation,
[56:04] Speaker 3: is something we have with no other country, I would say,
[56:07] Speaker 3: in the in the world. I mean, the Brumos is
[56:08] Speaker 3: a classic case where you have and I've heard it
[56:12] Speaker 3: from the chief scientists who pushed the Brumous program, doctor Pillay.
[56:16] Speaker 3: He said that every any time I had a problem,
[56:19] Speaker 3: I would go to President Putin and he would personally
[56:21] Speaker 3: ensure that things would you know, go through. That's the
[56:24] Speaker 3: kind of attention and care that you know, they've paid
[56:29] Speaker 3: to this relationship which the Europeans will not understand, the
[56:33] Speaker 3: Westerners will not understand, the Americans might not understand. Our
[56:37] Speaker 3: relationship with the Russians is you know, of a different order.
[56:43] Speaker 3: This is not to suggest that we are going to
[56:44] Speaker 3: you know, work against the Americans or you know, team
[56:47] Speaker 3: up with you know, the Russians against the Americans. Something.
[56:51] Speaker 3: Our relationship with the Americans is independent of that we
[56:55] Speaker 3: have with the Russians, and that is a very very
[56:57] Speaker 3: time tested, a very cherished relationship that we have.
[57:01] Speaker 2: Also, it helps that ras Kapour is extremely popular and
[57:04] Speaker 2: still even now.
[57:06] Speaker 3: In twenty twenty six, you would be surprised.
[57:08] Speaker 2: I think he has more fans in Russia right now
[57:10] Speaker 2: than perhaps in India.
[57:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, how many? How many kids today in India?
[57:13] Speaker 1: Were right?
[57:15] Speaker 3: They probably know Karina Kapor more or run than they
[57:21] Speaker 3: would know Rach.
[57:23] Speaker 2: Right, all right, but that's exactly why. Actually I wanted
[57:25] Speaker 2: to do an episode, so we will do one eventually. Yeah,
[57:28] Speaker 2: Button's coming here right in a couple of Yeah, he's
[57:30] Speaker 2: coming here for the books and yeah and by the way,
[57:32] Speaker 2: probably yeah, that will be very interesting. I think Trump
[57:35] Speaker 2: will be very happy with that because that's another photo
[57:37] Speaker 2: that FORO that went viral.
[57:39] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, Primi Samodi and putin Yeah right.
[57:44] Speaker 2: Right, greats and deep. I think we'll end it that
[57:46] Speaker 2: fantastic chat. Thanks as always, say thank you for having me. Yeah,
[57:49] Speaker 2: and thanks to all our listeners and viewers. That's it
[57:52] Speaker 2: for this week's Defense. Does for more, tune in next week.
[57:54] Speaker 2: Till then, stay safe and don't toss any boundaries with
[57:56] Speaker 2: the past.
[58:04] Speaker 1: In a world of contested potterers and silent battles, one
[58:13] Speaker 1: voice cuts through the noise.
[58:16] Speaker 2: Was Israel able to achieve its aim when Israel bombed Iran?
[58:22] Speaker 2: Do you think that Chinese army is at war with itself?
[58:27] Speaker 5: Joined veteran war correspondent God of Seventh, one of India's
[58:32] Speaker 5: most trusted voices in defense journalism.
[58:35] Speaker 2: Navaskar and jahand I'm God a Seventh.
[58:38] Speaker 5: Listen to Chuck review with God of Savar on India
[58:43] Speaker 5: Today Podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube music and your favorite
[58:48] Speaker 5: audio utity platform.
[58:51] Speaker 1: Stay alert. The war for truck starts here.

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