Rapid Communications in Conflict and Security Series. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2022. xviii, 258 pp. US$110.00, cloth; US$45.00, paper; US$30.00, ebook. ISBN 9781638570639.
More than 75 years have passed since the British cleaved the South Asian subcontinent in 1947 along ostensibly religious lines, creating the two nation-states of India and Pakistan. The bloody partition failed to bring peace. Instead, India and Pakistan remain frozen in time and unable to reconcile. Feroz Hassan Khan’s Subcontinent Adrift examines security motivations and age-old rivalries between these two nuclear powers that have fought several overt and covert wars. Policy analysts have debated the region’s security dilemma from either an Indian or Pakistani perspective, thus presenting a one-dimensional picture. Khan fills this gap by analyzing the contestations of the warring neighbours in tandem to provide a holistic view of the security problem. Khan’s book emerged from extensive discussions with foreign policy observers and scholars at various think tanks in Washington, DC.
Subcontinent Adrift identifies the “ideological underpinnings, territorial claims, and asymmetries of power” (xiv) that have provoked tensions in South Asia and suggests possibilities for peace. Khan asserts that the subcontinent is adrift due to the inability of India and Pakistan to move beyond their “stubborn fixations” (xi). India desires regional hegemony, while Pakistan seeks parity with a powerful neighbour. These irreconcilable positions, mired in unending competition, prevent both nations from reaching “economic interdependency, connectivity, and regional integration” (xi). Khan argues that this regional instability has international ramifications, encouraging strategic realignments to fit the region’s shifting geopolitics and further compounding the India-Pakistan drift.
The book’s seven chapters adopt a thematic approach. In chapter 1, Khan historically contextualizes the “deep-rooted cognitive and structural factors” (230) that have shaped the conflict and asserts that partition in 1947 became a “festering sore” (xiv) that enhanced fears and insecurities about the other. Extremist ideologies intolerant of minorities on both sides of the divide flamed communitarian tensions, while structural elements like arbitrary borders and unresolved territorial disputes caused further drift.
Khan addresses the “systemic, bilateral, and domestic level irritants” (36) that fuel regional security competition. A key theme of chapter 2 is China’s emergence as a regional power that sharpened the India-Pakistan divide. India bristles at close cooperation between China and Pakistan on economic and infrastructural matters, while Pakistan fears the developing relationship between India and the United States to contain an assertive China. In this geopolitical power game, India’s growing ambition and its “dismissive contempt of Pakistan” (51) have drawn Pakistan’s military and bureaucracy to increase its nuclear arsenal. Ultranationalists within the strategic enclaves of both nations prevent peaceful coexistence.
Chapter 3 discusses the competing strategies adopted by India to emerge as a regional power. The Nehruvian ideals of democracy and secularism provided India with stability but clashed with the vision of those who advocated for strategic assertion and military might. After India emerged as a nuclear power it asserted its influence and meddled in the affairs of neighbouring states. The Indira Doctrine’s tough approach curbed internal dissent and dissuaded foreign interference in South Asia. India aimed to subdue Pakistan and achieve parity with China. However, the transformations in the regional security landscape in the late 1980s, with the Tamil crisis in Sri Lanka, the end of the Cold War, and the rise of the armed insurgency in Kashmir encouraged India to adopt a conciliatory approach to its neighbours. The Gujral Doctrine’s soft power approach built common security and regional cooperation. National security hawks, however, considered it a weak policy, especially after the Kargil War of 1999 and the 2006 terrorist attack orchestrated by Pakistan’s militant groups in Mumbai. India’s hard power capabilities were again on display with the 2014 rise of the Hindu nationalist party. India aims for international prestige to become a leading power in the Indian Ocean belt, but Khan asserts India must first gain the “confidence of its South Asian neighbours” (87).
Chapter 4 highlights the grand strategies that define Pakistan’s security policies. Overshadowed by a powerful neighbour, Pakistan aims to survive with dignity and maintain “sovereignty and independence at all costs” (103). Throughout its history, Pakistan has embraced strategic alliances with foreign partners to boost its military prowess and counter existential threats from India. Pakistan’s nuclear capability has thus prevented India from adopting a more aggressive approach, while its “sub-conventional forces” (113) have bled India in places like Kashmir. Yet this grand strategy of limiting India’s ambition has come at an “enormous political, economic, and social cost” (116). Pakistan has been able to survive, but not thrive.
Chapter 5 discusses the fragile and tenuous “deterrence stability” (xv) of the two nuclear powers. The inability of both nations to appreciate each other’s doctrines and military standpoints, Khan cautions, could lead to misreading the “other’s resolve to violence, possibly leading to the use of the nuclear option” (xv). Chapter 6 delves into the contemporary “gray zone” approach of India’s Hindu nationalist government that blends proxies and surgical strikes to diplomatically isolate Pakistan and to weaken its military capacity and discusses how this provokes a quid pro quo response. Pakistan’s security strategy is focused on suppressing the armed jihadi groups it originally created to deter its rivals, but which have since turned against Pakistan and engage in terrorism. This crisis of stability, compounded by modern technological advances in strategic weapons, has provoked a subcontinental arms race.
The last chapter deliberates on “possible strategic futures.” Cycles of failed compromises since 1948, alongside conservative elements in both India and Pakistan, have derailed peace efforts. Instead of adopting a path towards a “regional cold war” (208), Khan presents a new framework for peace that acknowledges the shifting global and strategic landscape. His proposal suggests placing the “intractable issues between the two countries on hold” to focus on new strategic confidence-building measures and guaranteeing nuclear stabilization while limiting the “use of conventional forces” (202–203). Both nations should work towards transforming this “hotbed of warring tribes, secession, terrorism” (203) into a South Asian space for economic and cultural connectivity.
Subcontinent Adrift is intended for cross-disciplinary engagement in policy studies, international relations, politics, and security studies. The book does well in analyzing the fraught relations between India and Pakistan that have brought South Asia to the brink of destruction, while suggesting new measures to bring peace. Yet the strategic confidence-building measures Khan suggests can help manage conflict, not resolve it. So long as India and Pakistan remain in the grips of colonial constructs of territorial nationalism, indivisible sovereignty, and majoritarian-minoritarian politics, true peace can never prevail.
Shahla Hussain
St. John’s University, Queens