COMMENTARY – THE POST-GLOBALIZATION OF SOUTH ASIA

Abstract

Ironic as it may seem, one of the major victims of America's diplomatic retreat from Pakistan has been India. China has filled the void of U.S. disengagement, solidifying its grip on Pakistan and locking India in a two-front vise that it cannot cope with on its own. India has no choice but to reach out for alliances with liberal nations it shunned in its Non-Aligned days. This radical policy shift is capped, however, by the ideological constraints of Modi's BJPism. That is the main reason why India has refused to abort its military and economic ties with Russia. A similar anti-liberalism led Imran Khan, the ex-prime minister of Pakistan, to seek an anti-Western accord with Russia. Conversely, Pakistan's current leadership is trying hard to repair its U.S. relations. Following the lead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, this extended commentary favors robust U.S. engagement with all of South Asia but qualifies that case by stressing that the wrong kind of engagement would end up serving the cause of Sino-authoritarianism. What is needed is moral realism, which avoids the ethical blight of both Kissingeresque realism and globalist irrealism. Pakistan is ripe for this post-globalist realism because it affords no clean and neat “right” choices yet is far too important to abandon. Such cases compel us to search for lesser evils: the best available bad choices we can locate.