By Dr. Subhash Kapila
“Quietly and unobtrusively a Russo-Pakistan rapprochement has been developing behind the scenes of world politics for the last two years.
Russia also fully understands that Pakistan is a crucial player in Afghanistan and that as NATO withdraws it becomes all the more urgent for Moscow to seek some sort of ‘modus vivendi’ with Islamabad” — Prof, Stephen Blank, USA, June 08 2012
Russia is obviously recalibrating and resetting its policy buttons in South Asia. Russia and Pakistan seem to have simultaneously calibrated moves in the last two years to end the frosty relationship that existed between them over half a century. The stimulus seems to be the perception that both can develop strategic convergence on a post-2014 Afghanistan when the United States exits Afghanistan.
Putin in 2011 had publicly endorsed Pakistan’s full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a position steadfastly till then pursued by China. Presumably China would have been able to convince Russia that in the emerging security environment in Afghanistan and Central Asia, a Russian recalibration of its South Asia policy whereby Pakistan’s strategic devaluation by the United States is offset by a Russian-Chinese strategic revaluation of Pakistan with consequent gains by all three nations.
The Russia-India Strategic Partnership was the corner-stone of Russia’s foreign policy formulations in South Asia for the last four decades or so. Co-terminus with Russia’s South Asia policy formulations and the privileged position and priority that stood attached to the centrality of India in South Asia was Russia’s scrupulous adherence to respecting India’s strategic sensitivities on Pakistan’s contentious and adversarial relations with India. So much so that Russia maintained no substantial political relations with Pakistan. No Russian President has ever visited Pakistan.
Recent events do however portend that with India embarking on a more proximate strategic relationship with the United States, Russia too has set about recalibrating its South Asian policy formulations. The Russian President’s Special Envoy visited Pakistan in May 2012 in what seems to be a preparatory visit for President Putin’s visit to Islamabad in September 2012—the first ever visit to Pakistan by a Russian President. The Russian President has accepted the Pakistan invitation for a bilateral visit to Islamabad preceding the 4th Quadrilateral Meeting on Afghanistan being hosted in Islamabad on September 26-27, 2012 and being attended by Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Russia.
Coincidently or not Pakistan witnessed back-to back-visits in May 2012 by the Chinese Foreign Minister and the Russian President’s Special Envoy. Is there a political and strategic message for India from both Russia and China? Two messages seem to be emerging from these portentous developments.
Read the full story at Eurasia Review