Pakistan and Domino Kidney Swap-style diplomacy: How 2016 will look for Indian foreign policy

Pakistan and Domino Kidney Swap-style diplomacy: How 2016 will look for Indian foreign policyWhy has Pakistan offered to collaborate in the investigation into the Pathankot terror strike with unaccustomed speed? Why was Indian top political establishment so guarded in its condemnation instead of the fire-and-brimstone default response?

If one zooms out a little, it is not difficult to see that the Domino Kidney-Swap style political deal-making which was speculated upon in my article on July 18, 2015 seems to be unfolding right before our eyes. Domino kidney swap, for those who do not know, involves a chain. If A, B, C… N are the patients in need of kidney transplants,  A’s relative gives a kidney to B, B’s relative gives it to C and so on till the loop is completed with N’s relative giving a kidney  to A.

So what does 2016 hold in store for India on the foreign policy front?  Let us first see what ‘kidney’ problem was troubling each of the key players when this plan seems to have evolved.

By the end of 2014, Barack Obama’s foreign policy headache was Afghanistani Taliban, especially with ISIS taking centre stage as the major policy issue. Given the ‘withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan’ platform on which he had been elected, he needed a solution. Afghanistan Taliban could not be contained without Pakistani help and US had little leverage left other than the tried and failed dollops of dollars. The other major pain point for Obama was on environment where, as a practical matter, India seemed to have a veto on any agreement. The US leverage with India was even less than with Pakistan.

Pakistan seemed to have three geo-strategic problems: some of the terror outfits had turned against the state itself, internationally Pakistan was increasingly being isolated both as a fountainhead of terror and as a nuclear pariah and its economy was floundering. Pakistani generals could not play ball on containing the terror factories, essentially their creations, on both their Eastern and Western borders, without some satisfaction on their main 60 year theme song, Kashmir. The only chance of solving these problems was to have some accommodation with India but Pakistan had no leverage with India.

India under Prime Minister Modi had hugely intensified retaliatory action against what had by then become routine Pakistani provocation on the LoC. It had shown that it was quite prepared to attempt bringing Pakistan to its knees in a replay of the US-USSR cold war end game of increasing the costs of continued confrontation, making it unviable for the financially weaker party. There was nothing that India needed from Pakistan except for it to shut down its terror factories.  India and its ambitious Prime Minister, however, did need something which only the US was in a position to facilitate— a Security Council seat.

There you have it, the essentials of the Domino Kidney Swap Diplomatic solution. The US was to get satisfaction in Afghanistan from Pakistan and on a global environment agreement from India. Pakistan was to get a nuclear fuel waiver and legitimacy for its nuclear programme on par with India in return for dumping its terrorists and waiving off its objections to India getting a Security Council seat.  India was to get a meaningful shot at a Security Council seat in return for stopping stonewalling on Kashmir and also waiving its objection to Pakistan getting equal treatment in nuclear matters.

It seems very likely that the scenario described above was discussed in Australia by Barack Obama and Narendra Modi in end November 2014 on the sidelines of the G20 summit and a roadmap towards resolution was put in place by January 26, 2015 when Obama visited India for the Republic Day parade. The logical timeline for completing the ‘chain operations’ would seem to be Obama’s term, ending by November 2016.

Half the scenarios envisaged have already played out: Indian accommodation on environment talks (Obama personally thanked Modi after the Paris meet), Pakistani Army diluting its support to both the extreme elements and Hurriyat and the international community, under US prodding, showing signs of flexibility on the nuclear fuel issue and possibly legitimacy for Pakistan and a non-voting Security council seat  for India.

So how does 2016 look? Here are some thoughts.

1. The Pathankot terror attack has shown that the forces inimical to Indo-Pak peace will put up a strong fight. From their points-of-view, their fight now is totally existential. For them, Kashmir is now merely a convenient façade to continue their lifestyles in often comfortable circumstances. There is a whole bunch of 30 and 40-year-olds out there who have no training for any other career and who can see their SUVs and mansions with 6 digit compensation packages all unraveling if, god forbid, India and Pakistan agreed to a deal. In practical terms, this portends a seriously dangerous first quarter or perhaps first half of 2016 while Pakistani Army tries and brings them to heel. As is customary in Pakistan, it is entirely possible that the bad guys will have to be lured with promises of decent security jobs and if they are, Indians would do well to pray for the success of these overtures.

2. The time also seems to have come for the US to do its share of the heavy lifting. Wait a minute, hasn’t President Obama, in an unprecedented move, just invited Modi and Sharif for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Conference on March 31/ April 1, 2016 in the US? You should hear the penny dropping.

3. But the Security Council seat is not for the US to give, you say? What about the mega deals India has signed with the UK, France and Russia in the last six months alone, post Ufa? By now you should be hearing Pounds, Francs and Roubles dropping too!

4. China is special because Pakistan is almost its client state. But China too is interested in weaning the Pakistani establishment away from its pet terrorists since they are giving it a real headache in the border Ugur province. Moreover, Pakistan is a key part of its land-based Silk Road project and it has already committed a whopping $46 billion which is helping regenerate Pakistani economy in the area. Choking off terror factories is part of the deal. As far as the Security Council expansion is concerned, Chinese are realists. The pressure for UN Security Council reform is mounting and they would rather have India than Japan at the high table as the second participant from Asia. And which was the first country to whole-heartedly welcome Modi’s surprise Lahore visit? China, of course.

To be sure, China also has major border problems with India. Wait one more minute please, why did Ajit Doval, PM Modi’s trusted  NSA, plan to rush to China—now delayed— immediately after Modi returned from his ‘surprise’ visit to Pakistan? It seems very possible that you should be hearing Yuan drop in few weeks with news of some breakthrough, minor or major, in China-India border talks.

All this is not to suggest that the road ahead will be easy.  LeT, Jaish and all others will likely throw in all their ammunition/sleeper cadres to derail Indo-Pak peace because it is literally a matter of life or death for them. They may not be able to pull off another 26/11 type attack without the Pakistan Army’s direct involvement but they can do serious damage in areas where they have sleeper cells or in border areas with infiltration. That is when the nerves of the top political leadership in India and Pakistan will be tested. They will need to hold their nerves because such opportunities of solving seemingly impossible problems come very rarely.