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Closer to Agreement

 

Over the last several months, India and Pakistan have been silent working on a deal to demilitarize Siachen, the world’s highest battlefield. The main issue seems to be “iron-clad guarantees” that Pakistan will not occupy positions vacated by India on the glacier. India fears that Pakistan may try to take those positions that India vacates making it that much harder for India to retake them.

Both countries seemed to have agreed on the broad perspective that they will respect the positions taken to be a de facto border that is ill defined. Decades of distrust, the short Kargil War, and Pakistan’s support for terrorism in India are stopping them from going forward on this deal.

Siachen is strategic for India because it overlooks the Karakoram Pass that links Pakistan to Akasi Chin (an area of erstwhile Jammu & Kashmir state illegally ceded by Pakistan to China). Hence, in case of hostilities with Pakistan where China becomes an active partner, its land army has to cross over only through this pass. Therefore, the controller of the pass would stop such help.
 

From India’s point of view, the importance of holding Siachen has become less relevant due to many developments. Firstly, the availability of missiles and aircraft to shut down the pass brings down the importance of artillery on the glacier. Secondly, the cost of maintaining troops at that level is very expensive and with alternate viable methods available, the cost is no longer justifiable. Thirdly, Siachen can easily be a true confidence building mechanism with Pakistan. With relevant guarantees, there is no real loss for Indian strategic positions but goes a long way to build relationship with Pakistan.

From Pakistan’s point of view also, Siachen is becoming less relevant. Firstly, with Pakistan’s faltering economy, the cost of running the operation is prohibitive and the only reason it continues to run the operation is to save face. Secondly, Pakistan holds strategically disadvantageous positions that it can neither defend nor use to attack. Successive attempts have failed and Pakistan has lost heavily in human lives trying to take positions from India. Thirdly, Pakistan desperately needs a relief from pressure on the Eastern border because of continuing civil wars with a new Taliban group in North West and Baloach rebels in Baloachistan. A solution on Siachen will give it that space.

National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan says that the main challenge is how to “authenticate the line where they (troops) are.”