Session 22: India & Pakistan: 'The Traditional Rivals'

In his essay 'War and Peace', Jack Levy presents as great literary and research review on war and peace in the field of IR. Most of the ideas explored, we have already discussed in class, so this paper served as a good reminder and reinforcer. Levy pays particular attention to the liberal and realist theories and applauds the methodological pluralism used in the research work done on the topic of war and peace and correctly calls it as a good sign for the future.

I want to focus on his discussion of balance of power and democratic peace theory. The relations between ‘traditional rival’ nations of India and Pakistan that have fought three wars in the past 70 years serve as great examples for both, the confirmation of the former and (largely) as an exception of the latter.

The strategies of India and Pakistan employed in terms of their weapons build up, matches the idea of balance of power completely. It all escalated in the 1970s. Pakistan’s lose in the 1972 war and India’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons technology prompted Pakistani leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to initiate Pakistan’s own efforts. India first tested its nuclear weapons successfully in 1974 and Pakistan escalated its efforts and in the 90s continued to do so despite heavy pressure and sanctions from the outside world, and successfully tested its own weapons technology in 1998. It’s a crystal clear example of Pakistan trying to prevent India from getting ahead by attempting to balance it out. Exactly like the realists argue. This has not stopped since then. This balancing tactic continues to this day.  Just in March 2015, India successfully tested a nuclear capable missile only a day after Pakistan did a similar test.

Now let’s examine the democratic peace theory. It proposes that democracies do not fight each other. But India and Pakistan did fight the Kargil War in 1999 when both countries were democracies. It’s a clear exception to the democratic peace claim. Although, within the democratic peace research program, they do make an exception that transitional democracy are more likely to fight. Admittedly, Pakistan was a democracy in transition in 1999. The democracy was only 10 years old and even in that decade, the democratic governments had been already dismissed thrice (even a fourth time after the war.) Is this case of the negation of the democratic peace theory or does the theory allow the loophole with the leeway it gives transitional democracies? It is datable, I guess. But it does prove that the democratic peace is far from a fully proven theory yet. It has its limitations and not fully applicable. Although, I do think it is an interesting take on war and peace because of its prescriptive nature.