Pakistan's Obsession with India

Bruce Riedel, a Brookings senior fellow and director of the Intelligence Project at Brookings, puts a fine point on Pakistan's obsession with its archenemy, India.

"The Pakistani army has lost every war it's fought with India, from the original war in 1947 until the latest war in 1999. ... Repeated defeats have only reinforced the Pakistani army's obsession with India."

Riedel describes how Pakistan has attempted to "level the playing field" with India through its nuclear weapons program and the use of proxies--terrorist organizations. "With the cover of the nuclear umbrella," he says, "you can be highly provocative with asymmetric warfare--a fancy term for terrorism--and get away with it."

Still, Riedel is hopeful that South Asia can have a beautiful future if it builds the kind of economic interactions that the EU has brought to Europe and NAFTA has brought to North America.

Learn more about the Pakistan-India proxy war in Afghanistan in a new Brookings essay by historian William Dalrymple, "A Deadly Triangle: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India": http://www.brookings.edu/DeadlyTriangle

Learn more about Bruce Riedel and his research on South Asia: http://www.brookings.edu/experts/riedelb

Видео Pakistan's Obsession with India канала Brookings Institution