There is plenty to be sceptical about the current 'peace' process between Pakistan and India. The immediate impulses behind this peace process are none too encouraging. In particular, the military-led government in Islamabad is under tremendous pressure from its US backers to adopt a cooperative posture vis-à-vis the giant eastern neighbour. The Pakistani military, unsurprisingly, is a corporate player with a history and culture of animosity towards India. Some peace-process optimists argue that it is for this very reason that the military is the most reliable deliverer of amity – weak civil leaders cannot make credible promises and survive.
The logic that hawks can be reliable peace-makers is widely used in international relations, but what of the fundamental political and economic interests of Pakistan's military, which might actually lie in the perpetuation of the state of cold war in the Subcontinent? Any normalisation process would undermine the political legitimacy of the military as an entity, consequently giving rise to challenges to its claims on the country's economic resources. These claims would not be limited to the public purse, though that is important. They would extend to the military's vast and expanding corporate empire, spanning sectors such as manufacturing, finance, property development, freight, air travel and agriculture. Why should a corporate entity that is known to jealously guard its interests bring about its own studied demise?
The fact that the current peace process is largely choreographed by the United States also, paradoxically, does not bode too well. Far from providing assurance, the deep and detailed involvement of the superpower highlights the possibility that domestic political constituencies for peace are not as well prepared as they might appear. The tectonic shift in Southasia, of course, is the investment being made by the US and India for a close, long-term relationship, with security at its core. Pakistan's relationship with India must ultimately adjust to the requirements of the developing Indo-US relationship on the one hand, and Pakistan's own close security relationship with the US on the other.
Herein, interestingly, is where the American link is a source of weakness. The primacy of the security agenda in all of these mutual relationships – in the place of, say, an economic development agenda, or even a 'security-through-development' agenda – means that the parties are free to play drawn-out games in other spheres, as long as the core concern of the key protagonist is respected. The two neighbours have a proven historical ability of playing such drawn-out games. Pakistan, the smaller party, probably outclasses India, having played the game as a state-survival strategy for much of its history.