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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Pakistan
Index
Pakistan must look abroad for both material assistance
and
political support. Its principal tie has been with the
United
States. When relations were good, this connection meant
access to
funds, sophisticated weaponry, training, and an enhanced
sense of
professionalism. When relations were bad, it meant bitter
disillusionment and the severing of support at critical
junctures. These wide swings of fortune are something to
which
the Pakistanis have become accustomed, and they recognize
that,
whatever the provocation, the tie to the United States has
too
much potential benefit to be discarded lightly.
Relations with China in the early 1990s were less
emotionally
intense and much more stable. China has been a steady
source of
military equipment and has cooperated with Pakistan in
setting up
weapons production and modernization facilities. Within
months of
the 1965 and 1971 wars, China began to resupply the
depleted
Pakistani forces. Between 1965 and 1982, China was
Pakistan's
main military supplier, and matériel has continued to be
transferred. In 1989 Pakistan and China discussed the
transfer of
a nuclear submarine, and China was helpful in developing
Pakistan's missile and, allegedly, nuclear weapons
programs. But
Chinese weaponry was inferior to that supplied by the West
and
also to what India received from the former Soviet Union
and
hoped to continue to receive from Russia. The Pakistanis
dispatched a military mission to Moscow in October 1992,
probably
to explore the possibilities of acquiring surplus Russian
and
East European equipment at cheap prices.
The Pakistani military's close ties to the nations of
the
Middle East are based on a combination of geography and
shared
religion. The closest ties are with Saudi Arabia--a
sporadically
generous patron; much of the equipment bought from the
United
States during the 1980s, for example, was paid for by the
Saudis.
The smaller Persian Gulf states also have been sources of
important financial support. The flow of benefits has been
reciprocated. Beginning in the 1960s, Pakistanis have been
detailed as instructors and trainers in Saudi Arabia,
Jordan,
Syria, Libya, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
Pakistani
pilots, sailors, and technicians have played key roles in
some
Persian Gulf military forces, and Arabs have been trained
both in
their home countries and in military training
establishments in
Pakistan. After unrest in Saudi Arabia in 1979, Pakistan
assigned
two combat divisions there as a low-profile and apolitical
security force. This unofficial arrangement ended in 1987,
however, reportedly when Pakistan refused the Saudi demand
to withdraw all
Shia (see Glossary)
troops. Some 500 advisers,
however, remained behind. These exchanges had built up
close contacts between the forces of Pakistan and the Arab host
countries and were profitable to Pakistan and to the
individual Pakistanis assigned abroad, who were paid at much higher
local pay scales. )
Pakistan has a particular interest in cooperating with
neighboring Iran, with which it had occasionally difficult
relations after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In more
recent
years, however, delegations have been exchanged, and
Pakistan has
sold military equipment to Iran. Pakistan also has
military ties
with Turkey and would like to use these, as well as its
Iranian
connections, as a bridge to the new Muslim states of
Central
Asia. When the situation in Afghanistan again becomes
normal,
Pakistan will no doubt attempt to capitalize on the
support it
gave the mujahidin by forging close military links
to its
second-most important neighbor to the west.
Pakistan has sent troops abroad as part of United
Nations
(UN) peacekeeping efforts. The first such troops served in
West
Irian (as Indonesia's Irian Jaya Province was then called)
in the
1962-63 period. In early 1994, Pakistan contributed two
infantry
battalions to the United Nations Protection Force in
Bosnia and
Herzegovina (UNPROFOR BH) and two infantry brigades to the
United
Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). Pakistan's
contribution of
7,150 troops to UNOSOM was the largest single national
contingent
in any UN peacekeeping force in early 1994. At the time,
Pakistan
also had participating observers in a number of other UN
missions
in Croatia, the Iraq-Kuwait demilitarized border zones,
Liberia,
Mozambique, and Western Sahara. Pakistan also dispatched
an
armored brigade to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian
Gulf War.
However, it was assigned well away from the
front--ostensibly to
defend the holy cities of Mecca and Medina--thus reducing
the
possibility that any Pakistani troops might have somehow
become
involved in actual combat with Iraqi troops. Such an
eventuality
could have proven explosive in Pakistan and could have
caused
uncontrollable unrest. Pakistani sentiment in favor of
Iraq was
widespread, and even General Beg spoke out in support of
Saddam
Husayn. )
Data as of April 1994
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