This thesis explains Pakistan’s strategic choices in the 1990s by examining the role of the United States in the shaping of Islamabad’s security goals. Drawing upon a diverse range of oral history interviews, the thesis explains the American contribution to Pakistani security objectives during the presidency of Bill Clinton (1993-2001). By doing this it addresses a gap in the relevant literature and moves beyond the available mono-causal explanations often distorted by a mixture of intellectual obfuscation and political rhetoric. By drawing upon the concept of the security dilemma in international politics as a lens to understand the nature of Pakistan’s India-specific security compulsions, this research investigates and explains the dynamics which drove Islamabad’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, its support for the Taliban and its approach towards the indigenous uprising in Indian Kashmir. In doing this, it highlights the extent to which Clinton’s foreign policy reinforced the immediate catalysts for US-Pakistan relations in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the end of the Cold War two years later. The primary argument of the thesis is that Clinton’s foreign policy contributed to the hardening of Islamabad’s security perspectives, creating space for the Pakistani military establishment to pursue its regional security goals; goals which were largely at variance with US global objectives in the 1990s. Secondly, it argues that US-Pakistan relations during this period were driven by a Cold War mindset, causing a fissure between US global and Pakistan’s regional security goals. The Pakistani military and civilian leadership utilized these divergent and convergent trends to protect Islamabad’s India-centric strategic interests.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:602648 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Farooq, Nasra Talat |
| Contributors | Lewis, George; Futter, Andrew |
| Publisher | University of Leicester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/2381/28749 |
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