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Military Assistance for Pakistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

James W. Spain
James W. Spain
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Extract

On November 1, 1953 the Karachi correspondent of the New York Times filed a dispatch reporting that discussions of a military alliance between Pakistan and the United States were about to begin. On February 25,1954 President Eisenhower announced that the United States had decided to give military assistance to Pakistan for the purpose of “strengthening the defensive capabilities of the Middle East.” With the President's statement a new and powerful force entered the international politics of South Asia and another landmark of American foreign policy was set up. In the four months which intervened between the newspaper report and the official announcement, most of the important trends and issues in contemporary world politics had touched on or been touched by the U. S.-Pakistan proposal. Internal and external affairs of a dozen countries were affected. Most of the instruments of diplomacy and propaganda were employed to support or oppose agreement. Of primary importance to the United States was the clear and specific implementation of our established policy of supporting regional alliances of free nations to “contain” Soviet aggression and to prevent further expansion. Because of the novelty of the area into which the policy was extended, the speed with which it was implemented, and the precision of the reactions of all parties, American military assistance for Pakistan constitutes an almost ideal case study of international relations in a world in which the movement of events has been greatly accelerated.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 1954 , pp. 738 - 751
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1954

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References

1 New York Times, November 12, 1953. For the sake of simplicity, references are to the New York Times except in cases where the event concerned was not reported in the Times or the kind of coverage given in the cited publication is significant in itself.

2 NYT, Nov. 12, 13, 1953.

3 NYT, Nov. 16, 17, 18, 19, 1953.

4 NYT, Nov. 22, 1953.

5 Pakistan News Digest (Karachi), Dec. 15, 1953Google Scholar.

6 NYT, Nov. 16, 1953.

7 NYT, Dec. 10, 14, 19, 1953; Newsweek, Jan. 4, 1954.

8 NYT, Dec. 14, 20, 23, 1953.

9 NYT, Dec. 17, 24, 25, 26, 1953; Jan. 2, 4, 1954. The Asian Prime Ministers' Conference was eventually held in Colombo April 27-May 1, 1954. The subject of American military assistance to Pakistan was not officially discussed, the other participants having refused to consider it a concern of the Conference.

10 NYT, Dec. 3, 15, 1953; Jan. 5, 16, 1954.

11 London Times, Dec. 31, 1953. The Sino-Indian Treaty on Tibet, which was subsequently signed on April 29, 1954, unconditionally turned over all Indian property in Tibet to China and granted the latter rights in the border area never before recognized.

12 London Times, Dec. 30, 1953; NYT, Dec. 22, 24, 29, 30, 1953; Feb. 7, 15, 16, 1954.

13 NYT, Dec. 27, 1953; Jan. 8, Feb. 6, 1954. No such meeting between the two Prime Ministers ever took place.

14 NYT, Jan. 3, 6, 1954.

15 NYT, Jan. 24, 25, 1954.

16 NYT, Feb. 8, 20, 23, 26, 1954.

17 NYT, Dec. 18, 20, 1953; Jan. 2, 1954.

18 Pakistan Times (Lahore), Dec. 22, 1953Google Scholar; Jan. 25, 1954 (editorials).

19 e.g., London Times, Jan. 12, 1954 (editorial).

20 NYT, Jan. 26, 29, 1954; New York Herald-Tribune, Jan. 24, 1954 (Alsops).

21 Dawn (Karachi), Feb. 13, 1954Google Scholar.

22 Statesman (Calcutta), Feb. 27, 1954Google Scholar.

23 NYT, Nov. 26, Dec. 17, 18, 21, 27, 1953.

24 e.g., NYT, Dec. 18, 22, 1953 (editorials).

25 NYT, Jan. 24, 1954.

26 Among them were Professor W. Norman Brown and three colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. E. Stanley Jones, Norman Thomas, Zenas L. Potter, and J. J. Singh. Dr. F. S. C. Northrop and George Fielding Elliot registered approval of the pact.

27 New Leader, Feb. 22, 1954.

28 NYT, Dec. 16, 31, 1953; Jan. 3, Feb. 27, 1954; Bulletin of the Foreign Policy Association, Feb. 15, 1954.

29 NYT, Feb. 28, 1954 (editorial); Statesman, Jan. 2, 1954.

30 NYT, Mar. 10, Apr. 3, 26, May 20, 24, June 15, 1954. For texts of the two agreements, see Middle East Journal, Vol. 8, Pp. 337–38 (Summer, 1954)Google Scholar.

31 NYT, Nov. 17, Dec. 20, 1953.

32 London Times, Dec. 31, 1953.

33 e.g., NYT, Dec. 24, 1953 (Arthur Krock).

34 NYT, Feb. 26, 1954.

35 For a discussion of the implications for the Middle East of the new agreements, see Spain, James W., “Middle East Defense: A New Approach,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 8, Pp. 251–66 (Summer, 1954)Google Scholar.

36 NYT, Dec. 10, 1953.

37 NYT, Dec. 28, 1953; New York Herald-Tribune, Jan. 24, 1954.

38 NYT, Mar. 20, 24, 1954.

39 NYT, Jan. 24, 1954 (see map).

40 NYT, Mar. 2, 7, 15, 16, 1954.

41 NYT, Mar. 2, 1954.

42 NYT, Mar. 5, 1954.

43 e.g., London Times, Jan. 12, 1954 (editorial); Manchester Guardian cartoon by Low reprinted in NYT, Mar. 14, 1954; Hansard's, House of Commons Debates, Feb. 22, 1954, p. 14Google Scholar; Dawn, Feb. 26, 1954. After Anglo-Egyptian agreement had been reached on the Suez base, however, the London Times in an editorial of August 4, 1954 found itself able to refer to “the Karachi-Ankara axis, with its realistic attitude toward the power-vacuum in the Middle East, so attractive even to countries which [hitherto] hesitated to join it out of respect for Egyptian opinion.”

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