Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 - Long Term Consequences

Long Term Consequences

  • Steve Coll, in his book Ghost Wars, argues that the Pakistan military's experience with India, including Pervez Musharraf's experience in 1971, influenced the Pakistani government to support jihadist groups in Afghanistan even after the Soviets left, because the jihadists were a tool to use against India, including bogging down the Indian Army in Kashmir.
  • After the war, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto authorised the highly secretive and clandestine atomic bomb program, as part of its new deterrence policy, to defend itself and never to allow another armed invasion from India. Many Pakistani scientists, abroad working at the IAEA and European and American nuclear programs immediately return to what remain of Pakistan and took participation in making Pakistan a nuclear power.
  • Writing about the war in Foreign Affairs magazine Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stated 'There is no parallel in contemporary history to the cataclysm which engulfed Pakistan in 1971. A tragic civil war, which rent asunder the people of the two parts of Pakistan, was seized by India as an opportunity for armed intervention. The country was dismembered, its economy shattered and the nation's self-confidence totally undermined.' This statement of Bhutto has given rise to the myth of betrayal prevalent in modern Pakistan. This view was contradicted by the post-War Hamoodur Rahman Commission, ordered by Bhutto himself, which in its 1974 report indicted generals of the Pakistan Army for creating conditions which led to the eventual loss of East Pakistan and for inept handling of military operations in the East.

Read more about this topic:  Indo-Pakistani War Of 1971

Famous quotes containing the words long, term and/or consequences:

    “It is not growing like a tree
    In bulk, doth make man better be,
    Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
    To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
    A lily of a day
    Is fairer far in May
    Although it fall and die that night;
    It was the plant and flower of light.
    In small proportions we just beauties see,
    And in short measures life may perfect be.”
    —Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

    “There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents—if the term is to be used at all.”
    —Bernadette McAliskey (Nee Devlin)

    “Results are what you expect, and consequences are what you get.”
    —schoolgirl’s definition, quoted in Ladies’ Home Journal (New York, Jan. 1942)