Fighting to the End.

AuthorDorschner, Jon P.
PositionBook review

Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War by C. Christine Fair, Oxford University Press: New York, 2014, ISBN 13: 978-0-19-989270-9, 368 pp., $34.95 (Hardcover), $13.49 (Kindle).

  1. Christine Fair, an Assistant Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University, is a distinguished academic with a long research history in South Asia, and considerable experience researching the Pakistan Army. She makes good use of her expertise in this work, devising a unique thesis that is a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on the many problems facing Pakistan and the Pakistan Army's role in the entire imbroglio.

Professor Fair contends that while much has been written on this subject (her book is only the latest in a growing series of works by academics and journalists), much of it misses the mark. There are several specific components to her thesis. South Asian experts largely concur that India is the status quo state, while Pakistani state is a revisionist state. India, content to pursue business as usual, does not want to change existing borders. When it comes to Kashmir, Indians would like to put the issue behind them. India is increasingly willing to accept a permanent bifurcation of Kashmir along the current Line of Control (LOC), and the conversion of the LOC to an international border. Pakistan rejects such a solution and publicly insists that Kashmir be absorbed in Toto into the Pakistani state. Pakistan has used military force, Islamic proxies, and most recently its nuclear status to keep the Kashmir issue alive and change the situation on the ground. Fair points out that Pakistan's obsession with the Kashmir issue has led many observers to conclude that the India/Pakistan dispute will be resolved at the same time as the Kashmir dispute.

Professor Fair argues that nothing could be further from the truth, because Pakistan is not merely a revisionist state, but rather an unreasonable revisionist state. David M. Zionts, defines "unreasonable revisionism as failing to revise an anti status quo position after suffering a clear and devastating defeat." Pakistan suffered such a defeat in 1971, when its forces surrendered to the Indian Army in Dhaka. Furthermore, in 1965, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Gibraltar, in which it infiltrated regular army forces into Indian Administered Kashmir in a failed attempt to start a popular insurrection. For decades, the Pakistan Army has armed, trained and infiltrated...

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