Explaining the American "Tilt" in the 1971 Bangladesh Crisis: A Late Dependency Approach Author(s): Sanjoy Banerjee Reviewed

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International Quarterly Studies (1987) 31, 201-216

Explaining the American "Tilt" in the 1971 Bangladesh Crisis: A Late Dependency Approach
SANJOY BANERJEE

CityUniversity New York of

This paper develops a model based on late dependency theory client of a relations between superpower a statein a dividedsociety. and The modelis in "tilt" toward used to analyzetheAmerican Pakistan the1971Bangladesh crisis. explanation regime An based on classand institutional of alliances type is derivedfrom worksof Cardoso, Hirschmann, the and O'Donnell. This with assumptions about transnational class and explanationis integrated institutional relations yield modelofclient a Predicate to relations. logicis used tostate modeland toderive proposition Pakistan an American the the that was clientfrom factual claims. empirically supported The alliance betweenthe United States and the Pakistanimilitary and When the bourgeoisieis analyzed as the basis of the clientrelationship. and India,theUnitedStates motivated allianceis challenged theBengalis is by to protect credibility a guarantor clientstates its as of the through tiltpolicy.

Introduction On March 25, 1971, the Pakistani army began a campaign of slaughter against the Bengalis of East Pakistan. The elections of the previous December had designated the Bengali regionalistMujibur Rehman as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The defeated rival Zulfigar Ali Bhutto, who swept the West Pakistani vote, was unwillingto accept the radical redistribution regional power inherentin the result. The Pakistani army, of rooted almost entirely in the western wing, was also unwilling to acquiesce in the consequences of democracy. Between March and December of 1971, the Pakistani army and local irregularforces under theircontrolkilled not less than one million unarmed civilians in East Pakistan. Indo-Pakistani relationsdeterioratedsteadilyduring thisperiod as ten million refugees walked into India. In December, a seriesof clashes gave way to a two-weekwar in which India defeated the Pakistani army in the East, enabling independent Bangladesh to
arise.

As the crisis persisted, the superpowers became involved. United States-Pakistani

Author'snote:I wish to thank Sumit Ganguly and Howard Lentner for numerous helpful comments and discussions. Responsibility for all errors is mine alone.

StudiesAssociation 0201-16$03.00 ? 1987 International 0020-8833/87/02

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TheAmerican "Tilt" in the1971 Bangladesh Crisis

relations,dormant since Washington had cut offaid to Pakistan and India during their 1965 war, had been revivedin 1969 as Pakistan played an intermediary role in the secret United States-China dialog. The American administration initially refused to condemn the actions of the Pakistani army. A "tilt" in favorof Pakistan emerged. The Nixon administration gave consistent diplomatic support to Islamabad, dispatched small quantities of arms to Pakistan, and during the war sent a carrier fleetinto the Indian Ocean withthe intentof intimidating India. This articleseeks to explain whythe United States played the role it did. One can identifythree layers of conflictin this crisis. The deepest layer was in Pakistani domestic politics, pittingthe marginalized majority-the Bengalis, and the Awami League party forwhich theyhad voted massively-against the West Pakistani dominated state,principallythe military.While Bhuttohad opposed Mujib's ascension, the events in East Pakistan were outside his control. The next layer was in the South Asian subsystem, pittingPakistan against India. Pakistan's loss in 1971 was as much ideological as strategic.Militarily,politically,and economically, Bengal had been a peripheryof Pakistan. Yet the ideological basis of Pakistan had been the two-nationtheory:thatMuslims and Hindus were irreconcilably different and could not coexistjustly under a common state, and that Muslims of the subcontinent were one united nation. The two-nation theory proclaimed that differences and similaritiesamong people at the religious level transcendeddifferences of and similaritiesat the linguisticand ethniclevels. Given the heterogeneity the subof continentat the linguisticand ethniclevels, thisconcept of the centrality religionwas the boldest and most criticalidea in the two-nationtheory.The actions of the Pakistani army in Bengal and the successful Indo-Bengali alliance severely undermined the of of credibility the concept of the centrality religion. Ganguly (1986) contendsthatthe ideological conflictbetween Indian pluralist secularism and the Pakistani two-nation theorylay at the heart of the Kashmir dispute and that Pakistan's ideological claim to Kashmir was weakened by the Bangladesh crisis. The thirdlayer of conflictwas in the global system.The Bengali separatists,India, and the Soviet Union opposed the Pakistani state,the United States, and China. Global of polarities became aligned with local polarities. The crisis had after-effects global significance.It has been speculated thatthe movementof the American nuclear-armed fleetinduced India to go forwardwith the test nuclear explosion of 1974 (Van Hollen, 1980; Ganguly, 1983). Indo-Soviet relations were strengthened as the crisis was perceived in India as an indication of Soviet reliability. The explanation oftheAmerican tiltadvanced here draws linksamong all threelayers of conflict. It will be argued that the United States was allied not with the whole of Pakistan, but witha dominant coalition of the militaryand a privateand a public sector bourgeoisie. That client relationshipassisted the dominant coalition in exercising its dominion over the masses, the majorityof whom were the Bengalis. And the ouster of the dominant coalition frompower would have entailed the risk of the ascendance of forces less dependent on, thus less supportive of, the United States. When open repression of the Bengalis by the Pakistani military state commenced, America's as credibility guarantorin itsmany clientrelationshipsaround the world required thatit support its clients withinPakistan. Contending Explanations of the Tilt The most prominent explanation of the American tilt toward Pakistan during the

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Bangladesh crisis is that of one of the policy's principal architects,Henry Kissinger (1979: 842-918). His analysis can be summarized in four points. 1. Pakistan had played the role of a secret intermediary between its two friends,the United States and China, beforethe announcement on July 15, 1971 of President Nixon's trip to China. Since the repressionof Bengalis began on March 25, 1971 the United States had to maintain a "silence" (Kissinger, 1979: 854) about the repression to retain the cooperation of Pakistan. Kissinger maintained that the secrecyof initial United States-Chinese plans was vital to diplomatic success. Kissinger also advanced the argument that China was very sensitive to the reliabilityof the United States as an ally against the Soviet Union and was likely to perceive the Bangladesh crisis as a test of that reliability. Since Pakistan was an ally of both China and the United States, its predicament served as a test of how Washington would respond to threatsto thejoint United States-Chinese interest. Thus Washington had to support the Pakistani militaryregime to demonstrateits reliabilityto Beijing (Kissinger, 1979: 862, 865, 867). Kissinger suggestedthat Indian actions in the crisis,because India received Soviet political and material support,could be interpreted the implementationof Soviet as designs in South Asia. He wrote (Kissinger, 1979: 913): The nakedrecourse force a partner theSovietUnionbackedbySoviet to by of arms and buttressed Sovietassurancesthreatened verystructure of by the international order just whenour wholeMiddle East strategy dependedon proving inefficacy suchtactics whenAmerica's the of in and weight a factor as theworldwas alreadybeingundercut our divisions overIndochina. by 4. Kissinger also claimed that the CIA had access to Indian cabinet meetings and had discovered fromthose meetings that India planned to destroy Pakistan's air force and army and threrebyreduce West Pakistan to a vassal state (Kissinger, 1979: 901). He asserted that India accepted a ceasefire on the western fronton December 17 withoutaccomplishing those goals because the timelyarrival of the American fleetin the Bay of Bengal pressuredMoscow to pressureDelhi to give up its ambitions (Kissinger, 1979: 913). Kissinger claimed that as of two days before the surrenderof Pakistani forcesin the East, India was about to shiftall its forces in the East to the West and attack within 72 hours (Kissinger, 1979: 912).

2.

3.

Haendel (1977) gives independent support to some of Kissinger's claims. He writes (1977: 377) A Superpower thatis actingto implement goals in a regional its subsystem, will whether notitsobjectives dictated globalpriorities, behavein or are by ments towards Nixon'sand Kissinger's toward Pakistan, antipathy India,the of relations withChina, theperceived need to contain objective establishing the SovietUnion and its clientstatein SouthAsia, as well as Nixon's and Kissinger's bias in favor Pakistan of to U.S. policy toward the combined direct "tiltto Pakistan.'" While Haendel arrives at these conclusions, he also notes certain contradictionsin Kissinger's thesisyetdoes not resolve them. Haendel notices thatKissinger at different points claims that India was and was not a Soviet client. Haendel (1977: 318) cites Kissinger as saying "'The Lady' is cold blooded and tough and will not turn into a Soviet satellite merely because of pique." The same contradiction is sustained in
accordance with its previous commitments. .
.

. Thus, the previous commit-

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TheAmerican 1971 Bangladesh Crisis "Tilt" inthe

Kissinger's White House Years(1979: 913, 916). Further, Haendel reportsthat several administration officials suggestedthateven withoutthe China factor,thetiltwould have been adopted due to supportfromthe American defenseand intelligencebureaucracies arising fromtheirconnections to Pakistan in the 1950s (Haendel, 1977: 319). As forKissinger's claim that India was to shift its forcesfromthe East to the West all in order to attack in a space of 72 hours, Haendel (1977: 270; and Anderson and Clifford,1973: 233) reportsGeneral Westmoreland's citation in early December 1971 of intelligenceestimates that it would take India up to one month to achieve that feat. Haendel (1977: 269-270) concludes that "it seems unlikelythat India had the specific intentto dismember West Pakistan." Shirin Tahir-Kheli accepts Kissinger's basic points and credits Nixon with "saving West Pakistan fromIndian militaryoccupation" (1982: 49) by the dispatch of the fleet. She cites the importance of the "grand deception" of the secret channel to China in reviving United States-Pakistani relations after the discord of 1965 (1982: 31-35). Tahir-Kheli accepts that the Bangladesh crisis was a geopolitical test for American resolve, with China as the primary examiner (1982: 48). Tahir-Kheli relies on elite interviewsin Pakistan as her primarysource of information.However, she offers little new theoryor evidence specificallyto support her acceptance of the Kissinger thesis. Christopher Van Hollen was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State during the Bangladesh crisis and has written(1980) a rejoinder to Kissinger's explanation of the tilt. His claims can be summarized as responses to the fourpoints earlier attributedto Kissinger. 1. From March 25 until the announcement of Nixon's trip to China on July 15, the United States did not need to refrain from criticizingthe Pakistani repression because therewas an alternativechannel to Beijing in use in March-Romania, and because Yahya "was honored to have been tapped by Nixon as a communication link with China and desperatelywanted to retain the goodwill of both Washington and Beijing" (Van Hollen, 1980: 343). Van Hollen pointsout thatafterthe secrecy ofthe China tripwas removed onJuly 15 and beforethe announcementofthe IndoSoviet Friendshiptreatyon August 9, and while both the State Department and the CIA judged that war was not imminent, "Henry Kissinger was exhorting the to bureaucracy to tilttoward Pakistan and discouraging any serious efforts move
toward political accommodation . . ." (Van Hollen, 1980: 347).

2.

3.

Regarding the need to demonstrateAmerican resolve to China, Van Hollen cites Kissinger's statementin December 1971 that he did not have the impressionthat China considered agreement with the United States on other issues as "a prerequisite to a successfultrip" (Van Hollen, 1980: 353). Moreover, Van Hollen maintains that the Bangladesh crisis was peripheral to Chinese concerns in developing theirlink to the United States (Van Hollen, 1980: 353). Van Hollen disparages Kissinger's geopolitical analysis that Indian actions toward Pakistan extended Soviet power in the subcontinent. "Kissinger's 'client state' philosophy caused him to misjudge the more balanced character of the SovietIndian relationship . . ." (Van Hollen, 1980: 355).

4.

As for India's intentionstoward West Pakistan, Van Hollen notes that Kissinger misquotes the critical CIA report which actually said India intended to destroy Pakistan's air forceand armor, not its "air forceand army" (Van Hollen, 1980: 351-352). Van Hollen writes that while the CIA report may well have reflected Indian militarycontingencyplanning forthe post-East Pakistan phase of fighting,

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"Nixon and Kissinger were virtuallyalone in the U.S. governmentin interpreting the reportas theydid" (Van Hollen, 1980: 351). Van Hollen's critique and Haendel's discovery of contradictions and errors in Kissinger's argument suggest the possible fruitfulness an alternative approach to of explaining American behavior in the Bangladesh crisis. Clients 1. Late Dependency Theory theClient and Relationship Between 1945 and 1971 the United States developed an elaborate approach toward conflicts pittingcertainstatesagainst domesticopponents and otherstatesallied withthe latter.American policy in the Bangladesh crisiswas an instanceofthatapproach. As the United States acquired superpower status, it entered into a distinctiveformof relationship withsome Third World states. Relatively strongand well definedalliance relations form bound America to the advanced Western democracies and Japan. But a different of unequal alliance-the superpower-client relation-bound it to Third World states such as South Vietnam, Imperial Iran, the Philippines, Nicaragua-and Pakistan (Liska, 1978; Girling, 1980). The client relationship is an alliance between a superpower and the dominant coalition of societyin the client state. The division between the dominant coalition and the rest of society is a key featureof the client relationship. By contrast,the alliance between the United States and Britain bound the whole societies. The greaterinternal integrationof those two societieswas a key featurein that alliance. Since the dominant coalition was American's ally in the client relationship, Washington's interests in domestic and foreignconflictsinvolving the client state were shaped by the class and institutional interests the dominant coalition. Examples of otherclientrelationswere of Soviet relationswith some East European states including Czechoslovakia and Poland, where the dominant coalitions were communist parties and state bureaucracies. The American role in clientrelationshipswas thatof a guarantor(Liska, 1978: 272). When client states faced threatsto theirexistence frominternalor external forces,the United States extended diplomacy, arms and training,or directmilitary intervention in support of the client state. Given the existence of a global networkof client states with in many internaland externalfoes,theUnited States had an interest deterring those foes from attacking the client states by demonstrating its will and capacity to assist in endangered clients. The objectives of American intervention Vietnam are set out in the famous passage in the Pentagon Papers as: 70 percent to preserve America's 4"reputation as a guarantor," 20 percentto keep South Vietnam out of Chinese hands, and 10 percentto promotea "better, freer way oflife" forthe South Vietnamese people (Sheehan, Smith, Keyworthy,and Butterfield,1971: 432). The American interestin its reputationas a gurantorwas limited by countervailing interests.The ultimateconstraintwas the relationof nuclear deterrencewiththe Soviet Union and the consequent need to avoid a directarmed clash withit. Other constraints were revealed in the Vietnam War: those of a limited tolerance in the American polity forsacrificein foreigninterventions and of the political and moral opposition of liberal opinion to certain guarantor actions. While such constraintswere important in the determination of America's discharge of the guarantor role, space does not permit further explorationof them here. (Ostrom and Job [1986] analyze domestic constraints on the presidential use of force.)

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The client relationship will be defined here as a generalization of the dependency relationship as discussed by Cardoso and Faletto (1979). They (1979: xvi) view dependency as "rooted in coincidences of interests between local dominant classes and internationalones, and, on the other side, challenged by local dominated groups and classes. " The clientrelationshipis a transnationalrelationshipbinding a superpowerto social classes and other sociopolitical institutions-such as militaryforces,administrative bureaucracies, or political parties. Stepan (1971, 1973) provides a usefulexample withinthe late dependency school of a non-class-based dependency analysis. Stepan (1973) explains the Brazilian coup of 1964 as a consequence of the transformation Brazilian military of doctrinedue to its ties with the American militaryand the latter's promotion of counterinsurgencydoctrines in Latin America in the early 1960s. The clientanalysis being advanced here will combine Cardoso and Faletto's focus on the politicsof transnationalclass alliances with institutional analyses like Stepan's. Cardoso and Faletto (1979: 208-209) draw a distinction between the pact of domination among the dominant classes, and the political regime-the frameworkof political competitionand authority.Similar capitalistpacts of domination can be found within diverse-pluralist and authoritarian-regimes. But within capitalism, any regime must carry out the interests of its dominant coalition. In the framework employed here, the dominant coalition may include institutionsother than social classes, such as the militaryand mass-based political parties. 2. Methods.Case Study and Predicate Logic The method of this work is what George and McKeown (1985) have called a "congruence procedure" case study. The objective of such a study is to show that the case fitsa theory. A theory synthesizedfrom late dependency theorywill be set out below and the Bangladesh crisis and its background will be analyzed according to the salient variables. theoretically With the aim of promotingrigor,the theoryin the next subsectionis set out in a kind of mathematicallogic called predicate logic (or predicate calculus) (Kowalski, 1979). In predicate logic there are two types of statements: factual claims and rules. Rules correlatefactualclaims. Rules and one set offactualclaims permitrigorousdeduction of another set of factual claims. The theorybelow is representedby rules. Certain factual claims are supported by empirical evidence and other factual claims are deduced from them through the theoreticalrules. The factual claim: President(Nixon, US, 1971) means that the predicate "President" is true of the three ordered constant arguments as Nixon, US, and 1971. It can be interpreted "Nixon was the US Presidentin 1971." To sustain this interpretation, use of the predicate "President" would require three all arguments-a person, a country,and a time-in that order. The rule with variable arguments: President(name, country,time) if Regular-elections(country)and Previous-election(country, time, election-year)and Elected(name, election-year).

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means "a person is presidentof a countryat a time ifthatcountryhas regular elections and the precedingelectionwas held in some election year and thatperson was elected in that election year." The rule: Regular-elections(country)if (Election-held(country,year) if Election-due(country,year)) means "A countryhas regularelectionsif: ifan electionwas due in any year in the data, then an election will have been held in that year according to the data." Given the two rules above, the dataset: Election-due( US, 1964), Election-due( US, 1968), Election-held( US, 1964), Election-held( US, 1968), Previous-election( US, 1971, 1968), Election(Nixon, 1968) is sufficient deduce the conclusion: President( Nixon, US, 1971). The firstfour to factual claims imply Regular-elections(US) throughthe second rule, and that and the last two claims imply the conclusion throughthe first rule. Arguments of predicates may be singletonsor ordered lists. The list: A, b, C, d is representedas: "A.b.C.d." In this article constant arguments will start with capital lettersand variables with small letters. 3. The Theory What emerges from late dependency theory is the interdependence between the domesticpoliticalpower of the local dominant classes and theirallied militaryestablishments and the links that bound them to their superpower patron. If these groups lost political power, theirdomestic adversaries would cut them offfromthe flowof institutionally critical resources from the superpower. And deprivation of such resources would undermine theirpolitical power. A clientrelationbetween a superpowerand another state is definedto exist when the latter's regime has a dominant coalition dependent on the former for its critical developmentalresources,and when theregimeservesin turnas thenecessaryguarantor of that resource flow. Rule 1 A regime with an external ally and a domestic dominant coalition is defined as a client regime if: it can survive if and only if it receives criticalresources fromthe external ally. Client(superpower, dominant-coalition,society) if (Regime[type, dominant-coalition,society] if and only if Receives criticalresources[dominant-coalition, resources, superpower]) Cardoso and Faletto (1979) highlightthe integral relationship between domestic conflictprocesses and dependency relations. They focus on the conflictbetween the dominated classes and the transnational class alliance. Amin (1976) theorizes that dependency is characterized by the marginalization of segments of society from the central developmental processes of the society, which are controlled by the dominant coalition. In this model, conflictis seen to emerge between the dominant coalition and those marginalized sectorsof societywhich are mobilized by a mass-based partyor political movement. The marginalized sectorsseek to overcome the economic and political dis-

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TheAmerzcan " inthe "Tilt 1971 Bangladesh Crisis

advantage arising from their marginalization while the dominant coalition seeks to preserve its dominance in societyas well as its access to criticalresourcesfromits superpower patron, thus avertingthe possibilityof the transformation societyto a position of where the masses are not marginalized. Rule 2 Conflict exists between a dominant coalition and an opposing movement in a society if some segment of that society is marginalized from the developmental processes controlled by the dominant coalition and the opposing movement mobilizes that segment. Conflict(dominant-coalition, opposition-movement,society) if Marginalized(segment, society,dominant-coalition)and Mobilizes(segment, opposition-movement). To understand the controlof statecoercive power, one must understandthe political regime. A model predictingthe political regime fromthe composition of the dominant coalition is emergentin theworksof Cardoso, O'Donnell, and Hirschmann in a volume edited by David Collier (1979). Their writingssupport the followingsynthesis. The nature of the political regime in capitalistsocieties-pluralist or authoritariandepends on the relationsamong a triad of protagonists:the armed forces,the dominant classes, and mass-based parties and organizations. Two of these threewill coalesce and exclude the other frompower, or repress it. Which regime emerges depends on which alliance forms. (a) An alliance between the armed forcesand the dominant classes to demobilize the masses and theirrepresentatives resultsin an authoritarianregime. O'Donnell (1973 and 1979) characterizes bureaucratic-authoritarianregimes as alliances between the military,civilian technocrats,and the transnationalbourgeoisie aimed at deactivatingthe popular sector and their allies. Cardoso (1979) analyses the bureaucratic-authoritariansystems as formal "regimes" of military and technobureaucratic rule in "states" characterizedby the capitalistpact of domination among the economicallydominant classes. The aim of these repressiveregimesis "above all, to produce apathy among the masses" (Cardoso, 1979: 36). (b) A reconciliationbetween mass-based organizations and parties and the dominant classes yields a pluralist regime subordinatingthe armed forces. Hirschmann argues that pluralism comes froma reconciliationbetween the entrepreneurial elite and the reformelite. The latter are those "determined to correctthe imbalances and inequities that have arisen in the course of growth," and are prone to mass-mobilization (Hirschmann, 1979: 88). O'Donnell (1973) regards the populist regime preceding bureaucratic-authoritarianism Latin America to be based on an in alliance between the new import-substituting industrialistsand the popular sector to overthrowthe preceding dominance of the oligarchy. (c) An alliance between the armed forcesand mass-based parties and organizations excluding the dominant classes is impossible withincapitalism. Cardoso (1979) characterizesthe capitaliststateas a "pact ofdomination" among the dominant classes. A coalition of dominant classes is able to "articulate theirdiverse and occasionally contradictory objectives through state agencies and bureaucracies" (Cardoso, 1979: 39). Thus exclusion of the dominant classes fromeffective power would undermine the basic structureof capitalism. Rule 3 A militaryauthoritarianregime with a dominant coalition of the militaryand a

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class coalition will exist ifthose classes are economicallydominant, and the military forceis the state's sole armed force,and the militaryand the dominant classes are political allies. Regime(Military-authoritarian, military.classes,society) if Dominant(classes) and Sole-state-force(military) and Allies(military. classes). An alliance among groups of the kind described above is likely to formif they are interdependent on each other for access to their critical resources. Groups in the dominant coalition receive critical resources froma varietyof sources. The receipt of critical developmental resources is the fundamental interests of each group in the dominant coalition. Access to these resources is typicallyproblematic-the threatsto access are myriad-and cannot be secured unilaterallyby a single group. Rule 4 If groups discover that theycan secure access to theirrespectivecriticalresources collectively,they sustain an alliance. Allies(groups) if Receives criticalresources(groups, resources, sources) and Interdependentaccess(groups, resources, sources). If a social coalition is not in conflictwith any other segment of society, it can continue to receive its critical resources from their source without interference. However, ifa social coalition is in conflict witha major segmentof society,access to its criticalresourcesis assured only ifthatcoalition is the dominant coalition in the political
regime.

Rule 5 A coalition will receive its criticalresources fromits source if it is in conflictwith a segmentof societybut (and) the coalition is the dominant coalition in the existing
regime.

Receives critical resources(dominant-coalition, resources, source) if Conflict(segment,dominant-coalition,society) and Regime(type, dominant-coalition,society). Pakistan and America The task now is to provide empirical support forthe factual claims of predicate logic. The next section contains the deduction of the claim that Pakistan was an American client fromthe claims supported in this section. Connection and American 1. Military Ascendance the The militarywas of course the Pakistani state's sole armed force. Sole-state-force(Military). American militaryaid was a critical resource forthe Pakistani military. Receives criticalresources(Military,Military aid, US). In 1947, the Pakistani army was in disarray. Muslim soldiers fromthe colonial army opting forPakistan had to be organized into new units. All colonial ordinance factories were in what became independent India, which declined to give Pakistan its propor-

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Crisis 1971 Bangladesh "Tilt" inthe TheAmerican

tionate share of ordinances (Rizvi, 1974: 34-40). More seriously, Pakistan faced a with advanced training(Cohen, 1984: 33). By 1958 the army and shortage of officers expanded thathad successfully the civil bureaucracy were the only national institutions "national" purposes. By 1954, the Muslim theircapacity to carryout even self-defined an League had suffered organizational and political collapse in both wings of Pakistan (Sayeed, 1980). The army, in alliance with the bureaucracy, had evolved a technodepoliticized problem-solving.After1954, bureaucratic rationalityof administratively this approach was partially extended to the problem of government, and after the militarycoup of 1958, it reigned supreme. This ascendance was the result of a particular institutionaldoctrine. The critical resources of the militarywere definedby that doctrine. It focused upon the kinshipties among the soldiers and upon the conflictwith India. By the startof the 20th century,the colonial army had recruitedmost of its soldiers from what the Britishhad designated "martial races"-located mostly in the northwesternregions of the BritishIndian empire. The Pakistani army in 1947 had largely that ethniccomposition. The Pakistani army continued to preferits own kinsmenafter in of independence. About three-fourths the army came fromfivedistricts the western wing containing less than 5 percentof the male population of united Pakistan (Cohen, 1984: 44). Pakistani officersdo appear to have believed before 1971 in the inherent superiorityof their martial race soldiers over Indian soldiers, who came froma progressivelybroadened ethnic base afterindependence (Cohen, 1984: 42). The Pakistani militarymade a bargain with America. In exchange forparticipation in United States-sponsored military pacts and the granting of base facilities for expected weapons, training, operations against the Soviet Union, the Pakistani military and diplomatic support against India. The Pakistani militaryhoped that American arms would balance the greatersize and industrialcapabilityof India-and would do so while avertingthe need fora larger base of recruitment. The American arms relationship enabled the Pakistani military to expand its capabilities without using a mass-mobilization strategy.Such a strategywould have conflictedwith the goal of concentratingrecruitmentamong a small section of the joining the Pakistani population. Stephen Cohen names the generation of officers militaryduring 1950-1965, and entering the middle ranks in 1971, the "American generation" (Cohen, 1984: 70). He writesthat "along withAmerican equipment and trainingcame American militarydoctrines,American approaches to problem solving, and-a mixed blessing-American pop culture" (Cohen, 1984: 70). An associate of President Ayub Khan told Cohen (1984: 72): different, scales were completely everything-the The Americansaffected of and nowwe had newstandards wentto America, of hundreds our officers comparison. for Cohen notes thattheirexperience withAmerica created a profoundpersonal affinity of America among the officers thisgeneration. Hence the relationbetween the Pakistani militaryand the United States transcended the role of the latter as the primaryarms supplier to Pakistan and influencedthe organizational culture of the Pakistani armed forces. The intimacyof the relationshipmade American aid all the more critical. 2. TheDominantClasses The dominant classes of Pakistan had consisted of a bourgeoisie of public sector both groups centered in the westernwing. technocratsand private industrialists,

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They will be called the bourgeoisie. Dominant(Bourgeoisie). I have argued elsewhere (Banerjee, 1984) that the dominant classes are those which controlthe fastestaccumulating propertyformswhile prevailing in the fastestgrowing sectors of the economy. Pakistan's dominant classes between independence and 1971 were a narrow class of business familiesand a public-sectorelite who prevailed in the fastestgrowingsectorof the economy, large-scale manufacturing(Ahmed and Amjad, 1984: 20). A strongalliance developed between thiselite, especially the narrow privatesectorelite, and the military-civil bureaucracy in the Ayub Khan era (1958-1969). The convergence of government incentive policies with elite interests accompanied the growth of intermarriage among the families of industrialists and of the ruling bureaucracy (Ziring, 1971: 88). Industrialistsgained five-to tenfoldincreases in their membershipin national and provincial assemblies during the Ayub era (Jahan, 1972: 61). Governmentpolicies encouraged the concentrationof privatecapital, ostensiblyto promote reinvestmentof profits(Ziring, 1971: 88). The resulting concentration of capital was fairly extreme,with20 familiescontrolling66 percentof Pakistani industrial profitsin 1968 (Jahan, 1972: 60). A criticalresource of the Pakistani bourgeoisie was American capital. Receives criticalresources(Bourgeoisie, Capital, US). Direct investmentby multinationalcorporationsplayed a minor role in Pakistani development. One form of foreigndependence was extreme, however: foreignaid. America provided three-fourths all grants and nearly half of all loans (Brecher and of Abbas, 1972: 25). Griffinand Khan estimated that, given the overvaluation of the Pakistani rupee, foreigncapital inflowsin the mid-1960s accounted for53.9 percentof total Pakistani involvement,and 74.5 percent in the westernwing (Griffinand Khan, 1972: 193-194). 3. TheDominantCoalition The last two predicates can be consolidated as: Receives criticalresources( Military.Bourgeoisie, Military aid.Capital, US). The Pakistani militaryand bourgeoisie were interdependentfor access to their respectivecriticalresources. Interdependentaccess( Military.Bourgeoisie, Military aid.Capital, US). To understand this interdependence one must examine the structure of capital accumulation in Pakistan in the Ayub era of 1958-1969. As noted, most of Pakistani investmentcapital came fromforeigncapital inflows,mostlyfromthe United States. Foreign capital flowed in through the government bureaucracy. The Planning Commission distributedAmerican aid funds (Sayeed, 1980: 50-51). Other government agencies regulated other foreignexchange funds. This controlof capital gave the state directpower over the private sector. Success in Pakistani business was dependent not upon success in market competition, but on connections with the government(Kochanek, 1983: 77). Kochanek (1983) found that were virtuallyabsent in Pakistan in the independentorganizations of business interests 1960s. All business interestrepresentation forms,thatis, in occurred in state-controlled corporatist(Stepan, 1979) forms. Further, the Pakistani bourgeoisie which emerged fromthisstructure was small in size-with the dominance of 20 families-and narrowin

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its kinship base. Fiftypercent of all Pakistani assets in 1959 were held in endogamous Muslim caste groups containing less than 0.5 percent of the population of Pakistan (Papanek, 1967: 42). Some broadening of ownership did occur during the Ayub era, but due to the overall concentrationof capital in that period, kinship ties between the bourgeoisie and the vast majorityof the population, especially the Bengalis, remained very weak. The dependence of the bourgeoisie on the militaryforaccess to theircriticalresource -foreign capital-is clear. The controlof the state over capital inflows,and the role of the militaryas the ultimate arbiterof state power, made the bourgeoisie dependent on the military access to capital. Yet the military for was also dependent on the bourgeoisie remaining what it was, to avoid mobilizing the former'srivals in society. Being itself narrowlybased withinPakistani society,the military had to minimize the emergenceof strong autonomous interestgroups which could mobilize mass support on their side. The success of the narrow bourgeoisie allowed the simultaneous fulfillment, temporarily,of the requirementsof a capitalistformof developmentand those of the political demobilization of society. A bourgeoisie with broader kinship ties would have intensified the military'sproblems with "vernacular elites" of the kind described in the next section. Such elitescould thenhave advanced theircauses throughthe resourcesof their bourgeois kin. 4. The Bengalisand the Awami League The Bengalis were marginalized fromthe Pakistani development process. Marginalized(Bengalis, Pakistan, Military.Bourgeoisie). East Pakistan contained 54 percent of the population. However, during 19631968 the percentage of national private investmentin the East fluctuatedbetween 21 and 24 (Jahan, 1972: 75). While the East's share ofwhat Islamabad designatedas public development outlays did reach 54 percent in the 1960s, if infrastructure replacement projects and administrative and military expenditures were counted, government spending was higher in the West than in the East (Jahan, 1972: 76). Bengalis were marginal to the militaryas well. The Pakistani army followed stable recruitment practicesconcentratedin the westernwing (Cohen, 1984: 40-47). In 1963, Bengalis constituted7.4 percent of ranks below commissioned officer and 5 percent of that rank (Jahan, 1972: 62). The Awami League became the mobilizing movementofthe marginalized Bengali masses. Mobilizes(Awami League, Bengalis). After 1947, the Muslim League emerged as the dominant political party in East Pakistan, as in the otherwing. However, the fortunes thepartyin the East soon began of to subside. The Muslim League supportedthe use of Urdu as the sole national language of Pakistan, while most Bengalis favored the inclusion of their own language as an official national language (Sayeed, 1980: 40). With the introduction of universal suffrage in provincial and local elections, new segments of Bengali society were mobilized into politics. Lower middle class groups educated exclusively in Bengali discovered their own strength, partlyin theirown numbers, but mostlyin theirabilityto mobilize thepeasant masses through linguistic nationalism and economic populism. They formed a new "vernacular elite" (Jahan, 1972: 26).

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In 1954, the Muslim League was wiped out in provincial elections in East Pakistan. The vernacular elite created a new party to lead the Bengali masses-the Awami League. Results: Theoretical and Historical 1. The Theorem The storyof Pakistani politics during 1947-1971 is largely one of the West Pakistani elites contriving various methods to prevent the Bengali vernacular elites from capturingnational, or even regional, power. The primarymotive of the militaryin the 1958 coup was most likelyto preventthe Bengali elitesfromwinningthe scheduled 1959 elections (Jahan, 1972: 53; Sayeed, 1980: 45-56). The Ayub era led to further deteriorationin relations between the militaryand the vernacular elite (Jahan, 1972). And the victory in the 1970 general elections of the Awami League, the vernacular elite's political party, led to the Bangladesh massacre. This process is summarized by the factual claim: Conflict(Awami-league, Military.Bourgeoisie, Pakistan). The claim above followsfromtwo empirical claims in the previous section. Marginalized(Bengalis, Military.Bourgeoisie, Pakistan) and Mobilization (Awami-league, Bengalis) throughRule 2 yield the conclusion. The central theoremof this article can now be proven. Theorem: Client(US,Military. Bourgeoisie, Pakistan). Proof:Following Rule 1, one must first show Regime(type, Military.Bourgeoisie, Pakistan) ifReceives criticalresources( Military.Bourgeoisie,resources,US). This formulationis obtained by substituting constantentriesin the presenttheorem the into Rule 1. The only emp-irical instance of Receives critical resources(Military. Bourgeoisie, resources, US) is Receives critical resources( Military.Bourgeoisie, Military aid.Capital, US). The last predicate, along with the empirical predicate Interdependent access(Military.Bourgeoisie, Military aid.Capital, US) yields throughRule 4: Allies(Military.Bourgeoisie). Combining that last predicate with Sole-state-force(Military)and Dominant( Bourgeoisie), Rule 3 yields Regime ( Military-authoritarian, Military.Bourgeoisie, Pakistan), which fulfills the condition to be shown. Next, one must show Receives criticalresources( Military.Bourgeoisie, resources, US) if Regime( type, Military.Bourgeoisie, Pakistan). Regime(Military-authoritarian, Military.Bourgeoisie, Pakistan) is by Rule 3 the only possible instance of the condition. When it is combined with Conflict( Awami-league, Military. Bourgeoisie, Pakistan), Rule 3 yields Receives critical resources( Military. Bourgeoisie, resources, source), the only instance of which is Receives critical resources( Military.Bourgeoisie, Military aid.Capital, US). That implies the desired conclusion. Now the claim that Pakistan was an American client has been deduced in predicate logic fromempiricallysupportedfactualclaims throughtheoreticalrules. The validityof the conclusion of course remains dependent on the credibility the empirical support of forthe factual claims and of the theory.

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TheAmerican "Tilt" inthe 1971 Bangladesh Crisis 2. Evolution theUnited of States-Pakistani Client Relationship

The client relation created a fundamentalcommon interestbetween Washington and Islamabad: the political survival of the military regime. However, there were also conflictinginterestsbetween the United States and the Pakistani state. The United States soughtto integratePakistan into a networkof clientrelationshipswithminimum prejudice to its relations with third states outside the Soviet alliance system. In particular, Washington wanted to retain the option of upgrading its relations with India. What the Muslim League and the Pakistani military had in common was hostility to India and, most concretely,the desire to wrestKashmir fromIndia. The MuslimHindu rivalry animating Pakistani attitudes toward India was alien to America's western sensibilities. The Pakistani-American relationshipbegan soon afterPakistan's independence in 1947. By the late 1940s the United States was gaining interestin developing an antiSoviet alliance systemin Asia. The Muslim League leadersJinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan had initiateddiscussions withWashington fora militaryalliance. However, Liaqat had insisted on obtaining American support on the Kashmir issue (Foreign Relations the of United States1951, 197 7: 2205). American refusal to provide this support had obstructedthe conclusion of an arms agreement in 1951. But within days of Liaqat's assassination, a Pakistani bureaucrat was in Washington and the two sides negotiated an arms agreement withoutrequiring American support forPakistan's Kashmir position (Venkataramani, 1982: 181-189). A State Department policy statement on Pakistan in 1951 held that if "properly equipped," the Pakistani army could play in the Near East a role similar to that of the "British-Indian Army in past wars" (Foreign Relations theUnited of States1951, 1977: 2208). The military-bureaucraticelite, which became ascendant after Liaqat's assassination, was less abrasive to American sensitivities than thecivilian leadershiphad been. In 1954 Pakistan joined two formal pro-American alliances: SEATO and CENTO. Four years later, the militarytook fullpower. The Kashmir issue, and Pakistan-India relations generally, while set aside temporarilyin initiationof the client relation,remained a major point of disagreement between the United States and Pakistan. The United States was unwillingto incur the cost in relations with India it expected froma policy of specificsupport to Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Further, in the early 1960s, India and China became increasinglyhostile to each other and in 1962 went to war. This led to a rapid improvementin United StatesIndian relations and to the commencement of a small-scale American arms supply to India. The Pakistani state was caught in a contradictionbetween its dependence on America and opposition to the latter's militarysupport to India. In 1965, Pakistan went to war with India over the Kashmir issue. Never having accepted the fullvalidityof the Pakistani claim on Kashmir, the United States was now unwilling to support it in a war initiated to destabilize Indian control over Kashmir. affectedPakistan more since it Washington cut offarms to both countries. The cutoff had been far more dependent on America. But in 1969 a combination of circumstancesrevived the clientrelationship.President Nixon took officewith a favorable view of Pakistan, and the role of Pakistan in the China initiative upgraded United States-Pakistani relations. However, the military component of United States-Pakistani relations was not upgraded significantly between the inaugurationof Nixon and the Bangladesh massacre. The Pakistani regime

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remained essentiallyunchanged, despite the replacement of General Ayub Khan by General Yahya Khan. The flowof arms and trainingthathad led to the evolution of the client structurein Pakistan was not revived oeforethe Bangaldesh crisis. But theAmerican reputationas a guarantor of client regimes was built to instillconfidence in present and prospective clients,and fearin theiropponents; thus a recentclientlike Pakistan had to be covered by the guarantee. American diplomatic supportforPakistan, its snmiall-scale arms supply,and above all, the dispatch of the fleet,can be explained as the discharge of the role of guarantor of client states. The United States backed the Pakistani state not only against India, but also against the Bengalis. As Van Hollen observes, in the period betweenthe removal of secrecy on Nixon's China trip and the Indo-Soviet treaty, Washington was tilting toward Islamabad and not pushing fora political settlement East Pakistan. Kissinger in (1979) claims that the United States was urging Yahya to grant autonomy to the Bengalis, but the credibilityof that claim is undermined by the failure of the Nixon administrationto insist on a halt to the ongoing massacre of the Bengalis. As neutral India, and indirectly the Soviet enerny,became involved in the conflict, the challenge to the client structurebecame intensified.Yet the United States faced severe constraintsupon its guarantor role. The war in Vietnam had heavily taxed the American domestic political capability to play the guarantor role. And the American militaryposition in South Asia was relativelyweak. Internally,liberal opposition to administrationpolicy in the crisis was far strongerthan opposition to the Vietnam intervention had been in theearly 1960s. These constraints forceda relatively weak, and in the event unsuccessful,discharge of the guarantor role. References
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