alternatehistory.com

In 1954, after the dreadful compromise at the Geneva Conference on Indochina permittted establishment of a communist state in northern Vietnam and the US and its allies established the SEATO alliance or Manila Pact to blunt communist momentum, the Eisenhower administration's John Foster Dulles turned his attention to plugging the last gaps in the containment ring around the Soviet Union, seeking to strengthen resistance to communism in weal and poor nations south of the Soviet Union.

Dulles in interested in maximal participation by the nations of South Asia, Southwest Asia and even Egypt, and tries to promote a regional security system involving the US, UK and local countries. Turkey, already a NATO ally, is courted along with Iran, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt. Egypt, Syria and India pretty quickly make it clear they are uninterested in alignments with Britain or with picking sides in the Cold War. Israel, in this 1955 timeframe is expressing interest in a security treaty with the U.S. but Dulles estimates the Israelis have nowhere else to turn, are a regional liability, and are too small in population and size to be a regional security factor or absorb US military aid, so their overtures are ignored.

In 1955 a regional alliance starts to coalesce with a US and UK blessed Turkish-Iraqi defense treaty. Iran, under the American-reinstalled Shah, is ready to join in. Despite disappointments in strategically located Egypt and Turkey, US backed alliances now block Soviet approaches into Southwest Asia. Now only enrollment of allies in South Asia remains to link the US-backed alliance system into an unbroken chain from Norway to Japan.

South Asia has over two thousand miles of border with the USSR and PRC, as yet unprotected by an alliance with the west. Of these, India is the largest and most powerful. Afghanistan is the one bordering the Soviet Union and occupying US protege Iran's vulnerable northeast flank. Pakistan has the smallest border with the Sino-Soviet bloc, but it has one of the best ports and logistical hubs due south of the USSR, at Karachi.

Dulles quickly decides that Pakistan is clearly the least important of the three, because of its small frontage with the Sino-Soviet bloc compared to Afghanistan and India, and its unpopularity with its northern and southern neighbors. It is early clear that India just is not signing up for an alliance, so then it becomes a choice focusing on Afghanistan or Pakistan. Since Dulles wants to risk having the least possible amount of territory behind the Iron Curtain, he makes a big push to align with Afghanistan. To sidestep Afghan-Pak tensions springing from Afghanistan's territorial claims against Pakistan, on the one hand, and Pakistan's retaliatory denial of transit rights to Afghanistan, on the other, Dulles presses Iran and Turkey to facilitate Afghan foreign trade through their territory. Afghanistan becomes the last member of the Baghdad Pact, despite the odds that it may devote as much energy to pressing its irredenta against Pakistan as to performing as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

Pakistan is disappointed to be friendless, but it is no more attractive to the Soviet Union than to the United States, and for similar reasons. As long as there's hope of Afghanistan resisting alliance ties with America, the USSR does not want to upset Kabul. Even if Afghanistan does side with America, Moscow in the mid-50s sees allying with Pakistan as needlessly alienating India. At this point, Mao does not actually disagree with Moscow's assessment.

Despite lack of a superpower a;;iance and consequent insecurity, Pakistan is unlikely to collapse as a state in the 1950s. It has the manpower resources to keep its core territories intact, even if harassed by regional separatists. India is not likely to launch an attack on what will probably be a more circumspect Pakistan.

By the very end of the 50s Pakistan and China will probably begin to align, with Beijing really dropping any hesitation as soon as the Tibetan revolt occurs and sours relations with New Delhi.

In the ATL, Pakistani will likely have far less hesitation embracing China fully from the beginning of the 1960s, yet at the same time, its conventional militaru power will be far less without US equipment.

Another knock-on is that Pakistan will not be available as launching pad for U2 reconnaissance flights over the central Soviet Union. Would Afghanistan or Iran make themselves available as substitutes?

The knock-ons multiply as we move later into the Cold War, where we could see significantly less use of Pakistani as pro-western mercenaries in Central and Southwest Asia, and warmer Indo-US relations. The domestic political effects on Pakistan are also uncertain.

One issue for the Eisenhower administration and its successors to work with is than in OTL, Britain, Turkey and Iran had a hand in choosing Pakistan as an ally---would they have a problem with Dulles's alternate, Afghanistan or bust strategy? If the west is wooing Afghanistan aggressively in the 1950s, can it be bought, or is Kabul going to be unshakeably convinced that Moscow can butter its bread better?

Thoughts?
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