Abstract
States do not choose to become buffers. It is a role thrust upon them by a hostile international environment over which they have no control. Buffer states are lesser actors sandwiched between more powerfully endowed, ambitious, and often aggressive entities. The purpose of the buffer state is established by these external competitors. They become sacrificial elements in a larger contest. Their particular interests are ignored, often treated with indifference or disdain by the greater actors who set the dimensions and lay down the guidelines of confrontation. To be designated a buffer state therefore is to witness the diminishing of a state’s sovereignty, to acknowledge that its national destiny is influenced from without, and that its territorial integrity is neither fully respected nor legally protected from alien intruders. Buffer states are extensions of balances of power, not international law. As such, they are protected by military-political conditions, not moral-legal procedures. Where their status as buffer states is respected their precarious existence is sustainable. However, in circumstances where the pattern of regional relationships undergoes significant change, buffer states are usually the first victims. Buffer states pay the price for temporary larger power equilibrium, a cost which oscillates between a loss of national pride on the one side and extinction on the other.
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Notes
Arthur Stein, India and the Soviet Union: The Nehru Era (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969) p. 2.
W. K. Fraser-Tytler, Afghanistan: A Study of Political Developments (London: Oxford University Press, 1953) and
Owen Lattimore, Pivot of Asia (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950).
The foreign policy of the British rulers of India was directed towards securing the alliance, integrity, or neutralization of the borderlands and minor states covering the land approaches to the Indian Empire. The system which resulted in these efforts came to be known as the ‘ring fence’ and comprised two more or less concentric circles. The ‘inner ring’ consisted of the Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim, and the tribal areas in north and northeast Assam and on the northwest frontier. The ‘outer ring’ consisted of the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms and of Persia [Iran], Afghanistan, Tibet and Siam. The ‘inner ring’ was gradually brought under varying forms of control, while intensive diplo-matic activity, backed by the threat or use of force, denied a foothold in any of the ‘buffer’ states in the ‘outer ring’ to a major power without compensating advantage. Lorne J. Kavic, India’s Quest for Security: Defence Policies, 1947–1965 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967) p. 9.
There was little geostrategic reason to believe the Russians, whether tsarist or Bolshevik, would ever relinquish control over Central Asia. So long as the Russians sustained their power in Central Asia, no genuine security threat could be mounted from South or Southwest Asia northward. The deserts of Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains were formidable barriers. On the other hand, Central Asia was a natural location from which to marshal forces and press drives south, either toward the Persian Gulf or India. Lord George E. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russo Question (London: Longmans, Green, 1889) and
Michael Edwardes, High Noon of Empire: India Under Curzon (London: Eyre & Spotiswoode, 1965).
The Afghans have consistently argued against Pakistani claims that it is the rightful successor state to British India, citing Kabul’s 18th-century hold over the northwest frontier, Baluchistan and Kashmir. Prior to and immediately following partition, therefore, they joined with Abdul Ghaffer Khan in calling for Pushtunistan for the Pushtuns. And in June 1947 Hashim Khan, the Afghan Prime Minister, demanded that Britain provide Afghanistan with an outlet to the sea before its withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent. Zalmay Khalilzad, ‘Security in Southern Asia 1,’ The Security of Southwest Asia (London: Institute for Strategic Studies, 1984) pp. 139–140.
The Kremlin joined the Afghans in demanding the creation of an independent Pushtunistan to be formed from the Pushtu areas of Pakistan. No mention was ever made of the Pushtu areas of Afghanistan, however. Pravda, 5 April 1954. Cited in Richard B. Remnek, Soviet Policy Toward India: The Role of Soviet Scholars in the Formulation of Soviet Foreign Policy (Durham: Carolina Academic Press; published in Lucknow, India by Oxford and IBH Publishing, 1975) p. 22.
Shirin Tahir-Kheli, The United States and Pakistan: The Evolution of an Influence Relationship (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1982) pp. 1–3.
India’s reaction to the Baghdad Pact was similar to that of Afghanistan. Both feared the Cold War was being brought into the region needlessly. Robert C. Horn, Soviet-Indian Relations: Issues and Influence (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1982) p. 10.
Lawrence Ziring, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan: A Political Chronology (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1982) A considerable portion of the historical narrative in this chapter has been drawn from the above work.
S. P. Seth, ‘Russia’s Role in Indo-Pak Politics,’ Asian Survey Vol. IX, No. 8, August 1969, pp. 620–621.
See also: Zubeida Mustafa, ‘Afghanistan and the Asian Power Balance,’ Pacific Community January, 1975.
Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1984
Barry Rubin, Paved With Good Intentions: Iran and the American Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
W. C. Eveland, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1980).
Lawrence Ziring, ‘Pakistan; The Yayha Khan Interregnum,’ Asian Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 6, July–August, 1974, pp. 402–420.
K. G. Fenelon, The United Arab Emirates (London: Longman Group, 1976) p. 3; and
J. C. Hurewitz, The Persian Gulf After Iran’s Revolution Foreign Policy Series 244 (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1979) and
John R. Countryman, ‘Iran in the View of the Persian Gulf Emirates,’ Study Project Paper, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, May 1976.
Lawrence Ziring, ed., The Subcontinent in World Politics: India, Its Neighbors and the Great Powers (New York: Praeger Special Studies, 1978) p. 144.
Edward Kennedy, ‘The Persian Gulf: Arms Race or Arms Control,’ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 1, October 1975, pp. 14–35; and the New York Times, 19 July 1977.
James Bill commented on President Carter’s visit to Iran and noted his avoidance of the human rights issue and the alienation of groups hereto-fore hopeful that the United States government would force the Shah to relax his repressive measures. James Bill, ‘Iran and the Crisis of ‘78’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 52, No. 2, Winter 1978/1979, pp. 338–339.
Lawrence Ziring, Pakistan: The Enigma of Political Development (Kent, England: Dawson Publishing Company, 1980) p. 237.
Government of Pakistan, White Paper on Baluchistan (Islamabad: Printing Corporation of Pakistan Press, 1974).
Lawrence Ziring, ‘Pakistan: A Political Perspective’, Asian Survey, Vol. 15, No. 7, July 1975, p. 642.
Bhutto did not believe his successors could successfully negotiate with the Afghans. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, ‘If I Am Assassinated’ (New Delhi: Vikas, 1979) pp. 126–129;
See also: Victoria Schofield, Bhutto: Trial and Execution (London: Cassell, 1979) p. 208.
Louis Dupree, ‘Afghanistan Under the Khalq’, Problems of Communism, Vol. 28, July–August 1979, pp. 57–62.
Godfrey Jansen, ‘The Gulf War: The Contest Continues’, Third World Quarterly Vol. 6, No. 4, October 1984, pp. 950–952.
I first presented this argument in Lawrence Ziring, ‘The Contemporary Pivot of History’, in R .G .C. Thomas, ed., The Great Power Triangle and Asian Security (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath Company, 1983) pp. 21–46. Nothing has occurred since that writing to alter my analysis or conclusions.
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© 1987 Hafeez Malik
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Ziring, L. (1987). Buffer States on the Rim of Asia: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the Superpowers. In: Malik, H. (eds) Soviet-American Relations with Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08553-8_6
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