The United States And The 1971 South Asian Crisis

This article first introduces the origin of the South Asia crisis in 1971 and the US's foreign policy to the South Asia during from the Second World War to the Nixon administration. This part ,which approximately be divided into three stages (the East Pakistani crisis, the Indo-Pak crisis, the American and Soviet crisis), simply narrated the South Asia crisis process. Then it simply reviewed the US' traditional foreign policy to the South Asia before the Nixon administration . Before the Nixon administration came on stage, US carried out the power of balance policy to the South Asia, maintaining balanced condition between India and Pakistan.Nixon administration didn't change it after came on stage.In the second part ,the article mainly studies the background, the process and the result of US's policy to the South Asia crisis in 1971. US's policy in the crisis may approximately could be divided into the following three stages: The first stage, from the East Pakistan requestsed autonomy to the West Pakistan military suppressed East Pakistan,US's policy was to keep an aloof manner. The Nixon administration thought it was an internal affair of friend ally, therefore they kept a distance to both the West Pakistani and the East Pakistani leaders, adopting a policy without bias and without favor. US hoped the leaders of Pakistan would solve the problem in peace way, avoiding the bloody clash and the civil strife. Since realized its limited influence, and worried about misunderstanding of President Yahya Khan,US didn't want to press on him and hoped for the mediation by the Britain.The second stage started from the West Pakistan military controlled the East Pakistan to India attacted the East Pakistan, in this time US's policy transformed from "uninvolving" into "involving".Because the traditional power of balance policy to South Asia, moreover Pakistan was the secret channel of contacting between US and China at this time, Nixon and Kissinger was not willing to make the public morality and justice condemnation and the economic sanctions on the West Pakistan army atrocity, they advised Yahya Khan administration to give up the military force in private by friend's status. In order to alleviate the pressure that the refugee brought to India, US started to provide the financial aid to the East Pakistani refugee. At the same time, US realized India was going to attact the Pakistan, and warned India that they would shut off the economic aid to India if it launch the war. But India enhanced the requests step by step, which couldn't be accepted by Pakistan and US finally. At last US's effort to prevented the war didn't succeed, the third war of Indo-Pak broke out.The third stage startes from the beginning to the ending of the Indo-Pak war. US's policy was to avoid the war expanding from geopolitics angle consideration,and avoid Pakistan encountering the dismemberment .Thereupon with exerting the pressure on Soviet Union to restrain India, submitting the India and Pakistan question to the United Nations Security Council, shutting off the economic aid to India,and sending out the fleet to Bay of Bengal to demonstrate military force to urge India to implement ceasesfire,US achieved the cease-fire and preserved the West Pakistan's integrity finally.All in all, US achieved her policy goal.The article finally from the international Cold War environment, the " constitutive difficult position"of South Asia ,as well as Nixon and the Kissinger individual factor three aspects analyzed US's policy, the conclusion of the article was that the beginning and the ending of US's foreign policy finally was the national interest, and geopolitics factor was more effective than the ideological factor.