Tom Plate
Two allies warily watch America fight terrorism

By Tom Plate

Is the fabled and fearsome Law of Unintended Consequences about to descend on India and South Korea? As the U.S. military impressively proceeds apace to reduce al-Qaeda and the Taliban to scraps of history, New Delhi and Seoul are withholding their applause. America's war on terror may have increased U.S. national security, but it may be eroding theirs.

India understands that Pakistan's military leader, Pervez Musharraf, cares about what President Bush thinks. Because Washington and the West can and will help his poor country, Islamabad executed that astonishing about-face in September, turning against its ally, the Taliban.

But precisely because Pakistan could not care less about what India thinks — for, in truth, largely Hindu India would probably not lift a finger to help largely Muslim Pakistan, even were it dying of starvation — Musharraf's anti-terror tenacity does not appear so fierce toward his country's indigenous terror groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. For these are the groups — freedom fighters, in their own eyes — that oppose India's rule over parts of Kashmir, just as Hamas resists Israel's control over Gaza and the West Bank.

But one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. India has claimed the two groups were responsible for the Dec. 13 terror attack on its Parliament that killed more than a dozen people. Last week, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee — no hawk — openly worried that South Asia was drifting toward war. Now the onus is on the Pakistani ruler to show the world, not just India, that his current anti-terrorism stance is comprehensive, not selective.

Should Musharraf be seen to be taking the view that extremism in pursuit of the liberty of Kashmir is no vice, he will wind up losing impressive international gains for Pakistan. Just recently, Western creditors eased a bundle of its debt, raising optimism about the future.

It is no more acceptable for India's Parliament to be assaulted — whatever the cause or justification — than America's Pentagon. Surely, India — a nuclear power like Pakistan — needs to have its nerves calmed by a credible assurance from Bush that suddenly it hasn't become the odd man out. It would be brutal irony indeed if the American need for revenge over Sept. 11 were to trigger conventional, if not nuclear, war in South Asia.

Seoul, a longtime ally, also is worried about the unintended consequence on the Korean Peninsula of the U.S. anti-terror war. "Are they developing weapons of mass destruction?" asks Bush, calling on Pyongyang to permit inspections of its weapons sites, which it is not going to do.

Should North Korea become the next country (perhaps after Somalia or Iraq) to be put on the terrorism target list, South Koreans fear any action, or even threat of it, by the United States will prompt bloody retaliation from Pyongyang.

"The United States is so steadfast on the terrorist problem," chafes Lee Bu Young, deputy president of South Korea's Grand National Party. "But the truth is that the North Koreans today don't have the funds to support terrorism." With Seoul, South Korea's sprawling capital of 14 million just 25 miles from enemy artillery, South Koreans of all political stripes fear a U.S. hard line will provoke the trigger-happy North Koreans, armed with nuclear (probably) as well as chemical (certainly) arms, into starting the peninsular nightmare everyone fears.

Even the U.S. military establishment is worried about that. Whoever might push North Korea to the brink, argues influential retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, would cause "millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of U.S. and South Korean military and civilian tragedies." Speaking out in this month's issue of the Armed Forces Journal International, he adds: "Good diplomacy and sound engagement can prevent the miscalculations by either side that could lead to a war that would end the North Korean state and devastate the South."

South Koreans can only be thankful for the intellectual caliber of today's U.S. military leaders, from former Gen. Colin Powell on down. It's good to see that a general can rise to the top without threatening Apocalypse Now at every turn. It's good to see enlightened policy commentary in one of our leading military journals.

It would be a cruel unintended consequence indeed if the war on terrorism led to the destabilization of the Koreas and military — possibly nuclear — conflict in South Asia. America needs not to jump the gun but to work through this worldwide terrorism problem, as it has up until now, one step at a time, or it runs the risk of scaring everyone half to death.

Tom Plate, a columnist for The Honolulu Advertiser and the South China Morning Post, is a professor at UCLA. (www.asiamedia.ucla.edu)