CONSTRUCTIVE CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA CHALLENGES OF TERRORISM, SECURITY AND INTER-STATE RELATIONS

Abstract

South Asia is also confronted like many other regions of the world with a promptly transmuting terrorism threat landscape. This threat is ever more transnational in nature though local grievances and sociopolitical dynamics have played vital role in determining foreign policy of the terrorism affected states in the region. The situation has been ill-used by different militant groups and this has further threatened the regional stability, which is indispensable for social and political development of people in South Asia. The presence of traditional and non-traditional security threats is expanding scope of security concerns as more daunting with every passing day. After various terrorist incidents, these states failed to implement effective conflict management strategies domestically and while blaming each other responsible for those terrorist incidents by supporting or sponsoring terrorist incident but are unable to reach an ex-ante bargain or at least ex-post bargain due to various reasons. On the other hand, the militants have come up to be stronger after every incident to challenge the states’ existing governments and their security thus declaring a failure to their conflict management strategies. As for India and Pakistan, every terrorist incident is more deadly and planned than the previous one as is clear from some high profile terrorist attacks such as Mumbai attack, Uri Attack, Pathankot attack and now more recent Pulwama attack. With every terrorist attack, the facts established counted the failure of these states to negotiate and the increasing strength of these militants responsible for attack and their amended and improved strategies to inflict maximum damage to these states than the previous terrorist incidents. This has been clear with every terrorist incident that how the bargaining failure between states has not only strengthened the militant groups but also that these attacks by militants could disturb the security and inter-state relations from sour to war-like situation to the level that these terrorist incident proved to be the flash point between not only the two nuclear powers of South Asia, India and Pakistan but also of Afghanistan. Much of the recent scholarship on international politics views conflict and cooperation arising from a bargaining process and the rationalist explanations of conflict and war entails that the conflict occur due to the bargaining failure of states involved and the failure is explained in terms of various factors responsible for rational miscalculation of states more specifically in terms of positive expected utility, rational miscalculation and commitment problem. Conflict and cooperation are the options that are available to the states generally arise either from information asymmetries or their inability to obligate to any negotiated aftermath. The last two factors could be downplayed through the conflict management strategies of states except that when the states see positive expected utility in initiating or continuing conflict or war. However, failure to implement effective conflict management strategies could have an effect on the occurrence of conflict and the strength of the adversary as well. This is hypothesized in this study, as here in xii South Asia, ineffective conflict management strategies and bargaining failure between states leads to underwired terrorism and more disturbed interstate relations and regional security in South Asia. Furthermore, this research study analyzed terrorism as a changed form of conflict from the perspective of the individuals or groups that practice terrorist activity as they do so for a variety of reasons that include leverage for bargaining, political or diplomatic disruption, influencing the behavior of a fearful population, provoking a government into reacting harshly and indiscriminately, showing the flag, revenge, simple hatred, and the carrying out of a divine mandate. Thus bargaining and negotiation are the default option when disputes arise and during the whole process of bargaining, the initial proposals that are rejected in the beginning might eventually be accepted after several periods of confrontation. This research study examined the various possible ways how the concept of state rationality, their credible commitments and the private information interacted with reference to the various conflict management strategies as a resolve to terrorism as a conflict.