a house divided, 1933–73stepped into Britain’s shoes and the defence of the Indus-Durand Line
became as crucial to America’s South-Central Asia policy as it had been
during the era of British rule in India. It was not simply a matter of hurt-
ing the ussr financially, politically and militarily. Many American officials
considered it vital to preventing a possible Soviet invasion of Pakistan and
the occupation of Karachi, which would provide a warm-water port for
the Soviet navy in the Indian Ocean. Such a scenario would mean not just
the break-up of Pakistan, now America’s sole ally in the region following
the fall of the Shah of Iran, but threaten America’s oil supplies through
the Persian Gulf.
This Warm Water Port theory, as it was known, was a particular favour-
ite of Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s Polish-born national security
adviser. Despite the military and logistical impracticality of such an inva-
sion, let alone the risk of war that the ussr would face since America was
committed to the defence of Pakistan under the seato treaty, the idea was
popular with Republicans, right-wing think tanks, journalists and advis-
ers on Afghanistan. In fact, the theory was an anachronism based on the
theoretical musing of Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914), an American
naval officer writing at a time before air power supplanted naval power
as the backbone of imperial might. 46 The Warm Water Port scenario,
however, provided a convenient justification for arming the mujahidin
as well as propping up the dictatorship of Pakistan’s martial law adminis-
trator, General Zia-ul-Haq, just as in the 1960s the Domino Theory was
the rationale for American military intervention in Southeast Asia.
The cia’s initial priority was to decide which of the many anti-
government resistance movements should receive military and financial
support. The hostage crisis in Iran ruled out support for the Iranian-backed
Shi‘a militias, so the cia opted to channel its military support to the Sunni
Islamists in Peshawar. However, this decision posed political problems
as u.s.–Pakistan relations were then at rock bottom due to the military
coup of General Zia-ul-Haq and the subsequent execution of the former
prime minister, Zu’l-fiqar ‘Ali Bhutto, in April 1979. Zia-ul-Haq had also
con tinued Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme despite American objec-
tions. To cap it all, a month before the Soviet invasion Islamist students
from Qaid-i ‘Azam University had stormed and set fire to the u.s. Embassy
in Islamabad.
Support for the resistance, however, took precedence and Zia-ul-Haq
came out of the political wilderness as support for his government became
the linchpin of America’s response to the Afghanistan crisis. Zia milked the
U-turn for all it was worth, insisting that all cia funding, weaponry and