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[ 219 ] book reviews The United States and Kashmir: When Less Is More C. Raja Mohan A review of Howard B. Schaffer The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2009 u 272 pp. For nearly six decades, diplomatic intervention in the India-Pakistan dispute over the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been ever so tempting for the United States. It has also been singularly unrewarding despite the deployment of some of the best U.S. diplomats and the intensity of highlevel political attention devoted to the issue by U.S. presidents, especially John F. Kennedy.1 Howard Schaffer, with his long diplomatic experience in the subcontinent and activism in the influential Kashmir Study Group in the United States, is perhaps best-placed to tell us the story on why and how a solution to the Kashmir dispute has become so elusive for the United States. In many ways, Schaffer’s volume is part of the story. The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir reveals the unending tension between the liberal internationalist impulses in the United States to resolve the Kashmir question and the persistent refusal of the region, or more accurately India, to fall in line. Capturing the paradox well, the book is a fascinating tale of the limits of U.S. influence on the peace process in Kashmir. Yet Schaffer’s main recommendation for Washington is to embark once again on an effort to promote a Kashmir settlement between India and Pakistan. To be fair, Schaffer wants the United States to promote such a settlement differently this time. Through quiet diplomacy, Washington can helpfully act as a sounding board, advising each side of the likely acceptability to the other of proposals it is considering putting on the negotiating table. But Americans should not sit at the negotiating table—a bad idea and one that Indians will not accept. Keeping to an informal, unobtrusive role, U.S. diplomats will want to discourage any public discussion of their activities. 1 For a study with a focus on President Kennedy’s involvement in Kashmir that nicely complements Schaffer’s story, see Timothy W. Crawford, “Kennedy and Kashmir, 1962–63: The Perils of Pivotal Peacemaking in South Asia,” India Review 1, no. 3 (July 2002): 1–38. c. raja mohan is the Strategic Affairs Editor of the Indian Express, New Delhi. He can be reached at . [ 220 ] asia policy Although the Obama administration should not dispatch a highly publicized special envoy as President Kennedy did in 1962 when he assigned Averell Harriman to the task, a private visit by someone recognized to have the President’s confidence should be considered (pp. 199–200). The problem with Schaffer’s main recommendation is not just that discreet diplomacy does not come easily to Washington. It is that any kind of a U.S. role—quiet or unquiet—would kill the project in New Delhi. That inevitable prospect does not seem to daunt Schaffer. The fact, however, is that Schaffer is not alone in disregarding the empirical evidence on the limits of U.S. influence on a Kashmir settlement. In my view, much of the foreign policy establishment in the Democratic Party has been itching for an activist role in Kashmir. One source of this urge is ideological. Rejecting George W. Bush’s handsoff policy toward conflict resolution in general, and the Kashmir dispute in particular, the Democrats want Washington to adopt a more active approach to resolving the world’s pressing conflicts. One of the first acts of the Obama administration was to appoint special envoys to the Middle East and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region within 48 hours of the president being sworn in. It took considerable lobbying by Delhi and a lot of public noise in India to stop the administration from naming Kashmir as part of the mandate for veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke when he was named the special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan. That Kashmir was not named does not mean, however, that the Obama administration has decided to turn its back on the question. Beyond the ideological imperative, there is a strong belief within the administration that the war in Afghanistan...

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