United States Strategically Confronted With China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Triangle

South Asia Analysis Group ^ | 1/27/2010 | By Dr. Subhash Kapila

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The United States policy establishment and the plethora of think-tanks that abound in Washington seem to be totally oblivious that a strategic triangular relationship comprising China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia is confronting the United States in South West Asia. China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia strategic triangle is not a newly emergent military configuration. It commenced with the China-Pakistan strategic nexus in the 1960s and expanded to the China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia strategic triangle by the 1980s.

The China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia strategic triangle today manifests itself not only in military inter-linkages, but also in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles linkages and inter-dependencies.

The China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Triangle may not have acquired the contours of a formal military alliance or a security grouping yet, but China’s crafting this strategic triangle and cementing it with China-supplied nuclear weapons and missiles makes it no less potent for the United States.

South West Asia is of significant strategic interests for the United States which politically, strategically and militarily has invested heavily in this region extending from the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf Region and extending to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Strategically ironic is the fact that in United States strategic planning, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia figured high in the United States security architecture for South West Asia. Ironically further, that while the United States revelled in the belief that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were the new “twin-pillars” of US security architecture in the region, both these Sunni Muslim nations had been strategically enticed by China.