KARACHI: A retired air vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force, now a defense analyst, Abid Rao, says the 1965 war with India started because the then president General Ayub Khan had wanted it.
In an interview in the program Economy Pakistan, giving a background to Pakistan’s becoming a security state, AVM (retd) Abid Rao said that in the scenario post-Partition of the British India, assets distribution between Pakistan and independent India was a key challenge, particularly that of military equipment which turned out to be the main concern for Pakistani establishment.
To ensure Pakistan’s safety apprehension, the establishment decided to attach the country with the American camp, and in 1955, received its first military aid from the US, the retired AVM added.
AVM (retd) Rao said the then army chief General Ayub Khan had offered military services to Americans to counter communist ideology in this region. The American military equipment, however, was used against India in the 1965 war, he said. According to AVM (retd) Rao, the idea of war between India and Pakistan in 1965 was Ayub Khan who had by then become Pakistan’s president.
The retried air vice marshal said this post-independence decision by the state of Pakistan made the country a proxy state against the Soviets. In the earlier 50s, he said, Pakistan was not directly involved in the Cold War but later we became entangled in proxy conflicts.
