REVIEW OF BOOK -NEIGHBOURS IN ARMS: AN AMERICAN SENATOR'S QUEST FOR DISARMAMENT IN A NUCLEAR SUBCONTINENT WRITTEN BY LARRY PRESSLER.

REVIEW OF BOOK -NEIGHBOURS IN ARMS: AN AMERICAN SENATOR'S QUEST FOR DISARMAMENT IN A NUCLEAR SUBCONTINENT WRITTEN BY LARRY PRESSLER.

Mr. Larry Lee Pressler is a soft spoken and non- confrontational American who has been elected to the US senate in 1979 and very much famous for "Pressler Amendment" which is nothing but banned on economic and military assistance to the countries that were acquiring or transferring nuclear reprocessing technology or explodes or transfer nuclear devices. Due this amendment, President of United State of America had to certify on annual basis before providing any economic and military assistance that the country to whom USA is providing economic and military assistance does not possess nuclear weapons. This is mostly to restrict for providing economic and military assistances to one country i.e.  Pakistan. To understand this story, one should read the autobiographical work of Larry Lee Pressler, “Neighbours in Arms: An American Senator’s Quest for Disarmament in nuclear Subcontinent”.

From Yogesh Gogwekar.

Larry Pressler born on 29th March 1942 in Humboldt, South Dakota and has been grown up on his family’s farm. He has been graduated from University of South Dakota where he was awarded the Rhodes scholarship. As a Rhodes Scholar, he attended St. Edmund Hall at Oxford University and obtained B.A. degree. He also did his law graduation from Harvard University. He started his career as a lawyer but joined in US army where he served in Vietnam War. After returning from Vietnam War, he served as House of Representatives for two terms from 1975 to 1979. He has been elected to US senate for three times from 1979 to 1997. For fourth time in 1996, he lost to Tim Johnson. In his book, Pressler has blamed President Clinton for his defeat and confirmed that Pakistani lobby and American business interests joined hands to bring him down.

In his books, he has praised India and informed Americans not to do the mistake by equating India and Pakistan in American foreign policy. He writes, “India is our ally and has our values. Pakistan is not our ally except when it wants money and military weapons from us or when we want its help with geopolitical goal. We do not share its value. Pakistan is dishonest and dangerous. To continue to equate the two as equal is one of the great mistakes of American foreign policy”. Pressler deeply detest war mongering and wants the Indian subcontinent should be nuclear-free. Therefore, he warned Reagan administration not to dilute any law under the influence of Islamabad as Pakistan is using military assistance of US for making nuclear weapons and criticised Pakistan Afghanistan policy of U.S. Defence Department policy under President Ronald Reagan. Thus, new law has come into effect in 1985 by saying that President of USA has to certify that Pakistan is not holding or acquiring any ant nuclear devices before giving any economic and military assistance to Pakistan. This amendment has been called as Pressler amendment which is the modification of Glen and Symington Amendment adopted in 1977.

Still even after such law, President of USA has given false certificates to get support from Pakistan for Afghan war and this farce was continued till 1990. It was invoked the amendment to stop the aid to Pakistan by George Bush after end of Cold war with Russia. Later on Clinton administrative make changes in law and removed restriction on economic and military assistance to Pakistan which resulted in 09/11 attack on America.

This is a really good book which is nothing but the reflection of American policy to foresee the world with its strategic interest. This book is helpful to those who want to study the events of Cold war of 80s and 90s and also a challenge to those scholars who deliberately overlooked inconvenient portions of history. This book is warning to the government of all nations not to have any dangerous solution to the problems of terrorism.

According to Husain Haqquani ,a Pakistani Journalist, it is costliest mistake of failure to prevent Pakistan from acquiring nuclear weapons on the part of  American Foreign policy. This is good book to read.