Pakistan Is Not Worth The Trouble Or Money It Is Costing Us

The government and military of Pakistan is continuing its campaigns of lies and extortion.  That is as self-evident as the size of the US budget deficit.  It is also self-evident that Pakistan will keep on with its dual track approach of prevarication and extortion because it has no alternative.

The Chairman of the JCS, Admiral Mike Mullen, grabbed the stinging nettle the other day when he stated categorically in the Pakistani English language newspaper Dawn as well as the TV service Geo that we knew perfectly well that the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) maintained its ongoing relationship with the Haqqani network, the most deadly American adversary in Afghanistan.  The long-standing and very strong connection between ISI and the Haqqani crew has been the worst kept secret in Washington for years now.  Mullen, bringing it into the open on an official level only hours before meeting mano a mano with his Pakistani counterpart, did the cause of honesty between alleged allies a great and long overdue service.

The response from the government and military of Pakistan was not one of either embarrassed silence or humiliating acknowledgement of the truth of the allegation.  Of course not.  The Army Chief of Staff, Ashfaq Kayani, was quoted as denouncing the Mullen statement as "negative propaganda."  The brazen effrontery of the general would be breath taking had it come from anyone other than a senior Pakistani official.

However, bald face lying is a tried and true approach practiced by Pakistani officials in and out of uniform.  The finance minister, straight face firmly in place, averred that it was "largely a myth" that Pakistan had received billions of US dollars in aid from the Great Cash Cow pastured in Washington, DC.  In the real world, the US has provided twenty or so billion bucks in the years since 9/11.  Of this mountain of money, roughly half has come under the auspices of the program entitled "Coalition Support Funds."  Much of the money shifted to Islamabad under this program has been not been properly documented or accounted for.

Other funds have flowed under other programs such as the civilian development oriented Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill.  Still more money has been expended under assorted military assistance programs including those which have provided Pakistan with big ticket items such as F-16s with little utility in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism efforts.  In short, the money has been authorized, appropriated, and in major part expended all to the benefit of Pakistan.  Still, the finance minister felt obliged to carry on with a lie so humongous as to make Dr Goebbels blush.

On the extortion side of the twin prong offensive, the Pakistanis have reiterated their demands for more intelligence sharing on the part of the US--allegedly so the Paks can get on with the job of acting upon it--and transferring our UAV technology to Pakistan--supposedly so that they and not us can use Predators and Reapers to take out Haqqani network and Taliban figures in the FATA.  Actually these demands are not simply extortionate, they are part of the keep-on-lying tactic.

The Pakistanis want access to our most sensitive intelligence sources, methods, and practices so that Islamabad will know all that we know about the connections between Pakistan and the assorted groups under the protection of ISI.  After all, the highest goal of any intelligence service is finding out in detail what the enemy's spooks know and don't know about your operations.  As KGB bent every effort to penetrate MI6, MI5, OSS, and CIA, so now does Pakistan's ISI want to penetrate our intelligence operations.  There is no desire to act upon American intelligence with any goal in mind other than better protecting and facilitating the operations of the Haqqani network and other like minded groups.  (Sure, the Paks would use our information to neutralize individuals or sub-groups that have wandered too far off the reservation, but that is scarcely a benefit from our point of view.)

The Pakistani military has long drooled after our UAVs.  The generals and the spooks have had a perpetual case of the woodies ever since the first Predator launched its first Hellfire.  From their perspective, the UAVs represent a fine way of countering the Indian doctrine of "Cold Start," even better by being lower signature than their new short range battlefield missiles.  One must never forget that India and only India is the "main enemy" in the estimate of the Pakistani military.

The US has offered to provide Pakistan with eighty-five Ravens.  These small, short range, and non-lethal UAVs are "drones" and thus meet the demand for access.  It is doubtful that the Pakistanis will be satisfied with this sop.  Eighty-five Ravens do not change the calculus of forces as between India and the Muslim Republic.

After his carefully titrated dose of honesty, Admiral Mullen went back onto the standard message.  Our relationship with Pakistan is strong.  They are our close and important allies in the war on terror.  Pakistan's cooperation is critical for success in Afghanistan.  Stopping terror in the FATA is the key to universal and permanent peace.  Yadda-yadda, dabba-dabba-do and harrumph!

Let's get down, dirty, and honest here.  The US could get out of Afghanistan right now without any real decrement in its security.  It could leave that sorry piece of real estate without any meaningful increase in the risk of terror acts directed at the American homeland.  True, it would be better if we were to engage in one hellacious crescendo of lethal violence directed at each and every important al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Haqqani network figure we could pinpoint.  It would be preferable if, so to speak, we leave doing what we should have done when we first went in--launch a destructively punitive blow at the bad guys of violent political Islam.

This means admitting reality.  Afghanistan will become what it both wants to be and will be forced by the Pakistanis to be--an Islamic nation living in a hollow state.  The FATA will remain what Islamabad wants it to be--the safe haven of violent political Islam.  Both are acceptable outcomes provided the government and military of Pakistan understand that should any jihadist with any connection to either the FATA or Pakistan dominated Afghanistan harm a hair on Uncle Sam's head, we will be back.  Back not as an occupation force or a nation-building crew but as a destructive force of such a punishing nature as to make the floods and cyclones of the past appear to be gentle love pats from a benign mother nature.

It would not harm our interests either short- or long-term interests if the lying extortionists of Islamabad were made to understand and appreciate that our interests and those of India were far more closely coincident than were ours and those of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.  In truth we have been cozying up too close for too long with the loser on the sub-continent.  India and the US have far more shared norms and values, far more coinciding interests.  Tilting ever more in the direction of India is in our interests--and against those of Pakistan.

Consider that last sentence for a moment.  It suggests a viable alternative should the Obama administration demonstrate its ongoing inability to play hard ball.  We too can play the extortion game.  Give Pakistan an option:  Islamabad can either both sit down and shut up, get serious in the FATA and squash the Haqqanis and the others, or we will well and truly tilt more in the direction of India.  A closer alliance between India and the US would give the army and government of Pakistan something very, very important to think about.  At the very least, it would make their dream of another rematch with India a suicidal folly.  At most, it would empower India in Afghanistan thus further cutting back on Pakistan's goal of strategic depth and a sphere of influence in the Islamic nations of the Central Asian Republics.

This tilt-to-India threat is a hard ball option but one which does not run the political risks of simply getting the hell out of Afghanistan.  As such it is a rational and realistic way to overcome the Pakistani's game of lie and extort.  But, its realism alone means the Obama administration would never consider it.  More's the pity.

Ask The Geek!

In a new occasional feature the Geek will respond to questions from his ever so personal mailbag---both snail and e.  Well, to err on the side of accuracy, the Geek will post answers to questions he would have liked to receive from people who ought to be asking them.  Here is the first---

Dear Geek,

There is a lot of verbiage to the effect that the Karzai government has opened preliminary talks with the two main insurgent groups, Taliban and the Haqqani network.  Word has it that the US is cooperating and facilitating the process.

Now my question is this: Does the start of talks mean that I and my colleagues on the editorial board have been correct and the US is about to accept defeat in Afghanistan or is the opposite the case (say it isn't so, Geek) and the US approach to counterinsurgency is actually working and Washington may achieve the minimal strategic goal of not losing?

Give me an answer ASAP as my coworkers here as well as our counterparts at the NYT and MoveOn.org are nervous wrecks.

Signed, Perplexed at the WaPo


Dear Perplexed,

You have asked a key question, indeed the keyest of questions.  In order to provide an answer which is complete, accurate, and (hopefully) easy to comprehend by people such as yourself, it is necessary to go back to the basics.  You have to understand how the insurgency game is played as well as how it ends to say nothing of why it ends to decide who is "winning" or "losing."

So, like the coach sez, "Back to basics."  (All of the following points have been discussed in previous posts, so consider this a review.  Pay attention as this will be on the final.

Insurgency is the armed expression of political disaffiliation with the goal of either completely replacing the system of government in operation or creating a new state.  The target in all insurgencies is the loyalty and support of the majority of the population most of whom are not particularly committed to either the government or the insurgents.  The purpose of all operations and activities both violent and peaceful by both the insurgents and the government is the mobilization of support among the uncommitted majority while demobilizing support from the opponent.

In the contest for the affiliation of the uncommitted majority, both the government and the insurgents have the same two basic methods.  One is to emphasize legitimacy.  The other is coercion.  Think of it as a set of wrenches and a battery of hammers.

Legitimacy comes in two forms, existential (the nature of the relationship itself between authority and citizen) and functional (what can or have you done for me the citizen lately?)

In the legitimacy contest the government normally has the advantages--if it can actually provide effective services to the population including security.  The question of existential legitimacy is harder to address, but in Afghanistan the insurgents can claim the higher authority as they maintain they are representing the purest, most fundamental form of Islam while the government is apostate.

An insurgent group is like a three tier onion.

The first layer is the passive mass support base.  These people are sources of support, logistics, intelligence and recruiting provided not too much risk or inconvenience is involved.

Closer to the center is the active mass support base.  People in this category are willing to take risks, pull triggers, plant bombs, penetrate the adversary's security forces, engage in propaganda and recruiting.  The majority of active combatants are drawn from this category.

At the center of the onion is the hard core.  These are the leaders, the planners, the executives, the middle management.  By and large the hard core is constituted of True Believers.  Typically the True Belief of the hard core members is so complete that the Belief becomes the source of individual identity and sense of self-worth to the extent that the insurgency is literally existential for these people.

The supporters of the government can be divided in the same way: passive and active mass support base and hard core.  The crucial difference rests with the simple fact that the hard core of the government and its supporting elites are not propelled by a totalistic True Belief.  For the government the insurgency does not constitute an existential conflict.

This distinction implies something quite central in the process of ending an insurgency,  In seeking both hostilities termination and the far more important end stage of conflict resolution, the government and its hard core supporters can choose to seek the reintegration of the insurgents as well as provide mechanisms of power sharing.  Because the struggle is not existential, the government can go for the option of operational dominance rather than absolute authority.

The insurgents do not have this option.  They must go for the big gold ring of absolute authority.  The power of True Belief admits of no compromise, no sharing.  This is particularly true with the Mighty Men of the One True Faith raised with the pornography of hell and the appeals of paradise from earliest childhood on.

Before looking in detail at what has transpired during the past year or so in Afghanistan, there is one last very important bit of context to keep in mind.  In an insurgent environment, outsiders have no existential legitimacy and only limited functional.  The single greatest source of functional legitimacy available to an outsider whether the US and the other components of the ISAF or the Arab and other foreign fighters in the ranks of Taliban is the capacity and willingness to insulate the civilians of the uncommitted majority from the risks of war.  This is why not killing local non-combatants is so critical--the outsider who kills least is most likely to gain legitimacy and thus the assistance of the locals.

The US and other ISAF forces have put the members of the active mass support base of the insurgents under ever greater pressure.  The costs, the risks of aligning with the insurgents have been increased, and the probability of a pay off for such alignment has decreased.  The Karzai government has made it clear that it is quite prepared to provide reintegration and power sharing mechanisms to insurgents who renounce violence and agree to abide by the Afghan constitution.

While operations in Afghanistan have been putting the squeeze on, other approaches have focused on the hard core.  It is critical to understand that the hard core cannot be converted, cannot be "pacified."  The nature and character of the religiously predicated insurgency means the hard core membership must be killed, or, if detained, be detained in perpetuity.

The permanent removal of senior or midlevel hard core personnel not only take personalities off the board, it disrupts the organization.  The brain drain of experienced commanders and technical specialists combines synergistically with the increase in operational frictions resulting from the disruption of the organization to limit combat and political effectiveness.

Over the past year, with a particular emphasis on the past six months, the US and its allies including the larger and marginally improved Afghan security forces have killed or captured over six hundred insurgents who are hard core and serve in command or technical billets.  Additionally, the Predator attacks in the FATA have energetically disassembled a generous chunk of hard core leaders and technicians.

The insurgents have been demonstrating a decreased capacity to gain and retain the initiative.  This does not mean they are incapable of fighting effectively in defense.  They can and are.  However, the insurgents have once again shifted to low risk attacks on soft targets.  This results in a greater number of dead and wounded civilians.

While Afghans are relatively tolerant of Muslim Taliban killing Muslim Afghan civilians as contrasted with infidel killed Muslim Afghan civilians, there are limits.  The limits have been reached.  One important result is the weakening of the insurgent passive mass support base.  Another is the increase in actionable intelligence from civilians.  Yet another is the willingness of offended locals to take up their "personal assault weapons" and take out after obnoxious Taliban or Haqqani network units.

The killing of hard core personalities along with the greater military pressure on the active mass support base members in Helmand province and nearby territory has complemented the Karzai political reconciliation approach.  It is to be regretted that the US at the highest levels of government was slow to understand and support what Karzai was up to.  Be that as it may, we have awakened and smelled the coffee.

As it stands right now the insurgents in Afghanistan are in a graveyard spiral.  For the moment at least, the correlation of forces favors the government in Kabul and its foreign supporters.  Continued use of the military hammers while backing Karzai's play should see an acceleration in the favorable trends early next year, say March or April.

Do not despair, Perplexed.  The Geek understands that his assessment does not lead to the conclusions which you and your associates at the WaPo desire but there is still hope.  The joker in the deck is President Obama's drop dead date for commencement of withdrawal.  It is still there, twisting in the wind, giving hope for the Ever Victorious Thugs of Allah.

Since insurgency is a contest of political wills which in no way exempts outsiders like us, it is yet possible for us to defeat ourselves.  Further hope exists in the friction between Mr Obama and the aren't-we-so-civilized bunch on his "Team" on the one hand and President Karzai on the other that the whole move toward genuine peace and power sharing talks may be abruptly ended at our instance.  Or, the Pakistani government may either collapse or lurch toward armed political Islam.

So, Perplexed, be of good cheer there are still ample opportunities for the US to suffer defeat.  Just think of those nifty headlines you might yet write.

David Cameron Is One And One

British prime minister David Cameron was well on his way to winning the Bugs Bunny Memorial "What a Maroon" Award for his characterization of Gaza as a "prison camp" during his genuflection to Turkish sensibilities while speaking in Ankara. Cameron tossed away his chances to be an official "Maroon" when he followed his exercise in asininity with an unprecedented bit of blunt truth telling in India.

In the context of a speech to Indian businessmen, Mr Cameron delivered a view of the role of elements within the Pakistani military and government. He warned Islamabad that it could no longer "look both ways," toward supporting Taliban, the Haqqani network, and LeT and toward "respect as a democracy." His warning in both its starkness and accuracy has been long overdue for issuance in a public forum.

Pakistan has engaged for some time now in what Cameron correctly described as the "export" of terror acts. It is the source of some seventy percent of all recent threatened or executed attacks. That is a ground truth which exists independently of any or all of the WikiLeaks document dump of contemporary notoriety. The role of Pakistan as a country as well as that played by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as well as other components of the military and government constitute the unmentionable T. rex in the bathroom.

Mr Cameron has performed a great service by finally publicly pointing to the T. rex and calling it precisely what it is--a thwacking great killing beast.

The reaction of Islamabad's minions was instant, vociferous, and freighted with indignation. It is no surprise that the Pakistani officials pinned the rap on the WikiLeaks documents. Without exception, the worthies of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan claimed (inaccurately) that Mr Cameron had shamefully accepted the low level reports emanating originally from Afghan intelligence agencies as proof of the accusations of partnership between ISI and Taliban.

While numerous items within the WikiLeaks trove do point to the ISI-Taliban linkage and many but not all did originate with Afghan sources, Mr Cameron had no need to rely upon them as evidence for the bang-on nature of his observations. There is evidence aplenty extending back many years and coming forward in time to the testimony of the confessed Times Square bomber of direct Pakistani involvement with terror.

The Indian authorities have demonstrated convincingly that "retired" members of ISI were directly involved in both the planning and execution of the Mumbai attack. Cases in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Western Europe have connected the dots of local terror cells and acts with planners, financiers, and operational managers in Pakistan, at least some of whom were employees of ISI.

It was someone in the Pakistani government and most likely ISI who called Osama bin Laden while the Tomahawk missiles were crossing Pakistani airspace. The satellite phone warning allowed bin Laden to get out of the impact area literally minutes before the incoming missiles arrived. In the immediate wake of the Bush ordered invasion of Afghanistan, it was ISI and Pakistani military personnel who held the hands of assorted al-Qaeda and Taliban heavyweights as they left Tora Bora almost literally one step ahead of the Americans.

It was ISI and the Pakistani military (which was the government at the time) who formulated an agreement with Taliban and the Haqqani network which opened the FATA as a sanctuary for their displaced fighters in the years following the American led invasion. The Fearless Fugitives of the One True Faith were provided all facilities necessary for their recovery and rejuvenation by ISI. Had it not been for ISI and the larger military/government understanding and support, the war in Afghanistan would have ended long ago.

That is the record. That is the evidence behind Mr Cameron's indictment. That is the justification for his demand that Islamabad choose a side and stick to it.

In truth, Islamabad should not have it both ways. It should be denied the opportunity to work both sides of the street.

However, as pointed out in yesterday's post on this site, the US and UK need Pakistan far more than the Pakistanis need us. That is the conundrum facing both Foggy Bottom and Whitehall.

Mr Cameron did suggest a viable way out of the morass. It is a route which is neither pleasant to contemplate nor easy to travel. It consists of forcing Islamabad to make a choice: With the civilized states or with the savage primitives of violent political Islam.

The way in which this choice can be forced upon Islamabad consists at root of a truth offensive. This means telling the Pakistanis and, perforce, the world all that we known and can prove concerning the close relationship between ISI or other elements of the Pakistani government and military on the one hand and groups practicing violent political Islam on the other. As an accompaniment, the US, the UK, and other civilized states must make continuation of assistance contingent upon Pakistan making the right choice--and abiding to it.

The reaction of the Pakistani establishment to Mr Cameron's remarks shows it is embarrassed by the truth. Embarrassed to the point of hysteria. This implies the establishment in government and the elite sectors of society which support the government are vulnerable in this area, the area of being openly associated with the primitives of violent political Islam, which is a very real existential threat to both the establishment and the elite.

The vulnerability exists. It exists to be exploited. To be exploited for the interests and benefit of the US, the UK, and the other civilized states. To be exploited for the interest and benefit of Afghans and whatever state they finally create. Even to be exploited for the interest and benefit of Pakistan, its government, its elite sectors, and its future.

Sometimes truth is not only the best, most effective weapon, it is the only weapon. Mr Cameron had both the foresight and intestinal fortitude to recognize this. And, use it.