The End Of The Big Battalions

Ten years ago the concept of unmanned combat systems (UCS) existed more in the pages of science fiction yarns than on the battlefields of the real world.  As the ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq rolled along, the UCS intruded more and more into the plans and actions of the American military.  The evolution of both aerial and terrestrial UCS has been rapid.  It will become more so in the next few years.

Arguably, the UCS in all its many forms--air, land, and on as well as under the water--have the potential to change human conflict at least as much as did the arrival of gunpowder weapons nearly a thousand years ago.  There can be no doubt that the UCS far outstrips such game changers as the aircraft carrier, armored combat vehicle, submarine, and high speed aircraft in its impact on the nature and character of military operations.  The high probability that the majority of warfare in the near- to mid-term will be of the asymmetrical sort increases the impact of the UCS all the more.

The UCS fits perfectly with the American way of war as such has existed and evolved since the horrifying joint losses of the War Between the States.  Ever since then, the US has been willing to expend any amount of materiel, money, and technology in order to save American lives.  All of our wars have been materiel and technology heavy--and casualty light.  In the context of the counterinsurgent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this strong imperative of saving American lives gave an additional impetus to the development and deployment of UCS.

The use of such systems--whether UAVs like the Predator, the Reaper, and their smaller tactical kindred or the various ground systems suitable for bomb neutralizing or entering fortified structures ahead of the troops--has proven successful beyond even the most optimistic initial projections.  The success has served to breed more UCS research, development, and deployment.

One cannot help but have noticed the proliferation of posts dealing with the ethics and legality of UCS employment.  The assorted ethical arguments against the UCS are specious.  There is nothing unethical in employing UCS when there is a human operator in the loop.  The presence of the human in the loop makes the system no more "robotic" than a tank or artillery piece or manned bomber.  True, the operator of a UCS is quite out of range, immune to the dangers which might exist for the tanker, the artilleryman, the pilot, but the absence of risk does not make a weapon system somehow ethically suspect.

The human in the loop also defeats objections from a lawerly perspective.  The operator and his command structure are just as responsible to the strictures of the laws of land warfare as any other military institution.  The same criminal liability exists when operating a Predator as when flying an F-16.

Ethical and legal objections might have some validity if and when UCS are capable of operating totally autonomously with no human in the loop.  The rapid evolution of the necessary technology will allow for autonomous operation in the very near future, but the probability of allowing more than routine, non-contact environment, autonomous operation is slight at the present time.  Operating agencies will demand a good deal of experience with any given UCS before risking autonomous operation in a combat environment.  When that happens, the question will (or should) be straightforward: Does the autonomous UCS resemble a landmine or not?  That is, does it represent a danger for civilians who happen upon it by accident after active combat has ceased in a given area?  Or, does the presence of an autonomously operating UCS represent a clear and unacceptably high degree of threat to any civilian who finds himself wandering around a combat zone during periods of active combat?

The expense of a system as sophisticated as a UCS capable of autonomous operation militates against the system being left behind after combat has ceased.  It is not a fire-and-forget device like a cluster munition.  Nor is it a plant-and-forget expendable like the landmine.  Programming solutions exist for the challenge presented by the apparent civilian found in an active combat zone.  Presumably pattern recognition software coupled with contingent algorithm based decision making could prevent instant lethal action while permitting either non-lethal detention or the summoning of a human to the loop.  In either broad case, the ethical and legal questions can be addressed fully and effectively.

The loudest and most vociferous denunciations of UCS will come as they have already not simply from civilian organizations dedicated to the most extreme understandings of civilian immunity but from those countries which are and will be inferior in the development and fielding of UCS.  It is to be expected that states hostile to the US in particular will take the lead in seeking international conventions prohibiting the use of UCS.  The historical record shows the pervasive but ultimately unsuccessful deep rooted desire of have-not states to shackle the have states to the lowest level.

The most silly objection to the further development and deployment of UCS is that these systems will make war not only more "thinkable" but far more likely.  There are two, mutually incompatible components to this idea.  One is the removal of the threat to friendly forces by providing the bravery of being out of range removes a powerful inhibition to the resort to war on the part of states such as the US.  The other is the reduction in collateral civilian losses reduces the horror of war to the party inflicting the damage.

There is no doubt that reduction of friendly losses is critical to decision making in the US and other civilized states.  War does become a bit less repulsive when there is little if any chance of soldiers coming home either in body bags or on stretchers.  But other potent inhibitory factors are not removed by the use of UCS.  Some of these, particularly diplomatic complications and the enhancement of enemy political will, can actually be enhanced by the employment of UCS.  This has already been seen in the Predator strikes in the FATA of Pakistan.

The reduction of collateral civilian deaths and physical destruction made possible by the further development of UCS should be welcomed by human rights organizations.  Increased accuracy in the delivery of lethal munitions allows the use of lower potency ordnance.  There is no need to use a Hellfire missile with its impressively large bang down range if one can accurately deliver a "smart spike" which puts a large hole in the intended target without disturbing the dandruff of the person standing next to him.  As has been demonstrated most recently in Libya, the concrete bomb can obliterate an antiaircraft gun mounted in a small courtyard without even breaking windows a couple of meters away.  Evolution to greater accuracy has been and will continue to be rapid with life saving effects increasing accordingly.

The UCS operated by a man under no pressure of combat aided by technology oriented toward the utmost of precision can kill the person in need of killing without any collateral damage.  The lofty thinking and tender hearted must remember that the purpose of war is to gain political dominance over an enemy in order to establish a better state of peace.  This means there are people who need to be killed.  The concept of the operation is to kill those who must be killed and not kill or injure anyone else.  The UCS provides a much better means of doing this.

Another objection that has been raised in opposition to the UCS is the capacity resident in such systems to vastly expand the area of combat operations.  This is one more risible example of a totally specious objection.  While some military operations can be confined to a tidily defined geographic area, others, such as the neutralizing of groups practicing violent political Islam, cannot.  Such groups by their very nature are diffuse in location and critical nodes of command and control.  The practitioners of violent political Islam have defined their area of operations to be regional at the least and global at the most.  The UCS provides the capacity to attack the noxious practitioner wherever he exists.  The choice has been his, and the response is not a voluntary expansion of the military theater of operations but a realistic appreciation of the enemy's nature, character, and intentions.

While the UCS has much to recommend it and will have even more in the years to come, there is no way that the UCS can by itself win wars, that is impose one's political will upon the other.  The UCS is and will remain a force multiplier, a way of doing much more with fewer active combatants involved in theater.  There will be fewer boots on the ground, but those fewer boots will be all the more important.

There are several reasons why the boots will be there and be important in their presence.

One reason is purely psychological: Only human presence is truly intimidating.  Being there, being in the enemy's face nearly every time he turns around, has the effect over time of undercutting his will to continue.  Importantly, the surveillance capabilities provided by UCS allow the forces on the ground to be deployed more effectively, to be in the enemy's face more efficiently, and thus to undercut his will to resist faster with less actual blood being shed in the process.

A second reason is political.  The presence of men on the ground is an easily understood signal of political will.  Since all wars, but the asymmetrical form in particular, are contests of political will, the presence of boots on the ground is essential if the enemy is to be convinced that the US, for example, has the political will to fight on until victory.  The UCS plays a role here.  The casualty reducing capacities of the UCS assures that American political will remains intact for a longer period of time.  Even the frustrating war in Afghanistan retained support for years in largest measure because so few US personnel were killed there.

A third reason is found in the intelligence area.  Contact between friendly and hostile forces constitutes an important source of intelligence.  Only contact and the resulting firefight can give a useful indicator regarding the enemy's will to combat as well as on his capacity to make good his losses in manpower and equipment.  Perhaps the most important indicator of enemy morale, of his will to fight, is found in how eagerly he seeks contact, how he reacts to contact, how well he fights, and how prolonged is his resistance.  This is an area, a very important area, in which the UCS is of little or no assistance.  There are and will be some things in war which only humans can do.

The progress in the development of UCS has been revolutionary.  Absent a real shooting war, the future evolution of the systems will be slower, more hesitant, and liable to interruption due to budgetary or political concerns.  On the upside, we can be quite sure the believers in violent political Islam will make every effort to keep the war going.  As the war goes on, so also will the development of the UCS.  And, that, bucko, is a very fine thing.

The Drones Are Coming! The Drones Are Coming!

There is a guy named Philip Alston. He has a very, very important job. Mr Alston is the Special Rapporteur On Extrajudicial Executions for the UN Human Rights Council. In his official capacity he has (with the help of a female attorney and a duo of equally feminine research assistants) written a twenty-nine page report on the general subject of "targeted killings" or, what were called in the old days, "assassinations."

Mr Alston does not like anything to do with the use of "targeted killings." He likes the US employment of UAVs in the role of mechanical killer even less. He likes the use of drones so little that he appears to be sincerely convinced that the US has let some evil incubus out of the laboratory, and the result will be a form of blood drenched international chaos as state after state rushes to get their own drones in the air with the intent of killing as many people as they can under the dubious rubric of "fighting terror" by killing "terrorists." What makes this dystopian vision most alarming in the mind of Mr Alston is the simple reality that drones, in principle at least, can kill anyone, anywhere, thus making the entire globe a potential combat zone rather than having the killing restricted to tight little hygienic areas of battle.

To zero in a bit tighter on the target of Mr Alston's distaste for UAVs in the role of Controlled Killer In Faraway Lands, is the American tendency to treat the machines as being clandestine in nature and thus under the operational fingers of the US clandestine service, CIA. Somehow Mr Alston has convinced himself that UAVs operated by military personnel in uniform are somehow less distasteful than the same machines run by civilians wearing whatever. Apparently this distaste is rooted in Mr Alston's belief that the military services of the US are more accountable, more transparent, and more responsible than the spooks of the clandestine service, who, by the very nature of their task, work in the deepest of plausibly deniable shadows.

Reading the report, or at least the interminable sections focusing on the Sins of Uncle Sam, one gets the impression that Mr Alston and his lady associates have formed a strange view of how the American version of Assassinate A Terrorist is played. Mr Alston must be of the view that the spooks of CIA sit around idly choosing somebody, anybody, to put in the sights of one of their far off Predators or Reapers. Not only that, but Mr Alston has apparently concluded that the bloody spooks are totally unconcerned about their distant machines wreaking havoc among the civilians, or at least the non-combatant civilians down range.

These conclusions, to say nothing of the nightmare scenario constructed upon them, violate reality in numerous ways. The processes by which individuals are selected for the attention of the remotely operated vehicles are known in outline and appear replete with safeguards, reviews, and internal accountability of a high order. Further, the operators of the American programs are as aware as General McChrystal of the counterproductive effect of killing non-combatants, with the result that the strikes are more carefully planned and the munitions delivered have been made smaller in their lethal radii.

Mr Alston might be forgiven for his exaggerations were they not so underscored by numerous internal contradictions in his report. (Take a dekko yourself, bucko, as the Geek gets bored doing all the keystrokes necessary to import block quotes.) Mr Alston is not so easily forgiven for omitting the contextual reality that the spooks would much rather capture the targeted subject, because a corpse, particularly one which has been tastelessly spread over the landscape, is of no real intelligence value.

Killing bad guys is justified by the simple fact that doing so perturbs the organizational integrity and thus the operational effectiveness of groups dedicated to killing Americans and other people including the folks in whose midst the bad guys, the jihadists, exist, often without local permission other than that extorted by fear. A bad guy merits killing by his position in the hostile entity--and that liability is in no way compromised by his being remote from the scene of combat operations.

The World War II "targeted killing" of Admiral Yammamoto stretched American technology to its (literal) limits. But had the architect of Pearl Harbor been in Tokyo or even, hypothetically, some neutral nation's capital, killing him would have been just as appropriate and just as important as a means of undercutting the combat capability of Imperial Japan.

So it is with the non-uniformed, non-state actors of al-Qaeda, Taliban, or any other group engaged in hostile operations of whatsoever sort against the US. If a heavyweight or even a middleweight member of a jihadist group is taken out anywhere in the world whether by a UAV or more traditional means, say, a knife in the back, the result is to diminish the capacity of the hostile entity to operate against us or our allies.

This may strike the lofty thinking as an example of that dreaded ethic, the ethic of means being justified by ends. And, so it is. There is nothing inherently evil in this sort of ethical approach and there never has been.

The US government is not in the business of wholesale slaughter. Nor is it in the better interests of the US to appear to be so. Neither is it in the higher, better national interests of the US to encourage any and all comers to emulate our technological means. There is no better example of this contention than the continued American refusal to furnish Predator type UAVs to Pakistan despite repeated requests from Islamabad to do so.

The question that Mr Alston and his ilk in the Human Rights Council should be addressing is far removed from the use of UAVs by the US in so-called "extrajudicial killings." That question is how should the civilized states of the world work most effectively to stop the expression of political Islam through the violence, the indiscriminate, civilian slaughtering violence so common to the type of mind behind 9/11, 7/7, the Mumbai Raid, or the literally hundreds of suicide and roadside bomb attacks on civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, Somalia, Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, and other places.

That, Mr Alston, should have your sole and undivided attention for that is extrajudicial killing at its greatest body count.

Looking For The "Perfect Weapon"

In a perfect world we would fight "perfect wars" using "perfect weapons." A "perfect weapon" would be one which killed only hostile combatants while not inflicting any collateral damage on civilians or civilian property. A "perfect weapon" would have a combination of accuracy and constrained lethality so as to assure that only those in need of killing received its attentions.

As an added benefit the hypothetical "perfect weapon" could be employed without putting a single friendly soldier in harm's way. It would protect the "good guys" while terminating with the most extreme prejudice each and every "bad guy" until the survivors within the second group gave up the war as a very bad idea.

The US has pursued the still elusive "perfect weapon" with a high degree of persistence over the years. And, its persistence has paid off--to an extent.

The closest approximation to the "perfect weapon" we possess currently is found in the often maligned unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) typified by the Predator and Reaper craft. These systems can and do kill specific, targeted individuals of high value within the ranks of the Islamist jihadist ranks without extreme collateral damage. And, without risk to the Americans operating the systems.

It is the latter reality--the absence of risk to Americans--which has aroused the ire of Code Pink and similar anti-war organizations. While one might think that reducing the body count in war would be a goal agreeable to those opposed to even the most legitimate of wars, it is not. Code Pink and company have engaged in a campaign of great vitriol and little realism to end the use of armed UAVs in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

This campaign has been enhanced by the position taken by the UN Special Rapporteur on miscellaneous asininities connected with wars undertaken by the US. (OK, that isn't the man's actual job title, but it conveys the flavor of his position.) This worthy has hinted darkly that the use of UAVs might constitute a species of war crime. Why this might be the case is at best murky and leaves unexamined why dropping iron bombs on a village containing armed combatants along with civilians would not be a "crime" as well.

There is no doubt but that the use of armed UAVs in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have been effective. The Long War Journal keeps very close track on the UAV employment in the AfPak region and parses the claims of civilian as opposed to combatant fatalities and injuries very carefully. A quick perusal of the record over the past two years shows that fifteen senior and sixteen mid-level al-Qaeda personnel have been taken off the board by UAVs. The numbers concerning Taliban are equally good.

The UAVs not only perturb the organizational integrity of the Islamist jihad groups by eliminating key personnel, they disrupt movement, enervate morale, lower combat efficiency of the hostile trigger pullers and bomb makers generally. The various statements by Taliban figures in particular as well as the results of interrogations show the overall effectiveness of the Predator and Reaper attacks cannot be overstated easily.

Perhaps the chief limitation on the possibility of the UAVs being considered "perfect weapons" is the size, lethality, and radius of destruction of the munitions they deliver. Neither the Hellfire missile (initially developed and deployed over thirty years ago as an air delivered anti-armor weapon) nor five hundred pound precision guided bombs can be considered constrained lethality devices. The size of the bursting charge as well as the nature of the fragments created combine to assure that these weapons are more area than point in their effect.

Either Hellfire or the five hundred pound bomb will and have destroyed vehicles, structures, or sizable open air assemblies. This state of affairs is fine provided all of those downrange are sure enough combatants. In this context it must be noted carefully that neither al-Qaeda nor Taliban nor any other groups of this ilk are notably scrupulous about separating civilians including women and children from the combatant types.

While there will be targeting errors regardless of the layers of review and approval, the primary responsibility for collateral damage rests with the Islamist jihadis. As long as these Glorious And (Self) Righteous Goons of the One True Faith are unwilling or unable to sequester their martyrdom seeking trigger pullers, bomb makers, and the like from non-combatants, collateral damage will occur.

(A parenthetical thought: Quite possibly, given the belief system of the good Muslims who constitute the jihadist groups, it is believed that a favor is being done for the women, children, and other non-combatants in that should the Hellfire hit, all hands will go to Paradise.)

In time technology will produce the necessary refinements that will result in lower area lethality without impairing the capacity of the UAV delivered munitions to kill selected individuals. The Israelis have been making strides in this direction with the development and deployment of ever smaller but still highly accurate air-delivered munitions which kill the target but, absent a secondary explosion from the target's own explosives, leave those standing around unhurt. As senior US commanders well appreciate the need to reduce the perception of collateral damage among civilians, one can be reasonably sure the US is proceeding in the same direction as the Israelis.

A "perfect weapon" might also be characterized by an absence of diplomatic complaints over its usage. By this standard the Predator and Reaper are most imperfect weapons. The government and military of Pakistan as well as any number of Pakistani journalists, academics, and "strategic thinkers" have made many mighty moans over the dire consequences which will necessarily attend the use of UAVs. With tones and words suitable to an announcement of the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, these Pakistani patriots warn that the UAVs are driving an infinite number of peaceful people into the camp and arms of al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Associates.

The Greek chorus of Islamabad also thunders against the horrid violations of that most precious of commodities--Pakistani sovereignty. Of course the great claque of opposition from Pakistani politicians and generals is not motivated by fear over the actual effect of the UAVs (except in so far as they hurt the Islamist jihadis supported by the Pakistani Army, Inter-Services Intelligence, or members of the political structure.)

Rather the Pakistanis see the UAVs as a "perfect enough weapon" that they want to possess it themselves. Not for service in the air over the FATA but for duty on the only "frontline" which matters--the common border with India.

It is safe to put the self-serving whines of the Pakistanis in the same category as the hopelessly misguided simpering of Code Pink. Both are irrelevant to the continued successful employment of Predators and Reapers in theater. Both are testaments of a backhanded sort.

The sniveling of Code Pink and the plaints of Islamabad are both actually powerful attestations to the fact that the US is coming ever closer to the development of the "perfect weapon."

Well, bucko, we can be grateful for that. And, we can only hope that we get closer to perfection very, very soon.

Predators--The High Tech Knife In The Back

The American public is either supportive of or indifferent to the use of the Predator and Reaper UAVs in the war against Islamist jihadists. But, the indication given a few weeks back by the wave of indignation over the never employed CIA program to kill the same targets up close and personal using human operatives shows the same public would not accept assassinations of the more traditional sort.

A thoughtful--and thought provoking piece from the New Yorker has been posted on Cryptome.

The issues raised by this article are important and deserve wide consideration. Of particular importance is the ethical distinctions between the usual form of killing which requires some close connection between killer and target and the new, stand-off means provided by the UAV.

Assassination, or if you prefer the more sanitary term, targeted killing, is never pleasant. No matter how much the victim may merit this most extreme of sanctions and no matter how much the trigger-puller or knife-wielder agrees with the necessity of the operation, there is always a moment, at least a brief flashing instant, of trepidation before the trigger is pulled or the knife implanted. Or, there is a time afterwards, perhaps long afterwards, after extraction or exfiltration, after debriefing, after the celebratory drink that the pang of regret probes deep and hard in the mind, the heart, the soul. It passes, but its occurrence has the salvation of proving the contact between killer and the killed was fundamentally human in nature.

Of course, it must also be remembered that the killer, again regardless of training and experience, regardless of equipment and support, must take a risk, a very real risk of somehow losing as the encounter occurs. The target may not go willingly and quickly to his death. The sheep may turn into a lion when the ultimate moment comes. Or, his security people may be more alert--or lucky--than anticipated or planned for. Or, something, some little damn thing, goes wrong. Assassination, like war itself, rarely goes perfectly as planned.

The ethical objections raised to the use of UAVs in lieu of the traditional man-in-black seem to focus on the detached, sanitary, inhuman nature of the act. Likewise, the emotional reaction against the use of the tried-and-(Usually) True methods of targeted killing seems to focus on the fact that the act is uniquely human. That it demands one person in a calculated, planned, most cold blooded way take the life of another.

It is ironic to say the least that both proponents and opponents of the UAV in the sky, Hellfires at the ready, emphasize the (in)humanity of the act of killing. The proponent argues that the distance, the remote nature of the button pusher from his target makes the action both more controllable and less risky. The opponent contends that the lack of risk and the remoteness of the killer combine to denature the act of killing from any of the virtues normally associated with men at war such as courage, initiative, determination, and the willingness to place one's life at hazard in the pursuit of national goals.

Another school of argument against the use of UAVs takes a more abstract view. Yet it is still a view anchored in the reality that warfare is a fundamentally human endeavor. This more rarefied argument holds that the lack of risk, the absence of casualties, allows, even encourages a government to use lethal means in support of policy in a hidden way which evades the normal controls and constraints on a president's ability to wage war without let or hinder on the part of the public or congress.

Proponents of the Predator way of war answer that the lack of friendly losses serves to liberate the necessary conduct of policy from artificial limitations imposed by the fear of friendly losses. The UAV is a safe way to neutralize individuals whose existence necessarily presents a clear threat to US national and strategic interests without high cost to the country either in lives or prestige.

There is much merit in this contention. The UAV option does allow the removal of obnoxious personalities without the high visibility of manned air operations or even relatively low signature special forces or black ops. A well conducted UAV strike or campaign of multiple strikes can be conducted without a high profile which automatically invests national prestige with potentially disastrous effects.

The counter is self-evident. A UAV hit is not invisible to the people on the downrange end of it. Since very few such strikes kill only people in real need of killing, the excess deaths will attract attention--and opposition. The UAV is just as likely as a manned airstrike or a misdirected artillery round to create more people hostile to the US than it removes from the game.

Another purely human based argument against the UAV and its attendant bravery of being out of range comes from the cultural reality that it is seen, particularly in tribal and similar societies, as being singularly "unmanly," and thus it rouses more contempt than it generates fear within the recipient population. The result of the bootless cruise missile attacks so beloved by the Clinton administration are illustrative of this contention. They aroused a certainty within the Islamist jihadists of Taliban and al-Qaeda that the Americans were so afraid of dying that they could be defeated by terror.

The cruise missiles were used in order to both punish and deter the Islamist jihadists. That they failed in both missions is obvious. The record to date on the Predators and Reapers is not so clear cut. At least not yet.

The strikes have killed genuine bad guys. There is no doubt but their existence has served to lessen both combat efficiency and morale of the Islamist jihadists to some extent. But, counter measures have already been devised--and posted--by the jihadists. And, the loss of even a major figure such as Baitullah Mehsud had no lasting effect on either the political will or will to combat of the Islamist jihadists.

At the same time there can be no denying that the UAV attacks have killed non-combatants. The figures are soft and contradictory, but at least three hundred civilians have been killed so far this year by Predator strikes in Pakistan. There can be no denying that these unintended deaths have brought with them a swelling of pro-Islamist jihadist sentiments which are real albeit exaggerated by the Pakistan government for its own reasons.

In short, lethal Predator attacks have a utility, a limited one, but quite real. They are a useful tool but no more than that. The same may be said of the traditional approach to carefully targeted killing. Assassination is a tool, a useful one, but limited.

From the perspective of ethics there is no real choice between the two methods. Both have a tinge of distastefulness to the ethically tender. Both reduce war to a form of single combat. In that respect both are preferable to the mass encounter of armed men.

Properly conducted, either method can allow a president to pursue necessary national and strategic interests in a low visibility way which limits but does not eliminate the possibility of invoking national prestige to an undesirable extent. The most essential difference comes in the effects upon the collective mentality of the recipient population.

If the use of UAVs has a counterproductive effect in the way the Clinton administration's cruise missile attacks demonstrated, then the bravery-of-being-out-of-range option must be eschewed no matter how gee whiz attractive it may be. After all, the purpose of assassination either up close and personal or from a distance is to have a positive effect upon the enemy, to cause him to bend to our political will.

The tool has to be matched to the task. As one does not use a sledgehammer to pound in a tack, one does not use a method which produces more enemies than it kills. That is the real criterion for assessing the use of Predators and Reapers in Pakistan or Afghanistan--or anywhere.

The crux of decision making is not which will give a sanitary distance to killing, or which will give the president more options and greater deniability. It is which will have the greater probability of bending the enemy to our political will.

The Deeply Divided Mind Of Pakistan

If Pakistan or the collective Pakistani people were a single individual there is a better than good chance it would meet the criteria for schizophrenia outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. There has never been any real doubt that the Pakistani government was badly split over the nature of the threat or threats confronting it and the country. The Pakistani people are just as badly and deeply conflicted over who should do what regarding "extremists."

In one area alone is the collective mind of Pakistan in full unity. That area is religion. Specifically, Islam of an austere and demanding nature.

The government of Pakistan most recently demonstrated its capacity at double think (the capability to entertain two, antipodal ideas at the same time with the same fervor) in the matter of the US UAV hit on Baitullah Mehsud. The Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, is apparently quite pleased that the "drone" whacked the Taliban heavy. At the same time he demanded an end to the UAV operations.

It is not that the minister has anything against the Predators and Reapers in principle. No, not at all. Actually, he is rather in favor of them. So much so that he (along with the rest of the current government) demands the US furnish some to Pakistan so that the Pakistanis can decide against whom and at what time the machines will be used.

The target could be Taliban. It might be al-Qaeda. Or, it could be in India.

Considering the long standing focus on India as the main enemy, there is no reason to believe that the government has suddenly experienced an epiphany resulting in Taliban outranking the feared and hated power to Pakistan's south. This fundamental orientation is good and sufficient reason for the US not to pass along UAVs to Islamabad--even if we had some to spare, which we don't.

Malik maintains that the UAV attacks kill too many civilians. In this the Interior Minister is accurately reflecting the view of the majority of Pakistanis. The average Pakistani in the mosque is highly negative about both the UAVs and the US. Anti-Americanism has grown in recent years and months to the point that a poll taker hanging around after the Friday sermon would have no difficulty determining that most Pakistanis see the US as the new main enemy. India drops to a distant second place.

While the death-from-on-high delivered by remote control may be a high profile symptom, it is but a symptom of the underlying splits in the minds of Pakistanis. So also is the anti-Americanism which is far more apparent than real. Far more a sign of the divisions within than a stand alone phenomenon which should alarm policy makers (or their critics.)

The Pew Global Attitudes Project gives some important tools which aid in both parsing the nature and extent of Pakistani schizophrenia and understanding its relationship to the anti-American sentiments. The same report provides important insights into just how Pakistanis view Islam and what constitutes "extremism."

One very important factor in contemporary Pakistani public opinion is the growth in negative perceptions of both Taliban and al-Qaeda over the past year. Currently seventy percent of Pakistanis have an unfavorable view of Taliban, which is more than double the percentage a year ago. The unfavorable view of al-Qaeda has nearly doubled from thirty-four to sixty-one percent. At the same time the favorable views of these groups has dropped significantly with only ten percent or less entertaining the positive outlook.

During the same period the percentage of Pakistanis concerned over "extremism" in the country has inched from seventy-two to seventy-nine percent. When the views on aspects of Islam or, more accurately, Islamist, doctrine and practices are taken in to account, one may wonder just how Pakistanis understand the word, "extremism."

The Pew pulse-takers found that more Pakistanis view India as a "very serious" threat than either al-Qaeda or Taliban. India leads the threat parade in the minds of sixty-nine percent with Taliban coming in with fifty-seven and al-Qaeda trailing at forty-one percent. At the same time some sixty-four percent of Pakistanis perceive the US as an "enemy" while only nine percent view the US as a "partner."

Going a bit deeper in the numbers, the anti-US feelings are nuanced. Over half of all Pakistanis want improved relations with the US. They perceive the best, fastest road to improved relations is for the US to pump humanitarian and economic development money into the country. Just shy of nine in ten Pakistanis want to see Yankee greenbacks flood the areas now contested with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The men at the mosque also are in favor of the US providing intelligence assistance to their government and armed forces.

Just don't kill anybody while you're at it. Money good. Intel OK. Doing something lethal is seen as very, very bad.

The downturn in favorable views of Taliban and al-Qaeda has been driven by the boisterous way in which the jihadists have been killing and maiming Pakistani civilians. It has also been driven in lesser part by the dim perception that the US strikes have been in response to the jihadist actions.

Factoring in the overwhelmingly positive feelings Pakistanis demonstrate regarding their Army, a rough calculus can be developed. Muslim troops kill jihadists--very, very good. Jihadists kill troops--very bad. Jihadists kill Pakistani civilians--very, very bad. Infidel American machines kill miscreant jihadists--very, very, very, very bad. Infidel Americans give Muslim Pakistanis money--very, very, very, very good.

Now the problem of defining "extremism." By most standards the monolithic views of Pakistanis on Islamic matters would be "extreme." Overwhelming majorities approve of applying the death penalty to any individual who "leaves" Islam for another religion, lopping off hands and feet or whipping for crimes such as theft, and stoning adulterers to death. These attitudes are indistinguishable from the practices and beliefs of both Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Only in the area of education for girls and women does the Pakistani perspective differ from that espoused by the Islamist jihadists. More than eighty percent of Pakistanis see education being equally important for both sexes.

A final, very important datum located by the Pew survey folks. Pakistanis are intensely nationalistic. The national identity trumps the ethnic or linguistic for nine out of ten. This goes a very long way in explaining why Pakistanis so strongly disapprove of the UAV attacks. They are seen a violation of national sovereignty.

The nationalistic orientation of both people and government is not only a cause of the apparent schizophrenia, it also suggests a way out for the US. The way out includes providing humanitarian and economic development aid as has already been proposed and partially put into action. It also requires a much stronger, far more public effort to persuade the Pakistani public that the UAV strikes are taken with the full cooperation, approval, and support of the Pakistani government.

So far the government of Pakistan may well know that most if not all strikes are undertaken with the knowledge and approval of Islamabad. But, the public does not know. It must be brought into the loop. Both the US and Pakistani governments must get on the stick and let the people of the country know that their national sovereignty is not being infringed or shown disrespect by the infidels and their machines.

The Interior Minister and all the others at the upper levels of both the government and the Army (which is the most trusted institution in Pakistan) must let their people know in no uncertain terms that the UAV strikes are both approved of and highly important in stopping "extremism." Maybe it is past time to go to the videotapes and show the Pakistani in the mosque just what is being done, how it is being done--and just who is being killed down range.

Sometimes dropping the veil of unnecessary secrecy is critical to achieving a necessary success. In this case the success will come when the Pakistanis both in and out of government can overcome the bad case of schizophrenia which is impairing our common effort against the black turbans of Islamist jihadism.