Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Pakistan

  • The Big Picture in Mumbai

    India, a country with over one billion people, hundreds of millions of aspiring entrepreneurs entering the jobs market and a national economy growing at an astounding rate, has long been the superstar of South Asia. No other country in the region, be it Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Nepal, comes close to the economic and political success that India has achieved over the past decade. And no other player in the region carries as much geopolitical weight — India has invested heavily inside war weary Afghanistan and tapped into emerging markets on the African continent.

    However, there has always been one persistent problem that India has been unable to shake, both because of its increasing stature in the world and its zero-sum relations with its neighbors. That Achilles heel is terrorism and it struck again last week inside India’s historical and economic capital, Mumbai.

    Just as people were heading home from work, three bombs exploded within minutes of each other in Mumbai’s upper class jewelry sector, a venue where thousands of people stream into every day. The attack, which killed 21 people and injured over one hundred, was clearly designed to claim the lives of many more — Indian investigators have reported that the bombs were set on a timer and located in places that would not have been given a second look by police (an umbrella is not necessarily the first object you would suspect of carrying a homemade explosive).

    The message of the strike was also clear — India is still a vulnerable target to semi-coordinated attacks, despite the billions of dollars that the Indian government has poured into its intelligence services and the years of preparation that New Delhi has nourished since the last major attack on an Indian city in November 2008.

    Given the attacks’ location, speculation immediately fell on two jihadist groups. One, the Pakistani-based Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT), is the most obvious suspect due to its support stream from Pakistan’s intelligence agency. The fact that the LeT was originally organized in 1990 as an anti-Indian jihadist group to fight the occupation of Kashmir only adds to the claims voiced by many Indians that the group is again shedding innocent blood on their soil.

    The other group, the Indian Mujahideen, is a smaller organization that is Indian born and bred, and they too have conducted terrorist strikes on Indian targets. 2008, the same year that LeT massacred one hundred and sixty people in Mumbai, was an especially successful year for the mujahideen, most of whom have been pressured into hiding by Indian security personnel.

    What really matters in the immediate term, however, is not who the perpetuators are. For the families of the loved ones who perished, this statement comes across as cold and jaded. But it is nevertheless an important one to repeat, for the terrorists could create far more damage over the next few weeks if Indian investigators and counterterrorism officials jump to the wrong conclusion or if the Indian government makes a mistake in the heat of the moment.

    During the last major terrorist spectacle in 2008, Indian and Pakistani government officials were in the midst of resolving some of their outstanding grievances over a number of issues, the most significant being Kashmir and how the two governments could build a relationship that would at least keep the area somewhat peaceful. A deal was as close as it had ever been, until the 2008 terrorist attacks cut short the negotiations and poisoned any chance of an agreement getting through. A single act of terror not only cut short the lives of one hundred and sixty innocent civilians but laid to rest the best opportunity that India and Pakistan had to move past their differences.

    This month, Pakistan and India will meet again, this time at the Foreign Ministry level. Those discussions will be the first of its kind in the last two years. Kashmir will of course be on the agenda, as will regional and bilateral security, terrorism, trade and a whole list of issues that affect the interests of both countries. Ensuring that those talks proceed, even as Indians are currently feeling pain, is the one thing that will help both countries move past this latest crisis. It will also demonstrate to the terrorists, whoever they are, that their cowardice will not ruin another gamble at peace in the region.

    Revenge is a close second only to sadness after a terrorist incident occurs. A week after the Mumbai blasts, Indians are feeling a penchant for revenge, with some naturally wondering if Pakistan is where that revenge should be directed. But revenge also clouds judgment and rational thinking, spurring a chain of events that may be easy to explain today but difficult to justify in the future.

    India and Pakistan should learn from the past and refuse to use the latest act of terrorism as an excuse to blow off negotiations before they even started.

  • The Durand Line of Fire

    Over the course of the war, cross border militancy along the disputed Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier has generally streamed from one direction. Fighters loyal to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network rest in Pakistan’s tribal areas and when ready, travel across the porous border into eastern Afghanistan where they launch operations against US, NATO and Afghan government forces. In fact, the cross border flow of militants over the past three years has been such a problem for the United States that its security relationship with Pakistan has been severely jeopardized by the inability or unwillingness of Islamabad to go after every Islamist group residing in its territory. The Afghan government, leery of Pakistan’s interests in the region to begin with, has also claimed that Pakistani authorities are harboring elements of the Afghan insurgency and using them as proxies in their country.

    Very rarely during the decade long Afghanistan conflict have Afghan based fighters penetrated into Pakistan with the intent and purpose of attacking Pakistani security checkpoints in the tribal areas. Yet with NATO and Afghan soldiers outside of many villages and towns deep inside Afghanistan’s border provinces, it appears that anti-Pakistani militants have taken the opportunity to insert themselves into the landscape. (more…)

  • The Dangerous Course of Journalism in Pakistan

    The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, is commonly seen by Pakistanis and foreigners alike as the most powerful institution in the Pakistani government. Pakistan’s civilian politicians are often wobbly on core issues that concern the United States and the international community. Most of the bureaucrats in the ministries, as well as most of the city level officials, are seen as corrupt players in a duplicitous Pakistani political atmosphere.

    The Pakistani military and its partners at the ISI, on the other hand, are often the first that are met by American diplomats when they travel to the country. The ISI is responsible for the one policy area that the Pakistani government is incessantly focused on — self preservation. Intelligence officials in the directorate are both feared and loved in Pakistan. Feared because the organization lurks in the shadows and is known for making dissidents disappear but loved because Pakistani intelligence chiefs are the first line of defense against their Indian archival.

    Indeed, the United States fully grasps the civil-military power imbalance in Pakistan. Prime ministers like Benazir Bhutto and Yousaf Raza Gilani and presidents like Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are no match for the likes of a Pervez Musharraf, Parvez Kayani and Ahmed Shuja Pasha. Pakistani politicians have even expressed their deep displeasure with the army meddling in civilian politics — an intervention that sometimes overturns everything these men and women have been working for throughout their careers.

    Nevertheless, the army is still what draws the American foreign policy establishment into the country on most of the important issues. The conventional wisdom is that the United States can always worry about Pakistan’s economy at a later date. It is Afghanistan, terrorism, Islamist extremism, nuclear proliferation and South Asian security that need to be dealt with now.

    Yet the ISI, and indeed the Pakistani Military as a whole, has had a particularly bad month. After failing to detect American aircraft during the Osama bin Laden operation, Pakistani generals were lambasted by their civilian counterparts for incompetence. It did not help the military’s case that the world’s most wanted terrorist was hiding out only a few miles from Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point.

    Then, weeks later, militants associated with the Tehrik i-Taliban Pakistan (or Pakistani Taliban) launched a highly coordinated and impressive strike against a Pakistani naval base in the port city of Karachi. The insurgent group held the base for roughly fifteen hours until they were driven out and killed by security forces. The episode claimed the lives of ten security personnel and the destruction of two American-made planes. The attack once again highlighted worries over whether the lower levels of Pakistan’s armed forces were being infiltrated by extremists, a concern that American officials have been carrying for years.

    But the latest incident — the abduction and killing of a Pakistani journalist — will perhaps receive the most attention and the most criticism from members of Pakistan’s press and civilian government. While the ISI has not been fingered for the journalist’s death, human rights groups suspect that the intelligence organization may have been involved.

    The ISI is the lead spy agency against other countries but the organization is also known for monitoring its own citizens. It is almost routine procedure for Pakistani journalists to be rounded up by Pakistani intelligence over reporting that the agency deems unflattering. The military brass looks down upon any article, story or television program that spurs a negative reaction toward the security establishment, often calling such articles schemes meant to deliberately weaken their support and institutional prestige among Pakistani society. Umar Cheema, an award winning investigative journalist, was kidnapped and beaten last year for an article that he had written about the army. The ISI was never implicated for the beating, but Mr Cheema believes that they were the ones who carried out the abduction.

    The death of Syed Saleem Shahzad on May 31 may be another case of journalism being punished by the Pakistani state. Kidnapped in Islamabad, he was found dead one hundred and fifty miles away from the capital, his bloated body showing marks of beatings and torture. The ISI quickly denied accusations that it was involved but its leadership certainly had a motive — Shahzad’s latest piece was about a possible connection between Islamic militants and the Pakistani army. Shahzad also reported to Human Rights Watch, the most internationally respected human rights watchdog group, that he was receiving threats from the ISI for years over his work.

    The Committee to Protect Journalists already ranks Pakistan as the most dangerous place for reporters. The disappearance and killing of another, whoever was involved, will not help the country move down the list. And neither will the ISI regain its international credibility if instances like this continue to occur. In world politics, you do not need to be proven guilty. Mere speculation is often enough to warrant a guilty verdict. In this case, there is plenty of suspicion to go around for Pakistan’s intelligence directorate.

  • The West Still Needs Pakistan

    The relationship between the United States and Pakistan has never been a rosy one. The alliance has generally been sold by both governments as one of convenience instead of a genuine or unbreakable diplomatic partnership. After a turbulent period in the 1990s when American sanctions were levied on Pakistan’s nuclear program, relations improved dramatically after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Yet ten years later, those bonds are quickly breaking apart, with both countries viewing each other as unreliable and selfish.

    With the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, a town originally designed as a collection of residencies for Pakistani military officials, American-Pakistani relations are perhaps at their frostiest since more than a decade.

    Unfortunately, however strained the relationship is now, it could freeze outright in the months ahead if the United States Congress acts boldly and prematurely. Outraged over Pakistan’s on again, off again struggle against Islamic extremism, both domestically and internationally, the legislature is currently taking a second look at Washington’s extensive economic cooperation with the Pakistani government. More specifically, lawmakers and their staffs are meeting, talking about and drafting proposals that would cut off a substantial amount of American aid to Pakistan on the assumption that its military and intelligence services either knew about Osama bin Laden’s hideout or actively sheltered him from American counterterrorism efforts.

    Although the United States and Pakistan cooperate in a variety of ways, the provision of foreign assistance is by far the most important tenant of Washington’s commitment to the alliance. After Afghanistan and Israel, Pakistan was the largest recipient of foreign assistance in 2010. In 2011, Pakistan jumped to the number two spot (PDF), ahead of Israel, with a total package of approximately $3 billion per year. The Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid resolution that was passed by Congress last year added another $7.5 billion to that amount over the next five years. Ironically, one of the rationales for the Kerry-Lugar money was to remind Pakistani officials of their indispensability to the United States on a number of fronts, from counterterrorism to South Asian stability.

    In total, the United States Congress has allocated $20.7 billion (PDF) in foreign aid since fiscal year 2002, with more than half of that money going straight into the pockets of Pakistan’s security establishment.

    While discussions are still preliminary, Congress could draw back much of this funding if the Pakistanis refuse to convince American diplomats that they had nothing to do with bin Laden’s hideout. The general mood in the halls of Congress is unmistakably tilted against Pakistan — Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin and Senate foreign ops subcommittee chairman Patrick Leahy, the two lawmakers leading this camp, are among the most powerful in the Senate.

    Pakistan’s position in Congress gets even worse when one considers the multiple ways that assistance can be decreased. The Kerry-Lugar aid could be delayed for an unspecified period of time or Congress could withhold money if Pakistan decides not to reform domestically. Reform is a broad term that encompasses a large array of issues, including the strengthening of civilian institutions, the changing of Pakistan’s tax system and the military’s retreat from civilian politics. The Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, which reimburses Islamabad for counterterrorism missions, could also be eliminated completely. This would perhaps be one of the most severe hits for the Pakistani government, due to the high operational expense of counterterrorism work, Pakistan’s already high inflation rate and its overall weak economy.

    Just because the United States can cut foreign aid doesn’t mean it would be a wise policy however. For all of the heartache and stress that Pakistan has caused for the White House, the American armed forces and the intelligence community, that heartache might pale in comparison to the predicament that Islamabad’s institutional development would find itself in without American dollars.

    The United States depends on Pakistan’s military for a smooth and protected route for coalition supplies traveling into Afghanistan, which is extremely vital for the counterinsurgency campaign against the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. Absent Pakistani protection, it is difficult to conceive those supplies making their way into Afghanistan unharmed. In fact, NATO has already witnessed how quickly its convoys can be destroyed should Pakistan cease cooperation — hundreds of fuel tankers were attacked and destroyed by militants earlier this year when Pakistan closed a key border crossing. As long as NATO is fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, there is little the coalition can do to push Pakistan hard.

    Pakistani informants, whether government employees or private citizens, have also been extraordinarily valuable to the American drone campaign in North Waziristan, where Al Qaeda, Taliban, Chechen, Uzbek and anti-Indian militants are holed up. All of that success has the potential of being washed away should Congress withhold Pakistan’s share of allocated funds.

    Pakistan has been burned by the United States repeatedly over the past four decades. In the 1970s, America distanced itself from Pakistan and shifted its diplomatic resources to its larger and more powerful neighbor India. In 1990, the CIA abruptly stopped funding Pakistan after the Soviet Union was driven from Afghanistan. This was followed by a decade of sanctions against Pakistan for its nuclear weapons program. And in 2005, Pakistani officials were sidelined again when President George W. Bush signed a highly publicized nuclear technology agreement with its Indian archrival. Pakistan, meanwhile, has grown to rely on China and Russia for its nuclear technology — further undermining South Asia’s fragile nuclear balance.

  • The Long Arm of American Military Power

    In recent days, the United States government has exposed more details of the Navy SEAL raid deep inside Pakistan that netted Osama bin Laden. It looks like some of the White House’s earlier remarks about the operation were actually false, including the allegation that bin Laden was armed and deliberately used his wife as human shield.

    In hindsight, some of those details should have been taken with a grain of salt anyway. With such big news, the Obama Administration was intent on providing information to the country as fast as possible. The fact that a large part of the original narrative was proven false, or at least inaccurate, is not all that surprising.

    What is surprising, however, are the military options that were drafted before the bin Laden operation was given the green light by the president.

    Upon turning on CNN and hearing the news of bin Laden’s death, I must confess that I immediately believed that a drone strike had ventured into Pakistani territory to take him out. The use of the pilotless aircraft has been a central tenant of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism policy over the past two years, particularly inside the Pakistani tribal regions, which are beyond the reach of American ground troops. Since bin Laden was located in a city not too far from the capital of Islamabad, that assumption was eventually thrown out. Yet it turns out that airstrikes, in addition to a few other contingencies, were available to the president in case he wished to take a more conventional approach.

    Before the mission was executed, three options were sitting on the president’s desk that the Joint Special Forces Command recommended. First on that list was an aerial attack on bin Laden’s compound, conducted by a B-52 bombing run, that would have literally destroyed the facility beyond recognition.

    Although this would have been the safest option for American personnel and perhaps the best chance at making sure the terrorist leader was killed, a B-52 strike in the heart of Pakistan could very well have been seen by the Pakistani people as an attack upon their country. The site of a destroyed mansion and the prospect of civilian casualties, probably including women and children, would have further inflamed the Muslim world by poisoning a successful military operation into a public affairs disaster. And however strange it may sound, a failed strike against the compound might have inflamed bin Laden’s legacy as an individual immune from American military power. He was, after all, quite skillful at dodging American airstrikes over the past twelve years — first in Afghanistan in 1998 and then in Tora Bora in 2001.

    The second option drawn up would have included a covert raid with the direct participation of the Pakistani Intelligence Directorate. Having the Pakistanis on board would have allowed the United States to claim some sort of Muslim collusion in the action. A joint operation would also have marginally improved American-Pakistani relations, which have been struggling lately.

    Washington has relied upon Pakistani intelligence for many of their terrorism tips, the most significant being the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammad in 2003. Unfortunately, the ISI doesn’t exactly have a good track record when it comes to fighting terrorism in an indiscriminate fashion — Pakistan’s military retains ties to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network which have been indispensable to the Pakistanis over the last fifteen years. (Both the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network promote Pakistani foreign policy interests by checking Indian influence inside Afghanistan.)

    In a raid so important to the United States, both in symbolic as well as operational terms, the American intelligence community was understandably skeptical of soliciting help from the outside.

    The third and final option was precisely the tact taken last Sunday — a unilateral and clandestine American mission executed by its most preeminent Special Operations Forces branch. A team of US Navy SEALs flew deep into Pakistan in the middle of the night, stormed bin Laden’s compound after extensive intelligence work dating back to last August, and took out the world’s most wanted criminal.

    The successful killing of Osama bin Laden may not translate into much of a gain against the Al Qaeda organization in the long run. It was widely believed between American and European intelligence agencies that bin Laden gave up his operational status long ago and rebranded himself as the group’s most public spokesman and spiritual figure. But for the United States, whose military capabilities have been called into question since the struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fact that bin Laden is no longer on this earth reminds us all that the American military — and intelligence community — still boasts the world’s most talented and dedicated team of defenders.

  • Bin Laden Meets His Maker

    It took close to ten years, hundreds of billions of dollars, a total revamping of the American intelligence community and two wars but the United States have finally killed Osama bin Laden, the most notorious terrorist in the world and the mastermind of the biggest terrorist attack in modern history.

    Late Sunday evening, President Barack Obama addressed the nation live from the East Room at the White House to announce bin Laden’s killing.  “The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s efforts to defeat Al Qaeda,” he said, adding that “we must and we will remain vigilant” in the face of future terrorist plots against the American homeland.

    Immediately following the president’s announcement, scores of happy Americans rushed to the gates of the White House, chanting “USA! USA!” while New Yorkers converged on Ground Zero to celebrate the death of a man who killed their friends and family members.

    The mood is truly euphoric, for many Americans often questioned whether the United States would ever find bin Laden, let alone kill or capture him. Indeed, bin Laden became a household name in American homes, not only for his central role in the 9/11 operation but also for his maneuverability and his propensity for avoiding justice.

    Following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and subsequent overthrow of the Taliban government, bin Laden managed to escape persistent bombing raids on his Tora Bora headquarters. Since that escape, he ventured into Pakistan and attained a ghostlike figure.

    That ghostlike figure is now a ghost, literally. While the details are leaking out, it appears that American intelligence first discovered bin Laden’s large compound last August, culminating in Obama’s order last week for a Navy Seals Special Forces team to enter Pakistan and take him out.

    There are more than a few interesting questions about the operation, as well as its potential fallout.

    • The Pakistani military and Pakistan’s intelligence service were not involved in the kill or capture mission. US Special Forces and CIA personnel executed the operation unilaterally without any direct assistance from the Pakistani government. Was Washington keeping the mission secret, afraid that disclosure would leak and tip off bin Laden? If so, what does that say about the US-Pakistan strategic relationship, which has soured to its lowest point in years over counterterrorism?
    • Contrary to popular wisdom, bin Laden was not hiding in a cave along the rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Rather, he was residing in a large mansion in Abbottabad, a city of 100,000 outside of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. The fact that he was deep inside Pakistani territory raises questions as to whether Pakistani intelligence knew about his location.
    • What will Al Qaeda’s response be? The terrorist organization has been famous for retaliating in short order whenever the United States or its allies killed one of their leaders or disrupted their plans. Precautions are already under way, with the State Department issuing a travel alert to all American citizens and police departments across the country beefing up their presence. Police in New York City will be on a heightened state of alert over the next couple of days and weeks.

      Expect a statement from Al Qaeda soon, and an Al Qaeda orchestrated attack where security is especially weak, either in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen.

    Bin Laden’s death may not degrade Al Qaeda’s operational capabilities all that much since he has played more of a symbolic and spiritual role for the organization over the past couple of years. But his demise will certainly comfort families who lost loved ones on 9/11. No one can bring back the victims from that horrible day but at least now there is a small amount of closure.

  • New UN Report Shows Shift in US Strategy

    Civilian casualties during NATO military operations in Afghanistan have been the biggest bone of contention between the United States and the Afghan government over the past two years. As Hamid Karzai has grown increasingly independent of American influence — even as his government has grown increasingly dependent on American, European and Japanese assistance for development projects and government ministries — he has found it much easier to speak openly about how unhappy he has been over the deaths of Afghan innocents.  Of course, avoiding civilian casualties is extremely difficult for the United States and its partners, especially as coalition forces increase their operations on Taliban hideouts and pour more resources into highly populated areas. Indeed, the recent accidental killing of nine Afghan boys by a NATO airstrike is a testament to brutal and confusing warfare can be.

    But while civilian deaths are difficult to avoid, American and British troops have done a much better job over the past year eluding civilians during their operations, according to a United Nations report on Afghan civilian casualties. The study (PDF), conducted by the Human Rights Unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, is a long collection of assessments, charts, maps and graphs supporting its fact finding mission, yet the Associated Press ran a short story summarizing its main findings.

    Civilian casualties did in fact increase by a disappointing 28 percent from the previous year (2009), but the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) found a way to decrease their share of the deaths by 26 percent.

    Numbers can at times be consuming, but in this particular circumstance, the 26 percent decrease supports many of the conclusions that General David H. Petraeus and his operational command have been making over the past several months; that coalition troops are not only taking great care to stay away from local residents during attacks but are limiting their missions against very specific targets.

    As expected, foremost among those targets are suspected Taliban hideouts, which have been severely degraded by frequent night raids by US Special Forces. The raids are controversial and unpopular in Afghanistan but they have not disappointed on results. Thousands of anti-government insurgents have been captured and thousands more (mainly low to midlevel Taliban field commanders) have been killed.

    The statistics from the UN report also reveal an intelligence component that is especially important to the coalition going forward. The acquisition of accurate and actionable intelligence from those on the ground is undeniably one of the variables that have led the coalition to a more sustained campaign of precision targeting. As more accurate information makes its way up the chain of command, it is more likely that troops in the field will succeed in their operations with a substantially lower amount of collateral damage. It’s an obvious interpretation, but one that could convince more Afghan civilians to step forward with information.

    This is good news tactically, since troops are finding it easier to locate Taliban fighters and weapons caches around areas that were “no go” zones only a year ago. But far more significant to the mission in Afghanistan is whether the decrease in civilian deaths is boosting Washington’s strategic advantage in relation to the enemy. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is still murky given the difficulties of measuring Afghan public opinion at a time of war.

    The UN study also has implications for how the United States and its partners are actually conducting the war. Counterinsurgency (COIN) has become a common mantra in American military doctrine today, with the conventional use of force taking a secondary position in relation to the protection of the local population and the provision of enough security to win their support.

    Counterinsurgency is reliant both on military and nonmilitary (or civilian) measures of success. Yet on the nonmilitary aspect of the strategy, there is cause for concern. General Petraeus himself acknowledged that a political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan remains way off into the distance. The Taliban leadership, unmolested in Quetta, remains steadfast in its refusal to engage in negotiations with the coalition as long as foreign troops are on Afghan soil.  Members of the Taliban that have actually stopped fighting the government and have switched allegiances are not being integrated into Afghan society as quickly as Petraeus would hope.

    In this context, should COIN still be the overarching war strategy for the Obama Administration? The high level of enemy combatants killed and the tedious pace of reconciliation suggests that the ISAF may be focusing more on what the military regards as kinetic operations, or classic war fighting capabilities. In Afghanistan at least, COIN may be a dead concept.

  • A Bad Week for Pakistani Politics

    With an Islamic insurgency raging in its cities and millions of its citizens still displaced from widespread flooding, Pakistan’s leadership is increasingly losing control of its own country. Add political paralysis the mix, as well as the prospect of government collapse, and the situation inside Pakistan becomes even more dangerous.

    The first bulletin comes to us from the halls of power in Islamabad, where a major political party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, abruptly withdrew its support for the coalition government of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. Pakistani politics have always been susceptible to this type of behavior: the main parties in the country view each other more as rival street gangs than legitimate political actors. The MQM and President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — two large members of the government — are especially hostile toward one another. At times, the hostility has exploded onto the streets of Karachi where gunmen from each party have targeted the supporters of the other. This past October alone, members of the MQM have shot and killed dozens of Awani National Party (ANP) supporters who are primarily ethnic Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Evidently, this political violence was not enough. Politicians from all major Pakistani factions have now taken their grievances inside parliament, where they should have been all along. Yet those grievances rarely get solved. Decades of tension that should have been solved long ago is left to fester. It has now exploded with the departure of the MQM. If Prime Minister Gilani and President Zardari are unable to retain their slim majority, Pakistan’s military may take matters into its own hands.

    The second story coming out of the country is the apparent assassination of the most powerful governor inside Pakistan, Salman Taseer.

    Taseer was the governor of Pakistan’s largest and most strategically important province, Punjab, and officials are already describing his death as the most significant since the killing of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. Bhutto’s death was attributed to the Pakistani Taliban; Taseer’s was orchestrated by one of his very own bodyguards.

    This story is still developing, but it is having a shockwave affect on the Pakistani media. Taseer was quite the media savvy politician. He had an enormous following on Twitter where he frequently spoke out against religious extremism in all its forms — most recently about Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. His protests may have finally caught up to him.

  • When Religion Meets War

    What do you do when you know the exact location of a top level terrorist operative, but dropping a bomb on that location would cause a firestorm that could engulf an entire country into further chaos? Do you suck it up, assess the target and kill the people responsible for numerous attacks? Or do you take the high ground, consider the political context and wait to fight another day?

    These are the types of questions that American intelligence analysts are asking themselves in Pakistan today. The target in question is a recruitment and training center of the Haqqani network, an independent insurgent organization responsible for some of the deadliest attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The American military believes that Haqqani leaders meet at this location on a near weekly basis, training new members and planning for the next operation.

    It sounds like a slam dunk case. The only problem is that this Haqqani compound is a mosque; the most potent and influential symbol in the Islamic world.

    Therein runs the conundrum which the United States face as its armed forces continue to take the fight to militants in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. In fact, therein lies the microcosm of America’s battle against extremism of the past ten years; what is normally a “no brainer” in conventional military terms quickly turns into a tricky situation in a counterinsurgency environment.

    The United States have run into a similar predicament before, when US Marines were heavily engaged with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. The battle lasted for weeks, Americans were suffering heavy casualties and the Iraqi population of the city was often caught in the crosshairs. But as the Marines cleared the city block by block, they found themselves closing in on Sadr’s whereabouts. At one point, they circled Sadr’s exact location, inside one of Shia Islam’s holiest of mosques.

    The Americans, faced with a choice of bombing the shrine or leaving it alone, wisely decided that the latter was the more plausible strategy. Surrounded from all sides, Sadr negotiated a ceasefire with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) at the time, promising to halt attacks against Americans. The United States withdrew and many conservatives became highly critical of the decision. Yet the ceasefire agreement saved the Unites States a lot of aggravation with the Muslim world (to put it mildly) at a time when the military was still grappling with the prisoner abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib detention center.

    Six years later, the United States are in much the same situation, this time in a country that has a nuclear weapons stockpile and a heck of a lot more people (approximately 170 million). Thus far, the CIA has concluded that bombing the madrassa in Miranshah is not the best approach, fearing a violent backlash from ordinary Pakistanis. Instead drones have taken another approach to the problem, bombing the suspected militants coming too and from the site.

    Coalition commanders who are eager for success in Afghanistan may be itching to pull the trigger on the mosque. But showing restraint, as the CIA is currently doing, may in fact be more effective in the long term rather than killing a few Haqqani militants now. If counterinsurgency depends on the support of the local population, the last thing the American image needs is another wave of angry protesters in South Asia.

    Showing restraint, on the other hand, is the best essence of what General David Petraeus so often refers to as “strategic patience.”

  • India’s Strategic Doctrine of Lapse

    George K. Tanham, a famous American military historian once said, “India doesn’t have a strategic culture.” In other words, India doesn’t have a strategy to project its power beyond the confines of the subcontinent. This shows a defensive realism on the part of Indian policymakers.

    India had succumbed to numerous invasions from its northwest before it was colonized by the British for more than two centuries. The inability of Indian policymakers to understand what is happening around them in the world and formulate policies in accordance has been lacking since the days of Alexander the Great. Even if the Arthashastra, an ancient Indian text on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy was written in the wake of Alexander’s invasion, the art of successful statecraft was forgotten by subsequent Indian rulers.

    Things have changed in recent years. India today is a nuclear weapons state; it has acquired great power status and aspires to permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.

    If India is just not rising but already had risen as President Barack Obama professed in his speech before the Indian Parliament last month, the country has a responsibility to project its power beyond South Asia.

    For that to happen, India needs a blueprint. In statecraft, that is called strategy and if implemented, a strategic doctrine. Countries as China, the United Kingdom and the United States have national strategies and white papers which guide their military doctrines. Military doctrine is key to successful military planning and weapons procurement. It makes a country’s actions more predictable while the strategic debate will revolve around the strategic doctrine.

    India clearly lacks such an articulated doctrine and this has left both policymakers and the military wandering on a path that leads nowhere. Top level strategists in India have to start thinking about their country’s future and its defense.

    India claims that its military doctrine has moved to a “proactive” and “offensive” approach in recent decades. The Indian Army doctrine released in 2004 has popularly been dubbed as “Cold Start.” Though officially the army denies it, India does have plans to attack Pakistan and occupy the country with minimal civilian losses. Indeed, last month, while Obama toured the region, Pakistan said that it was because of the Cold Start doctrine that it needs to keep troops stationed on the western frontier which thus cannot engage in combating the Taliban along the Afghan border.

    India’s contentious doctrine was framed after the India-Pakistan military standoff in the wake of the terrorist attacks against the Indian Parliament in December 2001. The army immediately mobilized under the code named “Operation Parakram” but the international community intervened to stop Indian troops from advancing into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. India then understood the need for a strategy which could produce swift results in penetrating Pakistan before any intervention from the international community, including the United States, could prevent it.

    With this in mind, India framed the Indian Army Doctrine 2004. The Army Doctrine is updated every five years and has two parts. The first is accessible and declassified while the second is kept secret. Pakistan claims that these classified plans entail Cold Start.

    Then there is a classified Joint Warfare Doctrine which was formulated in 2006 and includes the doctrine of the three services of army, navy and air force. The air force has its own doctrine which, too, is classified, however the Naval Doctrine, or Maritime Doctrine, is not.

    Then there is a subconventional warfare doctrine for responding to terror provocations emanating from Pakistan, prescribing the use of “surgical strikes” and action on the Line of Control in Kahsmir.

    With respect to China, India doesn’t have any concrete plans even if both political and military planners are worried about the possibility of having to wage a war on two fronts against both China and Pakistan. Logically, a two front strategy would first involve making thrusts into Pakistan in accordance with Cold Start to quickly shift the war effort to the eastern Himalayas facing China.

    India claims to have attainted the necessary nuclear deterrence however its Draft Nuclear Doctrine of 1999 calls for the use of conventional forces before deploying atomic weapons. Against this background, one can understand a point made by American political scientist John J. Mearsheimer in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001). He believes that great powers are feared not because of their nuclear weapons but because of their ability to project their armed forces beyond their borders. Mearsheimer cites the example of the Soviet Union and forces the argument that it was the Red Army that was feared in the Western Europe, not so much the Soviets’ nuclear arsenal. Indian policymakers needs to understand this and can’t sit with the fact that India clearly lacks a doctrine that ignores the worst-case scenario of a two front war.

    One country that used to be in a similar position was early twentieth century Germany. Like India, it faced the prospect of a two front war, against both France and Russia. The famous Schlieffen Plan called for the quick elimination of France before venturing into the Russian heartland. But the military strategy was not backed up with sound German politics and diplomacy. That is another key lesson India must learn.

    Unfortunately, the political establishment’s response to the army’s initiative has been limited. It should pursue a “whole of government approach” to balance diplomacy, the relative weight of the three armed services and conventional capability versus strategic deterrence.

    If India intends to play a greater political role in the Asia Pacific, it has to fully exploit the advantages of its continental and maritime geography and prepare for the worst-case scenario. A good first step would be appointing a Chief of Defense Staff as recommended by the Group of Ministers. Although a decade has passed since that recommendation, politicians in India have so far refrained from creating the position. A Chief of Defense Staff would ensure greater cooperation among the armed services, the bureaucracy and the political leadership however, especially in times of crisis. In general, a paradigm shift has to occur in India’s strategic thinking from defensive realism to offensive realism.

  • US Set to Expand Drone Strikes in Pakistan

    When Pakistan’s battle with militancy is concerned, the United States have very few options. Introducing American troops into North Waziristan to flush out the militants would be an extremely difficult mission, and it would no doubt further expand a war in Afghanistan that people are already growing tired off. Poking and prodding the Pakistani armed forces to launch another offensive has been rebuffed time and time again. The Pakistanis argue that they must first consolidate military gains in South Waziristan and Swat before another front is opened. Ordering US Special Forces into the area is risky, since disclosure would provoke a harsh Pakistani response.

    With all of these limitations, the use of drones has become the default alternative for Washington. It is not as if drone strikes have been a terrible policy. Top Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders have been killed as a result of the CIA program. Militants from the Haqqani network are constantly on the run, diverting time that could be used for planning attacks toward ensuring their own personal safety. The Pakistani government is even complicit in the attacks since much of the intelligence that makes drone strikes so successful is disseminated from Inter-Services Intelligence.

    Obviously, there are problems. The United Nations Human Rights Council submitted a report earlier in the year exposing the program’s unethical nature. Philip Alston, the man in charge of the council, claims that the attacks may even be illegal under international law.

    Pakistanis residing in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, North Waziristan in particular, are often killed when the missiles are targeting militants. There have been a number of cases where mothers and children were among the casualties due to their personal relationships with Al Qaeda, Haqqani, or Pakistani Taliban insurgents.

    Despite the criticism, there really isn’t another options for keeping militants on their toes.

    The tribal regions are nearly impossible to navigate by foot, rendering any ground operation lengthy and perhaps downright impossible. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Washington is trying to increase the range in which drones are permitted. American and NATO intelligence have already requested that American drones be allowed to scan targets in the Pakistani city of Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban leadership is believed to be based. The request has been denied by Pakistan, but the fact that the CIA submitted it expresses how valuable the unmanned vehicles have been in the fight against international terrorism.

    Civil and human rights activists and organizations will be disappointed by the request. But surely a missile targeting a single house, acting on accurate information, is better than the alternative: a full-scale ground invasion? The former kills the intended target with limited civilian casualties. The latter option would no doubt leave many more people dead or wounded, in addition to destroying a tribal infrastructure system that is already weak at the margins.

    The United States recognized this discrepancy long ago. It may be time for others in the international community, including the United Nations, to recognize it as well.

  • Obama’s India Visit Overlooks Geopolitics

    President Barack Obama’s trip to India this week could be termed as a diplomatic success for both sides as one sees and hears the body language, cheers and laughter.

    International politics however, which very much determine how nations play in the world stage has many other components besides diplomacy. Geopolitics is one such element.

    Take this itinerary of Obama which included trips to Mumbai’s Taj Hotel where he met the survivors of the 26/11 terrorist attack. As the president of the United States he did his best to understand the pain of the barbaric act which he himself mentioned during his speech before the Indian Parliament. He couldn’t openly refer to Pakistan but made it clear to the Indian audience that this country promotes terror against India. He did mention neighboring Burma’s poor track record on human rights and political freedom and asked India to do more to make the authoritarian regime understand the principles of democracy. This is where the cold realities of geopolitics come into play. (more…)

  • Rumors of Negotiation in Afghanistan

    Readers who have been following the news from Afghanistan lately have undoubtedly come across several front page articles suggesting that representatives of the Taliban have engaged in “peace talks” with the government in Kabul. The New York Times has run a couple of stories to this affect. On October 20 for instance the newspaper wrote that, “Taliban elite, aided by NATO, join talks for Afghan peace.”

    Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.

    From all of these stories — and from that single quotation — one may get the picture that the Taliban’s rank and file are being decapitated on the battlefield, Mullah Mohammad Omar is shivering in his boots, and that the United States are brokering a peace deal that could finally end the war after ten long years. Last week I warned that reports of NATO turning the page in the war should be viewed with the utmost caution. Indeed, the reports themselves are a bit inaccurate, in that most simplify a very complex situation.

    For instance, both The New York Times and The Washington Post frequently label the Taliban-Karzai discussions as peace talks, which imply that both factions are hammering out details for what a postwar Afghanistan will look like. Throughout the history of warfare, the term “peace talks” is generally invoked when all major sides of the conflict have come to a mutual understanding that the continuation of the war is detrimental to everyone’s interests. In Vietnam, this meant a peace agreement between the United States, South Vietnam, and the North Vietnamese government — one that unfortunately collapsed within two years. In the Gulf War, the end of hostilities culminated in the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait in exchange for an end to coalition operations. In other words, peace talks lead to peace agreements, which end fighting and establish a postwar order that aims to ensure stability in the future.

    The ongoing talks with the Taliban should not be considered in the same light. For one, there is no evidence that the Taliban leaders that are participating in the discussions represent the entire Quetta Shura organization. Mullah Omar, the top official in the Quetta Shura, continues to deny that his group is engaging with Hamid Karzai’s administration. The Haqqani network, perhaps the most dangerous segment of the insurgency in Afghanistan today, virtually remains irreconcilable. And the Pakistani intelligence service has yet to endorse Taliban talks with the Afghan government.

    If anything, the discussions in Kabul should be seen more as efforts toward reconciliation, not a outreach to establish peace. Taliban fighters, at least in the mid to upper ranks of the organization, are clearly hedging their bets and trying to solidify their position once the United States get out of the country completely. The problem is that those Taliban who are talking may not be representing the entire organization. Rather, these Taliban “negotiators” may be trying to ensure that they personally gain some sort of powerful position once NATO soldiers depart. There is a huge difference between negotiating for personal survival and negotiating for an end to the war.

    As long as Pakistani intelligence holds the reigns of the Quetta Shura and dictates what they can and cannot do, we should all question whether current exchange between Taliban and Afghan government officials is truly the beginning of a comprehensive US-NATO-Afghan-Taliban peace accord.

    Clearly, any insurgent who wishes to switch sides and join the Afghan government is a welcoming development. And if the Times and Washington Post reports are to be believed, both low and high level Taliban commanders are exploring the option. But a few fighters that are willing to ditch the Quetta Shura cannot, and should not, be interpreted as a peace negotiation.

    I’m sure General David Petraeus recognizes this crucial difference. But it certainly isn’t being portrayed that way in the media.

  • India Should Fight Military Aid to Pakistan

    Just days before President Barack Obama begins his India visit, the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue is underway in Washington DC. The talks would focus on the “strategic” relationship between the two countries, a euphemism for more aid money to Pakistan to fight extremists within its borders and help out the United States in Afghanistan. Even with almost no results to show for the billions it has extorted from the United States so far, the Pakistani delegation knows that it will be returning to Islamabad with its pockets full.

    The constant flow of foreign aid into Pakistan is a disturbing situation for India, which fears that most of the money is being used against it, particularly in Kashmir. In spite of repeated attempts (rather feeble attempts) to convince the world of how Pakistan spends the “aid” money, the flow has not reduced but rather increased. In 2009, Brahma Chellany wrote in the Deccan Chronicle:

    Between 1952 and 2008, Islamabad received over $73bn as foreign aid, according to Pakistan’s Economic Survey. But in the period since the Mumbai strikes, the amount of aid pledged or delivered to Pakistan has totalled a staggering $23.3bn. This figure excludes China’s unpublicized contributions but includes the IMF’s $7.6bn bailout package, released after the Mumbai attacks.

    Just last week, Islamabad secured some $5.2bn in new aid at a donors conference — the first of its kind for Pakistan. At that conference, host Japan and America pledged $1bn each, while the EU promised $640 million, Saudi Arabia $700 million, and Iran and the UAE $300 million each.

    And none of the recent events, including reports of David Headley’s admission of the ISI’s hand in the Mumbai attacks in 2008, nor a NATO official’s allegation of Osama bin Laden living comfortably in Pakistan can be expected to make any difference to what Pakistan gets. The Times of India in fact reported that the Obama Administration is lining up about $2 billion in new military aid to Pakistan. It is almost as if the country is being rewarded for being a nuisance. At the same time efforts are on to persuade India to purchase billions of dollars worth of military goods from the United States. Another round of the United States’ game of providing arms to both sides in a conflict.

    But neither Pakistan nor the United States can be really blamed for looking out for their own interests. Playing the victim and savior, and asking for money for being both at the same time, is what Pakistan does best. Its political and military institutions should be commended for efficiently training consecutive generations to fool the world with the same spiel! Other countries could learn a thing or two from Pakistan about consistent foreign policy.

    The real loser in this game is India. It does not know how to play the victim (to Pakistani terror or Western neglect) convincingly, nor does it have the guts to stand up and dictate its terms. India makes a few noises every time Pakistan receives aid, a lot gets written about, but nothing every comes off it. The status quo has continued for decades, and unless there is a serious change in attitude in India, there is little to claim that things might change any time in the near future.

    During President Obama’s visit this November, India should make all efforts to persuade his administration to introduce strict accountability with any aid, humanitarian or otherwise, to Pakistan. The India lobby and the Indian American community in the United States need to play a larger role in convincing and bringing about a change in American policy toward Pakistan in terms of aid.

    Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his part should stop being docile, and demand (politely, if that makes it easy for him) that America change its aid policy toward Pakistan. If India thinks that a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council could help it control Pakistan, it should lobby for that seat harder than ever before. A nod from the United States for its candidature can go really far. Of course, Pakistan would make bigger noises and attack a few places, but if India believes a UN route can make things change their way, some collateral damage has to be taken in stride.

    India is undoubtedly the superior power in terms of economic and military standing but its negotiation skills leave a lot to be desired. In a diplomatic game, anything less than a master negotiator is useless. And if India can’t negotiate, it should fight. It is the time to fight.

    This story first appeared on Foreign Policy Blogs Network, September 22, 2010.

  • Drones are America’s Default Option

    For the past six years, counterterrorism officials have considered Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as a top priority in the fight against Islamic extremism. For the United States specifically, FATA has frequently been cited as the main hub of Taliban and Al Qaeda activity. Indeed, there appears to be a stack of evidence on their behalf; most of the attacks against coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan have originated across the border in Pakistan. The fact that western Muslims are traveling to Pakistan in droves to join the jihad draws another dimension to the FATA problem.

    The hard part for American and NATO officials has always been how to diminish the threat of terrorism in the FATA badlands. What techniques should be used? Relying on the Pakistani military to clear the area of militants has been an option, but recent operations by Islamabad have only worked in specific circumstances. Pakistani officials have repeatedly argued that the Swat Valley and South Waziristan have been totally cleared of belligerents, yet bombings against Pakistani policemen continue unabated. And North Waziristan, an agency that houses numerous Al Qaeda factions, has been virtually untouched by the Pakistanis.

    The introduction of American troops into Pakistan would at first appear to be another effective strategy. But Islamabad is not willing to permit American boots on Pakistani soil.

    Therein lies the importance of American-operated drone strikes in the battle against extremism in Pakistan. Since the program was initiated in 2004, the stealthy unnamed planes have killed hundreds of low level militants and perhaps dozens of senior terrorist commanders. Countless plots have been disrupted or scrapped due to the relentless pressure of the drones on terrorist hideouts, particularly in North Waziristan. Al Qaeda has been forced to replace its third most powerful leader multiple times over the past two years alone, and all of this has been made possible without a single American casualty.

    Yet despite all of the benefits associated with drone strikes, civil liberty activists and an increasing amount of think-tank researchers have questioned the sustainability of the program. Many of these individuals are particularly disturbed that the UAV attacks are allegedly operated by the CIA, which obscures the transparency and accountability which international law requires of all United Nations member states. Indeed, the criteria that is used to place a terrorist operative on the “kill list” is hidden from the public domain.

    Philip Alston, the UN official in charge of extrajudicial killings, is especially worried about these implications. In June, Alston submitted a scathing critique (PDF) of the drone program to the organization’s Human Rights Council, claiming that Washington is essentially executing drone operations on an “ill-defined license to kill.”

    Just this past Friday, Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations expanded upon this critique by offering a strategic rationale to the anti-UAV position. In addition to the innocent human lives that are often lost as a result of drone operations, Zenko argues that the entire program reinforces a “quick fix” mindset among officials responsible for counterterrorism policy:

    Under pressure to act in response to a threat and seduced by the allure and responsiveness of limited force, presidents elevate military options above other instruments of statecraft. Once the bombs have been dropped…and the politically necessary “do something” box has been ticked, complex, robust secondary measures rarely come to fruition.

    But what is the alternative? A fully resourced and expensive nonmilitary campaign? The rebuilding of infrastructure that would cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars? Economic development and institutional formation? Actually, this is precisely what Zenko recommends. Unfortunately, Americans’ and Europeans’ patience is running thin. Nobody wants to embark upon another nation building exercise, particularly when infrastructure is crumbling at home and military resources are tied down in neighboring Afghanistan. A Western counterinsurgency campaign in Pakistan is unfeasible.

    Given the lack of options that are both politically plausible and financially acceptable, targeting terrorist hideouts in Pakistan’s ungoverned tribal areas will likely remain the default choice. The Obama Administration certainly believes that covert attacks are worth continuing: last September saw the highest amount of drone strikes in western Pakistan since the program began.

    All of this, of course, assumes that terrorist networks based in Pakistan don’t successfully launch a major attack on American and European targets in the near future. If such an incident does occur, expect the United States to quickly forget about the limitations of Pakistani sovereignty.