The conventional wisdom seems to be that Pakistan is the cause of instability in Afghanistan, and that if the government of Pakistan cannot solve the problem we should go in and solve it for them. Earlier I argued that there is not such entity as “Pakistan”, that Pakistan’s bureaucracies are corrupt and inefficient, and that our policy of helping them implement their COIN policy in the FATA was the best policy.
Now I am going to argue that we underestimate how difficult it would be to intervene effectively in the FATA and that we would probably make things worse.
1) COIN is hard work, and getting too aggressive leads to mistakes that set back long-term efforts. It is difficult to identify and target enemies. The United States and ISAF have forces deployed in Afghanistan but it still makes mistakes. Just recently, there was an extended firefight between NATO and Afghan National Army (ANA) forces on the one side, and local Afghan National Police forces on the other. According to a local official, both sides “mistook each other for Taliban militants.” The NATO/ANA side called in airstrikes which evidently killed nine police and injured five, to include the police chief. Nor is this an isolated incident. NATO has the best forces and intelligence assets in the world, but it still makes mistakes within Afghanistan, a place it has been working in continuously since late 2001. What makes us think that we have better intelligence on militants in Pakistan? We are quick to denounce the bombings and attacks that the Pakistan military carries out against suspected militant targets (and for good reason), but if we used the same yardstick for Pakistan’s efforts that we used for our own, we would probably be more reluctant to accuse them of holding back or threaten to do the job for them.
2) The insurgency in Pakistan is more complicated and dangerous in Pakistan than it is in Afghanistan for the following reasons (see Frontline Pakistan or keep reading this blog for a longer treatment):
a. A large part of the anti-Afghanistan Taliban (and especially the senior leadership) operates from within Pakistan. It has since we forced them out of out of Afghanistan after 9/11. Even if Mullah Omar et al remain focused on retaking Afghanistan, their presence has a radicalizing effect on the area, encouraging militancy among an already militarized and radicalized society. The “Perfect Storm” would occur if Omar et. al. turned the full resources of their insurgency against Pakistan.
b. The terrain in the FATA (the border area of Pakistan) is mountainous – the very same terrain we find it so hard to take and hold in Afghanistan.
c. The cultural/economic/political terrain is tribal and underdeveloped – the very same cultural terrain we find it so hard to understand and influence in Afghanistan.
d. Substantial portions of the population have been radicalized as a result of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, through unregulated madrassas, and Islamist politicians.
e. The Islamist message is a legitimate part of the political/informational landscape. It is spread through political parties, religious leaders, and the religious press. This makes the information portion of COIN very difficult to win [moreover, this message is explicitly anti-American, making it very difficult to provide legitimacy to overt coalition action there].
f. The Taliban insurgency is dominated by Pashtuns. There are millions more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan.
g. Miscellaneous: Pakistan is a nuclear state.
3) Given the strength of the insurgency in the FATA, the widespread antipathy of the populace towards America, the difficulties involved in getting good intelligence, and the strength and attitudes of the Islamist IO, overt coalition would seriously escalate the insurgency. Even locals that are currently ambivalent or against the Taliban would join fight us and any Pakistan government that supported us (or who could be construed as doing such by the Islamist IO). The resulting polarization and delegitimization of an already weak Pakistan government would completely undermine the COIN information, political/diplomatic, and economic spheres. Given the current understanding of COIN, this would make the situation unwinnable.
On the other hand, unlike in Afghanistan, Pakistan has a (reasonably) professional army and intelligence service. The combination of all these factors have, at least until now, led to a policy that encourages cross-border cooperation and improves PK COIN capabilities. It is not perfect, nor will it defeat the insurgency any time soon. But it beats every alternative I have ever seen suggested. It requires more patience and diplomatic effort than election and rotation schedules encourage, but it is the best way to slog on towards any chance of victory.
