Rules of disengagement
This week, in the wake of the Bonn Conference and its boycott by Pakistan in protest against the Nato strikes of its border checkposts, we at TNS decided to focus on two countries and their interests in the region. First is the United States which has announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 and the second is Pakistan whose interests seem at variance with that of the US. We understand that in a power game setting, the powerful wins. So all we want to do is to see things as they stand today. We’ve touched on America’s game plans as articulated so far. But regarding Pakistan, we have dared to propose that it needs to reevaluate its foreign policy goals.


pakistan
Our strategic 
shallowness
 

Just how do Pakistan’s own interests and objectives play out against those of the United States and does Pakistan need to reassess them
By Farah Zia
One look at the banners displayed in all major cities of the country and the retaliatory tone they use against the Nato airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers on border checkpoints is enough to know how Pakistan’s interests in the region sit at cross purposes with the rest of the world, particularly the United States. 

America, for this decade and beyond
The US interests in the region - beyond 2014 and twenty years hence
By Adnan Rehmat

Is it a coincidence that there is a link between having a strong strategic foothold in a region that is in geographical contiguity with some of your biggest political, military and ideological rivals and having an opportunity to unfold a strategy to both influence the outcome of the next 25 years, if not more, in the region and to also be in a better position to neutralise the threats to you?





 

Rules of disengagement

This week, in the wake of the Bonn Conference and its boycott by Pakistan in protest against the Nato strikes of its border checkposts, we at TNS decided to focus on two countries and their interests in the region. First is the United States which has announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 and the second is Pakistan whose interests seem at variance with that of the US. We understand that in a power game setting, the powerful wins. So all we want to do is to see things as they stand today. We’ve touched on America’s game plans as articulated so far. But regarding Pakistan, we have dared to propose that it needs to reevaluate its foreign policy goals.

 

— ED

 


pakistan
Our strategic 
shallowness 

Just how do Pakistan’s own interests and objectives play out against those of the United States and does Pakistan need to reassess them
By Farah Zia

One look at the banners displayed in all major cities of the country and the retaliatory tone they use against the Nato airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers on border checkpoints is enough to know how Pakistan’s interests in the region sit at cross purposes with the rest of the world, particularly the United States. 

The banner diplomacy apart, Pakistan did take some practical steps: it boycotted the Bonn Conference; it even asked the Americans to vacate the Shamsi Airbase in Balochistan. The government spokespersons don’t tire of telling on television screens they have turned their backs on the US and have moved eastwards which, for all practical purposes, means that China is the new messiah.

Contrast this reaction inside the country with its image abroad — as an ‘exporter of terrorism’ and a ‘safe haven for terrorists’ — and, clearly, there is something seriously wrong with the way we have been conducting our foreign affairs. There is nothing to indicate that this state of our foreign affairs will get better in the future, unless we decide to reevaluate and reformulate our foreign policy goals.

A classic case study

The joint report recently published by the Jinnah Institute (JI) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), titled ‘Pakistan, the United States and the End Game in Afghanistan: Perceptions of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite’, is a classic case study in this regard. Critics have brushed the report aside on various counts, beginning with the selection of project participants and how they have furthered the interests of Pakistan’s security establishment.

Critics have also talked about the “built-in selection and projection biases”, the absence of one single Baloch making it to the 53-strong illustrious list, the equating of all Pashtuns with Taliban and much else.

These criticisms of what the report has not done or achieved may be valid but a casual reading of what the report does achieve is instructive. It’s a classic representation of what is wrong with Pakistan’s foreign policy and, by implication, the elite that formulates it. The tone of the themes and objectives is unbelievably naïve. Just take a look: Pakistan seeks “a degree of stability in Afghanistan”, “an inclusive government in Kabul” and wants to limit “Indian presence to development activities”.

The wish list goes on. “The settlement in Afghanistan should not lead to a negative spillover such that it contributes to further instability in Pakistan or causes resentment among Pakistani Pushtuns” and the “government in Kabul should not be antagonistic to Pakistan and should not allow its territory to be used against Pakistani state interests.” Not only does it want Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network to be part of the new political arrangement, it wants Pakistani misgivings about the “likelihood of a growing Indian footprint” in Kabul addressed because this would give New Delhi a chance “to manipulate the end game”.

The assumptions are mind-boggling as the ground reality mocks us in our faces. Further into the report, Pakistani opinion-makers sense “a civil-military disconnect” between the strategies of the Pentagon and the State Department and are pessimistic because the US would want “a long-term security presence in Afghanistan”.

Looking at the year in retrospect, the prognosis by the foreign policy elite looks uniquely ignorant, coming as it does in the wake of Osama Bin Laden being found from a garrison town of Pakistan (the proceedings of the report were conducted before May 2, we are told), the attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan by the Haqqani network believed to be hiding in North Waziristan, the allegations of ISI’s involvement in Burhanuddin Rabbani’s assassination and finally the fact that this year the US established direct contacts with the Taliban (something the Pakistani security establishment had promised to do all along).  

The Western border or

the Eastern, or both

In effect, what the Jinnah Institute report does is bring the disputes at our Western border to the fore. Today, not only are we the erstwhile partners in the US-led war on terror, with hundreds of thousands of our troops fighting foreign terrorists in the tribal areas we are a country at war. But this was not the intention or a foreign policy objective; the Eastern border was, along with India, the permanent enemy.

Ayaz Amir, in his excellent analysis ‘The Western Border is the Thing’, writes that the threat to us is from the west not the east. “But all our strategic theories, our military plans, our deployments and cantonments are geared to fight the wars of yesterday…” Because, he writes, “in Pakistani military thinking the enemy is India. From Kakul to Staff College to NDU this is the unchanging assumption. Tanks, submarines, F-16s and nuclear delivery systems are all meant for India.”

Obviously, the so-called strategic depth doctrine, which the strategists refuse to buy in the strict sense of the term, was sought against the enemy — India. Pakistan supported the US against its war in Russia because it wanted arms that its military could potentially use against India.

But if strategic depth, as it is understood in the common parlance as Pakistan’s desire to control Afghanistan, is accepted, the ground reality is so well expressed in common parlance, too — with their capacity and inclination to attack targets in Pakistan, it’s the Taliban that have attained a strategic depth in Pakistan.

So, are we prepared to fight two wars at the same time, something that even the superpowers did not attempt or did so at their own peril? This is a foreign policy question that Pakistan needs to address at this point.

Some historical

perspective

It was quite early on that the newly established Pakistan started confusing its defence needs with foreign policy needs. The communal basis for the creation of the country, articulated in the dispute between All India National Congress and All India Muslim League before the partition, came to be reflected in the enmity between the ‘Hindu India’ and ‘Muslim Pakistan’. This Pan-Islamism was used to turn the country into an ideological state as well as became a cornerstone of our foreign policy.

From the beginning, the threat of India was built up and Muslim League-supported newspapers wrote editorials calling for “guns rather than butter” and a “bigger and better-equipped army” to defend the “sacred soil” of Pakistan.

Not only were the tribesmen sent into the disputed territory of Kashmir in 1948, religious scholars were made to issue fatwas that the tribesmen and the militarymen assisting them were waging jihad and were called mujahideen.

It was in this backdrop that Pakistan allowed itself to become a client state of the United States — a bulwark against Communism — to ascertain Pakistan’s integrity which meant it was militarily well-equipped against India.

Apparently Jinnah, too, was conscious of Pakistan’s strategic advantage and preempted the strategic depth doctrine when he said in an interview soon after partition with Margaret Bourke White: “America needs Pakistan more than Pakistan needs America…Pakistan is the pivot of the world, as we are placed… [on] the frontier on which the future position of the world revolves.”

Despite its alliance with the US, the military continued to build itself along ideological foundations of Islam.

But these developments affected the polity of the new state in other ways. In Ayesha Jalal’s words, “If defence against India provided added impetus for the consolidation of state authority in Pakistan, paradoxically enough, it also served to distort the balance of relations between the newly formed center and the provinces… So in Pakistan’s case defence against India was in part a defence against internal threats to central authority. This is why a preoccupation with affording the defence establishment — not unusual for a newly created state — assumed obsessive dimensions in the first few years of Pakistan’s existence.”

The primacy of military continued beyond the early years as Islam and hostility to India became the cornerstones of the country’s ideology as well as its foreign policy. The national discourse was conspicuously silent about democracy and secularism; strange things started happening. The commander in chief Ayub Khan was made the defence minister who remained the only constant factor in the rickety politics between 1951 and 1958. Martial law was imposed on the country and, in October 1958, Ayub Khan became the president of the country for the next ten years.

Our own

civil-military

disconnect

The ‘foreign policy elite’ in the Jinnah Institute report appears especially sensitive to the civil-military disconnect in the US administration. It ought to be. Once the ideological foundations of the state were spelled out and the security establishment had assumed charge of things, it was considered a given that the defence needs alone would shape the foreign policy of the country. This was too sensitive an area to be left to the civilians.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, as Ayub Khan’s foreign minister and later as prime minister of the country, tried to exert control over the foreign policy and showed some autonomy. Many believe he was duly punished for this sin alone. Gen Ziaul Haq’s hand-picked Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo was ousted for meddling unnecessarily in the Afghan solution, by sidelining the military. In 1988, after another eleven-year bout of military rule, ZAB’s daughter Benazir Bhutto won an election but agreed to cede powers of defence and foreign affairs to the military establishment before she assumed office as prime minister. The case of Shah Mahmood Qureshi is recent history and he does not even lie about his allegiance.

There is much talk about men from the security establishment controlling the Afghan Desk at the Foreign Office but the influence goes way beyond this.

The way forward

This is the history of Pakistan’s foreign policy in a nutshell. Everyone knows the way forward is anything but this. It lies in trade and economic interests and not in the way we articulate our foreign policy objectives on the streets and banners. The political forces have always known this. Suhrawardy knew it as well as Mian Nawaz Sharif. But they run the risk of being declared security risks. Every Vajpayee visit is followed by a Kargil. Every no-first strike offered is met with a Mumbai. Every MFN status is followed up with protests by religious extremists on the streets.

It is time for Pakistan to reformulate its foreign policy but as a first step the leadership must rest with the political forces. An independent foreign office that caters to the defence needs but is not held hostage by them is what shows the way forward.

 

America, for this decade and beyond
The US interests in the region - beyond 2014 and twenty years hence
By Adnan Rehmat

Is it a coincidence that there is a link between having a strong strategic foothold in a region that is in geographical contiguity with some of your biggest political, military and ideological rivals and having an opportunity to unfold a strategy to both influence the outcome of the next 25 years, if not more, in the region and to also be in a better position to neutralise the threats to you?

If this seems unlikely or, maybe, academic, consider: we’re talking about the world’s most powerful military and political machine in human history, the United States. We’re talking about it being entrenched in the unlikeliest of places for the past 10 years: Afghanistan. And, surrounding which are China, Russia and Iran. The first is an economic rival (and difficult to outcompete because of the critical mass is too big and the margin of dominance ever shrinking), the second a military and political competitor (and looking to re-assert itself on world stage through a creeping military build-up) and the third an ideological foe (one that probably has nightmare and unpredictability quotient only second to North Korea). 

Strategic foothold

The strategic foothold refers to a formal and formidable American military presence in the region since 2001 when it came chasing al-Qaeda post-9/11 where the latter had become entrenched by bankrolling the Taliban regime.

While the US has had a central role in the 1980s’ victorious battle against the Soviet Union (and, therefore, a mortal blow to Communism after a seven-decade crusade) in Afghanistan, it never had a military presence in the region back then as it was considered strategically too risky.

The rentier state of Pakistan and its for-hire military was a bargain price for the human history’s biggest martial operation. Not that the US would not have given a trillion dollars to be in that position.

And yet that’s exactly what happened — the quake that was 9/11 provided an opening for the US that not only put it smack in the middle of where it could fight its latest enemy but also do a soft battle against its old ones. And, what seemed an impossibility right up to 9/11, has now already put the distance of a decade behind it, which is an interesting time to review how it has been all this while and how it looks in the decade ahead and beyond. 

Safe again

First, what the US had set out to do and what it has been able to achieve. The stated objective was to make the American homeland safe from al-Qaeda by wiping it out and to develop Afghanistan in a way that brings political stability to the region in a way that could help Washington set itself up for the long strategic haul. As far as this goes, it has all but achieved this. Mainland America is as safe now as it has been since the unforgettable fire that ate away America’s sense of invincibility in September of 2011.

Al-Qaeda may not be gone and may still have some surprises up its unraveling sleeve but with its iconic leader eliminated in a breathtakingly clinical operation and many of his organisation’s top leaders killed or captured it seems unlikely there could be a repeat of 9/11 in the foreseeable future.

As for stability in Afghanistan, the results are mixed. Al-Qaeda may have been mortally bruised in the country and are unlikely to ever find the room they had to take on America overtly, the Taliban have made a nuisance of a comeback as a player that cannot be ignored and has to be factored in if Afghanistan is to be stabilised. This is not entirely unacceptable for the US — they can live with an irritable but manageable Taliban even sharing some power in the political dispensation in Kabul. They had an issue with al-Qaeda, which had designs against the US, not with the Taliban, who have never given it grief outside Afghanistan – not then, not now.

The real problem is the failure to build the capacity of Kabul fast enough and strong enough to enable it to reasonably govern the harsh experience that is a multi-national, multi-ethnic and multi-linguist Afghanistan on a sustainable basis. Afghanistan is nowhere near offering a guarantee it will not unravel once the internationals pull out. 

Planned,

not incidental

However, Afghanistan is neither on the verge of collapse nor fragile enough after all this while to give up on it and let it implode under the pain of its cursed existence. There is a multi-ethnic government where former bloody foes coexist, even if a tad uneasily and there is a growing middle class that’s developing a stake in a relatively functioning state.

The enhancement of law enforcement capacity has been a work in progress and local soldiers and policemen are gearing to start taking over from their trainers and mentors in the coming months in the run-up to the exit of foreign forces, including American. This is a planned not incidental development and is designed to be a translation into action of a policy that serves as a landmark in the transition to what America plans next for itself in the region.

Which brings us to what really is next for the US and for the region at large? In the short to medium term it is bringing into effect the proverbial paradigm shift of the American idea and need of Afghanistan for this decade and beyond.

Whereas the last decade for America in Afghanistan was all about setting up military bases and entrenching its hard power that could be projected in the strategic region, this decade it will be about fashioning a political powerhouse of itself from this position of strength.

The pullout in military terms may be largely complete by 2014 for America from Afghanistan, as is well enough articulated and reminded on a regular basis, but by then simultaneously there will be a rapid building up of a political profile and assertion of a powerhouse diplomatic role.

This transition from a hard power to soft power may not be as well articulated but the contours of an active diplomatic profile will start becoming more pronounced now that the Bonn conference has outlined a long-term roadmap for Afghanistan. 

Iran, China & Russia

This planned transition of the role for itself that America has chosen has its compulsion as much in its strategic goals in the region as the domestic dynamics in the US.

In the region itself the priority for the US is replacing its overt military muscle in the shape of 90,000 troops with out-of-sight but understated potent military bases (manned by 10,000 troops) that will have a life of at least 15 years and preferably 25. This is, coupled with the enhancement of a development effort with partners from Bonn to stabilise Afghanistan politically and economically — now that al-Qaeda has been tackled — to contain Iran’s nuclear and regional political ambitions and restricting China’s strategic influence and eastward outreach to Central Asia in search of lucrative energy and trade opportunities.

And, of course, staking a firm claim (backed by the requisite critical mass of military and political power out of its seat in Afghanistan) in the exploitation of the region’s oil and gas resources to the detriment of China and Russia.

The not-so-small trouble in the American plans in the region is a prickly Pakistan. Because the best bets for America to succeed in its plans are strategic partnerships with Northern Alliance (Tajiks and Uzbeks) and India, Islamabad is at fierce odds with Washington. American trickery lies in attempting to simultaneously bribe and browbeat Pakistan into accepting enhanced and medium to long term roles for Northern Alliance and India that are at odds with Pakistani security establishment’s sense of entitlement for a larger than life role of its own in Afghanistan.

Pakistan feels slighted that after it actively and at a great cost in lives and finances of its own helped the US get rid of al-Qaeda in expectation of a big say in the future of Afghanistan, which includes at least greatly minimising, if not eliminating altogether, any sizable and medium to long term roles for Northern Alliance and India, it finds that the US has designs that are in direct contrast to its own. 

Prickly Pakistan

This is no small hitch for the US. The Pakistan military establishment has been America’s military partner for far too long to not know how to play hard to get. While it knows when to fall in line (General Zia agreeing to jump into America’s fight with the Soviets and General Musharraf agreeing to do the same for America in its attack of Afghanistan), the establishment in Pakistan can be alarmingly opportunistic when it smells a margin to flaunt it’s nuisance value.

Its favourite maneuver is to whip out its gun and put the gun not to your head but its own and threaten to kill itself if not heeded. The corollary: if I die, you won’t be able to afford my nuclear weapons falling into the hands of people less savoury than me…

To counter Pakistan’s insanely dangerous behaviour, the US has spent a good deal of the last five years working on cementing its strategic partnership with India and silently giving it a greater role behind the scenes in Afghanistan. This, of course, is not Pakistan-specific.

A stronger, eventually higher-profile India in Afghanistan helps America counter both China’s ambitions in the region and Pakistan’s obsessively inflated sense of destiny in Afghanistan.

The other American compulsion in the region stems from its domestic pressures. The first is the electoral timeline that demands a significant military pullout from Afghanistan to pacify increasing economic hardship caused by the record long duration and super expensive wars in Iraq (from where final military withdrawal completes only this month) and Afghanistan. This will be a decisive factor in next fall’s presidential election.

The second is the rise of the Republic Party that has put pressure on the Democratic government for results, which has forced President Barack Obama to dramatically escalate drone attacks and surgical strikes that eventually has delivered results. This has blurred the lines in the last few years between the two mainstream American parties when it comes to the thirst for economic renewal and reclamation of glory reflected in military victory overseas.

This has resulted in the outcomes in Afghanistan becoming central to America’s domestic battles of political ideologies. 

The ‘E’ word

And last but not the least, the ‘E’ word: energy. The reserves in Central Asia can fuel America’s monstrous appetite for energy for over 60 years at even current consumption rates if it were, theoretically speaking, the only country to benefit from them. This is too big an incentive to risk indifference. Being in the region and influencing geopolitics makes not only good economic sense for an America hungry to recoup its $3 trillion war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, it also helps prevent China devouring energy from the region and growing more powerful both economically and militarily at its cost.

This “hydrocarbon politics” also helps blunt Russian attempts at putting life back into its dreams for political and military resurgence as represented by Putin’s plans.

Propping a powerful democracy with an equally aligned military power in the shape of India — which shares America’s suspicions about China and Russia — and Washington has all the right moves and means to not just stay in the region but to dominate it.

Small fries like Pakistan with its misplaced sense of nuisance in the region and wasting time punching above its weight as well as its sad penchant of transforming opportunities into disasters, can be ignored in the long run. In the short to medium term, America can comfortably cut Pakistan to size with India’s pincer partnership. Because its nuclear weapons cannot really be used against either America or India — for it would invite a more than matching response (or else why does Islamabad use militant groups in India and Afghanistan) — the US is here to stay put in the region.

 

 

 

 

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