More Military Aid to Pakistan? Think Again...

Thursday's edition of the New York Times had a cliched beltway piece by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker espousing a Pentagon plea that it's seeking three "new" billion dollars in military aid to Pakistan and must bypass the State Department in doing so. "Military supporters of the program said it offered a speedier alternative to the traditional military assistance process overseen by the State Department" says the Times. "Speedier"? Nothing that takes place in Pakistan is terribly speedy. At least nothing beneficial that is. Pakistan needs well thought out, nuanced solutions that will benefit the country in the very long term in order for it to maintain itself with a modicum of integrity into the twenty-first century. As an avid Pakistan watcher, I can tell readers that the very last thing Pakistan needs is the promise of further military aid from the United States and the unwitting American taxpayer. What Pakistan does need, however, are billions in emergency aid for schools and an aggressive rural literacy program. Northwest Pakistan needs up to date hospitals and proper asphalt roads. It is much sexier to sell Congress on injecting useless billions to bolster a feeble, incapable military that has lost every war it has ever fought than, say, printing millions of Pashtu language school books and training an army of Pashtun teachers. As opposed rearming the peasantry. which is essentially what the Frontier Corps is, the Americans must focus on investing in the human infrastructure of the region if the clash of ideals is ever to be reconciled.

The United States must stop looking at the short term, as insurgencies are not a short term problem. Insurgent movements stem from lack of opportunity among their foot soldiers, vast civil inequality, boredom and outright political and ethnic oppression by the state. The Northwest Frontier and the jihadi hamlets of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) existed for ages in isolation from the mainstream economy of the rest of "settled" Pakistan. The various FATA guerrilla movements will not be defeated by more accurate drone attacks and handing Pakistani soldiers night vision goggles. They would be defeated by a radical increase in literacy and finally coming to a regional settlement with Kabul over nagging territorial and cross border issues and lastly, addressing the aspirations of broader Pashtun nationalism. These are issues Washington does not seem to know how to deal with and Islamabad and Kabul will keep on the back burner for the foreseeable future until their hand is forced by the international community. FATA is not simply Anbar in the mountains. The issues go (at the very least) as far back as the age of the Afghan kings and the British Raj. The Anbar insurgency was a direct result of American war fighting strategy. Pakistan's Tribal belt has been the seat of ethnic and religious tension in that region for much of modern history. Inter tribal blood feuds and the deadly Sunni-Shia schism have little to do with the legacy of the Soviet war or the American intervention and troop build up (though they have since been exacerbated by it). FATA is, and always has been, a threat to Pakistan's already weak territorial integrity since Partition. Letting the Tribal Areas fester and fend for themselves has been part of Pakistani government doctrine for decades in order to avoid the question of Pashtun statehood.

The solution lay not in giving the enfeebled Frontier Corps newer small arms, but, short of creating a viable political settlement along the Durand Line with the Afghans, in providing education and healthcare in dangerous and remote areas. A civil society approach is needed which would undoubtedly cost the lives of civil servants, NGO workers and other perceived "collaborators" whom the Taliban and their imitators will certainly harm in the short term as the soft targets they are.

It seems as though little has changed in Washington's outlook since the Johnson administration. More money for war? You bet! Simply distributing more weapons to a faltering institution like the Pakistani Army is an irrelevant strategy that failed in the Indochina of yesterday and will not work in South and Central Islamic Asia today. The battle against nihilistic Islamism in Pakistan cannot be fought with conventional weapons. A war of ideas, which is what is actually being waged inside Pakistan today, can only be outgunned by partnering with the indigenous civil society in that country who so desperately seek to be heard. America does have genuine partners in Pakistan, just not those in uniform.

Comments

[Ranger05]

Obviously the article is filled with some good ideas, however many of the points that are made in the article are not necessarily true.

- Pakistan and India in the 60's
- Pakistan and the Soviet Union in the 80's

The lessons that should be learned from the 60+ years of counterinsurgency operations shows that you cannot defeat a counterinsurgency with bullets alone. A medium must be reached between tactical and societal success. Improving the infastructure and the government must be on the forefront of policies to become successful in a insurgency.

[DoesItMatter]

The West, and in particular UK and USA needs to get its mindset that playing the Great Game will bite them one day. When that happens, probably there is a chance for peace. Meanwhile, we need to give peace a chance in the region by breaking up Pakistan.

[Khadijah Khan]

Bravo!! Are we the only two people in the world that can see what Pakistan needs to survive and rise above the political maheim and taliban takeover ruling the people of pakistan?

The answer is as simple as feeding your people, educating your people, caring for the medical needs of your people. Create opportunity for your people, give them hope and a future to look forward to. The people of Pakistan want the same as you and I.

The Pakistan poor can see only one way out at this point, which in some instances requires one family members life for a meal or basic shelter or even less for their family. If any one of them is offered the least bit, so that their family is sheltered and feed, they are so hopeless and tired of suffering, it is easy to see how they could become brainwashed and give their own precious lives for those they love, to those that hate.

I have seen first hand, the hunger in a small childs eyes and the hopelessness of a mother to find food for her child. I could go on and on. Point being, the answer is not, more money for the military, but more humanity for the innocent, the hungry, the helpless, more money for the People of Pakistan. Give them hope and the people of Pakistan will prevail.
Allahu Akbar!!!

[Derek Flood - Huffpost Blogger]

Shukria Khadija! You and I are in agreement on what Pakistan really needs. Policy makers in Washington and New York (as well as Europe though they don't like to admit it) need to be in touch with local intellectuals to help create new policy alongside Pakistan's real leaders, the disenfranchised urban educated class who are the only ones who can truly help move the country move forward beyond terrorism. If Pakistan is to finally move into the 21st century, intellectual Americans and Pakistanis need to work alongside one another. Bismilliah!

[mommadona]

Explain something to me.

Why is it always in our dime?

These civilizations have been plodding along quite nicely, in their particular way -

What's up with the hand outs-like candy-from the Uncle Sam?

Who benefits?
Who asks for it?
What do they ask for it?
What do we provide for it?

Time to unravel the web

http://mapper.nndb.com/start/

[Derek Flood - Huffpost Blogger]

It is on our dime because America has become a global economic (until very recently) and military hegemon whose tax dollars undergird a global empire of bases that the working people of the United States are obligated to support. The era of early 20th century isolationism is unrecoverable. Everything is connected whether we, as the collective tax payer, like it or not.