Af-Pak Blowback

Pakistan has one of the largest, most sophisticated militaries on the planet. Its army is as large as the U.S. Army. It's among the top 25 largest military spenders in the world. On top of the billions of dollars of weapons provided toPervez Musharraf's authoritarian regime, Washington is promising another $3 billion a year in military assistance over the next five years. And, to top it off, Islamabad has nuclear weapons.

None of that seems to help Pakistan prevail in its fight against the various Taliban factions in the country. Even with so much sophisticated military hardware at their disposal, half a million Pakistani soldiers can't seem to counter the determined efforts of...at most 15,000 Taliban fighters.

Is it sheer incompetence on the part of the Pakistani army? Or is the Taliban simply too determined and mountain-smart to be easily defeated?

Writing recently in The New York Review of Books, Ahmed Rashid points out that the Pakistani government didn't deal with the problem when it was manageable. The Taliban and associated religious militants were too useful for the Pakistani military in its larger fight against India. By the time the Pakistani government realized that the Taliban threatened the integrity of the country, the militants were well-entrenched.

As Shibil Siddiqi points out in a special Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) report, the Pakistani army can't be accused of incompetence when it comes to counter-insurgency. It has faced down insurgencies for the better part of Pakistan's existence. Rather, the Pakistani army's failure to suppress the Taliban goes to the heart of the country's identity.

"The Pakistani establishment has for decades been cynical in its use of political Islam as a tool of domestic and foreign policy," Siddiqi writes in Pakistan's Ideological Blowback. "It has lionized the struggles for a theocratic state embodied by the Taliban and other Islamic holy warriors in Afghanistan, Kashmir, and beyond. Thus, for many the Taliban's proclamations of being 'jihadis' or 'mujahideen' garb them in the cloak of popular Islamic legitimacy. Such a perception of legitimacy has been (and continues to be) fostered by the state itself." (You can also read a 60-Second Expert version of this report.)

The United States funded anti-communist extremists in Afghanistan against the Soviets back in the 1980s and has suffered the repercussions ever since. Pakistan has played a similar game, this time in order to counter India, its larger and stronger neighbor.

Now, with its misguided AfPak strategy, the United States is upping the ante considerably. By sending more troops to Afghanistan and continuing its drone attacks in Pakistan, the United States is preparing the ground for future blowback. According to the most recent poll, Pakistani public opinion has turned decisively against the Taliban. But over 80% of the public considers U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan "unjustified." Afghans of any means, meanwhile, are doing whatever they can to get out of the country.

The Obama administration has shouldered the burden of this "long war." This conflict will absorb as much or more money as the Cold War, wreak as much havoc, and ultimately cause as much blowback. Closing Guantánamo and pulling U.S. troops out of Iraqi cities doesn't alter the Bush-era framing of the war on terrorism or the Clinton-era upgrading of counter-insurgency doctrine. Obama has simply painted a smiley face on both of them. And the peace movement, still unsure of how to counter the policies of a popular president and one that it largely supported, is unprepared to oppose this multi-front, multi-year endeavor.

We supported the mujahideen against the Soviets and eventually suffered the September 11 attacks. Pakistan supported Islamic militancy against India and must now deal with the Taliban within its borders. We supported Obama to end the Bush revolution. And now it seems that AfPak will be our blowback.

Crossposted from Foreign Policy In Focus, where you can read the full post.

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Comments

[fbr79]

Sophisticated? Having modern weaponry does not equate to having a good Army. The strategy the Pakistani Army has been implementing against the Taliban is limited to entering any village or town with Talibani presence and razing it to the ground. I'm sure they are killing plenty of civilians (not being reported on he media), and we've all seen the reports of hundred of thousands of people being displaced.

[messy]

Great! Let's have Pakistan surrender, and then the Taliban can become the avant guard of the new caliphate/world government!!!!! The ladies would LUV that!!!!

[arvay]

Looks like the Pakistani army is opting for the Russia-in-Chechnya/Sri Lankan Tamil scorched earth strategy. The Russians and Sri Lankans have declared victory, but let's see what's happening five years from now.

I'm no military expert, but history seems to teach that these kinds of rebellions are extremely hard to eradicate -- at least without wiping out the population at large.

I just hope India and Pakistan can reach agreement on Kashmir, so tat situation doesn't inflame things.

[hiker61]

Blowback is right. We had better quickly rethink what we are getting into and trying to pull off. Just today the USMC brass is lamenting that the Helmand surge is missing a major component--Afghani soldiers. We simply don't have the manpower to try and pull off this pacification scheme no matter how good it sounds. The quantity and quality of Afghanis ready to step up and rise against the threat we articulate that they face is just not going to happen even if right now we are willing to invest billions of dollars, an indeterminate amount of years, and lives of our own troops.

[dru]

Please don't conflate all mujahadeen with Taliban or extremists. Some factions consisted of Afghans loyal to their King and country- some "Warlords" as they are popularly labeled and dismissed these days were Afghan Army Officers; they were (unfortunately) not the factions that the US supported as generously as some others. And don't forget that the Taliban were created by Pakistan, through whom the US stupidly funnelled most $ support; Pakistan's interest was in establishing its influence and pushing back at the disputed border, not in helping their neighbors free themselves of the Soviets. After September 11, the US could have gone after OBL and AQ with the help of the Afghans (Northern Alliance [even without Massoud, murdered for a reason on September 10] and others); without waging war on the people just to temporarily push the Taliban into Pakistan and ending up in the current mess. But that was never the point, was it?

[JoeSchmuk]

Surely you jest? After eight plus years in Afanistan, and no discernable results other than death, debt, and disgrace, you point the finger at Pakistan, which is now dealing with the overflow of faulty US foreign policy.

Foreign Policy In FOCUS?!?!? I think not Feffer.

[messy]

What faulty US foreign policy. The Pakistanis gave aide and comfort to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and permitted them to have safe haven. Look what that got them. It's entirely their fault.

[erpark]

Wow, I just spent the afternoon messing with the nuts on Yahoo buzz. I always feel like I need a shower afterwards but it is fun. I think my IQ also drops at least 20 points after I do this, but I will still try to post a comment here. I agree that our interests would be much better served in both Pakistan and Afghanistan with humanitarian efforts, building schools, hospitals etc. The problem we face in the region that the Soviets, British or Alexander didn't is the problem of nuclear weapons in Pakistan. The bottem line is the world cannot afford to have these in the wrong hands so we need to have a presence there. As far as I have heard there is no method of determining when a military mission will have succeeded so why not offer both to the people of Afghanistan? Work on building up their infrastructure with the protection of our military and the promise that Haliburton will not work on any of the projects.

[outnow]

The British made a mess of Pakistan and the Americans have followed. There are no good solutions now. Can 15,000 religious fanatics disrupt a country? Apparently so.

The cancer can be spread by misguided attempts to "cut it out."

A jihad was "fun" when we directed that force against the "godless communists." But jihadists are anarchists on steroids. We just cannot put that genie back into the bottle.

Throwing rocks at a wasps' nest is stupid. The jihadists must be co-opted. Reconstruct their countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan and let them settle their own problems. Using the Predator with Hellfire missiles will only exacerbate the problem.

Fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here ignore's the global reach of problems such as blowback. How about helping people over there with schools, hospitals, and roads with electricity for their homes and food to eat? Isn't that more of an incentive-based policy than just bombing religious fanatics. Like the mythical hydra, two heads will sprout when one is cut off. Martyrdom is what makes this system sustain itself. Quit trying to cut off the hydra's head and the genie can be safely returned to the bottle.

[RazeTemple]

oh wow.."cancer can be spread by misguided attempts to "cut it out."
That is a great analogy thank you! In fact your whole post was full of them and very well spoken.

[RazeTemple]

I think it's ridiculous how little I see people talk about what happened to Iran(@Basra, to name one) and the Iraqi kurds(@Halabja) in the iran-iraq war. What Sadaam did to his own people and to the iranians with chemical weapons and strategic mapping sat images provided by the US and Germany was far worse than what the mujahideen did to us on 9/11. Where's the blowback from that? Was it just not kosher to talk about because they were 'friendlies' and we were getting oil? We even let the USS Stark get bombed and our people on board to be incinerated by iraqi pilots' bombs and Reagan just turned it around and said it was Iran's fault - the 'bad guys'. WTF!?

Also, the Soviets went into Afghanistan full throttle guns blazin and lost over 14 thousand troops. Not to mention what happened to the british before that, or heck even as far back as Alexander the Great. Nobody wins there. We are shooting blindly into the mountains, and when it's not being done blindly, it's drones bombing the heck out of civilians and combatants alike, with no discrimination. I fear we will take HEAVY losses and much flack from the international community before this is even close to being over, so I totally agree with you.

thank you for the article, Mr. Feffer.