A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

[muse]

DS


Propsitions such as the one we are discussing are evaluated on the criteria of right/wrong, good/bad, experience/ideolgy

and NOT whether one has stars or stripes on their flag location or the Hilal.

keep this in mind, ideology will always lose when not confirmed by experience.

AM

Simply asserting that CM is right, is creating FACT by assertion -- if the aid is "peanuts" reject it -- If the fight is Pakistan's why take money from others??

Money, aid, military supplies - these are not the problem -- the problem is Will, the will to prevail over Islamist terrorists - the rivalry with India, which is what Afghanistan is about, cannot have a positive outocme for Pakistan, unless Pakistani leadership and particularly the Pakistani public takes a clear stand against islamist terror in Pakistan; this will be consequential elsewhere, as well.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

A.M.,

No. It is contingent. If you're smart, you'll do the right thing and actually may be better for it too. That will ensure still more aid but my government cannot commit to your's carte blanche. It's not been earned.

You've got a $7.5B commitment and likely all the help we can muster for you over the next five years from the IMF, World Band, and our allies. That will have to do and is more than you might deserve.

S-2,

It is not the 'quantity' I am complaining about, it is the 'quality'. If the ROZ's can be set up for 15 years (assuming they stick with that timeframe) then why not fifty? Its not direct aid or military assistance, it will always be a reversible decision in the hands of the US legislature and POTUS, but a longer timeframe sends the message that the US is serious in building a lasting sustainable relationship.

Another would have been to announce support for negotiations leading to a FTA or PTA with Pakistan, which even the EU has made noises about.

Obama's message to your military should be clear. It is to me. We are going to do everything we can to lift this leverage. We must prepare for the possibility that you'll pour gas on yourselves and light a match. As such, we've got to be able to sustain our efforts in Afghanistan without counting upon you at all. We also must be prepared to cease aid to an enemy of our efforts. That would be silly if we decide that you can't be moved west but can continue support for our enemies within your lands.

1.5 billion is decent money, but its not leverage on the Pak Mil.

Leverage on the military will only come through expanded military cooperation and provision of resources, even if COIN centric. I mean really, surely you are familiar enough with history to realize that the US had far more leverage with the sanctions it threatened (and which were eventually applied) to prevent the Pakistani Nuclear Tests.

Without catering to Pakistani concerns over leaving their Eastern flank open (either through continued focus on the FC capacity building program and the FC transforming into the primary COIN force, freeing up the PA, or through whatever diplomacy that can be mustered with the Indians), you have no leverage to significantly affect Pak Mil decisions, IMO.

To that end, we are building BIG bases in Afghanistan. I tried to tell you but you're not listening.

I don't really care how many bases you are building in Afghanistan - it has little to do with building a sustainable relationship with Pakistan - its you whose not listening to the point I'm making.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

AM

Simply asserting that CM is right, is creating FACT by assertion -- if the aid is "peanuts" reject it -- If the fight is Pakistan's why take money from others??

Please read my post again, I was pretty clear in supporting one section of BCM's argument, which is not the one you referred to above. Nor did I create fact by assertion, since the aspect of his post I addressed and considered correct, I subsequently justified.

Money, aid, military supplies - these are not the problem -- the problem is Will, the will to prevail over Islamist terrorists - the rivalry with India, which is what Afghanistan is about, cannot have a positive outocme for Pakistan, unless Pakistani leadership and particularly the Pakistani public takes a clear stand against islamist terror in Pakistan; this will be consequential elsewhere, as well.

The Pakistani public can take a clear stance against terror, but this isn't a bad Hindi movie where the 'crowd' takes to its feet and walks through town rounding and killing all the bad guys who suddenly start cowering in fear.

Victory will not arrive without a proper application of military force, and to that end I am not concerned with what you think 'ought to be' the case, but with the reality of a belligerent India on the East, and a significant deployment in the West without guarantees against Indian aggression.

That is the fundamental question still - if the FC is not to be the primary COIN force, then what change in the environment can be brought about to address Pakistani concerns about India and deploy the PA in the West?

 

[S-2]

"Kudos to you for realizing after one post that dissembling and distorting the actual implications of US policy towards Pakistan was not going to get very far."

Then you should have given the yank a "thank you". I'm ALWAYS swimming upstream at this place.

Ungrateful barstard.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

"Kudos to you for realizing after one post that dissembling and distorting the actual implications of US policy towards Pakistan was not going to get very far."

Then you should have given the yank a "thank you". I'm ALWAYS swimming upstream at this place.

Ungrateful barstard.

:

Unfortunately, you ruined it by waiting a whole page worth of posts before answering that jibe.

 

[muse]

The Pakistani public can take a clear stance against terror, but this isn't a bad Hindi movie where the 'crowd' takes to its feet and walks through town rounding and killing all the bad guys who suddenly start cowering in fear

Tsk, tsk - temper, temper -- Less than a wek ago the pakistani nation took to the streets, in support of a chief justice who reneged on a sworn oath - it was hailed as a great "democratic" spectacle -- now you comare it to a hindi movie, a bad one at that?? tsk, tsk, tsk.

All along Pakistan's problem has been compounded by by arguing and pointing the finger at the Indian - no doubt the indian is using these events to it's advantage --- but who other than Pakistanis is enabling them to accrue advantages, who but pakistanis is allowing the indan to have leverage by refusing to dela with the internal problem?? Bad hindi filmi dialogue?

 

[Tang0]

Contrary to what some people in Europe would like to believe, the US is the world's oldest existing democracy. As such, there is some accumulated knowledge about how to deal with the public.

In the US, policy is sold to the public in much the same fashion that Johnson and Johnson sells soap, or Apple sells computers and Ipods. The seller attempts to create in the mind of the consumer a fuzzy, non-exact, notion of the policy. This policy is "Smarter", "Cleaner", "Newer", and just dang-old "Better" than all those "Old" policies that you've been complaining about all of these years.

How precisely do you do this? Well, first off, you have to have a good front man. To Apple, that is some hip and youngish woman of indeterminate racial heritage in tight jeans and a trendy top... I'll leave the policy equivalent unsaid. Next, we need a theme or a catchphrase. Here is where the corporate model diverges from the political one. The policy maker needs to at least pretend that what he is selling makes good sense, pretend that he is actually marketing to the fore brain of the consumer. Apple just has the front man (Or actually, usually woman) dance around with an I-Pod for awhile. Unfortunately, seeing the President dance around while carrying a 300 page proposal just doesn't have quite the same effect...

So instead, he or she uses what are called "Buzzwords". These words might have actual meaning, but politicians have gloamed onto them because the meaning is almost universally positive. "Long-Term" and "Commitment" are words that are just meant to go together. Adds a sense that things are really going to be solved once in for all, a feeling of permanence so often lacking in the US's buy and throw away/divorce culture.

Now, the real problem, and the real solutions, are almost invariably horribly complicated and just don't fit well into 30 second to 1 minute sound bites. This is a problem, as that is invariably what the politician says gets boiled down to on the evening news, or even in the print media. So, if a politician packs their speech with meaningless "Buzzwords", they can hope against hope that the news media will pick a sound bite containing just the right combination of buzzwords so as to associate the policy with that "Warm fuzzy feeling" that is so important to assuring popular support.

So to address the concerns of AM and others, there is no "Long Term Relationship" in the works whatsoever. It is drivel. S-2 is pretty much on the mark, what is in the works is continued conditional funding to the PA. That is the beauty of the new administration, they continue all of the policies of the old one, but cloak it in a feeling of "Newness" and "Hope" that garners public support so well.

Say hello to more than 220 years of social engineering and market capitalism advertising. Its a bit like pilots meeting the robots they know will one day replace them...

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Tsk, tsk - temper, temper -- Less than a wek ago the pakistani nation took to the streets, in support of a chief justice who reneged on a sworn oath - it was hailed as a great "democratic" spectacle -- now you comare it to a hindi movie, a bad one at that?? tsk, tsk, tsk.

What, I can't use a bit of bad humor now without you turning into a schoolmarm going 'tsk, tsk' all over the place?

But seriously, comparing the dynamics of the lawyers movement and the resulting capitulation by Zardari due to a variety of factors with terrorist groups suddenly seeing reason (instead of targets) as a 'long march' takes place, is a flawed exercise.

All along Pakistan's problem has been compounded by by arguing and pointing the finger at the Indian - no doubt the indian is using these events to it's advantage --- but who other than Pakistanis is enabling them to accrue advantages, who but pakistanis is allowing the indan to have leverage by refusing to dela with the internal problem?? Bad hindi filmi dialogue?

Again, more 'ought to be this, ought to be that'. I also 'wish' that the Indians had not been so perfidious as to renege on their Kashmir commitments, or destabilize and break apart East Pakistan (with some assistance from us of course) or invade Siachen. But just because I 'feel' they 'ought not' have done that does not change reality - the reality of a belligerent and hostile nation on our Eastern flank, and my earlier questions remain unanswered.

 

[S-2]

No. It is you.

We ARE making a regional commitment. It positively includes Afghanistan and will be expanded as able to the CAR.

Most of all, watch Afghanistan's west.

The region may shift more than you think. With an ally becoming an enemy we may look to the possibility of an enemy becoming an ally.

We must stabilize Afghanistan. If that's required in spite of you, then we'll have to deal with that down the road while letting $1.5B x 5 years plus all else work...or not as the case may be.

Sorry. I think that you're asking the wrong administration at the wrong time for the wrong assurances. My guess is that you still don't see the stick that's coming your way.

To borrow a phrase from Ray Bradbury- "Something wicked this way comes."

The roadmap to hell is censure, aid with-holding, economic embargo, and, finally war. How far away and how deeply into that imbroglio we venture together remains to be seen but my guess is that there are plenty in Congress who will hold this administration's feet to the fire if they sense an inexplicable laggardness in your military.

The plan's caveats have been presumably discussed with ALL parties concerned so they too act as watchdogs over this process and have their own aid considerations to take into view. Notable there would be E.U. plans and those separately made by Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Scandinavians WRT Pakistan.

Russia has a role here to play and also have been consulted so I'm presuming that these decisions have been reached with the clear understanding and input of others. We'll know more there in the next two weeks as the big tent and SCO meetings go down and others announce their plans.

No doubt you'll retort how you've been backed into a corner by this plan and wild horses won't move you west nor abandon your proxies.

Then we'll enter this poorly and go south from there and all our contingency planning will bear themselves out. Muse nailed it but then I think I nailed the same point long ago.

You've an army for the task of defending your nation against ALL comers-not just the Indians. If your war then you've an army paid for to fight said war. If not your war and our aid inadequate to suit your demands, reject it.

Either way, you won't get more and complaining to S-2 ain't gonna move matters along. Love for you guys to roll up your sleeves and get it on with each other.

I'm not your enemy...yet. Plenty of those that are right here right now though. They get a ton of slack here. No surprise. They get a ton of slack everywhere in your nation.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

With an ally becoming an enemy we may look to the possibility of an enemy becoming an ally.

Really quick, before I shoot off to bed, we were discussing that possibility over a year ago. Its not a new dynamic to consider in Pakistani circles.

The roadmap to hell is censure, aid with-holding, economic embargo, and, finally war.

The only issue of major concern in there would be the latter, having lived through the rest quite a bit already.

But on the latter it will be interesting to see how stabilizing Afghanistan is justified by turning Pakistan into a four times larger Afghanistan.

No doubt you'll retort how you've been backed into a corner by this plan and wild horses won't move you west nor abandon your proxies.

No, I am assuming that some sort of informal and unofficial understanding on Indian forces in the East will be arrived at.

Night for now.

 

[S-2]

"Its not a new dynamic to consider in informed Pakistani circles."

Well good. You read the pre-election tea-leaves correctly. If it wasn't a consideration of worth in the last administration, it's in play now regardless of what I think.

But my ilk haven't been helped by events in Pakistan so we're neutered here. How this plays out in the Persian gulf and the obvious ramifications to proliferation or a semi-permanent U.S. presence in Iraq and/or the G.C.C. is debatable but I see a nuke in exchange for an American security presence in the gulf and supplies to Afghanistan courtesy of India Express through Chabahar to A-stan.

 

[muse]

comparing the dynamics of the lawyers movement and the resulting capitulation by Zardari due to a variety of factors with terrorist groups suddenly seeing reason (instead of targets) as a 'long march' takes place, is a flawed exercise

You either misunderstood or misrepresent -- I have not suggested that the Islamist terrorist will be cowed or impressed by the mobilization of the Pakistani public, islamist terrorists could care less for public opinion -- However; the mobilization of the public against Islamist terror and Islamist ideology, will allow the necessary political space for the govt and her armed forces to act decisively.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Well good. You read the pre-election tea-leaves correctly. If it wasn't a consideration of worth in the last administration, it's in play now regardless of what I think.

But my ilk haven't been helped by events in Pakistan so we're neutered here. How this plays out in the Persian gulf and the obvious ramifications to proliferation or a semi-permanent U.S. presence in Iraq and/or the G.C.C. is debatable but I see a nuke in exchange for an American security presence in the gulf and supplies to Afghanistan courtesy of India Express through Chabahar to A-stan.

Using the transit route through Pakistan as a 'pressure point' on the US has not, AFAIK, received any serious consideration - whether the US considers itself vulnerable is its own issue.

Reducing this problem to one of finding an alternate supply route, as you seem to be implying, is rather simplistic and inaccurate IMO, as is the braggadocio about war.

In any case, with regards to my point earlier about diplomatic engagement to allow for the PA to deploy in the West:

Mr. Obama is dispatching Admiral Mullen and Mr. Holbrooke to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India next week to explain his new strategy to leaders there.

Chief among the aims of the two men will be to try to get Pakistani and Indian officials, in particular, to turn down the volume in their never-ending conflict, in the hopes that the Pakistani military can turn its attention to the fight against insurgents in border regions, and away from fighting India.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/us/politics/28prexy.html?hp

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

You've an army for the task of defending your nation against ALL comers-not just the Indians. If your war then you've an army paid for to fight said war. If not your war and our aid inadequate to suit your demands, reject it.

Either way, you won't get more and complaining to S-2 ain't gonna move matters along.

I thought I made it pretty clear where you can put that aid? If not, hope the preceding statement did.

No, what I have complained about is a lack of a substantive and sustainable relationship between the US and Pakistan or any move towards it. The ROZ,s, FTA etc. (that I am in favor of) are all based on market access, and offer only an opportunity to Pakistani and American businesses - whether they are bale to take advantage of that opportunity is up to them. But they offer an opportunity that suggests a long term relationship and commitment.

Dismiss this all you want, but many esteemed commentators such as Shuja Nawaz, Ahmed Rashid, Barnett Rubin etc. have argued that the primary reason the PA hedged its bets on the Taliban was because of a trust deficit with the US and a lack of confidence in the US becoming a long term partner of Pakistan. My arguments are based on their conclusions.

 

[S-2]

"Using the transit route through Pakistan as a 'pressure point' on the US has not, AFAIK, received any serious consideration - whether the US considers itself vulnerable is its own issue."

Yes, it considers itself vulnerable to both attacks and the tyranny of constrained logistics upon ops and size.

"Reducing this problem to one of finding an alternate supply route, as you seem to be implying, is rather simplistic and inaccurate IMO"

A.M., modestly, I'm not a simplistic nor inaccurate guy, IMO. It is a major constraint and the same would exist with Iran open and you shut. As I've indicated, that won't come without cost and I've yet to apprise myself of that particular calculus. We lack logistical flexibility and are determined, it appears, to get it.

There will be 825+ C-17 sorties monthly into Kandahar by August. 650+or by May or so. The strain on our C-17 fleet will be huge. Unlike the Canadians, we're not afforded a "time-out".

"...as is the braggadocio about war."

Not a very en vogue concept these days but very much still dominating the far end of the decision template. At this point I wouldn't be so openly dismissive. It has it's place in the order of things.