Providing bases is a shortsighted and ultimately doomed strategy to CT, unless the actual goal is to keep Pakistan and Afghanistan in a constant state of instability. A better approach is one that creates stability in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship, similar to the GCC-West.
Any bases given will primarily be drone bases, and the whole world saw how in the aftermath of the attack that killed so many marines at Kabul airport last august, led to a drone strike that was supposedly based on intelligence but killed an aid worker and so many children. That one episode encapsulated the entire drone campaign in one event. And we have to remember that was when US forces were still in Afghanistan and still couldn’t positively ID the target, who’s to say an over the horizon effort based out of Shamsi will do any better?
To Quote the former station chief of Islamabad that oversaw US CT ops in Pakistan; John Kiriakou: (17:37) “The Drone program is an act of terrorism”
The US can walk away if they mistakenly kill innocents but Pakistan will face the blowback and the will endure years of instability, burdening the nation in a pointless quagmire and drawing attention away from economic growth as India gets built up the west to counter China, to the detriment of the strategic balance between India and Pakistan.
A better option, in my opinion is to build up the CT capabilities (helicopters, MRAPs, etc) of Pakistan (so Pakistan can better enforce the writ of the state within its border), help deal with Afghan and Iranian borders (seal them against the movement of miscreants), and create the kind of economic incentives to support Pakistan and Afghanistan to keep rogue actors in check by putting the potentially recruitable young men to work on projects that will economically benefit Pakistan and western companies like mining projects, security for pipelines, etc.
Failure to come up with a carrot and stick approach towards the Afghans and going for an all stick approach will just drive them fully in to the arms of the Chinese, with whom they already have a contract to mine some of the minerals. Why not try to get contracts to mine the rest, instead of ceding all the opportunities to the Chinese.
Btw, if their are joint ops between Pakistan and the US; this is the history of how they would really go down, as told by the guy that managed them:
(In another video he basically calls Pakistan and awful country, so what he’s saying not from a place of love for Pakistan)
To put it another way for an American audience to understand, roughing up or killing some African-Americans because they are suspected to be doing arms smuggling, only to later find out they had nothing to do with it is counter productive and will lead to a backlash. Working with the community is a better approach, while employing officers who know the neighborhoods and hopefully live in them is a better approach.
ABSOLUTELY NOT to Bases; they are not in the best long term interest of Pakistan
and the US.
