Tag Archives: AfPak

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Worst-case scenario for Pakistan

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Pakistan’s civil society is gradually being torn apart by radical extremism and sectarian violence and its powerful army seems incapable of stemming the rot. The daring attack by terrorists of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on the naval aviation base at Mehran, Karachi is the latest case in point. The hypothesis that Pakistan’s nuclear warheads may fall into Jihadi hands has once again gained currency.

Pakistan has been besieged by creeping Talibanization. Ground attack fighter aircraft, helicopter gunships and heavy artillery had to be used in 2007-08 to liberate the Swat Valley and Buner from the Sharia rule imposed by Maulana Fazlullah‘s militants. It took major military operations and large-scale army casualties to drive TTP extremists out of South Waziristan in 2009. Though TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone strike, the extremists simply moved into North Waziristan and still operate from there. The Army HQ at Rawalpindi and ISI headquarters in Lahore have been successfully attacked by the Taliban in league with al-Qaeda. Bomb blasts in Peshawar and elsewhere are a daily occurrence. Bahawalpur in south Punjab has become a hub for ideological indoctrination.

The Pakistan army and its rogue intelligence agency, the ISI, are having a tough time living up to their carefully cultivated hype as the self-appointed ‘defenders of the faith’ and the custodians of Pakistan’s ‘ideological frontiers’. The rank and file supports the Taliban cause and is unwilling to forgive the generals for allying with the U.S. in its war on terror. The troops are reluctant to operate against fellow Sunni Muslims. The Pushtuns, in particular, are unwilling to fight fellow Pushtuns. In 2007, an army company surrendered to the Taliban. Desertions are commonplace; cases of fratricide are often reported and many weapons have been lost to the Taliban. Apprehensions have been expressed about the radicalization of the officer cadre. Nearly six army divisions are employed in counter-insurgency operations in the Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and FATA areas but progress in eliminating the Taliban has been painfully slow.

Despite being in tight spot, the Pakistan army and ISI continue to make facetious distinctions between the good Taliban—’strategic’ assets for employment against India and in Afghanistan—and bad Taliban. Their support for the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed is undiminished. In Afghanistan they are running with the hares and hunting with the hounds and are still looking for strategic depth. If Pakistan has earned the dubious distinction of having become the epicentre of fundamentalist terrorism, it is because the army and ISI, driven by their hatred for India, have blundered so badly.

The worst case scenario for Pakistan over the next two to three years will be a Jihadi-led coup from within the army. Radicalized officers owing allegiance to the TTP variety of Taliban could come to power. The probability of this is low but the steady deterioration in the security situation and the army’s unwillingness and inability to fight the scourge of Talibanization means the possibility cannot be ruled out. In such a nightmarish scenario, with near civil war conditions prevailing, nuclear weapons may actually be used against U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and targets in India. This would mean a holocaust on the Indian subcontinent.

It is time the international community seriously considered neutralizing Pakistan’s nuclear warhead storage sites and the delivery systems. It would be in India’s interest to join such an initiative. India should be prepared to provide military assistance, including direct intervention. The U.S. must lead the international community in efforts to convince General Kayani that the only way forward is to launch determined counter-terrorism operations to weed out the TTP, LeT, JeM and other terrorist groups that have enjoyed state patronage. The consequences of not doing so are too horrendous to contemplate.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on India’s Policy towards its Neighbours

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rarely speaks his mind on the major issues of the day. However, on June 29, 2011, in his interaction with five editors from the print medium, he spoke at length on domestic issues as well as the geo-political scenario and relations with India’s neighbours. He noted with concern the deteriorating international economic environment and said India’s neighbourhood was a very uncertain one. He said, “India would have to swim through all this adversity and keep our heads high if we have to come through.”

credit: pmindia.nic.inThe Prime Minster said that the planned draw-down of U.S. and other NATO-ISAF troops scheduled to begin in July 2011, as approved by President Barack Obama recently, was not good for India. “It does hurt us. It could hurt us. No one knows what is going to happen in Afghanistan.” However, he did not spell out India’s options to deal with the emerging situation. He once again emphasised that India supported reconciliation in Afghanistan, “I (had) told the Afghan Parliament that the reconciliation should be Afghan-led. I think (President) Hamid Karzai and other politicians can work on that. You cannot carry the good-bad Taliban distinction much too far.”

Maintaining a cautious approach towards Pakistan, the Prime Minister repeated his earlier statement on visiting Pakistan. He had said that he would visit Islamabad only when he was convinced that there had been sufficient progress in the ongoing talks and there was a substantive agreement to be signed. He was not convinced that Pakistan had done enough to eliminate terrorism emanating from its soil but believed that “India should continue to talk and engage with Pakistan to solve outstanding issues”.

He expressed his satisfaction with the progress in relations with Bangladesh. “The Bangladesh Government has gone out of its way to help us in apprehending anti-India insurgent groups that were operating from Bangladesh for long. And, that is why we have been generous in dealing with Bangladesh. We are not a rich country, but we offered it a line of credit of $1 billion when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came here. We are now looking at ways and means of some further unilateral concessions. We are also looking at ways and means of finding a practical and pragmatic solution to the sharing of Teesta waters. I plan to go there myself…” However, he expressed his unhappiness about extremist forces in Bangladesh and said, “We must reckon that at least 25 per cent of the population of Bangladesh swears by the Jamiat-ul-Islami and they are very anti-Indian, and they are in the clutches, many times, of the ISI. So, the political landscape in Bangladesh can change at any time.” This became an embarrassing faux pas as his words were misinterpreted in Bangladesh to mean that 25 per cent of the population is anti-Indian.

The Prime Minister welcomed the defeat of the LTTE in Sri Lanka. He advised the Sri Lankan government to find an amicable solution to the Tamil problem that is acceptable to the Tamilian people. He said, “The Tamil problem does not disappear with the defeat of the LTTE. The Tamil population has legitimate grievances. They feel they are reduced to second-class citizens. And our emphasis has been to persuade the Sri Lankan government that we must move towards a new system of institutional reforms, where the Tamil people will have a feeling that they are equal citizens of Sri Lanka, and they can lead a life of dignity and self-respect.”

The Prime Minister did not express any views on the continuing political and constitutional stalemate in Nepal or on India’s relations with China and Myanmar. Overall, the Prime Minister’s pronouncements reiterated India’s known position on most issues regarding India’s relations with its neighbours and were marked by a renewed emphasis on continuity. Observers who were looking for some bold initiatives to resolve ongoing challenges would have been disappointed.

India-US Relations Blog

Is America Achieving The Improbable in Afghanistan, India & Pakistan?

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Recently I returned from a trip to India. The biggest story during my visit was the spectacular raid inside Pakistan to get Osama Bin Laden. It was pure shock and awe. There was an instantaneous burst of applause for America’s brilliant action.

Unfortunately, within a day or two, the sentiment changed. India, like Afghanistan, had always maintained that Pakistan provides sanctuary to terrorists and in many cases actively encourages, aids and provides material support to terrorists. This reality, Indians thought, was ignored by America either because of America’s self-interest or gullibility.

The discovery that Bin Laden was hiding in the open in a Pakistani military town confirmed to Indians that they were right and America was wrong for all these years. Indian society then compared the execution of Osama Bin Laden to the complete freedom provided within Pakistan to the terror-masters of the horrific 2008 Mumbai attack.

Indians have always accused America of a double standard for terrorists. This feeling morphed into certainty after the Bin Laden raid. Then came statements by American officials exonerating Pakistan’s Top Leadership and proclamations about how Pakistan was still America’s ally.

The insult and the injury cut very deep. The people I spoke to were quietly livid. I was stunned by the intensity of their feelings against what they see as America’s duplicitous dealings with Pakistan.

These were Lawyers, Doctors, Teachers and others in India’s middle class, the heart of India’s educated society. They understand the good about America. They understand the need for Indo-American partnership. But gone is their euphoria about the heady Bush days of Indo-US Strategic Partnership. Today, their anger and contempt towards America seemed unanimous. As one said simply, “this country (America) cannot be our friend”.

The India-Pakistan relationship has been a zero-sum game. So this sentiment within India should translate into a vote of confidence for America inside Pakistan. Right?

But the anger against America seems to be even more intense within Pakistan. From reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post, the rank and file of the Pakistani Army is “seething with anger” against America. Most Pakistanis seem convinced that America is trying to bring mayhem and terror to Pakistan to meet its own objectives in Afghanistan.

What about Afghanistan? America is pouring billions into Afghanistan every year to protect Afghans from the Taliban. This seems more and more like a waste of money and more importantly lives of young American soldiers.

credit: static.guim.co.ukThis week, the Taleban launched attacks in the northern cities of Herat and Taloqan. Also this week, about 200 Afghan militants crossed into northwestern Pakistan and engaged in a gun battle with Pakistani security forces. Rather than work even more closely with American forces, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan issued an ultimatum this week to American Forces and NATO to cease all strikes against Afghan homes. Why?

As Stratfor, the widely respected geo-strategy firm wrote this week “Opposition to the ISAF and the counterinsurgency-focused campaign across the country is on the rise among even anti-Taliban elements of the government and general population…… the trajectory of declining patience and tolerance of and increasingly virulent opposition to ISAF military operations across broader and broader swaths of Afghan society continue to worsen,…..”.

America is deeply involved in these three countries in different ways. American leadership would like to be a mediator between these countries and facilitate accommodation between them, if not peace. Unfortunately, America seems to be achieving just the opposite.

These are three societies at conflict with one another. When you are a friend or enemy of one society, you automatically are not an enemy or a friend of the other society. But today these vastly different societies have developed the same image of America.

If this isn’t an improbable achievement, I don’t know what is!

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Reconstructing Afghanistan’s natural balance

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Why India must try to bring the United States, Iran and Russia together over Afghanistan

Imagine Afghanistan without extra-regional powers like the United States, NATO and others. Its stability would depend on the stability of the balance of power between Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and India. The external actors would broadly fall into two camps, based on the degree of convergence of their interests: China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the red corner, and India, Iran and Russia in the blue. This was roughly the situation obtaining in Afghanistan in the second-half of the 1990s towards the end of which the red corner seized a dominant upper hand through the military success of Mullah Omar’s Taliban regime. After 9/11, the U.S. and NATO stepped in and disrupted the natural geopolitical dynamics of the region.

Once external powers withdraw Afghanistan the natural geopolitics will again kick into action: with the China-Saudi-Pakistan triad seeking dominance over the landlocked country against the interests of India, Iran and Russia. The United States has the power to set the future trajectory by choosing sides. The tragedy of the last decade is the sheer inability or unwillingness (complicity or incompetence?) of the United States to appreciate the intrinsic geopolitics of the region. It would have done much better for itself and for Afghanistan if it had recognised how the fundamental interests of the region’s powers were stacked up, and aligned itself accordingly.

The single most important reason for this, perhaps, was the dysfunctional relationship between Iran. There still is no love lost between Washington and Tehran. Worse, even as China consolidates its alliance with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the United States seeks to split India and Iran. For its part, India has shown no appetite for bringing about a rapprochement between the United States and Tehran.

This must change, and 2011 has opened a window for India, Iran and the United States to attempt to increase co-operation over Afghanistan. Writing in the Washington Post, a well-connected Saudi commentator has declared a US-Saudi split. The Pakistani establishment is checking how much support it will receive from China before deciding how much to part ways with the United States. Before the killing of Osama bin Laden upset the scoreboard, General Kayani and Prime Minister Gilani had asked Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, to cut his links with the United States. In the current circumstances China doesn’t have to do anything bold: it just needs to wait.

In contrast, even after Abbottabad, the United States remains wedded to a failed strategy of pretending that the Pakistani military establishment is its ally. This only strengthens the position of the China-Saudi-Pakistan triad, and weakens its own. New Delhi is unlikely to be persuaded that it enjoys a genuinely strategic relationship with the United States as long as the latter continues to scaffold Pakistan. Tehran has many reasons to be opposed to the United States. A good part of that is ideological. What gets less attention is the fact that the realists in Tehran have reason to be wary of the United States because they see Washington as the protector of both Israel and, more importantly, the Sunni bloc consisting of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. There are some differences between New Delhi and Tehran, but nothing that can’t be resolved if Washington were to change course. Russia enjoys good relations with both Iran and India, and is likely to prefer such a re-arrangement of relations.

If realism prevails in Washington, New Delhi and Tehran, their diplomats will be galvanised into working out how the three could co-operate, albeit in a limited context, over Afghanistan. It may be that nearly three decades of estrangement has left the tribal world of Washington policymaking with few advocates of making up with Iran. That’s why India has a role—it must muster up the imagination and diplomatic chutzpah to attempt this project.

It is frustrating to see resigned minds give up before even trying.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

General Petraeus, smell the coffee

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In an identity of opinion more typical of North Korea than of the US, “expert” opinion in the Beltway has been near-unanimous that the best (if not the only) way of tackling the Taliban-Al Qaeda (TAQ) menace is to outsource its solution to the Pakistan army. From 1980, when the (far more numerous and reliable) Pashtun nationalists were ignored in favor of arming and training religious extremists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, to the 2001 permission given to the Pakistan army to remove hundreds of Taliban-Al Qaeda commanders at Kunduz, the empirical evidence makes clear that the Pakistan army is at the core of not the solution but the problem of Wahabbi terror. However, “experts” continue to regale both policymakers as well as the public with fairy tales, such as that Chief of Army Staff (COAS) A P Kayani is a moderate. In fact, he comes from a Wahabbi background that is so hardline that the dress and behavior codes in the Kayani extended family are such as would win the approval of that icon of religious freedom, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Not merely was this disregarded, but Kayani was backed in his quest for an extension by the US, in the process completely neutering the civilian establishment in Pakistan.

pakusarmiesIn Afghanistan, NATO quickly abandoned the Northern Alliance, returning to the clasp of the Pakistan army, which guided the alliance in decisions as to which warlord to fund and which to go after. The problem was that the ISI made sure that the warlords showered with NATO largesse were TAQ supporters, while those targeted were usually Pashtuns who were opposed to the overlordship of the (Punjabi-dominated) Pakistan army. That the Taliban were enabled to recuperate and regroup from 2005 onwards is due in large part to the money that elements within them received from the U.S. taxpayer. As yet there has not been (at least in public) a post-mortem of the errors made by NATO in Afghanistan as a consequence of relying upon the ISI.

Should it take place, the careers of a small army of analysts, diplomats and policymakers in the U.S. would be at risk.

Smell the coffee, General Petraeus. Take a long, objective look at the experience of the U.S. in Afghanistan, beginning with the 1980s and going on to May 2, 2011. Check on the actual progress made, and compare this to what could have happened, had the Pakistan army genuinely cooperated with the U.S. in fighting the Taliban-Al Qaeda. In the 1980s, if the Soviet leadership had even a smidgen of cohones in their makeup, they would have lobbed a few bombs into those areas of Pakistan where religious extremists were being trained to go after them, thereby shutting off the tap. In the past, the U.S. used Pakistan to weaken the USSR. These days, a rising power – China – is backing the Pakistan army in ensuring that NATO continues to flounder in Afghanistan. Only a focus on Pakistan can cure Afghanistan of the extremist virus that is spreading throughout the land.

And this not merely by drone strikes, although these need to be multiplied. Some of the officers of the Pakistan army (both serving and retired) are far more deserving of international sanctions and prosecution than many now adorning such lists. Those within the Pakistan establishment who back the Archipelago of Terror across the globe need to be treated as what they are, enemies rather than partners.