Trump's Afghan Strategy: Will Pakistan Yield to US Pressure?

[Riaz Haq]

Announcing the new US strategy on Afghanistan this week, President Donald Trump singled out "valued partner" Pakistan for increased American pressure to act against "agents of chaos" such as the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network who attack American service members and officials. Trump said this "will have to change, and that will change immediately." He also sought India's help in Afghanistan while ignoring the increased Iranian and Russian involvement in helping the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan's Response to US Pressure:

Will Trump's pressure on Pakistan work? Will Pakistanis do the bidding of the new US administration? To answer this question, let us look at the following two quotes:

1.  "The Pakistani establishment, as we saw in 1998 with the nuclear test, does not view assistance -- even sizable assistance to their own entities -- as a trade-off for national security vis-a-vis India". US Ambassador Anne Patterson, September 23, 2009

2. “Pakistan knows it can outstare the West."  Pakistani Nuclear Scientist Pervez Hoodbhoy, May 15, 2011

Pakistan is much less reliant on US assistance now than it was when the above statements were made. If anything, the Trump administration has less leverage with Pakistan today than its predecessors did back in 1990s and 2000s.

Iran and Russia in Afghanistan:

While Trump is singling out Pakistan as the main culprit for US failures in Afghanistan, the ground reality has substantially changed with the emergence of ISIS and increased Iranian and Russian involvement in helping the Afghan Taliban. Both see the Afghan Taliban as allies in fighting their common enemy ISIS in Afghanistan.

Russia's Ambassador at large for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov has described the Afghan Taliban as a “predominantly a national military-political movement”. “It is local, Afghanistan-based. They believe that they should have, from their perspective, fair share in the government of Afghanistan…They should talk and deal in their local context”. But Daesh (ISIS) “as an international organization is really dangerous”. “If you recall, young Taliban under the influence of Al-Qaeda in 1994, their rhetoric was very similar to today’s Daesh rhetoric”.

Mr. Kabulov's comments reveal the following conclusions that underpin the Russian policy shift in South Asia region:

1. Moscow now believes that the presence of ISIS (Daesh) in Afghanistan is a much bigger threat to  Russia's soft underbelly in the former Soviet republics of  Central Asia.

2.  The Afghan Taliban are an effective force to check the growth and spread of ISIS in Central and South Asian nations.

3.  Pakistan's cooperation is critical to help defeat ISIS in the region.

India's Proxy War Against Pakistan:

President Trump's Afghan strategy of partnering with India will further alienate Pakistan and make its cooperation with US less likely. Why?  Because Pakistan believes that India is using Afghanistan to attack Pakistan, an allegation confirmed as fact by former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel who said in 2011 that "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".

Pakistan's fears about India waging proxy war in Pakistan via Afghanistan are further reinforced by a 2013 speech by India's current National Security Advisor Ajit Doval in which he talked about about "Pakistan's vulnerabilities" to terrorism and India's ability to ta....  Here are some excerpts of his speech at Sastra University:

"How do you tackle Pakistan?.....We start working on Pakistan's vulnerabilities-- economic, internal security, political, isolating them internationally, it can be anything..... it can be defeating Pakistan's policies in Afghanistan...... You stop the terrorists by denying them weapons, funds and manpower. Deny them funds by countering with one-and-a-half times more funding. If they have 1200 crores give them 1800 crores and they are on our side...who are the Taliban fighting for? It's because they haven't got jobs or someone has misled them. The Taliban are mercenaries. So go for more of the covert thing (against Pakistan)..." Ajit Doval, India's National Security Advisor

Pakistan's Support of the Afghan Taliban:

General David Petraeus, former CIA director and commander of US troops in Afghanistan, has said there is no evidence of Pakistan playing a double game and supporting terrorists in Afghanistan. He was answering a question posed to him at a presentation at Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British security think tank based in London.

Here's part of Gen Petraeus' response: "I looked very very hard then (as US commander in Afghanistan) and again as CIA director at the nature of the relationship between the various (militant) groups in FATA and Baluchistan and the Pakistan Army and the ISI and I was never convinced of what certain journalists have alleged (about ISI support of militant groups in FATA).... I have talked to them (journalists) asked them what their sources are and I have not been able to come to grips with that based on what I know from these different positions (as US commander and CIA director)".

Gen Petraeus did acknowledge that "there's communication between the ISI and various militant groups in FATA and Balochistan (Haqqanis, Taliban, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, etc) but some of it you'd do anyway as an intelligence service." He added that "there may be some degree of accommodation that is forced on them (Pakistanis) because of the limits of their (Pakistan's) forces."

The Way Forward:

A hasty US exit from Afghanistan is not imminent. The United States needs Pakistan to help stabilize Afghanistan. But how can this be achieved? Can increased US pressure on Pakistan elicit cooperation? Can US partnership with India do the trick? In my view, neither will work. What will work is an understanding of Pakistan's legitimate concerns in Afghanistan.

What are Pakistan's legitimate interests in Afghanistan? The answer is: Pakistan's national security interest in stopping the use of the Afghan territory to launch attacks against it. Any solution to the Afghan problem has to include firm guarantees that India or any other country will be denied the use of Afghan territory and various militant groups to destabilize Pakistan.

The US must understand there can be no stability in Afghanistan if Pakistan feels insecure. The US also needs to acknowledge that an unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan will pose a far bigger threat than any threat emanating from Afghanistan.

Summary:

Trump's new Afghan strategy of increasing troop levels and ratcheting up the pressure on Pakistan will not work as long as Pakistan sees its vital national security interests threatened by India's proxy war being waged against it from the Afghan soil. Any solution to the Afghan problem must be regional. It has to include firm guarantees that India or any other country will be denied the use of Afghan territory to destabilize Pakistan.  The US must understand there can be no stability in Afghanistan if Pakistan feels insecure. The US also needs to acknowledge that an unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan will pose a far bigger threat than any threat emanating from Afghanistan.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

What is the Haqqani Network?

Why is India Sponsoring Terror in Pakistan?

Mullah Mansoor Akhtar Killing in US Drone Strike

Gen Petraeus Debunks Charges of Pakistani Duplicity

Husain Haqqani vs Riaz Haq on India vs Pakistan

Impact of Trump's Top Picks on Pakistan

Husain Haqqani Advising Trump on Pakistan Policy?

Gall-Haqqani-Paul Narrative on Pakistan

Pakistan-China-Russia vs India-US-Japan

Robert Gates' Straight Talk on Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan's $100B deal with China: What does it amount to?
By Nadia Naviwala 

https://www.devex.com/news/pakistan-s-100b-deal-with-china-what-doe...

Early last year, the Pakistani government sent USAID officials in Islamabad a mystifying letter via snail mail: please stop doing feasibility studies for Diamer Basha Dam

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When USAID got the letter in 2016, they suspected that Pakistan had found funding with the Chinese. They were right.

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In May 2017 Pakistan and China signed a $50 billion agreement that included full funding for Diamer Basha and four other dams. 

Although enormous, the new agreement hardly merited coverage in Pakistan. China already captured headlines and public imagination in 2013 when the two countries signed memorandums of understanding worth $46 billion to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. CPEC has since quietly grown to a $62 billion investment.

The latest $50 billion in memorandums now brings Chinese loans and investments in Pakistan to well over $100 billion. A senior member of the CPEC team at Pakistan’s Ministry for Planning, Development, and Reform predicts that figure will ultimately grow to $150 billion. If the dams face cost overruns — which are 96 percent on average — then that will be a conservative estimate.

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roads and rail are actually a small part of Chinese money in Pakistan — less than $11 billion of the original $46 billion agreement. It’s small because, contrary to popular perceptions, much of the CPEC route is actually financed by Pakistan.

“Much of the roads being built are being built by our money,” says Miftah Ismail, who was Pakistan’s minister for investment until late last month, when the cabinet was dissolved because the Supreme Court voted to remove the prime minister on grounds of corruption. 

What Ismail estimates Pakistan will take on in Chinese projects this year — $4 billion in loans and investments — equals what the Pakistani federal and provincial governments have allocated for roads and highways in their own annual budgets.

China is also financing the expansion and improvement of Pakistan’s neglected railway system, doubling its speed from 60 to 120 kilometers per hour.

CPEC roads will connect landlocked Xinjiang province in western China through a new port city that it is building on Pakistan’s coast, Gwadar. China needs these roads to transport goods out, but it is hard to think of what will go in the other direction. China’s exports to Pakistan account for two-thirds of Pakistan’s trade deficit.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan Urges US to Tackle Terror Sanctuaries in #Afghanistan | World News | US News #AfghanStrategy #Trump #India https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-08-24/pakistans-pm-...


Pakistan on Thursday responded to Washington's accusation that it shelters the Afghan Taliban by saying the U.S. military itself is failing to eliminate militant sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.

The rare reaction came in a policy statement issued by the office of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi after a meeting of the civilian and military leadership.

President Donald Trump has accused Pakistan of harbouring "agents of chaos" and providing safe havens to militant groups waging an insurgency against a U.S.-backed government in Kabul. Islamabad, he said, must quickly change tack.

Pakistan, however, saw things differently.

"We would like to see effective and immediate U.S. military efforts to eliminate sanctuaries harbouring terrorists and miscreants on Afghan soil, including those responsible for fomenting terror in Pakistan," the Prime Minister's office said in a statement, one of the strongest ever responses to Washington. The Afghan war cannot be fought in Pakistan, it said.

The statement referred not only to the Afghan Taliban, but also the loosely affiliated Pakistani Taliban that Islamabad contends uses sanctuaries inside Afghanistan to plan attacks on Pakistani soil.

White House officials have threatened cuts in aid and military support, as well as other measures to force nuclear-armed Pakistan's hand and bring about an end to the 16-year-war.

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif said Washington should not use Pakistan as a "scapegoat" for its failures in America's longest running war. Pakistan denies harbouring militants.

The military, which has ruled the country for over half its 70-year history, calls the shots on key parts of Pakistan's foreign policy, including ties with the United States, Afghanistan and arch-foe India.

The prime minister's office said Washington's claims it had paid billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan were misleading.

Payments to Pakistan since 2001 accounted for only part of the cost of ground facilities and air corridors used by the U.S. for operations in Afghanistan, it said.

Pakistani officials bristle at what they say is a lack of respect by Washington for the country's sacrifices in the war against militancy and its successes against groups like al Qaeda, Islamic State or the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan estimates there have been 70,000 casualties in militant attacks, including 17,000 killed, since it joined the U.S. "war on terrorism" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"We feel the American administration led by Mr Trump has been totally one sided, unfair to Pakistan and does not appreciate and recognise Pakistan has been a pivotal player," Senator Mushahid Hussain, chairman of the senate defence committee, told Reuters on Thursday.

Some analysts have suggested putting greater pressure on Pakistan risks driving Islamabad deeper into the arms of China, its northern neighbour which is investing nearly $60 billion in infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road initiative.

China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone call the United States must value Pakistan's role in Afghanistan and respect its security concerns, according to Chinese state media. [nL4N1LA1NW]

The relationship between the two countries has endured periods of extreme strain in recent years, especially after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was found and killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in a 2011 raid.

[Riaz Haq]

Why Nelson Mandela was on a terrorism watch list in 2008
By Caitlin Dewey December 7, 2013 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/12/07/why-nelso...

Nelson Mandela is being remembered across the world (and political spectrum) for his heroic, life-long battle against apartheid and injustice in South Africa. But with all the accolades being thrown around, it’s easy to forget that the U.S., in particular, hasn’t always had such a friendly relationship with Mandela -- and that in fact, as late as 2008, the Nobel Prize winner and former president was still on the U.S. terrorism watch list.
The sticking point was, in Mandela’s case, ideological. In the mid-'80s, as activists in South Africa and around the world began to agitate in earnest for Mandela’s release, the Reagan administration still saw communism as one of its primary enemies -- and defeating communism as one of its foremost foreign policy goals. That complicated the administration’s take on South Africa.

The apartheid regime, it turns out, had supported the U.S. during the Cold War and had worked closely with both the Reagan and Nixon administrations to limit Soviet influence in the region, as Sam Kleiner chronicled in Foreign Policy last July.

Meanwhile, the African National Congress, which Mandela chaired, was peppered with members of the South African Communist Party. Even worse in the eyes of the Reagan Administration was the ANC’s apparent friendliness toward Moscow: The ANC’s secretary general, Alfred Nzo, bore greetings to the Soviet communist party congress in 1986. That was enough to inspire Reagan to accuse the ANC of encouraging communism in a 1986 policy speech, and to rule that South Africa had no obligation to negotiate with a group bent on “creating a communist state.”

[Riaz Haq]

What Would #US-#Pakistan War Look Like?
One word: Hell! #India could help with runways for US warplanes. US would assume some #Pakistani #nuclear weapons would survive sustained air campaign to destroy them & then used against #American forces or targets. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/what-would-hypothetical-us-p...

In the U.S. television series Homeland, the United States and Pakistan are brought to the brink of war. In real life, the two countries are allies, albeit strained ones at that, and many Americans believe Islamabad often actively works against Washington’s interests. If the relationship turned poisonous, how would the United States prosecute a war against Pakistan?
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A U.S. war with Pakistan would be extremely difficult to wage and fraught with difficulty. It would also be forced to proceed under the assumption that some Pakistani nuclear weapons would survive a sustained effort to destroy them, to be used against U.S. forces or targets in some way later in the campaign. This is the sort of uncertainty that can veto military action and makes a war between Washington and Islamabad an absolute conflict of last resort.

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Of course, there is one regional power that can provide everything the U.S. needs, including local air bases and a large army, navy, and air force, already positioned in the theater with well-sketched battle plans: India. India could help with an air campaign, providing runways for U.S. fighter bombers to operate from, or even contribute its own airpower. Indian ground forces have a far shorter route to Islamabad and overmatch Pakistani forces on the ground.-----------


In order to proceed, let’s sketch out two war scenarios. In one, we’ll assume that the United States is pursuing an air-only campaign, in order to punish the country or strip it of some vital capability—nuclear weapons being a prime example. In the second scenario, the United States seeks to topple the country’s government entirely, including the occupation of the capital, Islamabad.
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An air campaign against Pakistan would be slower and more fraught with difficulty than past campaigns. Pakistan’s Air Force has nearly four hundred fighters, including American F-16 Fighting Falcons, and would need to be quickly destroyed. U.S. Navy and Air Force aircraft could see their first significant air to air combat since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

An all-out invasion of Pakistan would be much more difficult, bordering on impractical. An invasion would require securing the city of Karachi, a coastal city of 14 million, then a march upcountry of approximately 700 miles. Securing Karachi alone would be an immense effort dwarfing efforts to secure Baghdad in the late 2000s, one that required more than 100,000 U.S. troops and the cooperation of local militias.

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Another power that could join such a conflict is China. China and Pakistan enjoy warm relations, and the rhetoric between the two countries suggests a relationship nearing that of a mutual defense pact. But it isn’t, and it’s not clear that China would risk direct conflict with the United States if Pakistan in some way overreached. China might, on the assumption that a U.S. puppet state in neighboring Pakistan would diminish China’s power and influence abroad. It’s worth remembering that the last time Chinese forces fought Americans was after the U.S.-led United Nations forces advanced into a state neighboring Beijing.