Reversing Strategic 'Shrinkage'

Munir Akram

Pakistan has been a strategically challenged since it was created.

• It faces hostility from India; gross
• It has:
  • inadequacies in the military and financial and bureaucratic structures
  • a huge refugee influx.

Pakistan survived those early years due to:

• the iron will of its founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah
• the enthusiasm of its Muslim population for a state free from:
  • British rule
  • Hindu subjugation
  • the dream of reviving the glory of Islam’s millennia of rule in the subcontinent.

Today, despite the prognostications of its detractors, Pakistan’s existence as a sovereign state is not in question.

Pakistan has acquired its unique identity. All the country’s major power centres and provinces—despite periodic dissent—have a vested interest in its existence; its armed forces are determined to defend its independence and territory;

The acquisition of nuclear weapons capability has provided the presumption of immunity from external aggression of the sort that led to the separation of East Pakistan.

But, as always in its short history, Pakistan still confronts serious strategic challenges, short and long term, which, if not wisely confronted and overcome, could become life threatening.

Several of these challenges are internal: — misgovernance

• extremism and terrorism
• economic stagnation
• social breakdown.

Most of these internal challenges are inextricably linked to, and the consequences of, external causes and developments.

The immediate challenges facing Pakistan are visible and imposing:

• the violent attacks by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and major cities
• Pakistan’s costly and unpopular involvement in Afghanistan
• the alienation of many Baloch
• economic stagnation—manifest in the power crisis
• the growing poverty and social deterioration affecting the vast majority of Pakistan’s population.

The combination of political turbulence and incoherence, growing extremism, ethnic and social violence, terrorist attacks and economic stagnation, have created a dangerous mood of national pessimism, bordering on despair.

The first priority is to overcome these immediate challenges. Despite the confused political circumstances and inadequate governance, a start has been made towards confronting some of these challenges.

This start—as so often in Pakistan’s history—has been initiated, directly or indirectly, by the Pakistani Army.

Fighting the TTP

Massive military operations were launched in Swat and, later, in South Waziristan, Orakzai and other Agencies.

There was a public consensus in Pakistan that the TTP’s violence were unacceptable from both a national and Islamic viewpoint and that it must be crushed.

The TTP is not obliterated. Its attacks continue. But the organisation and its leadership have been severely mauled and remain under pressure from the air and on the ground.

A conclusive success against the TTP will require isolating it—together with al Qaeda—from the tribes and other militant groups from which the TTP draws recruits and support.

In particular, de-linking the pro Kashmiri groups from the TTP is vital as these groups too will have to be suppressed.

Over the longer term, pacification of the tribal regions will be possible only through the restoration of effective governance, a fair justice system and the creation of economic and employment opportunities.

The anticipated withdrawal of US-NATO forces from Afghanistan will diminish the ‘jihadi’ appeal of the TTP and assist in the pacification of these regions.

Pacifying Afghanistan

Progress has also been made in preserving Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan.

This required the Army and the ISI to play ‘hardball’ over the last 2.5 years.

India had to be convinced that its interventions in Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were not cost-free.

Certain Afghan Taliban groups were targeted where essential; in other instances action was held back when it served Pakistan’s interests.

The ‘capture’ of a string of Taliban leaders, including Mullah Baradar, in 2010 could not all be ‘accidental’, as some US officials and the Western media asserted.

Importantly, the US has become convinced that it can execute its current military strategy in Afghanistan and evolve a framework for peace that would enable an honourable US-NATO withdrawal, only with cooperation and support of Pakistan’s Armed Forces.

Washington gave the red carpet treatment to the Pakistan Army Chief during the Pakistan-US ‘strategic dialogue’ in March and October 2010.

Success or failure in Afghanistan will have critical implications for President Barack Obama’s re-election.

There is now greater convergence between Pakistan and the US on Afghanistan, and on fighting the TTP and al Qaeda, then at any time since 9/11. However, neither side has as yet clearly identified its final objectives in Afghanistan, nor the process by which these are to be achieved.

The US Administration is still clarifying a strategy for negotiating peace with the Taliban. Pakistan seems hesitant to act decisively until it knows US objectives and strategy. Meanwhile, President Karzai seems to be playing all sides to ensure his own survival. He has alternately supported and denounced US-NATO military operations. He has opened contacts with some of the Taliban and with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

He has sought Pakistan’s cooperation to negotiate with the Taliban, but told the US that Pakistan is impeding such talks. Simultaneously, President Karzai has reportedly told Iran and India that Pakistan is pushing him into these negotiations.

India is alarmed by the prospect of a Taliban return to power (which would terminate its strategic gains in Afghanistan), and is busy reconstructing its old alliance with Iran and Russia to resurrect the Northern Alliance and others opposed to accommodation with the Taliban.

It is so far unclear how this tangled web will be unravelled. Without strategic clarity and political determination, Pakistan could lose the tactical space it has secured. Islamabad needs to evolve its own plan for peace in Afghanistan, establish the required contacts with the Afghan insurgents and persuade the US to endorse this path to peace and an honourable US-NATO exit from Afghanistan.