Defining Strategic Depth

[Xeric]

And that's it?

 

[Dr-Sangeen]

And that's it?

Don't bother. You would get it. if you could you would have by now.

 

[asad71]

Wikepedia definition of Strategic Depth

Strategic depth is a term in military literature that broadly refers to the distances between the front lines or battle sectors and the combatants’ industrial core areas, capital cities, heartlands, and other key centers of population or military production. The key precepts any military commander must consider when dealing with strategic depth are how vulnerable these assets are to a quick, preemptive attack or to a methodical offensive and whether a country can withdraw into its own territory, absorb an initial thrust, and allow the subsequent offensive to culminate short of its goal and far from its source of power.

The term reached media attention when General Zia-ul-Haq and the Pakistani military establishment would use it in reference to Pakistan's utilization and contact with Afghanistan following the neighboring country's Soviet invasion, to prevent encirclement from a hostile India and a USSR-supported Afghanistan. It was promoted by Zia's successor as army chief, General Mirza Aslam Beg, and was continued as an active policy by the Pakistan Army under chiefs Pervez Musharraf and Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, following the American-led war in Afghanistan in 2001.

Commanders must be able to plan for both eventualities, and have measures and resources in place on both tactical and strategic levels to counter any and all stages of a minor or major enemy attack. These measures do not need to be limited to purely military assets, either - the ability to reinforce civilian infrastructure or make it flexible enough to withstand or evade assault is very valuable in times of war. The issue was the trade-off between space and time as witnessed by Germany’s failure to knock out the Soviet Union in 1942. The Soviet retreat, in the face of the German attack, from Poland in June 1941 to the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941, allowed the Soviet Union to move its industrial base to the east of the Ural Mountains.

The term is also the title of the main publication of Ahmet Davutoğlu in drafting the new foreign policy of Turkey.

 

[screamingeagle]

well this is the first time i have heard that our army is going to retreat into Afghanistan and continuing our struggle from there...
i think so that the author has lost the complete sense of the word "strategic depth".... don't u think so that a friendly Afghanistan will give us respite when we will look to our west while facing a onslaught from the east, strategically it will be a very favorable situation... secondly nowadays the low intensity conflicts are prevailing, no army can think of such a wild plan of going into a neighbor's territory and then replying, you are suppose to respond at the very front line on which you are standing,, this thinking of world war's had long ago gone while the author is just trying to dig graves.... if we really want to put an end to all this instability in our country we really require a friendly Afghanistan which will prove as a strategic depth in sense of security we will feel on our western borders...

 

[IND151]

i have bolded , colored important parts.

We are engaged in the Great Game in Afghanistan, we are told, because ‘strategic depth’ is vital for Pakistan due to the fact that our country is very narrow at its middle and could well be cut into half by an Indian attack in force.

Strategic depth, we are further informed, will give respite to our armed forces which could withdraw into Afghanistan to then regroup and mount counter-attacks on Indian forces in Pakistan. I ask you!

I ask you for several reasons. Let us presume that the Indians are foolish enough to get distracted from educating their people, some of whom go to some of the best centres of learning in the world. Let us assume that they are idiotic enough to opt for war instead of industrialising themselves and meeting their economic growth targets which are among the highest in the world.

Let us imagine that they are cretinous enough to go to war with a nuclear-armed Pakistan and effectively put an immediate and complete end to their multi-million dollar tourism industry. Let us suppose that they lose all sense, all reason, and actually attack Pakistan and cut our country into half.

Will our army pack its bags and escape into Afghanistan? How will it disengage itself from the fighting? What route will it use, through which mountain passes? Will the Peshawar Corps gun its tanks and troop carriers and trucks and towed artillery and head into the Khyber Pass, and on to Jalalabad? Will the Karachi and Quetta Corps do likewise through the Bolan and Khojak passes?

And what happens to the Lahore and Sialkot and Multan and Gujranwala and Bahawalpur and other garrisons? What about the air force? Far more than anything else, what about the by now 180 million people of the country? What ‘strategic depth’ do our Rommels and Guderians talk about, please? What poppycock is this?

More importantly, how can Afghanistan be our ‘strategic depth’ when most Afghans hate our guts, not only the northerners, but even those who call themselves Pakhtuns?

Case in point: the absolute and repeated refusal of even the Taliban government when it was misruling Afghanistan, to accept the Durand Line as the international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, despite the fact that it was a surrogate of Pakistan — propped into power; paid for; and helped militarily, diplomatically and politically by the Pakistani government and its ‘agencies’.

Indeed, it even refused the Commando’s interior minister, the loudmouth Gen Moinuddin Haider when he went to Kabul to ask for the extradition of Pakistani criminals being sheltered by the Taliban. We must remember that the Commando, as chief executive of the country, was pressing the Foreign Office till just a few days before 9/11 to use every effort to have the Taliban regime’ recognised by more countries!

This poppycock of ‘strategic depth’ can only be explained by our great military thinkers and strategists and geniuses: it is not for mortals like yours truly to make sense of any of it. Particularly because this nonsense can only happen after the Americans depart from Afghanistan. And what, pray, is the guarantee that they will leave when they say they will?

Why this subject at this time, you might well ask. Well I have just been reading David Sanger’s The Inheritance in which he meticulously lays out the reasons why he believes the Pakistani “dual policy” towards the Taliban exists.

On page 247 he states that when Michael McConnell, the then chief of US National Intelligence went to Pakistan in late May 2008 (three months after the elections that trounced Musharraf and his King’s Party, mark) he heard Pakistani officers make the case for the Pakistani need for having a friendly government in Kabul after the Americans departed.

When he got back to Washington McConnell “ordered up a full assessment” of the situation. ‘It did not take long … Musharraf’s record of duplicity was well known. While Kayani was a favourite of the White House, he had also been overheard — presumably on telephone intercepts — referring to one of the most brutal of the Taliban leaders, Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a “strategic asset”. Interesting, for Kayani’s former boss, Musharraf is quoted thus in Der Spiegel:

Spiegel: “Let us talk about the role of the ISI. A short time ago, US newspapers reported that ISI has systematically supported Taliban groups. Is that true?”

Musharraf: “Intelligence always has access to other networks — this is what Americans did with KGB, this is what ISI also does. You should understand that the army is on board to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. I have always been against the Taliban. Don’t try to lecture us about how we should handle this tactically. I will give you an example: Siraj Haqqani ...”

Spiegel: “... a powerful Taliban commander who is allegedly secretly allied with the ISI.”

Musharraf: “He is the man who has influence over Baitullah Mehsud, a dangerous terrorist, the fiercest commander in South Waziristan and the murderer of Benazir Bhutto as we know today.Mehsud kidnapped our ambassador in Kabul and our intelligence used Haqqani’s influence to get him released. Now, that does not mean that Haqqani is supported by us. The intelligence service is using certain enemies against other enemies. And it is better to tackle them one by one than making them all enemies.”

Well, there they go again!

But back to ‘strategic depth’. Will the likes of Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, help Pakistan gain this ‘depth’ in Afghanistan? Are we that gone that we need these backward yahoos to save our army?

PS By the way what about our nuclear weapons? Are they not enough to stop the Indians in their tracks? What poppycock is this ‘strategic depth’?!

 

[muse]

Pakistan needs strategic depth
By Ejaz Haider
Published: October 7, 2011

Five meetings on security in a week and I heard nearly a dozen times that Pakistan doesn’t need nor seeks strategic depth. That’s codswallop. Every state needs strategic depth and given Pakistan’s geographical location, she more than some others.

I hear the sound of bayonets pulled out of scabbards so let me repeat, Pakistan needs strategic depth. Hore Choopo!

But pray, what is this ‘hated’ concept?

Broadly, in military terms, it refers to a state’s ability to deal with an offensive through elastic, multi-layered defence, absorb the initial thrust, stress the enemy forces and inflict attrition on it through multiple counter-strikes that would lead to the offensive petering out and falling short of its objectives.

At a basic level it is a rather simple calculation of distances between the frontlines and/or any forward battle sectors and a state’s strategic assets: industrial areas, key urban and population centres, communications lines, military production centres, in effect the state’s heartlands or, to put it another way, all the soft and hardware whose agglomeration makes a state viable.

For politico-military planners this becomes a central precept. How vulnerable such assets are and what strategy must be adopted to ensure that a state can absorb a methodical offensive and still be able to respond to and defeat an adversary.

Pakistan’s physical thinness that runs along its length helps it in having shorter interior lines, a plus for quick mobilisation. But it also makes her vulnerable to a sweeping offensive with thrusts directed at strategic locations. Pakistan’s mil-ops strategy against a potential Indian offensive, given a relatively weaker air force, more reliance on air defences and lesser logistics and reserve capabilities, has entailed a combination of holding the Indian offensive in certain areas and striking in others. This meant identifying points of no penetration (Lahore and Sialkot, for instance), points where the Indian forces could be pulled in, areas where Pakistan would strike back and also, areas where, if need be, Pakistan could cross over.

This is a very simplistic overview of a complex mil-ops strategy which subsumes multiple operational plans. But the logic is to use interior lines that benefit the defender rather than taking the stress of exterior lines necessary for an offensive. All these concepts continue to be debated which is exactly what the job of a military is, Pakistani as much as any other.

The current confusion is owed to the ‘brilliance’ of former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg who posited it in relation to Afghanistan. His concept was unpopular even when he was the chief and it has never been entertained by serious military planners. No one thinks of placing military and other assets in Afghanistan and thus acquiring strategic depth. Afghanistan, for a host of reasons, one worse than the other, never offered any such possibility outside of the heat-oppressed brain of General Beg. But just because that was nonsense doesn’t make the idea of strategic depth nonsensical per se.

Also, the concept goes beyond the mil-ops categories. During a talk once I formulated it in political-diplomatic terms:

strategic depth being the ability of a state to reduce threats by a combination of strategies which includes improving relations with neighbours to try and bring the possibility of an armed conflict to zero and thereby creating space for economic development and projection.

Since then I have been directed to one of the works by Ahmet Devatoglu, the current foreign minister of Turkey who is widely credited with being the architect of Turkey’s reorientation. The book is called Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position. It is written in Turkish and I don’t know of an English translation. But what I have gathered from some research on the internet, it seems that Mr Devatoglu has also argued the concept in political-diplomatic terms.

Not just that. It seems that this process of rethinking Turkey’s relations with its neighbours and the world in general began before Mr Devatoglu’s book came out. Other political scientists like Duygu Sezer, Ali Karaosmanoglu and Huseyin Bagci are also credited with proposing a “‘grand strategy’ for Turkish foreign policy” instead of Ankara’s traditional reactive approach. The same thought was put to me in March 2010 when I interviewed President Abdullah Gul in Ankara: zero conflict in the region; economic development; proactive policy.

It is in this sense that the concept of strategic depth must be seen. And from this perspective, Pakistan needs it not just in relation to Afghanistan, but even more importantly, India.

Put the bayonet back in the scabbard and rethink the concept, thank you.

 

[muse]

Ejaz Haider suggests that our brother, Turkiye, offers a example Pakistan may be interested in - we hope Pakistani policy planners have apprehended the policy vividly, imaginatively - and it must be said that Mr. Davatoglu's construction begin with geography (geo-strategic location) of Turkye - Pakistan has it's own geo strategic location and linkages - the concept of zero problems with neighbors is one Pakistani policy makers, especially in the armed forces, should internalize and adopt completely - this is not to suggest that threat perceptions not account for capabilities, but rather that such capabilities be viewed to attenuating them through non-military and military remedies. Obviously first and foremost the focus of such a conception of strategic depth take into account the many facets of opportunity and threat represented by India - Afghanistan may ultimately prove to be a tougher problem to resolve and that only a neutral and decentralized Afghanistan can serve the international community in it's quest for greater security and prosperity.

 

[asad71]

Pakistani?!


And yes, no need to bring in Bangladesh in this thread. We have indians to do this better, so let's leave it for them.

Because words sometimes fall on deaf ears.

Can you kindly elaborate what is meant by this?

 

[Bilsher007]

Sir Zaid Hamid with Mark Glenn and Jonathan Azaziah - Pakistan, the last frontier! - YouTube

Zaid Hamid with Mark Glenn and Jonathan Azaziah - Pakistan, the last frontier!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Strategic depth — revisited​

By Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani
Published: October 19, 2011

The writer served as director-general of the ISI from 1990-92 asad.durrani@tribune.com.pk
Old friend and once a comrade-in-arms, Ejaz Haider could obviously take it no more. Fed up with the unrelenting war on strategic depth, unleashed even before the one on terror, he told off the hecklers to go first understand what the concept was all about in his article “Pakistan needs strategic depth”, published on these pages on October 7. He need not have bothered, because it is not the notion that they are gunning for, but our Afghan policy.

Indeed, a great deal has been stated about its fallout: proliferation of drugs and weapons; more violence in the region; millions of refugees constantly on the move; three decades of war (still counting); and much else. So, in case one was wondering why an innocent sounding concept had to be given a bad name to kill a dog already under fire, there just might have been a reason: to ascribe motives that otherwise could not be.

That we wanted to occupy Afghanistan and make it our fifth province, for example! After what happened to some of the mightiest who tried, no one in his right mind and certainly not the collective decision-making apparatus gave it another thought. But then we must have at least wanted to install a ‘friendly government’ in Kabul (to secure this depth of course)! Yes; if only one knew how, and then keep all others who followed in line. After the Saur Revolution, the Soviets executed an installed president every three months in pursuit of that objective, till in frustration they moved in — and became history.

Frankly, it is futile to argue when the hammer has already fallen. Thereafter, any distortion of a concept or of history, as long as it adds to the gravity of the charge and severity of the punishment, is kosher. We are supposed to have fought ‘America’s proxy war’ in Afghanistan. That we took the plunge when the Yanks were still counting peanuts did not impress our nemesis; or for that matter the plea that, even if we did, we too might have had an interest in the Soviet withdrawal. And just in case any of us dared to suggest that some price had to be paid to achieve this sublime objective, the retort is ingenious: ‘but that was not a very smart idea; it destroyed the global balance of power and now the sole surviving superpower is running amok’.

Not to worry; the imbalance is being redressed, the US has already started suffering from Imperial Overstretch, and we are doing all that we can with help from the usual suspects. Our friends would still not relent: ‘revisit your Afghan policy’ is their constant refrain; without ever suggesting a coherent alternative. In the meantime, I have to pick up the thread from where Ejaz Haider had left.
Strategic depth, within and without, is of course the need of every country. ‘Friendly neighbourhood’, ‘near abroad’, and buffers are some of the more familiar variants — serving more or less the same purpose. And of course it is not merely a spatial concept (Israel has it in the US), it is also economic, political (alliance building), and is best provided by unity within. Now that Poland’s overtures towards Ukraine have been described by Stratfor as pursuit of strategic depth, maybe this doctrine can be placed in its right perspective.

If not, we might be tempted to use it for the ulterior motives we are being suspected of: nurturing the Haqqanis et al as our strategic assets against the archrival. The idea is attractive, but for a problem: the Afghans do not fight outside their country. We will therefore have to persuade India to give us a battle in Afghanistan. Next time the Indians come charging, we will simply get out of the way, and before one can say ‘too little depth’ they will be in Afghanistan. Well, isn’t that where all elephants go when their time comes?

Strategic depth

 

[third eye]

Strategic depth — revisited​

By Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani
Published: October 19, 2011

The writer served as director-general of the ISI from 1990-92 asad.durrani@tribune.com.pk
Old friend and once a comrade-in-arms, Ejaz Haider could obviously take it no more. Fed up with the unrelenting war on strategic depth, unleashed even before the one on terror, he told off the hecklers to go first understand what the concept was all about in his article “Pakistan needs strategic depth”, published on these pages on October 7. He need not have bothered, because it is not the notion that they are gunning for, but our Afghan policy.

Indeed, a great deal has been stated about its fallout: proliferation of drugs and weapons; more violence in the region; millions of refugees constantly on the move; three decades of war (still counting); and much else. So, in case one was wondering why an innocent sounding concept had to be given a bad name to kill a dog already under fire, there just might have been a reason: to ascribe motives that otherwise could not be.

That we wanted to occupy Afghanistan and make it our fifth province, for example! After what happened to some of the mightiest who tried, no one in his right mind and certainly not the collective decision-making apparatus gave it another thought. But then we must have at least wanted to install a ‘friendly government’ in Kabul (to secure this depth of course)! Yes; if only one knew how, and then keep all others who followed in line. After the Saur Revolution, the Soviets executed an installed president every three months in pursuit of that objective, till in frustration they moved in — and became history.

Frankly, it is futile to argue when the hammer has already fallen. Thereafter, any distortion of a concept or of history, as long as it adds to the gravity of the charge and severity of the punishment, is kosher. We are supposed to have fought ‘America’s proxy war’ in Afghanistan. That we took the plunge when the Yanks were still counting peanuts did not impress our nemesis; or for that matter the plea that, even if we did, we too might have had an interest in the Soviet withdrawal. And just in case any of us dared to suggest that some price had to be paid to achieve this sublime objective, the retort is ingenious: ‘but that was not a very smart idea; it destroyed the global balance of power and now the sole surviving superpower is running amok’.

Not to worry; the imbalance is being redressed, the US has already started suffering from Imperial Overstretch, and we are doing all that we can with help from the usual suspects. Our friends would still not relent: ‘revisit your Afghan policy’ is their constant refrain; without ever suggesting a coherent alternative. In the meantime, I have to pick up the thread from where Ejaz Haider had left.
Strategic depth, within and without, is of course the need of every country. ‘Friendly neighbourhood’, ‘near abroad’, and buffers are some of the more familiar variants — serving more or less the same purpose. And of course it is not merely a spatial concept (Israel has it in the US), it is also economic, political (alliance building), and is best provided by unity within. Now that Poland’s overtures towards Ukraine have been described by Stratfor as pursuit of strategic depth, maybe this doctrine can be placed in its right perspective.

If not, we might be tempted to use it for the ulterior motives we are being suspected of: nurturing the Haqqanis et al as our strategic assets against the archrival. The idea is attractive, but for a problem: the Afghans do not fight outside their country. We will therefore have to persuade India to give us a battle in Afghanistan. Next time the Indians come charging, we will simply get out of the way, and before one can say ‘too little depth’ they will be in Afghanistan. Well, isn’t that where all elephants go when their time comes?

Strategic depth

Pakistan has alwys tried to find Military soloutions to all problems it has faced . Such answers give the temprary impression of wellness but like steroids have long term and harmful side effects.

It is easy to justify the " I told you so' and ' We are the saviours' attitude from inside. However when seen from outside the ' strategic depth ' line of thinking which obviously has a Military origin has functioned like a steroid - a temporary fix,more in the mind.

A lot has been discussed on this subject here & elsewhere and is not worth repeating. I still feel that no matter how dexterous a pair of hands one may have they cannot do the job of other limbs. Each has its own function. A soldier can govern only upto a point that too often with the Army Act to help.

On the highlighted part above, one hopes it was in jest. The author appears to ignore the fact that the Elephant is amongst the most intelligent animals with a very long memory. What would happen if the elephant does not charge all the way upto the Durand line and simply devours the ' fields' it considers attractive and returns ?

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Pakistan has alwys tried to find Military soloutions to all problems it has faced . Such answers give the temprary impression of wellness but like steroids have long term and harmful side effects.

I believe that what I, Ejaz Haider and Durrani have argued (in terms of what Strategic Depth means for Pakistan and the Pakistani military) is the opposite of what the world generally describes Pakistan's strategic depth as.

As Haider pointed out, the concept of Strategic Depth, as outlined by former COAS Gen. Beg, never found any major takers in the military or government. Kayani and various others have repeatedly outlined what Pakistan wishes to see in Afghanistan, and yet people such as yourself continue to cling to Gen. Beg's thoughts.

It is easy to justify the " I told you so' and ' We are the saviours' attitude from inside. However when seen from outside the ' strategic depth ' line of thinking which obviously has a Military origin has functioned like a steroid - a temporary fix,more in the mind.

I don't believe so, and the articles in this thread, especially those by the Ejaz Haider and Durrani, arguing the Pakistani position, suggest you are wrong.

On the highlighted part above, one hopes it was in jest. The author appears to ignore the fact that the Elephant is amongst the most intelligent animals with a very long memory. What would happen if the elephant does not charge all the way upto the Durand line and simply devours the ' fields' it considers attractive and returns ?

 

[asad71]

1. Strategic Depth needs to be considered in two planes really - the physical and the ideological. And these have come out in the discussions above.

2. Pakistan would obviously rely on its physical depth in Iran, Afghanistan and right upto Turkey and C Asia. For instance, I understand during 1965 War PIA planes were flown off to Iran. Another example: there would be no dearth of volunteers pouring in from these areas to aid Pakistan. But Gen Durrani's point is pure military strategy. He wants an option available to withdraw deliberately into the West so that the advancing columns are lured in to be be decimated. This happened several times in the history of Russia, but SA has rarely experienced such stratagem. Perhaps Mogul Gen Man Singh's invasion of Bengal where we lured him, exhausted and decimated his force piece-meal here and there in to finally deliver an ignominious defeat at the Battle of Egaro Sindhu.

3. Pakistan's ideological depth into the world of Islam will need exploitation for material and moral support.

4. In the case of BD we are finding our physical depth in the East - Malaysia and Indonesia. We also understand how vital our ideological depth is.

5. Having said all that, it must be understood that both Pakistan and BD belong to the subcontinent historically, geographically and culturally. There is no way we can detach ourselves from this truth.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

What Pakistan should do in Afghanistan

By Pervez Hoodbhoy

The writer teaches physics and political science at LUMS


Many Pakistanis living and working in Kabul say they feel a palpable hostility towards them once their nationality becomes known. Some occasionally pretend to be Indians, which brings more acceptability. If this anecdotal evidence indicates an actual truth, then it is worrisome. In principle Afghans should like Pakistanis better; they share a common religion and the Pakhtun populations on either side of the border have strong kinship links. Indians have much less in common with Afghans and so should be liked less. So what explains the present situation, and what can Pakistan do to change things?

Relations between neighbouring states everywhere, and their people, tend to be complicated: countries sharing a common border often secretly meddle in each other’s affairs. Pakistan and Afghanistan have also played games with each other. Much before the 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghanistan had been an irritating but innocuous adversary with its territorial claims on NWFP. When General Mohammed Daud Khan supported the Pakhtunistan movement, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto proceeded to sponsor Islamic militancy in Afghanistan. After this was launched in the Panjsheer Valley under Ahmad Shah Massoud, Daud got the message and backed off.

Pakistan might have resisted the urge to interfere again but for the Soviet invasion. Thereafter it became a willing pawn for new American ambitions in the region. Under General Ziaul Haq, Pakistan soon joined up with the United States and Saudi Arabia to launch the first truly global jihad of history. This was to turn into the CIA’s largest ever covert operation — a successful one.

The Soviets would soon be defeated and Zia had plans for Afghanistan. In an interview to American journalist, Selig Harrison, he said: “All right, you Americans wanted us to be a front-line state. By helping you, we have earned the right to have a regime in Afghanistan to our liking. We took risks as a front-line state, and we won’t permit it to be like it was before, with Indian and Russian influence there and claims on our territory. It will be a real Islamic state, a real Islamic confederation. We won’t have passports between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It will be part of a pan-Islamic revival that will one day win over the Muslims in the Soviet Union, you will see.”

This dream temporarily soured after General Musharraf’s post-9/11 double-dealing with the ISI’s progeny, the Taliban. But it never went away. If the present series of Difah-e-Pakistan rallies across the country are indeed sponsored by the Pakistan Army, then it has sprung back to life.

The eagerness to put ‘our boys’ back into the driving seat in Kabul is driven by the impending 2014 US withdrawal. The GHQ’s strategic planners see India and Iran manipulating events in an effort to secure undue influence in the Afghan government. The conclusion they draw is that proxy forces should once again be fielded for gaining positional advantage in the fight to come.

But such earlier manipulations have had catastrophic consequences for the people of Afghanistan, which explains why so many Afghans are unhappy with us. In a prescient essay written in 1995, the late Eqbal Ahmad had seen disaster coming: “the quest of a mirage misnamed ‘strategic depth’ — has deeply alienated trusty old allies while closing the door to new friendships. Its national security managers have in fact squandered historic opportunities and produced a new set of problems for Pakistan’s security.”

The Taliban, who had then just emerged, turned out to be the most retrograde political movement in the history of Islam. These lords of war did to the people of Afghanistan what the people of Swat were to see many years later. They proscribed music and sports in Afghanistan, inflicted harsh punishments upon men for trimming their beards, flogged taxi drivers for carrying women passengers, prevented sick women from being treated by male physicians, and banished girls from schools and women from the work place. Iran denounced the new Pakistan-supported victors as “fanatical, medieval Taliban” after they slaughtered 5,000 Shias in Bamiyan province.

Today some local commentators, with an eye towards pleasing GHQ, are arguing that the ‘new Taliban’ are different from the ‘old Taliban’. But these are facile claims, unsupported by evidence. Afghanistan is now a war-devastated country and Pakistan, like the Soviet Union and the United States, shares responsibility for this. Rather than ‘gift’ Afghans a second round of Taliban rule using the ‘strategic assets’ based in Quetta and North Waziristan, we must make amends.

There is much that Pakistan can offer in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Surely we can build roads just as well as the Indians, or perhaps better. Afghanistan has just built its first railroad with assistance from China and Iran. Pakistan, which inherited an extensive railroad network from the British, should have been there to help. Like India, Pakistan can help train Afghan police officers, diplomats and civil servants, as well provide support in the areas of health, education, transportation, power, and telecommunications.

If Pakistan has to compete with India on various internationally funded reconstruction projects, then so be it. That is a choice for Afghans to make, not us. It is time that our TV defence analysts stopped trotting out the simplistic argument that India’s two billion dollars aid to Afghanistan since 9/11, and thousands of Indian construction workers, somehow endanger Pakistan. Are these workers actually commandos poised for raids against Pakistan? There is nothing to stop us from giving Afghanistan an even larger amount, and sending more of our skilled manpower across the border for help in construction projects.

If Pakistanis are to be welcomed in Kabul someday, we must change the way we are perceived across the border. This will require our military planners to give up their false and deadly dreams of strategic depth and regime change.

They must not be allowed to forget the awful price Pakistan and Afghanistan have had to pay because of their proxy wars, and the damage inflicted by a cynical manipulation of politics inside and outside our borders. Suicide bombings have ravaged Pakistan, threatened minorities are fleeing, the rule of law has been badly damaged, and social peace has been replaced with strife. These are squarely the result of a foreign policy gone awry.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2012.