Pakistan’s strategic blunders
Questions are now being increasingly raised in the US over Washington’s policy of training and equipping foreign militaries ostensibly to stabilize ‘fragile’ states.
Since the end of World War II, U.S. has used this ‘time-honored’ foreign policy tool for promoting America’s global hegemonic ambitions.
According to Mara Karlin (Why Military Assistance Programs Disappoint—Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec 2017) today, Washington is working with the militaries of more than 100 countries and running large programs to train and equip armed forces in such hot spots as Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan.
Mara Karlin is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She is the author of Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States from which this essay has been adapted.
She says that the logic behind this approach was simple: Fragile states jeopardize U.S. interests, but large-scale interventions are costly and unpopular. By outsourcing regional security in places where U.S. interests are not immediately threatened, Washington can promote stability without shouldering most of the burden itself. And heading off threats before they metastasize means that the United States can keep its eye on more sophisticated rivals such as China and Russia.
But history shows that building militaries in weak states is not the panacea the U.S. national security community imagines it to be. For decades, the United States has poured countless billions into foreign security forces—to the tune of nearly $20 billion per year these days but “the returns have been paltry.”
While the military and financial investment that the US has so far made in Pakistan has turned out to be highly profitable for Washington the losses incurred by Pakistan in the process in terms of its geographical integrity and its strategic goals have been immense
“The biggest problem with Washington’s efforts to build foreign militaries is its reluctance to weigh in on higher-order questions of mission, organizational structure, and personnel—issues that profoundly affect a military’s capacity but are often considered too sensitive to touch. Instead, the US tended to focus exclusively on training and equipment, thus undercutting the effectiveness of U.S. assistance.”
It would be interesting to do a quick capsule study of the US- Pakistan military relations and its impact on the recipient country in the backdrop of Mara Karlin’s observations.
Pakistan’s ostensible purpose of entering into military assistance arrangement with the US was to neutralize the hegemonic ambitions of its bigger neighbour, India while the US had wanted Pakistan military to serve as a bulwark against the creeping advances of Soviet communism in the region.
But at the end of the day while the US could successfully use the Pakistani Army against the occupying Soviet troops in Afghanistan and bring to a final close the 45-year long cold war, the Pakistan Army not only could not stop India from militarily cutting off Pakistan’s eastern half in 1971, it had also failed to end India’s military occupation of a part of Kashmir which has been struggling to liberate itself from Indian yolk now for almost 70 years.
So, while the military and financial investment that the US has so far made in Pakistan has turned out to be highly profitable for Washington the losses incurred by Pakistan in the process in terms of its geographical integrity and its strategic goals have been immense.
While the role of Washington’s self- serving policies cannot be minimized in this outcome favouring the donor, we should also not ignore the contribution of the recipient in getting sucked into the ensuing debacles.
The biggest of these blunders was the overambitious plan to militarily capture the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) in 1965 which resulted in a stalemate
https://dailytimes.com.pk/134110/pakistans-strategic-blunders/
Questions are now being increasingly raised in the US over Washington’s policy of training and equipping foreign militaries ostensibly to stabilize ‘fragile’ states.
Since the end of World War II, U.S. has used this ‘time-honored’ foreign policy tool for promoting America’s global hegemonic ambitions.
According to Mara Karlin (Why Military Assistance Programs Disappoint—Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec 2017) today, Washington is working with the militaries of more than 100 countries and running large programs to train and equip armed forces in such hot spots as Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan.
Mara Karlin is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She is the author of Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States from which this essay has been adapted.
She says that the logic behind this approach was simple: Fragile states jeopardize U.S. interests, but large-scale interventions are costly and unpopular. By outsourcing regional security in places where U.S. interests are not immediately threatened, Washington can promote stability without shouldering most of the burden itself. And heading off threats before they metastasize means that the United States can keep its eye on more sophisticated rivals such as China and Russia.
But history shows that building militaries in weak states is not the panacea the U.S. national security community imagines it to be. For decades, the United States has poured countless billions into foreign security forces—to the tune of nearly $20 billion per year these days but “the returns have been paltry.”
While the military and financial investment that the US has so far made in Pakistan has turned out to be highly profitable for Washington the losses incurred by Pakistan in the process in terms of its geographical integrity and its strategic goals have been immense
“The biggest problem with Washington’s efforts to build foreign militaries is its reluctance to weigh in on higher-order questions of mission, organizational structure, and personnel—issues that profoundly affect a military’s capacity but are often considered too sensitive to touch. Instead, the US tended to focus exclusively on training and equipment, thus undercutting the effectiveness of U.S. assistance.”
It would be interesting to do a quick capsule study of the US- Pakistan military relations and its impact on the recipient country in the backdrop of Mara Karlin’s observations.
Pakistan’s ostensible purpose of entering into military assistance arrangement with the US was to neutralize the hegemonic ambitions of its bigger neighbour, India while the US had wanted Pakistan military to serve as a bulwark against the creeping advances of Soviet communism in the region.
But at the end of the day while the US could successfully use the Pakistani Army against the occupying Soviet troops in Afghanistan and bring to a final close the 45-year long cold war, the Pakistan Army not only could not stop India from militarily cutting off Pakistan’s eastern half in 1971, it had also failed to end India’s military occupation of a part of Kashmir which has been struggling to liberate itself from Indian yolk now for almost 70 years.
So, while the military and financial investment that the US has so far made in Pakistan has turned out to be highly profitable for Washington the losses incurred by Pakistan in the process in terms of its geographical integrity and its strategic goals have been immense.
While the role of Washington’s self- serving policies cannot be minimized in this outcome favouring the donor, we should also not ignore the contribution of the recipient in getting sucked into the ensuing debacles.
The biggest of these blunders was the overambitious plan to militarily capture the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) in 1965 which resulted in a stalemate
https://dailytimes.com.pk/134110/pakistans-strategic-blunders/
