I thought this piece had some interesting views:
What Obama will not hear from Zardari
By Moazzam Husain
Monday, 04 May, 2009 | 01:36 AM PST
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NOW that the tide of Pakistani public opinion appears to be turning against the Taliban and as the military scores a series of successes, Pakistan needs to be given an enabling environment to follow this process through to its logical conclusion.
The Obama administration and congressional policymakers may not hear this from President Zardari and the Pakistani delegation when they arrive in Washington this week. But policymakers in Washington would do well to approach policy formulation from the perspective of Pakistan’s overall military doctrine as it has evolved after 1971.
The defeat and dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 had left deep scars on both the military and society. The “1000-year war” with India that then President Z.A. Bhutto spoke of was a populist response as much as an early conception of a defensive people’s guerilla war against future Indian interventionism.
While on a visit to China, Bhutto had shared his dilemma with then Chinese premier Zhou En-lai: how does one reconcile a poor country and a strong army? The wise and soft-spoken Zhou answered with a one-liner: “Build a people’s army, like we did in China.” A subsequent communiqué to Tikka Khan, his commander-in-chief, perhaps best summarised Bhutto’s thinking in which he wrote: “There will no longer be an absence of clear thinking from our side. In the remotest of our villages, the humblest of our people possess self-confidence, a ready willingness to march forward into India — a spirit, the equivalent of which cannot be found on the other side.”
Even though at the time the army laughed off the proposition, the bug made its way into its doctrinal thinking — even as Pakistani officers at the Staff College in Quetta were being taught that only states with a strong ideological orientation and tight social solidarity like China and North Vietnam can have an effective people’s army. In the background, this strain was beginning to fuse with the tradition of American training of Pakistani Special Forces.
The synthesis when combined with the 1000-year tradition of tribal guerilla warfare that exists in the NWFP and Balochistan resulted in a new variant of the people’s war doctrine that said: “train and arm friendly populations in the territory of your enemy, tying him down in a hundred places”.
This doctrine was tested successfully against the Soviets in the 1980s and in Kashmir in the 1990s until problems arose due to two factors: its unacceptability post 9/11 and the induction of nuclear-capable, short-range tactical surface-to-surface missiles into the arsenals of India and Pakistan.
It is inevitable that the Pakistan Army, if not already, will soon begin to rethink and reformulate this doctrine. Changes to the military’s C3I (command, control, communications and intelligence) structure will not be far behind. In its logical extension it will also include large-scale screening of all officers and ranks for ideological orientation as well as military counter intelligence to watch for any sympathisers of Islamist rebels — as these elements can have a devastating effect on motivation, morale and discipline within the ranks.
In doing so, a relaxation in three binding constraints would significantly enlarge Pakistan’s menu of strategic choices. The constraints referred to are the question of the Durand Line, the alleged interference in Balochistan, and, most importantly, the question of the disputed territory of Kashmir.
The US with unifying support from the international community needs to help Pakistan and its neighbours resolve these, thereby giving Pakistan a large canvas on which to draw its new military doctrine. Without creating that room, no matter how many times you simulate this in game theory — a state with a weak economy, with unresolved boundaries and disputed territories — each time the Pakistani hawks will prevail. This will be by proving themselves right with cost-effective doctrines like “our people’s ready willingness to march into India” or the more successful “train and arm friendly populations in the territory of your enemy, tying him down in a hundred places”.
In a country where the military doctrine is central, Gen Petraeus for instance, would do well to spend a day with Pakistani generals and assess the following scenario: an Afghan National Army has been raised. Nato has pulled out except for a nominal presence in Kabul where an Afghan government hostile to Pakistan has come to power. With Gen Petraeus in the shoes of a Pakistani general, how does the situation look? Where are the separatist Baloch likely to be located? And which side of the line are the opponents to the new Afghan government to be found? As a commander, what are the military options? How does the scenario pan out from here?
Armed with such insights, Gen Petraeus would find himself better equipped to explain the realities to the Senate’s armed services committee. The reality of life in a rough, lawless neighbourhood. The reality of one neighbour laying claim to half your property and refusing to put a fence in between, another neighbour occupying what you think is half of your vegetable garden and then stealing water from your hosepipe by cutting a leak in it even while you’re looking. The reality of a long list of grievances of having been, at different times, wronged, robbed, roughed up, broken up and, as Hillary Clinton recently admitted, abandoned.
The key to peace in this region may lie with the Obama administration facilitating a negotiated settlement of the Durand Line as the final border between the two countries, by perhaps re-tasking Richard Boucher to put Kashmir high up on the international agenda of unresolved international disputes awaiting final settlement and by assisting in bringing the insurgency in Balochistan to an end.
Billions of dollars of aid money given to Egypt, to Pakistan, to Jordan, even to Palestine may have brought about temporary behavioural compliance. But the greenbacks alone did not change the way in which the public perceives the US in these countries. So in terms an additional payoff, a US that is seen to be helping end territorial disputes, settling borders and extinguishing fires will cast itself in a different light.
The halo will be seen from far and the ripples felt on the streets and ghettos of major cities in the Islamic world and across the Muslim diasporas beyond. This is a blank cheque the US will in effect be writing to itself.
moazzamhusain@yahoo.com.au
