David Kilcullen, interviewed for the Sydney Morning Herald, says Pakistan could collapse before the end of the year and that the coalition is in race against time.
Cautioning against an excessive focus by Western governments on Afghanistan at the expense of Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen said that “the Kabul tail was wagging the dog”. Comparing the challenges in the two, he said Afghanistan was a campaign to defend a reconstruction program. “It’s not really about al-Qaeda. Afghanistan doesn’t worry me. Pakistan does.”
But he was hesitant about the level of resources for, and the likely impact of, Washington’s new drive to emulate an Iraq-style “surge” by sending an extra 21,000 troops to Afghanistan.
“In Iraq, five brigades went into the centre of Baghdad in five months. In Afghanistan, it will be two combat brigades [across the country] in 12 months. That will have much less of a punch effect than we had in Iraq.
“We can muddle through in Afghanistan. It is problematic and difficult but we know what to do. What we don’t know is if we have the time or if we can afford the cost of what needs to be done.”
America might squeak through without a major effort if the best case scenarios eventuate. The problem is, nobody knows where the Wheel of Fortune will stop in its spin. The article goes:
The special US envoy Richard Holbrooke has been charged with brokering a regional compact by reaching out to Iran, Russia and China, and Dr Kilcullen said: “This is exactly what he’s good at and it could work.
“But will it? It requires regional architecture to give the Pakistani security establishment a sense of security which might make them stop supporting the Taliban,” he said.
“The best case scenario is that the US can deal with Afghanistan, with President Obama giving leadership while the extra American troops succeed on the ground – at the same time as Mr Holbrooke seeks a regional security deal,” he said. The worst case was that Washington would fail to stabilise Afghanistan, Pakistan would collapse and al-Qaeda would end up running what he called ‘Talibanistan.’
“This is not acceptable. You can’t have al-Qaeda in control of Pakistan’s missiles,” he said.
“It’s too early to tell which way it will go. We’ll start to know about July. That’s the peak fighting season … and a month from the Afghan presidential election.”
What Obama intends will be authentically expressed not so much in what he says, but in the resources he devotes towards certain goals. He has a mixed heritage from the previous administration. On the one hand, its victory in the Middle East leaves him with a one, instead of a two front war. The Bush administrations rapproachment with India is also another useful card. On the debit side of the leger, GWB never succeeded in finding a formula that would stabilize Pakistan. And efforts to democratize Pakistan by removing Musharraf may have caused as many problems as it solved.
Obama learned at first hand that NATO’s aversion to supporting the “good war” and what is now BHO’s war in South Asia had less to do with a rejection of Bush policies as with a fundamental military and political incpacity to generate any real expeditionary force. He came away from the NATO summit essentially empty handed. Still, America might still have the resources to solve the problem in South Asia if it could pull together. But here, the decision by the Left to unswervingly undermine the War on Terror will bear bitter fruit on Obama’s watch. Any realistic effort to fix the problem in South Asia will require time, sacrifice and resources. Where will Obama get the political support to make the effort, assuming he decides to make it? His Left wing — his base — has for decades brainwashed themselves into opposing any major commitments abroad. Indeed it elected him largely on the strength of the impression that he would end the War in Iraq and before they realized that South Asia would no longer be a minor little backwater. Faced with a major effort in the theater, the Left is likely to abandon Obama once the casualty and monetary bill in South Asia rises. The segment of American society that is most predisposed to support Obama’s efforts is precisely the segment that deeply suspects him: the conservatives.
A survey by the Pew Research organization shows just how bimodal American politics has become on certain issues. “For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades. The 61-point partisan gap in opinions about Obama’s job performance is the result of a combination of high Democratic ratings for the president — 88% job approval among Democrats — and relatively low approval ratings among Republicans (27%).” Ironically, Obama has greater potential support for an effort in South Asia from those who are antipathetic toward him than from those who “support” him.
Obama’s campaign rhetoric — tirades against “unproven missile defense systems”, pledges to treat enemy combatants like ordinary criminals with full legal rights, implicit promises to draw down military effort — are all crashing against the hard reality of a dangerous world. Kilcullen reminds us that the time for choices is short. We’ll see what happens.
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24 Comments
1. Lifeofthemind:Somalia with nuclear weapons.
Apr 12, 2009 - 7:35 pm 2. Lifeofthemind:Let us do a break down of the interest groups in Pakistan and see how we can deal with them.
1. The potentially pro-Western commercial middle class, the Zardawi/Bhutto faction.
2. The anti-American intellectual and legal lower middle class, the Narwaz Sharif faction.
3. The professional military, potentially anglophile and pro-American, the Musharraf faction.
4. The anti-American, possibly Chinese influenced, pro Taliban ISI military faction.
5. Ethnic groups, from the half the country that are Punjabi to the Pashtuns that support the Taliban to the Baluchis in the South and others. Here is the wiki chart,
Punjabi 81,000,000 (45%)
Pashto 20,790,000 (15%)
Sindhi 20,520,000 (14%)
Seraiki 18,000,000 (10%)
Urdu 12,600,000 (07%)
Balochi 5,400,000 (03%)
Others 10,800,000 (06%)
1. We could try to craft a deal but the problems are twofold, they may not be strong enough to stay in charge and they are so corrupt that we are not sure that they will even stay bought.
2. Also so duplicitous and corrupt that they are likely to betray each other, the reverse of our problem with Zardari is that even their anti-American allies can’t trust the Pakistani lawyers.
3. The allies also of the old aristocracy the Army may split apart, can the US or the Indians find what looks like an honorable way to buy them out?
4. We should know our enemies. If we can’t buy off Chinese support then we need to rally allies to crush the Chinese and ISI influence. The only third choice is to get out.
5. If Pakistan can’t hold together or if it is not in our interest for it to then we should seek to find winners to ally with. That could mean finding a solution with the old aristocracy and the Musharraf Army and the Punjabis, the Baluchis, the Sind and the Indians that neuters the nuclear threat and pushes the Pashtun threat back from the Indus valley and opens up the road to Kandahar.
Apr 12, 2009 - 8:10 pm 3. Fat Man:“The special US envoy Richard Holbrooke has been charged with brokering a regional compact by reaching out to Iran, Russia and China”
What are the odds that those miscreants are going to be at all helpful?
Whatever you will give me I will take the under. I will only take the over at 1000::1.
The only country that can be, and might be, helpful is India. The ones named above will use this as an opportunity to yank BO’s chain.
Apr 12, 2009 - 8:35 pm 4. Rob:Do we have a contingency plan to secure their nukes if the country goes under? Is such a plan even realistic?
Apr 12, 2009 - 8:41 pm 5. Marie Claude:#2
Apr 12, 2009 - 9:25 pm 6. Habu:and you call us “cynical hypocrites” LMAO
In Lifeofthemind #2 he does a great job of identifying some of the challenges. So good in fact it is worth of a comparison of Madison’s Federalist #10. The very opening of the paper. Madison:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.
Now I realise we’re a bit away from Pakistan but the bold lettering above holds true for just about all governments that have a claim to some form of popularity and are infested with factions.
Then we have Douglas MacArthur’s caution “never fight a land war in Asia”, Pakistan and Afghanistan are close enough to qualify.
With seven major factions and who knows how many sub rosa factions alive in Pakistan we would be wise to forget Afghanistan and Pakistan, leaving the latter to be dealt with by the Indians.
We’re not going to “win” in either place. Afghanistan and Pakistan are too diseased with factions to create any type of stable environment. Broker what you want but whatever it is it will not hold. I’d bet Wretchards millions on it.
So we turn over all our intel to India’s RAW and let them neutralize the Paki nukes.
Apr 12, 2009 - 9:53 pm 7. blert:Now sanitized we can maintain a presence in those countries…at least until our embassies are taken over.
The break-up of Pakistan is more likely to be a feature not a bug.
Organized around the principle that they are not Indian has proved to be a weak glue.
By misdirecting our strategy we have set the stage for an endless sequence of peripheral wars that after an ocean of tears and blood will not move us towards victory.
Playing the Great Game WRT AfPakistan in no way drives to the heart of this global conflict. Hence it is most wise to minimize our involvement and rank it as a secondary theatre of the war.
Ground Zero for WWIV is the Arabian Peninsula: KSA and Yemen in particular. OBL and his black guard are all Yemenis. The 15 out of 19 hijackers of 911 infamy were ethnic Yemenis traveling on KSA documents. Yemenis are the under-class of KSA. There is absolutely no border restrictions between Yemen and KSA. Hence operating AQ fronts in Yemen is the way to go.
The Royal Wahhabis have to be ejected and evicted.
Their Yemeni client state has to be purged of Wahhabis.
That H is still bowing to them means at least four more years of war.
It is essential that we do not get decisively engaged in peripheral campaigns. The financial bloodletting alone is reason enough. We need to keep our powder dry — not go off on some wild crusade.
You can’t fix stupid/ Pakistan.
Apr 12, 2009 - 9:59 pm 8. Habu:Rob #4
This should help with your question. The date couldn’t be more timely.
U.S. Retains Hidden Grip on Pakistan’s Nukes
MIddle East Times
Monday, April 13, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/d7×5a7
Apr 12, 2009 - 10:02 pm 9. Alexis:If Pakistan’s political class is less than interested in maintaining either Pakistan’s stability or even Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty (which would mean asserting authority over NWFP), there is a distinct limit to how far any outsider can save Pakistan from its own chaos.
If the Pakistani security forces (particularly the ISI) do not take America’s security needs seriously, there is little reason for us to take their security needs seriously. If Pakistan decides to actively support the Taliban, then we ought to regard the eastern border of the Northwest Frontier as the de facto border of Pakistan for all practical purposes. If Pakistan does not take its own territorial integrity seriously, there is little reason for anybody else to do so either.
Whatever happens in Pakistan, we need to take care of ourselves.
Apr 12, 2009 - 10:08 pm 10. MG:So… what’s wrong w/ AfPakistan’s borders being redrawn into a more stable configuration of tribal groupings?
I don’t get it.
Also, who controls the nukes, if they in fact exist. IIRC, Pakistan’s hurried test after India’s successful one was not a dispositive demonstration of a functioning weapon… more like NorK’s fizzle.
I could research it, but I am too lazy.
Hmm… I gotta say that one with a Homer Simpson delivery.
Apr 12, 2009 - 10:10 pm 11. Habu:MG
Also, who controls the nukes..
See Middle East Times article @
http://tinyurl.com/d7×5a7
Apr 12, 2009 - 10:29 pm 12. whiskey:Obama is not trusted because of what he has done:
1. Gutted Missile defense on the day North Korea launched a new ICBM.
2. Cut the F-22 Raptor program in a time of economic crisis (when it’s a no-brainer to spend the money to ramp up the program and buy MORE to keep employment up).
3. Gutted the Navy, going from the 1,000 ship Navy of Richard Nixon and the 700 ship Navy or Ronald Reagan to below 300, and going from 12 to 10 and possibly 8 carrier groups.
4. Ruled out any military response to Iran going nuclear.
5. Ruled out any military response to Pakistan or Iran nuking America.
6. Closing Gitmo and preparing America for release of most of the inmates into America, where they will get WELFARE!
7. Lectured America abroad about how bad and racist we are.
8. Groveled and bowed to the corrupt King of Saudi Arabia, a deed so unthinkable no other President has EVER done it.
All of which btw have been received as noted very well by his backers. A full 88% of them approve of every thing he’s done.
Which makes sense. If you are a SWPL yuppie, or Gay, or Black or Hispanic or a Woman, well you win and the enemy (White Middle/Working Class men) loses with all of these moves. It’s all over but the crying. Obama and his backers WANT weakness.
They want it because to be strong would take away their own internal power, shifting it to the military and the men who supply the military. No one needs an Iphone toting Yuppie with a “fabulous” granite counter-top and the latest metrosexual obsessions if the game is to destroy threats that can nuke America.
Fortunately, America is big enough to withstand the destruction of her great cities, which is inevitable as Pakistan collapses and Obama hopes and changes with big speeches about how he “respects” the Taliban and AQ.
Only after about 15 million dead, several nuked cities, and the obstinate refusal of Obama AND HIS BACKERS to do anything related to survival will the dead hand of yuppies and their allies be broken.
Apr 12, 2009 - 11:04 pm 13. Brock:I agree with Alexis @ #9, more or less. Only Pakistan can save Pakistan.
For a nation of their geographic size and population, the cultural energy required to create and maintain sovereignty is too great to be injected by a foreign power. It will be internally generated or not at all; and I don’t think they’re up to the challenge.
If Pakistan breaks up, I think the best route forward is to seize the nukes by whatever means necessary, to allow the Punjab to return to India, or allow the Baluchs their independence or joining with India, and to recognize Pashtunistan as a tribal, non-Westphalian State (and then deal with them as such to prevent Al’Qaeda from running the show). I suspect Iran will take a large chunk of present-day Afghanistan, but that’s hardly the worst of our problems.
The question is: will BHO be pragmatic enough to do this, or will he insist on recognizing the “governments” of Afghanistan and Pakistan long after reality is apparent to the rest of us? This question is related to whether he actually gave the order to use deadly force against the pirates in the event Captain Philips’ life was in danger, or if the Navy took the initiative. Because I can see a local commander “taking the initiative” against four pirates. Against Pakistan, not so much.
Apr 12, 2009 - 11:12 pm 14. trangbang68:Whiskey, Take a deep breath ,bro. You’re soundly increasingly hysterical and paranoid.
Apr 12, 2009 - 11:32 pm 15. twobyfour:First off, Obama did not accomplish the laundry list you gave as he has been in office 3 months. Granted ,he has anti-military tendencies,but all those proposals, etc. are not done deals and will no doubt be tempered by events on the ground.
Your stone cold insistence on several nuked cities being inevitable is over the top.
Today is Easter, a celebration of new life, resurrection power, the possibility of darkness being conquered by light. It can happen. History is not all catastrophe and disaster. Give it a rest.
MC/5,
Thought Yuropeans had the nuance pat down. Apparently not!
Realistic analysis and cynical hypocrisy are really two entirely different animals…. you may have doubts but trust me on that.
[Granted, I should have some sort of empathy for yurothink as I grew up in that end of woods, but always felt like an alien there, even as a kid]
Apr 12, 2009 - 11:53 pm 16. RAH:Whiskey is a pessamist and he will not be disappointed. Conservative optomists will be disappointed.
Once the F22 line is shut down it can not be reopened easily, so he is right. Obama has made all the wrong moves the last 3 months. The only good move is allowing Phillips to be rescued. Based on past performance Obama will make the wrong move versus the right move
Apr 13, 2009 - 4:12 am 17. gokart-mozart:West Pakistan is just Yugoslavia with brown faces. The Punjabis and Sindhis are effectively Indians, as anyone who has worked with them in America knows. Indian Muslims live much better than their Pakistani brethren, let India have ‘em. The Baluchs belong to Iran. The tribes are the tribes, maybe they could fit in a Greater Afghanistan, maybe they have no future.
In any event, the time for the fiction of a “Pakistani people” is over. The sooner it disappears, the better.
Apr 13, 2009 - 4:41 am 18. Marie Claude:#15
Of course, a realist analyse isn’t nuanced, but to undertake one of the above discribed situations is what we call to make a political option, and its realisation is disguised behind good ol american morals when it’s only question of interests. Not acknoleging that made you loosing the empathy from the yuropean folks
a spade is a spade
Apr 13, 2009 - 6:04 am 19. E. Nigma:Everything about this has my hindbrain itching to run. Why does it seem good to increase our forces in a landlocked country?
Every sense tells me this will end badly for those stationed in Afghanistan. A 21st century “Anabasis”. A long march to the sea, through hostile territory.
Apr 13, 2009 - 6:42 am 20. Captain Ramen:Has anyone else noticed besides me that the treasury is broke? It would be nice to have a thousand ship navy, enough F-22s to blot out the sun, etc., but we can’t afford it anymore.
If there is anything the past 30 years have taught us, it is that while America is really really good at running states over, we suck hard at occupying them.
Therefore any cuts at DoD should be made in the army. According to Wikipedia we have ‘70 combat brigade combat teams and 212 support brigade combat teams.’ We could easily cut 75% of that (while keeping the air force, marines and navy at the same size) and still retain our ability to knock over almost any state we choose.
Rename the rump army as the Army Expeditionary Force and put the rest on the border with Mexico. They won’t need to be equipped with tanks, strykers and future combat systems. An M16/M4 and interceptor armor will be plenty for border duty.
@19 has it exactly right. What we should do instead is contract out to local tribal forces that also do not want the Taliban in power. They know the terrain better than we do. It’s much cheaper. Of course we’ll have to give up our mission of transforming them into something they are not, something they don’t want. C’est la vie.
Apr 13, 2009 - 8:54 am 21. Fletcher Christian:trangbang68 – “the possibility of darkness being conquered by light. It can happen.”
Yes, you are quite right. The light of a thousand suns will do nicely.
“One Stone to rule them all, one Stone to find them; one Stone to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them – in the land of Saudi where the Shadows lie”.
Time, and well past time, to turn some of the enemy into shadows.
Apr 13, 2009 - 11:19 am 22. Staring In Disbelief:Capt Ramen: i beg to differ re: your comment “we suck hard at occupying them”. While we made a series of completely foreseeable and avoidable mistakes in Iraq (due to the Army & Bush Admin’s unwillingness to accept the inevitable need for long term occupation after an invasion), we still won a signal military victory in a country of 20+ million with a very low overall casualty rate. Historically speaking this is the norm (think Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Iraq) not the exception (think Vietnam). We are good at whatever we make a full bore commitment to. Vietnam is a perfect example of how a war we didn’t really want could be far worse than one we seriously decided to fight.
You are correct as to the afford ability of the F22 AND a big navy AND a big Army. In my opinion we should withdraw nearly all our forces from Europe, leaving a minimal skeleton of a few hundred “treaty participant presence” troops and let the euros pick up the tab if Russia gets froggy again.
Apr 13, 2009 - 11:32 am 23. Captain Ramen:Aha! But in those cases we killed at least half of men of military age. Their infrastructure was pulverized. We had significant allied help. None of that is true in Afghanistan or Iraq.
100% with you on Europe. NATO is a worthless alliance. We invoked the NATO charter after 9/11, have they answered the call? In fact, I’d say that we’re only still there because GWB went back on his campaign promise to avoid nation building – a promise he broke because that was the only way to get any European involvement at all.
Apr 13, 2009 - 1:54 pm 24. Fletcher Christian:Staring – Well, sure. America, with some misguided help from the UK and a little help from elsewhere, managed to win that war with the expenditure of a trillion or so dollars, a few thousand Allied lives and a few hundred thousand Iraqis, and with a couple of trillion in collateral damage. Never mind the fact that there never should have been a Gulf War II at all – the job should have been finished in the first place at the end of Gulf War I – or that Iraq is now more dangerous for the average Iraqi than before. You kicked Iraqi ass, right?
The real problem is that it was the wrong war against the wrong target, and everyone knows it, and the real perps of 9/11 are laughing at the entire West because of it – and still making astronomical amounts of money from our addiction to oil.
What should have been done? Simple. Invade the country of the real perps – Saudi Arabia, which would incidentally have been a pushover. Seize all Saudi-held assets and money, arrest all members of the House of Saud resident in the USA. Invasion having succeeded, turn the Grand Mosque into a pig farm and use the Black Stone, suitably broken up, as part of the concrete for the foundations of a brothel, and permanently annex the oil-producing areas.
The West has been at war with an utterly implacable enemy for 1300 years. Time to once again wake up to that fact, and end it.
Apr 14, 2009 - 12:11 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.