On June 1, the Center for Global Development held an event to launch the report of its Study Group on a U.S. Development Strategy in Pakistan. South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz is a member of that study group, and was featured on the first panel “Getting Back on Track: A Focused Aid Strategy.”
To learn more about the study group, please visit the Center for Global Development’s website.
On June 1, South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz appeared on Charlie Rose for a conversation on Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – Pakistan’s main intelligence agency – and its possible involvement in the abduction and death of prominent Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad.
For the June 2011 issue of the monthly Pakistan news-magazine Herald, South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz penned an article on the role of Pakistan’s Parliament following the May 2 raid to capture and kill Osama bin Laden.
In an interview with Ullekh NP of The Economic Times, Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz warns that attacks on soft targets are going to rise rapidly in the subcontinent. Excerpts:
How do you respond to Indian home minister P Chidambaram’s statement that "we live in the world’s most troubled neighbourhood"? Is it an exaggeration?
Not really. There are conflicts all around. Over water, resources, ideology, foreign troops. And internal societal conflicts in all countries of South Asia, the Gulf and the Hindu Kush.
What is the writing on the wall after the recent attack on the naval base at Karachi?
It is hard to decipher the writing as yet. There is no such thing as perfect security in every part of the country. But if there is evidence of inside information or help, then the Pakistani authorities have a huge mountain to climb.
There is this constant worry that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals are not safe any more – that they could fall into wrong hands. Do you think the US is taking this threat seriously?
Everyone takes this threat seriously, especially the Pakistanis, and they have taken great pains to set up an elaborate system of concentric perimeters of defence and personnel management and monitoring systems to prevent any attack or leakage.
Pakistan-based defence analysts such as Pervez Hoodbhoy have said that al-Qaeda is losing support in Pakistan. Do you agree? If so, then who is gaining in strength?
Public opinion polls seem to support the Hoodbhoy assertion. But militancy that is home-grown has a breeding ground in Pakistan that will require a long and carefully crafted campaign to eradicate. No silver bullet.
A few academics say that terrorists in the Indian subcontinent will increasingly target Mumbai – like, peaceful cities. Do you see the trend coming?
Attacks on soft targets will increase as the militancy’s home ground comes under increased pressure from the military. But this will turn the public against the militants as happened in the Swat valley.
The number of attacks alleged to have been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban after Osama bin Laden’s death has crossed 15. Are reprisals much more severe than expected?
Hard to say what their aim is. Such wanton attacks will only turn the people against them.
Do you think Pakistan is increasingly becoming unsafe for non-Muslims?
Wanton and random violence and terror has no filter for religion.
How smooth or tough is it going to be once the US pulls out from the Af-Pak region in 2014?
A lot depends on how well the neighbours are brought into the exit planning and how much voice the Afghans get in deciding their future.
How long can Pakistan continue to browbeat the West?
Pakistan needs to work on its internal issues itself and will no doubt need help from friends, including those in the West. The economic situation is not good. But elements of Pakistani society are strong enough to come up with solutions if given the chance.
What should India and Pakistan do to boost ties?
India needs to give Pakistan greater confidence on the security and economic front, so both sides can create open borders and resolve their differences with dialogue rather than hide behind rhetoric. Pakistan must return the favour. Both can benefit enormously from open trade and movement of populations across their borders.
How do you rate the Pakistan-China relations?
On autopilot. Both countries need to work to put the ties on a longer-term time frame as part of a strategy for economic development.
South Asia Center Director Shuja Nawaz participated in a panel discussion on Afghanistan – Pakistan relations entitled “After Osama and the US Withdrawal” at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP).
Other panelists included Mr. Hekmat Karzai, Director, Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies (CAPS), Kabul, Ms. Jasmine Zerinini, Deputy Director, Foreign Affairs Secretary, Directorate General of Political Affairs and Security, Paris, and Dr. W. Pal Sidhu, Visiting Fellow and Director, New Issues in Security Course, GCSP.
The US-Pakistan alliance is fraying. But there may yet be some hope. This is how Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it in his unvarnished words during a press conference on May 18 at the Pentagon:
The United States has long complained that Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are playing a double game when it comes to terrorism and extremism: publicly promising cooperation-and indeed delivering some-while privately supporting America’s enemies. They point to Pakistan’s apparent reluctance to take on groups like the Haqqaani network, a Taliban affiliate that launches attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan, and the Quetta Shura, Taliban leaders based in Baluchistan. In the eyes of the United States, the Pakistan army has not been the most dependable international ally, a sentiment that is reciprocated by the Pakistanis. And now, many American officials are hoping that the raid that killed Osama bin Laden will give them the leverage to force the Pakistani security establishment to choose sides once and for all.
If only it were that simple.
Killing bin Laden has indeed succeeded at putting pressure on the Pakistani army, but not to the effect that Washington may have wished. The truth is that Pakistanis are angrier about the United States’ ability to launch a special-operations raid right under their noses than they are that bin Laden was found on their soil-and the military is bearing the brunt of the criticism inside Pakistan. Text-message jokes about the army are making the rounds, parliament is angrily voicing embarrassing questions about the military’s lack of preparedness, and the chattering classes are tossing ceaseless insults. But it’s the United States that now has the most to lose. The Pakistani military is destined to remain an important institution in Pakistan’s otherwise dysfunctional polity, and Washington has more to gain by reforming it cooperatively than by casting it aside.
Pakistan’s history and geography has always dictated the need for a large military. It is surrounded by multiple major powers and conflict zones: Afghanistan to the west, rising India to the east, and China to the north, making Pakistan a key locus of super power interests and rivalries. It is necessarily wary about its own security. And the army has always seen itself as the national institution par excellence, an organization explicitly of the people and for the people. Indeed, recruitment patterns show that the army is increasingly representative of the country as a whole: in an otherwise fractured country, that is reason enough to justify its outsized presence on the national stage.
For the most part, the Pakistani military has earned its reputation as an effective military force. But it also overreached in trying to take over civil administration under general-cum-president Pervez Musharraf. And it has been poor at political engineering. The army under Musharraf had penetrated the ranks of the civilian bureaucracy, taking over education and training institutions and essentially running certain ministries. After assuming command as army chief, Kayani ordered all army officers serving in government to either resign from the military or to return to it full time.
At the time of the May 1 raid, the Pakistani military had just recently restored its pride of place as the most respected institution in the country. It had slipped in public confidence after it allowed the Pakistani Taliban to take over parts of Malakand and Swat in 2006, but in the past four years, the army, under its new chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has focused on burnishing its credentials and improving the institution’s professionalism and capacity to fight. Both had been compromised under Musharraf’s autocratic rule.
In the face of a rising tide of homegrown terrorism and insurgency, the army also shifted gears and its training from being India-centric to being more agile and prepared for low-intensity conflict, using some of the counterinsurgency (COIN) principles that the United States army learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. Within the past two years, it revamped the training at its military academy, infantry school, staff, college, and the national defense university to focus on how to fight asymmetric war against its own people. And it has moved some 150,000 troops to fight terror groups on its western border, incurring the wrath of a domestic insurgent group, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). This was a major shift in thinking for a force that had in earlier years used its top spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, to foment insurgency in neighboring countries and support militancy against Afghanistan and India. It was a shift that was in tune with Washington’s priorities in the region.
That’s not to say that the military has been unimpeachable. It is still too involved in the country’s economy, with major holdings in banking, real estate, and transportation. Especially as the national economy has deteriorated, the military has had incentives to involve itself in civilian decision-making. Further, Pakistan continues to countenance the use of its territory by Afghan Taliban groups that fight the U.S.-led coalition inside Afghanistan. Its inability or unwillingness to take on these Afghan groups in their Pakistani sanctuaries is a constant irritant in its relationship with the United States.
But the Pakistani military apparently recognizes the value of its ties with the U.S. military — and not just the $16 billion it has received in security-related aid and reimbursements since 2001. A measure of the importance attached to American military training by the Pakistani military is the fact that a number of officers sent to the United States have been promoted before their return to Pakistan, if not immediately afterwards. Clearly, a lot of thought is going into the selection of the individuals being sent to the United States for specialized training. Some 100 of them will be in the United States this year alone.
Washington would be wise to use that cultural affinity — as well as the fact that the Pakistani army depends on the United States to maintain its weapons systems and supply spare parts — as leverage to change the shape of their long-term collaboration. Both sides need to explicitly agree on the nature of their relationship and identify and determine the reasons for their disagreements so there are no residual suspicions. A written agreement would provide maximum certainty. But the trust that is needed to sustain this relationship has to be earned by both sides. That will take time.
Determining the role of the Pakistani intelligence should, no doubt, also be on the American agenda. The ISI is an integral part of the Pakistan military, and the current head, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, is a close confidant of Kayani. It would be a mistake to assume that Pasha is working at cross purposes with the military.
But Washington can do plenty to immediately prove its good faith to Pakistan’s most important public institution. It should share any links it can substantiate between the army and al Qaeda in general, and bin Laden in particular. It could emphasize that the United States is prepared to work together with Pakistan to find other al Qaeda leaders in other towns in the vicinity of Abbottabad, where they are likely to be located (given the reliance on courier communications of al Qaeda central). It could work to strengthen the capacity of Pakistan’s civilian police institutions, which are closer to the ground and could play a key role in fighting militancy.
Of course, the United States is within its rights to lay out the options clearly and the implications of non-cooperation. Americans are angry at what they see as Pakistan’s duplicity in the face of terror. But punishment is not a policy. No matter what the United States does, Pakistan’s military will maintain its outsized role in the country’s public life, and any agreement has to be in its interests for it to stick. Fortunately, there is much overlap between Washington’s and Islamabad’s interests in the region, from a stable Afghanistan and Pakistan to normalization of Pakistan’s relations with India.
Before anything else, however, the Pakistani army should be given time to resolve its internal debates, tempting though it may be to ratchet up criticism and pressure after its public humiliation on May 1. If not, then a break with Pakistan may be unavoidable. And if that happens, it’s likely the United States that will find itself friendless at a time when it needs allies more that ever.
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. This essay originally appeared in Foreign Policy.
Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Sunday to talk about the state of U.S.-Pakistan relations after the death of Osama bin Laden.
Since the death of Osama bin Laden, Shuja Nawaz has appeared on many news outlets to discuss impact of the Al Qaeda leader’s death on the relations of the U.S. and Pakistan. A collection of his appearances can be found here.
With the killing of Osama bin Laden, attention has shifted to the endgame in Afghanistan. But a persistent problem remains inside Pakistan: the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban. This homegrown terrorist organization swore war against the state when the army was sent into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan. For the past eight years Pakistan has chosen to use its military to fight this insurgency, devoting some 150,000 troops and members of the locally recruited Frontier Corps and other community police to the mission. It has cleared areas in each of the seven agencies that comprise FATA only to find that the Pakistani Taliban resurfaces elsewhere. Even persistent U.S. drone attacks, one of which killed the founding leader of the TTP, Baitullah Mehsud, failed to destroy the organization. If the battle against these terrorists does not improve, Pakistan faces a grim future, especially after the United States begins to exit from Afghanistan and funding for the fight for Pakistan declines, either as a result of general cut backs or because of differences with Pakistan over the Pakistani lack of vigor in battling Al Qaeda.
After the October 2009 invasion of the Pakistani Taliban’s headquarters in the Mehsud territory of South Waziristan, the leadership, under Baitullah’s successor Hakimullah Mehsud, was forced to flee to other parts of the FATA. Reportedly Hakimullah first went to the Orakzai Agency and may have moved elsewhere as military-clearing operations mounted in the region. Dislocation from his tribal base puts Hakimullah Mehsud at a disadvantage in the FATA’s Pashtun culture, where he now must rely on the protection of his tribal hosts but he has also become more dangerous, since he has fixed his sights on coalition forces in Afghanistan and may also be liaising with Punjabi Taliban, who are entering the fight inside Afghanistan. Poor intelligence means that Pakistani forces cannot trace and then kill or capture Hakimullah on their own. Are they waiting or the U.S. drones to do their job?
The Pakistani Taliban comprises numerous local leaders, some of whom are new to their role, having usurped traditional tribal elders. Some are mere “tax collectors,” living off transit fees or robbery. Others are involved in smuggling and transporting drugs. A few also allegedly operate as freelancers, paid by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. But their loyalties keep shifting. A local saying is “you cannot buy a Pashtun, but you can always rent him!” They have a loose affiliation across the region and even with groups outside the FATA.
The Pakistani military maintains that it has cleared most of the FATA of these terrorists except pockets in the border between the Orakzai and Kurram Agencies, the Tirah Valley in the Khyber Agency that extends towards the Afghan border, and a sanctuary on the Kunar side of the Afghan border. Yet the war has not been won, nor is it likely to be anytime soon. Absent a broader and deeper involvement of the civilian side and the creation of jobs and opportunities in the FATA, as well as the political, social and economic integration of these tribal areas into Pakistan proper, the problem is likely to persist. A bigger issue may emerge if the Coalition Support Funds that currently sustain the Pakistani effort dry up in the wake of the contretemps following the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Pakistan does not have the budgetary resources or equipment to carry on the fight at the level and pace that it has up until now. Its army still has not created integrated units that would mimic the Provincial Reconstruction Teams or the National Solidarity Program that seem to work in Afghanistan.
Even more dangerous is the potential hookup of the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban, including the Punjabi Sunni extremists. In the latter category are groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Jaish-e-Muhammad, who have participated in sectarian violence against the Shia Turi tribe in the Kurram Agency. Reports have surfaced recently that the Afghan Taliban leader Siraj Haqqani and his forces are moving into Kurram and trying to make peace between these warring sectarian groups. If Haqqani moves into the Parrot’s Beak territory of Kurram that protrudes into Afghanistan, he would have a launching pad even closer to Kabul than his current base in North Waziristan.
Until recently, Pakistan’s military has made deals with Haqqani and adopted a laissez-faire policy, allowing his forces to use North Waziristan as a sanctuary. In return, Haqqani has not attacked the army directly and has also allowed rations to be supplied to Pakistan’s border posts—border posts that are designed to interdict movement across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The irony and contradiction of all this is glaring. What use are the posts if the people whom they are supposed to monitor and stop are the ones that allow the posts to be supplied?
Times may be changing. There are some reports from regimental-level officers in the territory that Haqqani forces or their allies have given sanctuary and support to escapees from South Waziristan, escapees who have attacked and killed army and Frontier Corps soldiers periodically. If true, the army may have good reason to want to push Haqqani back into Afghanistan. Thus far Pakistan has held off from moving against Haqqani for two reasons: first, his perceived usefulness as a bargaining chip in ensuring that there is Pashtun representation in an Afghan government after coalition forces withdraw; second, Pakistan does not have the force needed to effectively mount a cleanup operation. But as Pakistan talks directly with the Afghan authorities and reaches an understanding of what the shape of a Kabul government will be in years to come, it may find Haqqani more of a liability than an asset: he is known for his independence and likely will not follow Pakistani orders. Further, Pakistan is now moving forces from Swat and will have at least one extra division, if not more, to move into North Waziristan to supplement the seven division troops based there. If debate in the Pakistan military high command continues over what to do about Haqqani, it is possible that military action may occur. But the sorry state of U.S.-Pakistani relations may affect the timetable adversely. Among other things, the Pakistanis will be looking for signs of U.S. troop movement into the regional command opposite North Waziristan to indicate U.S. resolve to take on Haqqani in his own territory with more than just Special Forces. U.S. success may embolden the Pakistanis to act against Haqqani. But they will also be watching what happens in the overall allied effort in Afghanistan after this summer’s deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal.
Meanwhile, Pakistan faces a more serious problem in the hinterland. There is no evidence of a strategy to take on the Sunni militants that are fighting the state nor outward-facing groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. Even if Afghanistan settles down, Pakistan faces a long war for which it is not fully prepared. The result may be continuing instability inside Pakistan and creeping radicalization may become a reality in society at large and perhaps even infect the military over time. In nuclear-armed Pakistan, this may pose a regional and global threat to peace and stability. Pakistan needs to begin this fight at home. If it takes the first steps, the world may be able to help it. The alternative is unimaginable.
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. This essay originally appeared in The National Interest.
The United States’ raid deep into the heart of Pakistan on May 2 (local time) to terminate Osama bin Laden without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities and military was a shock to the bilateral relationship on the one hand and to the status quo inside Pakistan on the other. Things cannot be the same in Pakistan. If Pakistan fails to learn from this incident, it will not be prepared for the next external shock, and will be in a reactive mode yet again. Pakistan needs to craft a new paradigm, for its own sake.
In the past year, I have participated in a number of simulations and scenario-building exercises that examined U.S. reactions to another terrorist attack emanating from Pakistan. We also looked into the crystal ball to see what the future shape of Pakistan would be 10 or 20 years from now. One thing on which we agreed was that Pakistan today does not appear to have a clear or overarching vision of its future nor any political will to implement changes in its polity that might prepare it for an uncertain future in which it remains a “price taker.” In other words, it remains subject to the currents generated by global and regional change rather than being a change agent itself.
Bin Laden’s killing magnified the fissures inside Pakistan’s dysfunctional polity. The civilian government was caught up in attempts to cobble together a fresh coalition, even if it involved a marriage of convenience with the rump of the autocratic regime that it succeeded. Regime survival was its main focus of attention. Either it failed to comprehend the weight of the invasion of its territory by its U.S. ally, or it did not care. The president and prime minister wasted no time in praising the death of the Al Qaeda leader. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani pronounced it a “great victory” and boarded a plane for Paris.
This left the Army yet again to evaluate the import of the attack and to come up with a reply, a response that ought to have come from the government. Four days later, the Army’s message emerged from the Corps Commanders’ meeting: Don’t do it again, it told the Americans, yet again. In a statement that mirrored the March 17 press release following the drone attack on Dattakhel in North Waziristan that reportedly killed some 41 persons, it warned the Americans one more time to cease and desist. According to the military press release, Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani “made it very clear that any similar action, violating the sovereignty of Pakistan, will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States.” And he reduced the number of U.S. military personnel in Pakistan. Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir warned of “disastrous consequences” if another similar intrusion were to occur.
Meanwhile, Washington was reverberating with accusations of Pakistani complicity with Al Qaeda in hiding bin Laden, and warnings of aid cut-off even while thanking Pakistan for its initial tip that led to the killing. Pakistan said nothing about the aid flows, including the cash payment under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) that pays for the military’s operations in its northwest and is the biggest element in the transactional relationship between both countries. The deal made by then president Pervez Musharraf to rent out Pakistan’s military to the United States essentially stays intact. What if CSF inflows dried up? There does not appear to be a Plan B, or if it exists, it has not been shared with Parliament or the people of Pakistan. Pakistan’s war against its internal terrorists is at risk.
Questions rightly arose inside Pakistan about the failure of its intelligence agencies to locate and capture bin Laden themselves, and the inability of the Army and Air Force to detect the intruders that came in on May 2 at 1 A.M. to Abbottabad, did their business and left unhindered. The intelligence failure can be explained by the lack of coordination between the military and the some 19 civilian police agencies that fall over each other inside the country to systematically search for the Al Qaeda leadership. Also, the capture of Al Qaeda leaders may not have been top priority for the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The failure to intercept the raiders is rooted in the vast technological gap that exists between the United States and Pakistan and the apparent lack of any war-gaming of scenarios that included such an attack from the West.
The Army chief is reported to have ordered an inquiry and promised the president and prime minister that the government will be presented its findings. No word on what timetable has been set for it to be completed, and whether the public will be privy to its results. Except for one case in 1992 when the Army acted rapidly on charges of the killing of innocent civilians by a military team in Sindh, the government and the Army have never shared inquiry reports on issues that affect Pakistan. Not in the death of the first prime minister, the debacle of East Pakistan in 1971, the Kargil war, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the murder of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, or the October 2010 Internet video of extrajudicial killings in Swat by the military. All promises made to get to the heart of these matters remain just that. The state of Pakistan and its inhabitants will not collapse if faced with the truth. Neither will its institutions, including the Army. Indeed, they may be strengthened by the sunshine that they fear so deeply. Isn’t it time to change the paradigm of secrecy?
Pakistan deserves a better response this time. The government needs to take responsibility for national defense policy and foreign policy instead of being consumed by the desire to survive as long as it can, by hook or by crook and ceding national policymaking to the military. It should bring Parliament into the picture and exercise its right to govern all aspects of Pakistani policy: whether civil or military. If it cannot, it does not deserve to stay in power. Similarly, the military must facilitate an arms-length inquiry by publicly identified and highly respected members of both military and civil backgrounds, serving and retired, set a timetable for its report, and take responsibility for its results. Its leadership must do the right thing if the results point to failure on its part. No scapegoats please, nor any pussyfooting. For the sake of Pakistan and the Army’s own reputation, do it quickly and do it right this time.
As for the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, rather than pretend that everything is fine, as the foreign secretary’s rosy pronouncements during his recent Washington foray indicated, a serious reevaluation and reiteration of the broad aims that are shared by both is needed, before the next Strategic Dialogue. Without agreement on the higher-level objectives of both countries, all talk on sectoral and sub-sectoral cooperation will come to naught. It is time to end the shadow play and stop pretending all is well. Delay will exacerbate the deep divide that exists today between these “allies.”
The ball is squarely in Pakistan’s court. It must act boldly and openly, or risk being kept on the back foot and suffering the consequences. Its people deserve to be made part of the solution. Recent events show that governance is too important to be left in the hands of government alone. Is anyone listening in Islamabad and Rawalpindi?
Shuja Nawaz is director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. This essay originally appeared in Newsweek Pakistan.