Pakistan-Taliban alliance

A story on the Threat Matrix Blog at the Long War Journal makes one wonder whether outspoken resistance to a troop buildup in Afghanistan is ill-advised. Bill Roggio cites to a story by Farhat Taj indicating that “Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency and the Army are backing the Taliban against the Salarzai tribe in the Bajaur tribal agency.” Further along in the article, Roggio writes:

Couple this report with yesterday's report that more jihadi terror camps focusing on the fight against India have opened, and it is clear that Pakistan's military and intelligence services remain compromised and that they have refused to abandon the notion of keeping the Taliban and other terror groups in reserve against India as well as a hedge against a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. And not only that, elements in Pakistan's military and the ISI are also actively aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan: “Who will fight the NATO forces from across the Afghan border if you eliminate the Taliban?” the colonel and the political agent in Bajaur asked.

Given Pakistani concerns about a drawdown or withdrawal of US forces, one might ask whether the skepticism expressed by notables such as Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Carl Levin signals, even if unintentionally, the beginnings of a retreat from commitment to Afghanistan, and thus not only emboldens jihadists, but also plays into the expectations of elements in the Pakistani military and ISI who continue covert support for the Taliban as a hedge in Afghanistan should the US eventually draw down forces or leave outright.

The skepticism of Biden and others is apparently based partly in a belief that the real threat to the international community is from Al Qaeda and seems to assume that links between Al Qaeda and the Taliban are weak at best. This latter assumption is quite tenuous, but another matter altogether. The point is only to raise the question of whether public skepticism about the efficacy of a troop buildup in Afghanistan feeds the incentive for powerful elements in the Pakistani military and ISI to support rather than fight the Taliban. To finish the thought, here is an excerpt from a great post by Steve Coll at Think Tank about the competing factors at work:

The Pakistan military’s tolerance of the Taliban and similar groups is rooted in a belief that Pakistan requires unconventional forces, in addition to a nuclear deterrent, to offset India’s conventional military and industrial might. This self-defeating logic of existential insecurity has informed Pakistan’s policies in Afghanistan because Pakistani generals have seen an Indian hand in Kabul since the days of the Soviet invasion. They interpret India’s goals in Afghanistan as a strategy of encirclement of Pakistan, punctuated by the tactic of promoting instability among Pakistan’s restive Pashtun, Baluch, and Sindhi populations.

Pakistan has countered this perceived Indian strategy by developing Islamist militias such as the predominantly Pashtun Taliban and the Punjab-based Lashkar-e-Taiba as proxies for Pakistan in regional conflicts and as a means to destabilize India. As for the U.S. role, Pakistani generals see it as inconstant and unreliable, based on the pattern of here-and-gone U.S. engagement in the past, and they also tend to believe that the U.S. is today lashing itself, deliberately or naïvely, to Indian strategy in the region.

What does this imply for U.S. policy in Afghanistan today?

If the United States signals to Pakistan’s military command that it intends to abandon efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, or that it has set a short clock running on the project of Afghan stability, or that it intends to undertake its regional policy primarily through a strategic partnership with India, then it will only reinforce the beliefs of those in the Pakistani security establishment who argue that nursing the Taliban is in the country’s national interests. This in turn will exacerbate instability in Pakistan itself.

At the same time, if the United States undertakes a heavily militarized, increasingly unilateral policy in Afghanistan, without also adopting an aggressive political, reconciliation and regional diplomatic strategy that more effectively incorporates Pakistan into efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, then it will also reinforce the beliefs of those in the Pakistani security establishment that they need the Taliban as a hedge against the U.S. and India.

Between withdrawal signals and blind militarization there is a more sustainable strategy, one that I hope the Obama Administration is the in the process of defining. It would make clear that the Taliban will never be permitted to take power in Kabul or major cities. It would seek and enforce stability in Afghan population centers but emphasize politics over combat, urban stability over rural patrolling, Afghan solutions over Western ones, and it would incorporate Pakistan more directly into creative and persistent diplomatic efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and the region.