The US & others working with Pakistan

[bourbon]

Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do - Why the U.S.-Pakistani Alliance Isn't Worth the Trouble, by Husain Haqqani. Foreign Affairs, March/April 2013.

With the United States and Pakistan at a dead end, the two countries need to explore ways to structure a nonallied relationship. They had a taste of this in 2011 and 2012, when Pakistan shut down transit lines in response to a NATO drone strike on the Afghan-Pakistani border that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. But this failed to hurt the U.S. war effort; the United States quickly found that it could rely on other routes into Afghanistan. Doing so was more costly, but the United States' flexibility demonstrated to Islamabad that its help is not as indispensable to Washington as it once assumed. That realization should be at the core of a new relationship. The United States should be unambiguous in defining its interests and then acting on them without worrying excessively about the reaction in Islamabad.

The new coolness between the two countries will eventually provoke a reckoning. The United States will continue to do what it feels it has to do in the region for its own security, such as pressing ahead with drone strikes on terrorist suspects. These will raise hackles in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military leadership is based. Pakistani military leaders might make noise about shooting down U.S. drones, but they will think long and hard before actually doing so, in light of the potential escalation of hostilities that could follow. Given its weak hand (which will grow even weaker as U.S. military aid dries up), Pakistan will probably refrain from directly confronting the United States.

A provocative article from Pakistan's former Ambassador to the US. Some context about the author:

Commentary: Geopolitical conundrum, by Arnaud de Borchgrave. UPI.com, Feb. 22, 2013.

[carl]

David and Bourbon:

Those were two quite outstanding articles. Thank you both for highlighting them.

[davidbfpo]

A few weeks ago I posted a review of 'Ask Forgiveness No Permission: The True Story of an Operation in Pakistan's Badlands' in the thread on Pakistani Internal Security, which is reproduced in Part 2.

Last week The Spectator published a review of the BBC's veteran Pakistan correspondent, Owen Bennett-Jones, which is more a commentary on working with Pakistan and it ends:

Of course, you could argue that his militia was politically controlled — but just not by the country that picked up the bill to pay for it.

Link:http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/889...as-in-control/

Part 2

A modern Lawrence, with locals in choppers

A new book on:

an ex-Royal Navy pilot, led a 25-strong force of specially-recruited (Frontier Corps) Pakistani soldiers raiding Taliban camps, hunting down kidnap victims and detaining suspected al-Qaeda militants (in 2003).

Lt Cdr Leedham tells his story in a new book, Ask Forgiveness Not Permission....The inspiration for his instructions came from the writings of Lawrence of Arabia. “These guys really did perform..I used a lot of Lawrence doctrine. I know it sounds a bit hokey but I did.”.....the model he used — small teams of local fighters with tight security protocols that prevent tip-offs to militant leaders — could still be used to hunt terrorists even as Western forces pull out of the region.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...t-Taliban.html

The UK Amazon has six rave reviews and the Foreword is by Frederick Forsyth:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ask-Forgiven.../dp/1903071674

It appears not to have been released yet in the USA:http://www.amazon.com/Ask-Forgivenes...Not+Permission
__________________

[carl]

Here is a link to an article that Madhu pointed out to me. It is about working, no, dealing with, no, doing whatever it is we do with the Pak Army/ISI. It has the most wonderful title-Malice in Wonderstan.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2013/05/13342035

[omarali50]

Hallelujah!

http://www.viewpointonline.net/what-...e-taliban.html

[davidbfpo]

Christine Fair wades into the fray with a ten point article on War on the Rocks, none of the points made will come as a surprise here:http://warontherocks.com/2014/01/ten...ove-to-peddle/

[MoorthyM]

Christine Fair wades into the fray with a ten point article on War on the Rocks, none of the points made will come as a surprise here:http://warontherocks.com/2014/01/ten...ove-to-peddle/

Perhaps.

However, the real overlooked point is that, arguably, Pakistan has been able to get away for decades because the U.S.-based expertise on Pakistan hasn’t been up to snuff.

Unfortunately, this deficiency continues to this day, with none other than Dr. Christine Fair herself muddying the waters.

For example, in an article (title: "Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani State") published in Survival over two years ago, she suggested this: “Containing Pakistan per se is not feasible, nor is attempting to do so even desirable.”

Now, an opposite advice in her latest article published in lawfare blog: “[The U.S. should] develop more coercive tools to contain the threat that Pakistan poses to itself and beyond.”

As Amb. Husain Haqqani points out in his new book Pakistan's strategic outlook has changed little in almost four decades. And yet, our eminent political scientists are yet to figure out what makes Pakistan tick!

With al-Qaeda variety now resurgent, policy-makers in the US and in Europe must be wondering who they can turn to for advice.