Pakistani internal security (catch all)

[George L. Singleton]

Wana88:

Telephone recorded evidence (you can read it on the Internet if you like) and comments by Batulla himself state he was the master planner behind the murder of Mrs. Bhutto.

What was gained? Chaos, which always benefits the terrorist cause inside Pakistan. Plus the terrorists were and are very much against "democracy" and the PPP which advocated more democracy and a more sectarian society.

Bearing in mind it was indeed long ago, bit I did live and work in Paksitan for almost two years, and later did business with Pakistan folks as an international banker. My comments today are built from current tense friends, locals, inside Pakistan, not "opinions."

Thanks for your reply, but Massud is the bad guy and President Zardari has the motivation of his wife's murder to go after him, and that he/the Pak military are doing, and I hope continue to do until he and his league of terrorists are wiped out.

[Wana88]

but Massud is the bad guy and President Zardari has the motivation of his wife's murder to go after him, and that he/the Pak military are doing, and I hope continue to do until he and his league of terrorists are wiped out.

Mr S:
Never said BM did or didn't do it. No one knows all the facts or motivations --except the mastermind(s)behind what, on the surface, seems an open and shut case. But as all the growing list of "experts" on the place must know/understand, things are never what they seem thus the predilection for conspiracies by the "natives."
The young men who detonated certainly looked "Pushtun." But one should never take things at face value. Some say BM did Zardari a favor and that's the charitable view BTW thats bandied about.
As for BM being "bad;" well that is putting it rather mildly. He is just another meglomaniacal terrorist busy terrorizing (mostly his own kinsmen) fellow Muslims. As for Zardari's motivations well that is something better left for another discussion. This is a man who had his own brother in law (Murtaza) gunned down while BB sat on the throne. The only member of that cursed Bhutto family that has any credibility is Fatima Bhutto (Murtaza's daughter) and maybe ZUlfiqar junior but he is still young.
Finally, last but not least, is the Pak army also going to head down to Quetta and "take care" of the Taliban Central folks who are the VIP guests of ISI????

Beaten this dead horse enough...le fin.

[George L. Singleton]

Finally, last but not least, is the Pak army also going to head down to Quetta and "take care" of the Taliban Central folks who are the VIP guests of ISI????

First, I believe the Quetta "clean out" is underway as I write this SWJ belated response...and thank you for your comments by the way. Quetta as you know is also the home of the Pakistani Army War College, an irony in and of itself.

But, as of right now Pakistan's President and total military are in 100% action against the Taliban and al Qaida, and for this we should be grateful, supportive, and insistent that it continue until the Taliban are put down and al Qaida flatly wiped off the map, literally.

I hope you saw the articles both in today's June 15 WASHINGTON POST and in the TIMES of London...quoting TIMES June 15 article in part about attacking and cleaning them out once and for all war from South Waziristan Taliban leader down to his forces, which TIMES article reads in part:

From The Times
June 15, 2009
Pakistan orders attack on Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6501450.ece

Jeremy Page and Rehmat Mehsud in Islamabad
Pakistan was mobilising troops and artillery today to launch a massive offensive against Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, in his mountain stronghold of South Waziristan — also believed to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

Military officials told The Times that the Government had ordered the attack and the military was pounding Mr Mehsud’s territory with heavy artillery and airstrikes and negotiating alliances with rival tribal leaders in preparation for a ground assault.

They also said that the army — already fighting the Taleban in Swat and several other parts of northwestern Pakistan — was engaged in its biggest military operation since the 1971 war that split Pakistan and created Bangladesh.

[sabers8th]

From the International News in Pakistan Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani wrote a piece entitled COIN for Dummies. It is about the Pakistan Military's offensive against the Taliban.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=183348

The intro:

"One should see the whole before the parts" – Fredrick the Great



Indeed, one should. The problem is that faced with imminent threats, the whole was of no use. If the Taliban were all set to break out for Islamabad, the only part that mattered was whether they would take the motorway or come over the Margalla Hills. Some in that case would have 'called-in the Marines', or the Drones. We have neither, so we yelled for the army. Well it is there, once again; this time to root out this evil once and for all. A reasonable desire, but coming from us sounds a bit strange. After all, we are the ones who have been reminding all the rest that insurgencies could not be wiped out by force, and the B-52s were ill-suited to chase the likes of Osama and Omar. I have no idea what chance Fazlullah and Muslim Khan have to escape the crosswire of the F-16s, but the military action does provide us with yet another chance to find out how the "COIN" (counterinsurgency) works.

[William F. Owen]

Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani writes

Moaning and groaning over the root-causes of the insurgency again would be in vain. Root-causes are embedded in history that cannot be rolled back. Those who created the mujahideen rolled back a superpower, which became history. Their successors, the Taliban, are in the process of doing the same to its opposite number. We have to take care of their sidekick, the "Pakistani Taliban".

Now that we have decided to fight this war, we should not make any excuses. That 'our army is not trained for an unconventional war', is a pretty lame one. All armies are trained in conventional warfare and then adapt to the task at hand. No one trains for COIN and then awaits an insurgency.

The above paragraphs contains a heck of a lot more insight than I think I can reasonably discern with just one reading. It's an intriguing observation.

[Steve Blair]

And how well they adapt remains the big question, along with how well they preserve the information and skills they need to adapt. That to me remains the most intriguing problem set.

[Bob's World]

He sounds like an excellent conventional officer.

If given free reign to execute this within the paradigm he describes, the actions of the Pak army would do far more than the actions of the Taliban to destroy his country. Like all armies, they need to focus on the insurgent, not the insurgency. But only if the Civil leadership understands the difference and has divided the civil and military tasks accordingly. Only if the Civil leadership is focused on the insurgency itself in a wholistic approach.

Sadly they usually just hand it off to the military that then goes out and executes its one thin aspect of the operation as if it were the entire operation, which has never produced a positive, enduring result.


I just read a great article that was pushed to me in an intel summary. "Why the Taliban Won’t Take Over Pakistan,” by Ben Arnoldy from the 7 June Christian Science Monitor. I tried to google it and it wouldn't come up, so can't confirm the cite. Worth a read for an alternative to the "Pakistan is failing" drum that gets beaten so loudly of late.

[Entropy]

One point I've made several times about the Pakistani tribal areas are that they more resemble colonies than parts of a whole "Pakistani" state. Pakistan sure treats them more like colonial possessions. If this view is correct, does it make any difference in terms of insurgency and COIN?

[William F. Owen]

If given free reign to execute this within the paradigm he describes, the actions of the Pak army would do far more than the actions of the Taliban to destroy his country. Like all armies, they need to focus on the insurgent, not the insurgency.

Again this assumes that the Pakistani Taliban (very different from the A'Stan) enjoy popular support. What if they do not? Even if they do, it's not an excuse not to subject them to military power. No Insurgents. No Insurgency. It is that simple.

OK, some folks may have a legitimate grievance. So what? Use legitimate forms of expression. Use violence and you can expect violence in return. That dynamic applies to ALL ARMED conflict.

Bob, tell me. How would you address the FARC's grievances in Colombia, or the RUF's in Sierra Leone, or the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda?

[Ken White]

or similar environment. I've also known SF officers who did not do well in a COIN or similar environment. Good and bad people abound in all walks of life. Amazingly, some who don't 100% agree with me on many things or accept the gospel according to Saint Ken seem to be able to do good work and achieve great results.

I still cannot believe that it doesn't have to be done my way to work...

That said, Durrani's article makes sense to me and reflects his realistic understanding of a governmental milieu that is not too swift -- and of the willingness of Armies (ANY bureaucratic organization) to sluff hard jobs and make excuses...

Lot of that going around.

He's the LINK to the CSM Article "Why the Taliban Won’t Take Over Pakistan." Agree with you that it is a good and accurate article. I also think it effectively supports the Durrani Op-ed...

[Bob's World]

One point I've made several times about the Pakistani tribal areas are that they more resemble colonies than parts of a whole "Pakistani" state. Pakistan sure treats them more like colonial possessions. If this view is correct, does it make any difference in terms of insurgency and COIN?

Absoulutely. It goes to both of the key elements of COIN: Goodness and Legitimacy.

If the populace does not view themselves primarily as "Pakistani," but rather as "Pashto" or some other tribal affiliation, then they will not grant/recognize the legitimacy of the Pakistani government over their tribal governments, more as a supplementary overlay rather than a primary ruling role. This affects very much both what they expect from the government and how they will react to engagement by the government.

This leads neatly into the concept of "goodness." Different expectations will absolutely color what a popualce perceives as acceptable governance or not. A COIN campaign waged in the Indus valley would be very different in nature and approach than one waged in the mountains. Different populaces and different perspectives and expectations of governance.


As to WILF's comments, I would simply say that you appear to be taking my comments as "absolutes." While I do believe that there are some fairly absolute truths rooted in general human nature that shape all insurgencies, application is alway a matter of degree tailored for the situation, culture and populace one faces. It appears quite clear that the majority of the Pashto populace does not desire Taliban rule and wants very much for that problem to go away. But I suspect they also are very suspect of how the Pakistani government is going to apply that help. If applied too heavy-handedly, it can have the negative effect of expanding the popular support for the Taliban among the Pashto. If done right, in a supporting effort to the tribal leaders in a manner sensitive to the culture of the region, it can be very effective.

I just don't see a history of cultural sensitivity here, so my concern is that out of our fear of failed states and loose nukes we may push the Paks to launch a campaign that is all thrust and no vector.

As to Ken's comments, I never said conventional guys can't do COIN, I said he was expressing a very conventional approach. To me at least, the difference is considerable.

[William F. Owen]

As to WILF's comments, I would simply say that you appear to be taking my comments as "absolutes."

Not my intention. Apologies if it came off that way.

If applied too heavy-handedly, it can have the negative effect of expanding the popular support for the Taliban among the Pashto. If done right, in a supporting effort to the tribal leaders in a manner sensitive to the culture of the region, it can be very effective.

Agreed, and just so as we are quite clear Mr President, when you say "go away" you mean "kill."

[Ken White]

...As to WILF's comments, I would simply say that you appear to be taking my comments as "absolutes."

Wilf is not alone, many of your comments seem to be absolutes which when and if questioned, are modified.

It's sort of like throwing a Grenade in the room. If it kills all the bad guys, good enough. If it does not, then you adjust. Nothing wrong with that, it's a technique that adapts well to boards like this. Many of us do that and make no bones about it, mostly because everyone can figure it out as well as we can...

That, however, can lead to 'misunderstandings' like this:As to Ken's comments, I never said conventional guys can't do COIN, I said he was expressing a very conventional approach...Actually, what you said was:

"He sounds like an excellent conventional officer.

Which is an innocuous comment on the surface but coming from one who takes great pride in his branch and who has routinely derided the 'conventional' approach can come across as an insulting comment. At least to me and I'm sure not the target of the comment, I just read it on a discussion board...

When you follow that with this:

"If given free reign to execute this within the paradigm he describes, the actions of the Pak army would do far more than the actions of the Taliban to destroy his country. Like all armies, they need to focus on the insurgent, not the insurgency. But only if the Civil leadership understands the difference and has divided the civil and military tasks accordingly. Only if the Civil leadership is focused on the insurgency itself in a wholistic approach.

Which is certainly a valid opinion but something of an absolute and not really all that much at odds with what Durrani wrote, it makes the initial comment at least suspect if not a bit more of a derisory comment...

To me at least, the difference is considerable.

To others, perhaps not so much.

Conventional and unconventional are neat, facile and really sort of silly and much overused buzzwords; using them implies that only the properly anointed (or funded and manned) can do one or the other.

The hard truth is that the decently trained can do both with equal facility.

[Surferbeetle]

...this one in particular:

Conventional and unconventional are neat, facile and really sort of silly and much overused buzzwords; using them implies that only the properly anointed (or funded and manned) can do one or the other.

The hard truth is that the decently trained can do both with equal facility.

Tom Rick's Blog The Best Defense got me started on looking for (a link would have been appreciated, but it's a great blog just the same) Mr. Gates' comments on hybrid warfare at his 18 June Press Conference:

Q Mr. Secretary, the department is engaged in the Quadrennial Defense Review, department-wide review of strategy, weapons systems. And I take it from your public comments in recent months that the framework is that the U.S. should be focusing, at least right now, on the current conflicts it's engaged in, conflicts of the irregular type that could last into the foreseeable future.

There are officers in the military who at least privately express some reservations that large numbers of conventional forces for an open-ended commitment in a place like Afghanistan or -- perhaps less so -- Iraq is the way the United States should be looking at the world in terms of its defenses.

If you do this review, will that construct itself be under review? In other words, will you analyze whether or not this type of operation is what the U.S. should be focusing on for the next decade?

SEC. GATES: Those who believe that is what we are trying to do, and that that's what I believe, do not understand what we are trying to do or what I believe.

The reality is, the vast preponderance of the Defense Department procurement budget will still be for large systems used and sophisticated systems useable against near peers and that will continue to give us a technological edge for the next 20 to 25 years.

What I am trying to do is simply get a place at the table, when resources are passed out, for those who are fighting today's wars, and to institutionalize what we've learned about counterinsurgency, so that we don't forget it like we did after Vietnam.

So this notion that I'm tilting the scale dramatically against conventional capabilities, in order to fight irregular or whatever, asymmetric wars or whatever you want to call it, is just not accurate.

You know, $1 trillion for the Joint Strike Fighter, a fifth generation fighter that has some capabilities the F-22 does not, is not a trivial investment in the future. Neither is -- I have hardly read about the fact that we're initiating the replacements for the Ohio-class SSBN with this budget.

So the notion that we are not taking seriously the range of potential future conflicts, I think, frankly is just a misunderstanding of what we're trying to do. It derives from my view that the old way, of looking at irregular warfare as being one kind of conflict and conventional warfare as a discreet kind of warfare, is an outdated concept.

And my belief, that conflict in the future will slide up and down a scale, both in scope or scale and in lethality. And we have to procure the kinds of things that give us -- the kinds of equipment and weapons that give us the maximum flexibility, across the widest range of that spectrum of conflict.

Every Marine is a rifleman is a really great one: we need to come up with something similar which encompasses our ability to cover down on hybrid warfare

In order to facilitate everyone's Friday night thinking about how to define conventional/unconventional solutions I submit this this 235 pager from NDU which is linked to from SWJ:

Chapter 1 concludes that complex operations encompass 6 broad categories of missions, with 60 associated tasks, 48 of which in 5 categories are probably best performed by civilians. This chapter finds that 5,000 deployable, active-duty government civilians and 10,000 civilian reserves would be needed to perform these 48 tasks on a sustained basis in one large, one medium, and four small contingencies. In today’s global security environment, structuring civilian and military capabilities to meet this 1–1–4 standard is prudent. This requirement substantially exceeds current executive branch planning assumptions, which call for 2,250 active-duty civilians and 2,000 civilian reservists.

[Bob's World]

Surferbeetle,


Who can ever top the simple genius of "every Marine a rifleman" that lies at the core of that great organization? Not a slogan, but a commitment to a clear and simple priority.

Today in SOF a phrase rolling around is "3-D Warrior." Different organization, different mission, different ethos, and thus different priorities. The 3 D's talks to the three aspects of engagement: Defense, Diplomacy and Development; Warrior talks to the essence of the SOF operator that is out there working in varying degrees in all three of those 3-D aspects. (Ken is firing up his reply now to take on the choice of the word "warrior" and make that case that a good soldier beats a good warrior - though history has certainly shown that too firm of a belief in that can get you massacred, be it on the plains of North America or Africa...). As a joint command of Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen a generic "3-D Serviceperson" just lacked pizzazz, so "warrior" it is.

More importantly we also attempt to make the case that none of us, be one from State, Aid, or the Military, can simply say "I just do development" or "I just do defense" or "I just do diplomacy." The primary message of the concept is that in these complex, populace-based conflicts we all must work together, and clear delineations are not helpful.


Beyond that though, my larger concern is that we as we have arguably become overly engaged with military presence that we look to becoming equally overly engaged with civilian presence to create balance. My theory is that this is because as Americans, where we have Democratic and relatively effective government, and little popular conflict; we draw the flawed conclusion that the creation of democracy and effective government elsewhere will resolve populace-based conflicts there.

My theory is that we lack these conflicts because we have self-determination of governance and "goodness" of governance. That because Americans believe with certainty that no matter how dissatisfied they may be with their government, that they have the legitimate means to change it.

I believe that the much smaller mission set of enabling self-determination and goodness of governance is far more likely to produce the results we desire than the far more labor intensive and difficult mission of forcing democracy and creating "effectiveness" (by our terms) in places that may well have little need or desire for either one...

[John T. Fishel]

have been around a long time now. We used them in SOUTHCOM in the 80s along with the fourth D - democracy. I would not get rid of that D but i recognize that it has a number of problems and is a difficult "sell" in many places in the world. Moreover, it is often defined only free elections without all the other governance elements that make for effective democracy. So, while democracy right now might well be a bridge too far, it should remain an explicit goal to be achieved by focusing in intermediate governance objectives.

Cheers

JohnT

[Bob's World]

Someone way smarter than me once said:

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

-Ecclesiastes 1:9

If we could just stay current on all of the smart stuff that has been figured out over the years, and avoid all the well-traveled pitfalls! This is one that is coming around again. At the end of the day its just a snappy slogan, but hopefully it helps us rebalance a governmental approach that has trended far too heavily toward the military of late.

But then I guess we wouldn't be human if we always did the right or smart thing. As to the 4th D, I wish that is one band wagon we would have never gotten on. Democracy is a great form of government, but it is patently un-American to promote ANY single form of government. Self-determination leads to all kinds of messes, but it beats any situation that someone elses forces upon you.

"Self-determination is defined as free choice of one’s own acts without external compulsion; and especially as the freedom of the people of a given territory to determine their own political status or independence from their current state. In other words, it is the right of the people of a certain nation to decide how they want to be governed without the influence of any other country."

What could be more American than standing up for the right of people everywhere to enjoy what we demanded for ourselves?

[John T. Fishel]

How American is it to promote self-determination when the self-determining group is determined to impose its will on everybody in the country it disagrees with (the Bolsheviks, Nazis, Ayatollahs, Hamas, and Hugo Chavez)? How American was it to wash our hands of responsibility when the Shi'a and Kurds took Pres G. H. W. Bush's advice and tried to overthrow Saddam in 1991?

There are any number of reasons to promote democracy. Many are normative but this one is purely empirical: Since 1945 no democracy (meaning a state that regularly changes government by free, competitive elections, has effective freedom of expression and organization, has an independent mechanism for the settlement of disputes) has gone to war with another democracy that meets the same criteria. Hence, the more such democracies there are in the world, the more peaceful the world is likely to be. Democratic Peace Theory (DPT) has not been falsified although it would be easy to do so. As such, it stands up as well as does the Theory of Evolution or the Big Bang, although it is obviously much narrower in scope. Still, it provides a powerful argument for a foreign policy that promotes effective democracy.

In the end, democracy promotion is a policy that has its roots deep in Western philosophy. the origins of DPT are found in Immanuel Kant's theory of Perpetual Peace and were an essential part of American foreign policy under Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, JFK, Ronald Reagan, among others. My problem with democracy promotion is when it is seen too narrowly as elections or we try to promote it only from the top down without taking into account local cultural conditions (such as the role of tribes). My disagreements are not with the goals of such a policy but with the way it has often been implemented.

Cheers

JohnT

[Surferbeetle]

Bob’s World & John T. Fishel,

I am sitting back today listening to some Cam Penner (Downtown, Rye Whiskey, Gravel Truck, and more) and thinking about that which we all so love, soldiering. So what is it that we are striving for and what is it that keeps pulling us into this line of work? There are much easier ways to make a living. We could be feral fat cat bankers content with enjoying the material things in life

When I examine our two phrases of choice, Every Marine a Rifleman and 3-D Warrior/4-D Warrior a couple of things stand out for me:

• The US military is a system that often values generalists over specialists and yet we are all aware of the importance of the role of specialists. Generalists are by definition more versatile in daily application and utilization and yet, specialists can produce truly amazing results in their field of expertise.

• It’s my opinion that Americans are, at their heart, restless people. Our immigrant roots have helped to concentrate and intermingle a group of folks who are always looking for something better. Our abundant natural and human resources allow us to act upon these impulses.

When using the concept of phasing for warfare where are we today in Iraq and in Afghanistan? Phase will certainly vary by AO we zoom in at the micro level, but can we generalize at the macro level? Perhaps the reason we are starting to see more of a push for civilian specialists is that we again are trending towards a point where Phase IV types of operations can find traction. Perhaps Liddel Hart’s ideas on counterinsurgency are gaining additional traction over CvC. Whatever the reasons the pendulum does appear to be swinging from conventional to population based warfare, so perhaps its time to hop on the wave and see where it takes us.

Democracy and Capitalism are amazing western concepts however, as you two probably know better than I, the world is much larger than just the golden bubble that encompasses the West. I think about a couple of points on this topic:

• Man’s Law, as defined by Democracy, does not have primacy over God’s Law, as defined by Islam, in the Middle East. I like to think about the current equilibrium in the nation of Turkey versus the current equilibrium in Yemen or Saudi Arabia when I construct my mental continuum of what Democracy looks like in the Middle East. I’ll state the obvious, Jeffersonian Democracy it’s not nor will it be in my lifetime.

• Capitalism, defined as the American variety, is considered as trending towards chaotic & heartless in much of Europe and is all but discredited in parts of Latin America. The current financial crisis has provided us no favors in this regard and indeed the fruits of this particular harvest will be bitter if we are not very careful. Nonetheless China’s embrace of its own form of Capitalism, and Dubai’s free-wheeling business ways give me hope for the ‘youth-bulge’ areas of the world when it comes to the benefits Capitalism.

For me then, John’s comments on implementation are on target. Implementation of Democracy and Capitalism, at the dirty boots level, fails when we try and force things through using an incompatible methodology and in an artificially short timeline. People the world over are looking for beneficial partnerships as opposed to highhanded lectures about why America is so great and Country X just needs to get with the program. What was that refrain sometimes said to Cadets? ‘5 for initiative and 0 for judgment…try again’. I for one am happy that we are taking the time to replot the map & adjust our azimuth, and it's my sense of things that we will benefit from doing so.

Regards,

Steve

[John T. Fishel]

You've just said it all Bob, how about we buy Steve a beer?

Cheers

JohnT