Two competing views on the war in Afghanistan

[rborum]

The following comes from Patrick Porter in a post to the "Kings of War" blog - I thought SWCers might be interested to discuss it as well:

In a very measured and tentative case for fighting on, Stephen Biddle argues that we should stay not primarily to disrupt AQ or deny it sanctuary, but to keep a lid on the turmoil across the border and prevent what would be close to a worse-case scenario, the Taliban taking over Pakistan:

The more important U.S. interest is indirect: to prevent chaos in Afghanistan from destabilizing Pakistan. With a population of 173 million (five times Afghanistan’s), a GDP of more than $160 billion (more than ten times Afghanistan’s) and a functional nuclear arsenal of perhaps twenty to fifty warheads, Pakistan is a much more dangerous prospective state sanctuary for al-Qaeda.Furthermore, the likelihood of government collapse in Pakistan, which would enable the establishment of such a sanctuary, may be in the same ballpark as Afghanistan, at least in the medium to long term. Pakistan is already at war with internal Islamist insurgents allied to al-Qaeda, and that war is not going well. Should the Pakistani insurgency succeed in collapsing the state or even just in toppling the current civilian government, the risk of nuclear weapons falling into al-Qaeda’s hands would rise sharply. In fact, given the difficulties terrorists face in acquiring usable nuclear weapons, Pakistani state collapse may be the likeliest scenario leading to a nuclear-armed al-Qaeda.

Robert Haddick agrees that Pakistan is at the core of the issue, and doesn’t necessarily oppose the war, but suggests that the US military presence could be aggravating the problem of radical Talibanism over the border:

Contrary to Biddle’s assertion, it seems equally reasonable to argue that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided a relief valve of sorts for Islamist pressure that might have otherwise formed inside Pakistan during the 1990s. And although the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban are two distinct movements, the U.S.-led operation in Afghanistan may be inciting and pressurizing Taliban activity inside Pakistan. Contrary to what Biddle argues, the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan may be increasing rather than decreasing the risk to Pakistan.Pakistan’s powerful Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence seems to see it this way. The ISI recently invited reporters from the New York Times to its offices for a two-hour briefing. During the briefing, ISI officials objected to the U.S. Marine Corps offensive in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province. They feared that the offensive would push Taliban fighters into Pakistan’s Baluchistan area, destabilizing it.

Porter then poses the following question/comment:

Can we say with any confidence which of these views is more plausible? If we can’t know, or if it is too unpredictable, is it more prudent to maintain the war effort or scale down?

My suspicion, as a dodgy historian, is that a foreign military presence is more often likely to be a radicalising and volatile force, except in unusually permissive circumstances. But I could be wrong in this case.

Most worrying is the sense that it is almost impossible to measure the risks of staying or going – this most important question- with any confidence.