Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses

[Entropy]

Fuchs,

I'm not sure why you're fixated on the word "general" in that question. It could be asked of anyone.

Bill,

None the less to Fuchs point, I think the greater risk to our military strategy (since that is the strategy we are pursuing currently) is continuing to ignore the safe havens. This is so obvious that a 6th grader would recognize it, and his dad would have a very hard time explaining to him why his brother died in a conflict that we're not committed to winning.

We haven't ignored the safe-havens. We've known about them since late 2001. Musharraf explicitly and publicly denied us the ability to do "hot pursuit" in early 2002. The problem isn't that we're ignoring the safe-havens - the problem is that we are unwilling to deal with the consequences of violating Pakistani sovereignty.

[Bill Moore]

We haven't ignored the safe-havens. We've known about them since late 2001. Musharraf explicitly and publicly denied us the ability to do "hot pursuit" in early 2002. The problem isn't that we're ignoring the safe-havens - the problem is that we are unwilling to deal with the consequences of violating Pakistani sovereignty.

We're aware of them and we're not doing anything about them (that means we're ignoring them) because a suspected/known State sponsor of terrorism says they're off limits. That brings up the question, are we fighting a war against terrorism and all their sponsors/supporters, or are trying to isolate an already isolated country and build a nation? Everyone agrees to some degree that is more than a simple homegrown insurgency that is restricted to the geographical boundries of Afghanistan. It is also a State proxy war, not just against us, but with the longer term strategic goal of achieving a perceived strategic advantage over India. It also involves numerous non-state actors coming to the Jihad like moths to a flame, just as they did during the Soviet occupation. There are a lot of stake holders in this conflict, this is not a simple internal insurgency like we saw in Malaya, and we won't win it in the villages alone.

[William F. Owen]

You can squeeze the opponent ever more and deny him ever more options, but the marginal cost of your effort explodes and the marginal rate of return approaches zero.

A six-year old can develop an eliminationalist strategy, and this should help us to question its wisdom.

If you mean a strategy of attrition, then you have access to a very gifted six-year-old. Attrition works better than anything else. It's great, but you need a really good army and a a very good intelligence service to do it.

Additionally, your attrition has to be set forth in line with the policy, so you have to be very careful who you kill/capture and why.

[Steve the Planner]

Fuchs:

Not quite. I was absolutely committed to the belief that, by 2008, in Iraq we ran the risk of creating more trouble than we were solving.

There comes a point when extrication is essential, and we reached that point in Iraq, but it was very hard to accomplish the departure.

With unpleasant news from Iraq (especially the plight of Christians, and where the Turkmen may settle out when the smoke clears), but remain morally and intellectually committed to the belief that our continuation was not a plus.

Afghanistan is much more complex, and rapid and complete departure is not a self-evident option for a productive conclusion, let alone the fact that the US perceives a continuing interest in the game.

What intrigues me is the debate about SWAT or not. The fact that an Afghan Win under our current strategy is predicated on incursions which are not acceptable raises the fundamental question about our current strategy (or bag of tactics).

Within actual constraints (included limited incursion, and, thus, safe havens for opponents AND Budgets), what credible mission and enduring tasks can be accomplished?

There is an answer (however limited and inconclusive) that lies between the current unsustainable strategy and cut and run. Most likely, it turns on reconciliation and political horse trading with the folks we call enemies today. Most likely, too, the answer is probably never a "final answer." Thus, the deterence/retribution sweeps are always an option.

[Fuchs]

If you mean a strategy of attrition, then you have access to a very gifted six-year-old. Attrition works better than anything else. It's great, but you need a really good army and a a very good intelligence service to do it.

Additionally, your attrition has to be set forth in line with the policy, so you have to be very careful who you kill/capture and why.

Here comes the kill'em! faction.


Wilf, to eliminate an irritation or opponent is among the most expensive approaches if not the most expensive approach itself. You'll often end up losing more than you gain by such a course of action.

War can only be justified if it's the smaller evil than peace, for it's inherently destructive. A strategy needs to offer the prospect of being the course of least net damage to yourself (and your allies). An eliminationist approach regularly fails at this.

The problem is especially obvious if one aims for total elimination. The costs for defeating the last 10% are many times as great as the costs for defeating the first 10% of an enemy. This is especially true if said enemy can become ever more elusive.

The TB can turn into a Mafia or political party mode until the Westerners leave - there's no practical way to really eliminate them if they evade our efforts of eliminations like that.

The simple "let's eliminate them all" idea is primitive, worthy of a drunk or child and certainly not the way to go because it's way too expensive in an affair that offers very little gain.

----------------------------------------------

In the end, let's not forget this:
The Taliban are merely the guys who insisted on granting AQ the privilege of hospitality before AQ officially accepted responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. The TB are no threat to us in themselves, and their relation to threats against us (=jihadist offspring) becomes only worse if we fight against them. They did not attack us - we attacked them. (Btw, by the same rationale Cuba would be justified to attack the U.S., so we're not even remotely as clear-cut good guys in this conflict as about half of the Westerners seem to believe.)

A really, really smart leader (instead of GWB) would not have forgotten this in 2002 and would have settled the conflict in negotiations with the Taliban in exile back in 2002, under condition that they disassociate themselves from AQ in theory and practice.

Instead, GWB and clique were drunk with operational victory, wallowed in the myth that a job was unfinished in '91, forgot how much they hated Clinton's nation building in Yugoslavia and continued the AFG adventure with few resources and a maximalist goal.
The German government was stupid enough to follow this really, really stupid and primitive path and to adopt essentially the same maximalist mission statement.


To be honest and frank, an attrition to zero approach looks terribly out of place to me in this context.

And sanctuaries? Well, AQ can simply relocate. AQ in Pakistan is the unimportant loud-mouth franchise central. The real AQ threat are the cells which are dispersed in 60 countries, almost all of them having cooperative police and intelligence services. To go into SWAT for AQ is therefore not even remotely worth the costs of the endeavour.
TB in SWAT - not really relevant, for they are only a threat to us as long as we insist to stay in their region.

[Bob's World]

I confess, I cringe every time I hear someone say the term "ungoverned spaces" and the word "sanctuary" in the same sentence. Needless to say I cringe a great deal, and typically in the presence of some high-ranking government official or subject matter expert on Insurgency who is busily explaining the concept or their approach to resolving some sanctuary or another.

I think it is important to understand that there are both physical and functional components to sanctuary, and that the most powerful components are found in legal/cultural obstacles and in the willingness of a populace to not assist the state in enforcing the rule of law.

Attached here is a simple (I am no artist) diagram to attempt to help make a few critical points regarding sanctuary in the AFPAK region for the Taliban and AQ.

Perhaps the first point that needs to be made is as obvious as it is overlooked: These two organizations have very different missions; one comes from this populace and the other is a guest within this populace; and therefore have very different requirements for sanctuary, and very different aspects to the sanctuaries they currently enjoy.

AQ Sanctuary in AFPAK is the easiest to resolve, as it comes solely from the hospitality of the Taliban/pro-Taliban Pashtun populace. When the Taliban decide to evict AQ, they must go and find their sanctuary elsewhere (which they will undoubtedly do, as their mission is no way reduced by being evicted from the AFPAK region). They will still retain the sanctuary of their outlaw and non-state status, and they will still have influence with poorly governed populaces around the globe. Some of those populaces are self-governed, as in Somalia, the Maghreb, and Yemen. Some are just small pockets and individuals within largely well-governed populaces, such as in Europe and North America.

So: For AQ, we can evict them from AFPAK if we work through the Taliban, but even if successful in that effort they will simply operate from other sanctuaries so long as the conditions that support their existence continue to influence populaces, organizations and/or individuals to be willing to break the law in support of them.

Taliban sanctuary is different as their mission is different and as they come from this populace. They too enjoy the sanctuary of being outside the law and of being a non-state actor; but their sanctuary comes from a much broader slice of the populace of these two states. They are on the "friends and family" plan, and are woven inextricably into the fabric of this bi-state society. The border issue is actually the easiest one to resolve, as it is a simple matter of a bi-lateral agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan narrowly tailored to this single issue. The outlaw status and their ties to the populace are facts that can be dealt with as well. I would caution, however, that merely removing this one legal obstacle and acting more aggressively to “defeat” the Taliban will most likely strengthen other key aspects of their sanctuary.

Outlaw status is resolved by simply bringing them inside the law. Grant a pardon (with clear conditions, such as the eviction of AQ with the turning over of certain key AQ members bringing very clear benefits as well). Once inside the law, the Taliban are constrained by the law, at least as much as anyone is constrained by the law (right, Mr. Karzai?? Wink Wink) in this culture.
The sanctuary provided by the populace is also one that can be addressed, but by bringing the Taliban inside the law the biggest hurdle is cleared. This then allows a massive reduction of coalition presence, which brings down the next largest hurdle. The final hurdle is getting GIROA to make substantive changes that provide equal rights and opportunities to the Pashtun populace that are provided to the Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek populaces of the Northern Alliance.

Of note, none of these are military missions. This is all head of state/diplomatic in nature. So long as the lead rests with the military, the military will not address these issues, as they are not in the military’s lane. The military will do what militaries do. It will seek to “Clear-hold-build” where they can; or deny through ISR and fires where they cannot. That is no way to deny sanctuary. That is the way to build and strengthen sanctuary. This is a mission that the military must pass back to the Department of State and the President for action.

[slapout9]

Actually your question was (my emphasis):



You wrote that - not my fault.

A Green beret is still no more qualified to answer the question than any other citizen. It's a political job. It's a job for statesmen and their advisers (and I don't mean career uniform wearers here).
It's a problem for a Kissinger, Machiavelli, Bismarck, Churchill, Eisenhower guy.
Your whole intro to your core question was leading into a wrong direction imho.

I'll try an explain it another way. I wanted Bill's high level opinion if he was in charge of everything, that is all. It's an American thing Kissinger!!!you must be kidding his thinking from the 70's is the very bedrock of why we are in this mess.

[Steve the Planner]

Slap:

Seems to me that Kissinger to Brezinski were who I studied in policy classes. Right. Very mixed results.

Wasn't it Zbig who had the great idea to lure the Soviets into Afghanistan, and laid the foundation for the Taliban, and their later activities?

Fuchs:

You forgot to mention that the Taliban are the AFGHAN folks who opened the door for AQ.

As you point out, the Diminishing Returns/Escalating Costs of ZERO Taliban means one hell of a lot of dead Afghan "brothers," sons and fathers. Not a great strategy, in the end, for winning Pashtun hearts and minds.

I, for one, would leave Kiss/Zbig out of the equation for a bit while I tried to gather solutions from Generals, Majors, and Walking Men (Rory Stewart, etc..). Anybody but the wise old hands that created much of this.

[Entropy]

Fuchs,

A really, really smart leader (instead of GWB) would not have forgotten this in 2002 and would have settled the conflict in negotiations with the Taliban in exile back in 2002, under condition that they disassociate themselves from AQ in theory and practice.

I understand that 2002 was a long time ago, but that strategy simply wasn't possible then for a whole lot of reasons.

We're aware of them and we're not doing anything about them (that means we're ignoring them) because a suspected/known State sponsor of terrorism says they're off limits.

We're not doing anything? We're doing as much as can be expected under the circumstances. How much is attempting to get at AQ worth it to you? Are you willing to fight the Pakistani military? Are you willing to see the end of all Pakistani cooperation? Under such conditions what are the chances that we'd actually be able to effectively go after AQ?

In short, people are not ignoring the sanctuary - rather two administrations have come to the conclusion that the benefits of giving Pakistan the middle finger are not worth the costs. We've made a choice - that is not ignoring the problem.

To tag onto Bob's comments, the areas we're talking about in Pakistan are unique in some ways. Although they are part of "Pakistan" on a map they are actually more like colonies and are still administered through the Malik system introduced by the Brits (although this system has, not coincidentally, substantially broken down over the past decade). The Pakistani military hadn't set foot in those areas for decades until late 2001. Pakistan considers this their "sovereign" territory but they've never exercised true sovereignty. Furthermore, they don't have the capacity to excercise true sovereignty even if they wanted to.

That is a big part of our dilemma - we can recognize the actual limits of Pakistani sovereignty, say, "hey, you can't control this area at all" and intervene without Pakistan's consent, or we can continue to recognize Pakistan's de jure sovereignty knowing that their actual capacity to administer these areas is very limited. We've consistently chosen the latter path while trying to goad Pakistan into do more while allowing us to do more as well. The choice we made hasn't worked out well, but I think the alternative would have been (and would be) worse.

We might want to consider the possibility that this problem doesn't have a solution and factor that into our strategy instead of continuing to beat our heads against the wall. Ten years on, the Quixotic pursuit of Pakistani sanctuary denial sounds to me like a south Asian version of the underpants gnome strategy.

[William F. Owen]

Here comes the kill'em! faction.

We prefer the terms "Classical" "Orthodox" or "Fundamentalists." You cannot change War or what works best in warfare. Warfare is conducted via killing. How that is best done is the only thing up for debate. There are no kinder of less bloody ways of war that can ever work.

War can only be justified if it's the smaller evil than peace, for it's inherently destructive. A strategy needs to offer the prospect of being the course of least net damage to yourself (and your allies). An eliminationist approach regularly fails at this.

Not true. What you state is just you personal belief. It has no bearing on War itself. War is how you advance or resist a policy via killing. Strategy makes no distinction or rules about cost effectiveness, though low cost for great gain is nearly always sought, as who would do otherwise?

The problem is especially obvious if one aims for total elimination.

I never advocate total elimination. I advocate seeking attrition in terms of what serves the policy. I also want attrition conducted in such a way as it breaks the will of the opponent to resist my policy via violence.

[Backwards Observer]

Anybody but the wise old hands that created much of this.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

U.S. Aid For Afghan Freedom Fighters Overdue - The Heritage Foundation, Feb 1, 1984

The Afghans have no realistic chance of frustrating Soviet designs on their country unless they receive the military tools they need to force Moscow into meaningful negotiations. This will not happen until bureaucratic resistance within the U.S. government is overcome. Furnishing aid to the Mujahideen would send a reassuring signal to nearby states that Washington is able to recognize and safeguard its own interests as well as those of its friends.

[Fuchs]

We prefer the terms "Classical" "Orthodox" or "Fundamentalists." You cannot change War or what works best in warfare. Warfare is conducted via killing. How that is best done is the only thing up for debate. There are no kinder of less bloody ways of war that can ever work.

Not true. What you state is just you personal belief. It has no bearing on War itself. War is how you advance or resist a policy via killing. Strategy makes no distinction or rules about cost effectiveness, though low cost for great gain is nearly always sought, as who would do otherwise?

The problem begins with the perception of "war" and "warfare". People think of winning by defeating the enemy once they think of war (well, at least the people from powerful countries).
It's a conflict, and the root of the conflict is surprisingly small. I doubt that war(fare) is a good approach in this hyped-up conflict at all.

Statesmen have largely lost the skill of negotiating a peace after the total wars till '45. The negotiation of a peace is nevertheless the historical normality, while the annihilation or defencelessness of the defeated party is the historical exception in wars.
You emphasize the annihilation/disarmament route way too much and neglect the politics/negotiation approach. Likewise, you're overly focusing on killing as a means to achieve disarmament or annihilation of an organized opponent.
Warfare is not only conducted via killing, it's actually a rather small part of warfare and always has been. It's spectacular and easily attracting interest, but it's still only a small part.

Skilled land forces regularly take more POWs than they score KIAs.

Skilled statesmen end wars when a satisfactory end-state was accomplished in negotiations.


"Strategy makes no distinction or rules about cost effectiveness, though low cost for great gain is nearly always sought, as who would do otherwise?"

To pursue an endeavour that kills thousands under the assumption that the endeavour will cause more harm than good to even your own people means that the person who is responsible for this is a mass murderer and criminal of epic proportions - and the person is obviously doing it wrong.

Of course war has to be about seeking the path of least damage to your people (and your allies). All else is evil and utterly dysfunctional.

-----

Besides; I'd also like to point out that the Kosovo Air War was certainly not basing its success on killing. Deaths were side-effects and not a central intent at all. It was won by those who decided to conduct it like that.

Your claim
"There are no kinder of less bloody ways of war that can ever work."
was hereby proved to be false for any interpretation of your words that goes beyond the understanding of killing as side-effect of inflicting destruction.
Your focus on killing has no robust theoretical or historical foundation. It serves only the purpose to emphasize killing, and this purpose is misguided because there ARE other promising and most certainly also superior ways than focusing on killing.


One more example to help why this focus on killing is misguided. Germany's military resistance did not break apart in early 1945 because it had taken too many casualties. It had inflicted much, much more on its enemies and defeated many enemies without inflicting many KIAs at all (Poland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Greece all fell without suffering any in itself even remotely decisive quantity of KIA!).
Instead, its resistance broke apart because of psychological exhaustion and the fact that its military power was quantitatively constant, and had a mixed qualitative development over the war years while its opponents multiplied their forces quantitatively and qualitatively.
That was wasn't won by the soldier pulling the trigger to kill - it was won by the industrial workers and managers (and it was of course lost by an idiotic statesman by piling up too many foes at once).


Honestly, I was surprised that you threw your usual slogan at me, for you certainly should have understood by now that kill! kill! kill! hypothesis it doesn't work on me.
Someone wrote on this forum that most military theory is rubbish. Well, the kill! kill! kill! hypothesis certainly is.

[Backwards Observer]

If at first you don't succeed.

U.S. Aid For Afghan Freedom Fighters Overdue - The Heritage Foundation, Feb 1, 1984

Furnishing aid to the Mujahideen would send a reassuring signal to nearby states that Washington is able to recognize and safeguard its own interests as well as those of its friends.

Shortsighted U.S. Policies on Afghanistan Bring Long-Term Problems - The Heritage Foundation, Oct 5, 2009

President Obama must take the long view and avoid shortsighted policies that undermine U.S. friends in Afghanistan and Pakistan while encouraging America's enemies.

Makes sense, I guess...

[Bill Moore]

Backwards Observer, thanks for the post it was good for a chuckle. We tend to think our keen foreign policy insights today will stand the test of time, but normally and usually not too far down the road we're left wondering just what the heck were we thinking? Why didn't we see that coming?

Fuchs your comments are begining to become somewhat amusing. Germany wasn't defeated by attrition? Um? The Allies were closing in on Berlin from all sides and the German army was now drafting boys as young as 15 years old to fill their ranks due to attrition, but that approach obviously lacked intellectual rigor, and in the end didn't have much to do with our total victory that resulted in a more peaceful Europe, even during the subsequent Cold War. What was the mechanism that defeated Germany then? Japan may not have been defeated by attrition but after the second atomic bomb was dropped it was the fear of unacceptable attrition that brought them to the point of unconditional surrender and again relative stability for many years hence.

I'm not even sure what you're talking about regarding Germany's near bloodless victories in Poland, Greece, etc.? First off our initial victories in Afghanistan and Iraq were also relatively effective and "relatively" few casualties and destruction, but unlike the Germans in Poland we didn't implement the final solution and start purging these societies of all their undesirables. The reality is Germany occupied numerous countries and faced continued resistance in each to varying degrees. German responses to resistance were considered somewhat brutal by our standards. One German Soldier gets killed, then set number of civilians in the area are murdered to send a message to the resistance, which generally worked to a large extent. Maybe this is a tactic you recommend based on your deep intellectual appreciation of conflict?

You also did a fine job recreating history concerning Al Qaeda and our initial involvement in Afghanistan back in 2001 and 2002, I agree another set of leaders may have handled the problem differently, but over time the enemy would have adapted. Unfortunately Bob's World's approach about addressing underlying causes/drivers for this conflict (I'm talking about AQ, not the Taliban) won't work, and we need to take off our politically correct blinders and realize they want the world to submit to their version of Islam and Shari'a law. The driver for the conflict is that we're not all a bunch of radical Mullahs. The Taliban is another story, and it is another example of an enduring conflict changing shape and color over time and now we wonder just what the heck we're doing again.

[Fuchs]

Fuchs your comments are begining to become somewhat amusing. Germany wasn't defeated by attrition? Um? The Allies were closing in on Berlin from all sides and the German army was now drafting boys as young as 15 years old to fill their ranks due to attrition, but that approach obviously lacked intellectual rigor, and in the end didn't have much to do with our total victory that resulted in a more peaceful Europe, even during the subsequent Cold War.

(16 y.o. boys - and the Russians did this pretty much since late '41. Moreover, Germany had used 17y.o. Germans and even younger Russians as paramilitary workforce back when it looked as if it was winning. Besides - didn't the British send a 17 y.o. into Desert Storm?)

Look at the figures.
The Wehrmacht had more tanks, more subs, more fighters, more pilots, more artillery, more machine guns, more APCs - almost more of everything - in early 1945. Most of it was better than in 1939 as well.
The losses on the other side were worse on part of the Allies (especially SU) and thus hardly decisive.
It was an example of overpowering, not an example of disarming up tot he point when the military fell apart (which was well beyond the point at which every sane government would have had agreed to peace).

Germany was unable to resist in 1945 more because its opponents had grown so much in power than because of its losses.
If losses had been decisive, France wouldn't have surrendered, but the Soviet Union would have.

Germany would have been in a hopeless position in early 1945 even if some genie had restored all its losses at an instant. That would have allowed for a hell of a counter-offensive, but the outlook would still have been terrible.

Moreover, the tide began to turn in late 1942, long before the really serious losses of material (other than soft motor vehicles) began and long before the vast majority of the personnel losses occurred.
WW2 had even been a relatively low casualty war till late '41 for the Axis.


CvC was a bit too specific when he focused on disarmament for victory - he looked at the extreme (or at last wrote about it to communicate his idea).
Conventional wars are often being won by overpowering, and rarely by actually destroying the enemy (or even killing most of his soldiers).

[Entropy]

Bill,

Unfortunately Bob's World's approach about addressing underlying causes/drivers for this conflict (I'm talking about AQ, not the Taliban) won't work, and we need to take off our politically correct blinders and realize they want the world to submit to their version of Islam and Shari'a law.

Who thinks that AQ doesn't want that? AQ has, after all, made it pretty clear. There are no political blinders regarding what AQ wants, IMO. What there is is a difference of opinion regarding what kind of threat AQ poses and, by extension, what resources and attention are required to mitigate the threat as well as the best way to go about it. AQ's desires, by themselves, are not a threat to anyone. Their capabilities are very limited and fall far, far short of what would be required to cause one nation to submit to them much less the world.

[Bob's World]

Bill,

Nothing PC driving my positions, nor "MC" (militarily correct iaw what the FMs and the GOs tell me I am supposed to think) either. While I recognize very well the overarching role of Islam in the lives of those who are the primary target audience of AQ, this attempt at Caliphate is no more about spreading Islam than any of the other Caliphates were. Power, Land, Money, & Politics were the goals then and now; and Islam the ideology to motivate the masses to carry the mail in those endeavors.

(And with all due respect for my Muslim brothers who believe I am an Infidel for my Christian beliefs, I am not so sure that Islam was not cooked up soley for the purpose of motivating such conquests in the first place. In God we trust, but men who employ the name of God for their own personal gain I tend to judge with a bit more caution; be they TV evangelists or modern day prophets...)

AQ's role today is little different than that of the Soviets during the Cold War in their conduct of UW to stir up insurgent fervor among the populace in states where the West had more sway with the current government than they do. UW works when the populace is ripe for insurgency based upon their relationship with their government, not so well in other places. Communism was an effective ideology for insurgency in Europe and Asia; but fell flat in the Middle East. The radical version of Islam applied by AQ works much better there.

No, my perspective may be wrong, but it is based in cold, hard pragmatism. I listened to the "experts" on how this is all about Islam, read the books, weighed it against everything else I have learned and studied on history, insurgency, etc; and it just doesn't wash. Look how little sway AQ has in SEA. Malaysia and Indonesia sorted out most of their colonial political issues and have little need for what AQ is selling. The Southern Philippines are yet unresolved, so it holds more promise there. This is politics, these are nationalist revolutionary insurgencies; and this is AQ acting like a state to conduct UW.

The ideologues have it wrong. I stand by that. Will radical Islamic practices follow the movement if the political issues are not defused in advance? Certainly, but no more than radical Christianity spread across the globe in the effort to throw off the poor governance of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe. Once the political mission was resolved, Protestantism mellowed as well; I see little difference in the current dynamics in the Islamic world. Except that now it is the Non-Empire Empire of the US being challenged as the current bag holder for Western Colonialism, with its inappropriate degree of influence and control of the governance of others being challenged. Not much different than the Pope's similar network of control and influence over Europe 500 years ago.

The Pilgrims were a bunch of religious zealots, dressed in black, with no tolerance for the religious beliefs of others and notoriously abusive of the rights of women. They mellowed. The Taliban are little different, and they will mellow as well. As to AQ? They have no populace, they have no state. They borrow what they need in that regard, and that is the basis of their sanctuary, as it takes them outside the "effective range" of our current tools of statecraft. If AQ ever acquired a State, if AQ ever created a "Caliphate" they would destroy the bulk of their sanctuary in the same blow, and quickly have to toe the same line that weak states have to toe everywhere.

You want to deny AQ sanctuary in AFPAK? Talk to the Taliban. Make them an offer they can't refuse and AQ will be on the next thing smoking. Where they go next? Ahh, that is the real question.

[omarali50]

It seems to me that there is no general rule, here or elsewhere.
But the crucial issue may be identifying the enemy and knowing what he wants in each case (its not a she in Afghanistan).
I have no inside information, but I have a number of leftist pakhtoon friends and they make two points that may appear contradictory.
1. There is a jihadist core in pakistan (not in "sanctuaries" alone, but in the govt, in the Islamist parties, especially in the intelligence agencies) and they are fleecing the Americans while ruthlessly protecting their minimum interests (even if that means sacrificing a lot of foot-soldiers).
2. Pakistan is not a very strong state. No one in the ruling elite actually wants to try to fight off an unhappy America or even to survive without monthly handouts. The bluff works only because America lets it work.
If both points are correct (and I vacillate between believing both and being skeptical) then the problem is never going to reach some imaginary worst-case scenario. Point two trumps point one.
Having said that, in the interest of full disclosure, I would add that as an American I dont see what all of this has to do with any imaginary "war on terror". There is no enemy out there that needs this response. Even if this is being done for Israel or for oil, its a waste of effort. Israel has problems closer to home and is a big boy and should handle its own problems. The oil comes from the gulf, not from Afghanistan. Much smaller investments in carrots and sticks and other measures would keep Islamist terrorism in manageable bounds in the west.
All this is only meaningful if the US is worldcop and wants to do some social engineering in a bad neighborhood. Otherwise, why bother? Let them kill each other or make peace or make love or whatever. India is at risk, but they think they are big boys too. Besides, if they could handle kashmir in the nineties, they should be able to handle X or Y in the future as well.

[slapout9]

The oil comes from the gulf, not from Afghanistan. .

Some say it's not directly about oil, but indirectly about oil because of the proposed pipeleine? Your thoughts on that aspect.

[omarali50]

To reiterate: there are many "worst case scenarios" and slippery slopes, but the ruling elite in pakistan is not totally crazy. When push comes to shove, they always pick option A. They know what side their bread is buttered. Some craziness is good for business when all you are selling is nuisance value.
And, yes, I am sure there are nicer ways of putting this.