Does the US Have a Strategy in Afghanistan?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting a cutback in US plans for Afghan military expansion.

Politically, I can understand this. If the Karzai government cannot be trusted not to steal the money, not giving a lot of money to the Karzai government to expand the Afghan army will avoid some ugly scandals.  Also, the planned expansion of the Afghan army is very ambitious, and might be very hard to pull off successfully.

Strategically, I'm perplexed.  One of the most obvious things about the war in Afghanistan is that most of the media reports suggest that most of the political actors in Pakistan and Afghanistan are assuming that at some point in the fairly near future, the US will haul ass.   After all, the US adruptly pulled out of omvolvement in Afghanistan back in 1989.  To someone who is thinking this way, sending 30,000 more US troops just brings closer the day when the US will find the burden of fighting in Afghanistan unbearable and leave.  I assume this thought has occurred to the leaders of the Taliban also. To convince the other players in Afghanistan to do what we want, rather than just wait for us to go home, we need to present a credible threat that we'll still be there 4-10 years from now.  Expanding the Afghan army is a way, probably politically the simplest way, to do this.  So I'm wondering if the Obama administration actually has a plan for dealing with the mess in Afghanistan.

Of course, readers of this blog will have already noticed a certain lack of optimism.  Things are probably better than they look to me at the moment.  That said, things can be much better than they look to me at the moment and still be pretty bad.

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Anti-Naxalite Fight Creating Refugees

India's fight against the Naxalites is starting to create a refugee problem, the South Asian Media Group reports:

Tribals flee Naxal belt

Monday, November 30,2009

CHINTUR: The rickety Dantewada bus normally arrives almost empty at Bhadrachalam, the temple town in Khammam district close to the Chhattisgarh-Orissa border. That it has few commuters is not surprising considering it makes its way through the dangerous Maoist stronghold of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and crosses the border into Andhra Pradesh’s Khammam district, another Maoist hotspot. But for a month now, the bus from Dantewada has been arriving full. It’s packed with tribals fleeing Dantewada to escape being caught in the crossfire between securitymen and Maoists. “At least 300 tribals belonging to the Gothy Koya and Gond tribes from Dantewada arrive at Bhadrachalam every day. They don’t want to get caught in the crossfire between the Maoists and security forces and Salwa Jadum, so they are fleeing to the nearest place that is safe. They come here. They either look for work here or they go towards Hyderabad since Bhadrachalam connects to the rest of Andhra,” said Sub-Divisional Police Officer Raghuram Reddy. While security forces struggle to seal the Andhra-Orissa border to prevent Maoists from crossing over, the Khammam front has become a cause for worry. In the past one month, about 8,500 tribals have come to Bhadrachalam.

This is actually normal in counterinsurgency warfare, and the problem in India is apparently much smaller than the problems created by the Pakistan army's recent operations in Swat and South Waziristan.  Still, it is worth noting for two reasons:

It proves that fighting is actually taking place.  A while back there were a lot of articles in the Indian press about Operation Green Hunt, but there have not been a lot of reports of actual fighting happening.  If people are running away from the fighting, fighting is probably happening.

Also, how well India deals with the refugee problem may be a key factor in whether the central government wins or loses against the Naxalites.  If refugees starve to death, people might as well stick around, pick the side that is closest to offering them what they want, and fight.  Much as they might dislike the Naxalites, there is a good chance that that side will be the Naxalites.  The Naxalites, as I understand it, offer some hope, which may be more than the Indian government offers.  On the other hand, if the people who run away can get enough to eat, land low end jobs, and have a chance to raise their kids, sticking around and getting killed in a fight against the government will be unattractive.

So how well the Indian government handles the refugee problem is likely to be a major factor in how well their anti-Naxalite effort goes.  This is not the sort of thing media coverage of insurgency and counterinsurgency tends to focus on.  So I ask any of my readers who know links useful in evaluating this to mention them in the comments section.

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Is India Ready for Another 11/26?

A BBC  report on India's preparation to resist another big terrorist attack has focused on weapons and other things which can quickly be purchased and neglected the improved training and organization necessary to make the weapons useful:

Mumbai attacks: One year on

The Mumbai (Bombay) attacks exposed gaping holes in India's security preparedness. Analyst Praveen Swami examines whether India has learnt its lessons.

Ever since last November's carnage in Mumbai, one image captured on closed circuit television has been etched in the memories of Indian citizens.

The image is of police officer Jillu Yadav doing battle with Kalashnikov assault rifle-equipped gunmen at the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, armed with nothing more than a bolt-action rifle - and a chair.

For millions of Indians, the image represented the threat that dogs everyday life in an increasingly volatile region - and the apparent inability of the state to defend them.

People who want to find out more aboout the problems should read the entire article.  Praveen Swami, the author of the story, has some recommendations to make India's response to the tragedy more effective:

India desperately needs a national counter-terrorism policing centre, which can produce the instructors that state forces will need to make their technology acquisitions of real value.

Many state-level police academies still follow curricula rooted in the colonial period, which do little to prepare their students for the challenges of real-world policing.

Not one state has a special weapons and tactics training institute which meets international standards. A national academy will also help generate protocols and standard operating procedures which can then be implemented across the country.

Clearly, had constable Jillu Yadav, the hero of the attack on the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, been equipped with an assault rifle, without proper training it is entirely possible there would have been more fatalities last year - not fewer.

It is not particularly surprising that India's first response to the attack was to buy the cops modern weapons and vehicles.   This was both necessary and the quickest and most visible, hence most politically attractive, measure to improve anti-terrorism readiness.  That said, it is probably a good idea to pay for the training needed to learn the new weapons effectively.  If the US has plenty of trainers, maybe the US government should fund part of this training?  One of the many things 11/26 proved is that a big terrorist attack against India by LeT  will create a ton of problems for the US as well as India.

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Split Between Zardari and Pakistan Army?

McClatchy has recently published a report that Pakistan's military spy agency taped Zardari and Haqqani discussing how to use the new US aid package to strenthen their hand against Pakistan's army:

Pakistan's president facing military anger over his U.S. ties

Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Suspicions by Pakistan's powerful army that the country's civilian leadership is growing too close to the United States are fueling a political crisis that analysts here believe threatens the survival of the government and could divert attention from the battle against Islamic extremists.

Military officials believe that secretly taped conversations between Pakistani President Asif Zardari and his ambassador in Washington, prove that it was at Zardari's insistence that a $1.5 billion U.S. aid package passed by Congress in September contained several provisions that angered the Pakistani military. The military publicly protested the aid package last month.

"The reaction (from the military) was not so much to what was in the bill but to the thought that the government was trying to create a civilian-to-civilian dialogue (with Washington)," said a senior Pakistani official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The army has ruled Pakistan for most its existence, with civilian rule returning only last year.

Now the military is responding by pressing a confrontation with Zardari over the expiration of a legal amnesty for politicians that benefited many members of Zardari's government, including the president himself and his ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani.

The amnesty, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), wiped away long-standing charges against politicians and bureaucrats who served between 1986 and 1999. But the Supreme Court ruled that the measure, which had been decreed in October 2007 by then President Pervez Musharraf, was unconstitutional, and it will come to an end on Saturday.

That will expose serving ministers and senior aides to prosecution over cases that range from corruption to murder — including Zardari, who was charged with taking kickbacks when his wife, the assassinated Benazir Bhutto, served as the country's prime minister.

The key point of the McClatchy story is, oddly enough, in the middle:

A military spy agency recorded Zardari and Haqqan discussing the legislation. Knowledgeable civilian and military officials, who spoke only if they were not identified by name, said the recordings captured the two discussing how to strengthen democratic institutions in Pakistan.

As one might imagine, this report has produced a reaction in Pakistan.  The News has a version of the story today and it is also mentioned in the Pakistan Defence Forum.

As often happens, I am not so sure about the factual support for this story.  Do I think Zardari and Haqqani are used the aid bill to try to try to strengthen their position relative to the army?  Yes.  After all, such a measure could easily be justified idealistically.  It was after all the Pakistan army under Musharraf that got Pakistan into this mess. As a practical matter opportunities for graft increase if you can get large amounts of US funds passing through entities that you control.  Do I think the ISI taped conversations between Zardari and Haqqani in which they discussed this, as opposed to merely claiming they did.  Less likely, but still probable.

The fact that there are two sources for this story strongly suggests that at least some parts of Pakistan's army are very unhappy with Zardari.  It is interesting that the sources for the story talked to McClatchy, not a Pakistani outfit like Zee News.  This could reflect nothing more than the fact that they knew and trusted the McClatchy reporter, or it could be an exploratory feeler from potential coup plotters in Pakistan's army.  If the US goes apeshit, the people plotting against Zardari know where the US stands.  On the other hand, if the US reaction to this story is to ignore it, that will also send a different message.

It says something about civil-military relations in Pakistan that when a report comes out that a Pakistani spy agency is taping the President's communications to his US ambassador, no one seems to be surprised or outraged.  I don't think if intelligence types in the US or Great Britain were taping the US President's or British Prime Minister's conversations that they would be rushing to admit it to a foreign reporter.

It is actually not clear what the US should do.  After all, this is apparently not a sign of an impending military coup, but ust a power struggle in which the army is trying to shift power into the hands of a friendlier to them and less corrupt politician.  Also, since this involves Pakistan's President, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, and Pakistan's spy agency, so far the US is not involved.  If you have the good fortune not to be involved in a problem, there is often a lot to be said in favor of remaining not involved.  Finally, Gilani may be less pro-US, but he seems to be more competent and likelier to lead Pakistan to victory against the Taliban.  On the other side, Gilani is less pro-US than Zardari, elements of the ISI reportedly recently helped Mullah Omar move to Karachi, and there are good reasons to think that the leaders of the Pakistan Army think Pakistan's interests are opposed to ours in Afghanistan.  So maybe we don't want to encourage political plotting by Pakistan's army by looking the other way.  Personally, I favor staying out of it, but this just reflects my belief that when things are bad, doing something usually just makes things worse.

India should of course stay out of this.  Most of Pakistan is hostile to India, so India's support will probably do more harm than good to any Pakistani politician who has it.

Both the US and India should make sure their contingency plans for a military coup in Pakistan are up to date.   There is no sign that the army's unhappiness with Zardari will lead to a coup, but Pakistan has had enough coups to make it unwise to discount the possibility that there will be another.

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ISI helped Mullah Omar move to Karachi?

Checking up on news about Pakistan's ISI today, I noticed a story about the ISI helping Mullah Omar move to Karachi:

Mullah Omar moved to Karachi by ISI: US

WASHINGTON: The United States has come perilously close to calling Pakistan a terrorist state by alleging that the country’s spy agency ISI  recently spirited Taliban leader Mullah Omar to Karachi to save him from American drone attacks in Quetta.

In the most direct charge of its kind, current and former US intelligence officers are saying on background that the one-eyed leader and illiterate leader of the Afghan Taliban, ''has fled a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan and found refuge from potential US attacks in Karachi with the assistance of Pakistan's intelligence service.''

Washington believes that Omar was in and around Quetta, Balochistan, where he presided over the so-called Quetta shura under the protection of the Pakistani military and the ISI, which considers him an asset ready to be deployed in Afghanistan once the US (inevitably, Pakistan believes) leaves the country. Pakistan denies the charge, but in the last three months the US has relentlessly repeated the charges, unsubtly hinting that it might expand its drone attacks to Balochistan to target Omar.

On Friday, the Obama administration pretty much went public with the charges, with two senior intelligence officials telling the Washington Times that at the end of Ramzan last month, ISI helped Omar travel to Karachi, where they said he inaugurated a new senior leadership council.

This brings up several points. 

First, of course, apparently some CIA types trying to nail Mullah Omar are apparently frustrated by the ISI, or are at least willing to blame the failure to get Mullah Omar on the ISI rather than accepting the blame themselves. 

Second, the authors of this story or their editors have failed to notice that the US is officially not bombing Balochistan, and has not been reported to have dropped any boms on Quetta.   Therefore Mullah Omar's move is probably not directly motivated by fear of imminent air bombardment.  It is possible that the ISI did not want the US to start bombing Balochistan and so it helped Mullah Omar move out of the area.

Third, this is actually somewhat risky for Mullah Omar.  After all, Karachi is the stronghold of the MQM, and there is no shortage of spies there.  Perhaps the US can make a separate deal with the MQM and they will tell the US where to find him?

Fourth, the Indian press should be a little more sophisticated about Washington and the way it works.   The Washington Times is a very conservative paper and the fact that a couple of CIA officials were willing to leak something to it should not be taken as evidence of much of anything about the Obama administration.  If the Obama administration wanted to leak something semi-officially, to pressure Pakistan, they would probably leak it to the Washington Post.

Fifth, the fact that two CIA guys on background told the Washington Times (or for that matter the Washington Post) something is actually fairly weak evidence for it.  After all, for this to be meaningful, CIA estimates of where Mullah Omar is have to be correct and two CIA types have to have been telling the truth on background.  Both of these things are quite possible, but a long way from certain.

Sixth, US policymakers should be aware that a lot of Indians aren't doing these kinds of calculations.  They believe what The Times of India and The Hindu (which also has this story) are reporting.  These Indians are presumably mystified by the fact that the CIA is still working with the ISI.

On balance, this story is good evidence for increasing tension between the CIA and the ISI, and fairly weak evidence for the proposition that Mullah Omar has moved to Karachi with ISI assistance.  I'm considerably more inclined to believe that the ISI helped Mullah Omar move to Karachi than I was before reading this report, but that's not saying much.  On the other hand, even if the story itself is false, I'm willing to believe that a couple of CIA officials leaked this story to a Washington Times reporter.  The leak itself is evidence of rising tension between the CIA and the ISI.

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Why the US May Need India as Much as India Needs Us

Steve Walt, who is justifiably a far more prominent commentator on US foreign policy than I am, has a piece asserting that the US should continue playing hard to get in its relations with India:

Playing hard to get 

Steve Walt

 The New York Times reports today that Indian officials are miffed because the Obama administration has been paying a bit more attention to China of late. As a realist and an advocate of offshore balancing, I think this is wonderful. Security in Asia matters to us, but it matters a lot more to India for the obvious reason that India is in Asia and the United States is not. Security cooperation with the United States is a valuable asset -- despite the missteps of the past decade, it is still the world's largest economy and strongest military power -- so Asian countries like India ought to be willing to do a lot for us in order to get our attention and our help. They are more likely to help if they understand that the United States has many options and that they can't take its assistance for granted. If India thinks that we’re tilting slightly toward Beijing, maybe they will do more for us in order to persuade us to lean back their way.

Bear in mind that India also wants the Obama administration to squander more blood and treasure in Afghanistan (HT Juan Cole). I understand why India wants Washington to do the heavy lifting there, but what is India willing to do for us? For example, if our real strategic concern is not Afghanistan but rather the long-term stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan, is India willing to do anything to reduce tensions with Pakistan and thus make that task a bit easier? And no, I'm not saying that the rivalry between India and Pakistan is all India’s fault, or that the United States should treat India with indifference. I'm just reminding you that diplomacy is not just about reassuring others that they can count on us no matter what, and that the United States should take advantage of our favorable geopolitical position and play "play hard to get" more often. 

Steve Walt assumes that it is obvious that India needs us more than we need India.  This is not obvious, for the following reasons:

A deal with India aimed at reducing our dependence on exports from China might be very useful for us in the middle term.  Right now, when it gets down to it, China has us over a barrel.  If we don't do what they want, they can sell dollars, nationalize US owned plants in China, etc.  So Obama has to go to China, and up to a certain point, he has to give the Chinese what they want.  If the US could reduce its debt to China some, and build up India as a possible alternative source of some of the goods China currently sells the US, this might do a lot to reduce China's leverage.

If China backs the Naxalites, and the Naxalites threaten to take over India, we'll probably feel like we have to intervene.  After all, for the first and third greatest industrial powers in the world to be allies against us, when we are the second strongest industrial power in the world, could get ugly.  So we may want to offer a good deal to the Indians because if things go badly for the Indian government we'll be pulled in anyway.  Given this risk, it might not hurt to help them before things get  ugly.

Also, the Pakistanis seem to be betting  that we will have to withdraw from Afghanistan fairly soon, and to be involved in some under the table cooperation with the Taliban.  The Pakistanis probably just want to make sure they have ties to the winning side, but I'm pretty sure the Taliban want us gone from Afghanistan.  If we want the Pakistanis to cooperate with us, we'll have to convince Pakistan that waiting for the US to leave Afghanistan will not get them what they want.  Threatening Pakistan with the possibility that the US will hand over its position to India and maybe even Iran might be the only way to get our enemies to the table.

This does not prove that Steve Walt is wrong, but it makes it far from obvious that Steve is right.  So I hope the US government thinks carefully about whatever decisions it makes affecting India.

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Blackwater in Pakistan

Pakistanis interested in what Blackwater is doing in Pakistan may want to read an article in The Nation, Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan.  Written by Jeremy Scahill, a noted critic of Blackwater Inc. in the US, it begins:

At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence. 

The White House did not return calls or email messages seeking comment for this story. Capt. John Kirby, the spokesperson for Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Nation, "We do not discuss current operations one way or the other, regardless of their nature." A defense official, on background, specifically denied that Blackwater performs work on drone strikes or intelligence for JSOC in Pakistan. "We don't have any contracts to do that work for us. We don't contract that kind of work out, period," the official said. "There has not been, and is not now, contracts between JSOC and that organization for these types of services."

The previously unreported program, the military intelligence source said, is distinct from the CIA assassination program that the agency's director, Leon Panetta, announced he had canceled in June 2009. "This is a parallel operation to the CIA," said the source. "They are two separate beasts." The program puts Blackwater at the epicenter of a US military operation within the borders of a nation against which the United States has not declared war--knowledge that could further strain the already tense relations between the United States and Pakistan. In 2006, the United States and Pakistan struck a deal that authorized JSOC to enter Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden with the understanding that Pakistan would deny it had given permission.

Officially, the United States is not supposed to have any active military operations in the country. Blackwater, which recently changed its name to Xe Services and US Training Center, denies the company is operating in Pakistan. "Xe Services has only one employee in Pakistan performing construction oversight for the U.S. Government," Blackwater spokesperson Mark Corallo said in a statement to The Nation, adding that the company has "no other operations of any kind in Pakistan."

Further down, this story claims that Blackwater has contracts with both the CIA and the Pakistani government.   Having been following the US political scene since the Vietnam war, I tend to ignore the official denials in these matters.  After all, if the authorities confirm the Nation's story, the program ceases to be clandestine.  The person who confirmed the story could get into serious trouble.  So the smart move for CIA spokespeople, etc, is to deny the story.

As long term readers of this blog know by now, I am strongly opposed to Blackwater and outfits like it.  These mercenary outfits strike me as likely to be poorly disciplined, very expensive, and likely to try to hide their mistakes using the cover of the CIA as the contracting agency.  Also, it would be good to have unity of command in the AfPak theater, and I am not sure these CIA/Blackwater/Spec Op types are reporting to McChrystal.  McChrystal will have to deal with the problems in the US relationship with Pakistan these black ops types will cause, so he should have command over them. 

My hope was that Blackwater/Xe, as a big Republican campaign contributor , would not fare well in the Obama administration.  It is starting to look like the Obama administration will disappoint me yet again.

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