Reid on CT Legislation Posted by James Lamond

For those who missed it this week, Senator Reid sent a great letter to Carl Levin and John McCain, regarding detainee provisions in the 2012 Defense Authorization Bill. In the letter, Reid says that he will not bring the bill to the floor while it has three controversial provisions in it. He specifically cited the provisions that authorize indefinite detention (section 1031), require military custody for terrorism suspects (1032), and transfer restrictions on current detainees (1033). 

Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First describes the effects of the bill saying:

this would be the first bill authorizing military detention of suspected insurgents since the McCarthy era, when Congress passed the Internal Security Act to allow the government to indefinitely detain suspected Communists.

If the Committee's bill became law, military detention would actually be required for all suspects who are not U.S. citizens, which could cut the FBI -- our best-trained experts on investigating international terrorism -- out of these critical cases. It would also make it far more difficult to prosecute terrorists later.

Replacing an effective system – the FBI and other law enforcement that have an expertise in counterterrorism – with required military detention makes make little sense. Beyond stretching the military into roles it was neither designed, nor wants, to handle, it is a logistical nightmare. Requiring the military to be police and jailor would mean that military officers would have to arrest and hold terrorism suspects throughout the country. Outside of a handful of cities, which have large bases that might be able to handle this, the infrastructure, facilities, capabilities and training simply do not exist. In a recent letter to Congress a  group of retired generals and admirals warned that the provisions “would transform our armed forces into judge, jury and jailor for foreign terrorism suspects,” distracting from the military’s core mission: “to prosecute wars, not terrorists.”

However, what is most ironic with all of this is the timing. The debate is going public the same week the trial of Underwear Bomber commences. Abdullmutallab was arrested and successfully interrogated by the FBI after he attempted to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas day 2009. He now faces justice in a criminal court, without any of the drama or fanfare that opponents of criminal courts fear.

At a more substantive, less news hooky, level though, the timing is even worse. The Obama administration has made clear that the use of civilian courts is a key component of the overall counterterrorism strategy. John Brennan recently outlined this component of the strategy in remarks at Harvard Law School. He explains some of the more pragmatic benefits: 

For when we uphold the rule of law, governments around the globe are more likely to provide us with intelligence we need to disrupt ongoing plots, they’re more likely to join us in taking swift and decisive action against terrorists, and they’re more likely to turn over suspected terrorists who are plotting to attack us, along with the evidence needed to prosecute them.

When we uphold the rule of law, our counterterrorism tools are more likely to withstand the scrutiny of our courts, our allies, and the American people.  And when we uphold the rule of law it provides a powerful alternative to the twisted worldview offered by al-Qa’ida.  Where terrorists offer injustice, disorder and destruction, the United States and its allies stand for freedom, fairness, equality, hope, and opportunity.

The Obama administration’s has had a pretty successful counterterrorism record - particularly in 2012 - from getting  bin Laden to breaking terrorist finances to actually leveraging a more global response. In addition, the public agrees. Even as the President’s numbers have dipped, Obama always had strong  approval on his handling of terrorism  - even before bin Laden. 

This looks to me to be both bad policy as well as bad politics. 

CNAS Report Underscores Need for a New Strategy Posted by The Editors

This guest post by William Hartung, who is director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) summarizes its new report on defense spending as follows: “U.S. Global Engagement Strategy at Risk If Defense Cuts Exceed $550 Billion Over Ten Years.”  If the headline is meant to be taken at face value, it is our strategy that is at risk if we cut further, not our security.  And the report, Hard Choices: Responsible Defense in An Age of Austerity, acknowledges as much, noting that we can’t scale back the Pentagon’s ambitious plans beyond the magic number of $550 billion unless “policymakers re-calibrate America’s global engagement strategy and/or generate savings by reforming pay and benefits.”

Putting pay and benefits aside for the moment, strategy is at the heart of the matter.  At a time when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down and deficit reduction is the order of the day, it is precisely the right time to “re-calibrate America’s global engagement strategy.”  If we do so, it will be possible to trim planned Pentagon spending by up to $1 trillion over ten years.  This is roughly twice the level that the CNAS report deems acceptable.  Examples of how to generate this level of savings are contained in reports and articles published by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, the Cato Institute, and Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman of the Stimson Center, writing in the January/February 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs (Adams and Leatherman set out an approach for cutting $788 billion over a shorter time frame, from 2012 to 2018).

The Pentagon has accumulated a dizzying array of missions in the 2000s. It is well past time to cut back. Priority missions should include destroying and disrupting al Qaeda or other terror networks intent on attacking the United States; preventing nuclear proliferation and reducing global stockpiles of nuclear weapons; and cybersecurity.  But we  should not design U.S. forces with an eye towards fighting future wars of occupation like Iraq or large scale counterinsurgency campaigns like Afghanistan that seek to remake other societies.  The Pentagon should not be an economic development agency, and its proliferation of security assistance programs should be both cut back and made more transparent. 

The CNAS report does a service in acknowledging that economic constraints are “driving strategy, not the other way around,” and that therefore the real question is what level of risk we are willing to take as we rein in the Pentagon’s ambitious spending plans.  And it sketches out four scenarios that cover the current range of discussion for adjustments in Pentagon spending, from “Reposition and Reset,” at $350 billion to $400 billion in savings, to “Focused Economy of Force,” at $800 to $850 billion in savings, all over a ten year time span.  In each of the scenarios, ground troops are de-emphasized in favor of air and naval power, and the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean are given priority, along with the Middle East. The authors of the report seek to set out the trade-offs and security risks entailed in each scenario.  And they give specific details on how each of their scenarios would impact procurement, R&D, troop levels, intelligence spending, and more. Two missing ingredients are a discussion of the role of allies in providing for their own defense and the importance of non-military tools of security in addressing and preventing threats. 

But what is an appropriate level of risk?  Under its “deepest cuts” scenario, CNAS raises concerns about how long it would take the U.S. to mobilize for a major ground operation, or whether it could act soon enough to prevent an adversary from seizing territory. These concerns must be considered in the context of a discussion of how likely such situations are to arise, and which of them would require U.S. action, either alone or with allies.  But most importantly, in what it considers its riskiest option, CNAS emphasizes the fact that U.S. leaders would have to be “much more cautious about where and when to use force” and “would have to prioritize global missions far more clearly than in the past.”   These are good things, things which should be done regardless of what level Pentagon spending settles in at.

Photo: Flickr

No Country for Young Vets Posted by Jacob Stokes

This Friday, October 7, marks the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. There’s much discussion to be had about U.S. strategy a decade into these wars. But it’s also a time to take a deep look at the human costs. Two pieces out today explore the plight and attitudes of young veterans and underscore the disconnect between servicemembers and civilians that has characterized the last decade. Yellow magnetic ribbons or no, neither veterans nor the public believe those not in the military understand what military life entails.

The AP reports today, in a must-read story that’s nominally about whether vets think the wars of the last decade were worth fighting, another depressing—although if you’re paying attention, probably not shocking—finding. 

Although numerous polls have shown that Americans hold troops in high regard, the respondents in the Pew research admitted to a lack of understanding of what military life entails. Only 27% of adult civilians said the public understood the problems facing those in uniform, while the proportion of veterans who said so was even lower at 21%.

Those numbers tell a story, but on the NYT’s At War blog, Army veteran Matt Farwell tells his—about being homeless—better. Here’s a snippet:

As infantry on the ground in Afghanistan, we were introduced to the ugliness of violent, unpredictable death. Over the 16 months of our tour, we caused it and we endured it; we grew well acquainted with it. Sometimes I think that we took it back, an invisible scythe-carrying stowaway on board the airplane we took back to the States. How else to explain my friend Michael Cloutier, whose spot-on shooting probably saved my life when our observation post was attacked by Taliban who outnumbered us three to one, dying of a drug overdose a year after we came back? 

Farwell gets a bit of the wider view in, too:

Paul Reickhoff, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the founder and chairman of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America testified that over 11,000 veterans between the ages of 18 and 30 were officially listed — that is, somehow identified, confirmed and entered in the Department of Veteran’s Affairs database — as homeless. That’s more than a standard Army division. It’s also really tricky to measure exactly, since there are plenty, like me, you’d never suspect were homeless veterans if you saw them around town.

Whatever you think of the wars, after looking at these stories, there’s no disputing that somewhere along the line we lost our way.

Photo: Flickr

Lone Wolves in Perspective Posted by James Lamond

The arrest of a Rezwan Ferdaus, a 26 year old Massachusetts man has once again brought the scary term “lone wolf” back into the news. Ferdaus, a graduate of Northeastern University in phyiscs was plotting to make to fly homemade “drones” made from remote-control model airplanes packed with five pounds of explosives into the Pentagon and Capital building. He was  caught by FBI agents  posing as members of al Qaeda. As Eli Lake writes this case, “gives a rare glimpse into how the government has been focusing on the threat of lone wolves and homegrown terrorists in the United States.”

Plots by lone wolfs are inherently difficult to disrupt. Suspects with no training, record, or communication with outside groups are difficult to identify. Eli quotes analyst Daveed Gartenstein-Ross in his story, saying “It is very hard to stop a lone-wolf attack once it is in progress. That’s the reason that the FBI has been making use of sting operations such as this in order to try to disrupt attacks before they begin.” 

It is certainly true that these sort of attacks are less likely to pop up on a radar making them more difficult to see and prevent. However in the media, it often takes on a sort of mystical appeal, as an unstoppable force.

Last week Stratfor’s Scott Stewart released a primer on the history of the lone wolf phenomenon across the ideological spectrum and a breakdown of the threat potential. He writes:

The lone-wolf threat is nothing new, but it has received a great deal of press coverage in recent months, and with that press coverage has come a certain degree of hype based on the threat’s mystique. However, when one looks closely at the history of solitary terrorists, it becomes apparent that there is a significant gap between lone-wolf theory and lone-wolf practice. An examination of this gap is very helpful in placing the lone-wolf threat in the proper context… 

… On its face, as described by strategists such as Beam and al-Suri, the leaderless-resistance theory is tactically sound. By operating as lone wolves or small, insulated cells, operatives can increase their operational security and make it more difficult for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to identify them. As seen by examples such as Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan and Roshonara Choudhry, who stabbed British lawmaker Stephen Timms with a kitchen knife in May 2010, such attacks can create a significant impact with very little cost.

Lone wolves and small cells do indeed present unique challenges, but history has shown that it is very difficult to put the lone-wolf theory into practice. For every Eric Rudolph, Nidal Hasan and Anders Breivik there are scores of half-baked lone-wolf wannabes who either botch their operations or are uncovered before they can launch an attack.

It is a rare individual who possesses the requisite combination of will, discipline, adaptability, resourcefulness and technical skill to make the leap from theory to practice and become a successful lone wolf. Immaturity, impatience and incompetence are frequently the bane of failed lone-wolf operators, who also frequently lack a realistic assessment of their capabilities and tend to attempt attacks that are far too complex. When they try to do something spectacular they frequently achieve little or nothing.

… When we set aside the mystique of the lone wolf and look at the reality of the phenomenon, we can see that the threat is often far less daunting in fact than in theory. 

Perhaps the most important lesson that Stewart finds from this brief history of the lone wolves, is that when “a group promotes leaderless resistance as an operational model it is a sign of failure rather than strength.” But this is often not the perspective in which the threat is presented in the media. And public officials do not always help. For example, back in February Secretary Napolitano described the changing threat from large-scale 9/11-style plots to the smaller-bore lone wolves threat, stating that, “The terrorist threat to the homeland is, in many ways, at its most heightened state since 9/11.” While it is probably true that a successful, if less ambitious, attack is increasingly likely to occur, these sort of statements miss the larger perspective. 

This is not meant to say that a lone wolf terrorist is not a threat. We have clearly seen that this is a tactic adopted AQAP. And officials should remain vigilant and citizens alert. However, it is also important to keep in mind a historical perspective that this is a move made by weakened organizations that has had little success through history. 

The Right Way to Challenge China on Currency Posted by Jacob Stokes

Greg Sargent explains that another bill designed to punish China for currency manipulation is coming down the pike:

The battle over the American Jobs Act has sucked up all the oxygen, but there’s another jobs fight you really should be keeping an eye on: The battle over the measure to punish China for currency ma­nipu­la­tion. 

It’s a really interesting story, and it’s going to heat up in a big way next week. A lot is riding on the outcome — according to one estimate it could create over 1 million jobs. House Dem leaders like Nancy Pelosi are pushing hard for it, and passage it could dshore up vulnerable Democratic Senators in swing states that have hemorraged manufacturing jobs to China.

A similar bill was passed by the House around this time last year. What I wrote about it then largely still applies now (except the unlikely to pass part): 

First, while the bill is unlikely to pass, it will give some ammunition to the Obama administration when it goes to China and tries to play good cop (administration), bad cop (Congress) with the Chinese, giving credibility to threats about actions America is prepared to take on the issue. This is important because a central characteristic of the Chinese regime is that they’re much more concerned about force and coercion than they are about being the sparkle in the eye of the international community. 

Secondly, as America begins to push back on the issue, the Chinese government can use that pressure as a convenient excuse to push back against their own influential export lobby, which is the biggest proponent of keeping the value of the yuan low. Chinese leaders know they need to expand the domestic market and help the Chinese consumer buy more; increasing the value of the yuan will do that. What’s more, the amount of currency intervention needed to keep the yuan low creates all sorts of negative sides effects, an overheating economy being only one of them, that the Chinese government would like to get rid of.

Whistling Past the Graveyard Posted by Michael Cohen

Fernando Lujan has an op-ed in the New York Times today that is the sort of thing written about the war in Afghanistan that makes me want to repeatedly bang my head against a wall. Based on his experience on the ground in Afghanistan, Lujan is convinced that we can win in Afghanistan. How you ask? By being smarter!

“Winning” is a meaningless word in this type of war, but something is happening in the Afghan south that gives me hope. Rather than resignation, America should show resolve — not to maintain a large troop presence or extend timelines, but to be smarter about the way we use our tapering resources to empower those Afghans willing to lead and serve.

Why after ten years of fighting; why at a time when the President has made quite clear that US involvement in Afghanistan needs to begin winding down; why when the Afghan government and its security services have shown precious little inclination to "lead and serve" do we think that suddenly we're going to get Afghanistan right or that we're going to start acting smarter in how we use our resources? 

Reading Lujan's hopeful words about Afghanistan and the "stirring" that he claims to see among the populace one might think that things are improving in Afghanistan and that security is getting better. However, since Lujan proudly eschews the use of metrics in his article readers of the New York Times might not know that the exact opposite is happening. According to the latest quarterly report from the United Nations things are actually getting worse in Afghanistan . . . again:

The U.N. says the average monthly tally of armed clashes, roadside bombings and other violence has increased sharply this year in Afghanistan.

In its quarterly report on Afghanistan released Wednesday, the U.N. says that as of the end of August, the average monthly number of incidents was 2,108. That's up 39 percent compared with the same period last year.

The U.N. report also says that while the number of suicide attacks remained steady, insurgents are conducting more complex suicide operations, involving multiple bombers and gunmen.

It says that on average, three complex attacks have been carried out each month this year — a 50 percent increase compared with the same period last year.

Of course, as we are now regularly told by the Pentagon and its enablers in the policy community these attacks are not indicative of Taliban resilience - but rather desperation. How does Lujan know this: "a tough Pashtun named Mahmoud" told him so. As for the committed Afghan soldiers who Lujan is in contact with on a regular basis - they appear to be the exception not the rule. Rather, as Danger Room reported earlier this week not a single Afghan battalion is able to fight on its own. Not one. This "success" comes at a price tag of $6 billion per year in US taxpayer largesse.

But look none of this should be a surprise: the military has been dispensing this sort of anecdotal "good news" for years now in the hopes that it would convince Americans and policymakers that we are just around the corner from turning the corner in Afghanistan. It's yet one more example of the military interpreting short-term tactical gains as a sign of strategic progress. It's barely the former and not at all the latter.

The problem, which Lujan's op-ed typifies, is that we've never been realistic about what we can achieve in Afghanistan or what we can rely upon the Afghan government to do.  We haven't for one moment in the last ten years been smart about Afghanistan - that isn't going to change now as the US mission there begins to wind down. Quite simply, we've lost the war in Afghanistan. Winning is no longer in the cards (indeed it was never really an option). The question now is how to we get out in such a way that
protects our interests with the limited resources, capabilities and political will at our disposal.  Fetishizing the Afghan security services or our own abilities to do the "smart" thing in Afghanistan isn't going to help us answer those questions. 

Rather it's just another example of whistling past the graveyard.

Chinese Strategy Still Up for Grabs Posted by Jacob Stokes

As some search for a new rationale for increased defense spending, China has all but supplanted terrorism and rogue states as the favorite threat to cite. Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg’s tome “A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia” is on track to become the bible for those who argue that the U.S. must engage in a large-scale, immediate and continuous military build-up to curb China’s rise. 

In response to that growing narrative, Michael Swaine of the Carnegie Endowment has written a quick and elegant response arguing for a more nuanced view that takes into account the realities of Chinese politics and strategy, the imperatives of alliances in Asia and U.S. economic weakness. Anyone who’s tempted by Friedberg’s argument and its correlatives should read Swaine’s piece, several core paragraphs of which are below:

China’s strategic mindset is quintessentially defensive, largely reactive, and focused first and foremost on deterring Taiwan’s independence and defending the Chinese mainland, not on establishing itself as Asia’s next hegemon. Although it is not inconceivable that China might adopt more ambitious, far-flung military objectives in the future—perhaps including an attempt to become the preeminent Asian military power—such goals remain ill-defined, undetermined and subject to much debate in Beijing. This suggests that China’s future strategic orientation is susceptible to outside influence, not fixed in stone… 

Instead of more tough talk and increased defense spending, the United States and its allies in Asia need to grasp the malleable nature of China’s strategic intentions and shape a “mixed” regional approach focused more on creating incentives to cooperate than on neutralizing every possible Chinese military capability of concern to U.S. defense analysts. In particular, there is a need for a more far-reaching U.S.-China strategic dialogue that focuses on long-term interests and intentions and on what steps each country could take to avert growing security competition. 

This is not pie-in-the-sky utopian thinking. It is rooted in the realities of America’s changing economic position in the world, China’s own internal problems and debates, and Asia’s increasing openness to cooperative multilateral security approaches. Forward-thinking leaders will recognize the growing need for our two countries—and the region—to create opportunities for collaboration on global challenges rather than engaging in destabilizing military competition.

As Swaine suggests, it’s not that China poses no threat. But Chinese strategy is still very much in flux, and just as in the U.S., Chinese foreign policy is made by a mixture of diverse and changing interest groups. Those groups will respond, at least in part, to our actions. So a mixed strategy that checks Chinese overreach while also leaving room for positive Chinese actions on the world stage makes the most sense.

Photo: People's Daily

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Pakistan? Part II Posted by Michael Cohen

With the United States and Pakistan having apparently de-friended each other on Facebook, the United States has chosen perhaps the strongest weapon in its arsenal to ratcheting up tension . . . they're now leaking unfavorable stories to the New York Times. 

Indeed, today's piece by Carlotta Gall about a Pakistani ambush of US soldiers in Pakistan is quite the blockbuster - and appears, magically, only four years after the event in question:

A group of American military officers and Afghan officials had just finished a five-hour meeting with their Pakistani hosts in a village schoolhouse settling a border dispute when they were ambushed — by the Pakistanis.

An American major was killed and three American officers were wounded, along with their Afghan interpreter, in what fresh accounts from the Afghan and American officers who were there reveal was a complex, calculated assault by a nominal ally. The Pakistanis opened fire on the Americans, who returned fire before escaping in a blood-soaked Black Hawk helicopter.

The attack, in Teri Mangal on May 14, 2007, was kept quiet by Washington, which for much of a decade has seemed to play down or ignore signals that Pakistan would pursue its own interests, or even sometimes behave as an enemy.

What is perhaps more disturbing about this story is, if American policymakers, were so familiar with Pakistani perfidy why was the 2009 escalation strategy in Afghanistan predicated in large measure on support from Pakistan?

One thing we've seen repeatedly in regard to the war in Afghanistan is that Pakistan will, even at the risk of eroding their alliance with the United States, aggressively pursue its interests in Afghanistan - and yet the US strategy for Afghanistan has been based, in part, on the notion that Islamabad would shift its strategic calculus at the urging of US officials (and the carrot of foreign assistance).  Two years later we're seeing the singular foolish of that strategy - but again it should have been evident back then. Rather than trying to get Pakistan to act against its interests the United States should have been looking to put in place a strategy that melded with Pakistan's strategic calculus regarding Afghanistan. We're today reaping the ill-rewards of that approach.

Nonetheless, the leaking of this story continues the growing war of words between the United States and Pakistan and suggests that US policymakers are willing to risk a break with Islamabad over its continued support for Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan (particularly the Haqqani network). Indeed, one plausible interpretation of why this story has been leaked is to coax Congress into doing something rash in regard to the billions of dollars that we provide to Pakistan every year. 

None of this makes much sense to me. Why is the United States willing to risk a rupture in relations with Pakistan - a country that is an unstable nuclear power and a hub of jihadist terror - over a war in Afghanistan where US interests are more faint and American leverage is on the decline? What is the end game here? What if the Pakistanis - as they've already done - tell the United States they are not going to crack down on the Haqqanis? Will Congress cut off aid? And then what happens with the US drone war in Pakistan or counter-terrorism efforts? How is that worth a likely uncertain impact on the war in Afghanistan - a war in which Pakistan is going to continue to play a influential role no matter what the United States does?

I'd like to believe that the US government has a plan in regard to Pakistan or that it has some reason to believe that public pressure will shift Islamabad's thinking - but if the US track record is any indication I'm not feeling terribly confident.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Pakistan? Posted by Michael Cohen

Last week, departing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen publicly stated what is perhaps the single greatest open secret about the US war in Afghanistan - that it has become a proxy war between the US and Pakistan over the future of Afghanistan.

For much of the previous two years - and well before - the Pakistani government has not only been providing safe haven to Taliban insurgents, but if Mullen is to be believed (and I think he should) the Haqqani network is a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's ISI. This would of course also mean that elements in the Pakistani military were responsible for an attack on the US embassy in Kabul. None of this should come as a surprise. It's a well-known fact that Pakistan is both directly and indirectly supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan . . . no matter how many times the Pakistani government expresses shock, shock that anyone would lodge such an accusation against it.

The fact that Mullen was the one making these comments - an individual who is probably the person closest to the Pakistanis in the United States military - speaks volumes. But it also demonstrates the strategic "grabbing for straws" that defines US policy in the region today. After all, we know that US officials have been privately browbeating Pakistani officials for two years to end their support for Taliban insurgents - and we know that the Pakistanis have basically been telling the United States that it's not going to happen. Why does the US think that this time a public accusation of complicity with the insurgency will push the Pakistanis into action (considering the normal domestic reaction in Pakistan to US efforts to cajole Islamabad one can imagine that it will have the exact opposite effect).

While it's possible that the Pakistanis will suddenly shift course now that the US has publicly called them out it's hard to see why they would. Instead, Pakistan's reaction to Mullen's comments was to publicly reject them and claim that the ISI has no links to Haqqani - a reaction that was nothing if not completely predictable.  And it all begs the question: what if the Pakistani government doesn't end its support for the Haqqanis? Are we going to send troops across the border to go after them the next time they target US targets or send a suicide assault mission into Kabul? Are we going to risk war with Pakistan to punish the Haqqanis?

If we aren't willing to take that step - and I seriously doubt we will - then all we're doing is throwing out some public charges that we aren't willing to back up with concrete action. Of course, it also bears noting that we have escalated US-Pakistani relations at a time when our leverage over Pakistan is on the decline as we are beginning to walk away from a failing strategy in Afghanistan. Is it really worth causing a fundamental break with Pakistan over Afghanistan?

What makes this even worse is that ultimately the US relationship with Pakistan is actually far more important to long-term US interests -- on issues like nuclear non-proliferation and counter-terrorism -- than the US relationship with Afghanistan. Our focus should be on trying to repair the former, rather than salvaging the latter.

Now to be sure this isn't intended to take Pakistan off the hook. Their behavior in regard to Afghanistan has become deeply schizophrenic - on the one hand at least publicly supporting the notion of political reconciliation while on the other lending support to insurgent groups like the Haqqanis that are making the achievement of such political goals basically impossible. Of course, this is reflective of the various power centers that exist inside the Pakistani government and its military. But in defense of US officials this has put them in an almost impossible bind. Unless the Pakistanis want to be responsible for sparking a civil war in Afghanistan after we leave or significantly harming relations with their superpower ally (and a provider of billions in foreign assistance) they might want to figure out a cohesive policy or at the very least rein in those groups undercutting the efforts toward finding a political resolution to the conflict.

But then again if one is looking for political consistency or even rational strategic behavior Islamabad probably isn't the first place you're going to look. 

Ultimately, while Pakistan's policy in Afghanistan is a source of enormous and understandable frustration to the United States the one lesson that US policymakers should have learned over the last ten years is that its ability to affect Pakistani behavior is quite limited. Pakistan will do what it wants - and neither carrots nor sticks seem able to get them to change their approach in regard to Afghanistan. 

In the proxy conflict over Afghanistan's future, President Obama's decision to pull the plug on the war is an indication that Pakistan has won - and we lost. Rather than trying to re-litigate the war by ramping up our rhetoric now we'd be better off recognizing Pakistani interests - and folding them into our policy in Afghanistan - then trying to coax Pakistan to adopt a position that they almost certainly consider to be in opposition to their strategic calculus regarding Afghanistan.

Florida 2011: Like 1972 Without the Classy Candidate? Posted by Heather Hurlburt

In 1972, my dad was working for a GOP Senator and my mom was raising two kids and dabbling in peace activism.  (Back then this wasn't as conflict-producing as it sounds now.)  Maybe because I have recently seen Senators Kerry and Leahy both compare today's climate unfavorably to that period, when I saw the crowd at the GOP debate last night boo a servicemember with no rebukes from the podium, I called my parents for comment.  After all, we all "know" about disgraceful treatment of servicemembers back then, right?  What, I asked them, did George McGovern have to say about the booing of uniformed military?

Well, said my mom, McGovern used to tell audiences to oppose the policy, not the people.  That sounds like great advice for the GOP primary crowd.  These are the same people who have proposed cutting promised veterans' benefits, tried to slash the New GI Bill, and ignored the military's advice on everything from arms control to trying terrorism suspects to Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal.  Will they do the same damage to their movement's relations with the military, and trust of the American people, that the people who didn't heed McGovern's advice did 40 years ago?