peacefare.net

Or else what?

On Twitter, I mocked the Administration’s renewed effort to get Pakistan to act against the Taliban, suggesting that it amounted to doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result (one definition of madness).  But here on the blog I should be a bit more analytical.

SecState Clinton was in Islamabad last week with a high powered delegation. The Guardian reported:

US officials are demanding that Pakistan either deliver the Haqqani network to peace talks, kill its leaders, or pave the way for the Americans to eliminate them.

The question is, or else what?  what is America’s leverage? If the Pakistanis don’t do these things, what will the United States do? In the negotiation business, this is called “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA).  I reviewed America’s broad policy options in July, leading to the conclusion that this is the damndest problem. 

But there are “courses of action” for the United States:

1.  Amp up drone attacks, aiming deeper into Pakistan.  Hard to do without Islamabad’s cooperation, sure to create a negative reaction in Pakistan.

2.  Reduce assistance to the Pakistani military. Drives them into the arms of the Chinese and reduces further the likelihood of cooperation on drone attacks.

3.  Help the Pakistan civilian government to gain better control over the military and intelligence service.  The civilians are less reserved in denouncing the drone attacks than the military, which isn’t going to like this idea and won’t sit still while it goes on.

4.  Align the United States more with India (and Afghanistan) against Pakistan.  Also drives Pakistan into the arms of the Chinese.

I was tempted to add a fifth:  target the Inter Services Intelligence headquarters, or other elements of the Pakistani government that support the Taliban, but that is pretty near unthinkable unless we really are prepared to go to war with Pakistan.  It is the kind of thing we’ve done elsewhere and may not remain unthinkable forever.  Maybe this is what Karzai was referring to when he said Afghanistan would be on Pakistan’s side in a war with the United States.

Pakistan’s “BATNA,” which gives it leverage over the U.S., includes blocking or delaying military supplies to American troops in Afghanistan.  As Jackie Northam notes this morning on NPR, Hillary Clinton’s post-Islamabad stops in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan presumably aimed at strengthening the “northern distribution network” supply route, thus reducing vulnerability to a Pakistani squeeze on Afghanistan supplies.

So, yes, there are things we can do, but they’ve got distinct downsides.  For the moment, I remain wanting a thorough reassessment of our relationship with Pakistan, taking into account whatever we learned last week in Islamabad.  It will likely come out in the direction of no. 3 above, but let’s try the reassessment and see.