Saving Afghanistan from Pakistan
By Christian Brose Reading the news out of Pakistan these past several days, followed by Dave Kilcullen’s recent testimony on that subject, I am left with the desire to take a bath with a toaster. Here’s Andrew Exum’s more thoughtful yet equally glum conclusion: Studying the past few years, one could arrive at the conclusion ...
Reading the news out of Pakistan these past several days, followed by Dave Kilcullen’s recent testimony on that subject, I am left with the desire to take a bath with a toaster. Here’s Andrew Exum’s more thoughtful yet equally glum conclusion:
Studying the past few years, one could arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan’s army is epically incompetent. One could similarly arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan’s army is competent — but fighting for the other side.
Over the past 100 days, the Obama administration has argued that our success in Afghanistan is linked to progress in Pakistan — on security and governance, among other things. In theory, that’s right. In practice, though, to assume that success in Afghanistan requires near-term progress in Pakistan may be like waiting for Godot, or worse. I would challenge that assumption, for there is a lot we can achieve in Afghanistan on its own terms, right now — from training and expanding the security forces, to building state capacity, to better coordinating our allied civil-military campaign. We should not link "Af" and "Pak" to such a degree that it leads us to underestimate what can be achieved in Afghanistan and overestimate what is possible in Pakistan.
The implications of this aren’t pretty. As with any policy, our strategy toward Pakistan — if, unlike John Kerry, you believe we have one — is a mixture of aiming for the best but hedging against the worst. Is it time to start focusing more exclusively on the latter? In other words, do we need to begin shifting to a strategy of containment in Pakistan, either because the government and military can’t contain their own domestic threats or because they won’t (or maybe both)?
I hope I’m wrong on this, and I encourage experts (and readers in the comments section) to tell me so, and why. But if I’m not, then we may need to find concrete ways to delink "Af-Pak," rhetorically and strategically, lest the intractable problem of Pakistan sink the real gains we can make in Afghanistan.
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