Pakistan: ally or adversary?

Is Pakistan an ally or an adversary of the West? The answer, as with so much in Pakistan, is ambiguous. It remains clear that Pakistan and the United States need each other. But it is also evident that the terms of their relations need to change in light of Pakistani support for terrorism. Many of those who know Pakistan best, including leading Western and Pakistani experts convened by the German Marshall Fund, the Institute for Security and Defense Policy, and the French Ministry of Defense for a transatlantic workshop on Pakistan last weekend, have concluded that key elements of Pakistan’s military/intelligence combine were complicit in sheltering bin Laden.

How should the West respond to a long history of Pakistani double-dealing? At least we know what doesn’t work. In the early 1990s, after a close partnership with Islamabad to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States slapped sanctions on Pakistan and effectively walked away. What followed was the rampant nuclear proliferation of the A.Q. Khan network and Pakistan’s creation of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan also began to fall apart as a state during this period of isolation from the West, with the result that General Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 coup was welcomed by many Pakistanis and Western leaders alike. In light of this record, cutting Pakistan off today might be emotionally satisfying, but it would not serve Western interests.

Another option would be pursuing a threat-reduction strategy that reassured Pakistan on its eastern and western frontiers. This would include rapidly drawing down NATO forces in Afghanistan, giving Pakistan the lead role in shaping an Afghan political settlement, and using American leverage to force India to come to terms with its quarrelsome neighbor.

The problem here is that predatory Pakistani behavior in Afghanistan pre-dates Western military involvement there after 9/11. Geography and history may mean that the Pakistani military’s obsession with "strategic depth" in Afghanistan can never be satisfied. Indeed, it is more likely that a strong, sovereign Afghanistan with long-term Western partners and capable institutions of security and governance would do more to alleviate Pakistani insecurities than a weak Afghanistan unable to control its territory or govern its people. Hence the argument that one of the best things the West can do for Pakistan is to help the Afghan people build a state that can be a good neighbor to Pakistan — rather than a chronic source of insecurity that tempts Pakistani adventurism.

What about using Western influence on Pakistan’s behalf to solve its India problem? First, the West does not have the leverage to compel India to do much of anything vis-à-vis Pakistan; nor does it have an interest in holding relations with India hostage to Pakistani neuralgias. Second, Pakistanis should be careful arguing that Western powers need to choose between strategic partnership with India or Pakistan; Islamabad is unlikely to prevail over New Delhi in this equation. Third, India’s prime minister is by all accounts sincere in his desire for normal relations with Pakistan, but the Pakistani military’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks of 2008 and other terrorist atrocities have weakened the Indian camp for peace.

Fourth, it seems odd to blame Pakistan’s pathologies on a country next door that is democratic, increasingly prosperous, and a global success story. Wouldn’t most countries welcome the benefits of closer ties with such a neighbor? Fifth, India is not fated to be some kind of eternal, civilizational enemy to Pakistan — they have a roughly equal Muslim population and a common history. It is not religion or culture but Pakistan’s failures of governance, deployment by the Pakistani state of asymmetric tools like terrorism, and its revanchism over Kashmir that go a long way toward explaining continuing tensions on the subcontinent.

Sixth, the closest India and Pakistan have come to a settlement of their long-running conflict over Kashmir occurred from 2004 to 2007, when Washington pursued a policy of "dehyphenation" that improved relations with both Pakistan and India independently, without holding ties with one hostage to the other. This suggests that returning to a policy of linkage would, as in the past, produce the opposite effect.

In the long-term, the goal of the West must be to build up Pakistani civilian institutions to counter-balance control of foreign policy by the army and the intelligence services. In the near term, continued training and close engagement with the Pakistani military can be combined with continuing pressure in the form of drone strikes against terrorists taking sanctuary in Pakistan. Avoiding a precipitous Western withdrawal from Afghanistan is also vital.

Politically, a key goal must be to decouple the leadership of the Afghan Taliban from its Pakistani minders. Reports that Afghan Taliban commanders have chafed under Pakistani tutelage suggest that such an opening is ripe — and could tilt the balance towards an Afghan political settlement that does not grant Pakistan overlordship of its neighbor but instead strengthens Afghan sovereignty.

Sooner or later, India’s successful ascent combined with progress in Afghanistan should suggest to Pakistan’s military masters that a foreign policy predicated on exporting terror to its near neighbors is self-defeating. Perhaps only then will Pakistan play its part in reconciling with India and Afghanistan in a way that promotes the economic integration of South and Central Asia, creating a regional hub of dynamism and growth that is more conducive to its people’s aspirations.