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South Asian
blowback
By Stephen Blank
The
crisis generated by Pakistani-supported and
Kashmir-based terrorists continues. Although both sides'
rhetoric has cooled, India's and Pakistan's armies
remain mobilized. Pakistan has had to concede that
terrorist infiltration into Kashmir continues and that
elements of al-Qaeda have also successfully escaped from
Afghanistan into Pakistan.
Meanwhile, under
pressure to reverse years of support for Islamic
terrorists amid key components of Pakistani security
policy, President General Pervez Musharraf is
unilaterally assuming ever greater dictatorial powers.
These developments offer significant and immediate
strategic and political implications that must be faced.
Pakistan's policy of support for terrorism in
Kashmir and India, and for the Taliban in Afghanistan,
destabilized Central Asia and generated the attacks of
September 11 and the subsequent attacks on India and
Kashmir. Pakistan's policy has also unintentionally
endangered its own stability. The foreign pressure to
adopt a new policy and the resistance from key domestic
constituencies who embraced and implemented the previous
policy have forced Musharraf to assume ever more power
even though he has failed to subdue the pro-terrorist
elements in his armed forces and is rapidly forfeiting
popular support. Not only is there danger of a war, with
India, that Pakistan cannot win, but the al-Qaeda
remnants and the Kashmiri terrorists have also opened
what evidently is a permanent second front in Pakistan.
That second front continually menaces the American war
on terrorism and threatens to destabilize Pakistan.
They could only do this with support from
military, police and intelligence elements in Pakistan,
thereby illustrating that regimes who actively employ
terrorism as an instrument of national policy run the
risk of becoming hostage to the intentions, objectives
and capabilities of the terrorists. This is a critical
lesson for other governments in and around the Caspian
littoral - as well as around the world - who have
sponsored terrorism and separatist movements.
Specifically this applies to Russia. We must
remember that many of the Chechens' most notorious
leaders cut their teeth as GRU and FSB operatives in the
Abkhazians' 1992 war against Georgia. The blowback that
has since occurred in Chechnya shows that the regime
that creates the terrorist unit should not be surprised
to then find out that the terrorists have goals of their
own. The current Georgian crisis and the Russian threats
of a wider war involving Georgia show that few in Moscow
have learned very much from the past.
At the
same time, terrorists have exploited the weakness of
Pakistan's government to create a second front that will
not easily be dislodged. Musharraf's government cannot
disband the Islamic militants, and it fears allowing
American operations against them. Thus they will
probably long possess the means, will and capacity to
destabilize Kashmir, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over
time, therefore, they will not only prevent
Afghanistan's recovery but also surely destabilize
Pakistan sufficiently to create chaos and something
approaching ungovernability. That outcome will obstruct
the overall pacification and recovery of Central Asia,
and keep the Indo-Pakistani crisis at a perpetually high
degree of tension. And given the risks to Pakistan's
nuclear capability, it will simultaneously experience
intense external pressure to put its house in order even
as it is under attack from within.
The ease and
cheapness with which this second front may be
established also entails tying down significant numbers
of US troops for a long time in the kind of war which
the United States has historically found to be an
uncomfortable experience that is alien to its military
services' institutional culture. We can easily expect
that under conditions of protracted warfare these
terrorist elements might restore their ties to Central
Asian insurgents, perhaps with support from Pakistani
authorities, and then relaunch their insurgencies in
Central Asia. It is also quite possible that a long-term
American occupation of Central Asian bases under
conditions of protracted combat against the terrorists
could generate hostility against the US presence among
the local populations. In that case, indigenous
anti-regime elements could exploit that sentiment to
recruit new members, attack those troops and bases and
regain support and strategic coordination from external
terrorists. Then America's military presence in Central
Asia, the only effective force available to counter
terrorism, would come under enormous pressure in the
field and in the United States.
The foregoing
observations highlight some vital strategic issues.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the strategic prizes in
this campaign and their stability is extremely fragile
and under constant risk. Despite American victories, the
terrorists have survived and gained a relatively immune
privileged sanctuary in Pakistan. Exploiting support
from their supporters in Pakistan's military and
intelligence institutions, they have put the stability
and the security of Pakistan at risk, further
destabilized Kashmir, and thereby opened up a relatively
immune second front in the war on terrorism. Thus they
retain the capability to gain at least occasional
tactical initiatives while US forces are barred from
effectively conducting operations in Pakistan and
strategic-political considerations compel India to rely
exclusively on coercive diplomacy against Islamabad. The
ensuing strategic situation puts Pakistan and
Afghanistan at continued, constant and high degrees of
risk, and also virtually ensures that the war on
terrorism will be a protracted multi-front war.
Undoubtedly the terrorists and their supporters
count on prolonging the war to attack both the US
military presence in South and Central Asia and the
cohesion of the anti-terrorist alliance, particularly at
its weakest points, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today it
appears that the victories over al-Qaeda and the
Taliban, though impressive, are hardly decisive. They
are important tactical victories but their conversion
into lasting strategic settlements that decisively
terminate this war is far from certain. Though
Afghanistan's strategic situation has improved,
Pakistan's has deteriorated sharply. As that instability
feeds into Afghanistan's instability and potentially
back into Central Asia, our assessment for the future of
South Asia and Central Asia must remain guarded because
their stability also remains precarious.
Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic
Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle
Barracks
(The views expressed do not represent
those of the US Army, Defense Department or the US
Government)
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