Conclusion: Prospects and Policies

Abstract

Can Pakistan find a way out of violent instability? How severe are the problems of this strategically crucial country, and how much of a threat do they pose beyond Pakistan's borders? Has Pakistan become an ungovernable failed state?

Hilary Synnott draws on his experience of Pakistan to argue that any strategy for addressing the country's problems requires a nuanced understanding of its turbulent history, the failings of successive governments and the weaknesses of core institutions. He sheds light on the role of Pakistan's army and its intelligence service in the power-play of domestic politics, and looks at how the army has used religion and the issue of Kashmir to maintain its own influence, often with disastrous consequences for the security of Pakistan and the wider world. Synnott rigorously analyses developments in Pakistan's volatile tribal regions, little understood in the West despite their profound implications for regional and international security, and examines the role of past events – especially since 11 September 2001 – in generating the animosity that many Pakistanis feel towards the West today.

Where does Pakistan go from here? Emphasising that there are no easy answers, Synnott explores how concerned outsiders might finally succeed in building durable relationships with Pakistan, and help to stabilise a country that has struggled with disordered politics and chronic insecurity since independence in 1947.

Notes

Such language has reportedly been used by Chairman of US Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Admiral Mike Mullen. Hussain, ‘Many Reported Dead as Pakistan Army Attacks Taleban Near Swat’, The Times, 27 April 2009.

‘The Constitution of Pakistan: Annex: The Objectives Resolution’, http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution/annex_objres.html/.

‘Assistant Secretary Boucher: “President Musharraf's Goals for Pakistan Compatible with US Objectives”’, US embassy in Islamabad press release, 24 April 2006, http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pakistan/h06042402.html.

‘Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan’.

See for example HM Government, ‘UK Policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: The Way Forward’, April 2009, p. 13, http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/Cross-government/ukgov_afghanistan_pakistan.pdf.

Of the $11.2bn total direct overt US aid and military disbursements to Pakistan between 2002 and 2008, $8.1bn was security-related, $2.4bn was debt relief and ‘budget support’ cash transfers, and only $677m went on development assistance, welfare and food aid. ‘Direct Overt US Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002–FY2009’, prepared for the Congressional Research Service by K. Alan Kronstadt, specialist in South Asian affairs, 16 October 2008, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB883.pdf.

‘Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan’.

See for example ‘Pakistan Opinion Poll Indicates Sharp Turn Against Taliban’, VOA News, 1 July 2009, http://www.voanews.com/bangla/2009-07-01-voa5.cfm; and the International Republican Institute, ‘IRI Index: Pakistan’, opinion poll, 12 December 2007, http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/pdfs/2007-12-12-pakistan-poll-index.pdf.

The BBC suggested in 2008 that nearly 75% of NATO's supplies to Afghanistan travelled through Pakistan. Damian Grammaticas, ‘Pakistan's Spreading Taleban War’, BBC News, 26 November 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7750542.stm.

See for example Seth Jones, ‘Pakistan's Dangerous Game’, Survival, vol. 49, no. 1, Spring 2007, p. 15. Other observers seem to have given up on the utility of external help of any kind: John R. Schmidt, ‘The Unravelling of Pakistan’, Survival, vol. 51, no. 3, June–July 2009, p. 51.

Tellis, ‘Pakistan and the War on Terror: Conflicted Goals, Compromised Performance’, Carnegie Endowment Report, 2008, p. 39; for Obama's statement to this effect, see Dan Balz, ‘Obama Says He Would Take Fight to Pakistan’, Washington Post, 2 August 2007.

An American commentator used this term at a conference on ‘The Impact of Western Strategy on Muslim South Asia’, Royal United Services Institute, 3 December 2007.

For an example of such arguments, see Jones, ‘Pakistan's Dangerous Game’, p. 28.

The Defence Committee of the Cabinet is traditionally Pakistan's main mechanism for civilian–military consultation and decision-making on strategic and politico-military affairs. In 2001, Musharraf set up the National Security Council in addition, with a remit to perform broadly the same task. The new body very seldom met. In February 2009, Prime Minister Gilani promised to abolish the National Security Council and use instead a restructured version of the Defence Committee. It is unclear whether the council has in fact been abolished, but in any event, neither body is much used, to the extent that both are essentially moribund.

It was thus surprising to see a senior NATO figure in early 2009 officially promoting the idea of changing the constitutional status of the FATA, at a time when the concept is deeply controversial within Pakistan: Karl-Heinz Lather, ‘NATO in Afghanistan and Better Cooperation with Afghanistan’, World Security Network, 19 February 2009, http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?Article_ID=17193.

The EU has developed much expertise in international police training and could make a particular contribution in this field. On remuneration, policy analyst and scholar Anatol Lieven, in discussion with the author in June 2009, estimated that it would cost only $25m to double police pay in NWFP.

Rashid, Descent into Chaos, p. 269.

See for example Nasser Yousaf, ‘Time for Holbrooke to Play Durand’, Dawn, 9 June 2009, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-contentlibrary/dawn/news/pakistan/12-timefor-holbrooke-to-play-durand--bi-01.

‘Karzai, Musharraf in Terror Vow’, BBC News, 30 April 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6607743.stm; Pak–Afghan Border Needs a Fence like US–Mexico: Gilani’, The News, 4 July 2009, http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=23082.

For a range of views on this issue – most in favour of making some kind of approach under certain conditions – see Council on Foreign Relations, ‘Six Experts on Negotiating with the Taliban’, 20 March 2009, http://www.cfr.org/publication/18893/six_experts_on_negotiating_with_the_taliban.html. In July 2009, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband belatedly took on the sceptics and advocated drawing insurgents into domestic political processes. Miliband, ‘NATO's Mission in Afghanistan: The Political Strategy’, speech at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, 27 July 2009.

See ‘EU Must Bring its Expertise to Pakistan’, Atlantic-Community.org, 18 June 2009, http://www.atlanticcommunity.org/index/articles/view/EU_Must_Bring_Its_Expertise_to_Pakistan.

‘Donors Pledge $5bn Aid for Pakistan’, CNN, 17 April 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/17/pakistan.tokyo.aid/index.html; Council of the European Union, ‘EU–Pakistan Summit: Joint Statement’, 17 June 2009, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/declarations/108562.pdf.

Christina Lamb quoting Amir Sultan Tarar, a ‘Pakistani intelligence agent who trained Mullah Omar’, in ‘The Taliban Will Never be Defeated’, Sunday Times, 7 June 2009.