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Archive for April, 2014

HINDU USAID RAJIV SHAH & JEW IMF MISSION CHIEF JEFFREY FRANKS WANT PAKISTAN TO SELL ITS GOLD RESERVES & JEOPARDIZE NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on April 5th, 2014

A HINDU & A JEW RUN PAKISTAN FINANCES VIA IMF/USAID/ISHAQ DAR 
 
 
Jewish IMF Mission Chief in Pakistan Calls the Shots:
 
 
HINDU USAID CHIEF RAJIV SHAH & JEW JEFFREY FRANK WANTS PAKISTAN TO SELL ITS GOLD
ONCE THOSE ARE SOLD PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM WILL SHUT DOWN
NAWAZ SHARIF PUTTING PAKISTAN AT RISK IN NEGOTIATING WITH THESE TWO STEALTH ENEMIES
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Silence of the Lambs   (written in October 2013)
 
 
 
The Finance Ministry hierarchy is flustered about the IMF’s $6.64 billion loan that will be provided to Pakistan during the next 36 months on a quarterly disbursement of $545 million each. The Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Secretary Finance Dr Waqar Ahmad and Secretary Economic Affairs Nargis Sethi seem over-exuberant about this loan. They view it as elixir to heal all fiscal maladies Nawaz Sharif’s clueless government is suffering–but the first tranche of $545 million which they are expecting in the next few weeks is a little over what Pakistan has already paid back to the IMF during the first half of FY 2013– i.e. $340 million. 

 

As per SBP the government is doomed to pay back over $3 billion to the IMF before the end of September 2015. This clearly means that half of the promised $6.64 billion loan that they receive from the IMF over the next three years will be used to pay off old debts. As the old debts are cleared the new debts emerge, twice as big.

 

 

The Finance Ministry also expects in the next few months $1 billion from the World Bank as its President Dr Jim Yong Kim has recently approved it. The Asian Development Bank President Takehiko Nakao has given a nod for another $500 million loan to Pakistan.

 

 

The big picture that shows here is, will the Nawaz Sharif government run country’s economy for the next two years on these loans put together as a little over $8 billion? This amount is not enough to fill even Nawaz Sharif’s own coffer–because he is such a politician that if you make him in-charge of the Sahara Desert it would run out of sand.
Ishaq Daar is also over-optimistic about USAID to make some offer to Islamabad. Nawaz Sharif’s elder son Hussain Nawaz has recently approached the head of USAID Rajiv Shah–who studied with him at the London School of Economics in 1996, but Rajiv Shah is a staunch Hindu and is under the influence of Manmohan Singh,Shashi Tharoor and Salman Khursheed.39-year-old Shah is the highest ranking Indian-American in the Obama Administration. That said, any monetary offer to Pakistan will be India-tied.

 

The Secretary Finance Dr Waqar is also naive about UK’s DfID headed by Justine Greening MP but the DfID Select Committee is headed by the Scottish Lib-Dem MP from Aberdeen, Malcolm Bruce, who is friends with Shashi Tharoor, Salman Khursheed and Sonia Gandhi‘s son-in-law Robert Vadra. He visited India for a week (25 September to 02 October 2010) –all expenses (£3,300) were paid by India’s Ministry for External Affairs. Malcolm Bruce informed the author (Ejaz Hussain) in March 2013 that DfID had given to Pakistan over £380 million in 2012, they will give Islamabad £422 million in 2013, £480 million in the year 2014 and over £500 million in 2015. This will make around $2 billion that Britain will give to Pakistan over the next two years. If we add this amount to $8 billion above–Pakistan will have $11 billion by end of 2015. Canada’s CIDA, Japan’s JICA, the Saudi regime, Qatari/Kuwaiti Ameers and UAE monarchs have promised to give under $2 billion (put together) over the next two years–but there are no guarantees. 

 As regards the Foreign Exchange Reserves (FER)–Pakistan had a little over $11 billion in April this year (2013). When Ishaq Dar paid Rs 326 billion (of the total Rs 503 circular debt) on 29 June 2013–Pakistan’s FER were just over $5 billion.

 

The figure of $5 billion will continue to pinch the Pakistani nation for the next five years–whether it was paid to the crony IPPs or the crony bankers. This is the figure that has purportedly disappeared from Pakistan’s FER. The SBP has also printed Rs 850 billion notes during the past few weeks. The Governor State Bank Yaseen Anwar, both Deputy Governors (Qazi Muqtadir and Arshad Wathra) and Secretary Finance Dr Waqar Ahmed are completely silent over this issue–what a Silence of the Lambs?

 

 
 

For the record: IMF blows holes in Ishaq Dar’s claims

Published: January 11, 2014
 
 

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. PHOTO: AFP

ISLAMABAD: 

The head of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) mission in Pakistan claimed on Friday that the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz “unilaterally decided” to reduce the budget deficit – in open contradiction with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar’s claim that the caretaker government, in conjunction with the Fund, had agreed to a Rs200 billion tax levy.

Speaking with The Express Tribune, IMF mission chief Jeffrey Franks said there had been dialogue about the possibility of measures to raise revenue. “In the end, in the absence of a programme with the IMF, the caretaker government chose not to implement any of the measures,” said Frank by telephone from Washington.

Franks said the IMF accepted the caretaker government’s decision, adding that the PML-N government took measures to reduce the gap between national income and expenditures.

photo 41_zpsfec9603b.jpg

In the last cabinet meeting, the finance minister had admitted that an estimated Rs200 billion in taxes that his government levied was one of the main reasons for skyrocketing inflation. But he blamed the caretaker government for the move, while providing a summary of revenue-increasing measures suggested by the PML-N government. Dar said that after former president Asif Ali Zardari did not approve the measures, the PML-N government was bound to honour the commitment made to the IMF.

Franks statement suggests that the government was trying to pass the buck to its predecessors, particularly as independent economists have criticised the government for levying indirect taxes in the budget for raising revenues instead of widening the tax net. They voiced fear that indirect taxes would fuel inflation – as can currently be witnessed. Analysts also doubt the credibility of Dar’s statement, arguing that if the caretaker government had finalised a decision, why would the PML-N government spend three weeks to finalise the programme?

The IMF chief also appeared dissatisfied with the performance of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). “There has been some progress in the annual growth in revenue collection but it is far from adequate and more needs to be done to improve collection and tax administration,” said Franks.

In six months, the FBR witnessed a 15% growth through the collection of Rs1.020 trillion in taxes — far below the required growth rate of 28% to hit the Rs2.475 trillion tax target.

Franks also maintained that the IMF did not lower the Rs2.475 trillion tax target. “We deliberately pitched the projected collection at Rs2.345 trillion but the government should aim at its original target,” he said. He maintained that improvements in the areas of taxation and energy was a multi-stage process. “It is unrealistic to expect progress in just six months, as it will take a few years to fully implement reforms,” he explained.

Franks said the IMF was neither soft nor hard on Pakistan. “There is a fine line between being too tough or not to being tough enough,” he said, adding that the programme required flexibility in order to take into account the country’s circumstances. He said the adjustments Pakistan is making have to be made with or without the IMF programme.

To a question regarding the relaxation of a target of building foreign currency reserves to $2 billion by State Bank of Pakistan for the second quarter of the fiscal year, Franks said the IMF had to adjust the target after the first review as some of initial projections were not met. He said in the upcoming second review meeting of the programme, the IMF will consider if there is a need to review any targets again.

Franks said there were no specific concerns about data manipulation, either of the fiscal deficit or economic growth. “We have no reason to doubt the data of Pakistan,” he stated. He said the IMF was offering technical assistance to improve the quality of data, adding that the quality of quarterly GDP numbers will gradually improve.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11th, 2014.

 

Boosting forex reserves: Pakistan refuses to sell $2.7b worth of gold says IMF

Published: March 29, 2014
 

According to the IMF’s staff report, the State Bank of Pakistan holds over 2 million troy ounces of monetary gold, having $2.7 billion value at market rate. CREATIVE COMMONS

ISLAMABAD: 

Pakistan has refused to sell gold worth $2.7 billion, citing national security reasons, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushes Islamabad to convert the precious metal into cash to build foreign currency reserves, revealed the global lender’s report on Friday.

The report, prepared by IMF’s staff led by its Washington-based Mission Chief to Islamabad Jeffrey Franks, also spills the beans on the ‘$1.5 billion gift’ to Pakistan by ‘Saudi Arabia’ – the name Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government has so far refused to officially share with parliament.

According to the report, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) holds over 2 million troy ounces of monetary gold, having $2.7 billion value at market rate. It is not counted in gross international reserves as it is not deemed to be liquid by the SBP, says the IMF.

The IMF and Pakistan authorities discussed what steps would be needed to make gold more liquid, the report adds. “However, the (Pakistani) authorities stressed that they have no plans to sell gold and preferred existing arrangements for gold holdings for national security reasons.”

The IMF is pushing Pakistan to sell gold holdings at a time when other countries are buying the commodity as a strategic reserve. The IMF had even sold its surplus gold to India a couple of years ago.

According to analysts, one reason behind the IMF’s insistence could be the country’s inability to build official foreign currency reserves despite being in the $6.7 billion IMF arrangement.

While the IMF hinted in its report that the SBP was not aggressive in building foreign currency reserves, it disclosed that Pakistan’s central bank continued its efforts to build reserves by purchasing dollars from the market.

The SBP purchased $575 million in the last few months till March 17, the report states. The SBP purchases may help stabilise the foreign currency reserves but is considered one of the reasons behind depreciation of the local currency against the US dollar. The rupee started appreciating only after the $1.5 billion grant from Saudi Arabia.

$1.5 billion gift

While the federal government remains reluctant to officially disclose the name of the country that ‘gifted’ Pakistan $1.5 billion despite persistent demand of the opposition, the IMF report identifies it as Saudi Arabia.

A “$750 million grant recently received from Saudi Arabia” will help the Pakistan government in reducing borrowings from the SBP for budget financing, said the IMF.

“Reserve accumulation was also aided by an additional inflow of $750 million from Saudi Arabia,” according to Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP), which is attached with the report and is jointly prepared by Pakistan and the IMF.

In a footnote to the MEFP, Pakistan told the IMF that it received an initial inflow of $750 million on February 19, indicating that it would receive more money.

Strong growth forecast

The IMF confirmed its recent forecast of 3.1 per cent growth this year, which was revised up from an earlier 2.8 per cent. “The overall economic situation in Pakistan is gradually improving,” said Jeffrey Franks.

“That 3.1 per cent may still be a bit on the conservative side, so we see indicators of growth that are relatively strong considering the fiscal adjustment that has taken place,” he told reporters on a conference call.

For the 2014-15 fiscal year, the IMF expected Pakistan’s growth to accelerate to around 3.7 per cent.

The IMF report said the growth was boosted by a stronger manufacturing industry thanks to an easing of Pakistan’s chronic electricity shortages, despite weaknesses in agriculture.

It also said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government, despite its commitment to IMF-backed reforms, faced ‘strong’ political resistance to certain structural measures.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29th, 2014.

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Myth & Reality about Devaluation of US Dollar

Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on April 5th, 2014

Myth & Reality about Devaluation of US Dollar

 

MYTH & REALITY ABOUT DEVALUATION OF US DOLLAR

   Myth & Reality about Devaluation of US Dollar

 

 

 The inherent motive behind lowering value of the US dollar against the Pak Rupee.
When Nawaz’s younger son Hasan launched Flagship Holdings in London in 2002-03 (it is closed down now)–it also introduced establishment of a ‘hedge fund’ with an investment of £300 million ($500 million). The Flagship thrived unprecedentedly, during the past ten years, on the strengthen of:

1) Cash flow of £300 million ($500 million)–which the Sharifs had in 2003–now it may be a cash flow in excess of £3 billion ($5 billion). 

 

 

2) Easy money transfer protocols through UK, India and Dubai (as the Iranians are doing under international banking sanctions). This money laundering stunt in the West is a complete eyewash–one can bring into UK millions of pounds after paying commission to the UK banks and intermediary financial handlers, who in turn will legalise everything for the fund-bringer. Which is why since 2007–more than 1,000 Pakistani politicians, bureaucrats and dodgy businessmen have purchased properties in the UK worth £5 billion (more than $8 billion), and nothing has precluded them from doing so.

 

 

3) Clockwise and anti-clockwise fund-purchasing. The Sharifs and their larcenous munshi Ishaq Dar have divided the financial year into 3-4 revolves. In one revolve (say: June to September 2013)–they increased the value of dollar as $1=Rs 111, and brought home say: $1 billion in cash–which got them Rs 111 billion. If they bring in secretly (which they easily can–having their own bank chiefs) $5 billion–pretending it as a foreign remittance per quarter (revolve), they will get Rs 555 billion. In my understanding–the Sharifs made Rs 50-100 billion ($500 to $900 million) during the first four months of their government (June to October 2013).

 

 

During the second revolve–they kept things stable @ $1=Rs 111, and recycled that money within the country for 3/4 months (October 2013 to February 2014), and bought essential commodities (rice, wheat, sugar, lentils, cooking oil, livestock and petrol/diesel). In the next two/three years–the Sharifs (applying the Jewish and Hindus sahukaar monopolistic model) have intend to hijack the commodity sector under fake names. They plan to paralyse the country by hoarding these commodities, if a military takeover occurs or a hostile political group takes over in Pakistan. They are carrying out this commodity monopolisation in partnership with international traders of Britain/EU/India/UAE/Brazil/Australia and so forth–so that the military (or non-friendly political elite) government collapses more quickly after failing to withstand international pressure.

 

 

In the third revolve (March to May/June 2014–before the Budget)–as they have hundreds of billions of rupees, say: Rs 100 billion ($900 million) from first revolve (June-September 2013). They also had more than Rs 220 billion ($2 billion), spared/left over from bulk note printing of Rs 850 billion which they did between June and July 2013. By end of February 2014, the Sharifs had more than Rs 320 billion in personal coffer. If they buy dollars for that, by dividing them with 111–they could get $2.882 billion. But by lowering the dollar value to $1= Rs 99 they will now get $3.233 billion. This means that this dollar devaluation will now get them an extra $351 million within nine months of their rule (June 2013 to March 2014). What a satanic business, isn’t it?

 

 

With an unparalleled experience of three decades in banking/business frauds–the Sharifs are in a strong position to manipulate the State Bank and other five main Pakistani banks (National, Habib, MCB, Allied and UBL). They have all major stock exchanges under control and SECP (Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan) is spineless.

 

 

Soon, the Sharifs will print more Pak rupee notes at the Security Printing Press, and will buy the dollars/pounds from every money exchange shop in the country.

 

 

Lets see if the dollar sustains at $1= under Rs 100, during the next three months. What I think is–they will devalue Pak rupee again to $1= Rs 111 (even beyond) after the budget.
They also intend to pocket $5 billion from sale of 18 major state enterprises. By the end of 2014–they will have made $10 billion from the business of governing Pakistan through a corrupt/rotten system called Mian/Zardari democracy.

 

 

They know they can NOT win the next general election–whenever they are. Asif Zardari also knows that PPP will not come to power either, in near future. What Nawaz is doing is–hiding Zardari regime’s brazen malfeasance, and in turn the PPP is supporting the Sharifs’ obnoxious ‘democracy’.
 
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OUR BRAVE HEROES & SONS OF PAKISTAN:Captain Hercharn Singh: Capt Aneel Kumar and Capt Danish

Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on April 4th, 2014

This handsome lad, Captain Hercharn Singh, serves in the Pakistan Army. Hats off to him for this courageous step. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Captain Hercharn Singh of Pakistan Army Comments? @Side-Winder | @[146828502662:274:Pakistan Defence]

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hit parade: Lt Hercharn Singh does a guard of honour
EXCLUSIVE: PAKISTAN ARMY – HINDUS & SIKHS
The First-Timers
The Pak army is a no-go zone. Outlook peeks into what it means to be outside the faith here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In the picturesque region of Kakul, Abbotabad, in the North West Frontier Province, stands the quaint colonial building of the PMA, the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy. This is the land that shares, with the rest of Pakistan, the phenomenon of the Taliban striving to squash the remaining semblances of religious tolerance. So I’m consequently surprised to hear about a scene the PMA witnessed two years ago—as the sound of azaan echoed in the PMA, a cadet in his room rolled out the prayer mat facing west. 

 
  
 
  Lt Hercharn Singh, the Pak army’s first Sikh officer, was even chosen for guard duty at Jinnah’s mausoleum. Aspires to become a brigadier.  
 
  
 

His mate, however, turned to his own sacred corner, where there were gathered symbols of the Sikh religion. Their prayers over, they returned to their chores, oblivious to the history they had created. It wasn’t that the PMA proscribed other forms of worship; there simply hadn’t been a Sikh cadet till then.

Narrating this story is Hercharn Singh, Pakistan’s first Sikh officer and a symbol of the changing face of its army. Now 23, dressed in a smart khaki uniform and sporting a solitary star on his shoulder, Lieutenant Singh and I are sitting in the posh Officers’ Mess of Malir cantonment, Karachi. Providing us company are Capt Danish in his Rangers uniform and Capt Aneel Kumar, both Hindu and doctors at the Combined Military Hospital. Capt Danish (who says he’s just Danish) is considered the first Hindu officer of the army. 



 

As we talk, they display some sense of occasion, listening in rapt attention to the experiences of each other in the army. Says Singh about his PMA days, “At times, I used to wonder where I had landed myself. I stood out like a sore thumb, many of the cadets had never seen a Sikh in the flesh. I had a tough time because of my appearance.

 
  
 
  Capt Danish is a Hindu doctor from Tharparkar district who has served in the Wana tribal area.  
 
  
 

The others—Hindu and Christian—at least look like ‘ordinary’ cadets.” 

For nearly two years now, Outlook has been seeking access to Singh and the two Hindu officers. It took months of persistent lobbying by the Inter Services Public Relations director-general, Gen Athar Abbas, before the army agreed to allow an Indian publication to interview the three officers. As Col Atif coordinated to fly me to Karachi last week, new obstacles kept surfacing. Lt Col Idrees Malik had to implore his superiors to grant permission for Singh to miss a day’s class of the course he’s taking, and bring Capt Danish from interior Sindh.

At the officers’ mess, amidst smiles and a display of palpable pride, Singh begins his story from the day his romance sparked with the Pakistan army. Like all such stories, it was ignited with a chance glimpse and an irrepressible tug at the heartstrings. It was nearly three years ago, and he and his friends had decided to apply to the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore. On the way, they passed an army recruitment centre. Something about it spoke to him, perhaps. “But no one had any idea of a Sikh being allowed entry into Pakistan’s military institutions,” Singh recalls.

Singh got admission to the NCA but he decided to visit the recruitment centre to make inquiries. When told the law didn’t proscribe Sikhs from the army, he promptly submitted an application, apparently arousing curiosity at the centre even then about the “Sikh who wants to join the army”. 

 
  
 
  Capt Aneel Kumar, a doctor at the Combined Military Hospital, says his Hindu family had no idea what the army was like.  
 
  
 

He was selected, in the process grabbing headlines countrywide. But his family was opposed to him joining the army, the elders wanting him to head the business of his deceased father. And then there was Singh’s mother who believed a career in the army would shame the family. Shame? “All our lives our community had been ridiculed. Especially in the electronic media where Sikhs were portrayed as drunks, womanisers and villains. My mother said that I wouldn’t be respected and this would bring shame to the family.”

At the PMA, the callow, sensitive Sardarji was baffled by some insensitive souls asking him to convert to Islam. “I wondered what kind of people are these who are not happy with the way I am, who offered to convert me. I didn’t mind jokes about Sikhs because these are so common,” he says wryly. But at Kakul, with young cadets and their irritating inquisitiveness, it took some chutzpah to ensure his religion or culture was not compromised. But he had his sergeant on his side. As Singh puts it, “My sergeant told me I was free to follow my religion and that everything would be done to make me comfortable.”

Singh now did two things—he told his room-mate if they had to share a room they must show tolerance for each other’s religious codes of living; his second act was daring and sagacious. He approached the commandant to make a presentation about his faith. “With the help of a documentary from the Golden Temple and my own literature I gave a presentation about the Sikh religion and culture. I explained why I looked the way I did, the symbols of faith a Sikh is never found without. Then I asked for questions,” says Singh, bubbling with confidence. “In the next two years at the PMA, no questions were asked.”

But Singh’s glory days didn’t end at the PMA. His excellent drill at Kakul prompted the army to choose him for guard duty at the Quaid-e-Azam Mazar, or the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. “I couldn’t believe it, no Sikh here could even imagine such a thing.” In these days of jehadi intolerance, a new chapter had opened. Of course, it was also a huge PR win-win situation, his duty at the mausoleum invited international media attention, and his family was flooded with calls from Sikhs the world over. 

The induction of Singh, Danish and Aneel marks a revolutionary change for the Pakistan army, but then it poses new challenges too. The sheer enormity of this change can be gleaned from a reading of Dr Aneela Zeb Babar’s Texts of War: The Religio-Military Nexus in Pakistan and India. She writes, “In Pakistan, the military officer is not just a professional. Placed on a pedestal, he is glorified as a hero. The public feels he is performing his religious duty…. All advertisements for recruitment in the Pakistan military and all publicity material start with Quranic verses.” Dr Babar quotes junior Muslim officers describing their motivational lectures, “We are taught that in the Quran one Muslim is equal to 10 kafirs and after every lecture, slogans praising God and caliph Ali are raised.” Will the trio’s induction prompt a change now in the army’s ethos, perhaps a dilution of its Islamic orientation or at least some understanding of those officers who belong to minority communities.

Perhaps this is already happening—the three non-Muslim officers, like most others here, wear their religion on their sleeves with a confidence quite remarkable for their age and ambience. Both Danish and Aneel testify to this. “We are very comfortable with our Hindu faith. We too had been assured by the sergeant (during their training) that we were free to worship as we wanted and if there was any way he could help, we shouldn’t hesitate to come to him.” Danish, incidentally, hails from the remote poverty-stricken Tharparkar, and graduated as a doctor before he saw an advertisement for a post in the army. He applied without taking his family into confidence and was selected. “Initially, there were constraints…about how a Hindu could fit in the army but today they are proud of me and I have even been sent to Wana (a tribal area) to deal with patients there. It was a very different experience. The place and people were so different from the desert of Sindh,” he says.

Aneel, who belongs to Hyderabad, says the army’s ignorance about religions other than Islam is matched by the Hindu community’s sketchy knowledge about cantonment life. “People from my community had earlier interacted only with the police…we had no idea what the army was like,” admits Aneel, even as he expresses hope that youth from his community would see Danish and him as role models and strive to join the officer cadre. Singh, however, doubts whether many Sikhs would join the army, largely because his community is engaged in business with their counterparts in India. Army officers who have relatives doing business with Indians would be a major problem, Singh declares.

For Sikhs at least, an army career marks a snapping of the umbilical cord tying them to religious places in India. Singh, for instance, has given up on his dream of visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar. “I am a Pakistani army officer now and I can’t even think of performing my religious duties in India. Even my mother will not be allowed to go, with a son in the army,” he laments.

So what do these three officers think of Pakistan going to war in the future? They reply in unison, “We are now a nuclear power. Besides, there are so many internal threats.” I ask them the question which most insular Pakistanis harbour in their hearts: would they be willing to kill others of their faith in a war? Danish replies, “Of course, we will or else we will be killed. Even our mothers will not ask us why we fired, they will just be glad that we survived.”

Both Danish and Anil don’t nurture lofty ambitions, hoping to negotiate one step at a time in the army. What about Singh? “Well, I have set my sight on wearing red pips, that is become a brigadier,” he says. When I tell him that army rules don’t debar him from the rank of Chief of Army Staff, his eyes glitter and a smile lights up his face. 

 

FILED IN: 
AUTHORS:  MARIANA BAABAR 
 

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Implications of War on Terror

Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on April 4th, 2014

Implications of War on Terror

 

Asif Haroon Raja

 

Unlike late Hakimullah Mehsud who disfavored talks, his deputy Waliur Rahman favored dialogue and had convinced sizeable number of TTP Shura members to make an offer of dialogue to the government.  His group suggested Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Munawar Hassan, Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan to act as guarantors to preclude possibility of backtracking from the agreement. The offer was not taken seriously by the PPP led regime and it made it conditional to renunciation of violence.

 

 

 

 

Talks offer was renewed once rightist PML-N and PTI were voted to power after May 11 elections. Offer of talks created division in TTP as well as in the society. A stage was set for a big breakthrough when Waliur Rahman who was the moving force behind peace talks was killed by a drone on May 29, 2013. Jundul Hafsa took revenge by killing ten foreigners at base camp of Nanga Parbat on June 23, 2013.

 

It was generally expected that the TTP leading militancy in the northwest and in Punjab would tone down its acts of terror particularly against civilian targets once PML-N and PTI formed governments in the centre and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) respectively. As a result of their soft approach the TTP had spared these two parties and targeted liberal political parties during election campaign. ANP suffered the most in terms of human losses and in elections.

 

Contrary to high expectations, the Taliban accelerated their terror strikes after the new government took over in early June 2013. Bulk of attacks took place in KP and PTI lost three sitting MPAs. This surge occurred in spite of APC called by the government on September 9, 2013 in which it was agreed by all the participants belonging to different parties and religious groups as well as the Army to enter into dialogue with the militants without pre-conditions and give peace a chance.

The government stuck to its standpoint despite lot of noise made by the liberals. Anti-peace talks lobbies supported by foreign powers and backed by liberals and segment of media launched a concerted campaign to sabotage proposed peace talks and kept picking fault lines in the resolution passed by the APC. Drone strikes also continued.

 

When the TTP offered to talk and welcomed the initiative taken by the APC, it was taken as a sign that the road had been cleared for negotiations. KP government felt so confident that it announced phased withdrawal of troops from Buner, Shangla, Dir, Chitral and Malakand districts starting mid October 2013 and handing over responsibility to civil administration. While the ground was being smoothened for the meeting, an unexpected incident took place. On September 15, Maj Gen Sanaullah Niazi and two were martyred at Upper Dir on account of IED planted by Fazlullah’s militants.

 

We’ve been talking about the financial cost of the War on Terror, and this graphic from our colleague Molly Zisk draws from different studies and sums up the toll in blood and treasure rather concisely, if rather grimly:

 

 

    • 225,000 people dead,

 

    • and $3.7 trillion dollars spent.

 

Peace process got a big jolt when TTP claimed responsibility and vowed to continue hitting military targets. This hostile act in response to Government’s policy of appeasement was regrettable. It angered the rank and file of the Army and put the Federal and KP governments in awkward position but gave a strong handle to the anti-peace lobbies to beat the peace makers with and make fun of them. As the debate between pro-peace and anti-peace lobbies intensified, another gruesome act of terror took place on September 22 in Peshawar where a church was struck by two suicide bombers soon after Sunday prayers killing 84 people and injuring 175.

 

While TTP denied involvement, Jundullah Hafsa, a faction of TTP comprising Punjabi Taliban and led by Asmatullah Muawia claimed responsibility of church attack. In the wake of widespread denunciation inside and outside the country over the dastardly attack on church and condemnation by Ulemas of all schools of thoughts terming the act against the teachings of Quran and Sunnah, TTP Shura urged Muawia to disown the act. Soon after his disownment, another group Jundullah led by Ahmed Marwat based in NW claimed responsibility. In reaction to series of terrorist attacks, precision guided air attacks were carried out on militant’s hideouts in FATA which caused casualties and compelled the militants to declare unilateral ceasefire on March 1 for one month.  

 

As against high expectations of military action, PM Nawaz Sharif disappointed pro-war lobbies by giving peace yet another chance and formed a government committee. TTP responded by giving names of their representatives. After the initial breakthrough, government committee was rehashed. Seven hours long meeting of TTP nominated committee with members of TTP Shura at Bilandkhel village in Orakzai Agency on 26 March under cordial atmosphere has raised hopes and light can be seen at the end of the tunnel. Ceasefire which expired on 31 March is likely to be extended. As a confidence building measure the government released some prisoners and TTP is likely to reciprocate to generate goodwill. Decade old antagonism will take time to tone down and transform into conciliation and brotherhood.

Some of the implications of war are listed here-under:-

The war has halted investments and economic activity has almost come to a grinding halt due to energy crisis and disturbed law and order situation.

Human losses have risen several times higher than the collective losses suffered by coalition forces in Afghanistan while social traumas are incalculable.

War has made Pakistan more dependent upon USA, forcing our rulers to continue clinging to the aprons of USA despite its biased behavior.

Infighting among the Muslims suits the US designs; hence it would like the war to continue.

While the US caught up in a blind alley in Afghanistan is clueless how to exit safely, Pakistan too had no strategy to end the futile war till the start of talks with TTP.

Paradoxically, the key to peace is with hardnosed Taliban.   

Eleven-year war has not only given tremendous experience of fighting guerrilla war to both Pak Army and militants but also has removed inhibitions and fears of each other. Militants fear air power and drones only.

The militants could not have continued fighting for so long without external support and safe sanctuaries across the border. They are more dangerous in cities where they operate as faceless enemies.

Once NATO exits from Afghanistan, TTP will be left with no justifiable cause to continue spilling blood of Muslim brethren.  Once external support dries up, their vigor will wane rapidly and sooner than later they may give up fighting.

The other view is that TTP may become stronger if Taliban government get re-installed in Kabul after 2014 and may then disagree to ceasefire unless all their demands are accepted unconditionally.

The low intensity conflict has caused substantial wear and tear to military’s weapons & equipment.

War has also fatigued the troops living in combat zone amid hazardous environment where life is cheap.

Situation will further worsen in coming months since militancy has spread to every nook and corner of the country.

Civil administration and law courts have not established rule of law in any of the areas recaptured by the Army thereby putting added burden on the Army to hold ground, provide security and carryout rehabilitation/development works. 

Opinions on war on terror whether it is our war or someone else’s war, and whether talks should be held with militants or not are sharply divided. This division in perceptions is to the advantage of militants and disfavors security forces.

With so many grave internal and external threats, most of which were invented and thrust upon Pakistan by foreign powers and duly exacerbated by meek and self-serving political leadership, Army’s plate remain full.

War on terror poses a three dimensional threat when viewed in context with twin threat posed by India and Afghanistan.

In case of an Indo-Pakistan war, our current force structure is insufficient and ill-suited to confront three dimensional threats.

Peace is a key to Pakistan’s economic takeoff.   

 

The writer is a retired Brig, defence analyst and columnist. [email protected]

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Afghanistan’s Coming Coup?

Posted by admin in Pakistan-A Nation of Hope on April 4th, 2014

 
 
Afghanistan’s Coming Coup?
 
The Military Isn’t Too Weak — It’s Too Strong
 
By Paul D. Miller, APRIL 2, 2014
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Afghan National Army soldiers march during their graduation ceremony, Sept 2010. (ISAF Media)
 
 
 
 
 

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In February 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan after ten years of brutal counterinsurgency warfare. International observers and Afghan rebels expected the swift collapse of the newly orphaned Afghan communist regime in Kabul, as did the regime itself. Looking to take advantage of the government’s weakness, the Afghan mujahideen temporarily put aside their differences and planned an ambitious assault on Jalalabad, the country’s second most important Pashtun stronghold. In March, the rebels rallied a force of some 10,000 soldiers and marched on the city.
 
They failed spectacularly. Bolstered by Soviet arms, training, and advisers, the Afghan army and its allies easily outgunned, outmaneuvered, and outgeneraled the oncoming force. Although the mujahideen had mastered guerilla tactics and defensive maneuvers on their home turf, they proved incompetent at carrying out a conventional offensive; poor leadership and factional disputes undermined their fighting power. Three years later, the communist regime finally did collapse — not because it was overrun by the superior fighting abilities of the Afghan rebels but because Russia stopped funding its security forces.
 
There is no shortage of experts who warn of the impending demise of the current Afghan government after the withdrawal of most NATO military forces at the end of this year. In 2012, the International Crisis Group, for example, warned of a possible “state collapse.” The military historian Tom Ricks wrote that Kabul’s fall was “all too likely.” Yet the case of 1989 suggests the opposite outcome: the Afghan government is likely to survive the withdrawal of international troops, just as the communist regime did, and it stands a good chance of surviving so long as international donors keep the Afghan army in the field. Although Afghans should expect some decrease in international aid, donors — many fearful that state collapse in Afghanistan could trigger instability in Pakistan — are unlikely to end their military assistance anytime soon.
 
The more appropriate historical analogy to Kabul today is not the Kabul that the Taliban seized in 1992; it is Saigon in 1963, when the Vietnamese military overthrew the country’s civilian leadership. In the next five years and beyond, then, the greatest danger to democratic governance in Afghanistan is not the Taliban but the Afghan army itself. Since 2001, the net effect of the state-building mission in Afghanistan has been the emergence of a strong Afghan army and a weak Afghan state, creating an imbalance that should worry anyone with a cursory knowledge of history or political theory. Time and time again, the same recipe has led to countless military coups: highly professional military officers lose patience for corrupt civilian leaders and, educated to believe they are guardians of the state, seize control of the government to save it, often with public support. Coups may sound old-fashioned, but such was the pattern in Egypt and Mali as recently as 2012.
 
The same could very well happen in Afghanistan, leaving South Asian stability in the hands of a military autocrat — an outcome that yielded poor results in Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf, General Zia ul-Haq, and others before them. U.S. and international policymakers should therefore take a number of steps to “coup-proof” the Afghan government. For one, Washington should continue to support an ethnically diverse Afghan officer corps. It could also explicitly condition reconstruction assistance on the maintenance of civilian authority, much as the Kerry-Lugar bill did for U.S. assistance to Pakistan in 2009. The United States need not threaten to withdraw all aid in the case of a military coup, but could threaten to reduce financial assistance, halt the transfer of certain advanced weapons systems, or stop cooperating with Afghan army leaders.
 
In addition to relying on sticks, however, the United States and its allies must also be able to offer carrots. To that end, Washington needs to sustain a small military presence in Afghanistan, continue investing in relationships with high-ranking Afghan military and civilian officials, provide a steady stream of aid to the army and to the government, and commit to the long and slow process of socializing Afghanistan in the norms of responsible democratic behavior.
 
ARMY STRONG
 
The Taliban are an oddity in the history of insurgencies. The group began as a government before deteriorating into an insurgency. Both in and out of power, the Taliban never developed a capacity to capably govern. During their five-year tenure in Kabul, the Taliban proved singularly inept at governing, with Afghanistan ranking in the bottom three states on all of the World Bank’s governance indicators. (By such measures, Afghanistan was governed about as effectively as Somalia, which lacked a government entirely.) As a result of its incompetence and brutality, the Taliban was unable to expand its support among the Afghan population beyond a core group of Pashtun Islamist supporters, instead relying on rule by fear, bribery, and force. And it espoused an unpopular and foreign ideology derived from Deobandi Islam, rather than the traditional Hanafi Islam familiar to most Afghans.
 
After the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban chose to side with al Qaeda, thereby ensuring that Afghanistan would be visited by yet more war. Once the United States and its allies removed it from power, the Taliban refused to reconcile or participate in the electoral process. Instead, it chose to launch a violent insurgency. But unlike successful insurgents in the past, the Taliban never built up an effective political arm or provided meaningful governance in the areas it controlled.
 
The Afghan army, meanwhile, has grown increasingly capable and effective. It assumed lead responsibility for the country’s security last summer, meaning that it will have 18 months of experience leading the fight before the withdrawal of most international troops at the end of 2014. Late last year, the U.S. Department of Defense said that the Afghan security forces were conducting almost all operations independently and judged that the Taliban was “tactically overmatched” by Afghan forces, which now number more than 350,000 (including police and local defense forces).
 
Observers often invoke the legend of the Afghan warrior to explain why international forces have failed to defeat insurgents there. Yet there is no reason why the same legend cannot apply to the regular Afghan army as well. The Northern Alliance, for example, never surrendered to the Taliban in five years of fierce conventional fighting during the 1990s. After a decade of international investment, including some $60 billion in U.S. security assistance and training from the world’s most professional military forces, the Afghan army is far better trained and equipped than the Northern Alliance ever was. Most important, it is likely to have continued air support from the U.S. Air Force.
 
Given such realities, there is virtually no chance that the Taliban will overwhelm and defeat the Afghan army in battle, march on Kabul, or spur a popular revolution in its favor. The Taliban’s longevity says more about the Afghan government’s weakness and Pakistani complicity than about Taliban strength. Its only chance at outright victory is if the United States and its allies follow in Russia’s footsteps and stop funding the Afghan army. If that were to happen, the army would likely fracture along ethnic lines, giving the Taliban the opportunity to ally with Pashtun units and seize control of the south and east as springboards for national conquest. But U.S. President Barack Obama has already made clear his commitment to providing long-term military and financial support to Afghanistan. So long as he does, the Taliban may continue its sporadic, small-scale attacks, but it won’t win.
 
ANATOMY OF A COUP
 
The biggest long-term danger to democracy in Afghanistan is not the Taliban but the Afghan army itself, which could overturn the country’s weak civilian government. There would be nothing particularly unusual about a military coup in Afghanistan; military rule, after all, is one of the oldest forms of human political organization. But why do coups happen when they do? Scholars have tended to distinguish between the events that trigger coups, such as the personal ambitions of military leaders or particular political crises, and the underlying structural features that make coups possible in the first place. The first set of variables are unpredictable and, presumably, universal: Afghan officers are as likely to be as ambitious as those in any country, with perhaps more cause to be disgruntled than most. And, of course, Afghanistan has no shortage of crises that officers could use to their advantage. The second set of variables distinguishes countries that are especially vulnerable to a coup. This is where the picture in Afghanistan gets especially worrying: almost every model of coup risk suggests that Afghanistan faces the very real danger of a military takeover.
 
For example, the British political scientist Samuel Finer suggested that the ideal window for a military to launch a coup is in wartime or during a national emergency — precisely when the civilian government in most dependent on the military and the military is most popular among the people. Militaries almost always justify their coups by accusing their erstwhile civilian masters of a level of incompetence, corruption, or criminality that endangers the state. That sounds a lot like Afghanistan; the country is in the middle of a protracted war in which the civilian government is entirely dependent on the Afghan army, and during which the government has faced widespread accusations of corruption and incompetence. Last year, Afghanistan ranked 175th on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index — the third-worst in the world. It is easy to imagine Afghan corps commanders and the general staff refusing to take orders from Kabul or undermining its control over defense finances.
 
Another prominent model of coup risk focuses on the size of military establishments. A 1983 study of African coups in the mid-twentieth century by the political scientists Thomas Johnson, Robert Slater, and Pat McGowan concluded that, in states where the military was relatively large and “central because of its role in repression and because of its claim on state revenue,” generals were more likely to become active in civilian politics. That, again, sounds rather similar to Afghanistan. Kabul’s defense budget dwarfs all others. The government collects only about $2.3 billion in domestic revenue, whereas Washington committed $5.1 billion to the Afghan Security Force Fund in 2013. The defense budget is so large, in fact, that it constitutes nearly a quarter of Afghanistan’s $22 billion GDP. With such a large defense establishment, the Afghan army has more resources at its command than the rest of the government put together.
 
Such an imbalance in resources will naturally give the military greater political influence in shaping Afghanistan’s war strategy, defense posture, and eventually its foreign policy — allowing a coup by evolution. If civilian leaders resist such influence, they risk precipitating a crisis in which the army overtly seizes control. And it could. There are 185,000 troops under the command of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense and over 350,000 Afghan security personnel in total, more than enough to easily oust the country’s parliament, occupy the palace, seize the most important governors’ mansions, and impose martial law in Kabul and Kandahar.
 
According to the same study, the history of coups in Africa also suggests that rapid population growth in a capital city makes a nation more susceptible to a military coup. Consider, then, Kabul’s population, which has skyrocketed from under one million in 2001 to over 3.3 million in 2013. Inundated with an endless flood of refugees, the city is regularly wracked by protests and civil unrest. A similar period of rioting during Afghanistan’s last experiment with democracy in the 1960s led to a widely welcomed coup in 1973.
 
Other models of coup risk, put forward by the political theorist Rosemary O’Kane and others, emphasize economic and social factors, since a military’s accusations of civilian incompetence often turn on the government’s mismanagement of the economy. Poverty, inequality, recession, high inflation, and volatile commodity markets can leave populations frustrated with their governments. And even growth can have downsides when it is too rapid, disrupting traditional social networks. In Afghanistan, economic and demographic factors are not favorable. The country remains one of the poorest in the world — even though it is one of the fastest-growing. Afghanistan had the 14th lowest GDP per capita in the world in 2013, but the 15th highest average GDP growth rate from 2001 to 2014. Such figures suggest that Afghans are at once poor and experiencing major disruptions in their way of life. Given these circumstances, a nationalist military with a traditionalist appeal could easily win over Afghans eager for structure and familiarity.
 
Structural factors also make the Afghan state susceptible to a military takeover. The political scientist Edward Luttwak has argued that three preconditions must be met for a coup to be successful. First, political participation must be limited to a small fraction of the population. (Voting does not count as meaningful participation; countries that hold elections, such as Pakistan, still experience coups because their civil societies are weak relative to their military establishments.) Second, foreign influence must be limited. And third, the state must be centralized. Afghanistan has a weak civil society; it will have less foreign influence after 2014; and its government is famously one of the most highly centralized in the world because the republican constitution gave the president many of the same powers that belonged to the former monarchy. A general who ousted the Afghan president, then, could quickly assume dictatorial powers.
 
Perhaps the risk factor on which there is the widest agreement is the public’s perceptions of the government’s illegitimacy alongside admiration for the army. A study conducted by the scholars Aaron Belkin and Evan Shofer in 2003 reviewed 21 purported causes of coups and concluded that the three most important variables were the strength of civil society, the level of the regime’s legitimacy, and the past history of coups in the country. This is the most worrying model, because the Afghan state has grown weaker just as its army has grown stronger.
 
According to the World Bank, the post-Taliban government has improved Afghanistan’s rankings on free speech (not hard considering the Taliban’s repression), government effectiveness, and regulatory quality. Even in these categories, however, Kabul remained at or near the bottom tenth percentile of countries surveyed. In the remaining categories, including political stability, control of corruption, and the rule of law, the democratic government is indistinguishable from its Taliban predecessor, stuck near the bottom of world rankings. Only 47 percent of Afghans say that they trust the Afghan parliament to do its job, 45 percent trust government ministers, and 43 percent trust the court system. A vast 77 percent of them identified corruption as a major nationwide problem.
 
Meanwhile, in a survey conducted by the Asia Foundation last year, 93 percent of Afghans said the Afghan army was “honest and fair,” 91 percent believed it had helped improve security in Afghanistan, and 88 percent said they had confidence in the institution. Remarkably, these numbers have been largely consistent since at least 2007. Afghans identified the army as the second most honest institution, after the public health-care system. Given Afghan history and its political culture — coups overthrew the government in 1973 and 1978 — it would be easy for frustrated Afghan army officers to convince the public that it needed to take over for the civilian government.
 
By nearly every measure, then, Afghanistan is at high risk of a military coup in coming years. Some scholars and policymakers, however, might argue that a military government would actually be more effective at waging a counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban and cooperating with U.S. counterterrorism goals. A strong government capable of enforcing law and order could deprive the Taliban of the only real issue on which it credibly claims superiority over a democratic government. By this logic, the international community should quietly wait for the looming coup and continue business as usual after it happens.
 
That would be a monumental mistake, not least because the Afghans prefer democracy to the alternatives. They continue to express support for political participation, equal rights under law, the freedoms of speech and press, and elections. In the very long run, their support for democracy is a net gain for the United States, Pakistan, and the world. Established democracies tend to be more stable and more economically productive than authoritarian regimes, produce fewer refugees, experience fewer famines, and are less likely to harbor terrorists. And studies suggest that democracies impose fewer costs on their neighbors and on the international community.
 
Even putting aside the long-term benefits of democracy, which may take decades to realize, accepting a military government in Kabul would be shortsighted in the near term. During the Cold War, Washington often sided with autocratic regimes in the name of defending democracy. The policy succeeded in stemming Soviet influence, but it undermined U.S. credibility, bred anti-Western sentiment in the developing world, and may have indirectly contributed to the rise of nationalist, sectarian, and extremist political movements among populations disillusioned with the rhetoric of democracy.
 
Moreover, relying on strongmen makes U.S. foreign policy dependent on a single personality. Such rulers generally lose credibility as time wears on and inevitably leave office against their will. Washington would similarly lose out in Afghanistan if, after helping the Afghan army defeat the Taliban, it lost the support of the Afghan people. If Washington wants long-term influence in Afghanistan — something vital to stabilizing Pakistan — it must prioritize its relationship with the Afghan people, not just a few favored military officers.
 
THE COUP-PROOFING PLAYBOOK
 
Because Washington has an interest in deterring a coup in Afghanistan, it should push a series of “coup-proofing” policies in the months and years to come. Many states that were otherwise at high risk for a coup, such as Colombia and Iraq, have successfully held their military establishments at bay through a canny mix of patronage, international alliances, ethnic balancing, and support for redundant security organizations. Although some of these tactics are problematic for democracy, if they are pursued in combination with other measures to bolster the government’s legitimacy, they can ultimately help sustain democracy in Afghanistan.
 
One of the most effective coup-proofing strategies is the exploitation of ethnic and sectarian loyalties. Civilian regimes must either depend on a single ethnic community capable of defending the regime against the rest of the nation or else incorporate a mix of the most powerful groups — one that could overwhelm other communities while maintaining a balance of power within the armed forces. The first approach is often repressive, undemocratic, and unreliable, for it ensures the permanent dominance of one ethnic group over all others. The Syrian government’s attempt to rely exclusively on the Alawite community demonstrates the danger of that strategy. The Afghan government might, in principle, depend on a military staffed entirely by ethnic Pashtuns, who may constitute 40 to 45 percent of the population. But Tajiks, Uzbeks, and others who fought against the Pashtun-dominated Taliban are unlikely to accept a Pashtun-dominated army.
 
Fortunately, the international community has already set the Afghan army on the second course, ensuring that its ranks are ethnically mixed. Tajiks are overrepresented, constituting 39 percent of the officer corps, well above the official target of 25 percent. But their overrepresentation comes at the expense of the smallest groups, including Uzbeks and Hazara, not Pashtuns. Pashtuns made up 42 percent of the officer corps and 43 percent of the enlisted ranks, just below the official target of 44 percent.
 
The army’s balance between Tajiks and Pashtuns is one of the most important guarantors of its viability as a national fighting force under democratic authority. Pashtun officers keen to launch a coup would be unlikely to get support from Tajik officers, and vice versa. Ethnic diversity in the senior ranks may even help deter coups because it would be difficult for a Pashtun cabal, for example, to coordinate without senior Tajik officers getting wind of it. The ethnic balance in the army also carries a risk — if the army were to fragment, it would split along ethnic lines. But if the military is to remain subordinate to civilian authority, its ethnic diversity is an essential bulwark against a military takeover. Afghan, NATO, and U.S. policymakers should keep a close watch on appointments and promotions to senior positions to monitor the army’s ethnic balance.
 
A second coup-proofing strategy is to support competing security services. If the regular army plots a coup, it can be deterred by a national guard, a police force, or an intelligence service. The Afghans already have the beginnings of a redundant security system; its national police acts much like a gendarmerie under the command of the Interior Ministry, although it still lacks the funding, training, and equipment required to buffer the army. The Afghan government has also raised local defense forces to defend against Taliban attacks, but they are still too small and poorly equipped to check the regular army. Perhaps the most effective security service outside of the army is the National Directorate for Security, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency. Although it is not a fighting force, its large network of surveillance and intelligence operatives is probably the best resource available to the civilian government to detect disaffection or mutinous plotting within the army. U.S. and Afghan officials should therefore ensure that the NDS devotes at least some of its resources to watching the Afghan army in addition to the Taliban.
 
A third means of deterring coups involves allowing international influence on a state’s security affairs. The presence of foreign forces from countries devoted to civilian control over the military introduces more uncertainty into the political and security environment (Will foreign forces defend the regime?) and makes it harder for potential coup plotters to know what might happen if they attempt a coup. Foreign funding of a state’s military also gives international donors the power of conditionality over the army.
 
The presence of external actors and foreign funding is no guarantee of stability, of course, as the coup in South Vietnam in 1963 attests, but it introduces an extra obstacle that coup plotters must overcome. In this respect, Afghanistan is particularly well positioned. The 2012 strategic partnership agreement and the proposed Bilateral Security Agreement have already laid the groundwork for an enduring international military presence in Afghanistan. (The BSA is almost certain to be signed later this year, once a new president takes power, as every candidate has pledged to accept it.) The Afghan army might still dare a coup if it believed that Washington was unwilling to stop it or that U.S. policymakers felt there was no other choice for denying safe haven to al Qaeda. But a military presence surely gives Washington more leverage than otherwise.
 
Governments must also avoid or end crises that the military could use as a pretext for intervention. In Afghanistan, that means resolving the war against the Taliban in a way that is satisfactory to the country’s Pashtuns while addressing the legitimate concerns of the various non-Pashtun minorities, such as the Tajiks. This is one of the trickiest issues for the Afghan government and its international partners; the most likely coup scenarios would involve Pashtun officers moving against a government that they believed was oppressing Pashtuns in the course of the war against the Taliban — or Tajik officers against a government that they believed had compromised too much in its eagerness to secure peace. The longer the war lasts after 2014, the greater the chances that tribal grievances outweigh loyalty to the regime. A negotiated solution to the war is a plain necessity, but securing support for such a solution from all of Afghanistan’s major stakeholders will be critical to the survival of the democratic regime.
 
Finally, the most important measure a state can take to minimize its coup risk is to bolster its own legitimacy. Militaries tend to launch or support coups because they genuinely feel that the survival of their nation or their way of life is at stake. The good news here is that, although Afghans have little confidence in their government and mistrust most of its officials, they continue to support the idea of democracy. Despite some skeptics’ warnings that democracy is unlikely to take root in Afghan soil, the Afghans have proved remarkably patient, and many still hope that democratic norms will eventually take hold.
 
Since the Afghan government’s dwindling legitimacy is due more to its poor performance than its democratic ideology, the international community can help repair some of the damage. Although much of the burden of cracking down on corruption and nepotism falls on Afghan officials, the international community can equip them with much-needed resources and support. Afghanistan has a weak government and strong army in large part because that reflects the pattern of funding and assistance from the international community since 2001. Most of the international aid to Afghanistan has taken the form of security and economic assistance — training the army and police and completing high-profile, big-ticket reconstruction projects. A comparatively small amount of money has been spent on the civilian government, and most of that has been spent on elections. Yet Afghanistan needs money for the unglamorous and tiresome work of training bureaucrats, which is the work that might make the largest difference in Kabul’s governance and its legitimacy. As Washington and its allies draw down their military presence, they should increase their support for governance reform and capacity building. Improved government performance will remove the most common pretext for military intervention in politics.
 
Too often, the United States has ignored the danger of military coups and military governments in allied and partner states. In nearly every case, Washington has found that although military governments can make things easier in the short term, democratic governments allow for a stronger and deeper bilateral relationship. The list of countries taken over by military establishments allied with or trained, equipped, or funded by the United States is embarrassingly long. It includes at least the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Greece, Haiti, Nicaragua, Pakistan, South Korea, South Vietnam, Thailand, and Turkey. Due in large part to the massive investment of U.S. time, money, and resources in the Afghan military since 2001, and to Washington’s relative neglect of the civilian government, Afghanistan is facing a very real risk of becoming the latest entry on that list. There is still time to forestall that outcome. But if it happens, no policymaker — American, Afghan, or European — should be surprised.
 

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