Our Announcements

Not Found

Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.

Archive for category Defense

Analysis: India’s military build up may be too little too late?

Analysis: India’s military build up may be too little too late?

 

NEW DELHI | Fri Feb 3, 2012 6:51am EST

 

(Reuters) – India’s 1.3 million-strong armed forces, hobbled by outdated equipment and slow decision-making, are undergoing an overhaul as defence priorities shift to China from traditional rival Pakistan.

And like a refit of the imposing but dilapidated defense ministry on Delhi’s grand South Block, it’s a plodding process.

Defense chiefs are hurrying to modernize ageing weaponry as China reinforces a 3,500-km (2,200-mile) shared but disputed border through the Himalayas.

It took 11 years to select France’s Rafale as the favored candidate for a $15 billion splurge on 126 new combat jets to replace a Soviet-era fleet of MiGs dubbed “flying coffins” for their high crash rate.

At the same time, feeling encircled as China projects its fast-growing naval power from Hormuz to Malacca, India is rushing to firm up friendships the length and breadth of the Indian Ocean.

India is the world’s largest arms importer with plans to spend $100 billion on weapons over the next decade.

“The Indian military is strengthening its forces in preparation to fight a limited conflict along the disputed border, and is working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper told the U.S. Senate this week.

That “balance” includes a strategic alliance with Washington that in turn has stoked Chinese fears of containment. It is due to test-fire its nuclear capable Agni V rocket in the next few weeks, with a strike range reaching deep into China.

In 2009, the air force reopened a high-altitude, landing strip in Ladakh last used during a 1962 border war with China. Along with other Himalayan bases, it is now upgrading the strip for fighter operations.

About 500 Indian MiG-21s have plunged to the ground since the 1960s, yet the jet is still in use, raising the question of whether painfully slow defense procurement procedures can come up with new hardware faster than old equipment is sent to the scrap heap.

According to Indian media, Russia delivered the nuclear submarine INS Chakra on a 10-year lease at the end of last month, eight years after India first asked for it.

A shortfall of about 200 planes means the air force is operating at its lowest level in decades – just 33 squadrons against a goal of 45. By the time all the Rafales are delivered, more MiGs will have been decommissioned.

“It’s taken too long,” said Jasjit Singh, a retired commander and director of the think tank Centre for Air Power Studies. “Can we live with a certain shortfall in the force, and for how long?”

India is developing a fifth-generation fighter with Russia and aims to fly it in 2015, as well as a fleet of 272 Sukhois, half of which have already been built.

From a defense perspective, India has traditionally had the upper hand over China’s numerically superior air force, but rapid modernization over the border may have flipped the balance.

Both forces are now smaller than 20 years ago, but China’s has a fast-growing core of 350 advanced combat jets, including its own Sukhois. It also has a stealth fighter program.

India’s military modernization plans are focused on the navy and air force, more than the army, which has traditionally squared off with Pakistan. But with Pakistan’s air force also modernizing fast, India risks losing its edge on two fronts.

In the 1980s, a scandal engulfed the government of then-prime minister Rajiv Gandhi over millions of dollars in kickbacks on artillery contracts for Sweden’s Bofors.

Weapons purchases have since been a tortuous process, with rules rewritten several times to avoid graft.

“There has been a tremendous shortage of artillery systems acquisition after the Bofors scandal,” said Rahul Roy Chaudhury, a South Asia expert at London’s IISS security think tank.

Defense Minister A.K. Antony is known to be very cautious, with no desire to be caught up in corruption scandals that have in recent years returned to haunt the government.

On Tuesday, he made clear no deal would quickly be signed for the Rafale or any other fighters.

“MEETING OF MINDS”

The relationship between India and China is complex, involving as much cooperation as competition. But while the generals and admirals rarely say as much publicly, India fears a repeat of a brief, humiliating 1962 border war and wants to be prepared for surprises.

Seafaring officers from 14 countries from New Zealand to the Seychelles have gathered on remote Indian islands in the Bay of Bengal this week for exercises and a “meeting of minds” about maritime security.

It is one of the largest such gatherings of maritime allies that India has organized, but China and Pakistan were conspicuously not on the guest list.

Predictably, since China is also a major trading partner, India’s assistant chief of naval staff, Admiral Monty Khanna, was at pains to play down China’s absence.

“There are many nations that have not been invited,” Khanna said in New Delhi, adding China would not be discussed at the meeting. “India and China might share a land border but we are quite distant by sea,” he said.

Distant they may be, but increasingly the world’s fastest-growing major economies find themselves jostling as they compete for resources, sea lanes and allies. A lack of friendly engagement increases the risk of misunderstandings.

This week’s exercises are being held on the Andaman Islands, where India is spending $2 billion to set up a military command and from where the contested and congested South China Sea is only a short hop away.

Last year, India’s INS Airavat, an amphibious assault vessel that sailed from the Andamans was challenged in the South China Sea by a radio caller identifying himself as an official of the Chinese navy. Both sides later played down the incident.

“The Indian navy is coy about formally engaging with the Chinese navy because it feels that, if it does, it legitimizes the Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean,” said Roy Chaudhury.

“There needs to be much more communication, especially navy to navy, because they are bumping into each other more and more.”

(Additional reporting by Arup Roychoudhury in NEW DELHI and Sanjib Kumar in PORT BLAIR; Editing by John Chalmers and Ron Popeski)

 

Courtesy Reuters.com

No Comments

A simple matter of buying a fighter jet

On Tuesday, a decade after India decided to equip itself with a new fighter jet—replacing the MiG-21 —the process acquired a sense of finality. For all practical purposes, the French Dassault Rafale is the government’s choice. Each step of the journey—from the initial request for information (RFI) in 2001 to the announcement of Dassault as the lowest bidder—highlights interesting weaknesses in the country’s defence equipment procurement process in particular and strategic thinking in general.

Consider the timeline first. By early 1990s, the backbone of the Indian Air Force (IAF), the MiG-21, had outlived its utility. Apart from outdated avionics and weapon systems, the large number of crashes led to doubts about the jet’s airworthiness. By that time, the Pakistan air force had been operating F-16s for at least six to seven years. The MiG-21 is no match for the F-16. Yet, it took another decade for the RFI to be issued. In all, more than a quarter century will have elapsed between the realization that new planes were required and the first flight of an IAF Rafale across the Indian sky.

 

File photo of French Air Force Rafale manufactured by France’s Dassault Aviation. AP

File photo of French Air Force Rafale manufactured by France’s Dassault Aviation. AP

 

That is not all. By the time the full complement of 126 aircraft is in place, the Rafale would be an “outdated” plane. Early last year, China carried out the first flight of its fifth-generation, stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20. The J-20 is expected to be inducted in the Chinese air force by 2020. Like the MiG-21 vs F-16 comparison, equating the Rafale with the J-20 is, perhaps, unfair. But that’s the point missed in the entire acquisition process. A country does not buy weapons for current use—those requirements have to be met by the existing stock of weapons—but for future contingencies. That requires careful, and imaginative, planning about future scenarios. While the country’s armed forces—the users of weapons—are keenly aware about these developments, the buyer—the government—is in a time warp. By 2020, India will need a different type of fighter jet—a fifth-generation plane. While India has begun the process to acquire a fifth-generation fighter, it is an open question if by 2020, that plane will be in service with the IAF.

 

This problem could have been avoided easily during the ongoing process. The US had offered India the F-16 and F-18 planes as medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA). India rejected those aircraft and for good reasons. With a little bit of imagination, it could have tweaked the MMRCA contract, imparting it a futuristic direction. The year 2005 marked the high-tide of the Indo-US relations. The civilian nuclear deal had just been agreed on; the countries were truly on the path to a strategic relationship—unlike the phoney expression it has become now—and high-level political negotiations on defence ties would have imparted it greater depth. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the country’s national security leadership could have held a sustained dialogue and asked the Americans for the F-22 Raptor—a fifth-generation fighter. Whether the Americans gave us those planes or not, an effort should have been made to get them and the ball thrown in the US’ court. Had that happened, it would have given India an air power edge and lifted it above the ruck of countries in the region. What needs emphasis here is that chasing equipment made in the US does not mean slavish acceptance of what it dishes out (clearly the F-16 and F-18 are goods past their sell-by date) but getting the most out of such deals. If buying jets from the US helps India further its political interests, then they should have been bought. Period.

That, however, would have required geopolitical imagination and discarding doubts about friendship with the US. Historically, India has never had that kind of leadership. India simply does not have the institutions that enable the grooming of such leaders. The National Security Council—established in 1998—is now anothersarkari department. The one place where such ideas could have flourished—universities—seldom produce scholarly work that can spur strategic imagination—in leaders and citizens alike. The contrast with China is marked. While the latter rediscovers its ancient strategic roots (see Ancient Chinese Thought, Modern Chinese Power by Yan Xuetong, Princeton University Press 2011), powers ahead with its defence modernization plans and, in general, exhibits a confident worldview, India is busy creating roadblocks on the path to its progress. Even relatively simple matters such as sharing river waters with Bangladesh have been blocked by regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee. It is one thing to hanker for a position on the global high table, but an entirely different matter to create conditions to achieve that goal.

To be fair, it is easy to overlook the fact that it is for the first time in two millennia that India—as an independent entity, that is—is enjoying geographic unity, something that has been imagined culturally for long but has existed politically for less than 70 years. Under these conditions, the required imagination—at the level where it is needed most, among policymakers—will always be in deficit. At the operational level, it leads to a sense of timelessness: the false belief that adversaries will exhibit behaviour similar to one’s own; that perspective plans on paper will automatically bear fruit and, generally, that opportunities always abound. The acquisition of aircraft whose utility in the future will be limited is only one aspect of this much greater weakness.

Siddharth Singh is Editor (Views) at Mint.

FLIGHT SAFETY ANALYSIS: 2007-2011

SOURCE : IDRW.ORG

Post Aero India 2011 all eyes are now on multi-billion dollar tenders issued by the Ministry of Defence to procure 126 fighter aircraft’s and more than 400 light, heavy and attack helicopters. In this fanfare we often forget the main reasons why these tenders were floated. The 126 MMRCA tender was floated as a stop gap measure to sustain fleet strength depleted due to delay in LCA program and high rate of attrition amongst the forces. Indian military aviation has suffered 54 mishaps during the period 2007-2011(FY) resulting into many casualties. In this analysis we aim present the fact in simplified but detailed manner.

 

Forces wise analysis:

The air force as usual scores the most in mishaps. Plagued with old and obsolete aircrafts like MiG-21 and Mig-27 remain major contributors. Not just old but also upgraded variants of these two fighters have performed poorly in air safety. Indian Navy comes in second facing similar issues with old Sea Harriers. Of the 30 purchased in 1980’s only 11 remain. Indian Army has fared good primarily because of its smaller air arm. The only crash suffered by the Army was that of a Cheetah in February this year. However, if the Cheetah’s and Chetak’s aren’t replaced soon than we may see a rise in incidents. In all Army, Navy and Air force suffered 1, 10 & 42 mishaps respectively.

Type wise analysis:

Fighter aircrafts of the Indian Air Forces fared very poorly with 33 incidents. Again the MiG-21’s and MIg-27’s formed the bulk of losses. Also Indian Navy’s Sea Harrier suffered multiple crashes in 2007 and another in 2009. Of lately older helicopters i.e. the Cheetah and Chetak of both the Navy and Air force showing trends of increase in rate of attrition.  Helicopters accounted for 16 mishaps during the period. The Transport fleet of the Air Forces proved to be very reliable with only 1 loss of an An-32 but this loss accounted for the single largest cause of death with 13 killed in the incident. Trainers and UAV’s crashed 4 times during the period.

 

Aircraft wise analysis:

A comparison of aircrafts contributing to most crashes show that the MiG-21 remains the “Flying Coffin” of the Air force and is followed by MiG-27. The efforts of IAF and authorities of MiG, HAL and ADA don’t seem to be working. Another major contributor is the helicopter fleet of Cheetah, Chetek, Kamov, Mi-8, Mi-17 & Mi-26 who contributed 17 crashes. The pride of the IAF the Su-30MKI has suffered two crashes but still remains one of the safest platform along with Jaguar and MiG-29. The Mirage-2000 suffered no losses during the period. Prior to the Limited Upgrade (LUSH) the Sea Harriers suffered 4 crashes. The MiG-21, MiG-27 and helicopters are areas where there needs to be work done.

 

Facts & Conclusion:

The armed forces of India have lost exactly 3 squadron strength worth of aircrafts over past four years of which more than 1 ½ squadron worth attributed to fighters and a further 1 squadron attributed to helicopters. Statistically, India losses approximately 1 aircraft per month excluding recoverable mishaps. Such a high rate of attrition is not seen in any other frontline military. Also the loss of life is tremendous with 50 deaths mostly that of military personals. Rapid progress needs to be made in air safety by India. Aircrafts like the MiG-21, MiG-27, Cheetah and Chetek needs to be replaced by safer indigenous aircrafts like the Tejas and Dhruv by increasing their annual serial production.

No Comments

Defence Policy : A policy paper for the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf.

 

Defence Policy
Please note that this is a Work-in-Progress, being shared for comment and improvement.
A policy paper for the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf.
Meinhaj Hussain, Grandestrategy.com
January 29th, 2012
Despite the doom and gloom of the present crisis in the Western Front, the Pakistan defence establishment remains one of the few institutions in the Muslim world that have the ability to execute successful long-term strategic defence policies. Some of the highlights of this success include the pursuit of nuclear weapons, the establishment of such weapons manufacturing facilities as Wah, Kahuta, Kamra and Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) as well as various defence laboratories and facilities that produce everything from tanks, combat aircraft, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and a wide variety of other devices. We shall later look more closely at the vital importance of such a nascent military-industrial complex. To achieve this feat, Pakistan has had approximately 50,000 engineers, scientists and other skilled workers, and an additional 10,000-15,000 foreign qualified engineers and scientists.
I will not bore the reader with the basic data of the armed forces of Pakistan in general and other well-known information, instead this paper is going to focus on some key and lesser known aspects in the most concise manner possible. This paper will begin by looking at some of the weaknesses of the Pakistan armed forces and how they can be addressed. It will then look at the problem of building a viable military-industrial complex. Afterwards I shall move on to considering a solution to the endemic problem of military coups and finally end by considering the future of warfare. I am broadly considering a 5-10 year time-frame in this paper.
The Problems of the Pakistan Armed Forces
Criticism of the Pakistan armed forces is sometimes taken as unpatriotic and anti-state. The following section is written with all good intent and a desire to fix some of the issues for a better and stronger Pakistan.
Under-Equipped & Out-dated Equipment
For all the vaunted propaganda about how great and strong the military is, and showcasing missiles and tanks, the basic units of the Pakistan Army (PA) are under-equipped and a big portion of their equipment is outdated. This is a problem related to the size of the Army, which has to keep reasonable comparability with India. What happens is that when equipment is to be retired, it is delayed and new equipment is used to raise new units. With the last ten years of low intensity war, the state of which drastically increases the wear and tear of military gear, the problem has only gotten worse. A shiny tank often hides big problems with other, less glamorous but highly critical equipment. Internally the Army is facing acute shortages such as general military vehicles, obsolete anti-aircraft guns, recoilless rifles and even the basic infantry platoon equipment are aging and old. General Kayani recently noted that 75% of the budget is going to paying salaries and similar operational expenses. This leaves very little money to replace and buy new equipment. Pakistan is not the US and is unable to sustain a long low-intensity attrition war. A solution to this problem will be presented later in this paper within the context of the military-industrial complex.
Secular-Servile Mentality
The Pakistan armed forces emerged from the British Indian armed forces that previously were serving the very colonial power that the people of the Subcontinent fought to be liberated from. They are from the same stock that were used to put down countless rebellions against the colonizers who looted the Subcontinent and caused famines that killed tens of millions, turning many prosperous and proud nations into an impoverished and helpless lot. This mentality cultivated over hundreds of years, did not change simply by changing name-plates, it remains deeply ingrained in the psyche, particularly of the Pakistan armed forces which within a decade snatched political power from the elected representatives and Ayub Khan ably demonstrated in numerous occasions who his real masters were. I speak tongue-in-cheek here given that my grandfather served as a Minister of Parliament under Ayub Khan.
This brown sahib mentality has continued apace and the reader is in all probability fully aware of examples of its frequent manifestations. The important point is to look at the bright side – Ibn Khaldun notes that it takes a minimum of 40 years to cure the slave mentality of the conquered. Pakistan is thus at a ripe stage to finally retire this harmful aspect of our colonial past.
The important aspect in removing this brown sahib mentality is to carefully consider the institutional aspects by which the disease replicates itself and then making policies to carefully correct those elements, some of which are listed here:
1.       Recruitment policy (English-language based testing, should be Urdu)
2.       Norms, etiquettes and mannerisms
3.       Leisure activities and civic amenities
4.       Foreign (Western) training
5.       Unofficial policy of discrimination against religious types and official policy of secularism
6.       Clothing
Pakistan armed forces policy of recruitment emphasizes the English language. This is a key element where the nation’s populace is discriminated on the basis of an alien language. The armed forces also continue many mannerisms, etiquettes and norms from British India days. The prevalence of “butlers” and other personal peons is one case in point. Leisure activities of senior officers include massive golf courses, paid for and kept by the Armed forces. The policy of having officers sent on training to foreign (Western) countries needs to be stopped as it is yet another aspect of transferring servitude often in very direct conspiracies. In many cases, officers returning from training from such destinations are given privilege and preference over locals, creating a perpetual vicious circle of brown sahib mentalities. The armed forces have very direct policies of secularism and unofficial yet active policies of discrimination of religiously inclined individuals. This later element became near-official policy during Musharraf’s dictatorship. Copying the clothing of the dominant nations by servile nations has a long and curious history, well documented by Ibn Khaldun. Today, while the armed forces are suffering from massive budget problems, the Pakistan Army is busy shifting its dress code to a US-style uniform. In this connection, Ibn Khaldun writes a pithy insight:
“The vanquished always want to imitate the victor in his distinctive characteristics, his dress, his occupation, and all his other conditions and customs.
The reason for this is that the soul always sees perfection in the person who is superior to it and to whom it is subservient. It considers him perfect, either because it is impressed by the respect it has for him, or because it erroneously assumes that its own subservience to him is not due to the nature of defeat but to the perfection of the victor. If that erroneous assumption fixes itself in the soul, it becomes a firm belief. The soul, then, adopts all the manners of the victor and assimilates itself to him. This, then, is imitation.
Or, the soul may possibly think that the superiority of the victor is not the result of his group feeling or great fortitude, but of his customs and manners. This also would be an erroneous concept of superiority, and (the consequences) would be the same as in the former case.
Therefore, the vanquished can always be observed to assimilate themselves to the victor in the use and style of dress, mounts, and weapons; indeed, in everything.
This goes so far that a nation dominated by another, neighbouring nation will show a great deal of assimilation and imitation. At this time, this is the case in Spain. The Spaniards are found to assimilate themselves to the Galician nations in their dress, their emblems, and most of their customs and conditions. This goes so far that they even draw pictures on the walls and have them in buildings and houses. The intelligent observer will draw from this the conclusion that it is a sign of being dominated by others.”
He also warns the true danger of this disease noting that “A nation that has been defeated and has come under the rule of another nation will quickly perish.”
The young crop of Pakistani army officers ranging up to the rank of Major is cognizant of these issues and are far more indigenous and religious than the upper echelons. However, the top management has been keeping this massive demographic under check through biased and discriminatory promotion policies. Insh’Allah we hope that the PTI will be able to address all these issues in an effective manner; in some cases merely making an issue public and keeping it constantly on the face of the armed forces and thereby creating political pressure is perhaps enough to force them to change.
Incompetence in the basic art of war
While the Pakistan Army has often claimed they are forced to take political authority because of the gross incompetence of the rulers, it is also unfortunate that the armed forces have severe shortcomings in their mastery of the art of war. Their basic deployment strategy, largely based on the railway system dates back to the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. Their fighting tactics are closer to WWI tactics than the fluid dynamics of WWII and beyond. For instance, on both sides of the border, the Pakistan and Indian armies have dug up a water/ditch obstacle the length of much of the country. The PA is unable to utilize in combat division size armoured manoeuvres. Their defences remain static in nature.
The Army also does not research and practice military strategy and tactics. While all the requisite textbooks are taught, the nature of the teaching is highly rote-learning and ineffective. The average military officer is not well-versed or able to fully appreciate or understand military strategy and tactics. Guderian and Rommel are names known but their ideas are not ideas that live and breathe in the hearts of Pakistani army officers. Memorization before examination is the central strategy of passing the “required examinations”. Military exercises, while looking impressive in terms of numbers and equipment utilized, have merely become mobilization and logistics exercises.
The results are for all to see – incompetence at virtually every war from 1965 to Kargil. Blunder after blunder, and both the PA and the Indian Army run around like headless chicken. This is the result of the inability of either army to produce thinking strategists, something the British were not keen on teaching Subcontinentals.
Unable to think and proactively discuss military strategy, the PA has become imitation and doctrine prone. This mentality will do nothing to survive the technology and information wave, which we shall see later will create a Schumpeterian moment for military conflicts in the future. We need leaders and innovators, not mindless brown sahibs who follow the latest trend taken up by the West.
A final problem I wish to address is the problem of exceedingly poor professional standards. Here is a list of the basic requirements of becoming a soldier:
Push-ups
15 repetitions in 2 minutes
Sit-ups
15 repetitions in 2 minutes
Chin-ups
3 repetitions in 2 minutes
Running
1.6 km in 7.5 minutes
Ditch Crossing
7 feet four inches
Such a requirement would bring ridicule if widely known. Such shameful standards do not make a “professional” army. Even worse – soldiers have very poor technology skills; tank crews are of very poor quality and are unable to utilize the technology in tanks effectively. In a previous war, tank crews did not use the thermal sights simply because they were unfamiliar with technology.
Tank crews and other technology operators are a significant problem for the army. The problem is structural; the British tended to recruit villagers because of their physical sturdiness and docility. This has continued on the basis of tradition and practice. The way to correct this recruitment-structure problem is to create a specific category (or categories) of NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers) that are specifically recruited from urban and technology-savvy populations. Such “Technology NCOs” will be recruited on a separate basis on carefully considered criteria. Tanks are not the only technology issue – in the present Salalah crisis it has been learned that a simple manpad (shoulder fired Surface-to-Air Missile) requires specially trained troops to operate them, from air defence units. This boggles the mind because even the Taliban are more than capable of picking up a manpad and using it with minimal training. As is often the case, incompetence appears to be hiding behind doctrine.
Joint Forces Coordination Problem
There is a major problem of the three services of the Pakistan Armed Forces not coordinating or operating jointly as one integrated whole. In fact, in many cases they are not cooperating even during critical aspects of an on-going war. An example from the past is when a pilot informed the PAF that he had spotted Indian missile boats headed towards Karachi. The PAF did not inform the PN and the subsequent highly damaging attacks on Karachi harbour are well-known. In war, each service essentially fights its own battle; there is no real or effective joint cooperation.
A more recent example of this conflict and mutual distrust relates to the Kargil operation, when the PAF was kept in the dark for most of the planning phase. The PAF was unable to provide what was perceived by the Army as adequate support during the conflict, which was countered by the PAF by a ubiquitous “not having enough spares” to sustain sorties. Yet at the same time it was the Army who noted that PAF would have no role in the conflict as they had “Stingers on every peak”. The bottom line of all of this is that PAF considers the Army to be a bunch of bungling buffoons who have no appreciation of their service, political realities or even sane operational planning. Former Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail, in an article titled ‘Himalayan Showdown’ explains the case in the following words:
The flaws in the Kargil Plan that led to these failures were almost palpable and, could not have escaped even a layman’s attention during a cursory examination. The question arises as to why all the planners got blinded to the obvious? Could it be that some of the sub-ordinates had the sight but not the nerve in the face of a powerful superior? In hierarchical organisations, there is precious little room for dissent, but in autocratic ones like the military, it takes more than a spine to disagree, for there are very few commanders who are large enough to allow such liberties. It is out of fear of annoying the superior – which also carries with it manifold penalties and loss of promotion and perks – that the majority decide to go along with the wind.
In a country where democratic traditions have never been deep-rooted, it is no big exposé to point out that the military is steeped in an authoritarian, rather than a consensual approach. To my mind, there is an urgent need to inculcate a more liberal culture that accommodates different points of view – a more lateral approach, so to speak. Disagreement during planning should be systemically tolerated and, not taken as a personal affront. Unfortunately, many in higher ranks seem to think that rank alone confers wisdom and, anyone displaying signs of intelligence at an earlier stage is, somehow, an alien in their ‘star-spangled’ universe.
Kargil, I suspect, like the ‘65 and ‘71 Wars, was a case of not having enough dissenters (‘devil’s advocates’, if you will) during planning, because everyone wanted to agree with the boss. That single reason, I think, was the root cause of most of the failures that were apparent right from the beginning. If this point is understood well, remedial measures towards tolerance and liberalism can follow as a matter of course. Such an organisational milieu, based on honest appraisal and fearless appeal, would be conducive to sound and sensible planning. It would also go a long way in precluding Kargil-like disasters.
While I think that the Air Commodore’s argument has merit, such a damning assessment nevertheless gives insight into the level of acrimony between these two important institutions. Matters have reached a boiling point now post-Salalah attack: The Army has issued an RoE (Rules of Engagement) paper regarding the Western border. It supposedly passed on this document to the Air Force for comment and it appears that the Air Force has not responded.  In the absence of validated information, the author will proceed here with speculating the exact issue at hand.
PAF appears to be disregarding the Army because it understands the consequences of directly confronting NATO and US airpower. Like Kargil, the PAF does not have a high opinion of the Army’s understanding of the geo-political realities or the capabilities of various forces. The PAF wants to wait for orders from the political administration, which in effect means it wants to wash its hands of any such responsibility. While they understand that public opinion (and PA’s opinion) of the vaunted excellence of the PAF is at an all-time low, the PAF is all too aware of the huge gap in capabilities between the PAF and the USAF. The USAF is at least 30 years ahead of everybody else and is fielding technology that the world at large is not even aware of. However, if the PAF is unable to defend Pakistani skies, then they are failing their primary mission, and it is obvious to everyone that the issue of getting a political nod is an attempt to shirk its responsibilities.
What is even more damning is that the PAF is continuing to receive F-16s from the US and sending its pilots for training there, in addition to maintaining and growing its ties. The F-16s and other PAF equipment that it has received from the US, including a large number of their radar assets are near useless against US/NATO forces. Is the PAF showing insightfulness or are they mindlessly infatuated with the F-16?
I think that the PAF should be trusted with its judgment of the air defence scenario, and their professionalism and good-intent should not be doubted. However, the inter-services conflict must be effectively resolved by rationalizing the roles and responsibilities and restructuring the organizational architecture of the armed forces. Indeed, unity of command and unity of effort are among the basic and most fundamental military concepts. “Truly Allah loves those who fight in His Cause in battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure.” (61:4)
The problem was brought up after the 1971 war and it was decided to create an Office of Joint Chief of Staff (OJCOS), however, this was not effectively put into place. Today the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee is a toothless enterprise that serves as a ceremonial and symbolic head and does not provide that important link between the services.  Another exercise was started of exchanging officers between the services, however, this has also not resulted in any meaningful friendliness between the forces.
The solution has to be comprehensive and should delineate clearly the roles and responsibilities, which themselves need to be carefully reconsidered and rationalized. The example to follow is perhaps the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) which shows a unitary structure under which all services are subordinated. This may be a hard pill to swallow for the PAF and the PA but it must be implemented. The solutions are given here under the heading of Organizational Restructure, Close Air Support and Air Defence Artillery.
Organizational Restructure
As noted earlier, to solve the problem of conflicts, rivalries and confusion of roles, the solution is to go back to the basics of unity of command and unity of effort. This can be done by creating a viable Office of Joint Chief of Staff (OJCOS). To ensure that this is not a lame duck organization, the OJCOS office will be entrusted with appointing the top officers of all the armed forces. The OJCOS will have direct line authority over the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and other chiefs of staff and liaise with their direct subordinates including Corps commanders and Air Marshals. The OJCOS must have a sizeable staff and would be mandated to focus on issues of joint forces command as well as being the highest military decision making body. The OJCOS will be headed alternatively by the Army and the Air Force, and once the Navy has been brought up-to-scratch, perhaps they may get a turn (more on the Navy later).
Close Air Support
There is also a fundamental problem of organizational division based on equipment utilized rather than based on area of activity. Thus for instance, combat aircraft will be operated by the Air Force and tanks and APCs by the Army. The latter would be a better way to organize. Activity-based division would allow superior coordination in achieving the objectives of that activity. This will also drastically reduce the friction and animosity between the services.
An example of this friction is the problem of Close Air Support. Let me note a few of these problems in a cursory and simple manner for the ordinary reader. Typically in a war where both sides are relatively well-matched, the air force will focus on winning the air war first and foremost because this is of critical importance to them. They will thus tend to neglect Close Air Support (CAS) for the army. However, the army is in dire need of CAS and does not understand the air force. Most modern armed forces have this rift between the two arms. The fundamental problem is an organizational theory case study. The services are separated on the basis of equipment being operated. Thus, combat aircraft will be operated by the Air Force and tanks and APCs by the Army.
If we focus on an activity-based division, destroying enemy tanks, artillery, troops, and more on the battlefield is a task that is conducted by CAS aircraft, tanks, artillery, anti-tank troops, etc. This is a different activity than fighting enemy fighter aircraft for defending the national air space or striking strategic targets deep inside enemy territory. Since before, combat aircraft were multirole and each aircraft could do a wide range of tasks, this division was not clear. However, today, combat aircraft have evolved in a way that it does not make sense to use highly sophisticated, multi-million dollar aircraft to drop bombs on the battlefield. CAS is far more suited to a cheap, rugged aircraft operated by the Army.
Close integration of this component is vital as CAS aircraft operate very close to own troops, and could easily bomb them otherwise. Another important factor regarding close integration is that CAS aircraft can also play an important role for as a pair of eyes over the battlefield area for the ground commander. If the CAS pilot lives and works with the army officers, he or she will have a better understanding of what to look out for, how the game is being played and what in those given circumstances his or her role should be.
The conflict of interest created by different primary objectives is another factor. The air force is tasked with the safeguard of the skies. The army is tasked with the safeguard of the earthen territory. The air force as such is wont to utilize all its assets for its primary objective while neglecting CAS which is a secondary objective. Yet in modern warfare CAS is critical to army operations.
In short, CAS should be removed from the role of the PAF and handed to the PA. Modern air combat is enough of a burden and it is widely noted that Western air arms that focus on CAS tend to degrade their skills in air combat. Let the PAF focus on the task of defending the air space and conducting deep strikes, and allow the Army to deal with the business of destroying enemy tanks, artillery, etc. on the battlefield. Each can focus on its task at hand without stepping on the other’s shoe, so to speak.
Air Defence Artillery
In the 1990s, a study was commissioned by the Army to research the pros and cons of having a separate anti-aircraft service. A Pakistani Army officer spent three years researching and when he was to present the findings, General Musharraf walked in, told him that whatever his research was that anti-aircraft artillery would not be separated from the army but he would be happy to hear his presentation. Such Machiavellian attitudes unfortunately do nothing to benefit the nation when the interest of an institution is put over and above those of the country. The report needs to be dusted off and perhaps made available to decision makers.
My personal views are that strategic, long and medium range SAM (Surface-to-Air Missile) systems need to be organized under a separate service that falls under the PAF, similar to the relationship of US Marines to the US Navy. This implies a high degree of independence and a separate budget allocated not by the PAF but by the proposed OJCOS. Modern strategic air defence requires very close coordination and integration with all strategic assets including the national radar net and air force fighters and other airborne assets. At the same time, air forces have a tendency to idealize air combat and pay less attention to less glamorous but effective anti-aircraft assets. These two reasons and similar reasons dictate that the organization of Strategic Air Defence Artillery should be as has been proposed.
Tactical anti-aircraft assets however should reside with the Army, as these are best employed organically with army formations, which is what is their primary concern of defence. This makes both pragmatic sense and because employment of tactical versus strategic anti-aircraft assets are theoretically diametrically opposite to each other. Let us now move on to consider some specific issues of import to the secondary armed services.
Air Force
The Pakistan Air Force has been a great asset and a symbol of excellence that all Pakistanis have been proud of. PAF has shown again and again that it is able to not only meet world standards, but despite the dismal lack of funds and resources, is able to carry the torch as one of the world’s most professional air arms. However, it is with some distress that the PAF appears to be losing its touch in terms of professionalism.
For instance, at the Dubai Air Show 2011, the PAF officials brought their families along showing a clear lack of professionalism in having come there for a specific purpose. The problem is perhaps not primarily the PAF’s fault, standards may have been falling since General Musharraf and subsequent rulers picked the least qualified officer, of the given pool of talent, to run the enterprise. This has been done by subsequent governments to attempt to tame the PAF and get them to do the bidding of the political masters. While in the case of CAS (Chief of Air Staff) Mushaf, the damage was not fortunately done. CAS Mushaf stood his ground and provided visionary leadership to build locally manufactured JF-17s, in partnership with China.
However, this same tactic by political governments, repeated over and over again may just be negatively impacting PAF. The solution to this problem is by allowing PAF to choose its own CAS internally and the political administration only having the ability to dismiss a given chief in case he is proved to have failed his duty or engaged in some activity that warrants his dismissal.
Navy
The Pakistan Navy has been suffering from endemic corruption at the top. This was manifested during the hugely damaging Agusta-B submarine debacle where “compromise” meant the guilty chief was allowed to return some money in exchange of a pardon. This is not the way Insaf is created in the land. It encourages future corruption and that is exactly what has happened. I would note that my own sources suggest that the PN is still suffering from corruption at the top and this is supported by a personal account given by a senior naval officer.
I strongly believe the PTI should fully investigate and thoroughly clean-up the PN. No easy exits for those found to have compromised their integrity. There is a saying in the United States defence circles that the Army is dumb, the Air Force is deceptive and the Navy is dishonest. It appears this may fit Pakistan as much as the United States.
The PN is also suffering from an inability to think outside the box. Pakistan does not have the resources to compete with the Indian Navy symmetrically; the solution has to be asymmetric. However, the PN is more focused on getting conventional assets, and even at the detriment of the vitally important air defence aspect. Without proper air defence, the PN is likely to find itself in the bottom of the ocean in any future conflict given the IN’s use of air assets combined with systems such as the BrahMos ALCM (Air Launched Cruise Missile). It is either that or she will have to shelter in the ports of Karachi and Gwadar, in a repeat performance of 1971. Not having proper air defence is tantamount to criminal negligence at this point in time, it cannot be tolerated. Whether this is provided by fighter aircraft under naval command or by air defence frigates is a different matter.
The PN has to let go of prestige and empire-building. It is surely helpful to the ego to have a large number of officers and commanding large warships but at the end of the day, the focus should be defending Pakistan not self-serving delusions of grandeur. One last issue is that the Naval Headquarters need to be sent back to the shoreline rather than in land-locked Islamabad. The naval command needs to be closer to her men rather than the political and diplomatic vagaries of the capital.
Building Real Military Strength
Buying / begging foreign military gear, suiting and booting up in the dress-code of NATO forces and making tall claims about military capabilities are good to scare and impress the local populace, but does not help much in any real conflict that will last more than 2 months. That is approximately how long both India and Pakistan would be able to sustain themselves in any future conflict. Real military strength instead is built on local industrial capability, local technology, and strategy and tactics built around those elements.
The central importance here is to build real and local military-industrial capability. This has to be built in conjunction with the overall national industrial capability. For this we need productive and efficient defence industries backed by solid research and development. The problem is that Pakistan’s research and development institutions and programs, barring a few successes, are highly inefficient and ineffective, over and above being burdened by perennial lack of funds.
There are many horror stories but one that serves to illustrate the point is the story of Integrated Dynamics founder Raja Sabri Khan, whose TEDx Karachi talk highlighted his frustration with the defence research establishment and how he finally began to work on his own. The defence research establishments of countries tend to spearhead R&D for most major economies, so it is critical for Pakistan to get this right.
The problem of running a proper R&D effort is a universal one, and there are far more cases of incompetence and blunders than ones that get it right. One of the most widely known success stories has been Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works”, legendary R&D organization that has created a large number of constant successes. Skunk Works is perhaps America’s greatest weapon; they have won wars long before those wars started; for instance the F-117s stealth planes over Iraq at the early dawn of Gulf War I. Ben Rich, one of the key individuals who ran Skunk Works after the legendary Kelly Johnson, describes the difference of Skunk Works from other R&D programs. On receiving an offer from a rival company that Rich revealed to his then boss Johnson, this was the reaction he got:
Hell, in the main plant they give raises on the basis of the more people being supervised; I give raises to the guy who supervises least. That means he’s doing more and taking more responsibility. But most executives don’t think like that at all. Northrop’s senior guys are no different from all of the rest in this business: they’re all empire builders, because that’s how they’ve been trained and conditioned. Those guys are all experts at covering their asses by taking votes on what to do next. They will never sit still for a secret operation that cuts them out entirely. Control is the name of the game, and if a Skunk Works really operates right, control is exactly what they won’t get. (Ben Rich, Skunk Works)
The bottom line is that a very radically different organization structure and modus operandi exists in Skunk Works that is worth carefully studying and replicating. Along with Kelly Johnsons 14 Rules of Skunk Works, Pakistan needs to replicate Skunk Works-like programs that are characterized by lack of vertical control, minimum bureaucracy and accountants and auditors, close cooperation with the customer, clear autonomous funding and budget control, and decision making by engineers and those engaged in R&D rather than non-technical bureaucrats. Space does not allow us to go further here, but it must be reiterated that effective R&D is key and that the present system is stupendously inefficient. The reader may look up Kelly Johnson’s 14 Rules of Skunk Works and Ben Rich’s book Skunk Works, or perhaps the plethora of books, articles, papers on this form of R&D program management. I am available to provide this additional material to decision makers if necessary.
Lastly, it must be noted that funding will flow when there is productivity; good R&D efforts generate considerable cash flows. It is only incompetence, nepotism, empire-building, red-tape and other such evils that cause a no-funding situation in the first place.
Let us now move on to consider some specific issues of import to the secondary armed services.
People’s Army
The Pakistan Army is in the habit of taking over the government whenever it finds the political climate unfavourable. This is an endemic problem and one that has had huge costs and consequences for the country, repeatedly. To ensure that there is no future coup, and at the same time to beef up Pakistan’s defences, a conscript people’s army should be formed. This would be perhaps a considerably smaller army, perhaps 20,000-30,000 strong, selected randomly from matriculating students. Such an army’s main task will be to defend the capital from coups, significantly increasing the stakes for any future coup attempt. Necessary steps to reaching this goal are to banish the army from entering the federally administered territory of Islamabad.
This is in actual fact a great strategic problem as Rawalpindi, is so close and the location is of such strategic importance to the Pakistan Army. The situation may still be workable but perhaps in the long-term Pakistan should look to move to a new capital. Such a project would be discussed in a separate paper.
For any defence policy maker, an important aspect is to understand what lies in the future in terms of defence affairs. This is particularly true given the nature and speed of developments that threatens to overwhelm those that are unable adapt.
The Future Ahead
Malek Bennabi notes that if we seek to follow in the footsteps of Europe, we will always lag behind the West as we have to go through the same steps that the West has already long passed. He notes that we cannot make history by following beaten tracks; it is only possible to do so by opening new paths. Bennabi explains that making history will only be possible for us if we return to our genuine principles from Islam and derive from them efficient solutions for today.
In his seminal work The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler suggests that the world is moving to a new era. He describes the First Wave as settled agricultural society, the Second Wave as industrial society. In his words:
“The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy.”
He considers a Third Wave to have started in the 1950s and that countries are in the process of transitioning to this new wave, which is based on information technology and can be construed as an Information Age.
If this is true and keeping in mind the drastic changes that took place with the industrial revolution, the world seems ripe for another major perhaps cataclysmic event. What this implies for warfare: just as war drastically changed from the agricultural to the industrial age, and those who were unable to progress to the new wave (including the Muslim world) were defeated, humiliated and consigned to subservience, a new Third Wave will again drastically change the social, political, economic and military structure of the world.
Those countries that are unable to adapt, to progress, to the new circumstances will suffer just as the Red Indians, Muslims, Indians, Chinese and much of the non-Western world suffered from the Second Wave.
Air Defence and the Future
In the contemporary world around us, air defence is of vital importance and wars lost in the air translate to wars lost on the ground. This is an obvious statement and anyone can look at the turning points of WWII battles and virtually every major military operation that has taken place since. At the same time, Muslim armies have been most negligent in this key aspect of warfare and have lacked the technologies, the training and the sustained investments needed.
The most effective way to counter an enemy in the air is by air combat. Although a layered and integrated air defence with SAMs is potent, historically this has been, and this is likely to continue to be the case.
With the development of a first competent Muslim combat aircraft in the JF-17 the PAF has brought a new era of Muslim capability. The Iranians also have an F-5 based fighter which is still a capability even if it is not competitive against modern combat aircraft. The Turks are hoping to create a globally competitive fighter in the future, but this remains a long-term project. Yet, these capabilities only bring the Muslim world to the standard of what the West had achieved 20-30 years ago; an industrial age standard. If we forever mark our destination as the point the West is at, by the time we reach it, we will continue to be obsolete.
In a seminal book titled The Future of War: Power, Technology, and American World Dominance in the 21st Century, the authors George and Meredith Friedman argued that each category of strategic weapon systems have a life-cycle and noted that stealth manned aircraft, the pinnacle today of combat aircraft, represented a point of decline and senility for combat aircraft. The Friedmans argue that strategic weapons systems can be considered on the basis of a list of eight points. These eight points determine what stage a weapon system is in its lifecycle between strategically significant and “senile” or obsolete systems. They define a strategically significant weapon as “one that brings force to bear in such a way that it decisively erodes the war-making capability of the enemy,” while a senile weapon is defined as “the primary strategic function of the weapon has been obscured by the need to construct expensive defences against threats to the weapons platform.” They conclusively show through the historical record that strategic weapons systems have this lifecycle. They conclude that stealth manned aircraft along with aircraft carriers have reached a point of senility.
Augustine’s Law Number 16 also suggests that there must be a peak and then eventually a break in aircraft acquisition costs. Norman Augustine is one of the most respected thinkers in the US defence industry. He came up with a list of tongue-in-cheek laws based on his life-long experience in the US defence industry in some of the top positions. In Law 16 he suggests that the cost of combat aircraft increase exponentially while the budget for them increases linearly. He expresses in a humorous manner:
In the year 2054, the entire defence budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3½ days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.”
He also notes in Law Number 12 that “It costs a lot to build bad products.”
And:
“It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished.” (#18)
The sum total of what he is suggesting is that the combat aircraft evolutionary path is not sustainable. This supports the thesis earlier by the Friedmans that stealth combat aircraft are reaching obsolescence and a new technology and military strategy paradigm is ripe to take advantage.
What that future will look like has been glimpsed and illustrated by a small number of highly influential authors; perhaps prime among them is Peter Singer in Wired for War. In this seminal work – I realize I have been using the term seminal all too frequently in this section, but the reason for this is that the information coming out in this new territory of knowledge is as critical to the field as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations to economics. We are at the threshold of a revolution and the names you read now with amused curiosity will someday be written in gold in the pages of history, in fact they already are in those that are involved in this field. Continuing – in his seminal work, Singer shows that what we believe to be science fiction and a distant future is already here and in fact, some of this equipment is already manufactured and being used by the US military. Others are waiting to be operationalized. Yet others are hiding in secret black projects that are waiting to reveal themselves to the world. He describes this new world of breakaway military technology as built on information technology and particularly a world of automated robotics. Such robotics are already in use by the US and Israeli militaries and are silently revolutionizing warfare.
Coming back to air defence, the impending revolution in air combat is ripe to take advantage of this Third Wave. Drones are getting bigger, faster, and more capable in every way. They are taking on a vast array of roles and have / will take on the role of air defence and strike. Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) are an emerging technology that has the potential to revolutionize air warfare. They can be drastically superior to manned counterparts and can impact warfare in the same way that the invention of guns affected war centuries ago. What is being suggested by experts in this field, and I myself have some expertise in this field, is that UCAVs and other Information Age weapons that are emerging in a new wave sweeping human history can make or break the destiny of nations.
Among those leading the curve of this new technology, particularly applied to the military are the United States and Israel. By some accounts Israel has a lead in some areas even over the United States. This is yet another alarm bell for the Muslims to wake up.
With that I end this paper, with the hope that insh’Allah it provided some insight to future decision makers of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, and help them solve the difficult and complex problems facing the Pakistan Armed Forces.

 

No Comments

Common Ground on US Withdrawal Reversing the Lens on Pakistan

Common Ground on US Withdrawal

Reversing the Lens on Pakistan

by CONN HALLINAN*

“Terrorism is not a statistic for us.”

—Asif Ali Zardari, president of Pakistan

This is a Pakistani truism that few Americans understand. Since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, Pakistan has lost more than 35,000 people, the vast bulk of them civilians. While the U.S. has had slightly over 1800 soldiers killed in the past 10 years, Pakistan has lost over 5,000 soldiers and police. The number of suicide bombings in Pakistan has gone from one before 2001, to more than 335 since.

For most Americans, Pakistan is a two-faced “ally” playing a double game in Central Asia, all while siphoning off tens of billions of dollars in aid. For Pakistanis, the spillover from the Afghan war has cost Islamabad approximately of $100 billion. And this is in a country with a yearly GDP of around $175 billion, and whose resources have been deeply strained by two years of catastrophic flooding.

Washington complains that its $20.7 billion in aid over the past nine years has bought it very little in the way of loyalty from Islamabad, while Pakistan points out that U.S. aid makes up less than 0.3 percent of Pakistan’s yearly GDP, what Zahid Hussain, author of a book on Islamic militants, says comes out to “the price of a six-inch personal-size pizza with no extra toppings from Pizza Hut” for each Pakistani. In any case, much of the civilian aid—the bulk, $14.2 billion, goes to the military—has yet to be disbursed.

Both countries’ opinions of one another are almost mirror images: According to a U.S. poll, 74 percent of Americans do not consider Pakistan to be an ally, while the Pew Research Center found that six in 10 Pakistanis consider the Americans an “enemy,” and only 12 Percent have a favorable view of the U.S.

How did this happen? In part the answer is mistakes and misjudgments by both countries that date back to the 1979-89 Russian occupation. But at its heart is an American strategy that not only runs counter to Pakistan’s interests, but will make ending the war in Afghanistan a far more painful procedure than it need be.

If Pakistan is a victim in the long running war, it is not entirely an innocent one. Pakistan, along with the U.S., was an ally of the anti-Communist, right wing Mujahideen during the 1980s Afghan war.

Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan has always been multi-faceted. Islamabad is deeply worried that its traditional enemy, India, will gain a foothold in Afghanistan, thus essentially surrounding Pakistan. This is not exactly paranoid, as Pakistan has fought—and lost—three wars with India, and tensions between the two still remain high.

Over the past six years, India has conducted 10 major military exercises along the Pakistani border, the latest—Viajyee Bhava (Be Victorious)—involved 20,000 troops and what New Delhi military spokesman S.D. Goswaim called “sustained massed mechanized maneuvers.” Pakistan is the only potential enemy in the region that “massed” armored formations could be aimed at. India has the world’s fourth largest army, Pakistan’s the 15th.

By aligning itself with Washington during its Cold War competition with the Soviets in Afghanistan, Islamabad had the inside track to buy high performance American military hardware to help it offset India’s numerical superiority. Indeed, it did manage to purchase some F-16s fighter-bombers.

But in Central Asia, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When Pakistan allied itself with the Taliban, India aligned itself with the Northern Alliance composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, who opposed the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Pashtuns are a plurality in Afghanistan’s complex mix of ethnicities, and traditionally they dominated the Kabul government.

Islamabad has always been deeply concerned about the Pashtuns, because the ethnic group makes up some 15 percent of Pakistan’s population, and Pashtuns do not recognize the colonial period border—the so-called Durand Line—that forms the current boundary between the two countries.  A long-time fear of Islamabad is that Pakistani Pashtuns could ally themselves to Afghani Pashtuns and form a breakaway country that would fragment Pakistan.

From Islamabad’s point of view, the American demand that it corral the Taliban and the Haqqani Group that operate from mountainous Northwest Frontier and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of Pakistan might stir up Pashtun nationalism, one of those things that goes bump in the night for most Pakistanis. In any case, the task would be beyond the capabilities of the Pakistan military. In 2009, the Pakistani Army used two full divisions just to reclaim the Swat Valley from local militants, a battle that cost billions of dollars, generated two million refugees, and inflicted heavy casualties.

Current U.S. strategy has exacerbated Pakistan’s problem by putting the Northern Alliance in power, excluding the Pashtuns from any meaningful participation, and targeting the ethnic group’s heartland in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan. According to Hussain, this has turned the war into a “Pashtun war,” and meant, “The Pashtuns in Pakistan would become…strongly allied with both al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

The U.S has also remained silent while India moved aggressively into Afghanistan. On Oct. 4, Kabul and New Delhi inked a “strategic partnership” which, according to the New York Times, “paves the way for India to train and equip Afghan security forces.” The idea of India training Afghan troops is the equivalent of waving a red flag to see if the Pakistani bull will charge.

One pretext for the agreement was the recent assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan High Peace Council, whom the Karzai government claims was killed by the Taliban under the direction of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI. But evidence linking the Taliban or Pakistan to the hit is not persuasive, and the Taliban and Haqqani Group—never shy about taking the credit for killing people—say they had nothing to do with it.

Pakistan’s ISI certainly maintains a relationship with the Afghan-based Taliban and the Haqqani Group, but former Joint Chiefs of Staff head, Admiral Mike Mullen’s charge that the latter are a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s ISI is simply false. The Haqqanis come from the powerful Zadran Gaum Pushtun tribe based in Paktia and Khost provinces in Afghanistan, and North Wazirstan in Pakistan’s Tribal Area. It was one of the most effective military groupings in the war with the Russians, and is certainly the most dangerous group of fighters in the current war.

When their interests coincide the Haqqanis find common ground with Islamabad, but the idea that Pakistan can get anyone in that region to jump to attention reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the deeply engrained cultural and ethnic currents that have successfully rebuffed outsiders for thousands of years. And in the border region, the Pakistan Army is as much an outsider as is NATO.

There a way out of this morass, but it will require a very different strategy than the one the U.S. is currently following, and one far more attuned to the lens through which most Pakistanis view the war in Afghanistan.

First, the U.S. and its allies must stand down their military offensive—including the drone attacks—against the Taliban and Haqqani Group, and negotiate a ceasefire.

Second, the U.S. must open immediate talks with the various insurgency groups and declare a plan for the withdrawal of all foreign troops. The Taliban—the Haqqanis say they will follow the organization’s lead—has indicated they will no longer insist on a withdrawal of troops before opening talks, but they do want a timetable.

Third, recognition that any government in Kabul must reflect the ethnic make-up of the country.

Fourth, Pakistan’s concerns over Indian influence need to be addressed, including the dangerous issue of Kashmir. President Obama ran on a platform that called for dealing with Kashmir, but subsequently dropped it at the insistence of New Delhi. The issue needs to be put back on the table. The next dust-up between Pakistan and India could go nuclear, which would be a catastrophe of immeasurable proportions.

Pakistan and the U.S. may have profoundly different views of one another, but at least one issue they agree: slightly over 90 percent of Pakistanis would like U.S. troops to go home, and 62 percent of Americans want an immediate cut in U.S. forces. Common ground in this case seems to be based on a strong dose of common sense.

Conn Hallinan can be reached atdispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com andmiddleempireseries.wordpress.com

No Comments

Now What? The Military Targets in Islamabad Identified by Amb.Husain Haqqani?

(The NEWS International) – “In June this year [2011], [Husain] Haqqani
[former Zardari envoy to Pakistan’s Embassy in Washington DC, USA]
reportedly played dinner host to a couple of prominent former federal
ministers along with their spouses. One former [PPP] minister
[honorable Barrister-at-Law Mr. Aitzaz Ahsan] in particular stands out
as he has remained a close associate of Benazir Bhutto, served twice
in her cabinet, and was once fairly close to Mr. President who at that
time was just Mr. [Asif Ali] Zardari. The dinner guests also included
a few Americans including a leading functionary of the [US] Homeland
Security Department. The dinner conversation flowed the way of drinks.
Tongues loosened up. Guards came down.”
“At one point, Ambassador Haqqani reportedly told his rather startled
Pakistani friends that the Americans had identified 362 military
targets in Pakistan, including 28 in and around Islamabad alone, and
asked our prominent friend [Advocate Aitzaz Ahsan] to share his
address so in case he was near one of the chosen targets he could be
told to move away to safety. These targets, according to the shared
discussion, included even the residences of irritating [Pakistani]
military decision-makers and not just security affairs related
installations.”
“Haqqani, according to one of the many dinner guests, then talked
rather boisterously about his extremely close links with the US
administration and at one point reportedly told his guests that
whenever he went to have a meeting with his US counterparts he decided
unilaterally what he had to say and not what his government wanted him
to [say]. “Every time I have a candid discussion with them and that is
why they trust me. At the end of my meetings, I leave the FO [Pakistan
Foreign Office] brief telling them [US officials] it was my official
duty to hand over this pack of official lies”, he reportedly told his
Pakistani guests.
1. Now What? – The News International – 23 November 2011
Article Details:
Now what?
 
 
Mohammad Malick
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
 
 
  57
 
The writer is 
editor The News, Islamabad.
At the time of writing these lines, the all-powerful civil-military tribunal had yet to hold its promised huddle with Ambassador Haqqani. Surely, he will be asked to resign but while his inevitable resignation must not be taken as being tantamount to his admission of guilt, it does highlight the fatal consequence of state representatives confusing themselves with the state itself. The expected resignation will not mark the culmination of a raging controversy but signal the beginning of silent and far more meaningful changes.
According to informed sources, armed with highly incriminating communication data evidence, the non-civilian part of the power equation has already worked out a national charter of demands in which Haqqani’s removal is a minimum starter. Word has it that the military establishment, while weary of seeking any direct role is also conscious of the public sentiment of being held responsible for helping the marauding government stay in the saddle. It wants the system to work without stepping in, if possible. A middle ground may yet be found in case Haqqani is made to walk his resignation talk and the matters reach level two. In such an eventuality and still holding a smoking gun, in the first phase the Rawalpindi chaps may ask the government to cause massive changes in top managements of various state institutions and corporations being headed by known incompetent and corrupt government cronies. If this covert effort of restoring some sanity to governance fails then we could well see a renewed effort to find out the accomplices in this dirty-memo case. You get it, right?
Talking of state functionaries suffering the Napoleon syndrome. In June this year, Haqqani reportedly played dinner host to a couple of prominent former federal ministers along with their spouses. One former minister in particular stands out as he has remained a close associate of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, served twice in her cabinet, and was once fairly close to Mr. President who at that time was just Mr. Zardari. The dinner guests also included a few Americans including a leading functionary of the Homeland Security Department. The dinner conversation flowed the way of drinks. Tongues loosened up. Guards came down. At one point, Ambassador Haqqani reportedly told his rather startled Pakistani friends that the Americans had identified 362 military targets in Pakistan, including 28 in and around Islamabad alone, and asked our prominent friend to share his address so in case he was near one of the chosen targets he could be told to move away to safety. These targets, according to the shared discussion, included even the residences of irritating military decision makers and not just security affairs related installations.
Haqqani, according to one of the many dinner guests, then talked rather boisterously about his extremely close links with the US administration and at one point reportedly told his guests that whenever he went to have a meeting with his US counterparts he decided unilaterally what he had to say and not what his government wanted him to. “Every time I have a candid discussion with them, and that is why they trust me. At the end of my meetings, I leave the FO brief telling them it was my official duty to hand over this pack of official lies,” he reportedly told his Pakistani guests.
Fast forward to October. A perturbed sounding Husain Haqqani, according to Mansoor Ijaz, called him up to find out whether he knew anything about the DG ISI flying into London to discuss the memo issue. At the time, according to Mansoor, the envoy had believed that the DG ISI was coming to meet with FT chaps to get more detailed info and wanted Mansoor to ask the FT chaps to desist from sharing info. Little did he know who was coming to meet who. But since we have been taking every claim of Mansoor with a bucket of salt, I subject this claim also to the same level of suspicion.
Why am I sharing these asides? Because I don’t look for grand designs behind every big development. I believe in majority of cases, individual ambitions and subsequent actions sire larger than life devastating consequences. Don’t forget that the sacking of the chief justice had its genesis in the denied individual ambitions of someone wanting to be a Supreme Court judge. The memo controversy too, I believe, was spawned by an individual vaulting ambition and may just end up deciding the fate of more than one in the coming months.
Personality can never be taken out of politics, rather it is the personal traits of an individual that predominantly define the political outlook and even more important, the practices. President Zardari is no exception. Temperamentally, he is anything but a meek docile pushover who would scamper under the bed every time the floor boards creek in the night. He does not shirk from bold moves. He loves to roll the dice even if it appears loaded against him. Like an incorrigible compulsive gambler, even after calling it a night and on his way home, he will still yank the lever of that shiny slot machine right by the casino exit. He is someone who loves to push back when pushed, call the other side’s bluff while doubling his own, believes power to be the sole justified end — means be damned, and thrives on his reputation of being ‘yaaron kaa yaar’ (friend of friends). The unfolding Mullen-memo mess is likely to see all these traits come into play and it is his personal countenance more than anything else, which shall ultimately dictate the future contours of country’s political and power landscape. What is really important therefore is not how the president deals with Husain Haqqani’s personal future but that of the entire political structure.
It matters little whether Ambassador Haqqani resigns or is made to resign because what matters is how the president and his team deal with the fallout. Things could move smoothly if the presidency views this controversy as a bump on the road instead of making it an ego issue and lie low for a vengeful strike back a few weeks or months down the road. That would be disastrous for democracy.
How the president behaves in the coming days is the key to the future. A rather interestingly incisive analysis of president’s ‘political persona was done by a former federal minister who used to be extremely close to Benazir Bhutto and at one time, was also considered a close friend of the president himself. To quote him, “ On close observation, one can analyse and filter down the president’s power politics doctrine to four basic principles. 1) The first rigid political principle is that there are no rigid principles in politics. 2) If there is a problem then throw in concessions and money and ‘buy’ a solution. 3) Do not resist an irresistible force. 4) But, do not give in till a force becomes irresistible”. Hopefully, the president will realise that the heavy dossier of evidence has created an irresistible force and in such a case he knows exactly what to do.
The memo has changed a lot more in the power equation than is apparent at this moment. Theatrics won’t do anymore. No more these cheeky cloak-and-dagger games. We live in a serious world with serious challenges and can’t afford vagaries of foolish ambitions. Individuals are dispensable, the country is not.
Email: mohammad.malick1@gmail.com
 
 
Reader Comments
Now If Haqqani does not sue Ijaz for libel and slander …then we know his goose is cooked;but this striped equine will bray his way to his master’s zoo by convincing them that his blacks are white and his whites are black, and Pakistanis will be left stranded at another Zebra Crossing.
amir jafri
Canada
This piece crystallized my thoughts and validated my worst fears. This is good, thorough, fair and quality journalism. Not enough of it is being practiced in Pakistan, unfortunately. Malick, you are the best.
Adnan Khan
Pakistan
Excellent article.why this article is not getting printed in Jang (Urdu version.@Paki If you are actually living in Pakistan and trying to earn livelihood by using right means,on merit or have no sources, grand father’s money, then you wouldnt be saying all this.Are your eyes closed.What the hell is happening in Pakistan?Arent you bothered?
nasir
Pakistan
Its a shocker for educated people of this country to know the ills democracy can bring in the hands of the illiterate majority. Quality of a nation or national character can be gauged by the leader it chooses to represent it in the comity of nations. Throw these politicians in gallows or take them on a dhow cruise and sink the titanic. 
Altaf
Pakistan
Keep kneeding anti zardari biases(which you have been doing since day one of this govt) hope one day you will finally succeed.
paki
Pakistan
Excellent malik sahibt
tariq
Pakistan

No Comments