Speculating on US-Pakistani Cooperation

The evidence that the US and Pakistan are coordinating quietly in the tribal border regions of the Pakistani state is increasing. Increased US drone attacks suggest both permission and intelligence from the Pakistani army--these attacks provide the Army with not only a great psychological advantage (previously safe spots are no longer safe for the Taliban), but a tactical one (they frequently enough kill enemy commanders). Precision strikes by the Pakistani Army suggest US aerial and satellite intelligence in real-time, allowing jets and artillery to pinpoint their attacks.

The "softening" operation has prompted the Taliban in Waziristan to abandon a peace agreement they had with the government (which, frankly, I did not know was officially in place at all). Such an abandonment will mean more attacks on civilians--and if they come quickly, the Army will be forced to act more quickly than it might otherwise like. But with the spectre of civilian deaths hanging over the Army, they will utilize their American allies more to hit the Taliban hard and keep them off-balance as the Pakistani Army prepares for its assault in Waziristan.

The Pakistani assault is not, contrary to my expectations, caused NATO casualties to go down: this month was the worst in almost a year. But I have been reminded that casualty-counting during a surge in troop activity provides a false comparison: there are more troops more actively and aggressively deployed now than before, and casualties can sometimes be a sign of intense forward activity rather than enemy success. But the real US opportunity will come after a successful Waziristan assault, and the US is going to do anything it can to help that happen.

Pakistan Prepares to Assault Waziristan

After 8 years of absurd domestic politics that can be most briefly described as "bullshit," the past few months in Pakistan have been a dramatic and critical turnaround in the very frustrating war on the Taliban. While Swat valley is not yet a thriving pillar of liberty, justice, and security, the Taliban spine in the area has been broken (though, let me say, Taliban spines have had a very odd history of remote post-mortem reassembly). But the Pakistani army is, cleverly, recruiting former People's Militiamen and those whose lives were most thoroughly destroyed by the Taliban to become a loyal local police force that will not only keep these people fed (hearts & minds!) but, more importantly, provide a presence that will be difficult for the Taliban to overcome.

Next: Waziristan. Waziristan is a much bigger and more daunting challenge for the Pakistani Army. Waziristan serves as the primary base of operations for the Afghani Taliban--they fled after the 2001 US invasion and set up shop in this rough, tribal area; they have acted with relative impunity since. The area is full of tribalists who are quite used to their autonomy, and do not like state intervention--unlike the people of Swat, they will not be welcoming the Pakistani Army with open arms. There are many more Taliban per capita, they are more entrenched, and they know the terrain a whole lot better than the Army. And, unlike Swat, they will not give up easily--where would they go?

But here, close to the Afghani border, Pakistan has the advantage of extensive NATO intelligence, support, and firepower. NATO will almost certainly press from the north right to the border, and happily shoot across. The Taliban will need to fear drones and incoming missiles if they expose their positions in order to attack the invading Pakistani Army. The Taliban can dissolve and try to fight an insurgency, but like Swat, psychology may limit their ability to so quickly give up control of the area for a more tactically advantageous (but very, very long-term) strategy. If they hold firm, they will inflict casualties, but if the Pakistani Army can withstand those casualties, the likely-firm stance of the Taliban will shatter.

Now, it is not entirely clear this will work--the last time the Pakistani Army ventured into Waziristan, they were crushed, and left with tail between legs. But this will be different, for a number of reasons:

1) Public opinion gives the Pakistani Army the political capital it needs to both bring many troops and inflict some local civilian casualties.
2) The Pakistani Army has new leadership that is making much better use of its array of options--standard troops, paramilitary guards, commandos, airpower, etc.
3) The Pakistani Army has the political ability to cooperate with the US in this operation. That will be a huge advantage.
4) Without Swat, the Taliban is a bit off-balance. As they run out of alternative safe-havens, they have fewer places to re-group, train, supply, etc, for long-term campaigns.

The Pakistani Army is trying to soften up the positions of Talibani commander and al-Qaeda ally Meshud with airpower. Current militant casualties are estimated at about 50, which isn't many, but is enough to shake the Taliban a bit. If the Pakistani Army can continue to inflict such casualties using long-range attacks, the psychological implications (especially for a force that has enjoyed peace in its home base) will be significant.

As the Army hits the heavy enclaves of the Taliban, citizens militias are actually forming around the northwest and working with paramilitary/police to trap, separate, and kill extremists that had over-extended in attempts to push their influence further into Pakistan. Such militias may be self-propagating--stories of success may encourage otherwise fence-sitting men to take arms to help, giving them an even greater advantage. If nothing else, they will provide serious disruption to the physical network of Taliban between their strongholds, giving the Army a much-needed logistical advantage.

Taliban Attacks Signal Desperation

The Taliban have had many recent opportunities to learn how to fight a good insurgency in both urban areas (from Baghdad/Diyala/Mosul/Basrah, etc) and rural, desert areas (Afghanistan, Anbar). There's a lot of smart stuff they've been doing in Afghanistan to keep NATO off-balance. But in Pakistan, their mistakes are starting to grow--and show.

Part of the problem is context. The Taliban are recycling some old concepts that have worked in the past, but are not particularly useful here. The two of note are its strategy in Mingora, and its attack strategy in Lahore and Peshawar.

The Taliban Mingora strategy--to sit and hold--had worked before. Ineffectual Pakistani Army attacks in the past balked at real resistance and urban warfare, dissolving before damage was seriously done. Further, such defeats crushed morale and domestic support for military operations. Doing the same seemed wise enough, but the Taliban did not estimate the ire they had caused among the Pakistani people. With domestic support, the Army was able to send a sufficiently sized and resourced force to retake Mingora rather easily (much more easily than the US took Fallujah). The Taliban were not prepared.

Perhaps as importantly, the Taliban offensive strategy is almost certainly a mistake. They're taking a few pages out of the al-Qaeda book, trying to intimidate the population into submission with attacks (although on police) in multiple cities: Lahore and Peshawar so far. Islamabad is probably next on the list of targes. The idea, of course, is to let the population know that they are not safe as long as they continue to assault--that the Taliban can hit anywhere, at any time. This isn't strictly-speaking true, but they certainly want to give off that impression.

Unfortunately for the Taliban, such attacks are likely to bolster the emerging story told in Pakistan that not only is the Taliban a major threat to Pakistan's survival, but they're an urgent threat to the individual citizens of Pakistan right now, and must be cleared sooner rather than later. When dealing with a committed enemy, minor hurts tend not to deter them--only enrage them. If the Taliban is going to try and beat Pakistan at this point, it will either require staying sufficiently below the radar that the current commitment dissolves, or require destroying their capability right now--which is highly unlikely. But after years of offensives, the Taliban may not have the patience nor the wisdom to be able to seep back into the walls and make themselves hard to hit. Hard-won territory in Swat and Waziristan will unlikely be easily given up--but by choosing to take the Pakistanis head-on and agitate their population, the Taliban show a level of desperation to keep their position that will ultimately be detrimental to their cause.

The Taliban Confirms Army Successes

In a very rare and politically costly concession of fact, the Taliban recently asked the Pakistani government very nicely for a return to a recent past that now seems so rosy and delightful in retrospect. The Taliban have formally sought a return to the Sharia-for-disarmament peace deal. Pakistan has rejected the deal, offering an ultimatum--leave or be arrested. Submit to arrest or be killed.

The government has also made it clear that any Sharia-style law in any province of Pakistan will necessarily submit to the Pakistani Constitution, which was violated in almost all possible ways in the few weeks that the Taliban had state-approved authority in Swat.

The Taliban surely knew that asking formally for peace would be a long-shot, at best. And if they indeed knew this to be the case, then facing the public embarrassment of begging for peace indicates incredible desperation--and desperation indicates hurting on their side. The Taliban have effectively signaled to Pakistan and to the world that the government's military actions are working, and extraordinarily well.

Such an admission is going to boost the morale of the Pakistani people, and boost their confidence in the decision by their leaders to pursue a decisive military option. It's the first really tangible sign of military results in a very, very long time by the Pakistani Army, and this admission may be a mistake that dooms the Taliban well into the future.

I've also heard from a friend that the Pakistani Ambassador to the US went on televised news and claimed that the Pakistani government only enacted the Swat peace deal to show the population that the Taliban would break it, which they they (correctly) guessed would lead to public support for decisive military action. This statement could indeed be a complete lie, though it seems intuitive enough to not be totally outrageous; indeed, it's almost certain that at least someone in the Pakistani government was convinced by his colleagues to support the deal on the prediction that it would fail miserably. So either it was dumb luck or incredibly clever planning, or a bit of both, but it's paying handsomely now.

I suppose, given Pakistani sensitivities, that it would be counter-productive to openly root for the Army, but I will say that things are looking pretty good for them right now.

The Emerging Wisdom of Pakistan's Military Strategy

Pakistan is sending hundreds of commandos into a Taliban hideout near Mignora. And while the over-arching strategy is not announced (it's unclear whether the US administration even knows what the strategy is), there is a good story to be told in what such a strategy might be. Below I submit a proposal for what the Pakistanis might be doing, with some evidence for it.

With 5000 Taliban militants (and only 15000 military to combat them), Pakistan fell far below the "standard" 10:1 ratio of counter-insurgents to insurgents. Simply trying to stick troops in the area and hope they could provide security was foolish. So Pakistan first asked its civilians to move out of Mignora. They are now refugees, and this has made life terribly difficult for both the government and said civilians, but mixed results seem to suggest that Pakistan is up to the challenge. In doing this (and I've talked earlier about how tough it would be for the Taliban to try to sneak up with these civilians), Pakistan was largely able to turn a counter-insurgency campaign into an urban warfare campaign. But 3:1 are still pretty bad odds against a dug-in urban enemy--things would get pretty bloody, at best.

So Pakistan, possibly ready to reimburse owners of whatever houses the Taliban holed up in, decided instead to throw a bunch of explosives at them, instead. To a large extent, the Taliban broke out of their dug-in areas in fear, and fled the streets when the Army showed up to intercept them. Such a tactic was a brilliant stroke of taking advantage of the Taliban's lack of military discipline and rigor--the Taliban might have had an advantage if the fight had gone how the Taliban had prepared, but they had not prepared for how to deal with heavy bombing campaigns, and decided (wisely), not to fight the Army on the Army's terms.

And then, Pakistan gets even smarter. As the 5000 fighters retreat (after about 750 casualties), many of the slightly-less-nutty Taliban (especially the youngsters) may be rethinking their long term life plans, and deserting. The Army estimates that only about 1500 are total die-hards, and the rest are new/young/coerced recruits. This mass retreat is a good opportunity for them to run to the paramilitary (scattered all over the outskirts of the city) with their arms in the air, and get 3 squares and a cot to sleep on. Why would they surrender? Well, this is probably the hardest that the Pakistani military has hit the Taliban in many years, and many of the new recruits have likely gotten more than they bargained for.

But it gets better. There are 1500+ remaining die-hards to deal with. This is where the Commandos come in. There is a pretty big mountain base that seems an obvious retreat location for a scattered and disorganized Taliban that has no other place to go. It is apparently well-stocked, and well-guarded. But what if the Pakistani Army flew (in helicopters) ahead of the Taliban retreating on foot to this base, with hundreds of Commandoes, in order to shut it down? If these Commandoes are successful (and frankly, they likely will be), these retreating Taliban will be a long way from any friendly territory, disorganized, under-supplied, and without morale. Their capture will likely be relatively easy with the 15,000 troops sent to the area. And, voila, Mingora will be cleaned up, if all goes to plan.

But, frankly, Mingora is only the start of a much greater, more pervasive Taliban problem. It's big. The BBC provides an excellent map (shown here) of where it thinks the Taliban is in control. The Pakistani government, of course, contests the extent of alleged Taliban control, but even if it's a bit less, it's a lot. The Pakistani Army has a very long way to go if it is actually going to break Taliban control over this swath of its country.

Flushing the Taliban Out?

This will be a short blog post. I'm getting word from Al Jazeera that the Pakistani army is "flushing out" Taliban from main Swat cities, and that the Taliban are now "on the run." Apparently about 700 Taliban have been killed in Swat in the last 4 days, which is about 1/6 to 1/7 the 4000-5000 militants in the area.

But with most of these Taliban on the run, the Army may not actually be successfully accomplishing goals that lead to the long-term security of the AfPak (as it's called) region. There are benefits to routing and disorganizing an enemy force--they are less effective in future combat, they cannot launch offensives, and indeed, you take the territory. But the entire point of an insurgency is to run when the heavy weapons come, and to slowly seep and sneak back into an area being held by the government, and use terror/hit-and-run tactics to grind them down. Like Vietnam and Iraq, causing the enemy to turn tail and run is only a short-term victory. They will find refuge elsewhere (there is a great deal of space in northwest Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan in which they can take refuge) and come back to fight another day. Unfortunately, in the case of hardline militants, the only ways to achieve victory are to A) convince them not to fight (which is unlikely with a single flushing) or B) kill them all. Killing some large portion of them with a grinding and bloody operation would have certainly gotten the job done to a large extent, but it would have cost large numbers of civilian and army lives. But by not paying the price now, the Army may have to pay a greater price later in the form of a coordinated vengeance attack.

There is an alternative explanation, that I am quietly hoping that Pakistani tacticians have elected. If the Pakistani Army was not willing to deal with massive casualties in door-to-door fighting (which is understandable), then urban warfare would not be an option. There is a second option that would require more finesse and fewer casualties--though the finesse part may be tough to muster. If the Pakistani Army can effectively rout the militants and channel them (by cutting off alternative escape routes) into some relatively obvious hiding spot, then the Taliban will have lost their defensive advantage: they will be on relatively unfamiliar ground, they will be disorganized, they will have lost much of their weaponry, and they will no longer be "dug in" to an urban area, well-placed for brutal urban combat. If they enter an unfamiliar mountain range, then not only do they have less preparation and ammunition, but they also (more importantly) are no longer shielded by civilians to endless bombing and artillery. The Pakistani army can spare lives and throw metal instead at the problem, and simply surround the mountain region to catch and capture or destroy any escaping militants. Such a tactic could create Taliban casualty rates that would spiral towards 100%.

It's unclear whether that's the Pakistani Army's tactic of choice. If it was, they wouldn't be advertising it. If it's not, then they may instead try a very thorough hearts-and-minds counterinsurgency campaign in the city to win the loyalty of the population and keep the Taliban from coming back. Unfortunately, most civilians from Swat urban centers are in refugee camps that are undersupplied at best. The Army will struggle to win their loyalty to an extent that exceeded their loyalty pre-invasion.

Alternatively again, the Pakistani Army might intend to simply use a series of cheap "flushing" maneuvers on the Taliban until they retreat, in a disorganized way, into Afghani space, at which point better-trained NATO troops might be able to eliminate them. At such a juncture, the Pakistani Army would be able to close in on Taliban bases and safe zones, and eliminate the free operating area that the Taliban had in Pakistan. And frankly, this may be the only way that NATO got the Pakistani Army to agree to the operation--if NATO was willing to do the actual hard work in fighting the Taliban to the death, then the Pakistani Army would return the favor by ensuring (as best as they could) that the Taliban have no safe zones in Pakistan. While it would result in higher NATO casualties early, it would mean a significant strategic victory, and quite possibly a full turnaround in the war in the area.

If this is the case, I tip my hat to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for excellent strategic diplomacy. But I may be being optimistic.