The
Taliban is a guerrilla force, and it will not allow itself to be engaged
directly. It will instead focus on hit-and-run attacks and internal
consolidation in order to hold out against both the U.S. effort to crack the
movement and any al Qaeda effort to hijack the Taliban for its own purposes.
These internal Taliban concerns could well make the various negotiations
involving the Taliban just as important as the military developments.
In
contrast, across the border in Pakistan, Islamabad is near a breakpoint both
with Washington and the jihadists operating on Pakistani soil. Thus it is here,
not Afghanistan, where the nature of the war will be shifting.
The
bulk of the al Qaeda leadership today is believed to be not in Afghanistan, but
in Pakistan. Increased cross-border U.S. military activity — mostly drone
strikes, but also special forces operations — will therefore be a defining
characteristic of the conflict. Even a moderate increase will be very notable
to the Pakistanis, among whom the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan (to say nothing
of Pakistan) are already deeply unpopular.
The
United States’ increased military presence and increased proclivity to operate
in Pakistan raise four concerns. First, Pakistan must find a means of
containing the military fallout. U.S. actions will force Pakistan’s military to
expand the scope of its counterinsurgency offensive, which will turn heretofore
neutral militants against the Pakistani state. The consequence will be a sharp
escalation in militant attacks across Pakistan, including deep into the Punjabi
core.
Second,
Pakistan needs to find a way to manage U.S. expectations that does not rupture
bilateral relations. Allowing or encouraging limited attacks on NATO supply
lines running through Pakistan to Afghanistan is one option, as it sends
Washington a message that too much pressure on Islamabad will lead to problems
for the effort in Afghanistan. But this approach has its limits. Pakistan
depends upon U.S. sponsorship and aid to maintain the balance of power with
India. Therefore a better tool is to share intelligence on groups the Americans
want to target. The trick is how to share that information in a way that will
not set Pakistan on fire and that will not lead the Americans to demand such
intelligence in ever-greater amounts.
Third,
an enlarged U.S. force in Afghanistan will require more shipments and hence
more traffic on the supply lines running through the country. The Pakistani
route can handle more, but the Americans need a means of pressuring Islamabad,
and generating an even greater dependency on Pakistan runs counter to that
effort. The only solution is greatly expanding the only supplemental route: the
one that transverses the former Soviet Union, a region where nothing can happen
without Russia’s approval. This means that in order to get leverage over
Pakistan the United States must grant leverage to Moscow.
Finally,
there is a strong jihadist strategic intent to launch a major attack against
India in order to trigger a conflict between India and Pakistan. Such an attack
would redirect Pakistani troops from battling these jihadists in Pakistan’s
west toward the Indian border in the east. Since the November 2008 Mumbai
attack, India and the United States have garnered better intelligence on groups
with such goals, making success less likely, but that hardly makes such attacks
impossible.
