For answers to the Afghan-Pakistan conflict, ask: what would Curzon do?

John Rowe

Oh no, more waffle about counter-insurgency.

Close all international borders, defoliate this fertile valleys and poppy fields, withdraw the troops and have hundreds of drones flying overhead, killing everything that moves. Otherwise just let them get on with their casual savagery.

I'm sure that id Lord Curzon had aircraft he wouldn't have been indulging in some liberal fantasy about helping these people help themselves.

Austin Barry

All of which suggests that job one for the West is disabling Pakistan's nuclear arsenal now, rather than wasting time, lives and money in the Afghanistan sideshow.

Jez

Austin Barry;

There’s one word that makes your quite simplistic solution rather difficult; India.

But.

Maybe a rather difficult proactive tight-rope act must be adopted or as a 'last line' contingency would be a 'Port of Oran' (July 1940) type situation to eliminate a (hypothetical at this stage) newly instated Islamic fundamentalist Pakistan's nuclear capability- *if* this nightmare scenario arises.

And that would (i presume) be a bad corner to find oneself in.

As a happy coincidence, i actually live 3 minutes drive from one of the highest concentration of Pakistani diaspora worldwide (it's called Bradford), so events in Pakistan are quite important where we live.

GaryO

I have yet to understand the link between our inability to bailout pakistan's bankrupt economy, or our failure to build hospitals, roads and schools in Afghanistan with bombs going off in London (that is what a "security risk" is, isn't it?). So in crude terms, if we don't give them money, they'll kill us, is that it?

Poverty is everywhere. Over 80% of Africans, Indians, Latin Americans and South East Asians live below the poverty line – yet we don't concentrate half as much on them as we do on AfPaks. What is so special about their poor?

Tom Mackay

Still waiting to hear what Curzon would have done

Austin Barry

Jez, sorry to be obtuse but what about India? If you're suggesting that the West should preserve Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to maintain an arms balance with India, then I disagree: a tooled-up India standing watch over an impotent Pakistan might just be a significant strategic advantage to the West.

Jez

Hi Austin,

A 'normalised' (present situ') Pakistan will maybe never want to disassemble their Nuclear 'deterrent' due to two factors;

India and The P.R.C. have nuclear warhead delivery capability.

Combined with the present internal/Afghan flank situation is firmly sat the Kashmir ‘powder keg’.

Thus a major strategic vacuum may be caused by one of the three (Pakistan, India, PRC) losing a large percentage of it's military strength 'overnight'.

That is what I meant.

Unterhopft

Kilcullen has hit the nail on the head: the Pakistani army are conducting a conventional war to win back territory from the Taliban.

Even a relatively poorly-equipped and trained conventional force will beat an irregular one in most circumstances. The Taliban's strength is its ability to ambush then melt away and not take on conventional forces unless it has an overwhelming local advantage. So the Pakistani army will retake the Swat and any other territory it contests with the Taliban. But unless they actually occupy the ground they take and then move in humanitarian services and rebuild/establish infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals etc etc) behind them, the Taliban will simply infilrate back into the same areas once the army has moved on to its next objective. This will undermine Pakistan's war against the Taliban because:
a) they are fighting an insurgency by mainly conventional means
b) they cannot physically occupy all of the territory they wrest from Taliban control and
c) they have neither the means nor ability to re-establish basic services let alone security for the people in those areas.

Unfortunately, in Afghanistan where the Coaltion are starting to conduct successful COIN operations, this will be in constant danger of being undermined by what the Pakistanis will NOT be able to achieve against the Taliban in the FATA. And the ultimate solution to one cannot be made without the other.

Simply continuing to pour billions into the coffers of an inept and corrupt government will not provide a solution either. Underlying all this is the radicalisation of the population from the many causes that gave birth to the Taliban and which will continue apace unless the Pakistan government can be both encouraged and given the means to re-establish the rule of secular law.

Unless people feel secure, they will continue to accept or even support the Taliban as the lesser of two evils - better than no security at all - which is what they continue to face in the Swat and elsewhere in Pakistan.

Unterhopft

Following on from my previous post - dare I say that as Britain expends the blood of its young men and women and its treasury in Afghanistan, it also crucial that Britain invests in providing more than just money to Pakistan?

An army training team specialising in counter-insurgency AND more practical government-to-government (as well as humanitarian aid) to back up the required military assistance will not waste the enormous sacrifice currently being made in Afghanistan.

The next trick will be getting the very prickly and proud Pakistanis (in particular the military) to accept it.

Ganpat Ram

The smartest thing the Anglo-Americans can do is BUY the Taliban and the Pakistanis off.

Give them something they want badly.

The answer is obvious: KASHMIR.

Arm-twist the Indians into handing over Kashmir......

Simple !

Daveyone

We should leave Afghanistan!
Many years fighting the Russians must have proved this historically difficult land will never be over come! We should bring home our troops and get the US to carpet bomb the region with a GM crop that will prevent Poppies being grown there.
It may give some local farmers hardship whilst they seek out a more sustainable crop but could just save the lives of many soldiers some of whom are little more then young boys and the peaceful indigenous population.
Prevent the funding that generates this impenetrable terror machine and perhaps we can rest easier at night in the West and don't forget all the years of the Cold War we did not start digging at parts of the former Soviet Superpower with the exception of the Cuban missile crisis, a war of words was enough.
Was it so wise to let President Musharaff go?

O'Henry

Curzon had wisdom. The entire Af-Pak needs to be steam-rollered (in modern palance carpet bombed to the stone age) as was done with the commies in Viet Nam. In these benighted parts, the reigning 'ism' is Islamism, a scourge far greater than communism, which the world has got rid of. The planet cannot let a sixth century theocratic barbarism co-exist with modern civilized values !

Hugh

Dr Kilcullen might be a counterinsurgency expert but he misses the point of British imperial diplomacy: we used to know when to be pragmatic and cut a deal with the recalcitrant tribes. If Dr Kilcullen’s looking for inspiration from Lord Curzon then I think he should look at the obvious: Curzon didn’t try to invade Afghanistan and certainly didn’t try to bring western ideas like women’s rights and democracy to the Pashtuns. Curzon, in 1902, got a political solution to the North West Frontier Province problem – getting the consent of tribal bigwigs for the new province’s establishment.

We hear politicians make absurd statements about Afghanistan/Pakistan, like John Hutton saying that the future of the 21st century is going to be decided in the Pashtun tribal belt. What are they thinking? Even Pakistan isn’t going to collapse because of some tribesmen in NWFP no matter how close to Islamabad they may be. Moreover, all this stuff about Af-Pak’s strategic importance ignores the fact that the 911 attacks were planned in Hamburg.

We should recognise the Pashtuns for who they are: they’ve long been defined by blood feuds, fanaticism and hating outsiders. Trying to tame them or bring modernity to them isn’t worth a single British soldier’s life, and certainly not using ‘steamroller’ tactics on them (whatever Dr Kilcullen means by that euphemism). We need to look to Curzon's example and that means we need to be pragmatic and get a political deal with the Pashtuns.

Archie

Well indeed, Mr. Kilcullen. As others will no doubt point out, the rush to abandon President Musharraf will come back to haunt our still extraordinarily naive American cousins. They really must stop assuming that the rest of the world is like Iowa, except thirsting for democracy!

Field Marshal Eccles

The ancient Romans never managed to hold down Caledonia and Hibernia. So they relied on punishment raids.

Perhaps the West should do the same to Afghanistan.

Herbert Thornton

"Lord Curzon is well known for his observation that ‘No patchwork scheme and all our present and recent schemes: blockade, allowances, etc, are mere patchwork — will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steamroller has passed over the country from end to end, will there be peace. But I do not want to be the person to start that machine.’"

That statement remains profoundly correct - though sadly, in today's language, even the expression "carpet bombing" - in the Viet Nam sense - falls a long way short of what Curzon meant by his reference to the military steamroller. If he were speaking today, he would say - "Not until Waziristan had been thoroughly nuked from end to end, will there be peace."

Najaf Haider

O' Henry
Military options always bring hatred and are never the possible solution, even when they look like the obvious ones.
Moreover, a couple of fanatics should not let you change your logical thinking. Islam is peaceful, and does not advocate killing innocents.

Watka Naidoo

I sit here on the border of the Gaza strip, and I'm simply overwhelmed by the difference in approach between what Pakistan and Nato are supposed to do to inhabitants of NWF and Afghanistan, and what Israel is told to do. What's the difference between Taliban there and Hamas here? Absolutely nothing! Their aims and methods are identical. But a "steamroller" in Swat and a tank in Gaza are worlds apart? Pakistani forces flatten a Taliban stronghold - right! Israeli forces bomb a Hamas fortification inside Gaza - war crime!

Afzal Bhat

Ganpat Ram - India giving up Kashmir is not so easy as you suggest. And is Britain a super power that it can arm twist India? After Maharaja Hari Singh of Muslim majority Kashmir acceded to the Indian Union rather than Pakistan, Pakistan has been fomenting trouble in Indian held Kashmir for decades, the role of ISI in training, funding and pushing across militants into India being well documented. Pakistan has in the past decades handed over part of Kashmir to China to gain its support now renamed Aksai Chin by PRC.Moreover the UN resolution on Kashmir calls for a referendum to be held in Kashmir - NOT handing over Kashmir to Pakistan as you suggest.

Tilak

This will run and run and Pakistan will be written on Anglo-American hearts when it leads to calamitous setback for them both. Withdrawing is the only sensible option, but throwing good money after bad and needlessly sacrificing teenagers in an unwinnable military venture is an old impulse of political establishments.
Most of the reconstruction policies in Afghanistan are risible as anyone, including Americans, who participated in them will confirm. The goal of achieving success in the region will prove an impossibly Herculean folly for the smooth-talking Washington lawyer (this is not about housing in Chicago) and the less said about the venal idiots of Nu Labour and the overrated boy scouts poised to replace them the better. Neither will prove equal to the task.
It will have to be left to Pakistan to sort out and funded by the West and that is the only course of feasible action. It will be cheaper in lives and money for a start. And believe me, the Indians will look after their own once the Americans lose interest in Pakistan. And, no, it won't be the kleptomaniac duo of Zardari and Gilani who will need to preside over it all, but the redoubtable military. But pity the incumbent President of Afghanistan unless he manages to flee, unlike a previous one, who was castrated and dragged dying through the streets. Of course it had nothing to do with either Koranic prescription or historical example!

Martin Clarke

'Special Advisers' like these have a vested interest in an insoluble and prolonged campaign. Perhaps the solution is to restore tribal control, reverse modern development, and leave these deserts as they are. That way the threat to the West is limited. Remember, flight training schools in Florida were the problem in 2001.