Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan

An Asia Society Task Force Report
April 2009

A new Asia Society Task Force report outlines a comprehensive strategy for the new U.S. administration to pursue a dramatically different course in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Both countries are now struggling to limit the spread of violent insurgencies, curb losses in public confidence, and address major weaknesses in governance while being faced with a growing economic crisis. These trends threaten not only the loss of control by the Afghan and Pakistani governments but also the spread of terrorist safe havens in the regio.

A new Asia Society Task Force report outlines a comprehensive strategy for the new U.S. administration to pursue a dramatically different course in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Both countries are now struggling to limit the spread of violent insurgencies, curb losses in public confidence, and address major weaknesses in governance while being faced with a growing economic crisis. These trends threaten not only the loss of control by the Afghan and Pakistani governments but also the spread of terrorist safe havens in the region.

Executive Summary

The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan are at risk from a combination of violent insurgency, loss of public confidence, and economic crisis. These trends threaten not only the loss of control by the Afghan and Pakistani governments, but also the spread of terrorist safe havens and, in the most extreme situation, the loss of control over some of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or materials.

The policies of the previous administration toward this conflict zone fell short . The administration did not match its proclaimed objectives with the necessary resources and strategic effort, although resources began to increase in recent years, and it did not develop a sufficiently integrated approach to the two countries and the region . Its ideological “war on terror” mind-set blinded the administration to significant strategic realities of this region, which led to a fundamentally dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan that exacerbated regional tensions, failed to prevent al-Qaida from reestablishing a safe haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA), enabled the Taliban to regroup and rearm from their strongholds in Quetta and FATA, and offered no significant response to the upsurge of the Pakistan Taliban movement.

The time has come to change course dramatically . Incremental changes alone, such as more troops or more money, will not be sufficient to address the monumental challenge we face . In the context of this deteriorating situation, the United States must now define far more clearly the objectives that it and its allies and partners can achieve . While this may appear to involve scaling back goals, in reality, it is only an attempt to match objectives with capabilities and resources.

NATO forces in Afghanistan, including those from the United States, should work to defeat al-Qaida, protect the local population, and train and support the national security forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan for their counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions. The military effort will also require changes in detention policies and the legal status of international forces and contractors. On the political front, the new policy would encourage the Afghan and Pakistani governments to seek reconciliation with insurgent elements that break with al-Qaida . This distinction between insurgents with a political agenda or local grievances who may be amenable to joining the political process and those who are dedicated to a global jihad is critical to achieving regional stability and creating conditions for badly needed economic reconstruction and improved governance.

The United States has an opportunity to recast its policies in this region to promote political solutions rather than open-ended conflict, to work more effectively with local partners and with allies, and to help Afghanistan and Pakistan achieve greater stability . The United States and the international community must rely much more on political means and work far more closely with the governments and peoples of the region, including many who have joined insurgencies for a variety of reasons, to define common interests in ending decades of war and to begin rebuilding their societies and economies.

This report recommends policies for a comprehensive strategy that integrates counterterrorism, governance, economic development, and regional objectives to achieve lasting stability in the region. The most important recommendation—a precondition for ensuring that the others work as intended—is that the U .S ., Afghan, and Pakistani governments, together with their other international partners, should design an integrated civil-military plan for the entire operation. That plan would:

• Explicitly end the rhetorical emphasis on the “war on terror” and define our enemy as those who attacked our nation—al-Qaida and its allies.
- Change policies on detention and sanctions to treat Afghan and Pakistani insurgents differently from international terrorists, and support the use of Afghan and Pakistani legal processes and policing to bring appropriate cases against insurgents for criminal behavior wherever possible.
- Strengthen political efforts by the Afghan and Pakistani governments to reconcile with local insurgents at the expense of global terrorists.
• End Operation Enduring Freedom, the counterterrorism command in Afghanistan, because al-Qaida’s sanctuary is now in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
- Integrate all troops and operations in Afghanistan under a single NATO-ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) command with a mandate to protect the population.
- Begin negotiations on a Status of Forces Agreement to be concluded after the next round of elections in Afghanistan.

• Separate funding for Afghanistan, including for security forces, from Iraq.
- Move such funding from supplemental to continuing appropriations.
- Develop long-term international funding mechanisms to enable the Afghan government to plan for institution building over a multiyear time frame.
- Undertake a study in cooperation with the Afghan government to evaluate the size of security forces needed, the funding necessary to sustain them, and the possibilities for ensuring these funds over the long term.
- Engage with the Afghan government and the United Nations to ensure an accepted and legitimate constitutional transition of presidential power and a more effective government.
- Deal directly and confidentially with the Afghan government, ending negative press leaks and unclear messages.

• Transfer assistance to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund and security duties to official institutions, Afghan and international, as soon as possible, consistent with transparency and fiduciary oversight.
- Consolidate and build on existing national ministry programs designed to increase ministerial capacity.
- Develop a job creation initiative that maps Afghan value chains and facilitates investment in strategic sectors.
- Work with international partners to develop and fund an emergency economic rescue plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the face of the international economic crisis, drought, and shortages of food and fuel.
- Reduce as much as possible the use of private contractors for security and implementation of aid.
- Investigate corruption, waste, and malfeasance in the use of private contractors in Afghanistan, both to improve U.S. efforts and to assist Afghan authorities in anticorruption efforts.

• Combat narcotics by
- Destroying major heroin laboratories.
- Removing the protectors of trafficking from influential positions.
- Opening markets to Afghan products.
- Increasing employment through infrastructure projects and a regional labor migration regime.
- Taking a gradual approach to this huge industry, rather than artificially trying to make economic transformation a quick-fix counterinsurgency strategy.

• Support efforts in Pakistan to
- Integrate the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies into the mainstream of Pakistan.
- Reform the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas.
- Strengthen administration in both the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan to create conditions under which Pakistan can take direct responsibility for the security of its borders, and Afghanistan can recognize them as open borders.
- Encourage Pakistan to develop a long-term (ten-year) plan to create economic development and institutional capability, with carefully monitored budget support and/or a trust fund, backed by a small consortium of partner countries, whereby funders would provide up-front support and Pakistan would demonstrate that, with increasing revenues and tax reform, it would meet the cost of the programs.

• Focus regional policy on creating conditions for the transformation of Pakistan’s security doctrine so that it no longer requires the use of covertly supported guerrilla forces against neighbors, including
- Reducing reliance on Pakistan as a logistics route. Clearly communicating that the United States does not accept denials of actions of which we have clear evidence.
- Directing aid at strengthening counterinsurgency capacities.
- Supporting the lowering of tensions with India, especially through the composite dialogue.
- Engaging in a dialogue on how to meet Pakistan’s long-term defense and security requirements without support for jihadi organizations.
- Supporting civilian institutions and civilian oversight of the military.
- Exploring a dialogue to seek a common approach with China and Saudi Arabia, the other suppliers and supporters of the Pakistan military.
- Ensuring oversight of all military assistance by both the United States and Pakistan’s elected authorities.

• Establish regular dialogue and exchanges over Afghanistan and Pakistan with Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, the Central Asian states, and Saudi Arabia, seeking a means of cooperation with all in conjunction with our NATO allies and other international partners to
- Seek agreement with regional and global powers over the stabilization of Afghanistan.
- Establish mechanisms for ensuring and building confidence that no power uses that country against another.
- Support the regional economic cooperation initiative that started with the international conference hosted by Afghanistan in December 2005 to support cooperation on power, water, rail, road and air transit, customs reform, and education.

This report outlines steps that must be taken in both the short and long term with our allies in coordination with the government of Afghanistan to prevent further deterioration of security, support develop and promote regional engagement for lasting peace and stability in the region.

Co-Chairs

Ambassador Thomas Pickering
Vice Chairman, Hills & Company

Dr. Barnett Rubin
Director of Studies and Senior Fellow
Center for International Cooperation, NYU

Project Director

Dr. Jamie F. Metzl
Executive Vice President, Asia Society

Members

Mr. Peter Bergen
Schwartz Senior Fellow
New America Foundation

Dr. Vishakha N. Desai
President, Asia Society

Mr. Thomas E. Freston
Principal, Firefly3
and Asia Society Trustee

Ambassador Karl F. Inderfurth
John O. Rankin Professor
Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University

Ms. Ellen Laipson
President and Chief Executive Officer, Henry L. Stimson Center

Ms. Clare Lockhart
Co-founder and Director
Institute for State Effectiveness

Dr. M. Ishaq Nadiri
Jay Gould Professor of Economics
New York University

Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann
President, American Academy of Diplomacy

Mr. Ahmed Rashid
Pakistani Journalist and Author

Ambassador Teresita Schaffer
Director, South Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Mr. Rory Stewart
Executive Director
Turquoise Mountain Foundation