Kashmiri dispute looms large in politics of South Asia via worldfocus.org

Kashmiri dispute looms large in politics of South Asia: "

A de-miner near Srinagar, Kashmir. Photo: Flickr user Haumont

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

Nonaligned India was perceived by most analysts to be largely in the Soviet camp during the Cold War. But the demise of the Soviet Union prompted India to recalibrate its relationship with the world’s only remaining superpower: the United States.

Another major factor assisting in this realignment was India’s embrace since the early 1990’s of free market reforms, trade liberalization and privatization measures. These changes opened up the vast Indian market to U.S. exporters and foreign investors. While millions of Indians are still desperately poor, around 300 million Indians have joined the middle class. Thus a new and expanding Indian market is opening up for a wide variety of U.S. exports, and U.S. investment in Indian industry and infrastructure has risen appreciably in the last few decades.

As a rising regional power, India is anxious to be recognized as a major player not only in South Asia but on the international stage. The importance of India to the U.S. was highlighted by the choice of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the first foreign dignitary to be accorded the honor of a state visit.

A major impediment retarding India’s quest towards great power status is its perennial dispute with neighboring Pakistan over Kashmir. The two oldest conflicts on the agenda of the UN Security Council from the late 1940’s are the Arab-Israeli and Kashmir conflicts.

Despite a number of diplomatic meetings spread over five decades, India and Pakistan have yet to overcome the hurdle of Kashmir, over which they have fought three wars. For Pakistan, Kashmir remains the unfinished agenda of the 1947 Partition. For secular multicultural India, Kashmir is a symbol of its heterogeneity.

President Obama has publicly stated that the U.S. would help India and Pakistan to normalize their relations, including the dispute over Kashmir. The U.S. can help both countries. If the U.S. can persuade India to withdraw some of its forces on its border with Pakistan, this gesture would enable the latter to commit more of its troops now facing India to its lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

While the Pakistan army has achieved encouraging gains against the Pakistani Taliban in Swat and South Waziristan, its counterinsurgency efforts need to achieve more success. Once the tribal areas are pacified, they will no longer afford a sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda elements that cross the mountainous and porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border at will, to attack U.S. and NATO troops fighting the Taliban insurgents.

So it is patently in the U.S. interest to invest more diplomatic capital in New Delhi and Islamabad. India and Pakistan have both suffered from violent extremism. They continue to be plagued by domestic insurgencies. Whether they admit it or not, they have a shared interest in combating the ravages of terrorism in their territories.

As the U.S. footprint in both Pakistan and India assumes greater depth, hopefully the U.S. will nudge both countries to consistently focus on a resolution of the Kashmir imbroglio. A mutually acceptable settlement of this issue should be placed on the same pedestal as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in U.S. calculations.

- S. Azmat Hassan
The dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has been ongoing since the 1940’s and impacts security throughout the region. Worldfocus contributing blogger S.Azmat Hassan argues that settling the conflict there should be as urgent a foreign policy goal for the United States as working towards peace in the Middle East.
http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/12/th_india_kashmirsoldier.jpg"

US Afghan Surge to Begin This Week via afghanconflictmonitor

US Afghan Surge to Begin This Week: "

US Afghan Surge to Begin This Week, AFP, 14 December 2009

EXCERPT: "The vanguard of the 30,000 US troop surge to Afghanistan will arrive this week to fight a war increasingly linked to Al-Qaeda and extremists in Pakistan, the top US military officer said Monday.

Admiral Mike Mullen flew into Afghanistan for talks on President Barack Obama's sweeping new war strategy seeking to turn around the eight-year Taliban insurgency, deny Al-Qaeda a safe haven and train Afghan forces. 'The key part of that strategy was the decision to surge an additional 30,000 United States troops in Afghanistan,' Mullen told reporters. 'Marines from Camp Lejeune will arrive this very week,' he added, referring to the largest US Marine Corps base on the US east coast.

A 1,500-strong Marine contingent is expected to arrive this week in southern Helmand, one of the worst battlefields, as part of a vanguard set to prepare the logistics for thousands more due in the coming months."

Read the full story.

Army, Marines Adjust ‘Reset’ for Afghan Buildup via defencetalk.com

Army, Marines Adjust ‘Reset’ for Afghan Buildup: "

WASHINGTON: As the U.S. military answers President Barack Obama’s order to reinforce efforts in Afghanistan, the Army and Marine Corps are adjusting their plans to redeploy working and serviceable equipment, top military officers told Congress today.

Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, and Gen. James F. Amos, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, testified on their services’ “reset” requirements before subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee.

The proceedings were a continuation of a July hearing that was interrupted because of a prolonged series of House votes. The initial hearing focused on Iraq drawdown plans and attempted to outline the method in which the services determined what equipment would redeploy and what would be left for Iraqi security forces.

However, much has changed in the past five months. On Dec. 1, Obama ordered a surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, , so some of the equipment in Iraq that was scheduled to return to the United States has been re-directed to outfit units headed to Afghanistan.

Roughly 22,000 soldiers are part of the plus-up in Afghanistan, “and quite a bit of the equipment coming out of Iraq [will] be used to support those soldiers,” Chiarelli said. “That will mean as we begin the Iraq drawdown in earnest, that here will be less equipment coming back to the states for reset,” the general said.

Amos described the Marine Corps adjustment since July, noting 15,000 Marines were on the ground in Iraq then. Only about one-third of those Marines remain, and about 97 percent of their combat equipment was returned home or is being refurbished in Kuwait, Amos said.

When Marine Corps leaders heard of the possibility of an Afghan buildup, a “big chunk” of their equipment in Kuwait was made ready for Afghanistan, he added.

“When we first heard an inkling of a plus-up in Afghanistan, we took the equipment that we knew was furbishable and in good condition and set it aside in anticipation of the president’s directive,” Amos explained.

The Marine Corps buildup is roughly 9,000 Marines, and is the service’s No. 1 priority, he said. Amos added that those Marines will be equipped either in Kuwait or at their home stations.

“Our greatest focus right now is getting equipment to our forces in Afghanistan,” he continued. “We will have 100 percent of every piece of equipment they need, with all the capabilities.”

Another change Amos noted since the July hearing was the Marine Corps’ reset bill. When he last testified, he estimated that the Marine Corps would need about $20 billion to completely replace war-torn and unusable equipment. The estimate has increased an additional $15 billion to accommodate the Afghanistan mission and lessons learned in the past five months, he said.

Chiarelli didn’t have an opportunity to elaborate on the Army’s reset costs, but considering the Army is a much larger force, the costs are likely higher. He did note that the Army is set to establish Red River Army Depot in Texas as its maintenance hub for mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, better known as MRAPs. The initiative is now a pilot program, but should be fully up and running in fiscal 2011, he said.

The Army has integrated about 37,000 MRAP vehicles into its force, because of the added protection its V-shaped hull provides troops.

“I think we’re embracing the MRAP, and doing everything we can to ensure when those vehicles start flowing back out of theater, we’re ready to accept them, sustain them and reset them,” Chiarelli said.

The Marine Corps also has determined that the MRAP is going to be part of its total ground tactical vehicle strategy after success in Iraq and Afghanistan, Amos said. He anticipates more than 2,300 MRAP vehicles to soon become part of the regular Marine inventory.

In July, both generals expressed concern over the degrading readiness of their forces after nearly eight years of high tempo counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The generals conceded that the ground forces must maintain capabilities to respond to future contingencies around the world.

Amos said the current security environments in Iraq and Afghanistan justify the readiness tradeoff, but the military must remain balanced and have the support of the American people and Congress to seek modernization.

Pat Lang: "Counterinsurgency – a much failed strategy?" via smallwarsjournal.com

Pat Lang: "Counterinsurgency – a much failed strategy?": "

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_s...-strategy.html

Quote:

Some time ago I was asked to encapsulate my views on the afghan policy situation. The resulting summary is quoted below. Since policy has clearly gone in a different direction I feel free to state my view for the record. pl

Quote:

Conclusion COIN is a badly flawed instrument of statecraft: Why? - The locals ultimately own the country being fought over. If they do not want the “reforms” you desire, they will resist you as we have been resisted in Iraq and Afghanistan. McChrystal’s strategy paper severely criticized Karzai’s government. Will that disapproval harden into a decision to act to find a better government or will we simply undercut Afghan central government and become the actual government? - Such COIN wars are expensive, long drawn out affairs that are deeply debilitating for the foreign counterinsurgent power. Reserves of money, soldiers and national will are not endless. Ultimately, the body politic of the counterinsurgent foreign power turns against the war and then all that has occurred has been a waste. - COIN theory is predicated on the ability of the counterinsurgents to change the mentality of the “protected” (read controlled) population. The sad truth is that most people do not want to be deprived of their ancestral ways and will fight to protect them. “Hearts and Minds” is an empty propagandist’s phrase. - In the end the foreign counterinsurgent is embarked on a war that is not his own war. For him, the COIN war will always be a limited war, fought for a limited time with limited resources. For the insurgent, the war is total war. They have no where to escape to after a tour of duty. The psychological difference is massive. - For the counterinsurgent the commitment of forces must necessarily be much larger than for the insurgents. The counterinsurgent seeks to protect massive areas, hundreds of built up areas and millions of people. The insurgent can pick his targets. The difference in force requirements is crippling to the counterinsurgents. What should we do? - Hold the cities as bases to prevent a recognized Taliban government until some satisfactory (to us) deal is made among the Afghans. - Participate in international economic development projects for Afghanistan. - Conduct effective clandestine HUMINT out of the city bases against international jihadi elements. - Turn the tribes against the jihadi elements. - Continue to hunt and kill/capture dangerous jihadis, How long might you have to follow this program? It might be a long time but that would be sustainable. A full-blown COIN campaign in Afghanistan is not politically sustainable. W. Patrick Lang"

Sounds like in between the "Soviet" and the "CT" approach to me.

Beefing Up COIN-lite in Afghanistan and Pakistan via worldpoliticsreview.com

Beefing Up COIN-lite in Afghanistan and Pakistan: "Counterinsurgency essentially boils down to armed nation-building, while counterterrorism seeks the
tactical annihilation of the enemy. President Barack Obama's new
strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan is an effort to do both, promising to
dismantle and disrupt al-Qaida while leaving the job of definitively defeating it to Islamabad and Kabul.
Call it COIN-lite. Can such an approach work?

Bin Laden 'key to defeating al-Qaida' via guardian.co.uk

Bin Laden 'key to defeating al-Qaida': "

Stanley McChrystal, US army commander in Afghanistan, tells Congress terror group's leader is 'iconic figure'

Capturing or killing Osama bin Laden is key to defeating al-Qaida, the US army commander in Afghanistan said yesterday.

Testifying before the US Congress, General Stanley McChrystal said Bin Laden was an 'iconic figure' whose survival emboldened al-Qaida as a franchising organisation across the world.

'It would not defeat al-Qaida to have him captured or killed, but I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaida until he is captured or killed,' he said.

However, the military commander warned that he could not promise his new military strategy would lead to Bin Laden's capture because, when the al-Qaida leader moved out of Afghanistan, trying to track him down was 'outside my mandate'.

McChrystal and his diplomatic counterpart, the US ambassador Karl Eikenberry, presented a united front to Congress after a highly publicised rift over the value of sending 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan to combat the Taliban.

The two sat uneasily side by side to give hours of testimony to the armed services committee, providing more detail about how the US planned to stabilise Afghanistan and begin to bring the first troops home in July 2011.

McChrystal acknowledged that the mission would to be difficult, saying: 'Results may come more quickly, but the sober fact is that there are no silver bullets.

'Ultimate success will be the cumulative effect of sustained pressure.'

The Taliban would avoid mass attacks, knowing their vulnerability to US firepower, he said.

Instead, he predicted insurgents would use suicide attacks, hidden roadside bombs, and coercion of the local population where there were no security forces at night.

Eikenberry expressed full support for McChrystal and the extra troops, saying: 'I am unequivocally in support of this mission ... I am exactly aligned with Gen McChrystal in moving forward now to vigorously implement the assigned mission.'

His statement appeared to be a reversal of scepticism expressed when McChrystal – appointed by Barack Obama to command all US and allied forces in Afghanistan – asked for extra troops in September.

Eikenberry, a retired general appointed as ambassador by Obama, opposed the deployment as worthless unless the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, first tackled corruption, according to two leaked memos.

The divide had underlined the dilemma facing Obama as he struggled to come up with a strategy for Afghanistan: whether it was worth sending more US troops to prop up a corrupt government.

At the start of his evidence, Eikenberry sought to stress that previous disagreements with McChrystal were behind him.

'I am honoured to testify alongside Gen Stan McChrystal, my professional colleague and friend of many years,' he said.

Questioned by members of Congress about their earlier differences, he denied he had been opposed to reinforcements.

'It was a question of the number of troops ... the timelines ... the context that those troops would operate in,' he explained.

The White House debate over the future of Afghanistan was prompted by McChrystal's September assessment of the situation. The general revealed he was set to provide a further assessment this month.

He described the next 18 months as the most critical in the conflict, and said the mission was 'achievable'.

Admitting that history was full of failed counter-insurgency strategies, he said what made Afghanistan different was that the Taliban had been in power, was not seen as credible then and was not viewed now as a national liberation movement.

Another plus, he said, was that the US was not viewed by the population in the way the Soviets had been.

'Afghans do not regard us as occupiers,' he told Congress, but listed serious problems including the Afghan government's corruption, its 'credibility deficit' and the need for Pakistan to tackle extremists operating from its side of the border.

McChrystal revealed that the July 2011 date to start withdrawal had not come from him. He said he was concerned the Taliban would seize on the date 'inappropriately' to suggest the US was preparing to desert the Afghans, but said he could deal with that.

Rules Of Engagement Are A Dilemma For U.S. Troops via bignewsnetwork.com

Rules Of Engagement Are A Dilemma For U.S. Troops: "December 11, 2009 As part of the new American counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, soldiers and Marines must work first to protect the Afghan population. Given the choice between killing the ene..."

Afghanistan: The Results of the Strategic Review, Part I and II via afghanconflictmonitor.org/

Afghanistan: The Results of the Strategic Review, Part I and II: "

Afghanistan: The Results of the Strategic Review, Part I and II, United States House of Representatives - House Armed Services Committee, 3 and 8 December 2009

EXCERPT: "'Today, the House Armed Services Committee meets to receive testimony on Afghanistan: Results of the Strategic Review. Our witnesses today are: the Honorable Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense; Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Honorable Jacob Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. Welcome, all of you, and thank you for joining us. Let me begin by commending the President for his decision to commit an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to carry out a strategy for success in Afghanistan. In a lengthy letter and in private conversations, I urged the President to listen to our military leaders, and he did. So I am pleased that the President agreed to provide General McChrystal with the time and resources needed to get Afghanistan right. Al Qa'ida was, and continues to present, a serious threat to the United States. Their most egregious attack was September 11th, but it was hardly the only one. While the threat posed by al Qa'ida has been lessened by our actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has hardly dissipated. In the long term, I do not believe that we can disrupt and defeat al Qa'ida if we cannot deny them the use of Afghanistan as a safe haven.'"Read the full opening statement by Chairman Ike Skelton.

Read the statement of the Honorable Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense [pdf].

Read the statement of Admiral Michael G. Mullen, USN, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff [pdf].

Read the statement of the Honorable Jacob J. Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, US Department of State [pdf].

Read the statement of General Stanley McChrystal, USA, Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) andCommander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) [pdf].

Read the statement of Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan