Kilcullen recommendations on how aid should be given to Pakistan

David Kilcullen, an Australian and a key adviser to US Army General David Petraeus, who served in Iraq as one of the counter-insurgency warrior/theorists involved in designing Gen Petraeus successful 'surge of troops into the streets of Baghdad, while testifying to the House Armed Services Committee on April 23 hearing on HR 1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement (PEACE) Act 2009 said:
I could go on at even more length; suffice to say that there is overwhelming evidence of:
- a Pakistani civilian government that does not control its own national security establishment,
- security services that have been complicit in allowing the takeover of parts of the country by militants,
- direct or indirect sponsorship of international terrorism by elements of the Pakistani national security establishment,
- ongoing support by the same national security establishment for insurgents who are killing Americans in Afghanistan, and
- a militant movement that is growing in reach and intensity week by week.
This has occurred during the same time period when we have given the Pakistani military $10 billion dollars for what this bill describes as invaluable assistance and partnership against extremism and terrorism. I would respectfully submit that members of Congress ought to feel entitled to ask why, given this performance, we propose to now increase assistance to the same people, and what new measures we propose to ensure that the new bill wont simply throw good money after bad.
Im extremely heartened by the emphasis on benchmarks, accountability and conditionality in section 206 of this bill, but I wonder whether even this will be enough without a wholesale political change of heart in Pakistan. Given how long-standing and ingrained the support for militants has become within some elements of the Pakistani national security establishment, and how weak the civilian government is, members of Congress may decide that what is required here is fundamental, root-and-branch reform of the Pakistani military, and bringing it firmly under the authority of civilian elected officials, before we are likely to see any substantive improvement in the situation.
General Comments on the bill
Section 2 of the bill defines counterinsurgency, but there are many different approaches to counterinsurgency, some of which work and some of which do not. Members of Congress might decide to go further in specifying what types of counterinsurgency activity we seek to see in Pakistan - rather than the heavy-handed violent tactics that have alienated the people and lost ground, we need to see the evidence-based best practices that we have seen in successful counterinsurgency campaigns elsewhere.
There is a certain amount of wishful thinking in the bill - Pakistans behavior does not match the bills description of Pakistan in Section 3 as a weak but willing partner who needs assistance. Pakistan is weak, but large parts of the Pakistani security establishment are also unwilling to accept our help, to do more against the Taliban and other militants, or are even actively supporting the enemy or complicit in allowing extremist takeover. The attitude of the Pakistani military establishment, and the whole tenor of civil-military relations in Pakistan, needs to change, otherwise additional assistance will ultimately help the enemy.
In my personal view, the bill gives insufficient attention, and insufficient funding, to reforming and building up the Pakistani police, including the Frontier Constabulary and the regular police. The police are a critically important element in any counterinsurgency, and I am not aware of any successful campaign in which police reform, police capability-building, police intelligence and the use of police to protect the population and uphold law and order, were not key components. Pakistan needs a much larger, much better equipped, better trained, better supported and better paid police force. The fact that it doesnt have one is partly because the police are a major institutional rival to the army, and we have funneled the vast majority of our aid to, and through, the military. From a policy standpoint, increasing police reform and assistance efforts would thus serve four purposes at the same time - it would protect the Pakistani people, improve counterinsurgency performance, enhance the rule of law and weaken the stranglehold of the army over the civilian leadership of Pakistan.
The Pakistani police need better training in counterinsurgency, better communications, better protected mobility, better weapons and equipment, personal protective equipment, better intelligence and Special Branch capabilities, better accommodation and defensible living quarters to protect their families, a capability for constabulary (or paramilitary) policing, a capability for police Special Operations and counterterrorism, better training in investigative and community policing techniques, and access to better support from the legal and judicial system, which the bill rightly identifies as a key area for assistance.
We should also note that unlike the army and ISI, the police force is the only element of the Pakistani security forces which, as an institution, has a greater stake in upholding law and order, preventing state collapse and combating extremism, than in preparing to fight India. The police also lack the institutional tradition of cooperating with extremists that exists in the army and intelligence service.
Furthermore, unlike military capabilities which can easily be diverted into other purposes or turned against other regional countries or forces, police capabilities are harder to misuse and less threatening to outside players including the United States.
My professional judgment is that our assistance to Pakistan needs to include a very substantial increase in the amount of attention and funding given to the police, and to police reform. Of course, Police without functioning local civil authorities, district officers, political agents, courts, prisons, attorneys, judges, legal codes and all the other components of a functioning administrative and judicial system are likely to be ineffective, so this needs to be included also as part of a comprehensive approach.
Section 4 of the bill mentions the need to prevent any territory of Pakistan from being used as a base or conduit for terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. I would respectfully submit that we are way past the prevention stage. Dealing with safe haven was the problem in 2003. Since the Army moved into the FATA in strength in 2004 we have seen a spreading and increasing militant movement that now threatens most of Pakistan. Rather than prevention, in 2009 (and probably 2010 also) Pakistan needs to focus on rollback - preserving and protecting those parts of Pakistan that are still reasonably secure, restoring Pakistani government control and security in these areas, focusing on protecting people rather than fighting the Taliban, and then beginning to roll back the insurgency in subsequent years.
Benchmarks
None of this will happen without a change of heart in the Pakistani military and intelligence services that currently support the enemy, or without a substantial increase in Pakistani civilian political control over their own national security establishment. For this reason, I find the bills focus on benchmarks, accountability, conditionality and assessment very encouraging. I especially support the requirement to channel all funding to the Pakistani military through civilian authorities. In particular, unless or until the Pakistani military demonstrates that it is no longer supporting or acting in complicity with militants, Congress might consider it appropriate to allocate the bulk of that funding to the Pakistani police.
Congress may wish to consider the additional of further benchmarks, currently not included, which might include:
n a requirement for Pakistan to improve its performance in protecting NATO/US lines of communication and supply routes that pass through its territory,
n a requirement for Pakistan to demonstrate increased obedience by its military and intelligence services to direction given by the civilian government,
n an improvement in police capability,
n a drop in incidents of assassination and intimidation of community leaders and civilian officials,
n a drop in civilian non-combatant casualties inflicted by the military on the civilian population of Pakistan, thereby demonstrating a commitment to humane treatment and protection of the population.
Bottom Line
The United States Government has spent $10 billion dollars supporting Pakistan since 9/11, and in that time we have seen a dramatically worsening situation across the whole country. More of the same will not help, and indeed may make the situation worse. I fully support the benchmarks in the bill and would like to see an even greater emphasis on rule of law, policing and civilian administration, with even greater conditionality and stringency placed on continued assistance to the Pakistani military, unless and until it demonstrates a genuine commitment to cease supporting the enemy and begin following the direction of its own elected civilian government.
Rather than continuing to pretend that Pakistan is a weak but willing ally against extremism, we need to recognize that while some elements in Pakistan - some elected civilian political leaders, the majority of the Pakistani people, many tribal and community leaders and some appointed administrative officials - are genuinely committed to the fight against extremism, substantial parts of the Pakistani security establishment are complicit with the enemy, whether through incompetence, intimidation or ill intent. Our approach in assisting Pakistan should be to strengthen our friends and limit the power of our enemies, while helping Pakistan stabilize itself and govern its people responsibly and humanely. Increasing assistance to the police - making the police, in effect, the premier counterinsurgency force - while channeling all military support through civilian authorities and ensuring greater accountability and conditionality on military assistance, is the correct approach. We are way past prevention in 2009, and need to focus on stopping the rot and stabilizing the situation in 2009-2010, then rolling back extremism and militancy thereafter.
- Spearheadresearch.org
(Concludes)