Opinion Containing the Pakistan Army

Riedel says Obama was right to adopt engagement then,but now must move towards a containment of the Pak army.

October 16, 2011 12:55 PM IST First published on: Oct 16, 2011 at 12:55 PM IST

The C word has finally appeared in the American discourse on Pakistan. In article in the New York Times on October 14,a leading US expert on the region,Bruce Riedel has called on the Obama Administration to adopt a strategy of containment against the Pakistan army.

Containment is the strategy the United States had adopted towards the Soviet Union after the Second World War. It called for sustained external pressure on Soviet Russia in order to produce internal regime change.

Containment was seen as the middle path between confronting the Soviet Union and accommodating it in the international system. Historians of American foreign policy see it as largely a success despite the many excesses that it produced.

If adopted towards the Pakistan army,a strategy of containment would be a significant departure from the habitual temptation to simply buy Rawalpindi’s affections.

The latest proposal for containing the Pakistan army has not come from an academic ivory tower. Bruce Riedel is a former CIA officer who worked for several American presidents and shaped Washington’s policies towards South Asia and the Middle East.

At the beginning of President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House in early 2009,Riedel led the review of the Af-Pak situation and helped define a new policy. Riedel now says that approach is not working.

Riedel says Obama was right to adopt engagement then,but now must move towards a containment of the Pak army. Central to the rethinking is Riedel’s recognition that the strategic interests of the United States and Pakistan in Afghanistan are “in conflict,not harmony and will remain that way as long as Pakistan’s army controls Pakistan’s strategic policies”.

Acknowledging that containment would involve hostility towards Pakistan,Riedel calls for ‘focused hostility’,which targets specific officials of the army and the ISI with sanctions rather than the population as a whole.

He calls for trade concessions and a special outreach to women in order to empower entrepreneurs and women,two groups he believes ‘are outside the army’s control and who are interested in peace’.

Among his other proposals are deep cuts in military aid and a ‘strategic dialogue’ with India on Pakistan,which he bets would concentrate minds in Rawalpindi.

Instead of relying on the ISI to stabilise Afghanistan,Riedel calls for stronger support to the Afghan security forces and extended Western support to Kabul even as the U.S. reduces military presence there.

Riedel concludes that containing the ‘aggressive instincts’ of the Pakistan army is the key to the emergence of a ‘progressive Pakistan’ and success in the global war against terror.

These sensible proposals coming from an influential voice in Washington do not mean they will be translated into policy anytime soon. What they do suggest that the American debate on Pakistan is evolving rapidly. Delhi must stay tuned.