Questions are now being increasingly raised in the US over Washington’s policy of training and equipping foreign militaries ostensibly to stabilize ‘fragile’ states.
Since the end of World War II, U.S. has used this ‘time-honored’ foreign policy tool for promoting America’s global hegemonic ambitions.
According to Mara Karlin (Why Military Assistance Programs Disappoint—Foreign Affairs Nov/Dec 2017) today, Washington is working with the militaries of more than 100 countries and running large programs to train and equip armed forces in such hot spots as Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, and Pakistan.
Mara Karlin is an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She is the author of Building Militaries in Fragile States: Challenges for the United States from which this essay has been adapted.
She says that the logic behind this approach was simple: Fragile states jeopardize U.S. interests, but large-scale interventions are costly and unpopular. By outsourcing regional security in places where U.S. interests are not immediately threatened, Washington can promote stability without shouldering most of the burden itself. And heading off threats before they metastasize means that the United States can keep its eye on more sophisticated rivals such as China and Russia.
But history shows that building militaries in weak states is not the panacea the U.S. national security community imagines it to be. For decades, the United States has poured countless billions into foreign security forces—to the tune of nearly $20 billion per year these days but “the returns have been paltry.”
While the military and financial investment that the US has so far made in Pakistan has turned out to be highly profitable for Washington the losses incurred by Pakistan in the process in terms of its geographical integrity and its strategic goals have been immense
“The biggest problem with Washington’s efforts to build foreign militaries is its reluctance to weigh in on higher-order questions of mission, organizational structure, and personnel—issues that profoundly affect a military’s capacity but are often considered too sensitive to touch. Instead, the US tended to focus exclusively on training and equipment, thus undercutting the effectiveness of U.S. assistance.”
It would be interesting to do a quick capsule study of the US- Pakistan military relations and its impact on the recipient country in the backdrop of Mara Karlin’s observations.
Pakistan’s ostensible purpose of entering into military assistance arrangement with the US was to neutralize the hegemonic ambitions of its bigger neighbour, India while the US had wanted Pakistan military to serve as a bulwark against the creeping advances of Soviet communism in the region.
But at the end of the day while the US could successfully use the Pakistani Army against the occupying Soviet troops in Afghanistan and bring to a final close the 45-year long cold war, the Pakistan Army not only could not stop India from militarily cutting off Pakistan’s eastern half in 1971, it had also failed to end India’s military occupation of a part of Kashmir which has been struggling to liberate itself from Indian yolk now for almost 70 years.
So, while the military and financial investment that the US has so far made in Pakistan has turned out to be highly profitable for Washington the losses incurred by Pakistan in the process in terms of its geographical integrity and its strategic goals have been immense.
While the role of Washington’s self- serving policies cannot be minimized in this outcome favouring the donor, we should also not ignore the contribution of the recipient in getting sucked into the ensuing debacles.
The biggest of these blunders was the overambitious plan to militarily capture the Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) in 1965 which resulted in a stalemate while at the same time exposing the vulnerabilities of our eastern borders.
The next blunder which was bigger than the first one was to try to subjugate militarily the political struggle of our Eastern wing for autonomy which the physical distance between the country’s two wings had dictated.
The third blunder was fighting the US war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. General Ziul Haq entered this war believing that it would continue indefinitely as he thought, without perhaps even bothering to look beyond what was apparent, being super powers none of the two would be throwing in the towel in a hurry and the flood of aid dollars and defence equipment would continue to flow into Pakistan’s coffers indefinitely.
He had no plan ‘B’ to cope with the aftermath in case any one of the two combatants was defeated. So when the Soviet Union lost and the US walked away from the region Zia had no idea how to tackle the mess that confronted Pakistan in the ensuing after- shocks. And this bloody mess has continued to stalk Pakistan to date.
And the final blunder was General Musharraf’s decision to follow into the foot-steps of Zia and agree to fight once again somebody else’s war in Afghanistan. But unlike Zia he had a plan ‘B’ to cope with the anticipated results of this war. But it was based on a wrong surmise.
Musharraf thought like in the past this time as well the US would walk away after achieving its objectives and Pakistan would once again be left to pick up the broken pieces. So in anticipation of the American troops leaving the region after completing their mission, Musharraf allowed the fleeing Taliban to use Pakistan’s territory as a sanctuary.
Seeking what is called strategic depth in Afghanistan Musharraf had planned to set up a puppet Taliban regime in Kabul after the withdrawal of foreign troops.
Musharraf’s plan went completely off the mark because in his plan he had not factored in the point that in the first Afghan war the US had used only the CIA therefore walking away was no problem for Washington at the end of first Afghan war while this time the US was in the war zone with its boots on the ground and that since World War II wherever it had gone with its boots the US has stayed there permanently except the Vietnam theatre where it was forced to flee. This blunder of Musharraf has led us into another bloody war with the US and Afghanistan ganging up against Islamabad and India seemingly joining in to encircle Pakistan.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014
Published in Daily Times, November 4th 2017.