Daily Times

According to a Rand Study on “Long War” the concept of a “Long War” is akin to an asymmetric war against non- state actors resorting to insurgencies and terrorism to challenge the Western dominance of the world in the fields of politics, economy, and military prowess. The Long War is a consequence of a post nuclear era where the conventional warfare has been rendered unwinnable due to nuclear deterrence and an international weltanschauung of non-violability of national frontiers. It is a war initiated   by the weak against the strong through means that render the kinetic hard power of the stronger protagonist in the conflict equation irrelevant. The strength of the stronger powers is rendered irrelevant through stratagems and tactics that attack the stronger foe’s soft underbelly while cleverly avoiding its sharp cutting edges. North Vietnamese win against USA and Afghan Mujahideen’s triumph over the Soviet military juggernaut in Afghanistan are few examples of the asymmetric conflicts that morph into Long Wars.

A Long War is a war in which the weaker win by not losing irrespective of getting battered and bruised by a superior adversary. It is a classic case of an asymmetrical war where more than the asymmetry of the tactics and resources the asymmetry of the will matters the most. A weaker yet more determined and ideologically better motivated foe could pip the strongest army to the post by having a better appetite for human and material losses than the stronger foe. The faint echoes of the retreat being sounded by the policy making echelons of USA vis-à-vis the jingoistic stridency of the renewed Afghan Taliban military offensive give a clear signal for a US end game in Afghanistan. With over trillion dollars spent and 2372 military deaths the US seems to have reached the end of the tether regarding any more political or military objectives in the famed graveyard of the empires. What was left anyway for US forces in Afghanistan to achieve after killing Osama bin Laden and breaking the back of Al Qaeda militancy? A political reengineering and the elusive quest for nation building perhaps goaded the US war planners on in pursuit of some equally nebulous objectives of containing China and Russia while keeping an eye on Iran and Pakistan.

The seeds of the unwinnable US Long War in Afghanistan were sown by the above strategic objectives whose ambiguity was matched by the US strategic and tactical ambivalence.  A climb up-climb down and surge up, surge down policy in the face of the slowly rising crescendo of critical voices back home compelled the US strategic planners to revisit their managed chaos strategy. President Trump despite all his maverick shadow boxing, understood better than anyone else in the permanent Washington establishment the public mood that was getting riled up on the war expenditures and human casualties. The permanent establishment that included the “Military Industrial Complex” never had it so good under Afghan War since the failed Vietnamese adventure. There were promotions galore, profits in abundance out of arms and war logistics’ contracts and an ego satisfaction of a big power presence in the backdoor of an adversary, the US Grand Strategy had the pretensions to contain. Never mind if this led to a Long War of attrition against an elusive foe using asymmetric tactics with great dexterity. All of this however withered on the vine of a maverick President’s public instinct of putting an end to this waste.

With over 50,000 Pakistanis killed and economic losses worth $120 billion due to the War on Terror, the nation needs a long deserved reprieve. Pakistan must grasp the opportunity offered by the US President’s troops’ withdrawal decision and help facilitate a smooth transition to the peace and order in Afghanistan

For the first time in his short Presidential stint President Trump has got it right. The US policy of a managed chaos in Afghanistan aided through regional surrogates like India was a sure recipe of instability at regional as well as global level. The end of the US Long War in Afghanistan will help Pakistan end its Long War in her restive Tribal belt along Pak-Afghan border forcing India as well to scale down its destabilizing presence in Afghanistan. Two things stand in the way of the Pakistani quest to end their own Long War. The first is the internal ambivalence to go tough on the extremism because of a propensity to view some of the militants as assets. This factor is amenable to an endogenous solution though, as a national consensus can be forged against religious extremism due to a long public fatigue vis-à-vis bloodletting in the name of religion. There is the second factor though that is more pernicious due to its exogenous nature. That is the insidious presence of those elements on the US mainland that still find some use for the US military muscle in Afghanistan.

The above elements present in the US permanent establishment and amongst the Pakistani diaspora in their co-sanguinary quest for prolonging the US military involvement in Afghanistan are tilting at the proverbial windmills to derail the closure of the US Afghan project. A two day conference was arranged by Hussain Haqqani and Muhammad Taqi in US which culminated on 16 Dec 18. The conference was the third to be organized by a palpably anti-Pak forum “South Asians against Terrorism and for Human Rights (SAATH)”. The title of the event was “Pak after the Elections”. The event was also attended and addressed by the US Congressman Bard Sherman, who is well known for his anti-Pak rhetoric and also by journalists, bloggers and social media activists who keep writing negatively about Pakistan. The meeting was attended by Pakistani dissidents and academics well known for projecting negative views about Pakistani state. The themes like trampling of Baloch and Pashtun rights and “Press in Chains” were mooted either at the instance of the elements in the US permanent establishment opposed to Trump’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan or in pique against the present Pakistani dispensation’s anti-corruption campaign.

Motivations apart, the endeavour of both elements i.e the permanent US establishment and the Pakistani dissidents in US to derail President Trump’s Afghan scale-back reeks of a sinister conspiracy against the regional peace in South Asia. Such elements pose an existential threat to a window of opportunity for Afghan peace and end of the Long War for US as well as Pakistan. On Pakistan’s part there is a need to fully grasp this opportunity to facilitate US-Taliban dialogue and a concomitant smooth US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The forces arrayed against Pakistan’s sincere quest for an end to its Long War against TTP remnants include some elements in the permanent US military establishment, Pakistani dissidents in USA, India, and the present Afghan Government which is well aware of its vulnerabilities after lifting of US umbrella. President Trump has done well to start the process of removal of that security umbrella as it makes no eminent sense shoring up a regime that is neither popular nor effective. Why should US spend its money and blood on propping up a regime that has failed to deliver on all promises despite huge dollops of aid by the USA and the world community?

Pakistan has also paid heavily for this Long War fought side by side with the USA and it is time she ended it her own way in pursuit of her own strategic objectives. The weariness of the war in the nation is evident. With over 50,000 Pakistanis killed and $120 billion loss to economy due to war on terror since 2001, the nation needs a long deserved reprieve. Pakistan must grasp the opportunity offered by the US President’s troops’ withdrawal decision and help facilitate a smooth transition to the peace and order in Afghanistan.

The writer is a PhD scholar at NUST; rwjanj@hotmail.com

Published in Daily Times, December 24^th 2018.