Punitive Strikes v. Invasion

So the debate now is swirling over whether or not the U.S. is at war with Pakistan. Of course it isn’t—if it were, the governments would probably be relating to each other differently. Contra the Instapundit, who doesn’t seem to care much for the history of the places he quick-blogs about, these attacks are—again—nothing new, though they still are most likely a bad idea. This relates back to the region’s history—both recent, and not so recent.

As I wrote some months ago, explaining why the Pakistan-Taliban cease-fire wouldn’t matter, it is very important to distinguish between foreign militants and local ones. Foreign groups, like al Qaeda or the IMU, are fighting primarily for an Islamist ideology; while local groups, including both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban (which are themselves separate and disjointed groups), also proclaim an Islamist ideology, their actions and even intents and goals are strictly local. That is, the Afghan Taliban groups are focused on regaining Afghanistan for Muslims, while the Pakistani Taliban groups still tend to agitate for either a Pakistani Kashmir or a further Islamized Pakistani government.

Into that toxic and confusing soup of groups, whose interests are aligned only so far as we allow them to be, is thrown an additional complication: not all of the groups are militants. Some are criminal. As Foreign Policy‘s Joshua Keating somewhat hilariously failed to note several months ago, often times locals in the tribal areas reach out to the local militant groups for defense against the criminal gangs that operate in these areas—smugglers, drug runners, timber lords, shipping magnates.

Seeing this, I really don’t understand how the U.S. can be expected to craft an appropriately subtle policy for the area—even if CJCS Mike Mullen is at the helm (I have tremendous respect for Adm. Mullen). For one, despite the Instapundit’s prognositcations, there is the messy problem of sovereignty—like it or not, whether you agree with how it’s being handled or not, that is sovereign Pakistani territory.

Pretending the Pakistani government has done nothing about the tribal areas is daft: at American insistence, they have lost nearly 1,000 troops trying to quell the uprising there since 2004—about double what NATO and Coalition nations have lost in Afghanistan since 2001. Though only now, since removing the odious Pervez Musharraf, has the government been trying negotiations not with the militant leaders but the few tribal leaders left alive who are willing to take a stand, these have not been given a chance to succeed. It takes time—during the war against the Faqir of Ipi from 1936-1947, the British had miserable luck even getting the local maliks to tamp down on anti-British violence, though on occasion it worked. But the Faqir was only undermined after Partition, when agitating for a Muslim State became unnecessary.

Under British rule, however, a routine set of behaviors governed relations with the tribal areas: a Pashtun would commit some crime, such as rape, abduction, or murder, and after the establishment of guilt with the local tribal elders the British would fine or imprison some number of the offender’s tribe. While such collective punishment—still the law in the FATA—constitutes a crime against humanity (or, if committed by the U.S., an actual War Crime), it is the established method of relations with the tribes. This is important because not all cultures view history progressively, and we have not been willing to allow the Pakistani government to re-assert the historical cycle in this area.

Thus, while it is worrying that the U.S. is conducting ground strikes into Pakistan, and it is further worrying that it seems to be trying to bomb the tribal areas as rapidly as possible before the civilian government asserts control over divisive elements within the country’s ranks, everyone needs to take a deep breath and calm down. This is not a new problem—there is no reason to re-invent the wheel or hyperventilate while pretending it is.