Global Security: Afghanistan and Pakistan - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 146-159)

SAJJAN GOHEL, DR STUART GORDON AND DANIEL KORSKI

21 APRIL 2009

  Q146 Chairman: We are now going to have our second evidence session on Afghanistan and Pakistan this afternoon. Will the three witnesses introduce themselves for the record?

  Daniel Korski: I am Daniel Korski. I work for a think-tank, European Council on Foreign Relations, and I used to be a British civil servant working in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

  Chairman: And you were once an advisor to the Defence Committee, I understand.

  Sajjan Gohel: My name is Sajjan Gohel. I am with the Asia-Pacific Foundation, which is an independent think-tank that looks at issues of security and geopolitics. I have been looking at the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and particularly at the ideological dimensions and their growth.

  Dr. Gordon: I am Stuart Gordon from the Royal Military Academy and I have worked with the UK stabilisation unit as one of the co-authors of the Helmand road map.

  Q147  Chairman: Thank you very much. I shall begin almost where we left off in our previous session. What difference do you think that the American strategy, particularly the additional combat troops and the mentors pledged by President Obama, as well as the additional NATO support, will make in the current situation in Afghanistan?

  Daniel Korski: I take a slightly different view than some of the previous speakers in the sense that Obama's AfPak strategy is everything to every man. Those who want to read into it that it is a great nation-building exercise that is finally coming around to accepting that the rule of law is important can find solace for those views. Those who want to look for the exit strategy and the zeroing in on counter-terrorism can find solace for their views. In many ways, the importance of that strategy is not that it is saying anything that has not been said, but that it has allowed the US Administration to re-engage allies and the Afghan authorities on the strategy. The really important bit will be the surge of 21,000 troops—the 17,000 plus the 4,000 mentors—and the fact that the United States seems to want to change the strategic context in the south at least. That means not just being the biggest player in the south and the east, but possibly being during the next two years almost the only player. That is a very profound, strategic difference in the way that it has been proceeding until now.

  Sajjan Gohel: One of the most important dimensions is that hundreds of agricultural specialists, teachers, engineers and lawyers will be brought in to help provide and improve the civilian and civil infrastructure that has been lacking for the past eight years. Those are important dimensions because we have to win hearts and minds at grass roots level, be able to educate individuals and give them the ability to enhance their own quality of life. The operation on the military segment is also very important. Come the summer, there will be some 60,000 US troops in Afghanistan. If we combine that with the British forces and those of the other European nations and Canada that are contributing, we are looking at more than 100,000, which ominously will echo the similar figure that the Soviets had before they decided to leave Afghanistan. Having troops there is important, but they also have to be engaging with the Taliban. I do not mean negotiating, but directly confronting them. Unfortunately, some of our European partners have not shown the willingness to send troops into difficult positions. Not enough has been done in that regard. It is all very well having them up in the north where it is safe, but they are not actually doing anything of substance. British troops, along with the Canadians, the Dutch and the Americans are actively engaging the Taliban. They should be applauded for what they have been doing, but they need more support. The US under the Barack Obama strategy has started it, but a lot more needs to be done.

  Dr. Gordon: The key reform measure will be the use of the mentors in expanding the Afghan national army and probably the Afghan national police as well, with their numbers going up potentially to 134,000 ANA and 82,000 police. There is a danger that the surge will be seen as a US surge and the key is to build some form of social contract or political settlement between Afghans and their Government. Putting an Afghan face on security is essential and also reforming the Afghan Government sufficiently so that they can deliver tangible results on the ground to cement a political settlement is also key. I have seen different figures about the number of American civilians who will be deployed—from 400 to 2,000—but the key is to pick priority ministries to allow them to engage and cement outreach by district and provincial governors through a form of public service arrangement. The many Afghans whom I have spoken to would be very keen to see that. It would be a change in their experience of government. I have heard Afghans talking in terms of the Afghan police really being representative of the Government, and that that face is nasty, sneering and contemptuous. So reforming the Afghanisation of the security effort and also underpinning it with public service delivery is key.

  Q148  Chairman: How does that aspiration, which is very noble, fit with the Afghan public protection force under the Ministry of Interior, which we heard about in the last session? Will there not be a contradiction between the aspiration to have the security sector reform be more effective, responsive and accountable policing on the one hand, and the interior ministry with the difficulties to which we have referred?

  Daniel Korski: I think that we all recognise that we probably were far too ambitious considering what we could achieve with the police forces, and that the division of responsibilities that you talked about in your previous session—handing over the building up of the Afghan national police to the Germans and the judicial sector to the Italians—probably did not work. I would not hone in exclusively on the question of the militias and say, "Is this really the way that we are going to go in the future?" I think that over the past two years we have seen more conceptual convergence in Kabul on what we should be doing on policing. The US programme called "focused district development", in which, district-by-district, they take the police officers out, send them for training for a couple of weeks and deploy a specialised force—a more gendarmerie-style force—called ANCOP, has proven reasonably successful in many areas that it operates in. Sure, there are problems; there are not enough ANCOP special troops to go in and, when the old police officers come back, people say, "Give us the special troops who were here before." There are positive things going on in the policing sector. It may not be that wonderfully expansive vision of a democratically accountable and responsive security sector that we originally had, but it is not yet handing over guns to a series of militias unconnected to the security sector reform process.

  Q149  Chairman: NATO countries have agreed to send 5,000 extra troops, but only until August. Is there any long-term commitment or agreement among the NATO partners of the US or, having rejected the proposals and the pressing from the US for a bigger commitment, have we had a kind of face-saving formula? Most countries are reluctant and therefore ISAF does not have a credible future, is that a fair assessment?

  Daniel Korski: I think that it is fair to say that for diplomatic reasons a lot of European nations were willing to offer President Obama something in the run up to the elections. When I was in Kabul two weeks ago, a senior NATO general said that he thought that out of the 42 member states fighting in ISAF—in other words, more than NATO—only 10 could effectively be used for anything approaching counter-insurgency operations, but the truth probably is that it is five or so. Without a doubt, we are not going to get more forces, certainly not of the magnitude required, and they are not going to be operating, as Mr. Gohel said, in the south and the east. The real question is whether the Americans want that these days anyway. The sense that I get is that they have probably stopped asking for things that they do not think they are going to get and have switched to asking European allies to provide more on the policing and economic reconstruction side. I think that it is probably reasonable to say that we are not going to get a lot more out of European allies, by which I mean a strategically significant lift in capability, and that the US has to supply the main fighting force over the next couple of years.

  Sajjan Gohel: It is basically a stop-gap measure and is going to be until the presidential elections. As has already been stated, they are not going to be doing anything in terms of fighting the Taliban, which is going to be the problem. I think that the US has accepted that other European nations are not necessarily willing to put their troops on to the frontline because they have seen how difficult it has been for everybody else. I have to make this point very clear: whatever the rights and wrongs were about Iraq, everybody was in agreement on Afghanistan after 11 September. There was unity and a coalition. It is disappointing that not everybody is willing to co-operate enough in providing troops. As I think was talked about in the previous session, this is an election issue in Holland and Canada. It has the potential to bring down Governments. If they withdrew their troops at some point, it would put a further burden on us in the UK and on the United States. Those countries that are not going to put their troops on the frontline can contribute to security sector reform, but it is not simply about reform, it is about transformation and trying to create something in Afghanistan that has not existed, such as an Afghan national army. The last time that we had something like that was when President Najibullah was there and, even then, the regime was propped up in part by the Soviets. There is also the reform of the police, which has been extremely corrupt in the past, and the ethnic imbalance. If European countries are not going to contribute troops on the ground fighting the Taliban, they need to do more to provide direct training and assistance on those issues where they can play a more meaningful role. It is a pity that they do not want to contribute in terms of tackling the Taliban.

  Dr. Gordon: The interesting thing here is what you want the troops for. If you simply want more troops to hold ground and engage in garrison duties, that is a mistake. The trick has to be the right type of security, which immediately brings the debate around to the Afghan National Police and back to the Public Protection Force. My concern with the other kind of model is that there are experiences of it working reasonably well, where as a homogenous tribal grouping there are checks and balances within the community. We would need to look carefully at what the Public Protection Force model had in terms of checks and balances, but the Afghanisation is the only way forward. Expanding the number of Western troops on garrison duties is not necessarily the right line. That said, having enough troops to be able to manoeuvre freely and to use those troops as your manoeuvre element, but having the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police holding territory as the visible face of security for the average Afghan is the key. Simply having numbers of troops, without the right checks and balances, we would have the same problems that we have had with the Afghan National Police, which is that predatory relationship.

  Daniel Korski: I would like to say quickly that we have to think of creative ways in which European troops, who are unwilling to go to the south or east, can be used to train the forces that are ultimately deploying in the south and east. If the Germans are not willing to move south and east, is there some way that they can train kandaks of the Afghan National Army for deployment? Is there some way that we can use their presence where they are? Do they need to focus more on border security in the areas in which they are stationed?

  Dr. Gordon: One of the models that has worked well with the Afghan National Army has been the mentoring—embedding foreign combat troops with the Afghan kandaks. I would be cautious about one organisation doing the training and one organisation doing the fighting. Where the Afghan kandaks, particularly in Helmand, have worked very well is where British and American troops have worked alongside them, in a partnership. That training element is key. The Obama strategy with a full brigade dedicated towards training is a real potential force multiplier.

  Chairman: Presumably if you trained in the caveats as well, you would have an even bigger problem, but perhaps we will not go there.

  Q150  Sir Menzies Campbell: The fundamental difference is that Afghanistan was the first implementation of the article 5 obligation. What we found in NATO is that making it as much a political alliance as a military alliance has not necessarily equipped us for the military purpose. Did you think that it was notable that President Obama in the end did not ask for very much when he came to Europe? Perhaps that was on the grounds that to be rebuffed—as he almost certainly would have been, apart from to the extent that the Chairman described—would have been damaging for him domestically. It would have made it more difficult to persuade American public opinion that America should assume the principal role in the way that all three of you have described.

  Daniel Korski: I think that the Americans asked them for a lot, but on the civilian side. We know of US diplomats handing over lists of things that they would like to see Europeans deliver, but there is no doubt that they did not want to go to the first NATO summit—effectively the first security-related summit that the new President was to attend—and be rebuffed in any way, not just for domestic reasons but also not to get into a fight with allies. Coming back to article 5 and NATO, to a lot of allies this is not an article 5 operation. They see the solidarity expressed in article 5 following 9/11 as something separate. That is the reality that we have to deal with. We see it differently but, for a lot of allies, NATO is not just about Afghanistan, it is about the resurgent threat that they see from Russia, shipping lanes off the horn of Africa and so forth and so on. It is the sort of alliance that we share with a lot of different people. We focus on Afghanistan, I think for the right reasons, but they do not. That is a real challenge.

  Q151  Sir Menzies Campbell: But unless NATO's credibility is maintained or even enhanced as a result of its activities in Afghanistan, if you are sitting in the Baltics, the Russian threat will begin to look rather larger than it does even so far as you think it to be a threat at the moment. The integrity of NATO and its effectiveness is essentially at stake here, is it not?

  Daniel Korski: I do not think that NATO is ever going to go away.

  Sir Menzies Campbell: I agree with you about that.

  Daniel Korski: Because it is too important to us for a whole series of reasons. However, if you are a military alliance and you struggle to conduct military tasks, that is ultimately going to be a problem.

  Sir Menzies Campbell: It simply encourages Russian initiatives from Vancouver to the Urals. It has the effect, if not of destroying NATO, of undermining the perception of it.

  Chairman: Can we move to the regional context?

  Q152  Mr. Horam: One of the aspects of the Obama approach is the renewed emphasis on the regional dimension. Obviously, there is self-interest in all the countries around Afghanistan in not importing the chaos and problems into their countries. How do you see the regional dimension developing?

  Sajjan Gohel: Do you mean in terms of Pakistan and countries like it playing a role?

  Q153  Mr. Horam: Pakistan in the first instance. The question specifically relates to Pakistan, because of Holbrooke's remit and the remit covering Pakistan of Sherard Cowper-Coles, our former ambassador, but you could say that it could go wider. You could argue, for example, as one of our previous interviewees did, that you cannot deal with the Pakistani Army—getting them working the right way—until you deal with Kashmir. So then you have to include India as well. Where do you stop on the regional dimension?

  Sajjan Gohel: Afghanistan's future and its stability are intrinsically tied to that of Pakistan. Unfortunately, because of the increasing radicalism and extremism emanating from Pakistan, Pakistan's own security as a result is at stake. The problem hinges on where does the Pakistan military lie in their agenda. We know that the Taliban were created in part as a strategic asset for the Pakistani military's policy of gaining strategic depth in Afghanistan. Ironically, now they have conceded reverse strategic depth in Pakistan.

  Q154  Mr. Horam: You could say that it is a failed strategy.

  Sajjan Gohel: It has proved to be, unfortunately, a failed strategy and a very worrying strategy, because the Taliban itself has evolved. It is not a homogenous group. You have the Afghan Taliban, of which there are many segments. Then you have the Pakistan Taliban, which, again, is divided into many different groups. All of them have their own leadership, personnel and financing. Some are being supported by elements within Pakistan's own military. The problem—this is the big concern—is whether the Pakistan military sees Afghanistan in the same way that we do. I would say, unfortunately, they don't. It is a question almost of waiting for the west to get fed up with Afghanistan and the mounting casualties, the cost, the endless problems of corruption, and just withdraw. They are looking at the long term. We are looking at what is happening tomorrow, next week, perhaps until the end of the year. They have a much longer term strategy. One of the most interesting things I heard in Afghanistan was that "the west keeps looking at their watch, but the Taliban keeps the time". Sooner or later, many within Pakistan feel that they will be able to reassert the Taliban into Afghanistan, and that of course is a big concern. So it is the Pakistan angle that I would say is the key to what happens in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

  Q155  Mr. Horam: What about the attitudes of the Pakistani Army, which you mentioned? It is more concerned with India and Kashmir, is it not?

  Sajjan Gohel: Recently, the Pakistani military has faced a lot of difficulty in the tribal areas, especially with the Pakistan Taliban. There is a kind of weird paradox: on the one hand, they support elements of the Afghan Taliban but are deeply opposed to the Pakistan Taliban, and the Pakistan Taliban and the Afghan Taliban actually co-operate in terms of sharing resources and weaponry. The military in Pakistan is tied up with trying to fight a very difficult battle with the tribal militants in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, Mohmand province, and as we have seen with the recent Swat valley deal, again, it shows just how difficult it is becoming internally. Kashmir has not blown up as a result of this. I would say actually that the situation is somewhat better than it has been for some time. The insurgency there does not seem to have increased over the past couple of years. It is, obviously, an ongoing concern, especially as Pakistan has become the home of all the different Taliban groups, al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba and its affiliates, but that is not the immediate concern. I think that the instability within Pakistan's provinces is going to be the key issue and something that the military themselves are now having to deal with.

  Dr. Gordon: There is a challenge that we can possibly contribute towards. The difficulty that the Pakistani army has is that it is configured for fighting a conventional foe. It is configured for dealing with what they perceive as an Indian threat. Certainly most Western armies have had some difficulty in transferring their capabilities, organisations and mindsets to fight a counter-insurgency campaign. We have seen huge organisational learning among the Americans in Iraq—

  Q156  Mr. Horam: The Pakistan army have got the same difficulty.

  Dr. Gordon: Yes, exactly. Where a difference can be made is in terms of contributing to a recognition within the Pakistani army that some of their approaches need to be adapted in order to avoid some of the difficulties that I think other armies have faced in fighting insurgencies. The danger for Western policymakers is finding a point at which they can influence the trajectory of Pakistan, and limiting their aspirations. I think there are probably three areas. One was mentioned earlier—the regulation of madrassahs. The second one is looking carefully at the Pakistani military capabilities and seeking to produce a more nuanced counter-insurgency strategy, or helping them to do that. The third issue is really to look at the question of ISI support and what can be done there.

  Q157  Mr. Horam: Do you think bringing in the other surrounding countries, such as China, Russia and Iran, is relevant and important in this context? Or is it really that the focus must be on Pakistan, and everything else is irrelevant or less important?

  Dr. Gordon: I think you have to set a limit somewhere, and certainly defining a strategy towards Pakistan that contributes to the effort in Afghanistan is key. My mind goes back to looking at regional strategies over Iraq, for example—Iran's role and Syria's role. Both of those roles were fundamentally quite limited. How far do you really need to set the net? Certainly in the case of Afghanistan, people talk about Iran's role, China's role, Pakistan's role, India's role, and then the central Asian states' roles as well. The key is to focus on the key relationship, which is Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  Daniel Korski: It is fair to say that I think Richard Holbrooke's mandate includes India, even though it does not say so on the package—on the cover, as it were. But if I could add just one point to the list: I think we have to focus on policing as well.

  Q158  Mr. Horam: Policing in Pakistan?

  Daniel Korski: That is right. I think the Pakistani police force has rarely been given the kind of support that Pakistan's allies have been providing the army for fighting against a conventional enemy. We can look at the amount of money poured into the Pakistani air force, which is not particularly useful for counter-insurgency purposes, and contrast that with the very limited trickle of funding going into the policing sector. There has been some work with the frontier corps, but this is also a big area that I think we need to start thinking about in future if we want to craft a workable Pakistan strategy.

  Dr. Gordon: With the Indians as well—I am going to contradict my earlier point to a degree, but I think the Indians have been quite interesting in the way in which they have engaged in Afghanistan. They have contributed to the building of institutions in Afghanistan in quite a unique way. The last estimates I had were that there were somewhere in the region of 4,000 Indians working in Afghan institutions and ministries, providing perhaps a very different way of going about building institutions in a conflict state. But of course that brings alarm bells with it for Pakistan, so there is a sense in which the more the regional states contribute productively, the more other states perhaps have difficulties with them.

  Q159  Ms Stuart: On the issue of Pakistan, but in particular the American strategy towards Pakistan, to what extent can we talk about a coherent view of the world within Pakistan, if you were to say the ISI, the Government and the military? Do they actually sing off the same hymn sheet?

  Sajjan Gohel: The problem has been that under Pervez Musharraf, he was the military ruler and the chief of army staff. Theoretically you would assume that his job would have been somewhat easier, but in effect what we are seeing today in Pakistan and the knock-on effect in neighbouring Afghanistan is his legacy. He undermined the civilian institutions; he arrested politicians, lawyers, human rights groups. The only thing he did not dismantle was the terrorist infrastructure, which he was asked to do after 9/11. Ironically, the radical madrassahs, and we should point out that not all of them are breeding grounds for terrorism, but the few that have been identified, were not reformed. The training centres for terrorist groups were still active. The fact that so many Britons have gone there for training and been given the skills and the ideological guidance to come back to the UK to carry out attacks over the last few years is another indication. More needs to be done to support the civilian Government in Pakistan. They are not perfect. They have shown their weaknesses, especially with the Swat valley deal. There are divisions within the civilian Government. But supporting the military, as has been done in the past, is not a solution. Unfortunately, it is a failed policy. More needs to be done to empower the civilian Government. What President Obama had to say on the matter was interesting. He said that they were looking at not just one element, but all the different facets, including those within the civilian apparatus. They have been talking to President Zardari and opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif. Moreover, they have been trying to offer financial packages, but they are tied in to commitment and performance. In the past, there was a policy of blank cheques going to Pakistan, especially to the military who were using it to buy hardware rather than to fight against the insurgency of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.


 
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