Pakistan and Missiles

Here, the NY Times reports that Pakistan is modifying US missiles (which they receive through military aid) to strike at land based targets (and this presumably means India).

I'm no knee-jerk opponent of military assistance--there are certainly times that providing weapons to our allies makes sense (for example, when they are fighting the Taliban, as is the Pakistani army), but I do wonder why we should be surprised that the Pakistani military is preparing for a war with India. Isn't it what they've always done? We don't want to see a war between India and Pakistan--generally, war between two nuclear powers is probably bad--but there are really legitimate reasons, if you are a Pakistani general, to see India as a potential threat.

Although it seems clear to us that the Pakistani army should forget about fighting India and concentrate on fighting the Taliban, a parallel to this sort of weapons experimentation has been taking place within our own military establishment, with the debate over the construction of new F-22 fighter jets. Opponents of the move say that these jets aren't great for fighting our current foes--Islamic extremists--but supporters of the jets say that they're needed in case of a war with somebody else (China? Russia?)

Engaging in a little bit of Lasswellian policy analysis here, my own policy prescription for Pakistan would be a greater focus on economic policy-making. I see stable democracy as an outcome of economic growth (we can debate the reasons for this relationship, but the relationship seems reasonably clear) and therefore, we should be focusing on promoting economic growth.

Because democracies only rarely fight one another, I would argue that we should be attempting to prevent war between India and Pakistan by encouraging democracy, and maybe the best way to do that is through the promotion of economic growth.

As an aside, I should add that I'm not convinced that Pakistan is a democracy. Although there have been elections, they are not free and competitive in a true sense--democracy in Pakistan today resembles democracy in the United States around 1820, when most ethnic minorities, the poor, and women had little say in political outcomes. Pakistan's democracy is a political competition between wealthy political factions, not a competition between candidates who truly represent the masses.

Pakistan and Harold Lasswell

At the risk of losing everyone as soon as they see the title...

There's been a lot of coverage of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the last couple of weeks. Obama visits, Taliban makes gains, nuclear weapons are safe, etc. etc... I don't know much about South and Central Asia, but out Central Asian policy seems pretty incoherent. I'm not sure that we really know what we're trying to do over there.

What should our goals be? Stopping the Taliban? Preventing terrorism? Promoting democracy? Nation building? Balancing Pakistan against India and China? I don't think we've defined a series of clear goals at all.

I would propose that perhaps, given the difficulty of state building, the political problems with military involvement inside Pakistan, and the low probability that we will be able to defeat the Taliban decisively, maybe we should focus on (1) attempting to prevent anti-US terrorism and (2) promoting long-term economic relations with South Asia in a way that may tend to permit long-term economic growth. It seems unrealistic to believe that we could decisively end this conflict that has, after all, been going on since at least the late 1970s in Afghanistan in Pakistan, but it also seems irresponsible not to attempt to undermine anti-US terrorism in the region.

If we believe (as I do) that the growth of Islamic extremism is fundamentally a problem driven by economic underdevelopment and the long term absence of democracy, it seems apparent that the most important goals over the long term are to promote democratization and economic growth. But, because democratic transitions can often be fertile ground for violence and instability (the apparent democratic transition Pakistan's experiencing right now seems to be a good example of that), we should be careful about the ways in which we choose to promote democracy--probably, shying away from the kinds of extreme policies we've undertaken in Iraq is a good idea.

At the same time, it seems unlikely that we will be able to promote the kind of long-term stability the Pakistani people need (for economic growth, if nothing else) through the Pakistani state. Although, again, I'm no Central Asian scholar, it seems clear that the state doesn't control the situation on the ground in many parts of Pakistan (Waziristan, Balochistan, etc.), and if we seek to promote our interests in those parts of the country through the Pakistani state, we're bound to fail. Seems kind of like asking the Taiwanese government to solve our problems with mainland China. Should we be seeking relationships with the people that control the situation on the ground? Are we doing this?

Obviously, we face significant problems in developing relationships with people in the region, but it seems as though seeking to develop relationships with the tribal and feudal groups in the frontier regions of Pakistan through our intelligence apparatus may be more fruitful, over the long term, than our current apparent focus on airstrikes and airborne intelligence-gathering.

I worry that our current policy is driven by an inappropriate focus (under the circumstances) on the nation-state (Pakistan seems to be neither a nation nor a state) and an ignorance of the individual- and community-level dynamics that are driving the rise of the Taliban in the region.

Banditry Again

A couple of weeks ago, I posted my thoughts on Zane's post about the situation in swat in Pakistan. Then he responded to me. I just wanted to make it clear that in my original post, I wasn't critiquing his understanding of Olson--he's dead on. I just think Olson's missing a piece in his own theory.

In general, I think Olson-esque rational choice approaches work great when the actors in a given situation possess the cognitive models which make it likely that the rationality they will exercise will resemble that which we possess. Example: everybody likes to be richer, other things being equal.

The question (and it is only that--a question) is, in this situation--in any situation involving the Taliban--is it appropriate to assume that they (a) want to be richer (their goals might have less to do with wealth and more to do with living some sort of religious lifestyle), and that they (b) are able to enrich their territorial jurisdiction if they do want to be richer?

So, basically, I wonder if the roving bandit/stationary bandit theoretical approach applies in this situation.

I realize that wondering these things means that I'm becoming some sort of political culture/constructivist hippie. But I got a really short haircut a couple of days ago (for about $1.30) to compensate.

On a related note, this popped up recently--effectively, this sounds much like the strategy followed by the US in Iraq under "The Awakening," which was a lot like the strategy followed by the Peruvians under Fujimori against the Shining Path, which also resembled the strategy that was followed by the Carrancistas in Mexico during the revolution (which ultimately defeated the great Pancho Villa, among others).

Militant anarcho-communitarianism, anyone?