I tried to break out of the typical pattern by not using the talking points Bajwa and Naveed expected. I told the generals that the new administration would pay far more attention to deeds than words and explained that President Trump, as a businessman, would see funding our enemies indirectly through aid to Pakistan as a bad return on investment. To address General Bajwa’s complaint that the United States was always asking Pakistan to do more, underappreciating Pakistani sacrifices and the limits of Pakistan’s control over its far frontier, I assured him that we would stop asking him to do more. We would instead ask him and especially General Naveed to do less—provide less support to organizations that were killing Afghan and U.S. soldiers and murdering Afghan civilians. I hoped to at least convince him of our determination not to repeat mistakes of the past. I observed that U.S. administrations’ relations with Pakistan tended to go through a cycle that began with conversations like the one we were having. U.S. officials’ expectations rose after hearing Pakistani promises of real cooperation. The cycle always ended in abject disappointment. I said that I intended to stay at abject disappointment until there was a demonstrable change in behavior.
Most of that abject disappointment was based on the Pakistan Army’s failure to confront a particularly brutal mujahideen militia that sought control of territory along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Haqqani network. The Haqqanis provided another compelling example of how the terrorist ecosystem in Pakistan is a danger to that country and the world. The Haqqanis are also an example of the Pakistan Army’s unwillingness to stop using terrorists as an arm of Pakistan’s foreign policy. The Haqqanis, with ISI support, provide a safe space for terrorists. The Haqqani network, led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is also the military commander of the Taliban, connects the ISI, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other local and global terrorists, many of whom are also hostile to the Pakistan Army and state. The network is valuable to all because of its ability to mobilize tribes, raise funds internationally and through organized crime, communicate through multiple media, and develop and maintain a high degree of military expertise. The Haqqanis provide the Taliban with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of brainwashed adolescents and young men, many of them from the more than eighty Haqqani-run madrassas (religious schools) in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Haqqani network’s role as a military incubator for both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban demonstrates how various terrorist and insurgent groups located mainly along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier are interconnected and enjoy protection from each other as well as from the ISI. And it is the interconnectedness of these groups, as well as the dream of Khorasan’s becoming the site of their future caliphate, that makes this frontier such a geographic center of gravity for defeating these organizations.31 The network has orchestrated attacks on U.S. facilities, including the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2011 and the U.S. consulate in Herat in 2013. The Haqqanis are particularly adept at the mass murder of Afghan civilians. I told Bajwa and Naveed that I was not going to reiterate the same pleas of countless commanders and diplomats to go after the Haqqanis. It was time to operate under the assumption that Pakistan would not do so, and we had no option remaining but to impose costs on Pakistan.32 On the way out, I passed General Bajwa a handwritten note with a list of names of U.S. and allied hostages held by the Haqqani network. He asked me if I would like him to do something about them. I replied that I was confident that he could if he wanted to, and emphasized that, from this point on, we would be sensitive to actions rather than words. We said good-bye and pulled away from the pristine grounds of army headquarters.
Hale and I discussed the sad pattern of U.S. policy toward Pakistan since 9/11, a pattern consistent with the definition of insanity attributed to Albert Einstein: doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Many diplomats and senior military officers, despite decades of experience to the contrary, continued to assume that the Pakistan Army would be honest with them and become a true partner in the fight against jihadist terrorists.
As I met with our team to prepare for the final leg in New Delhi, it was increasingly clear that we needed a strategy that kept in mind long-term implications. I thought of U.S. support for Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who in 1977 deposed and later killed the first elected prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Zia’s eleven years in power left a damning legacy on the army and the country, one from which Pakistan has not recovered. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the United States had unintentionally helped Zia, who believed that he was on “a mission, given by God, to bring Islamic order to Pakistan,” transform Pakistan into a global nexus of jihadist terrorism.33 I also remembered how, after 9/11, U.S. support for Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf, a former commander of the Pakistan Army who had internalized the army’s hatred for India as well as Zia’s affinity for Islamist militants, bolstered Pakistan’s ability to use terrorism not only in Afghanistan, but also against India.
As we boarded the plane bound for New Delhi, it was clear that from the Pakistan Army’s perspective, everything was ultimately about India. A friendly government in Afghanistan would give Pakistan “strategic depth” in case of another war with India. And the ISI’s support for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was dependent on the Pakistan Army’s vast terrorist infrastructure, built to sustain groups that it uses as an arm of its foreign policy toward India. One such group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), was founded in 1987 as a joint venture between the ISI and terrorists later involved in the founding of Al-Qaeda. LET’s leader, Hafiz Saeed, made clear that LET’s mission was to “fight against the evil trio, America, Israel, and India.”34
* * *
INDIA WAS a critical partner, not only in combating South Asia terrorism, but also in the competition with the Chinese Communist Party across the Indo-Pacific. India is a country with tremendous challenges and opportunities. Although it was, in the 1980s, a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement (a group of developing states not formally aligned with the Soviet or U.S. power bloc), and thus resists formal alliances, it was obvious that U.S. and Indian interests were converging. India is projected to surpass China as the most populous nation in the world by 2024. Its population is young, savings and investment rates are healthy, and its economy is growing. But the government struggles to provide social services as rapid economic growth combined with the burgeoning population is generating severe interrelated problems in energy, environment, and food and water security. From 1990 to 2020, India halved its poverty rate, but more than 365 million people remain in multidimensional poverty. India’s diversity also presents challenges to governance and to maintaining a cohesive national identity, as it is home to the largest population of Hindus (79.8 percent) and the second-largest population of Muslims (14.2 percent) in the world, as well as Christians and Sikhs.35 India recognizes twenty-two official languages, but approximately one hundred more are spoken, highlighting the country’s tremendous geographic and cultural diversity. But India works. And its leaders generally share U.S. and Western democratic principles, and concerns about the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to promote its authoritarian state model. India is a country that the United States and the world needs to succeed. I hoped to learn more about how to expand our cooperation across diplomacy, economic development, security, commerce, and emerging technologies.
India is vulnerable both to Pakistan’s sustained support for terrorists and the existential threat of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The greatest latent danger may be the potential for ethnic or religious conflict. Violent interactions between Hindu nationalists and Islamic terrorists would be disastrous. When Narendra Modi became prime minister, some feared that elements within his Bharatiya Janata Party would stoke the embers of sectarian violence with Muslims. When Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state in 2002, Hindus and Muslims clashed in a series of riots after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught fire in a predominately Muslim area. In the ensuing orgy of violence, Hindus targeted Muslims for weeks
in a mass atrocity that killed up to two thousand Indians, most of them Muslims. Some accused Modi of failing to quell the violence. Although the George W. Bush administration initially banned Modi from coming to the United States, both the Bush and Obama administrations eventually advanced the relationship with Modi and India.36 In February 2020, as President Trump visited India, at least thirty-eight people were killed in the worst sectarian violence in decades, evidence that sectarian tensions persist.
Before my visit, Prime Minister Modi had allayed fears that he would pursue a Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) agenda. But during his second term, those fears seemed justified. In 2019, he scrapped the semiautonomous status of the Muslim-majority territories of Jammu and Kashmir. Then a Supreme Court verdict allowed Hindus to rebuild a temple at the site of the Ayodhya mosque, Babri Masjid, which had been destroyed by Hindu zealots in 1992. At the end of the year, massive protests followed the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, which allows people from neighboring countries of all faiths except Muslims to gain Indian citizenship.
Still, these events had not yet occurred, and as we started our descent into Delhi, Lisa Curtis reviewed with me the recent history of strengthening U.S.-Indian relations. George W. Bush prioritized improved relations with India, removing all remaining sanctions initially imposed on India after a 1998 nuclear test. In 2005, the two countries had signed an agreement to expand defense relations, and in 2008 the United States led an initiative within the Nuclear Suppliers Group to allow India access to civil nuclear cooperation, despite the fact that it remained a nonsignatory to the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. A formal defense relationship and a nuclear cooperation initiative followed. The Obama administration expanded cooperation in defense, cybersecurity, and energy security. I looked forward to working with India’s national security advisor, Ajit Doval, and then-Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, to maximize the potential in our relationship. I would be meeting Doval and his team for dinner and Jaishankar for breakfast, after which I would drive to the prime minister’s residence to meet with Modi.
It was easy to tell that Doval’s background was in intelligence. With his head tilted slightly to the right, he would speak in a hushed voice even about the most innocuous subjects. Jaishankar, by contrast, was a polished diplomat who delivered succinct analyses and tactful, indirect recommendations for how the United States might be more effective in South Asia and across the Indo-Pacific region. Jaishankar and Doval saw up close how China was developing exclusionary areas of primacy. The China threat was shifting India’s attitude toward greater multinational cooperation. For example, the Japan-India relationship grew stronger as China attempted to intimidate Japan with maritime militias in the Senkaku Islands and to control shipping routes through the Indian Ocean with facilities in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. India’s leaders saw China’s One Belt, One Road initiative as a one-way street that would disadvantage them. Still, India, due to the legacy of leading the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, was reluctant to give the impression of entering a formal alliance.
It was inevitable that our discussions would turn to the clear and present danger from ISI-supported jihadist terrorists. Events from 2008 are seared in the memory of Indians, not only those of the global financial crisis, but even more the devastating terrorist attacks that exposed the regional and global dimensions of the threat from Pakistan. Ten attackers from LET carried out a series of coordinated shooting and bombing attacks from Wednesday, November 26, until Saturday, November 29, 2008, most prominently at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai. At least 164 civilians were killed, including 6 American citizens; more than 300 people were wounded. The sole surviving attacker, a Pakistani citizen, revealed that he and his accomplices were members of LET, came from Pakistan, and were controlled from Pakistan. These painful wounds were reopened when, in 2015, Pakistan released from jail (on bail) the ringleader of the Mumbai attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi. He promptly disappeared, further highlighting Pakistan’s support for terrorists.37
I could tell that Doval and Jaishankar were worried about the United States’ ability to implement a consistent foreign policy in South Asia. At every turn in our conversations, they made the case for the United States to remain engaged in the region. The 2008 financial crisis and President Barack Obama’s desire to disengage from overseas commitments to focus on “nation building here at home,” a goal that resonated with the majority of the American public, left Indian leaders doubtful about whether the United States would still pursue an active foreign policy.38 President Trump’s campaign rhetoric did not allay their concerns. India, a country shaped by its independence from colonialism and historically critical of U.S. interventions abroad, had become most fearful of U.S. disengagement at the moment when both Chinese aggression and jihadist terrorism were growing. Jaishankar and Doval believed that U.S. disengagement would embolden both threats.
India would be critical to the outside-in aspect of the South Asia strategy, and I told them that the United States would support an enhanced leadership role for India in the region and beyond. India was influential in multinational fora such as the Brazil–Russia–India–China–South Africa association BRICS and would soon join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan. Indian leaders could use long-standing relationships with Russian leaders to persuade President Putin to act in his country’s interest and stop supporting Taliban groups, and instead support the Afghan government. And perhaps, together with Russia, India might help convince China to pressure Pakistan to crack down on terrorist organizations. Terrorists already threatened Russia and China directly and could impede China’s ambitious infrastructure projects in Pakistan and across Central Asia. Moreover, India might join the United States to prevail upon Gulf States such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia to cut off terrorist financing and make their considerable assistance to Pakistan contingent on its no longer serving as a nexus for jihadist terrorists.39
On the final day of our trip, Lisa Curtis; MaryKay Carlson, the U.S. chargé d’affaires and deputy chief of mission in New Delhi; and I traveled to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the prime minister’s official residence, where we met with Modi. He gave us a warm welcome. It was clear that deepening and expanding that relationship should remain a priority for both nations. He expressed concern over China’s increasingly aggressive efforts to extend its influence at India’s expense and over its growing military presence in the region. He was very supportive of the Trump administration’s embrace of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific policy and suggested that the United States, India, Japan, and like-minded partners emphasize the concept’s inclusiveness and make clear that it is not meant to exclude any nation. At the end of the meeting, the prime minister put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a blessing. I was happy for any help I could get as our team headed back to Washington.
The trip convinced me that we needed to present the president with the withdrawal option and others that were based on the realities of the region and not on the wishful thinking on which previous policies had been based. The long-term objectives were to ensure that jihadist terrorists were unable to attack the United States and its allies; to prevent a potentially cataclysmic conflict between India and Pakistan; and to convince Pakistan to end its self-destructive support for terrorist organizations and undertake the reforms necessary to prevent its internal security from collapsing. The near-term focus should remain on denying terrorist organizations that have a demonstrated global reach access to the resources, freedom of movement, safe havens, and ideological space they need to plan, organize, and conduct attacks.40 We would base those options on a new set of assumptions:
First, a counterterrorism-only strategy would be untenable if security collapsed in Afghanistan; Afghans were doing the toughest fighting. The Afghan state needed to be hardened against the regenerative capacity of the Taliban and be strong enough to control c
ritical territory and operate effectively against the nexus of insurgent groups, narcotics-trafficking organizations, and transnational criminal networks.41
Second, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations were intertwined, as were many of the other dangerous groups located in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area; we had tried too hard to “disconnect the dots.”42
Third, the Taliban could not be trusted to negotiate in good faith, especially if they believed they were winning and the United States was withdrawing.
Finally, Pakistan would not end or dramatically reduce its support for the Taliban, the Haqqani network, or jihadist terrorists like LET.43
* * *
WE WERE at war with no strategy. As I returned to Washington, DC, and the office occupied by Lyndon Johnson’s national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, during the escalation of the Vietnam War, I felt that it was past time to clarify what we wanted to achieve in Afghanistan and South Asia. It seemed the worst form of cynicism to express sympathy for the soldiers and families of those killed or wounded in action while perpetuating a war without direction. There were obstacles to overcome in South Asia and in Washington. It took longer than I had hoped. From the end of the trip on April 20 to the day President Trump made a decision on a new South Asia strategy at Camp David on August 18, the Taliban and the Haqqani network conducted more than one hundred devastating attacks on Afghan security forces and civilians.44 The day after we returned to Washington, Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers killed more than 140 and wounded more than 160 people at an Afghan army base in the northern Balkh Province. The Haqqani network conducted another devasting attack on May 31, in Kabul, at an intersection near the German embassy. The massive truck bomb killed more than 150 and wounded more than 400. Refusing to be intimidated, President Ghani hosted a planned peace conference in the capital six days later.
Battlegrounds Page 22