by Shuja Nawaz
When Gen. John ‘Mick’ Nicholson took over command in Afghanistan in January 2016, he was the seventeenth allied commander since the 2001 invasion. He had the most experience inside Afghanistan of any of his predecessors. ‘In all, Nicholson had spent three-and-a-half years deployed in Afghanistan before he took over command of ISAF, far more than any of his predecessors when they took the top post in Kabul. Between 16 months as a brigade commander in the country’s mountainous east, a second year as a one-star general in the south, and a third year as the top operations deputy to the four-star U.S. and NATO commander in the Afghan capital, Nicholson also did an intervening tour supervising the Pentagon’s highest-level cell dedicated to the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.’ 2
He ended his term on 2 September 2018 and was succeeded by Gen. Austin ‘Scott’ Miller, the eighteenth allied commander.
Afghanistan: One War, 17 Years, 18 Commanders
1. Lt. Gen. John C. McColl, UK 10 January 2002–20 June 2002
2. Lt. Gen. Hilmi Akin Zolu, Turkey 20 June 2002–10 February 2003
3. Lt. Gen. Norbert van Heyst, Germany 10 February 2003–11 August 2003
4. Lt. Gen. Gotz Gliemeroth, Germany 11 August 2003–9 February 2004
5. Lt. Gen. Rick J. Hillier, Canada 9 February 2004–9 August 2004
6. Lt. Gen. Jean-Luis Py, France 9 August 2004–13 February 2005
7. Lt. Gen. Ethem Erdagi, Turkey 13 February 2005–5 August 2005
8. Gen. Mauro del Vecchio, Italy 5 August 2005–4 May 2006
9. Gen. Sir David J. Richards, UK 4 May 2006–4 February 2007
10. Gen. Dan K. McNeill, USA 4 February 2007–3 June 2008
11. Gen. David D. McKiernan, USA 3 June 2008–15 June 2009
12. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, USA 15 June 2009–23 June 2010
13. Gen. David H. Petraeus, USA 4 July 2010–18 July 2011
14. Gen. John R. Allen, USA 18 July 2011-10 February 2013
15. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, USA 10 February 2013–26 August 2014
16. Gen. John F. Campbell, USA 26 August 2014–28 December 2014
17. Gen. John William ‘Mick’ Nicholson Jr., USA March 30 2016–2 September 2018
18. Gen. Austin Scott Miller, USA 2 September 2018–
Source: Compiled by author from various sources
Earlier, when Gen. Stan McChrystal took over command of the war in Afghanistan, he had noted that he was the twelfth commander. Moreover, McChrystal came to the rapid conclusion there was not one but ten different wars being fought in Afghanistan, something that NATO commander and SACEUR Gen. Jim Jones had also noted very early in the conflict, as had Lt. Gen. Doug Lute at the White House. Each allied commander had his own rules of engagement. And he brought his own team and set of experiences to the war zone, confusing allies and giving solace to the enemy that took advantage of the fresh learning curve each time the command changed hands. Each had his 100-Day Plan.
Nicholson had served in Afghanistan earlier, under Gen. James Mattis, during a time of a new form of aggression at the tactical level (the main exhibit of that was the series of attacks on Pakistani posts culminating in the Salala incident that took twenty-six Pakistani soldiers’ and officers’ lives). Many US officers who had fought in Afghanistan and lost comrades to the Taliban, whom they saw as being abetted by Pakistan, saw the Taliban as ‘The Wrong Enemy’ 3 and Pakistan as the real enemy. As a result, Nicholson took a harder line on Pakistan than many of his predecessors.
Normally, the commander CENTCOM was the main interlocutor with the Pakistan Army chief. Each one had a different style. Gen. David Petraeus was seen as a political general and his acuity created suspicions in the minds of his counterparts in Pakistan. Some Pakistani generals privately called him ‘Mr Petraeus’, perhaps out of grudging respect for his political skills. Generals McChrystal, Mattis and Allen developed good relationships and were seen as soldiers primarily. They also maintained a high profile in Washington as well as in the region. By 2018, even the Department of State appeared to cede the diplomatic lead to Gen. Joseph L. Votel, then the head of CENTCOM. Trump’s first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was a ghost as far as policy-making in the Afghan theatre was concerned. His department lost experienced hands by the dozen. And even into the second year of the new Trump administration, diplomatic posts (including the ambassador to Pakistan, after Ambassador David Hale moved to State as Under Secretary from Islamabad) and policy positions at Foggy Bottom remained filled by temporary staff. He ended up being summarily fired via a tweet from President Trump on 13 March 2018. Before that, the diplomatic lead was often taken by the US ambassadors, who met regularly with both the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan, and served as a strong listening post and sometimes even as a personal ‘shrink’ to Pakistani leaders. Overall direction came from the seventh floor of the Department of State, where the senior executives sat, either independently or in concert with the NSC staff.
Ambassador Richard Olson recalled that President Zardari ‘was keen on having a regular contact with the American ambassador. We had lunch together probably every two weeks during the time that he was in office. We developed a personal rapport, a friendship. Interestingly, one of the things that was important for him . . . [and] that he most wanted to know from me at every session was what his army was up to.’ In other words he feared his ‘army was going to overthrow him. They weren’t, as far as I could tell.’ Olson thought Zardari ‘saw the role of the US ambassador as being someone who could talk candidly with Pindi [army headquarters] and actually warn him, frankly, if he was going to get in trouble with Pindi’. Later on, Olson had a close relationship with the army chief who succeeded Kayani, Gen. Raheel Sharif, whom he also met ‘every two weeks . . . probably fifty or sixty times’. Unlike his much more opaque predecessor, Kayani, Olson thought Raheel Sharif had a remarkable ‘perceptiveness and understanding of how other people are thinking about issues and seeing things’. He also had an ability to ‘convey to the prime minister that he was just a simple, loyal soldier . . . He spoke in a very straightforward way.’ 4 This relationship, Olson felt, played a key role in the conversations during the six months leading up to the army’s action in North Waziristan. According to Olson and others, Raheel Sharif was not seen as a profound thinker or reader like Kayani. He was less risk-averse too, and became popular as a man of action, based on what his colleagues told him.
Most of the hard work involved quiet diplomacy, listening to each other’s complaints and trying to find solutions. The US coverage of Pakistani military and civilian activities, both overt and covert, yielded valuable information from time to time. Despite the differences between the Obama administration and Pakistan, on Afghanistan, on the use of drones and on India, conversations continued. At the White House, under the Trump administration, the role of the NSC became more that of an enforcer than a problem solver. The Trump team blamed what they saw as the Obama era’s softness and decided to change their stance to include greater pressure and tighter deadlines for Pakistan.
Peter Lavoy, who had begun his academic career studying the Soviet Union, learning Russian and focusing on nuclear proliferation issues, had shifted his direction to South Asia after a trip to the region. He enrolled in Hindi classes and then added Urdu over time, starting a long career in South Asian studies and conflict resolution, as well as a key role in the National Intelligence Council, culminating in the NSC. Of the many people who claim to be experts in Washington DC on Pakistan and its surrounding region, Lavoy genuinely understands the people and governments of the region. He spoke with me about the historical sweep of the US–Pakistan relationship that brought Musharraf into the US camp and ‘a level of support to Pakistan that the country hadn’t seen since certainly the nuclear tests. Musharraf managed to get an agreement for resumption of supplies of F-16s, and normalization and upgrading of the security relationship.’ But then things went awry.
That relationship was a victim of its own success, the success in removing Al-Qaeda
from the settled areas in Pakistan—they took refuge in the tribal belt. That created friction between Washington and Islamabad, or more importantly Rawalpindi, over the new constrictions on the freedom of operation enjoyed by the Americans. That is when tensions really developed between the two sides, according to Lavoy.
At the same time also you had the re-emergence of the Taliban and a new series of attacks against not just Afghans but Americans in Afghanistan. You had different bureaucratic agencies promoting different issues. From a military point of view, the growing spate of attacks against American forces, native forces, was a huge disruptive influence or issue. For CIA and for the counter terrorism establishment, the constriction on the ability to operate, conduct counter terrorist operations against suspected or known al-Qaeda cells in FATA was also very, very challenging. That tension still hasn’t been resolved. That has been really a central tension that bilaterally we’ve been trying to navigate [since 2008]. 5
The Congressional Research Service had also found early on that ‘While Obama administration officials and most senior congressional leaders have continued to recognize Pakistan as a crucial partner in US-led counterterrorism and counter-insurgency efforts, long-held doubts about Islamabad’s commitment to core US interests have deepened considerably in 2011’.
Lavoy maintained: ‘Ultimately Pakistan correctly recognized that it needed to maintain a security relationship with the US, and it recognized that the US has had a vital interest, certainly in the period [since 2001], in defeating terrorism in that region. There was only so far that Pakistan could go without fundamentally disrupting the relationship with the US.’
At the same time, the warming US relationship with India intruded into this relationship with Pakistan to the detriment of Pakistan. Earlier, the US insisted in its conduct of South Asian policy on a balance with India with regard for Pakistan’s interests when it looked at Afghanistan as well. ‘Over time the US shifted away from a balanced relationship because it was getting less out of the Pakistan relationship; [there were] more challenges, the grievances weren’t being addressed, and the relationship with India was born and viewed, I think correctly, as of major significance to the United States’, according to Lavoy. 6
Adding to the difficulty in the US–Pakistan relationship were the differences between the civil and the military in Pakistan. According to the CRS, ‘Most independent analysts view the Pakistani military and intelligence services as too willing to distinguish among Islamist extremist groups, maintaining links to some as a means of forwarding Pakistani’s perceived security interests.’ 7 Secretary of State Clinton had warned Pakistani officials after a quick one-day visit in May 2011 that ‘we’re going to continue to try to work with them across the entire political spectrum, we’re going to demand more from them’. Yet she was realistic in seeing this as ‘a long-term, frustrating, frankly, sometimes very outraging kind of experience . . . and yet, I don’t see any alternative if you look at vital American national interests.’ 8 Therein lay the dilemma of US foreign policy and Pakistan’s hold over it, despite Pakistan’s preference for and dependence on US military aid and funding under the CSF. The US and Pakistan had become co-dependent, despite the flow of US funds to Pakistan.
Military Assistance since 2001
Since 2001 (US FY2002), Pakistan had received some $8 billion of direct and overt security-related assistance. These flows had hit a peak in FY2011 before declining steadily, with FY2018 producing a total of only some $134 million programmed. In addition, Pakistan received CSF of some $14.6 billion from FY2002 to FY2017, though the FY2017 amount remained subject to certification requirements. It was the largest recipient of CSF money from the US worldwide. CSF monies were supposed to be reimbursement for Pakistani expenditures related to support for the US war against terrorism in Afghanistan.
But that programme had been plagued by bickering and dissent between the two putative allies and was increasingly subjected to scrutiny from the Government Accountability Office in the US.
US officials widely believed that Pakistan was padding the bill. They tended to ignore this in the earlier years in the interest of getting Pakistani support in the border region as well as intelligence cooperation. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke asked me once why Pakistan needed the same large amount of barbed wire each year. A Pakistani officer involved in producing the CSF bill had explained to me that the annual exercise was painful and they had to struggle to fill in the various categories. For example, one question that had come up in preparing the CSF bill one year related to the loss of a jeep at naval headquarters. The vehicle had caught fire and been destroyed. It ended up being included in the CSF bill! A basic issue was that the Pakistan military did not have sophisticated budgeting and financial monitoring systems in place within the armed forces as a line management tool. Also, there was little established, detailed and formal oversight of its expenditures by the civilian authorities and parliament.
By 2008, in the seventh year of the Afghan war, the US had given some $5.56 billion in CSF reimbursement payments to Pakistan ostensibly for its efforts to fight terrorism along the Afghan border. But alarm signals had been going off in Washington about the extent to which the DoD had issued strict guidelines for reviewing and monitoring the bills from Pakistan and the payments due to it. So, the Government Accountability Office investigated this issue.
It discovered that in 2003 the DoD had issued a new guidance to enhance CSF oversight. The guidance called
for, among other things, CSF reimbursement claims to contain quantifiable information that indicates the incremental nature of support (i.e., above and beyond normal operations), validation that the support or service was provided, and copies of invoices or documentation supporting how the costs were calculated. [So, for example, for food items, this ought to have covered only extra costs associated with provision of food to troops in the field, not the actual rations themselves that would have been provided anyway in peacetime locations at their base.] While Defense generally conducted macro-level analytical reviews called for in its guidance, such as determining whether the cost is less than that which would be incurred by the US for the same service, for a large number of reimbursement claims Defense did not obtain detailed documentation to verify that claimed costs were valid, actually incurred, or correctly calculated. GAO found that Defense did not consistently apply its existing CSF oversight guidance. For example, as of May 2008, Defense paid over $2 billion in Pakistani reimbursement claims for military activities covering January 2004 through June 2007 without obtaining sufficient information that would enable a third party to recalculate these costs. Furthermore, Defense may have reimbursed costs that (1) were not incremental, (2) were not based on actual activity, or (3) were potentially duplicative. GAO also found that additional oversight controls were needed. For example, there is no guidance for Defense to verify currency conversion rates used by Pakistan, which if performed would enhance Defense’s ability to monitor for potential overbillings. 9
The ODRP staff had not been specifically ordered by the DoD to verify the Pakistani support and expenses, though they were best positioned to do so, being in close touch with their Pakistani counterparts. ODRP began trying to validate the Pakistani claims for reimbursement on its own in September 2006, producing an immediate increase in the amount of claims ‘disallowed or deferred’. The percentage of claims disallowed or deferred rose from an average of 2 per cent prior to August 2006 to 6 per cent for the period September 2006–February 2007 and 22 per cent for the period March 2007–June 2007 (actually processed after a necessary built-in delay). 10 Later, these percentages rose as high as 40 per cent, producing enormous problems in the relationship. Further, delays in processing of payments meant that the US ended up in arrears to Pakistan for up to two years, creating a budgeting nightmare for the Pakistani Ministry of Finance that used to plan for these inflows each year and in their absence had to deal with substantial ensuing deficits. 11
The CSF Process
> US personnel involved in monitoring the flow of financial assistance and reimbursements to Pakistan tried to assist their Pakistani colleagues to better prepare their bills and thereby speed up the verification of costs incurred. In July 2006, the Pakistani government was given a cost template and information to assist it in clarifying the types of costs that would support claims for reimbursement. One US officer recalled visiting JCS Headquarters and explaining the processes to junior captains and majors. ‘They got it immediately!’ he exclaimed. But when the colonels and brigadiers got into the act, things got clogged up. They had little background in budget management and no desire to learn accounting processes!
Depending on whom one spoke to, the CSF accounting and billing process was simple or complicated. It did have many moving parts.
The Pakistan Ministry of Finance and no doubt the Pakistan Army had the following detailed process template available to them:
Scrutiny and Reimbursement Procedure of CSF
The detailed, some would say convoluted, procedure relating to processing of CSF claims, its reimbursement and monitoring expenditure is detailed below:
Step 1: Consolidated claims from Service Headquarters [GHQ, Air Force and Navy] are forwarded to Joint Staff Headquarters (JSHQs) where these are scrutinized and consolidated.
Step 2: JSHQs forward the details of claims to the ODRP, US embassy, in Islamabad, and a summary of claims to Ministries of Finance and Defense.
Step 3: ODRP in the US embassy thoroughly scrutinizes these claims in coordination with JSHQs and processes them after back and forth verification.
Step 4: After scrutiny by the ODRP, these claims are forwarded to US CENTCOM HQ at Tampa where these claims are again scrutinized and reconciled.