Publication: Survival: Global Politics and Strategy Spring 2007
Pages: 15-32
Volume: 49
Edition number:
1
Date:
01 February 2007
The rising level of violence in Afghanistan has triggered widespread calls to increase NATO's role. As General David Richards, the British commander of NATO forces there, acknowledged: ‘I haven't got enough [troops to] win this.’
1 There is growing evidence, however, that the solution lies not in Afghanistan, but across the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. The implications for NATO are profound. Increasing the number of foreign troops or improving the competence of Afghan forces are no longer sufficient. Success requires a difficult political and diplomatic feat: convincing the government of Pakistan to undermine the insurgent sanctuary on its soil.
I conducted extensive interviews with United States, NATO, United Nations and Afghan officials in Afghanistan in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. The conclusions are stark. There is significant evidence that the Taliban, Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), al-Qaeda, and other insurgent groups use Pakistan as a sanctuary for recruitment and support. In addition, there is virtual unanimity that Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has continued to provide assistance to Afghan insurgent groups.
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States and NATO had little choice but to adopt a convenient alliance with Pakistan to overthrow the Taliban government and help capture or kill key al-Qaeda terrorists. But the rising level of violence in Afghanistan has increasingly altered the United States’ and Europe's cost–benefit calculus. Historical evidence suggests that the ability of insurgents to gain sanctuary in neighbouring states and secure assistance from state and non-state actors significantly increases their success. The cost of failing to clamp down on the insurgent sanctuary in Pakistan is significant and rising. It virtually guarantees the continuing destabilisation of Afghanistan and threatens to uproot the fragile reconstruction effort orchestrated by the United States, NATO, United Nations and other international organisations since 2001. As one US Special Forces assessment concluded: ‘sanctuary provided by crossing into the Pakistan tribal areas … or in the Baluchistan area, has contributed more to the survival of the insurgents than any other factor’.