12 Oct 2009 - Discussion Meeting - 'A Report from Pakistan's Counter-Insurgency Campaigns in Swat and Baluchistan'

On Monday 12 October Professor Anatol Lieven, Chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King’s College London, delivered “A Report from Pakistan's Counter-Insurgency Campaigns in Swat and Baluchistan” from 12.00-1.00pm.

Professor Anatol Lieven is Chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King’s College London, and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC.

 
He spent most of his career as a British journalist in South Asia and the former Soviet Union, and is author of several books on the latter region, including Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power? (Yale University Press 1998) and Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry (USIP 1999).

His latest book, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World, co-authored with John Hulsman (Pantheon 2006). His previous book was: America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (2004).

He holds a BA in history and a PhD in political science from the University of Cambridge, Great Britain. He has worked as a senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Professor Lieven recently returned from Pakistan where he spent several weeks in Swat and Baluchistan, as part of his research work for his latest book on Pakistan. He visits the country frequently for research purposes.

This discussion was moderated by Sir Hilary Synnott, Consulting Senior Fellow at the IISS. It took place in the Lee Kuan Yew Conference Room at Arundel House.

Professor Anatol Lieven’s speech at the IISS on 12 October came in the wake of three major terror attacks: a Taliban raid on the army on the army HQ in the capital of Punjab province, Rawalpindi on 10-11 October; a bombing in the north-western city of Peshawar on 9 October; and a blast at the United Nations building in the national capital, Islamabad, on 5 October. The professor, chair of International Relations and Terrorism Studies at King’s College London, said the attacks were obviously dreadful and tragic. However, it was important to distinguish between terrorism and the greater existential threat of insurgency – such as the Taliban rebellion that the Pakistan army had fought recently in Swat and other districts of the country’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Professor Lieven echoed recent statements by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that militants were challenging the Pakistan government’s authority but were unlikely to overthrow it.

However, he was less sanguine than Secretary Clinton about the security of Pakistan’s arsenal. ‘I hope the attack in Rawalpindi will be a wake-up call to the Pakistani security forces to increase the security of their nukes,’ he said.

For Pakistan to collapse, he believed, the army would have to collapse or split. Something else that would endanger Pakistan’s future was the unlikely event of a full-scale United States invasion. He knew of two incidents when US launched ground attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) when he was visiting the country in summer 2008. He said the Pakistan army had fired in the air above the US soldiers, and the incidents had led to enormous diplomatic friction.

This summer Professor Lieven spent several weeks interviewing locals in Islamabad, Peshawar, Swat and Buner. Despite the increased fighting in 2009, he found the public mood had improved since 2008.

Last year, there were ‘worrying signs of a loss of confidence’, as business people despaired that the national government, provincial government and army had not acted enough to stop the Taliban gaining ground. They were starting to shift assets out of the region, in case they should need to flee.

Now, the population had seen the army fight the Taliban in Swat and other NWFP districts in April and May. And people trusted that it would continue to fight resolutely. This was making potential recruits hesitant about joining the Taliban, and giving informers the confidence to come forward. More Pakistanis were blaming the Taliban for the violence and disruption in northern regions.

Many Western commentators have criticised the Pakistan government’s decision to briefly allow Sharia law in the Malakand Division of NWFP – commonly called the Malakand Accord. But Professor Lieven believed that it had helped throw public support behind the government and army. In Pashtun culture, he had been told, one must first be seen to genuinely attempt to negotiate peace before gaining the legitimacy to fight one’s own people.

The accord was seen as evidence of the government’s sincere wish for peace, and the Taliban had severely miscalculated when it broke its word and moved from Swat into Buner.

However, public support for the army action was not unwavering, Professor Lieven warned.  ‘There is a lot of extrajudicial killing going on up there,’ he said, explaining that local politicians had been discredited by the Taliban’s advance in the region in 2009. Now that these politicians were again in control, there was the chance of score-settling and it was ‘very important for the army to keep an eye on them’.

The offensive in Waziristan would be much more difficult than the offensive in Swat and other Malakand districts in April and May this year. Military action in Baluchistan would only stir up a relatively quiet situation and was hence inadvisable, Professor Lieven said.