1 RUSI NewsbriefFebruary 2018, Vol. 38, No. 1

Pakistan and the US

US President Donald Trump began 2018 with a bang in the shape of a tweet, which lashed out at Pakistan for

being an unreliable ally that has ‘given the United States nothing but lies and deceit’. The allegations come has no surprise; this has been a common theme in Washington for the last decade, namely Pakistani duplicity in the War on Terror. However, since the Trump administration took office it is making good on the sticks that the Obama administration had threatened but never quite delivered. The main difference this time around is that the Pakistanis are biting back.

Pakistan is now adamant that the time for American threats and directives is over

Gone are the days of timidity and scurrying to please the Americans. This is being called the ‘Bajwa Doctrine’, and it suggests that the Pakistan Army should not do more, but rather the world must do more. The Pakistani military is far more confident than it was when the US threatened then President Pervez Musharraf to bomb Pakistan into the stone age if it did not comply with their demands. The Army is now battle-hardened after 17 years of war on its western frontier and regular skirmishes on its eastern

border. The Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa made it clear by saying it is now the word’s task to do more for Pakistan – it has done enough. The world, in the shape of China, Russia, Turkey and Iran, have all come to Pakistan’s defense as the US loses influence in Islamabad. Pakistan is now adamant that the time for American threats and directives is over.

Milt Bearden, a former station chief in Islamabad who along with Congressman Charlie Wilson ran the covert war from Pakistan to fight the Soviets in the 1980s, is one of the few Americans who has nuance in his approach to understanding Pakistan. Milt, who is one of the most decorated CIA officers in history, has been at pains to explain Pakistani behavior with regards to Afghanistan, urging for it to be recognised that for Pakistan, this is more than a 30-year war. They have been as affected as Afghanistan, hosting more than three million Afghan refugees, and being left alone to look after Afghanistan following the departure of the Soviets. Milt’s views echo that of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said the US was also to blame for Pakistan’s Afghan policy, in that the US left Pakistan to deal with the impacts of thousands of jihadis and refugees, in a failed Afghan state. However apart from these two prominent American officials, there have been few others to give the time of day to the Pakistani argument. So, what is Pakistan’s position? General Bajwa clearly stated

even before Trump’s tweet that the time for Pakistan to do more has come to an end.

The so-called War on Terror began after Afghan-based terrorists launched a devastating attack on the US on 11 September 2001. The Pakistani military has been an ally since day one, foreshadowed by the infamous phone call by President George W Bush to President Musharraf, and solidified through the Pakistani military’s crucial support in meeting the objectives laid out in that call by the US leader, namely the rapid dislodgement of the Taliban and Al-Qa’ida from Kabul in late 2001.

Without the Pakistani military’s logistical support, Karzai would not have crossed over into Afghanistan to become the country’s first democratically elected leader

One of the key Pakistan Air Force (PAF) officers at the time, Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail, was the base commander of PAF Air Base Shahbaz. He says that:

the US forces – mainly USAF [US Air Force] elements – had deployed at Shahbaz Base in Jacobabad in October 2001 with the understanding

The Bajwa Doctrine: The Pakistani Military Has Done More than Enough Kamal Alam

In their own words, Pakistan’s generals lay-out the ‘Bajwa Doctrine’ – their vision for the future of US–Pakistani military cooperation in the age of President Trump. From their perspecitve, Pakistan has done more than enough to secure neighbouring Afghanistan, and is not intimidated by the threat of US funding cuts.

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to the government of Pakistan that no combat operations would be undertaken from the base, and it would only be used as a logistics and reconnaissance hub for supporting Operation Enduring Freedom inside Afghanistan. Logistic support took the shape of supplies being flown in mostly by C-17 Globemasters and C-141 Starlifters from European and Middle East bases to Shahbaz, where these were sorted and re-distributed to bases and field units in Afghanistan by airlift. Additionally, a couple of MC-130s and a flight of Black Hawk helicopters belonging to the Special Operations Forces were deployed for combat search and rescue operations, in case fighter aircrew carrying out bombing missions (mostly flying from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea) were to eject in hostile territory Despite a clear understanding that US forces would not undertake combat operations while deployed at Shahbaz, a squadron of A-10 Warthogs was deployed for a week, and these aircraft undertook bombing operations inside Afghanistan.

In his book An American Soldier, General Tommy Franks, the American general in charge of the 2001 US intervention in Afghanistan, also talks extensively about Pakistan’s support, particularly the crucial air corridor that allowed US airpower to topple the Taliban. Even former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was brought in to lead post-Taliban Afghanistan was based in Quetta Pakistan. In Eric Blehm’s The Only Thing Worth Dying For and Steve Coll’s Directorate S, the authors explain how without the Pakistani military’s logistical support, Karzai would not have crossed over into Afghanistan with US Special Forces to become the country’s first democratically elected leader. For all of Karzai’s anti-Pakistan rhetoric, his father and his family enjoyed Pakistan hospitality for over a decade. Tariq Khan, one of the few Pakistani generals to be awarded the American Legion of Merit, was the senior Pakistani liaison officer at Central Command in Tampa Pakistan coordinating the War on Terror with the US. He says that the Pakistan Army delivered smooth

elections in 2009 by curtailing violence in the border areas. According to him:

the operations that were done astride the Kunar Border were done through a concept of supplementary and complimentary operations. The latter meant controlling the border when one was securing the lines of communication while the latter was mounting an operation elsewhere to draw away attention and resources of the enemy. Pakistan was responsible for the smooth elections that took place then. That was Pakistan promised and delivered. There was no violence, the resistance was effectively contained and the elections went ahead. The highest hand overs of militants were done by Pakistan to date. Pakistan has by now spent $118 billion, lost 70,000 of its citizens, has the highest officer to men causality ration and the highest general officer causalities than any other country. Pakistan has cleared 3,500 kilometres of road and lines of communications. The Pakistan Army has acquired total freedom of movement and liberty of action, established the writ of the government everywhere and has brought

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (left) meeting with Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa (right) at Pakistan Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi Pakistan on 4 December 2017. Courtesy of Amber I. Smith/Zuma Press/PA Images

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closure to the combat zone that comprised 48,000 square kilometres. However, to gauge the fight and measure its success, let me inform you, that in 2006, we were fighting for survival, now in 2018, the militants are fighting for theirs. This is a huge shift in the strategic paradigm that is not usually recognised.

Major-General Isfandiyar Khan Pataudi, who was Director General-Analysis of the Inter-Service Intelligence (Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, known colloquially as the ISI) and a key intermediary for the intelligence relationship between the US and Pakistan during the peak of the war thinks that:

the US President’s policy tweet on Pakistan and the follow-up by the US government appears to be a departure from reality. Pakistan’s contributions to countering terrorism and its sacrifices as a result of the support accorded to this global effort are unparalleled. Pakistan has not charged for transit of US logistics, allowed unrestricted use of air space and hosted millions of Afghan refugees. This policy shift is indicative of a lack of real perspective, the US inability to defeat the Taliban or bring peace to that war-torn country is a clear shifting of blame for internal shortcomings that need to be evaluated and addresses.

One day after Trump’s tweet, the Turkish president and the Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers had all made their support for Pakistan’s counterterrorism effort well known. The Pakistani military is fully prepared to face any cuts in US military aid, as well the potential threat of cross border incursions by American forces, and feels that its global recognition and reputation of its counterterrorism efforts is very different to what it was in 2001. Days after Trump announced the freezing of aid, Pakistan announced it would trade in the Chinese yuan, amid reports that China was getting ready to open a naval base in Pakistan, its second overseas military base after Djibouti. The Pakistani military has made it clear that it will do no more than it has already done. According to the COAS, Pakistan must defend its

borders and has already played its hand in regional peace. As 2018 begins, it is the US that needs Pakistan and not the other way around. US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis has already said that he is in touch with the Pakistani military, as without them the US forces cannot move their equipment or survive in landlocked Afghanistan. If anything, Trump’s tweet has made Pakistan realise it has been wrong to trust the US for seven decades. The Pakistanis have given full combat and logistical support to a war for which the US has no answers.

The Pakistani military is fully prepared to face any cuts in US military aid, as well the potential threat of cross border incursions by American forces, and feels that its global recognition and reputation of its counterterrorism efforts is very different to what it was in 2001.

In the weeks following Trump’s tweet it has become evident that it has had little impact on Pakistan’s credibility in the international fight against terror. If anything it is the US who is scurrying around to please Pakistan. Both Secretary Mattis and the commander of US Central Command General Joseph Votel have downplayed the media hype surrounding Trump and Pakistan. Votel, who has been a regular visitor to Pakistan, is at pains to say that the Pakistani military has done more than its share in the War on Terror. In a growing show of Pakistan’s self-confidence, a clear example of keeping the US at arm’s length was seen when a senior visiting US official, Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells, did not get a meeting with the senior command of the Pakistani military, as is the normal custom. General Bajwa, has also made it clear that American

money is not needed – it is respect they desire.

Nonetheless, the military aid needs some more context. While there has been a downward trajectory of US aid to Pakistan, the Trump factor coupled with the threat of aid cuts seems to be a flash in the pan. Pakistan has lived for more than a decade under US military sanctions since the 1985 Pressler Amendment, which made military and economic aid to the county conditional on an annual presidential determination that Pakistan did not have a nuclear weapon. In 1990, President George H W Bush was the first to withhold this determination. It was during these years from 1990 to 2001 that Pakistan developed its own military capability in conjunction with China, resulting in the JF-17 fighter jet, which will replace the aging F-16 fleet. Similarly Turkey and Russia have stepped in to assist Pakistan with procurements of military helicopters – another key element of US military aid to Pakistan.

The message from the military is quite clear – US equipment is no longer the only option for Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan is actively buying hardware and producing more with China. As far as US military aid goes, the words of the Pakistani Army’s spokesperson Major-General Asif Ghafoors sums up Pakistan’s perspective, ‘Pakistan never fought for money but for peace’. The Pakistani military leadership’s message is clear, that the Army has restored Pakistan’s stability. Afghanistan’s stability is the responsibility of the Afghan government and US forces. In fact, the US still completely relies on Pakistani assistance for logistics and complete usage of airspace for its forces. The future, as far as the Pakistan Army is concerned, belongs to them.

Kamal AlamKamal has been a Visiting Fellow at RUSI since July 2015. He specialises in Pakistan defence diplomacy and military operations on the Afghan border.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI or any other institution.

Pakistan and the US