Pakistan is currently dealing with complicated insurgencies in two of its provinces. One is primarily being waged by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), while the other is being waged by an assortment of Baloch ethnonationalist groups in Balochistan. These developments have rekindled a debate that has flummoxed military strategists throughout the modern era – on how to implement an effective counter insurgency (COIN) strategy. Doing so requires developing a multi-pronged approach that combines military, intelligence, and law enforcement operations with political and socioeconomic policies to form a cohesive strategy, while simultaneously challenging the ideology or raison d’etre of the insurgents. To restore peace in its restive provinces, Pakistan’s leaders must use these different prongs together in a mutually reinforcing way to address the many factors fueling these conflicts.

Balancing them properly requires understanding the nature of the fight Pakistan is facing. There are two basic kinds of insurgencies. The first involves guerillas fighting against a foreign military force occupying land. This is the kind of conflict America faced in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Though the occupying power may consider the problems of maintaining its occupation complicated, in truth such conflicts are easily resolved by ending the illegal occupations causing them and sending the unwanted foreign forces home.

Pakistan is dealing with the second kind, which involves citizens rebelling against their own state. These are infinitely more complicated. All wars are political, but some are more political than others. Domestic insurgencies are perhaps the most political because they involve disputes as to the nature and legitimacy of the political institutions that govern a particular territory between the people meant to share it. They also touch on difficult issues regarding the power of the state to take the lives of its citizens and the extent to which it must comply with due process norms when doing so.

The power to kill represents the ultimate exercise of political authority. Normally, a state is only justified in using this power against those who have been found guilty of a grave crime after they have been given a fair and transparent trial. Most would probably agree that insurrection should be punishable by death, but this depends on the nature of the state and the reason its citizens are rebelling. Not all states are just or legitimate and despite the ubiquitous use of the term, not all insurgents are “terrorists.” Even if they were, even “terrorists” deserve due process.

Pakistan’s leaders must understand that human rights abuses, disappearances, staged executions, and similar conduct are immoral and do infinitely more harm than good, which is not a coincidence. They only serve to agitate the population and strengthen the cause of those rebelling against the state.

For example, Palestinian and Kashmiri insurgents are fighting to be free of repressive states they were never meant to be a part of that have violently disenfranchised them. Compounding the problem, India and Israel have refused to implement political processes to address their grievances. As such, they have every right to take up arms against those who are oppressing and abusing them. So long as they do so within the bounds of civilized society, meaning they limit their attacks to security forces, their actions are not criminal or immoral. Therefore, the Palestinians are well within their rights to rebel against Israel’s apartheid policies and occupation, as the author has argued many times before, their best course of action is still non-violent resistance.

With these general ideas in mind, the rest of this discussion will focus on the role of security forces, political and socioeconomic policies, and the need to counter the ideology of insurgents.

Military, Law Enforcement and Intelligence Operations

The most important point to emphasize with respect to the use of the state’s security forces is that, due to the inherently political nature of domestic insurgencies, they have the smallest part to play. Though force will certainly be required at times, the less it is used, the better. Violence tends to exacerbate the underlying causes of such conflicts, not resolve them.

The improper or excessive use of force is counterproductive, because the key to defeating an insurgency is cutting it off and alienating it from the population it needs to hide and thrive. An effective COIN strategy will therefore be one that does not place an undue emphasis on military operations or heavy-handed police tactics. Regretfully, the Pakistani government has a history of relying on such tactics. It is believed to have disappeared over 5,000 people

Pakistan’s leaders must understand that human rights abuses, disappearances, staged executions, and similar conduct are immoral and do infinitely more harm than good, which is not a coincidence. They only serve to agitate the population and strengthen the cause of those rebelling against the state. When security personnel act outside the law, they undermine the very institutions they are fighting to protect. Such conduct must never be tolerated and those guilty of abusing the citizenry must be held accountable.

When citizens are merely suspected of being involved in insurrection or have surrendered to security forces, the government must always use the legal system to punish them in a transparent and fair manner. Punishments, especially for capital offenses, must be based on concrete and tangible evidence, not suspicion or circumstance.

Similarly, military operations resulting in civilian casualties, widespread destruction, or the displacement of civilian populations, even if unintentional, will only swell the ranks of insurgents while creating sympathy and space for them to operate. When the state uses force against its own citizens, it is imperative it does not abuse their legal or human rights and that it takes great care to avoid civilian casualties in those instances when violence is necessary.

The tendency of most military strategists, especially those with a background in conventional warfare, is to favor kinetic operations to achieve a military victory that is typically measured by counting bodies. Their obsession with tactical victories blinds them to the strategic defeat they inflict upon themselves whenever their bombs kill an innocent human being, or as some prefer to describe it, cause “collateral damage” - another euphemism popular in the West that highlights its moral depravity and ability to dehumanize the victims of the West’s many wars of imperial conquest.

Neither oppression, murder nor mayhem destroy the enemy’s will to fight. In fact, when directed towards civilians, such actions are more likely to fuel the enemy’s determination. Destroying an enemy’s will to fight is best thought of as resolving the underlying political dispute driving the conflict.

Aside from being counterproductive if not properly employed, the use of force will not lead to victory for Pakistan because of geography. Due to the ability of groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and TTP to hide in Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistan faces an operational environment not dissimilar to what America faced in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Despite its tactical dominance and superior firepower, it was unable to impose its political will in either of these wars, in part, because it faced insurgents who were able to find sanctuary in neighboring countries. This allowed them to re-group and re-supply in relative safety.

America’s experiences show no amount of firepower can defeat the laws of geography. The long duration of the conflict in Balochistan, which has seen insurgents hiding across international boundaries for decades, and the ability of the TTP to reconstitute itself in Afghanistan after being routed by the Pakistani military is further evidence geography makes a purely military victory impossible.

Although military and law enforcement operations will not, by themselves, lead to victory, they still have an important part to play. Many military strategists believe to win a war one must destroy the enemy’s will and capacity to fight but confuse and conflate the two. Israeli military officers, for example, mistakenly believe destroying the enemy’s will to fight means killing so many people and wreaking so much havoc the enemy is consumed with despair and loses the will to keep fighting. This is a gross misunderstanding of the term.

Neither oppression, murder nor mayhem destroy the enemy’s will to fight. In fact, when directed towards civilians, such actions are more likely to fuel the enemy’s determination. Destroying an enemy’s will to fight is best thought of as resolving the underlying political dispute driving the conflict. It refers to the political dynamics of war. Killing enemy troops, destroying their weapons or their ability to communicate and coordinate with each other, on the other hand, destroys the capacity to fight. This is the domain of........

© The Friday Times