Australian help in Pakistan cannot be military

As Australia winds down in Afghanistan after a 12-year war, the new defence minister, David Johnson, has reportedly stated that Australia needs to keep its counter-insurgency skills honed, including for possible use in Pakistan

It is not clear whether Mr Johnson means a limited role in advising Pakistan on counter-insurgency or envisions a more robust involvement in maintaining stability. Either way, there is no useful counter-insurgency role for Australia in Pakistan, either on its own or in concert with its friends and allies.

Pakistan is both a supporter of the insurgency in Afghanistan and involved in counter-insurgency against groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) within Pakistan.

In Afghanistan, the Pakistani military and its intelligence service, the ISI, support Afghan anti-government groups like the Haqqani network and harbour the Taliban leadership in Quetta. US intelligence believes the Haqqani network, with support from the ISI, was involved in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008, in which 58 died. The network also allegedly killed the Karzai government’s chief peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Pakistan hosts and supports groups like Lashka-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which target India in Kashmir and more broadly in cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad and New Delhi. The LeT was the perpetrator of the Mumbai attacks of 26 November 2008, in which 164 died. 

Pakistan has so far refused to hand over the 12 people named by India for involvement in these attacks. Seven have been arrested but not brought to trial. The prosecutor in those cases was recently assassinated. There is evidence of involvement of recently retired ISI officers in assisting with the planning of the attacks.

The Pakistani military is also involved in an intensive counter-insurgency campaign in Pakistan itself. The main enemy in this campaign is the TTP. The TTP and other Pakistani Taliban elements were attacked in South Waziristan from 2007 onward — an action in which reportedly over 1000 Pakistani military and paramilitary have died. However, attacking TTP and other militant strongholds in North Waziristan is a ‘bridge too far’ for the Pakistani military, which has also been restrained because it is the location of its client, the Haqqani network. The action in South Waziristan was followed by an equally intensive and bloody campaign to clean out the Pakistani Taliban from the once-peaceful Swat Valley in 2009. The Pakistani military is also engaged in a sporadic and at times bloody separatist movement in Baluchistan, which has continued since the 1970s. Karachi, a city of about 23 million, is at war with itself. Thousands have died on its streets in recent years.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is estimated to have a larger nuclear arsenal than India. This arsenal is perhaps the most rapidly escalating in the world today. Pakistan was given the design of the 1998 uranium bomb by China, which in turn received it from the former Soviet Union. China also provided key ballistic missile technology to Pakistan in the form of the M11 missile. China is Pakistan’s all-weather friend. Beijing indirectly threatened India to prevent it attacking Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

In all of this, Australian counter-insurgency advice would be like ‘teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs’. Australia has sadly lost 40 soldiers in Afghanistan. Each one of them is sorely missed. Pakistan has lost thousands of military and paramilitary in counter-insurgency operations. Its three-quarters-of-a-million-strong army is highly professional and highly tested in counter-insurgency. It is also operating on its own terrain.

An Australian counter-insurgency role in stabilising Pakistan seems equally unrealistic. This is a country of over 185 million, expected to grow by a further 85 million in the next 20 years. Its problems are deep-seated and require action in many different spheres as well as the military, including governance, economic reform, land reform and education.

A well-targeted aid program would be more suitable. This could be directed at addressing the country’s rapidly escalating environmental problems, assisting with education and literacy, and providing technical assistance in energy and mining. For a country like Australia, it would be better to forget about any military involvement in this complex, difficult part of the world.

Dr Sandy Gordon is a Visiting Fellow at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. He is the author of a number of books on South Asia and the Indian Ocean.