Pakistan army today is faced with multidimensional challenges. None is more important than the need to understand that it must create an enabling environment to combat growing militancy in Fata. Our economy suggests that it should cut down the size of the active duty force, as well as of the units that employ them. But generals, as well as politicians, know well that the army cannot be asked both ‘to ensure operational effectiveness and cut down on the resources and save money as well’. What then is the way forward? We cannot cut down the size of the army as it remains critical to maintaining national stability but we can surely ‘lower the cost’ by cutting down on the army’s operational costs.
US spent nine years, $700 billion and suffered over 4,000 American casualties to end the war it started in Iraq. Compare this with five months, one billion dollars and no casualties in toppling the Libyan regime through covert operations and Nato strikes. Quite strikingly the methods employed and the manners in which both wars have been fought are remarkably different yet with the same results. Our army units deploy and redeploy in the formations on the western front. The ‘rotation policy’ for the units on the western front is a critical guarantor that combats war fatigue but the ‘rotational presence’ is high on cost. Units come and go in the combat zone (Fata) while those whom they fight have a permanent presence on the land. As a result, tactical operational failures that are seen as signs of ‘incompetence’ often are a product of non-familiarisation with the terrain, as well as the unfamiliarity and inexperience of fighting the irregular warfare there.
The US troop drawdown that starts this year will be completed in 2014. By that time we must plan to secure the ‘open, provocative and destabilising AfPak border’. This will help the army to broaden its scope to substantially combating the growing insurgency in Balochistan. It will also reduce deployment of regular troops on western borders, thus cutting on cost on a long-term and permanent basis. Strategically, it will deliver a clear message that our priority is to ‘ensure that after the US troops are gone, no cross-border movement takes place and Afghanistan gets to deal with its internal problems all by itself and on its own’. The project is expensive yet considering its long-term benefits, it is necessary and unavoidable.
MUHAMMAD ALI EHSAN
Karachi