Drone strikes in Pakistan: my interpretation

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Monday, June 1, 2009 - 4:37 PM Share

Good old Karen Anne DeYoung has a piece in the Washington Post today making the case for drone strikes. I think this is all part of wrapping up the strikes-effectively, her sources are conceding the end of the program in the coming months, but making the case for posterity that they did too work, no matter what those mean COINdinistas Kilcullen and Exum say.

I think this is of a piece with replacing Gen. David McKiernan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal. If you can't do drone strikes, you are occasionally gonna need to whack people with covert strikes of another sort. Manned raids, as it were. And who knows those better than Stan?

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JJH722

7:33 PM ET

June 1, 2009

They failed, but not because they lacked COIN tenets

I don't think the obsession with COIN should really interfere in our decisions regarding the drone attacks. After all, if "securing the population" is the goal, then we have absolutely no means of doing so independently--especially if we also intend to use our own capabilities to attack Taliban militants (who seem to be nestled in every crevice). From my perspective, the true aim of the operations was in almost willful opposition to the principles of counterinsurgency: it was to perturb the Pakistanis to the point that they would do the counterinsurgency themselves. That's where the problem lies: the Pakistanis don't have that capability either, and I doubt they are willing to develop it (remember how hard it was for our own beloved, flexible military to turn this corner? Imagine how the Pakistani officials with sympathies for the Taliban and hatred for India would react). I watched a great "Frontline" documentary about Pakistan recently, and it is clear that the government and the military there have a deeply flawed mindset when it comes to winning this war. They show absolutely no humanitarian concern--one general brushed off worries that those with homes destroyed in the violence would be tempted to join the Taliban. As the news reports have illustrated more recently, the Pak military's MO is to enter a town and level it rather than establish security itself. So, if the drones are, as I estimate them to be, and attempt to force the Pakistani army to its Western border, then it was a success. The failure REMAINS in the Pakistani army's inability to transform itself and in the Pakistani political system in general. In my opinion, given the cocktail of bad choices and stop-gap measures mixed up by the Bush administration and bequeathed to Obama, the best thing that we can do is to empower civil society by funneling aid through civilian channels. If a poor kid can only get an education and food by holing up in a madrassah, then we are losing both the economic, political, and media fronts of this war. In the end, the complexity of our challenges there warrants a radical rethink of what our interests in the region really are and whether they can be attained without exorbitant costs.

SREEKANTH

9:06 PM ET

June 1, 2009

"perturb"

>>>From my perspective, the true aim of the operations was in almost willful opposition to the principles of counterinsurgency: it was to perturb the Pakistanis to the point that they would do the counterinsurgency themselves

I completely agree. There was so much wailing and moaning that the drone attacks were "destablizing Pakistan", but I'm beginning to think that was exactly the master plan all along. Or maybe we were not smart, we just got lucky. As I see it, the drone attacks forced the Taliban out of their sanctuaries and into more settled areas, and once they started bombing Punjab, and delivering ultimatums to the people of the main cities, the population turned against them. This gave Zardari & Kiani the support and courage to strike hard.

ANDY

2:45 PM ET

June 2, 2009

Well, if you and the

Well, if you and the COINdinista's really believe that "manned" strikes by US personnel inside Pakistan is a better "COIN" approach than drones, then I want what you're smoking! If you think the Pakistani public is anti-American now, just wait until they find out US forces are on the ground killing Pakistani citizens.

There is no "COIN" the US can do in Pakistan. At most we can assist the Pakistanis, but even that will have to be minimal due to internal Pakistani political concerns.