Pakistan and the U.S. have been unable to agree on what either side can, or will, do to halt terrorist operations in Pakistan along the Afghan and Indian borders. The U.S. is also reluctant to confront the basic problem in Pakistan; a military caste that grows rich off its control of a large chunk of the economy and national budget. The Pakistani generals maintain this lucrative arrangement by sustaining the image of Hindu India threatening to invade and conquer Moslem Pakistan. This was never a real threat, and has become less so with every passing year. But the military leadership has become a multi-generational dynasty that will use force to protect its assets and privileges. But the Pakistani military has to worry about the growing number of Pakistanis who realize what is going on, and are trying to make the military a servant of the state, not the other way around.
I did mention this. Of course, I've internalized the Strategypage view on Pakistan (on this issue, anyway). So it isn't surprising that they can exactly restate what I wrote.
We can't agree on a method to fight our common enemy because we really don't have a common enemy. At least not a main enemy we can agree needs to be defeated. Oh, Pakistan will agree to fight our main enemy (and then cynically note that they've lost so many of their cannon fodder doing so as if that was a real burden on their minds) but they won't devote forces to fully engage the jihadis we want defeated because Pakistan's military has a completely different objective--retaining their disproportionate claim on the budget and economy of Pakistan--than we do.
And this is more dangerous because it isn't just cynical exploitation of Pakistan's limited resources. The Pakistani army truly believes that it is Pakistan. Without the survival of the army, Pakistan doesn't exist, they think. So preserving the health of the military trumps any other objective.
I can understand this. During our Revolution, the existence of Washington's army was more important than anything else. Lose that army and America would have died the next day.
But we were in a shooting war. That belief was real. In Pakistan today, it is only a justification to retain a privileged position. And the argument that they need whatever the military leaders of Pakistan say they need to defend Pakistan is only a justification and not reality. If there was an actual shooting war, the Pakistani military would actually sacrifice whatever they needed to give up in order to keep the army intact and thus--in their minds--save Pakistan. So the Pakistani military actually isn't going to defend Pakistan as most Pakistanis understand "Pakistan."
I worry that Pakistan's military, with scores of nuclear weapons, will do something that we will see as insanely crazy and dangerous but from their point of view makes perfect sense to preserve the military as the dominant institution in Pakistan. China may be the primary threat to India now, but Pakistan is the most dangerous because they might do something completely irrational from a non-Pakistani military point of view.
Do you really wonder why I worry every day about having tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan with a supply line through Pakistan? The day when 100% of our supplies come through the Northern Route can't happen soon enough.
