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i
S. Paul Kapur
1
iv
1
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v
CON T EN T S
1. Introduction 1
2. The Logic of a Militant Proxy Strategy 13
3. Partition and an Emerging Strategy 32
4. Pakistan’s Militant Strategy Evolves 51
5. Kashmir and Afghanistan Reprise 81
6. Jihad as Grand Strategy: An Assessment 111
7. The Future: Can Pakistan Abandon Jihad? 127
Notes 143
Index 173
vi
1
CHAP T ER 1
Introduction
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 3 )
adversaries and shape its strategic environment without the costs and
risks of direct combat, and to help promote internal cohesion to compen-
sate for Pakistan’s weak domestic political foundations.16
THE LITERATURE
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 5 )
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 7 )
effects that Pakistani state support has had on the interests and capabili-
ties of militant groups. This book, by contrast, is concerned mainly with
the impact that supporting militancy has had on the strategic interests of
the Pakistani state.
Work in the politico-military and organizational camp that focuses on
the bureaucratic interests and commitments of the Pakistan Army leaves
open the question of their source. From where do these interests and com-
mitments come? In fact, the army’s attachment to militancy is rooted in
a source even deeper than its own bureaucratic proclivities—namely, the
founding logic of the Pakistani state, which provides the ideological basis
for the military’s bureaucratic commitments.
Work in the politico-military and organizational camp stressing the
perverse impact of Pakistan’s strategic assets may overplay structure and
underplay the importance of preferences in driving Pakistani security
behavior. Why do other countries with resource endowments similar to
Pakistan’s not engage in similarly pathological security behaviors? The
difference in behavior results primarily from divergent leadership prefer-
ences, quite apart from structural similarities.
Finally, broad studies of Pakistani political history, which address
a diverse spectrum of issues in addition to the Pakistan–militant con-
nection, often provide overly simplified discussions of Pakistan’s use of
Islamist militancy. As a result, they can be misleading. For example, these
studies generally trace the roots of Pakistan’s militancy problem to the
Islamization of Pakistani society under General Zia. This Islamization
process, however, began earlier, under Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto. Bhutto attempted to deflect public anger over the failure of his
economic programs through pious public gestures, such as declaring the
minority Ahmadi sect to be non-Muslim and banning the consumption
of alcohol.26 These were the first steps in the Islamization policy that Zia
later adopted. Moreover, a number of other factors underlay Pakistan’s
use of Islamist militants, such as the lack of a coherent national found-
ing narrative and material weakness relative to India. Finally, Pakistan
did not adopt its militant strategy during the Zia era; the Pakistanis had
been using Islamist militants as strategic tools since achieving indepen-
dence, long before Zia’s emergence.27 Other works in the historical camp
avoid these shortcomings but pay little specific attention to the subject of
militancy.
Despite its many strengths, then, the current literature on Pakistan’s
connection with Islamist militancy falls short in a number of areas.
Although I draw upon it, this book differs from existing scholarship in
important ways.
8
The Argument
Pakistan’s support for Islamist militancy has not been a mere accident or
a short-term military or political tactic. It is a deliberate, long-r unning
policy as old as the Pakistani state. Indeed, supporting jihad has con-
stituted nothing less than a central pillar of Pakistani grand strategy. 28
Grand strategy is a state’s theory of how to produce national security. It
identifies the goals that the state should seek in the world and also speci-
fies the military instruments that it should use to achieve them.29
Pakistan has three main grand strategic tools: nuclear weapons, con-
ventional forces, and militant proxies. Nuclear weapons have played a
defensive role for Pakistan, deterring large-scale Indian attacks against the
Pakistani homeland. During the 1999 Kargil war and a 2001–02 milita-
rized standoff, for example, nuclear danger led the Indians to rule out any
offensive that could have threatened Pakistan with catastrophic defeat.
Nuclear weapons have thus helped to guarantee Pakistan’s survival even
in the face of confrontation with a militarily stronger India. They have not
by themselves enabled Pakistan offensively to alter the territorial or politi-
cal status quo in South Asia, however. 30
Pakistani conventional forces have served a combination of pur-
poses. In some cases, such as the 1947 and 1965 wars, they have joined
conflicts against India that militants had already launched. In one
instance, the 1971 Bangladesh conflict, they began and fought a war
essentially on their own. In other cases, such as the Kashmir insurgency
and the Afghan conflicts, they have avoided direct involvement, leav-
ing the fighting up to the militants. Although conventional military
forces have occasionally engaged in offensive action against India, since
the Bangladesh war their main purpose has been to provide Pakistan
with a robust defense against any Indian conventional attack. Prior to
Bangladesh, Pakistani leaders believed that their forces were inherently
superior to the Indians and would inevitably defeat them on the battle-
field, much as the subcontinent’s Muslim invaders had done to its Hindu
inhabitants centuries earlier. At the very least, a small, Muslim Pakistan
would be able to fight a larger Hindu India to a draw, as it had in 1947
and 1965. The 1971 war, which saw India vivisect its adversary and cre-
ate Bangladesh out of East Pakistan, disabused the Pakistanis of this
notion. They realized that, in the future, a direct conventional military
confrontation with India could have catastrophic consequences. Since
then, the Pakistanis have avoided such fights and used their conven-
tional forces in a primarily defensive role. 31
Militant forces, by contrast, have served as Pakistan’s primary offen-
sive tool. They have started conflicts in which conventional forces have
9
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 9 )
I n t r o d u c t i o n ( 11 )
CHAP T ER 2
This can help to explain more clearly the Pakistani case, as well as illumi-
nate the incentives that other states in a similar position may face in the
future. As I explain, a proxy strategy can offer a sponsor attractive cost,
military, and bargaining benefits. It can also give rise to control and devel-
opmental problems, however, which over the long term make it extremely
costly and dangerous.
Lo gi c o f a M ili ta n t P r o x y S t r at e g y ( 15 )
On the denial side, weak-state use of militant proxies can make strong-
state defense considerably harder. A strong state could defeat an opera-
tion by the weak state’s proxy forces and achieve denial in three basic
ways. First, assuming that the weak state’s proxy forces were outside of
the strong state, the strong state could prevent the proxies from enter-
ing its territory. Second, if the weak state’s proxies were already inside
the strong state, the strong state could find the militants before they
launched their operation. Third, if the weak state’s proxies were already
in the strong state and the strong state was unable to find them before
they launched their operation, it could defeat the proxies’ attack once it
was already underway.
Unfortunately for strong states, each one of these denial options faces
formidable challenges when pitted against a militant proxy strategy. First,
preventing small groups of incognito militants from crossing interna-
tional boundaries and entering a strong state is an enormous task. The
only way for strong states wholly to stop them from entering their ter-
ritory is through flawless patrolling of extensive borders and coastlines,
and policing of multiple ports of entry. This is a virtually impossible chal-
lenge, even for the most capable of states. Indeed, large, powerful coun-
tries, which are likely to have relatively long borders and coastlines and
numerous ports of entry, may find this problem to be especially difficult.16
If militant forces do manage to evade detection at borders or ports and
infiltrate the strong state’s territory, preventing them from launching their
attack will be extremely difficult. Thwarting the militants will require the
strong state to locate and apprehend them before they can strike. The mili-
tants’ ability to operate in small groups that can blend into the local pop-
ulation, however, will make such detection and apprehension difficult,
particularly in the high-density urban centers in which they are likely to
launch their attacks.17 As a result, the strong state may be unable to find
and arrest the militants before they strike, even if it has some foreknowl-
edge of their plans and is actively searching for them. In this case, the
strong state’s last denial option would be to defeat the militants’ operation
by thwarting an attack once it was already underway.
Defeating an attack in progress is also likely to prove to be problem-
atic for the strong state. The strong state will probably have limited, if any,
warning of the attack, while the militants will have surprise and initia-
tive on their side. In addition, the attackers may not seek to escape, killing
themselves or fighting to the death instead. This can enable them to inflict
significant damage on their targets, thus making their operation costly to
the strong state even if they are quickly eliminated.18 The use of militant
proxy forces thus makes all three possible strong-state methods of denial
extremely difficult.
17
Lo gi c o f a M ili ta n t P r o x y S t r at e g y ( 17 )
Lo gi c o f a M ili ta n t P r o x y S t r at e g y ( 19 )
proxies. Specifically, the state can claim that reining in its proxies will
be difficult and costly, requiring an especially large compensatory
payment.
This control issue is rooted in what is known as a principal–agent prob-
lem. A principal–agent problem arises where one party employs another
to carry out an assigned task. The hiring party, or principal, employs the
agent because the agent is better able to do the work in question, for rea-
sons such as cost, legitimacy, deniability, or expertise. After having been
hired, however, the agent may prove unwilling or unable to do the princi-
pal’s bidding. This failure may occur because, from the outset, the princi-
pal and agent’s interests were misaligned, or because the agent lacked the
capacity to carry out the assigned task. Alternatively, this failure could
result from the principal’s inability to devise mechanisms to ensure that
the agent is behaving properly while under its employ.26 Regardless of the
failure’s precise source, principal–agent relationships can be extremely
costly for the sponsor. Misbehaving agents can consume the principal’s
resources without delivering promised results, or even drag the principal
into an unwanted war.
Although scholars typically focus on principal–agent problems’ costs
to sponsor states, a sponsor’s lack of control over its proxies can actually
help it to negotiate a favorable settlement to a conflict. Limited control
increases the difficulty of the sponsor’s task of reining in proxy forces.
The sponsor can therefore demand higher payment from its adversary in
return for calling off the proxies than it could if it had firm control over
them.27 Even if the sponsor is able to exercise relatively good control over
its proxies, it can still probably demand a higher settlement price than it
could if it were fighting alone, in which case the task of reining in a third
party would not exist.28 In addition to helping a weak state initiate and
prosecute a conflict with a stronger adversary, then, the use of militant
proxies can help a weak state to end a conflict with a powerful opponent
on relatively favorable terms.
The use of militant proxies thus can hold significant cost, military,
and bargaining benefits for a weak state seeking to challenge a stron-
ger adversary. Such a strategy does not, however, offer a sponsor state
unmitigated advantages; the use of militant proxies can also subject a
sponsor to important costs. These include principal–agent problems,
costly trade-offs between security and development, and antagonism of
stronger adversaries. Next, I discuss each of these costs in turn. All of
them are heightened by the characteristic that is most likely to make
a militant strategy attractive to a state sponsor—t he weakness of the
sponsor state.
20
Lo gi c o f a M ili ta n t P r o x y S t r at e g y ( 21 )
These lines from “Voluntaries” in the Poems, and the stanza which
there follows them, are recalled by this passage.
Page 106, note 1. Granville Sharp (1734-1813) was a broad-
minded scholar and determined philanthropist. He left the study of
law to go into the ordnance office, which he left, when the American
Revolution came on, disapproving of the course of the government.
In the case of one of the slaves whom he defended, the Lord Mayor
discharged the negro, but his master would not give him up. The
case then went before the Court of Kings Bench, and the twelve
judges decided in 1772 that a man could not be held in, or
transported from, England. In June, 1787, Sharp with Clarkson and
ten others, nine of whom were Quakers, formed a committee “for
effecting the abolition of the slave trade;” Sharp was chairman.
Defeated in Parliament in 1788 and 1789, they were joined by Pitt
and Fox in 1790. In 1793 the Commons passed an act for gradual
abolition of the trade, which was rejected by the Peers. This
occurred again in 1795 and 1804. In 1806, the Fox and Grenville
Ministry brought forward abolition of the trade as a government
measure. It was carried in 1807. Then the enemies of slavery began
to strive for its gradual abolition throughout the British dominions,
Clarkson, Wilberforce and Buxton being the principal leaders. The
course of events, however, showed that immediate emancipation
would be a better measure. The government brought this forward in
1823, modified by an apprenticeship system. The bill with this
feature and some compensation to owners was passed in 1833.
Page 108, note 1. In the essay on Self-Reliance Mr. Emerson said:
“An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as Monachism,
of the Hermit Antony; the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox;
Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson.”
Page 112, note 1. The “prædials” seem to have been the slaves
born into captivity, as distinguished from imported slaves.
Page 115, note 1. Emancipation in the West Indies: A Six Months’
Tour in Antigua, Barbadoes and Jamaica, in the year 1837. J. A.
Thome and J. H. Kimball, New York, 1838.
Page 120, note 1. This was very soon after the coronation of the
young Queen Victoria, which occurred in the previous year.
Page 125, note 1. “All things are moral, and in their boundless
changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore
is nature glorious with form, color and motion; that every globe in the
remotest heaven, every chemical change from the rudest crystal up
to the laws of life ... every animal function from the sponge up to
Hercules, shall hint or thunder to man the laws of right and wrong,
and echo the Ten Commandments.”—Nature, Addresses and
Lectures, p. 40. See also the last sentence in “Prudence,” Essays,
First Series.
Page 131, note 1. “For he [a ruler] is the minister of God to thee
for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth
not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Epistle to the Romans, xiii.
4.
Page 132, note 1. The cause for Mr. Emerson’s indignation was
great and recent. His honored townsman, Samuel Hoar, Esq., sent
by the State of Massachusetts as her commissioner to South
Carolina to investigate the seizures, imprisonments, punishments,
and even sale of colored citizens of Massachusetts who had
committed no crime, had been expelled with threats of violence from
the city of Charleston. (See “Samuel Hoar,” in Lectures and
Biographical Sketches.)
Page 133, note 1.
“Boston,” Poems.
Page 146, note 1. In the early version of the “Boston” poem were
these lines:—
WAR
In the winter and early spring of 1838, the American Peace
Society held a course of lectures in Boston. This lecture was the
seventh in the course. Mr. Alcott wrote in his diary at that time:—
“I heard Emerson’s lecture on Peace, as the closing discourse of a
series delivered at the Odeon before the American Peace Society....
After the lecture I saw Mr. Garrison, who is at this time deeply
interested in the question of Peace, as are many of the meekest and
noblest souls amongst us. He expressed his great pleasure in the
stand taken by Mr. Emerson and his hopes in him as a man of the
new age. This great topic has been brought before the general mind
as a direct consequence of the agitation of the abolition of slavery.”
The lecture was printed in 1849 Æsthetic Papers, edited by Miss
Elizabeth P. Peabody.
Although the chronicles of the campaigns and acts of prowess of
the masterly soldiers were always attractive reading to Mr. Emerson,
—much more acts of patriotic devotion in the field,—and he was by
no means committed as a non-resistant, he saw that war had been a
part of evolution, and that its evils might pave the way for good, as
flowers spring up next year on a field of carnage. He knew that
evolution required an almost divine patience, yet his good hope was
strengthened by the signs of the times, and he desired to hasten the
great upward step in civilization.
It is evident from his words and course of action during the
outrages upon the peaceful settlers of Kansas, and when Sumter
was fired upon and Washington threatened, that he recognized that
the hour had not yet come. He subscribed lavishly from his limited
means for the furnishing Sharp’s rifles to the “Free State men.” In the
early days of the War of the Rebellion he visited Charlestown Navy-
Yard to see the preparations, and said, “Ah! sometimes gunpowder
smells good.” In the opening of his address at Tufts College, in July,
1861, he said, “The brute noise of cannon has a most poetic echo in
these days, as instrument of the primal sentiments of humanity.”
Several speeches included in this volume show that at that crisis his
feeling was, as he had said of the forefathers’ “deed of blood” at
Concord Bridge,—