Global Issues: Changing Nature of Conflict - Pakistan Relations - A double game?

The leaking of a NATO report claiming that Pakistan’s intelligence agency continues to provide support for the Taliban is the latest in a string of events demonstrating a breakdown in the relationship between the West and Pakistan. The porous and Af-Pak border and the role crucial role of Pakistan in possibly brokering talks with the Taliban in the elusive search for an end game to the conflict in Afghanistan makes this recent development all the more significant. With relation to the Global Issues course, the issue is worth realting to the question of ‘why are assymetrical wars so diificult to end?’.

Chatham House’s Gareth Price has an excelleent analytical piece in the Huffington Post: NATO’S Leaked Report: A Breakdown in Relations With Pakistan Here is an excerpt:At the same time, there is little hope of success in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s engagement. And as moves towards some form of peace process or reconciliation with the Taliban are expedited, the need for Pakistan’s involvement becomes greater still.

The leaking of a report suggesting that Pakistan continues to back the Taliban will probably have less impact on Western engagement with Pakistan than the bombing of a Pakistan border-post at the end of November; an act which led Pakistan to prevent NATO supplies transiting via Pakistan. That said, given the urgent need to start rebuilding the relationship it will do little to engender trust.

At the heart of the problem lies a void in Western thinking over how best to deal with Pakistan. Carrots, in the form of large cash transfers, would seem to have singularly failed in reducing Pakistan’s ambivalence in its dealings with Afghanistan. And the Western toolkit is somewhat lacking in sticks, short of threatening to withhold those cash transfers, in dealing with nuclear-armed Pakistan.