Rethinking counter-insurgency strategies

Winning hearts and minds is an essential part of it, army needs to pay greater attention to public sensitivities.

When combating insurgency, the army mantra is ‘Clear, Hold, Build, Transfer’. While the ‘clear’ and ‘hold’ parts of the operation are accomplished speedily, the ‘build’ part, which involves the civil government, presents a major challenge. For whatever reason the military feels that unless it also ‘builds,’ nothing will get done, and the insurgency may return feeding on the frustration of the populace. In some areas of Fata, the army has already begun to do this, having to constantly badger the federal government for funds.

Often, control of the territory cannot be transferred to civil authorities, because the local police have neither the training nor the equipment to do their job. Increasingly, as demanded by the local people in Swat, the military has to stay on longer until the police and local paramilitary forces are brought up to scratch.

However, this is a highly unsatisfactory situation, both financially and logistically. Can the army remain at their current locations? New cantonments are costly too. Moreover, if our forces of the eastern border are not to be depleted, additional forces will have to be raised which may prove difficult considering the government is virtually bankrupt. Furthermore, unless the situation is remedied, it will require the army to transform itself from an essentially fighting force into an organisation which is also able to replicate a variety of civilian tasks, including large developmental projects such as dams, schools, hospitals, etc, in addition to fighting. But this is too much to expect from an institution that has been trained to fight and only to support, not supplant, the civilian agencies in emergency situations. Nor can it transform itself radically overnight.

Another problem is the reaction of local communities to the demeanour of the army. In Swat, for example, the army was welcomed as liberators when they first came. An overjoyed population could not wait to see the back of the Taliban. Although their desire to retain the army remains, strong they are fed up with check-points, road-blocks but more so with and the crude behaviour of the average jawans who man these posts. This is a pity because it is entirely avoidable; Swat is now safe enough to let the local police operate check-points And they would probably do it just as well and without giving offense. It is time perhaps for the army to adopt a lower profile especially in towns where close inter action with the public is unavoidable.

The situation in South Waziristan is different. There the antagonism towards the army is greater, even if there is little love lost for the Taliban. Once again the problem stems from endless route closures, repeated body searches, extended curfews etc which the army claims is unavoidable, but which the locals insist is intrusive, needless and pointless. True, insurgent groups operating there are usually led by foreigners, mostly Uzbeks, who are ruthless and cruel and hence the searches have to be fairly thorough, but nevertheless this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The military is inherently a blunt instrument, no soldier trained to fight can enter a home during an operation and not act in a manner that will upset the occupants. It is in the very nature of things that he will be less bothered about the niceties of social behaviour than carrying out the dangerous task that he has been assigned. But when this is repeated for days on end, their intrusions breed a deep sense of hurt or worse among the locals. The enemy knows this and seeks to provoke searches, road blocks and curfews.

The civilians who stay back in the area under an operation often have an antagonistic relationship with the army, which breeds mutual hostility which erupts from time to time. Winning hearts and minds is an essential part of counter-insurgency strategies and so the army needs to pay greater attention to public sensitivities.

The army’s difficulties are further compounded in Fata by the prolonged neglect that area has suffered at the hands of the government. Virtually all aspects of modern life are absent and so too and basic facilities are absent. Poverty and the lack of educational facilities are all too evident. The illiteracy rate among women is nearly 90% and that of men only a little better. Other than earning their living by the gun, the youth have few options and this works well for the well-funded Taliban. Sadly what successive governments have sown the army is now reaping. Although the army is trying to make amends for years of neglect by developing infrastructure, it has a long way to go before the resentment abates.

Surely one of the big lessons to be learnt from the current insurgency is not to leave isolate the people of Waziristan isolated and bereft of both assistance and attention in future. It is astonishing that the tribal areas remain so poor, even though funds allocated for their socio-economic development of the tribal areas is on more of a per capita basis than for any other region in the country.  This only goes to show the extent of the looting that has been going on. By the looks of it not a dime has been invested in the area.

Another important lesson is that the area cannot truly be pacified, nor can the army succeed in winning by military means alone. The army leadership engaged in Swat and Fata are aware of this but they must review their procedures and refine their approach, encouraging the government to fulfil its developmental role. And, no less importantly they need to prod the civil government to fulfil its developmental role because the success of the counter insurgency will ultimately rest on delivering development. Lack of it, so evident in the tribal areas, is the bane of all that they confront.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2011.