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Though Pakistan has not completely adopted the models, tactics, and best practices of counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine advocated by Western strategists, there is considerable evidence of movement in recent years toward a hybrid approach. Security forces have historically employed a variety of tactics including raids, “coercive sorting,” and sometimes population security, but they experienced repeated failures from 2001 to 2008. Though results of the more recent approach seem promising, prospects for long-term success remain unclear. A full conversion to “population-centric” COIN is unlikely—even with American assistance—because of its sheer difficulty, the prohibitive costs in money and manpower, organizational lags, and substantial tradeoffs with Pakistani grand strategy and military doctrine. Triumphant claims that Pakistan has turned a corner toward greater strategic cooperation with the West, based on its recent military campaigns in the tribal areas, should also be tempered by a closer analysis of Pakistani public opinion. These data paint a more nuanced picture, in which increased support for efforts to combat some extremist militant groups has been matched by rising anti-Americanism and opposition to U.S.-Pakistan cooperation. Thus Pakistan appears to be constrained to a “learning by doing” process, with incremental rather than revolutionary improvements in its approach to counterinsurgency.
For the full policy paper, click here. Lalwani presented this paper at the New America Foundation on April 19, 2010.
Sameer Lalwani, a research fellow with the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative and the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, is pursuing a PhD in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.