As the true central front in the war on Al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations, South Asia has been the subject of a massive increase in U.S. arms transfers and security assistance since 9/11, rivaled only by U.S. aid and sales to the Middle East. As the Obama administration makes its transition to power with a pledge to increase U.S. commitments of troops and assistance to this region, the difficulties of using arms to quell terrorist activities and fundamentalist insurgents will become apparent.

Afghanistan

Although the conflict in Afghanistan has until recently received far less attention than the war in Iraq, the U.S. troop commitment there is the longest since the Vietnam War. Moreover, Afghanistan has received more U.S. security assistance ($29 billion) than any other nation in the world, including Iraq. But seven years into the intervention that deposed the Taliban regime and replaced it with the elected government of President Hamid Karzai, stability is far from being achieved. U.S. military commanders on the ground have called for greater troop commitments from the United States and its NATO allies to address the growing strength of a reinvigorated Taliban insurgency, and efforts to train and professionalize the Afghan police and armed forces have taken on new urgency. The United States has already spent tens of billions of dollars on security assistance programs since the beginning of the intervention in 2001 (see table 16), but these substantial sums are probably just a down payment on what will be needed to help foster long-term stability in Afghanistan.

Table 16
Major U.S. Security Assistance Programs to Afghanistan
FY 2002 through FY 2009 (dollars in thousands)

Program	FY 2002-06	FY 2007	FY 2008a	FY 2009b
Economic Support Fund	$2,959,783	$1,210,709	$1,374,502	$707,000
Foreign Military Financing	$1,058,761	--	--	--
International Military Education and Training (IMET)	$2,985	$1,193	$1,618	$1,400
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE)	$1,227,930	$251,740	$272,574	$250,000
Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism Demining and Related Programs (NADR)	$211,624	$36,575	$26,626	$31,550
Afghanistan National Security Forces Fundc	$6,059,100	$7,585,400	$2,827,300	$3,666,259
Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP)d	$923,000	$956,400	$1,000,000	$1,700,000
Total	$11,520,183	$9,085,617	$4,502,620	$4,656,209
TOTAL FY2002 through FY 2009	$29,764,629

Sources: U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, FY 2004through FY 2009 editions; U.S. Department of Defense, "Global War on Terror"supplemental budget requests, FY 2003 through FY 2009 editions; and U.S.Government Accountability Office (GAO), AfghanistanSecurity: Further Congressional Action May be Needed to Ensure Completion of a Detailed Plan to Develop and Sustain Afghan Security Forces, GAO-08-861,June 18, 2008. ^aFY 2008 figures are estimates. ^bFY 2009 figures are as proposed in the administration's budget. ^cIncludes funding for both the Afghan National Army(ANA) and the Afghan Police Forces. ^d Figures for the CERP program include funding for both Iraq and Afghanistan; because of the uncertainty as to how the funds are split between the two countries, the CERP figures have not been added into the security assistance totals in this table.

In its 2008 World Report, Human Rights Watch paints a grim picture of life in Afghanistan, and suggests that the conduct of the Afghan government has too often added to the burdens of its citizenry rather than improving their security:

Life for the average Afghan remains short, miserable, and brutal. Average lifespan for men and women hovers at around 45 years. According to the United Nations, nearly a third of all Afghans, some 6.5 million people, suffer from chronic food insecurity. Afghans face escalating violations of their human rights at the hands of a variety of abusers: the Taliban and other anti-government insurgent groups, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami and tribal militias, criminal groups and local warlords (many with government affiliations), and, increasingly, the Afghan government itself. The insurgency in the south undermines development and reconstruction in the comparatively peaceful north, and as predicted, destabilizes neighboring Pakistan. The United Nations’ assessment of areas considered ‘most dangerous’ and thus out of bounds for nearly all aid workers doubled in 2007 to cover one-third of Afghanistan.[55]

It is in this context that U.S. efforts to “train and equip” Afghan Security Forces must be viewed. The International Crisis Group has described the Afghan National Army (ANA)--due to grow to a force of 80,000 by 2010--as increasingly effective in cooperating with international forces but as having “a long way to go” before becoming an effective and self-sufficient entity. In contrast, the ICG sees the 40,000-plus Afghan police force as “largely a source of insecurity and fear.”[56]

In a June 2008 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that although “the United States has invested over $10 billion to developing the ANA since 2002…only 2 of 105 army units are assessed as being fully capable of conducting their primary mission and efforts to develop the army continue to face challenges.” Among the challenges cited were difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel, including significant instances of personnel either deserting their units or going absent without leave for extended periods. In addition, according to the GAO assessment, “ANA combat units report significant shortages in about 40 percent of the equipment items [the] Defense [Department] defines as critical, including vehicles, weapons, and radios.” The report went on to suggest that the problems in training and equipping Afghan forces are due in part to “other global priorities”--in other words, to providing troops and equipment for the war in Iraq.[57]

The quantity and quality of equipment provided to the Afghan National Army has changed dramatically over the past three to four years. In 2004 and 2005, the assumption was that Afghan forces would be armed with salvaged and/or donated Eastern bloc equipment. This was supplemented beginning in 2006 by the provision of pickup trucks and 9mm pistols of Western origin. Beginning in FY2007, Afghan forces have been provided with U.S.-origin M-16 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, armored Humvees, and body armor. At the same time that more sophisticated weaponry was being supplied to the ANA, the numbers of personnel trained nearly tripled, from 19,600 in 2005 to 58,000 in 2008. In keeping with this accelerated activity, $7.6 billion of the $16.5 billion that the United States has so far invested in training and equipping the Afghan army and police forces was authorized in FY2007.[58]

Even if more trainers can be found, more dollars can be devoted to new equipment, and more Afghans can be persuaded to make a career of military service, the day when Afghan forces can operate on their own without major international (primarily U.S. or NATO) support is still far off. According to the Pentagon’s plan for developing the Afghan National Army and the country’s police forces, the Afghan government will not be able to assume the “lead responsibility for its own security needs” until after 2019, or over ten years from now. During the first five years of that period, the Pentagon estimates that Washington will need to supply at least $2 billion a year in support of Afghan security forces (army and police).[59]

While there is no easy way out of the challenges posed by the Afghan conflict, there are some policy approaches that may improve the chances of a positive outcome. First, as is understood by civilian and military leaders alike, the Afghan war will not be won through military means alone. Improvements in education--particularly for women and girls who have historically been denied access--are an essential building block for a more stable Afghanistan. Also needed are new, more effective approaches to economic development to wean the country from its current heavy dependence on opium production, which has soared since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

Given these realities, attention must be paid to the balance between civilian and military assistance provided to Afghanistan. The $7.6 billion that the United States allocated for military and police training for FY2007 alone is more than double the $2.8 billion in total Official Development Assistance (ODA) Afghanistan received in 2005, the most recent year for which full statistics are available.[60] While there is obviously an interplay between security and development--economic aid can only go so far if people lack a safe environment in which to go to school and work--it is nonetheless important to make sure that traditional military tools do not consume the lion’s share of assistance.

A second crucial element of a more effective Afghan policy is accountability. To the extent possible, systems must be put in place to carefully monitor the procurement, transfer, and use of U.S.-supplied weaponry. From the recent case of criminal negligence involving the supply of faulty ammunition to Afghan forces to large numbers of anecdotes about Army recruits selling off everything from uniforms to AK-47s, it is clear that more resources and attention need to be applied to the task of curbing corruption in the Afghan arms supply line.

India

After some promising steps towards reconciliation in recent years, relations between India and Pakistan have been severely damaged by the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai which left over 170 people dead. The Indian government has tied the attacks to the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, which has in the past received training and support from Pakistan’s intelligence services. The Mumbai attacks have escalated tensions between India and Pakistan to the highest levels since 2001, when a suicide attack on the Indian parliament was undertaken, allegedly by groups based in Pakistan. An Indian government official has made clear that the administration of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is “taking steps” against Pakistan, and that “We’re not saying we’re going to attack them. Short of that everything will have to be considered.”[61]

The current crisis takes place against a long history of tensions going back six decades. India gained independence from Britain in 1947, and then divided into Muslim Pakistan and India--which was majority Hindu but officially secular. Partition occurred at midnight on August 15, 1947. What followed was the most rapid population movement in modern history, and perhaps the most bloody. More than 14 million people left their homes--with Muslims fleeing India for what is now Pakistan and Hindus leaving Pakistan for India; an estimated half a million people were killed in communal violence as the flows of people collided and crossed.

The two nations have fought two more wars since then, and continue to clash over the Kashmir region they both claim. The far northern and western areas of the state are under Pakistani control and the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and Ladahk are under Indian control, where a Muslim majority complains of a heavy-handed and corrupt rule. In 1989, Pakistan began supporting an Islamist insurgency in its mission to drive out the 500,000 Indian troops deployed in Kashmir.[62] For its part, India constructed a huge electrified fence along the Line of Control in an effort to stop these Pakistani-backed incursions.[63] As one moderate Kashmiri leader told the New York Times, “We are trapped among three guns: the militants, the occupying forces [the Indian military] and unknown gunmen.”[64]

An estimated 68,000 people have died in Kashmir since 1989, and tens of thousands more have been displaced by violence.[65] India and Pakistan entered into wide-ranging peace talks in June 2004 and agreed to a series of steps aimed at resolving their disputes. Among other things, the nuclear-armed rivals agreed to notify each other before testing missiles, to open consulates, and to work toward a peace agreement regarding Kashmir.[66] The process has dragged of late, and the Mumbai terrorist attacks could make the pursuit of peace over Kashmir even more difficult.

In the past few months, Kashmir has seen the biggest pro-independence demonstrations since 1989, triggering a violent crackdown by Indian security forces which has led to the death of more than 45 people and injured hundreds.[67] The new Pakistani president Asif Zardari turned up the dial on tensions in October of this year, labeling Kashmiri fighters “terrorists”--the first time that term has been used to describe the armed groups fighting for self-determination for the territory since partition in 1947.

While this heated rhetoric is unlikely to move the peace process forward, prior to the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 the two sides had not given up entirely. At the end of October, a trade route through the divided territory was opened for the first time in 60 years, with Indian trucks loaded with apples and walnuts traveling to Pakistan. The trucks returned carrying a shipment of rice and raisins.[68] But even these small steps are now threatened by renewed tensions over Mumbai.

Despite continued violent political upheaval, Pakistan enjoys billions in military aid from the United States as a close ally in the global war on terror and has a long wish list for U.S. weapons, including F-16 fighter planes, which have begun to be delivered from the Lockheed Martin assembly line in Fort Worth, Texas.

For its part, India just signed a major civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the Bush administration and is looking forward to increased investment from U.S. corporations as a result. India, which has five times more people than Pakistan as well as a rapidly growing economy, is at the beginning of a major military upgrade that could cost $100 billion. After decades of looking to the Soviet Union and more recently to Russia for geostrategic support, India has now turned to the United States to feed its appetite for high-tech weaponry.

With U.S. weapons and aid, the two nuclear-armed nations are increasing the size and sophistication of their arsenals, even as they continue to spar over territory, religion, and regional dominance.

The United States and India

In announcing the new Indian-U.S. Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative at the end of October, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remarked that the agreement between the “world's largest democracy” and “the world’s oldest continuous democracy” would cement U.S.-India relations. ”We believe that the relationship between the United States and India is on a very firm footing, and that can only be good for democracy and it can only be good for the world.”

The nuclear deal is certainly good for U.S. business interests. The door is now open for U.S. companies to provide expertise to the Indian nuclear power industry and to sell billions of dollars of equipment to India to feed that country’s growing appetite for energy. The U.S.-India Business Council asserts that over the next 30 years, international corporations will be able to take advantage of $150 billion in commercial opportunities opened up by this civil nuclear cooperation. [69]

The agreement replaces decades of sanctions on India in reaction to its nuclear tests and refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The deal has plenty of critics. Within India, opposition parties are concerned that the agreement infringes on Indian sovereignty. Internationally, critics say the agreement hurts global efforts to control the spread of nuclear technology and provides a new path to nuclear legitimacy.

In 1974, India tested its first nuclear device, in what it termed a “peaceful” nuclear explosion.[70] New Delhi began work on thermonuclear devices in the 1980s. In 1998, India tested five nuclear warheads alongside a series of similar tests by Pakistan that elicited shocked reactions, recriminations, and sanctions from nations around the world. The Natural Resources Defense Council believes that India possesses between 60 and 90 nuclear warheads (but acknowledges it is a very rough estimate).[71]

India’s route to nuclear weapons was through the Atoms for Peace program. Its scientists were able to convert nuclear technologies provided by the United States and other foreign suppliers for energy purposes into a weapons program. Despite this history of overlap between energy and weapons, President Bush gave high priority to the U.S.-India nuclear deal in his second term.

As Indian and U.S. officials celebrated the nuclear deal, Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, visited Beijing, where he signed a number of economic agreements and secured Chinese help in building two new nuclear power plants.[72] Despite its close cooperation with Pakistan on counterterrorism efforts, the United States rebuffed Islamabad’s calls for equal treatment with India on the nuclear front, citing Pakistan's history of leaking nuclear secrets.

According to Rahul Bedi, an India-based correspondent for Jane’s Defense Weekly, New Delhi is expected to spend more than $30 billion in the next four years upgrading its military forces and as much as $80 billion over the next decade to replace its near-obsolescent Soviet-era arsenal.[73] If recent sales offers are any indication, much of that money will be spent in the United States. In September, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced its offer of $375 million in CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed weapons systems to India. According to Textron, the manufacturer of the weapon system, these cluster munitions are designed to detect moving land and maritime targets. Each thousand-pound weapon includes 10 BLU-108 submunitions containing four warheads each. The company boasts that the CBU-105 is the “first and only combat proven, clean battlefield weapon of its kind in U.S. Air Force inventory.” This multimillion-dollar proposed sale came just three weeks after the United States offered India two dozen HARPOON air-to-ground missiles for $170 million. Rival Pakistan already has these Boeing systems.

As an unnamed Indian Defense official told The Times of India in September, “We have very intensive ties with the U.S. across the entire military spectrum now. And armament purchases are a prominent factor in the relationship.”[74] Lockheed Martin has already cashed in on these new warm ties with India. Last May, the company offered to provide India with six C130-J Hercules military transport aircraft in a deal worth more than $1 billion. Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense corporation, is also hoping to sell four more of the aircraft as well as missile warning systems to India by 2010.[75]

Despite these and other major arms transfers, India is not looking just to the United States for its weapons upgrades. New Delhi and Moscow have signed a protocol outlining their plans for the joint development and production of military hardware, and India has purchased 347 Russian T-90 battle tanks for an estimated $1.1 billion. Moscow has leased New Delhi a nuclear submarine, and is helping it build another one. These systems--along with India’s development of cruise missiles and stockpile of nuclear weapons--could give the unsanctioned nuclear power a capability currently possessed only by Britain and the United States.[76]

Russia is also courting India for its fighter-plane business, competing with France, Sweden, and the United States to sell New Delhi more than 100 multi-combat fighter planes in deals that could be worth tens of billions of dollars over the next decade. Lockheed Martin is offering its F-16 fighter plane in competition with Boeing, which is presenting its F-18 as the best combat aircraft for India. With five competitors from four countries, India is in a good negotiating position. New Delhi will chose among these competitors by weighing not only the price and performance of the various planes on offer but also the additional investment, technology sharing, and export assistance the companies are offering. But politics will also play a major role. As Rahul Bedi of Jane’s Defense Weekly notes, “American manufacturers believe the political price has already been paid in the form of the U.S.-India nuclear agreement and that it is merely a matter of time before they [win] this lucrative contract as well.”[77] To sweeten the pot Lockheed Martin would offer export promotion, joint development of defense systems, and help for India’s manufacturing base if India chooses the F-16.

For its part, Boeing is betting that even if it can’t sell India on its fighter plane, it can cash in on the country’s need for commercial aircraft. New Delhi may be in the market for $105 billion in commercial airplanes over the next 20 years.[78] In addition to the F-18 fighter plane, Boeing is also hoping that India will purchase eight of the company’s P8-1 maritime reconnaissance aircraft, in a deal worth more than $2 billion. India’s navy would be one of the first in the world to fly this aircraft.[79]

In the midst of India’s shopping spree, rival and neighbor Pakistan announced it would not increase its military budget in the coming year. Pakistani prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that he expected “a reciprocal gesture from our neighbor India for the sake of peace and prosperity of the region.” India has rejected the call.[80]

India is not a major recipient of U.S. military aid. In 2008 and 2009, the country will receive no funding under the Economic Support Fund or Foreign Military Financing programs, and a relatively modest $1.2 million for military education through the International Military Education and Training program. From Washington’s perspective, India, as a rising economic power, is seen as a consumer of U.S. goods and services rather than as a client-state in need of assistance. In this context, the recently signed U.S.-India nuclear deal is viewed as a “door opener” for U.S. weapons sales to India. Moreover, India, as a nonparticipant in the U.S.-led military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, does not qualify for aid as a member of the “coalition of the willing.”

Table 17
Major U.S. Security Assistance Programs to India
FY 2002 through FY 2009 (dollars in thousands)

Program	FY 2002-06	FY 2007	FY 2008a	FY 2009b
Economic Support Fund	$52,242	$4,875	--	--
Foreign Military Financing	--	--	--	--
International Military Education and Training (IMET)	$6,152	$1,501	$1,237	$1,200
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE)	--	--	--	$400
Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism Demining and Related Programs (NADR)	$9,377	$1,108	$2,684	$1,700
Total	$67,771	$7,484	$3,921	$3,300
TOTAL FY2002 through FY 2009	$82,476

Source: U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, FY 2004 through FY 2009 editions. ^aFY 2008 figures are estimates. ^bFY2009 figures are as proposed in the administration's budget.

Secretary of State Rice was correct when she called India, with a population of about 1.1 billion, the “world’s largest democracy.” But that does not mean it is a bastion of human rights. According to the State Department’s country report, released in March, “A lack of accountability permeate[s] the government and security forces throughout the country, creating an atmosphere of impunity.” [81] In pointing to “serious internal conflicts affect[ing] the state of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as several states in the north and east,” the report notes that although there is a general respect for the rights of Indian citizens “numerous serious problems” remain, including “extrajudicial killings of persons in custody, disappearances, and torture and rape by police and other security forces.”[82]

The United States and Pakistan

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Pakistan, a nation of 200 million, has at least 60 nuclear weapons, and that most of them are deliverable by fighter plane or missile.[83] Pakistan’s most recent successful ballistic missile tests were held in 2006. Neither Pakistan nor India--which possesses a comparable number of nuclear warheads--are parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and until 2001 both were under U.S. and international sanction for their nuclear lawlessness. While maintaining that its nuclear arsenal is a deterrent, Pakistan has not ruled out first use of nuclear weapons, committing only to refrain from striking a nonnuclear state. According to the Stockholm peace institute, Pakistan’s most likely vehicle for nuclear warhead delivery is its fleet of Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighter planes. Despite its concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile, the United States has been actively increasing Islamabad’s fighter plane capability, upgrading Pakistan’s current fleet of 32 F-16s and offering to triple their number.

Domestic political strife in Pakistan has turned bloody more than once. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former president, fought to hold on to power in the face of waves of opposition--including from lawyers and judges who were brutally beaten by security personnel. Musharraf assumed power after overthrowing the civilian government in 1999. In 2002--under pressure from the United States--Musharraf held elections to legitimize his leadership. International observers found significant flaws in the electoral process, but his presidency was generally accepted. In December 2006, Musharraf retired from the military and retook the presidential oath of office as a civilian. But he did not go unchallenged for long. A range of political rivals, including Benazir Bhutto--an exiled opposition leader who was twice prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s--sought to unseat Musharraf. Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007 only to be assassinated two months later. Her death postponed elections until February 2008, when her widower--Asif Zardari--assumed control of the presidency.

The Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi estimates that 5,000 people have been killed since 1989 in “documented sectarian violence,” which includes targeted killings of high-profile civilians, bombings of mosques, drive-by shootings of innocent people, and pitched gun battles in major population centers. In 2007, the International Crisis Group documented upward of 1,300 deaths resulting from the sectarian violence, “at least 200 of which were the result of suicide bombings.”[84] Western news outlets have now begun to use the word “war” in referring to Pakistan’s internal strife.

On top of this domestic violence, the global war on terrorism rages on in Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas--a remote band of territory along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where national control or governance is limited. According to a U.S. military assessment, suicide bombings in the border area increased from 5 incidents in 2006 to 60 in 2007, with “insurgents…focusing more on gain and expansion opportunities in Pakistan.” Some seven hundred Pakistani troops have been killed in recent battles with Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.[85]

In July 2007, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns noted that “Al Qaeda remains a potent force inside Pakistan, as is the Taliban. Defeating these enemies is essential to our effort to defeat terrorism in South Asia and around the world.”[86] A national intelligence estimate published that same month noted that Al Qaeda “has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.”[87] More than a year has passed since these frank assessments and little has changed for the better. In fact, the Rand Corporation asserts that Pakistani intelligence agents and soldiers have aided insurgent elements and even provided them with information about American troop movements inside Afghanistan. Pakistan has vehemently denied those accusations.[88]

Since it resumed aid to Pakistan in 2001, the United States has provided Islamabad with more than $10 billion in overt security assistance. As part of this process, Washington gives the Pakistani military roughly $1 billion annually in reimbursement for its counterterrorism efforts.[89] In January 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the U.S. military would establish at least eight “coordination centers” along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that would be staffed by personnel from both countries and by U.S. military personnel to facilitate cooperation among the three militaries and increase their ability to work against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. [90]

In 2006, Pakistan signed agreements with the United States for more than $3.5 billion in weaponry and military material, making it the single largest recipient that year According to a January 2008 Congressional Research Service report, weapons sales to Pakistan in that year alone “nearly matche[d] the total value of all Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program purchases by Pakistan from the United States for the entire period from FY1950-FY2001.”[91] Included in this figure was $185 million for more than 2,700 TOW missiles manufactured by Raytheon and $855 million in P-3 aircraft and surveillance equipment for use “against transnational terrorists and narcotics smugglers.”[92]

Throughout 2007 and into 2008, weapons offers continued even as the security and political situation in Pakistan deteriorated. For example, at the end of September the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced a possible deal involving the refurbishment of eight of Pakistan’s Cobra helicopters. The contract could be worth as much as $115 million to US Helicopters of Ozark, Alabama. According to the DSCA, the proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that has been and continues to be an important force for economic progress in South Asia and a partner in the Global War on Terrorism. In addition, the Cobra helicopters are a very important part of Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. The Pakistan Army uses the Cobras to conduct and support counterinsurgency and counter terrorism operations.[93]

Direct U.S. aid to the Pakistani military through the Foreign Military Financing program has remained fairly steady and the 2009 request of $300 million is just slightly up from the 2008 allocation of $297 million. The Economic Support Fund is where real increases can be seen. The Bush administration is requesting more than $513 million for Pakistan for 2009,--a 65 percent increase over 2008 (see table 18).

Table 18
Major U.S. Security Assistance Programs to Pakistan
FY 2002 through FY 2009 (dollars in thousands)

Program	FY 2002-06	FY 2007	FY 2008a	FY 2009b
Economic Support Fund	$1,591,695	$283,673	$407,165	$513,200
Foreign Military Financing	$969,860	$297,000	$297,570	$300,000
International Military Education and Training (IMET)	$7,100	$1,992	$1,903	$1,950
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE)	$220,120	$24,000	$21,822	$32,000
Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism Demining and Related Programs (NADR)	$123,183	$9,977	$10,063	$11,250
Coalition Support Fundc	$4,665,559	N/A	N/A	N/A
Section 1206	$23,315	N/A	N/A	N/A
Total	$7,660,832	$616,642	$738,523	$798,400
TOTAL FY2002 through FY 2009	$9,814,397

Source: U.S. Department of State, Congressional Budget Justification forForeign Operations, FY 2004 through FY 2009 editions. ^aFY 2008 figures are estimates. ^bFY 2009 figures are as proposed in the administration's budget. ^cThis figure is from"Coalition Support Funds Reimbursement Tracker as of January 12, 1007," aDefense Department document obtained through a Freedom of Information Actrequest by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as part ofits Collateral Damage project. The document is available on the consortium's Website at http://projects.publicintegrity.org/militaryaid/documents/CSF2.pdf.

Despite continued and increased U.S. military aid to Islamabad, and a bold new strategy of active pursuit of insurgent elements across Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, the United States is no closer to defeating terrorism in the region. In an effort to subdue Al Qaeda and Taliban militants seeking refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas, U.S. forces have repeatedly entered Pakistani territory without authorization or warning. In June, a U.S. pilotless drone killed 11 members of the Pakistani Frontiers Corps when it intervened in a pitched battle between those U.S. trained forces and insurgent elements. As Khalid Aziz, a Peshawar-based analyst, commented, “It leads to the question: are we really allies? Are we really fighting together or against one another?” The killing of American-trained Pakistani forces by U.S. forces, Aziz said, “puts the whole issue into jeopardy. You have one part of the American forces training the Frontier Corps, then the other part across the border is killing them.”[94]

In July, President Bush issued classified orders giving U.S. Special Forces the authority to cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Since then, there has been a marked increase in fighting along and across the border. At the beginning of September, U.S. forces crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan and launched an offensive on a village. Between 7 and 20 people were killed, including women and children. This was--reportedly--the first time actual forces had crossed the border to launch raids (as opposed to the use of drones). The details of the raid remain in dispute, but a spokesman for the Pakistani army said that “two helicopters of ISAF [the International Security Assistance Force based in Afghanistan] landed very early in the morning and conducted a raid on a compound there.” The Foreign Ministry in Islamabad called the incursion “a gross violation of Pakistan’s territory” and a “grave provocation” resulting in “immense” loss of civilian life.[95] These border violations have caused uproar within military and political circles throughout Pakistan.

According to the State Department’s country report, released in March 2008, Pakistan’s “human rights situation worsened during the year, stemming primarily from President Musharraf's decision to impose a 42-day State of Emergency” during which “Musharraf suspended basic civil liberties, including freedom of speech and assembly. The report goes on to note that “other major human rights problems included restrictions on citizens' right to change their government, extrajudicial killings, torture, and disappearances.”

To the extent that it has tried to regulate U.S. transfers, Congress has focused on Pakistan’s uneven record in the global war on terror and internal political instability. In late 2007, Congress withheld $50 million of the Bush administration’s $300 million military assistance request for Pakistan until Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certified that Islamabad had restored democratic rights. In addition, Congress demanded that the remaining $250 million go only to “counter terrorism and law enforcement activities directed against Al Qaeda and Taliban and associated terrorist groups.” Ashley Tellis, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called this move “token and modest,” suggesting that smart sanctions and other steps aimed directly at the Pakistani army might be more effective in stemming human rights abuses.[96] Sen. Joe Biden took aim at the Bush administration’s policies in January 2008, calling the plan to sell F-16s to Pakistan “dangerously misguided” and “reckless.”[97]

Notes