U.S. Strategy For Pakistan and Afghanistan

The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of
U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy and provide policymakers with con-
crete judgments and recommendations. Diverse in backgrounds and perspectives, Task
Force members aim to reach a meaningful consensus on policy through private and non-
partisan deliberations. Once launched, Task Forces are independent of CFR and solely re-
sponsible for the content of their reports. Task Force members are asked to join a consensus
signifying that they endorse “the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group,
though not necessarily every finding and recommendation.” Each Task Force member also
has the option of putting forward an additional or a dissenting view. Members’ affiliations
are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement. Task
Force observers participate in discussions, but are not asked to join the consensus.
Ta sk Force M e mber s
Richard L. Armitage John M. Keane
Armitage International L.C. SCP Partners
Reza Aslan Michael Krepon
University of California, Riverside Henry L. Stimson Center
J. Brian Atwood Sloan C. Mann
University of Minnesota Development Transformations
David W. Barno Daniel S. Markey
Center for a New American Security Council on Foreign Relations
Samuel R. Berger John A. Nagl
Albright Stonebridge Group Center for a New American Security
Karan K. Bhatia John D. Negroponte Independent Task Force Report No. 65
General Electric Company McLarty Associates
Marshall M. Bouton Charles S. Robb
Chicago Council on Global Affairs George Mason University Richard L. Armitage and Samuel R. Berger, Chairs
Steve Coll Teresita C. Schaffer Daniel S. Markey, Project Director
New America Foundation Center for Strategic and
Joseph J. Collins International Studies
National War College Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli
U.S. Strategy
Independent Task Force Report No. 65
James F. Dobbins Carnegie Corporation of New York

RAND Corporation Ashley J. Tellis
C. Christine Fair Carnegie Endowment
Georgetown University for International Peace
John A. Gastright
DynCorp International
Robert L. Grenier
ERG Partners
John W. Warner
Hogan Lovells
Andrew Wilder
United States Institute of Peace
for Pakistan and
www.cfr.org
Afghanistan
U.S. Strategy for
Pakistan and Afghanistan
Richard L. Armitage and

Samuel R. Berger, Chairs
Daniel S. Markey, Project Director
U.S. Strategy for

Pakistan and Afghanistan
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The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of current and critical
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Task Force Members
Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they
endorse “the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group,
though not necessarily every finding and recommendation.” They par-
ticipate in the Task Force in their individual, not institutional, capacities.
Richard L. Armitage C. Christine Fair

Armitage International L.C. Georgetown University
Reza Aslan John A. Gastright
University of California, Riverside DynCorp International
J. Brian Atwood Robert L. Grenier
University of Minnesota ERG Partners
David W. Barno John M. Keane
Center for a New American SCP Partners
Security
Michael Krepon
Samuel R. Berger Henry L. Stimson Center
Albright Stonebridge Group
Sloan C. Mann
Karan K. Bhatia Development Transformations
General Electric Company
Daniel S. Markey
Marshall M. Bouton Council on Foreign Relations
Chicago Council on Global Affairs
John A. Nagl
Steve Coll Center for a New American
New America Foundation Security
Joseph J. Collins John D. Negroponte
National War College McLarty Associates
James F. Dobbins Charles S. Robb
RAND Corporation George Mason University
v
vi Task Force Members
Teresita C. Schaffer John W. Warner

Center for Strategic and Hogan Lovells
International Studies
Andrew Wilder
Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli United States Institute of Peace
Carnegie Corporation
of New York
Ashley J. Tellis
Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace
Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Task Force Report 1

Introduction 3
The Threat 18
U.S. Strategic Objectives 29
An Assessment of U.S. Strategy and Policy 36
Policy Options and Recommendations: Pakistan 45
Policy Options and Recommendations: Afghanistan 56
Conclusion 65
Additional or Dissenting Views 68

Endnotes 72
Task Force Members 76
Task Force Observers 88
Foreword
It is now nine years since the United States first went to war in Afghani-
stan. The rationale for doing so in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks
was clear. Now, however, the United States has embarked on a differ-
ent and considerably more ambitious undertaking in Afghanistan that
affects—and is affected by—the complex political currents of Pakistan
and its border regions. It is not clear that U.S. interests warrant such an
investment. Nor is it clear that the effort will succeed.
In Pakistan, a weak civilian government is struggling to cope with a
plethora of challenges exacerbated by this summer’s floods. The military
has lost more than two thousand men in an ongoing battle with insur-
gents in the country’s northwest. But the army does not fight all militants
equally. Islamabad’s ongoing tolerance of—and even support for—
extremist groups that target American interests in Afghanistan and glob-
ally calls into question the basis of the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency is more violent than at any
point since the U.S. invasion after 9/11. NATO forces are paying a
heavy toll. Afghan public enthusiasm for the government is waning
after years of unmet expectations. The economy, devastated by more
than thirty years of war, has not recovered sufficiently to provide for the
people, while the government remains largely ineffective and riven by
corruption.
The Obama administration, about to embark on its third policy
review in two years, must decide how best to address these challenges,
given local realities, growing U.S. debt, and wide public skepticism
about the present U.S. strategy.
This Council on Foreign Relations–sponsored Independent Task
Force sought to identify U.S. interests and objectives in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, assess existing policy, explore the potential of alternative
strategies, and make recommendations for future policy. The Task Force
offers a qualified endorsement of President Obama’s approach to the
region, including the expansion of U.S. assistance to Pakistan, the surge
ix
x Foreword
of military forces in Afghanistan to roughly one hundred thousand, and

the commitment to begin drawing down those forces in July 2011.
Yet the Task Force also highlights a number of potential problems
with the policy, emphasizing Pakistan’s tolerance of and support for
dangerous terrorist groups, weak state institutions, contentious rela-
tions with India, and nuclear weapons. The Task Force recommends
easing U.S. trade restrictions on Pakistani textile exports, assisting
a rapid recovery from the floods, deepening an ongoing dialogue on
nuclear issues, and increasing the military’s capacity to defeat mili-
tants on the battlefield. At the same time, the Task Force argues that
Washington should act against terrorists operating from Pakistani soil,
including al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the United States should
leave no uncertainty in Islamabad that a sustainable partnership will
depend on a Pakistani break with all terrorist groups.
In Afghanistan, the Task Force notes that the Obama administration
will need to find a way to address the government’s weakness, corrup-
tion, and political division; determine the terms of reference for nego-
tiations with the Taliban; increase the quantity and, even more, the
quality of Afghan security forces; and encourage the development of
Afghanistan’s economy while decreasing the production of drugs. If the
December 2010 review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan concludes that
the present strategy is not working, the Task Force recommends that a
shift to a more limited mission at a substantially reduced level of mili-
tary force would be warranted.
I would like to thank the Task Force’s chairs, Richard Armitage and
Samuel Berger, whose leadership, expertise, and diplomacy were inte-
gral to the success of this effort. I would also like to thank the Task Force
members, an extraordinary group of people who committed a great
deal of time, talent, and thought to this endeavor. My thanks go as well
to Anya Schmemann, director of CFR’s Task Force Program, for her
efforts in guiding this project from beginning to end. Daniel Markey,
senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia, also has my thanks for
directing this project and writing the final report. All have contributed
to a timely, richly detailed, and substantive report that will help clarify
the stakes and the options for the United States in South Asia.
Richard N. Haass
President
Council on Foreign Relations
November 2010
Acknowledgments
This report on U.S. strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan is the prod-
uct of the Independent Task Force, and I am deeply appreciative of the
members’ and observers’ expertise and guidance. Our distinguished
chairs, Sandy Berger and Richard Armitage, were active and dynamic
leaders, and I am indebted to them for the time and attention they
devoted to this project in all of its facets. We are also grateful to Senator
Chuck Hagel, who helped to guide the project during its early stages.
In February 2010, the chairs and I were graciously hosted by Ambas-
sador Anne Patterson in Pakistan and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry
and General Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan. We benefited from
informative U.S. and NATO briefings in Islamabad, Kabul, and Kan-
dahar. During that trip, we met with numerous senior Pakistani and
Afghan civilian and military officials as well as independent scholars,
politicians, business leaders, and journalists.
I also had the opportunity to travel to the region in October 2009
to conduct preliminary research for this report. That trip would not
have been possible if not for assistance provided by the U.S. Depart-
ment of State, our able ambassadors in Islamabad and Kabul, and their
hard-working teams. A special thanks goes to the International Secu-
rity Assistance Force (ISAF) Strategic Advisory Group for facilitating
meetings and travel in Afghanistan.
We are thankful to Admiral Michael Mullen, Ambassador Richard
Holbrooke, and their capable staff members, who briefed the mem-
bers of the Task Force. I am also thankful to a great many U.S. officials
in Washington, DC, as well as diplomats posted in the Pakistani and
Afghan embassies, who met with me to discuss the challenges of the
region.
We received helpful input from many CFR members, including
at roundtables in Washington, DC, led by Task Force member Steve
Coll, and in New York, led by Task Force member Lieutenant General
David Barno.
xi
xii Acknowledgments
I am grateful to many at CFR: CFR’s Publications team assisted in

editing the report and readied it for publication, and CFR’s Communi-
cations, Meetings, Corporate, External Affairs, and Outreach teams all
worked to ensure that the report reaches the widest audience possible.
Anya Schmemann and Kristin Lewis of CFR’s Task Force Program
were instrumental to this project from beginning to end. Their wisdom,
experience, and good sense kept this challenging project on track. I
would also like to thank my three research associates—Daniel Simons,
Robert Nelson, and Kunaal Sharma—who each provided invaluable
assistance in ways both large and small. This final product owes a great
debt to their energy, time, and abundant intellectual talents.
I am grateful to CFR President Richard N. Haass for giving me the
opportunity to direct this effort. This project was made possible by
the generous support of the Rockefeller Foundation and by David M.
Rubenstein’s support for the Task Force Program. CFR also expresses
its thanks to the Starr Foundation for its support of the Asia studies
program.
Daniel S. Markey
Project Director
Task Force Report
Introduction
Al-Qaeda’s attack on September 11, 2001, was the deadliest terrorist

assault on the United States in history. In the hours and days that fol-
lowed, Americans learned more about the perpetrators and their links
to bases and networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Less than a month
later, President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Free-
dom. Much changed nearly overnight as the United States focused mili-
tary, economic, and diplomatic attention squarely on the region for the
first time since the end of the Cold War. In Afghanistan, the Taliban
regime—al-Qaeda’s sympathetic host—was toppled. In Pakistan, the
Pervez Musharraf regime was drafted into Washington’s Global War
on Terror.
Too quickly, however, the war in Iraq diverted U.S. attention and
resources. Over subsequent years the Taliban regrouped, top al-Qaeda
leaders managed to elude justice, and terrorist violence in Pakistan and
Afghanistan spiked. Now, nine years into the Afghan war, many Ameri-
cans and U.S. allies have grown weary of conflict, unsure about U.S.
objectives, and uncertain about U.S. prospects for success.
The Task Force shares these concerns. Americans have already
paid dearly: more than one thousand U.S. men and women serving in
Afghanistan or Pakistan have lost their lives, and thousands more have
suffered injuries and wounds and are trying to recover. Hopes for an
immediate turnaround in southern Afghanistan have not been realized.
The underlying dynamics in Afghanistan remain stubborn—pervasive
corruption that breeds the insurgency; weak governance that creates a
vacuum; Taliban resilience that feeds an atmosphere of intimidation;
and an erratic leader whose agenda may not be the same as that of the
United States. In Pakistan, devastating floods are placing enormous
new stresses on the state—already challenged by political, economic,
and security problems—increasing disaffection among its people, and
weakening its ability to fight extremists in its territory.
3
4 U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan
The outcomes of these struggles are still uncertain. But the stakes are
high. What happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan matters to Americans.
Americans will be less safe if a network of like-minded terrorist groups,
including al-Qaeda, can operate freely in large portions of Afghanistan and
Pakistan. These groups have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness
and ability to conduct deadly attacks on the United States, India, and
U.S. allies. Their anti-American fervor is undiminished.
Americans will be less secure if turmoil—possibly even civil war—in
Afghanistan threatens the stability of Pakistan and the region, thus increas-
ing tensions between Pakistan and India. Significant unrest in Afghani-
stan could produce a proxy war, as regional powers seek to secure their
interests.
Americans will also be at greater risk if extremists in Pakistan exploit
the country’s devastating floods, fragile institutions, and internal conflict to
undermine the Pakistani state. These risks are compounded by Pakistan’s
nuclear arsenal and the potential for nuclear material to fall into danger-
ous hands.
A strategy for addressing these threats has been put in place by the
United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
over the past eighteen months. That strategy seeks to weaken the Tal-
iban sufficiently to allow the Afghan people to safely reject it; develop
Afghan security forces so that Afghans can defend themselves as U.S.
troops leave; and, through an enhanced civilian effort, help the Afghan
government sustain the support of its people by providing basic ser-
vices. Taliban fighters are more likely to lay down arms if they are under
pressure, and a weakened Taliban is more likely to negotiate on accept-
able terms—outcomes the United States should encourage. Reconcili-
ation with senior Taliban leaders on appropriate terms must be part of
the United States’ overall strategy. Irregular conflicts rarely end in a sur-
render ceremony on a battleship.
The surge of forces—military and civilian—to carry out that strategy
was completed in August 2010. There are some hopeful signs of prog-
ress, such as the training of the Afghan security forces and the targeting
of Taliban networks. But in other areas the trends are less encouraging.
The cloudy picture and high costs raise the question of whether
the United States should now downsize its ambitions and reduce its
military presence in Afghanistan. Such a shift is not without its own
significant risks. U.S. forces would operate in a deteriorating security
environment. Drawing down troops could make it harder to move
Introduction 5
around the country to collect intelligence and attack the enemy; com-
plicate the training of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF),
which are greatly enhanced by partnering with NATO forces; increase
the potential for the Taliban to consolidate its control of significant por-
tions of Afghanistan; and provoke regional and ethnic conflicts.
That said, the current U.S. approach is at a critical point. President
Barack Obama will undertake a review in December 2010 with a view
toward beginning to draw down the surge in July 2011. That review
should involve more than an evaluation of which provinces and districts
now warrant an Afghan security lead. It should mark the start of a clear-
eyed assessment of whether there is sufficient overall progress to con-
clude that the strategy is working. It should address some fundamental
questions, including: Has there been a significant improvement in the
capabilities of the ANSF? Is momentum shifting against the insurgency
in contested areas? Once NATO operations have taken place, is normal
life starting to return? Is progress being made in building local security
and civilian capabilities? Has the government in Kabul taken serious
steps to combat corruption?
This review should continue into 2011 if additional time is needed to
make a thorough assessment. The president has said that the United
States will continue its present military surge until July 2011. If there is
confidence that the current strategy is working, then that should enable
the United States to steadily draw down its forces starting in July, based
on conditions on the ground, as the president has announced. If not,
however, a more significant drawdown to a narrower military mission
would be warranted. The United States also cannot justify its current
level of effort if it does not have the full support of the Afghan gov-
ernment. Washington should pursue a political strategy that continues
to press Afghan president Hamid Karzai for needed reforms, includ-
ing on anticorruption issues, but at the same time seeks to amplify the
voices of Afghanistan’s local and provincial leaders, political parties,
and the parliament.
The Obama administration’s strategy in Pakistan has resulted in
stronger relationships with civilian and military authorities, more
substantial and targeted aid, and an unrelenting assault by unmanned
aerial drones on the militant networks operating in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The U.S. commitment to a long-
term strategic partnership with Pakistan is a critical step in securing
Pakistani action against the militant groups within its borders. The
tragic floods in August have the potential either to demonstrate U.S.

commitment to the long-term well-being of the Pakistani people or to
undo much of the work that the United States has done. A continuing
robust response is necessary to prevent Pakistan from sliding into eco-
nomic and political collapse.
We write this report respectful of the sacrifice Americans are already
making in Afghanistan. We respect the president’s commitment to the
war effort and the decisions he has made to protect U.S. national secu-
rity. We are mindful of the real threat we face. But we are also aware of
the costs of the present strategy. We cannot accept these costs unless
the strategy begins to show signs of progress.
T he T hre at
Militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan pose a direct threat to the United

States and its allies. They jeopardize the stability of Pakistan, a nuclear
power that lives in an uneasy peace with its rival, India.
U.S.- and NATO-led military operations have cleared the vast major-
ity of international terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. But top al-
Qaeda leaders and other international terrorists fled to Pakistan, where
they continue to plan attacks against the United States and its allies.
Since 9/11, there have been more than a dozen serious attempts—some
successful, some thwarted—to attack the United States and American
allies that were planned or supported by groups on the Afghanistan-
Pakistan border. These include the Times Square bomber in 2010; the
plot against the New York subway system in 2009; the plan to attack the
Barcelona metro system in 2008; the effort to bomb airliners in flight
over the Atlantic in 2006; the attack on the London subway system in
2005 in which 52 civilians died; the Madrid attack in 2004 in which 191
civilians died; the Bali bombings in 2002 that killed 202 civilians; and
other plots known and unknown to the general public.
Military operations in Afghanistan and missile strikes on the Paki-
stani side of the border have placed intense pressure on al-Qaeda and
other militants. But the United States cannot destroy the threat posed
by al-Qaeda without weakening the other extremist groups in the
region that offer it resources and safe haven, including the Afghan
Taliban. Parts of the Afghan Taliban can be brought into the politi-
cal fold in Afghanistan; they are not the same as al-Qaeda. But other
Introduction 7
elements of the Taliban have established deep ideological and opera-

tional ties with al-Qaeda. Some of these elements, including fighters in
the Haqqani network and allied groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), are
already active inside Afghanistan, and their ambitions are not limited
to Pakistan’s tribal areas. The United States cannot afford to underesti-
mate the threat that they would pose to U.S. security if they gained even
more operating space within Afghanistan. Nor can the United States
overlook the fact that the Taliban’s harsh tactics made them terrorists
within their own country. There is no reason to expect that these facts
have changed. A Taliban consolidation would mean brutal outrages
against Afghan citizens, particularly women.
While al-Qaeda’s radicalism has gained a treacherous foothold
elsewhere, including Yemen and Somalia, the border regions between
Afghanistan and Pakistan remain a stronghold and the headquarters for
al-Qaeda’s senior leaders. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have deep ties to
this region that make it a particularly dangerous home base. Afghani-
stan itself also represents a rallying cry for jihadists internationally who
believe they toppled the Soviet Union there.
A Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan that creates space for terrorists
is not the only potentially dangerous scenario. Turmoil there—possibly
even a bloody civil war—could produce a refugee crisis, draw in regional
competitors, and destabilize Pakistan and the region. Increased mili-
tancy in Afghanistan could spill over into Pakistan, which already faces
a dangerous insurgency as well as political and economic challenges.
The challenge of fighting regional terrorist networks is compounded
by the fact that Pakistan draws distinctions between such groups. It acts
aggressively against those that have taken up arms against the state,
such as the Pakistani Taliban, while elements of its security services
provide passive and active support to groups that target Afghanistan,
India, and others. Afghan Taliban leaders have operated from inside
Pakistan since they were toppled by the United States, and many of their
leaders commute to the war in Afghanistan and draw war supplies from
Pakistani sanctuaries.
The Haqqani network—an Afghan Taliban affiliate based inside
Pakistan’s FATA—is responsible for a range of attacks on U.S.,
Afghan, and Indian targets inside Afghanistan. Other militant orga-
nizations such as LeT, the group responsible for the deadly November
2008 attack on Mumbai, go virtually untouched by Pakistani authori-
ties. Another terror event on the scale of that attack could provoke
a disastrous crisis between India and Pakistan. LeT is also one of a

number of terrorist groups recruiting U.S. citizens in an effort to
extend its reach and avoid detection. Left unchecked, LeT and its affili-
ates could eventually surpass al-Qaeda as the world’s most sophisti-
cated and dangerous terrorist organization.
Despite the commitment of more than 140,000 Pakistani troops—
and losing over two thousand soldiers—to push back the Pakistani
Taliban, terrorists have continued to execute brazen attacks in Paki-
stan’s largest cities.1 The existence of extensive militant networks that
target Pakistanis and their government is particularly dangerous given
Pakistan’s expanding nuclear program of between eighty and one hun-
dred warheads. While Pakistan’s military now exercises control of the
nuclear arsenal, there are circumstances under which Pakistan’s insta-
bility could result in nuclear material ending up in dangerous hands.
Terrorism and extremism in Pakistan feed on the other serious chal-
lenges it faces. The devastating floods of 2010, like the October 2005
earthquake, have demonstrated the tragic vulnerability of tens of mil-
lions of Pakistani citizens. Rapid population growth, diminishing nat-
ural resources, and poor economic prospects open the door to public
alienation and internal violence. Pakistan’s public and private institu-
tions are not well prepared to meet these challenges without extensive
outside assistance. Such times of need provide an opportunity for mili-
tant groups, many of which have charity arms, to take advantage of the
power vacuum and to expand their networks. This latest tragedy could
be overwhelming for a Pakistani government that is unable, even under
normal circumstances, to provide for its people.
U.S . Strategic Object i ve s
In Pakistan, the United States aims to degrade and defeat the terrorist
groups that threaten American interests from its territory and to pre-
vent turmoil that would imperil the Pakistani state and risk the security
of Pakistan’s nuclear program. These goals require a stable Pakistani
partner. Even in the midst of the flood crisis and recovery, Washington
should seek to encourage Pakistan to strengthen its efforts to unequivo-
cally fight terrorism and extremism. Improving bilateral cooperation
and contributing to Pakistan’s economic, political, and military stabil-
ity are all essential elements of this effort. Washington cannot, however,
Introduction 9
be the only one committed to partnership. To maintain momentum into

the future, Pakistan must also show that it can generate stronger coop-
eration on issues of substantial interest to the United States.
In Afghanistan, the United States seeks to prevent the country from
becoming a base for terrorist groups that target the United States and
its allies and to diminish the potential that Afghanistan reverts to civil
war, which would destabilize the region. After nine years of war, the
United States must work to achieve these goals at a cost that will retain
the continued support of the American public. That is best accom-
plished by enabling Afghans to shoulder a greater responsibility for
their own security and working with other regional states to improve
regional stability so that the U.S. troop presence can wind down. An
acceptable end state in Afghanistan would be one in which the Afghan
people are secure and strong enough to prevent the rise of new terrorist
safe havens inside Afghanistan and avert a return to civil war without
relying upon U.S. or international military forces.
Curren t U.S . Strategy and P olicy
In Pakistan, the United States has publicly committed to a long-term

and consistent relationship with civilian and military leaders as the best
means to achieve U.S. security objectives. In frequent senior-level dia-
logues, the Obama administration has sought to influence the strategic
considerations of Pakistani leaders, convincing them that Pakistan is
better off expanding its counterterror and counterinsurgency opera-
tions, strengthening the government’s ability to serve its people, and
improving the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program. At the same
time, Washington has expanded and intensified its use of drone strikes
against terrorists based along the Afghan border, acting alone when
Islamabad has been unwilling or unable to act.
Washington’s efforts are aimed at shoring up Pakistani stability
against the many threats it faces, from extremism and militancy to polit-
ical and economic turmoil and the strain that large-scale flood relief and
reconstruction is placing on the civilian government and the military. In
recent years the U.S. Congress has authorized a tripling of nonmilitary
assistance to Pakistan, up to $1.5 billion per year. Washington also pro-
vides reimbursements and military assistance to Pakistan, which, in FY
2010, totaled nearly $2 billion.2
In Afghanistan, the current U.S. strategy seeks to weaken Taliban

insurgents in the field; provide security training and assistance for the
Afghan people to defend themselves; and assist the Afghan government
in providing basic services to deprive the insurgency of popular sup-
port and create conditions for sustainable security when NATO forces
leave. President Obama has invested in a military surge with a corollary
increase in civilian resources to give this strategy new momentum.
For the first time, U.S. forces have targeted the strongholds of the
insurgency in southern Afghanistan with major operations, contesting
areas where Taliban influence had gone virtually unchallenged for years.
To degrade the Taliban, the United States has expanded conventional
operations, greatly enhanced Special Forces activities targeting mid-
grade Taliban leaders, and improved intelligence collection. The U.S.
military has committed to strengthening the Afghan National Army
(ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) as well as local community-
based defense units through joint operations, training, equipping, men-
toring, and partnering. By pressuring the Taliban, it has begun to set
conditions for political settlements at the grassroots level by encourag-
ing reintegration of Taliban fighters who give up the insurgency. At the
senior levels, it has supported reconciliation with Taliban leaders if they
meet necessary conditions.
On the civilian front, the United States is working with local and
national Afghan officials to reduce corruption and make the govern-
ment more responsive to the needs of the people. Washington has made
a series of attempts to secure the full cooperation of President Karzai
and his government. Other U.S. assistance, especially in the agricul-
tural sector, has been devoted to enhancing economic opportunities so
that Afghans have alternatives to insurgency and illicit activities, such
as the narcotics trade.
Challenge s on t he Ground
President Obama inherited a difficult and deteriorating situation in

Pakistan and Afghanistan when he took office. Al-Qaeda’s leadership
remained ensconced along the forbidding terrain of the tribal border
region. Extremist militants threatened to expand their hold over ter-
ritories in Pakistan’s northwest, the Pakistani national economy had
tumbled, and a new civilian government in Islamabad was seeking to
Introduction 11
assert itself after nearly a decade of military rule. Pakistan’s efforts to

confront extremism and insurgency remained weak and were applied
inconsistently. The reverberations of the November 2008 Mumbai ter-
rorist attacks were still being felt, illustrated by heightened tensions
between India and Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, Taliban influence was on the rise and momentum
had shifted against the international coalition and the Kabul govern-
ment. Violence, including Afghan civilian casualties, had reached
levels not seen since the initial U.S. invasion after 9/11. The Kabul
government’s weaknesses and corruption contributed to the Taliban
resurgence, and the ANSF lacked the resources necessary to improve
recruitment, training, and operational capacity.
Almost two years into the Obama administration, many of the under-
lying challenges of the region persist. Aggressive U.S. counterterror
operations have degraded al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership, but the
most senior members of the organization remain at large and the group
still threatens American security. Afghanistan’s military, political, and
economic challenges have been stubbornly intractable.
Critical counterinsurgency operations have been undertaken in
southern Afghanistan but have proceeded more slowly and at greater
cost than was initially anticipated. Allied efforts to build the ANSF
have been injected with new resources and leadership but remain a
work in progress. Afghanistan’s deeply flawed presidential election
in fall 2009 tarnished the Karzai government and contributed to an
already difficult relationship between Washington and Kabul. The
dark cloud of official corruption and the weakness of Afghan state
institutions continue to fuel the Taliban cause. President Karzai is an
uncertain partner. And throughout the entire period, the toll of U.S.
and allied casualties has accelerated.
Pakistan has taken costly, commendable steps to fight select insur-
gents along the Afghan border, but its efforts against terrorist groups
that threaten Afghanistan, India, and the United States—especially ele-
ments of the Afghan Taliban and LeT—have so far been lacking. Ele-
ments of Pakistan’s security apparatus continue to distinguish between
militant groups, considering some a strategic asset against India and
others a hedge against turmoil in Afghanistan. Islamabad’s relations
with New Delhi have improved at the margins, but sparks between Pak-
istan and India could be reignited all too easily. Pakistan’s economy and
political stability continue to labor under severe stress.
The devastating floods have compounded the problems facing

Islamabad. In the near term, much of Pakistan’s energy will be con-
sumed with meeting basic requirements for feeding, housing, and
providing medical assistance to the internally displaced. Pakistan’s
military will be stretched thin by disaster management and will be
therefore unlikely to focus on counterterror and counterinsurgency
operations with the intensity of the preceding year. To achieve stability
for Pakistan’s large and growing population, post-flood reconstruction
efforts must go well beyond repairing and rebuilding the crumbling
infrastructure that existed prior to the disaster.
Judgi ng Progre ss
To continue the current course in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the

sacrifices it entails, progress must be visible and timely. In the absence
of sustained progress, the relative costs and benefits of the current
approach, compared with a scaled-down mission, will need to be recal-
culated. The crucial question is how Americans should assess progress.
In the short to medium term, Pakistan’s floods will strain its national
capacity to the limit. Islamabad’s priorities will necessarily start with
disaster recovery and reconstruction. The United States must continue
to lead the world’s response. If Islamabad is swamped by the sheer scale
of the disaster, backsliding on security efforts is likely.
Even as Islamabad grapples with the floods and their aftermath, it
will still face decisions about its own insurgency and how to deal with
militants who threaten U.S. interests, including LeT and elements of
the Afghan Taliban responsible for attacks on U.S. forces. It will be
difficult to justify continued military assistance if Islamabad chooses
to nurture or harbor these groups. Areas hit hardest by the floods have
also been historic hotbeds for militancy. How Islamabad manages
flood assistance to populations in Pakistan’s northwest and the tribal
belt along the Afghan border, recently ravaged by the man-made disas-
ter of insurgency, will be important.
Americans should also be concerned about how the government
deals with the Punjabi heartland, where the role of LeT affiliates and
sympathizers poses a threat to Pakistan, India, and increasingly the
United States. It must be clear to both Americans and Pakistanis that
a successful attack against the U.S. homeland by one of these groups
Introduction 13
would deal a debilitating blow to the U.S.-Pakistan partnership. The

United States needs to help Pakistan respond to the flood crisis in
ways that win public confidence rather than play to the advantage of
militant groups.
With respect to Afghanistan, the next U.S. strategic review is sched-
uled to begin in December 2010. The review should be a thorough
assessment of whether sufficient progress is being made overall to con-
clude that the strategy is working. Progress will be difficult—but nec-
essary—to measure. The Obama administration must address such
issues as the capacity of the ANSF; the momentum of the Taliban in
contested areas; the extent to which normal life is starting to return
in recently secured territories; progress in building local security and
civilian capacity; and the seriousness with which the Kabul govern-
ment is fighting corruption in its own ranks.
President Obama has said that the United States will continue its
present military surge until July 2011. If the review determines that
progress is being made, the United States should then withdraw troops
steadily on a district-by-district basis as conditions warrant, in line with
the president’s expressed intentions. However, if the review concludes
that the current strategy is not working, a shift to a more limited mis-
sion at substantially reduced levels of forces would be warranted. The
president’s review should extend into 2011 if additional time is required
to reach a firm assessment.
Strategic Opt ions
There are several strategic options available to the United States if the
administration concludes that the current strategy is not working. In
Pakistan, Washington could turn away from its present emphasis on
rewarding and encouraging long-term bilateral cooperation. Instead, it
could undertake increasingly aggressive, unilateral U.S. military strikes
against Pakistan-based terrorists deeper into Pakistani territory, coer-
cive diplomacy and sanctions, or a range of financial, diplomatic, and
legal restrictions to control the flow of people, money, goods, and infor-
mation to and from Pakistan. This strategy of containment and coer-
cion could be coupled with a distinct diplomatic “tilt” toward India,
with New Delhi serving as Washington’s main strategic and counter-
terror partner in the region.
In Afghanistan, an alternative to the present U.S. counterinsurgency

strategy would be a shift to smaller, highly mobile counterterror units
backed by extensive surveillance and airpower assets. Washington could
provide assistance to a range of Afghan allies, including what remains of
the Kabul government as well as various local partners, in exchange for
counterterror cooperation. It could be more forward-leaning in nego-
tiations with the Taliban. Such a strategy would reduce the costs of war.
Washington’s emphasis would be on managing terrorist threats more
than on investing in sustainable Afghan options.
These alternatives carry their own risks. In Pakistan, a shift to sticks
without carrots is likely to result in a sharp backlash and is unlikely to
encourage greater cooperation by Pakistan to address U.S. interests. A
more hard-line approach would probably destabilize Pakistan, solidify
popular anti-American sentiment, and fuel U.S.-Pakistan conflict over
the long run. Engagement, partnership, and investment—with markers
of progress—in support of common objectives are more apt to encour-
age desirable results.
In Afghanistan, a light-footprint strategy has some significant disad-
vantages. U.S. forces would operate in a deteriorating security environ-
ment, with fewer sympathetic Afghan partners. There would be fewer
forces able to partner with Afghan troops, the best way to improve their
capacity. U.S. forces could find it harder to move around the country
to collect intelligence and to attack the enemy. A light footprint could
increase the risk of a renewed Afghan civil war, a war that would have
the potential to spiral into a regional proxy conflict, placing stress on an
already overtaxed Pakistani state. A light footprint would still require
thousands of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan under increasingly
inhospitable conditions.
With these considerations in mind, strategic choices must be made
based on a serious assessment of their relative costs and benefits. The
United States must be prepared to consider other options if present
efforts fail to demonstrate enough progress to justify their high costs.
Recommendat ions
Washington’s first order of business in Pakistan must be to help address

the extreme humanitarian suffering and dislocation caused by this sum-
mer’s floods. If Pakistan cannot cope with the crisis, it cannot hope to
Introduction 15
tackle other threats to internal, regional, or international security. In

general, the best way for the United States to address the challenges
of terrorism and nuclear security in Pakistan is by working shoulder to
shoulder with a stable partner in Islamabad.
To reinforce U.S.-Pakistan ties and contribute to Pakistan’s eco-
nomic stability in the aftermath of an overwhelming natural disaster,
the Obama administration should prioritize—and the Congress should
enact—an agreement that would grant preferential market access to
Pakistani textiles. This agreement would help revive a devastated Paki-
stani industry and all of the associated sectors of the economy, includ-
ing Pakistan-grown cotton. To further enhance Pakistan’s stability, the
United States should maintain current levels of economic and technical
assistance to help military and civilian leaders reconstruct and estab-
lish control over areas hard-hit by the flood, including those contested
by militant forces. American assistance should also encourage private-
sector investment in conflict-prone and flood-ravaged regions. To build
Pakistani support for the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, the United States
must move rapidly to implement high-profile assistance projects and
should also reach out on a sustained basis to nontraditional allies in
Pakistani society, including business interests, educators, local media,
and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
As it cultivates a closer partnership with Islamabad and contributes
to shoring up the Pakistani state and national economy, the United
States still needs to seek a shift in Pakistani strategic calculations about
the use of militancy as a foreign policy tool. Washington should con-
tinue to make clear to Islamabad that, at a basic level, U.S. partnership
and assistance depend upon action against LeT, the Afghan Taliban,
especially the Haqqani network, and related international terror
groups. These are the bedrock requirements for U.S. partnership and
assistance over the long run.
By demonstrating American generosity and assistance at a time of
grave Pakistani peril, the United States will also make a better case for
the strategic benefits of its partnership. The U.S. government should
simultaneously continue to strengthen its own capacity to collect intel-
ligence on these groups, and should work to undermine their ability
to harm American, Afghan, and Indian interests. Washington should
ramp up its cooperation with other influential regional states, particu-
larly China and Saudi Arabia, to coordinate its message to Islamabad
on these issues.
To reduce regional tensions that distract from counterterror opera-

tions and undermine Pakistan’s stability, the United States should
encourage progress in the Indo-Pakistani relationship. Washington
should not attempt to impose itself in Indo-Pakistani negotiations. An
indirect approach is better. The United States should help to build new
constituencies for peace by helping to fund international development
schemes that benefit businesses and people on both sides of the Indo-
Pakistani border.
In Afghanistan, core American security aims can best be achieved
at a lower cost if the United States manages to shift a greater burden to
Afghan partners. The present U.S. campaign requires a wider base of
local and national political support than the Karzai government and its
institutions are able to deliver. Worse, the popular backlash against gov-
ernment institutions, perceived as ineffective, corrupt, or even preda-
tory, fuels the Taliban’s resurgence. To address this major obstacle to
stability, the United States should encourage an initiative with three
complementary elements: political reform, national reconciliation, and
regional diplomacy.
Political reforms should aim to grant a greater voice to a broader
range of Afghan interests, such as local and provincial leaders, political
parties, and the parliament. Reforms will complement ongoing efforts
to fight corruption and improve the capacity of the Afghan govern-
ment. In particular, these reforms should constitute the foundations for
effectively managing relations with President Karzai. The reform pro-
cess will face political resistance, not least from President Karzai, but
the United States should use the leverage of its assistance and military
presence to help drive reforms through the Afghan political system. At
the same time, Washington should use its influence to press for Afghan-
istan’s opposition leaders and important minority interests to play a
role in ongoing efforts at reconciliation with insurgents. These groups
will share Washington’s core interest in avoiding a return of interna-
tional terrorists or the ruthless Taliban regime of the past. Rather than
leaving the reconciliation process to President Karzai and his narrow
support base, Washington should participate fully in guiding a broad-
based, inclusive process, bearing in mind that a rapid breakthrough
at the negotiating table is unlikely. Afghan reform and reconciliation
should then be supported by a regional diplomatic accord brokered by
the United States.
Introduction 17
To foster Afghanistan’s viability as a security partner, the United

States must continue to build cost-effective Afghan security forces
appropriate to the capabilities necessary to protect the population. This
will require more army and police trainers, as well as an expansion of
community-based stabilization forces.
Afghanistan needs a self-sustaining foundation for generating
jobs and revenue that will reduce dependence on international assis-
tance. To meet this need, the United States should encourage private-
sector investment in Afghanistan’s considerable mineral and energy
resources, in its agricultural sector, and in the infrastructure needed to
expand trans-Afghan trade.
The Threat
To assess U.S. objectives in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is necessary

to understand the realities on the ground in the region. The range of
immediate and long-term dangers is daunting. It includes terrorism,
extremism, weak and corrupt governments, poverty, nuclear weap-
ons, and deep-seated regional rivalries. Many current trends are likely
to worsen over time. Each of these challenges is explored in detail in
this report.
Many—but not all—of the most dangerous threats from Pakistan
and Afghanistan are interconnected. In particular, the threat of mili-
tancy has been exported in both directions across their shared border
for decades. Members of the Pakistani Taliban now seek sanctuary in
Afghanistan, just as members of the Afghan Taliban have established
sanctuaries in Pakistan. Each side has already suffered from the inse-
curity of the other, fueling tensions and mutual suspicions. Should
Afghanistan relapse into civil war, it could become a battleground for
regional hostilities, especially between India and Pakistan. Should Paki-
stan descend into greater internal disorder, the violence would spill into
Afghanistan and spoil its prospects for peace and development.
The stakes for regional and global security are therefore exceed-
ingly high.
Pak istan
That Pakistan has made some important, positive strides in recent

years is often unappreciated. Its civil society and media have dem-
onstrated an impressive capacity for political and social activism,
illustrated by the lawyer-led protests that spurred the return of civil-
ian rule to Islamabad in 2008. Progress has also been achieved in the
18
The Threat 19
fight against extremism. An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis have

come to appreciate the need for army operations against the Pakistani
Taliban based along the western border with Afghanistan. It is all too
easy to forget how implausible this shift would have seemed just a few
short years ago.
Yet at the time of this writing, Pakistan is confronting an unimagi-
nable natural disaster with direct and immediate implications for tens
of millions of its citizens. The immediate humanitarian suffering from
the recent floods will gradually give way to the longer-term challenges
of recovery and reconstruction. How Pakistan copes with this burden
will influence its capacity in many other areas as well, including the fight
against extremism and militancy. Such fragility in a country of Paki-
stan’s size is a challenge of global proportions.
Terrorism
Pakistan is already one of the world’s most significant bases of inter-

national terrorism. U.S. military and intelligence efforts have dealt
substantial blows to al-Qaeda’s command and control capacity in Paki-
stan, particularly over the past year. Many of these operations have
been conducted in cooperation with Pakistani officials.3 Al-Qaeda and
related groups hide in remote and difficult terrain, especially along the
mountainous border with Afghanistan. Others seek refuge in Paki-
stan’s teeming cities, like Karachi, home to roughly eighteen million
Pakistanis. Karachi’s estimated three million Pashtuns make it the larg-
est urban Pashtun community in the world. These terrorist havens are
often difficult to penetrate, but they are not isolated. Pakistan’s telecom-
munications, financial, and transportation networks provide terrorists
international reach. Those networks also make it hard to choke access
to financial resources and recruits.
Pakistan is an attractive terrorist hub for at least three additional
reasons. First, in Pakistan, terrorists find communities of sympathiz-
ers among a public that, for decades, has been inundated with extremist
rhetoric and ideology. Islamist parties and sectarian groups are active
throughout Pakistan’s cities and institutions of higher education. Tribes
along the Afghan border have offered sanctuary and support to terror-
ists for reasons of shared antipathy to the United States and its allies,
customary hospitality, financial interest, and fear. Anti-Americanism
remains rampant. Today the poisonous political climate offers little

incentive for Pakistan’s leaders, even when they do recognize the threat
extremists pose, to work openly with Americans.
Second, Pakistan has a long history of officially sponsored militancy.
In the 1980s, this strategy served short-term U.S. purposes. During
the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, Pakistan’s intelligence service was
the primary conduit between the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and the Afghan mujahedeen fighters. Many Pakistanis continue
to view past U.S. support for these groups as the cause of Pakistan’s
present instability.
But today U.S. and Pakistani perspectives on militancy diverge in
important ways. The connections between the Pakistani state and
extremist militants persisted long after the Soviet Union collapsed and
the United States left the scene. Pakistan differentiates between mili-
tant groups, now fighting vigorously against the Pakistani Taliban—
which threatens the state—while offering support or turning a blind
eye to those groups that direct violence against India, Afghanistan, the
United States, and other targets outside Pakistan.
The reasons for this policy appear to be diverse. Some influential ele-
ments within Pakistan’s military and intelligence services hold extreme
ideologies. It is difficult, if not impossible, for outsiders to know how
significant these circles of radical officers are. Other Pakistani officials
still believe that militants can be controlled and used to further Paki-
stan’s strategic interests in the region. In particular, they see militancy
as a necessary tool for dealing with India, Pakistan’s larger and increas-
ingly formidable neighbor. For them, Afghanistan is a critical battle-
ground for conflicting Indo-Pakistani interests. By providing sanctuary
to Afghan militants, they believe they can influence events in Afghani-
stan, particularly after international forces withdraw.
Whatever the rationale, Pakistan’s apparent strategy of distinguish-
ing between various militant outfits is dangerous. It contradicts Wash-
ington’s regional and global security efforts. Cross-border attacks
against U.S. forces based in Afghanistan (conducted by the Haqqani
network, Hizb-i Islami Gulbuddin, and the Quetta Shura Taliban)
could be sharply reduced if the Pakistani army closed the bases of such
groups inside Pakistan.
The expanding global reach and ambition of LeT, a group composed
mainly of ethnic Pakistani Punjabis with strong historical links to the
The Threat 21
Pakistani intelligence community and to al-Qaeda, makes it especially

threatening. LeT is becoming a globalized terror network. Hubs and
operatives across South Asia are linked to logistical, fund-raising, and
recruiting networks in the Persian Gulf, and they have found supporters
and sympathizers in the West—including in Britain, Canada, and the
United States.4 The U.S. director of national intelligence has testified
that LeT “is becoming more of a direct threat, and is placing Western
targets in Europe in its sights.”5 Left unchecked, LeT and its affiliates
could eventually rival al-Qaeda as the world’s most sophisticated and
dangerous terrorist organization.
LeT’s November 2008 attack in Mumbai offers a recent example
of how Pakistan-based terrorists threaten American citizens and
could spark a dangerous war between nuclear-armed India and Paki-
stan. Numerous Pakistan-based groups remain motivated and able to
strike Indian targets again. Indian military restraint cannot be taken
for granted in the event of another attack. Escalated tensions between
New Delhi and Islamabad would compromise U.S. aims by shifting
Islamabad’s attention and resources away from operations against
militants along its western border to defend against potential Indian
retaliation along its eastern border. An Indo-Pakistani conflict could
also disrupt the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan by cutting off Pakistan’s
vital supply corridors through which some three-quarters of all NATO
supplies travel.
The final reason Pakistan remains a terrorist haven is that the
state has struggled to impose its authority even when its leaders
have decided to take on terrorists and insurgents. Between 2001 and
2010, Pakistan endured the deaths of nearly 2,300 soldiers, mainly
in operations along the Afghan border.6 Over the past several years,
the army and frontier scouts have improved their capacity for clear-
ing well-defended militant strongholds, but they have a much harder
time sustaining these gains without effective civilian institutions to
step in and administer law and order or provide access to basic ser-
vices. Weak or nonexistent police forces and limited judicial facilities
may be contributing to a reported problem of extrajudicial killings by
Pakistani troops in areas once held by the Taliban.7 Under these con-
ditions, there is reason to fear that heavy-handed Pakistani military
operations are as likely to create new local grievances as to root out
entrenched militant networks.
Weak Institutions
When it comes to assessing Pakistan’s future, these immediate military

challenges pale in comparison to the enormous task of holding the line
against extremism and militancy within Pakistani society. Pakistan’s
civilian institutions, especially the judiciary and the police force, are
too often weak and corrupt.8 For most Pakistanis, economic survival
is a challenge, security is poor, and justice is slow. These failures of the
state alienate the public and energize extremists. Worse still, Pakistan’s
FATA along the Afghan border are governed under a system of limited
tribal autonomy inherited from the British that was never intended
to provide the administrative features of a modern state. The struc-
tures that exist have been strained by decades of conflict. Militants
have exploited this power vacuum, often by killing off tribal elders and
imposing their own authority.
The weakness of Pakistan’s public institutions raises serious ques-
tions about the long-term stability of the state. Pakistan’s floods will
compound its challenges, diverting already scarce resources from
much-needed infrastructure investments to humanitarian response,
recovery, and rehabilitation. Instead of getting ahead, Pakistan must
now struggle harder to stop falling further behind. Rapid population
growth—projected to reach three hundred million by mid-century—
will place additional stress on national resources. At present, two-
thirds of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day. Potable water, energy,
food, and land will become scarcer. Pakistan’s cities pose special chal-
lenges. For example, Karachi—which contributes up to 60 percent of
the national economy—is stressed by rapid population growth and
riven by political and ethnic cleavages. Ineffective civilian institutions
will be unable to educate Pakistan’s people, build public infrastruc-
ture, or keep the peace.
Without injections of foreign assistance or far more rapid economic
growth, Pakistan will be unable to create the estimated two million new
jobs per year required to keep a lid on unemployment.9 Under those
conditions, an enormous youth population (today nearly 60 percent of
Pakistanis are younger than twenty-four) will be more susceptible to
extreme ideologies and antistate violence.
Pakistan’s tumultuous politics, rising and falling between civilian
and military rule, are partly to blame for the weak performance of its
The Threat 23
administrators and leaders. Political uncertainty and upheaval have

also reduced economic growth by discouraging private investment.
Pakistan’s latest political transition, starting with national elections in
February 2008, has not yet produced a full democratic consolidation.
After President Musharraf left office, the army quickly retreated from
the foreground of Pakistani politics, but a close examination reveals that
it continues to call the shots on all important issues of national defense
and foreign policy. Pakistan’s political class has been too consumed
with partisan skirmishing and the massive challenges of the civil sector
to mount a serious threat to military authority. For the time being, the
Pakistani army appears content with its autonomy and shows little incli-
nation for a formal reentry into the political fray.
Nuclear Weapons
Finally, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, estimated to house between eighty

and one hundred weapons, sets it apart from all other states that con-
front an active Islamist insurgency. Pakistan and the United States have
never seen eye to eye on the Pakistani nuclear program. Those differ-
ences forced a rupture in the relationship throughout the 1990s, when
congressionally mandated sanctions ended U.S. military sales and assis-
tance to Pakistan. Subsequently, the extensive nuclear smuggling ring,
led by the so-called father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer
Khan, raised new fears in Washington. Contemplating the terrible
prospect that nuclear materials could fall into the hands of a sophisti-
cated terrorist group like al-Qaeda, the George W. Bush administration
quietly established a nuclear security assistance program for Pakistan,
which continues to this day. President Obama has publicly expressed
his confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear program is secure, but the Task
Force remains deeply concerned by Pakistan’s unique combination of
the world’s most sophisticated terrorist groups and what appears to be
the world’s fastest growing nuclear program.10
For its part, the vast majority of the Pakistani public sees the nuclear
arsenal as a necessary safeguard against India. Pakistan seeks inter-
national acceptance of its nuclear status but, like India, remains an
outlier from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. Paki-
stan continues to expand its nuclear program in an effort to equalize
India’s conventional military superiority. Islamabad has repeatedly
expressed misgivings over the recent U.S.-India civil nuclear deal and
has requested a similar special status. Pakistanis tend to argue that U.S.
nuclear policy reflects a double standard and a tilt toward India. Differ-
ences over nuclear issues continue to hinder U.S.-Pakistan cooperation
and contribute to the lack of trust between the two sides.
Afghan istan
In the first few years after 9/11, U.S. military and intelligence operations
succeeded in forcing al-Qaeda and a number of other international
terrorist groups out of Afghanistan. The repressive Taliban regime in
Kabul was toppled, and most Afghans, especially those in the north and
west, welcomed international assistance and the new opportunity for
peace and growth.
Since 2006, however, there has been a rising tide of Taliban violence.
Afghanistan’s ability to create conditions for sustainable security—
without a substantial outside presence—will remain a principal chal-
lenge to U.S. goals in the region. A military victory by the Taliban in
southern and eastern Afghanistan could embolden international ter-
rorists along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Although some Afghan
Taliban leaders appear willing to distance themselves from al-Qaeda
and other international terrorists, other elements—especially the
Haqqani network based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency—have
embraced the ideology, rhetoric, and tactics of al-Qaeda’s global jihad.
Afghanistan’s remote geography, difficult terrain, and militant history
make it an especially appealing destination for these groups. Percep-
tions of extremist victories in Afghanistan could energize radical move-
ments around the world.
Afghanistan is not yet capable of standing on its own. The post-
Taliban rebuilding process started from an extremely low base. Decades
of war had destroyed civilian and military institutions, deprived young
Afghans of education, and sent many of the country’s most talented
people into exile. Today, Afghan government spending on development
and security programs far exceeds domestic revenues. International
donors provide approximately 70 percent of the Afghan government-
administered budget.11 Poor international coordination has also hin-
dered reconstruction since 2002. The inability of the international
community—in particular, the United Nations (UN)—to harmonize
The Threat 25
political and development efforts among international donors has

wasted precious resources and fueled frustration among many Afghans.
NATO’s failure to share the burden of Afghanistan among its mem-
bers has limited the effectiveness of its forces. Over the past nine years,
many NATO troop contributors have circumscribed the ways in which
their troops can be used. Most are now looking to reduce, not expand,
their combat roles.
Previous efforts to train and equip the ANSF faced routine shortfalls
in resources and qualified trainers. To different degrees, these forces
have suffered from high attrition rates and corrupt practices. In many
cases, the underpaid, unsupervised, and poorly trained police force has
preyed upon the public more than protected it. NATO is now expand-
ing the ANSF rapidly and at great cost. Recent reports suggest that
the ANA monthly attrition rate is falling and that weapons training is
increasingly effective. From November 2009 to June 2010, the monthly
attrition rate of the ANA dropped from 3 percent to 1.2 percent. The
number of Afghan soldiers graduating from NATO basic training who
qualified on their primary weapon rose from 35 percent to 65 percent.12
The Afghan army and national police accomplished their October 2010
goals by reaching a force size of 134,000 and 109,000, respectively, in
late August 2010.13 To help tackle Afghanistan’s urgent security needs,
NATO has also worked to overcome official Afghan objections to orga-
nizing and assisting local defense forces.14
Political and Economic Weakness
On the political front, Afghanistan’s weaknesses are even more appar-

ent. In many parts of the country, the state is missing in action. Insur-
gents and local power brokers have exploited the vacuum, asserting
their authority and winning some measure of public legitimacy. In other
instances, especially in southern Afghanistan, the Kabul government
is itself perceived as a cause of insecurity. Widespread official corrup-
tion and predatory practices have turned many Afghans against their
own government and created opportunities for a Taliban resurgence.
If the United States lends its support to state authorities without first
demanding more effective governance, it risks alienating local commu-
nities and sparking a violent backlash.
Although the first presidential election in October 2004 was an
uplifting national experience, the second attempt five years later was a
fiasco that weakened the legitimacy of President Karzai and his govern-
ment and eroded the international community’s confidence in Kabul.
After four sets of national elections, it is clear that Afghanistan still
lacks basic mechanisms—like a credible system for voter registration—
required for sustaining its democratic process at a reasonable cost over
the long term.
The quality of Afghanistan’s national ministries varies widely, but
all suffer from a shortage of qualified, honest officials willing to work
under difficult conditions for the low wages on offer. Provincial and
district governments are dominated by unelected officials, including
governors and police chiefs, appointed by President Karzai. Karzai’s
dependence on major power brokers, including his brother, fuels a
political system that is nominally democratic but, in practice, unac-
countable to local demands. Afghanistan’s constitutional and electoral
structures have obstructed the formation of effective political party
organizations. Without political parties, the parliament lacks discipline
and is less effective than it needs to be. Where the government fails, the
Taliban offers an alternative and gains public legitimacy. At the local
level, the Taliban is especially adept at exploiting the weaknesses of the
formal justice system. Unlike government courts, the Taliban dispenses
quick, efficient rulings backed by force.
Without Afghan political partners and substantial national accep-
tance of the government in Kabul, the United States cannot hope to
bring enduring stability to Afghanistan. However, Afghanistan’s
political weaknesses are not intrinsic. Last year’s presidential elections
demonstrated that Afghanistan has a multitude of energetic and skill-
ful politicians. Decades of war and external intervention should not
obscure the fact that from 1929 until the Soviet invasion in 1979, the
country was at peace.15 Many local communities throughout the coun-
try adhere to traditional forms of representative governance. Far from
seeking Afghanistan’s breakup into ethnic enclaves, the vast majority
of Afghans favors national unity and accepts the basic tenets of plural-
istic rule.
Today, however, Afghanistan lacks the economic growth that would
permit it to sustain government revenues and reduce the appeal of illicit
activities, like narcotics and smuggling. High levels of violence dampen
foreign investment and licit trade. Although recent announcements of
vast mineral and energy deposits may offer opportunities for growth,
the experience of other weak states endowed with valuable resources
The Threat 27
provides a cautionary tale; such wealth can too easily fuel internal con-
flict and external exploitation.16 Afghanistan’s single largest outside
investment—China’s stake in the Aynak copper mine south of Kabul—
is years away from creating jobs or revenues.17 U.S. efforts to support
Afghanistan’s agricultural sector could help millions of Afghans plant
crops other than opium poppy, but ambitious farmers will also require
greater access to regional markets. For too long, Pakistani barriers to
trade and transit have obstructed Afghan exports to India. Islamabad
has only recently concluded a deal to permit the entry of Afghan trucks
en route to India.18 Similar political conflicts and concerns about insta-
bility undercut proposals for energy pipelines from Iran or Central
Asia to Pakistan and India.
Reconciliation
Under the assumption that many Afghan insurgent leaders are moti-
vated less by extreme ideologies than by political goals or personal
grievances, the Karzai government is pursuing what it calls a recon-
ciliation dialogue with top Taliban commanders in an attempt to end
the civil conflict without military force. Facing a sometimes strained
relationship with Washington and uncertain support from within his
own Pashtun constituency, President Karzai may also see reconcilia-
tion as the best means to salvage his political fortunes. This Task Force
is concerned that “reconciliation” is not being pursued in a way that
builds greater Afghan unity. Negotiations have already exposed rifts
in the Kabul government. Afghan minorities and women’s groups will
be especially concerned about any deal that would return extremists to
positions of authority. A poorly managed negotiation process would
also create divisions between Kabul and Washington and among the
NATO allies.
Whatever its prospects, the reconciliation process will be watched
closely by Afghanistan’s neighbors, all of whom feel that they will be
profoundly affected by developments in Kabul. Pakistan already appears
to be using its ties to Afghan Taliban leaders to shape the process and
reduce Indian influence. In return, India and other regional players are
particularly sensitive to Pakistani power plays. All of Afghanistan’s
neighbors may already be hedging their bets in anticipation of a return
to Afghan civil war. Renewed competition for influence in Afghanistan
has the potential to rip the country apart, despite the fact that each state
in the region would benefit far more from a period of peace and sta-
bility. Afghans would again suffer the most, with millions of refugees
streaming across the borders into Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere. Paki-
stan and the Central Asian Republics, already fragile, would be espe-
cially threatened by the turmoil of a renewed proxy war in Afghanistan.
Moreover, the world would suffer if Afghanistan’s internal conflict per-
mits a return of al-Qaeda and other international terrorists.
Unfortunately, regional powers like China, Iran, and Russia have
tended to see Afghanistan as Washington’s problem more than their
own. They perceive their security threats narrowly. For instance, Beijing
stresses the threat posed by Uighur separatists, Russia directs its gaze at
Caucasian and Central Asian terrorists, and Iran raises concerns about
narcotics trafficking. Rather than making significant contributions to
Afghan stability overall, they each tend to pursue minimalist economic
and political agendas.
U.S. Strategic Objectives
The basic long-term U.S. aspirations for Pakistan and Afghanistan are
uncontroversial and easy to list: stability, prosperity, and good gover-
nance. The more important—and more difficult—challenge is to iden-
tify U.S. goals that are realistically achievable within a reasonable time
frame, taking into account the immense challenges of the region and the
limits of U.S. power. The central question is not what the United States
might wish to achieve but what it should aim to accomplish.
Since 9/11, U.S. goals in Pakistan and Afghanistan have shifted in
important but often unappreciated ways. Over this period, the United
States has not always been clear enough about its specific goals and
timelines. It is necessary to be realistic about precisely what Washing-
ton should seek to accomplish, with what resources, and for how long.
Sh i f t i ng U.S . Object i ve s i n Pak istan
U.S. aims in Pakistan have shifted over the past decade. The United
States viewed its aims in narrow terms immediately after 9/11: Pakistan
was a necessary element of the military and counterterror campaign in
Afghanistan. Washington demanded that Islamabad cut its ties to the
Taliban–al-Qaeda alliance in Afghanistan and serve as the U.S. stag-
ing ground and logistics hub.19 As it became ever more apparent to the
George W. Bush administration that the terrorist threat had roots in
Pakistan’s tribal areas and cities, the United States adopted a broader
definition of its objectives. It made significant efforts to shore up the
Pakistani economy and strengthen military and intelligence ties. It
began a quiet dialogue and assistance program to address Pakistan’s
nuclear security issues. By 2005, U.S. leaders had begun to place more
emphasis on Pakistan’s internal politics, broadening their focus from
Pakistan’s connections to Afghanistan and the U.S. counterterror
29
mission. The goal of supporting a Pakistani transition to civilian

rule was widely debated. Tough questions were raised about how to
square the Bush administration’s security aims with its commitment
to democracy promotion.
As the Obama administration came into office, Pakistan was in the
midst of an uncertain transition to civilian rule. At the same time, ter-
rorist violence and militancy spiked, jarring the Pakistani public and
raising new fears about the state’s ability to assert control over its terri-
tory. Together, these developments led Obama administration officials
and the Congress to undertake an even more expansive commitment
to partnership with Pakistan.20 Far from the narrow agenda of 2001,
Washington expressed broad security, economic, and political objec-
tives, ranging from democratic consolidation and poverty alleviation
to regional stability and improved counterinsurgency capacity. Reflect-
ing this agenda, the Obama administration has undertaken a broad
and energetic engagement with the Pakistani government and military,
embodied in a “strategic dialogue” that cuts across both governments’
bureaucracies.
Sh i f t i ng U.S . Object i ve s i n Afghan istan
U.S. aims in Afghanistan have also shifted over time. The United States
did not make a premeditated choice to focus its attention and resources
on the small, landlocked state. Al-Qaeda’s attacks on the United
States spurred that shift. The initial goal of U.S. military operations in
Afghanistan was narrowly conceived: to eliminate the threat posed by
al-Qaeda. The mission was urgent and not preceded by extensive long-
term planning. It is possible that if top al-Qaeda leaders had been appre-
hended and brought to justice within weeks or months after 9/11, U.S.
forces would have withdrawn from Afghanistan, especially as the Bush
administration prepared for war in Iraq.
Although U.S. efforts did not produce rapid results in the hunt for
Osama bin Laden, they did make quick work of the Taliban regime in
Kabul. The longer the United States stayed in Afghanistan, the more
blurry the line became between its narrow counterterror mission and
a more ambitious effort to build a post-Taliban Afghan state. Afghan
leaders and the international community created a road map for the cre-
ation of new democratic institutions, U.S. assistance helped to expand
the Afghan education system, and extensive investments were made in

roads and other physical infrastructure. Each of these efforts suggested
aspirations far broader than counterterrorism.
By the time President Obama moved into the White House and
began his first strategic review, the war in Afghanistan had taken a seri-
ous turn for the worse. The euphoria of Afghanistan’s first democratic
elections had given way to disillusionment and a rising Taliban insur-
gency. In response, the Obama administration sought to rein in public
expectations. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates testified before the
Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2009 that U.S. goals in
Afghanistan should be “modest” and “realistic.” He added, “If we set
ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla
over there, we will lose, because nobody in the world has that kind of
time, patience, and money.”21
At the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in December 2009, after
the Obama administration’s second policy review, the president reaf-
firmed the overarching objective he had articulated earlier that year,
to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al-Qaeda, and to prevent its ability
to threaten America and its allies from a sanctuary in the region. The
Obama administration has recognized, however, that it will be difficult
to deny al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations the opportunity to
restore and expand their base in Afghanistan unless the Taliban is weak-
ened and the ability of the Afghan government to provide security and
basic services is strengthened. The White House’s rhetoric, however,
often poses the mission in the narrowest terms—defeating al-Qaeda—
without explaining to the American people how fighting the Taliban
and building local capacity in Afghanistan support that counterter-
ror mission and justify the surge strategy. This causes confusion and
reduces public support for the effort.
Re alist ic Ends, Me ans, and T i metable s

for Pak istan
This Task Force finds that the United States has two vital national secu-
rity objectives in Pakistan: to degrade and defeat the terrorist groups
that threaten U.S. interests from its territory and to prevent turmoil that
would imperil the Pakistani state and risk the security of its nuclear pro-
gram. It will be exceedingly difficult to achieve either of these objectives
without the cooperation of the Pakistani state; this requires improving

the quality of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. By extension, Washington
has an interest in the stability of its Pakistani partner, which includes the
security of Pakistan’s population, the health of its economy, the capac-
ity of its governing institutions, and the character of its relations with
other states in the region.
By any realistic assessment, Pakistan faces enormously difficult long-
term challenges to its stability. As long as the troubling social, political,
and economic dynamics outlined earlier in this report persist, Paki-
stan’s door will be propped open to terrorism and insurgency. Foster-
ing conditions for security, more effective democratic governance, and
prosperity will require the efforts of millions of Pakistanis. Such a pro-
cess cannot be imposed from the outside, even by a superpower, but it
can and should be supported by U.S. assistance directed to committed
Pakistani allies.
In the short run, Washington should focus on helping Pakistan
through a terrible national tragedy. U.S. assistance will be essential for
Pakistan to cope with the economic and human costs of the floods. If
Pakistan manages to pull through this crisis without suffering a more
significant political or social breakdown, that will be a success. By fully
supporting that process, Washington has a chance to demonstrate to
Pakistanis the material benefits of U.S. partnership as well as the gener-
osity of the American people.
But to succeed over the long run, the U.S. relationship with Pakistan
must be a two-way street. Washington should patiently offer incentives
to build trust and confidence with Islamabad. But this assistance is not
simply charity. It is an investment in Pakistan’s future and the future
of its partnership with the United States. To be a sound investment,
it must continue to show a realistic potential for growth in terms of
enhanced Pakistani cooperation on issues of importance to the United
States—namely, a demonstrated effort to crack down on all terrorist
groups based in its territory.
Washington’s investments in Pakistan may never sway Islamabad’s
fundamental views. In that case, the United States should aim to change
the methods by which Pakistan pursues its interests. For example, rather
than suggest that Pakistan should no longer perceive a security threat
from India or exercise influence in Afghanistan, Washington should
encourage and enable Pakistan to pursue diplomatic and economic
strategies in place of militarized approaches. This approach must be
complemented by a harder edge: sustained U.S. efforts to weaken Paki-

stan-based terrorist groups and their sympathizers, including elements
of the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda, and LeT. As these groups are dimin-
ished, they will pose less of a direct threat to U.S., Indian, or Afghan
interests. They will become less relevant to Pakistan’s own regional
strategic calculations and more easily dismantled. At the same time, the
United States should target its military assistance to Pakistan in ways
that most effectively support Pakistan’s counterinsurgency efforts at
home.
The cultivation of effective, mutually beneficial relations with Paki-
stan is a means to achieve fundamental security goals. Washington must
always place a higher priority on protecting the security of its citizens
than on improving the bilateral relationship for its own sake. If there is
a mass casualty attack against Americans that can be traced to Pakistan,
or if U.S. policymakers grow frustrated by inadequate Pakistani efforts
to address critical security issues, the partnership may founder. In that
case (a scenario considered later in this report), the United States could
be forced to scale back its aims, focusing instead on managing and con-
taining immediate threats to U.S. security, especially those posed by
international terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda.
At present, however, this Task Force believes that enhanced U.S.-
Pakistan cooperation is both desirable and feasible, if by no means
straightforward. The policy recommendations in this report are designed
to improve prospects for achieving these ends in a timely manner.
Re alist ic Ends, Me ans, and T i metable s

for Afghan istan
The United States should pursue three main objectives in Afghanistan.

The first is to prosecute the war against al-Qaeda and other interna-
tional terror organizations concentrated on the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border, together with Pakistan where possible, unilaterally where not.
The toxic network of extremist groups—which includes various ele-
ments of the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, and LeT—is dif-
ficult to disentangle and blurs the distinction between terrorism and
insurgency. The specific agendas of these groups may differ, but they
are increasingly united by operational ties and jihadist ideals.
At the same time, the United States needs to prevent Afghanistan
from once again becoming a sanctuary for these groups. Al-Qaeda is

now on the defensive in the border region as a result of relentless and
effective U.S. drone strikes. But if the Taliban consolidates its position
in large portions of Afghanistan, it could create new space for these
dangerous groups to plan attacks against the United States and destabi-
lize the region. If a combination of these groups were to succeed against
the United States in Afghanistan, home of the earlier jihadist victory
against the Soviet Union, it would be a rallying point for other extremist
groups around the world.
Second, the United States should work to prevent Afghanistan
from spiraling into a civil war, which would have a destabilizing effect
on neighboring Pakistan and the region. Such a war would threaten
already fragile Central Asian states and would almost certainly exac-
erbate Indo-Pakistani tensions. Because Washington seeks to improve
its partnership with both New Delhi and Islamabad, the renewal of a
bitter and violent proxy war between the two would represent a sig-
nificant obstacle.
The decades of Soviet occupation and civil war in Afghanistan have
already been costly for Pakistan. A renewed Afghan civil war would
compound the problem. The war economy of gunrunning, narcotics,
and militancy has contributed to Pakistan’s own internal insurgency.
Afghanistan’s war has undermined Pakistani stability in other, more
insidious ways as well. Pakistan’s experience in Afghanistan during the
1980s was a formative one. Islamabad’s support of the Afghan mujahe-
deen guerrillas enabled a vast expansion of Pakistan’s Directorate for
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). It also strengthened Pakistan’s pattern
of fomenting insurgency as a means to promote its regional interests.
A military victory by the present Taliban insurgency would reinforce
these lessons. Yet these same groups propagate jihadist ideas that
endanger Pakistan’s own stability. The Pakistani Taliban—a conglom-
eration of groups that have turned on Islamabad and challenged the writ
of the state—is a prime example of this problem of strategic blowback.
Third, the United States should develop Afghan security forces
capable of defending the population as the United States reduces its
footprint and shifts its mission. Seeking to prevent extremist attacks
and a destabilizing civil war cannot mean an open-ended, bloody
U.S. military engagement—a “forever war.”22 To continue the current
course in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the sacrifices it entails, prog-
ress must be visible and timely. In the absence of sustainable progress,
the relative costs and benefits of the current approach, compared with a
scaled-down mission, need to be recalculated, and Washington should
be prepared to adjust its strategy and policies without delay. That sce-
nario is considered at greater length later in this report.
The implications of this constraint are clear: in order for the United
States to accomplish its objectives in Afghanistan at an acceptable cost,
it will need to encourage and enable Afghans and other regional states
to shoulder greater responsibilities. This means securing their sup-
port for degrading the threat now posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliated
Afghan militant groups, such as the Haqqani network; helping to sup-
port Afghan partners who can do more to build and maintain security
with less direct U.S. military involvement; and working to craft politi-
cal and diplomatic settlements in Afghanistan that reduce internal and
regional tensions.
An Assessment of U.S. Strategy and Policy
Since taking office, President Obama has shifted U.S. strategies and
dramatically expanded U.S. military and civilian commitments to Paki-
stan and Afghanistan. The Task Force supports these changes, with
some important caveats and concerns.
Curren t U.S . P olicy i n Pak istan
The Obama administration has embarked on a comprehensive

approach to building a more effective partnership with Pakistan. It
involves an aggressive counterterrorism strategy and a generous aid
program. In October 2009, Congress, with presidential approval,
passed the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act (Kerry-Lugar-
Berman), which pledged $7.5 billion in nonmilitary assistance over the
next five years. This amounts to a tripling of assistance from prior levels.
In July 2010, during her visit to Islamabad, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton announced plans to devote U.S. assistance funds to power,
water, health care, finance, and postconflict reconstruction projects,
among others.23 These plans are likely to be revised in the aftermath of
Pakistan’s summer floods. To meet urgent humanitarian needs, Wash-
ington has already contributed food and relief supplies, as well as over
$150 million in direct assistance.24
In March 2010, the first meeting of the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dia-
logue in Washington, DC, included numerous working groups that
covered a wide range of issues. Among them, the Pakistani side put
forward a request for a civil nuclear agreement similar to that between
the United States and India. Washington correctly deflected the nuclear
issue, focusing instead on Pakistan’s need for greater power produc-
tion and electricity distribution capacity. On the nuclear front, the
United States has for years engaged in quiet, limited cooperation with
36
Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, the unit of the military responsible

for maintaining its nuclear arsenal. Although many Americans continue
to harbor concerns about the terrorist threat to Pakistan’s nuclear sci-
entists, technologies, and materials, Pakistan has taken important steps
to enhance security controls. At the same time, Pakistan appears to be
expanding its nuclear program rapidly, a development that increases the
potential for accidents and raises tensions with India. The United States
has publicly raised concerns about China’s recent plans to provide
greater assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear program, actions that appear to
violate Beijing’s voluntary obligations as a member of the Nuclear Sup-
pliers Group.25
The United States is supporting a more aggressive Pakistani cam-
paign against antistate militants. At more than $1.2 billion, U.S. assis-
tance to Pakistan’s security forces during the past year is on par with
U.S. assistance to Egypt’s security forces, and Pakistan ranks among
the top five recipients of Washington’s military aid.26 It includes a com-
bination of items useful for counterinsurgency operations as well as
significant conventional warfare capabilities.27 After losing access to
a generation of Pakistani military leaders because of their exclusion
from U.S. military educational programs, the Pentagon’s efforts to
build cooperation with Pakistan’s military and intelligence services
have yielded some encouraging results. Training and assistance for
Pakistan’s Frontier Corps have made a particularly constructive differ-
ence. That said, progress in building military-to-military relations is
often slow, costly, and full of frustrations.
The United States has also greatly intensified direct military opera-
tions against terrorist camps in Pakistan. The monthly rate of publicly
reported drone strikes in 2010 is double the 2009 rate.28 Targeting has
improved, reducing civilian casualties. Attacks along the Afghan border
have struck militants from al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani
Taliban, and the Haqqani network. U.S. drones have eliminated several
top terrorist leaders since January 2009, including the head of the Paki-
stani Taliban and al-Qaeda’s chief operating officer.29 The tactical suc-
cess of these strikes has come at some cost in Pakistani public sentiment.
A heated debate over civilian casualties and territorial sovereignty pulses
over the airwaves there, but Pakistan’s military and government request
drone technologies for their own use more than they protest against the
strikes. Quietly, many Pakistanis from the region bordering Afghanistan
have expressed qualified support for drone attacks, noting that they are
more accurate than in the past, but are still frustrated that they are oper-
ated by the United States and not by Pakistan itself.
In the midst of persistent political dynamism, including the debate
and ultimate passage of Pakistan’s eighteenth constitutional amend-
ment, which stripped President Asif Ali Zardari of many formal
powers, the United States has wisely attempted to cultivate a neutral
stance rather than backing any particular party or leader. This stance
has continued through several periods of Pakistani political upheaval.
But Pakistan’s latest experiment with civilian rule has faltered in impor-
tant ways, not least in its ineffective attempt to assert greater civilian
control over the army and intelligence services. Bowing to the reality
of the military’s dominant role, the Obama administration has made
heavy use of its close working relationship with Pakistan’s army chief to
manage sensitive strategic issues. In an apparent nod to his personal sig-
nificance, and perhaps his close U.S. ties, Pakistan army chief General
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s term was recently extended by three years; it is
now set to expire in 2013.
The Task Force broadly endorses these new features of U.S. policy
in Pakistan. Looking ahead, several important challenges threaten
U.S. goals and the overall U.S.-Pakistan partnership, especially the
following:
–– Flood relief and reconstruction. Unless Pakistan’s civilian and military

leadership manages to cope with this natural disaster, there will be
little hope for meeting other political, economic, or security goals.
–– U.S. assistance implementation. For the United States to help meet
Pakistani needs in ways that contribute to a lasting partnership, new
U.S. assistance projects must be rolled out with urgency, comple-
mented by effective publicity. Plans for projects conceived before
the floods will need to be reviewed immediately and revised to meet
more pressing needs.
–– Trade barriers. U.S. assistance, in itself, cannot reverse the fact that
if current trends hold over the coming decades, most Pakistanis will
remain young, poor, uneducated, and brimming with anti-American-
ism. High U.S. tariffs on Pakistan’s top export items limit the poten-
tial for commercial ties between the two countries. U.S. tariffs on
Pakistan’s leading exports, such as textiles, average about four times
the U.S. tariff rate on imports from other countries. Since nearly 40
percent of Pakistan’s industrial employment is in textiles, it is likely
that millions of Pakistanis could benefit from greater access to the

U.S. market for these goods.30 Pakistan’s cotton farmers could also
gain a necessary boost in their attempt to recover from the floods.
–– Militant ties. Pakistan has not made a decisive break with all militants
on its territory, especially those active against India and Afghanistan.
LeT and elements of the Afghan Taliban, including the Haqqani net-
work, are still operating with the active or passive assistance of the
Pakistani state and pose urgent challenges for U.S. efforts in Afghan-
istan and its counterterrorism efforts around the world. Pakistan’s
behavior appears to be motivated, at least in part, by its interest in
maintaining influence in a post-NATO Afghanistan through links to
the Taliban.
–– Nuclear concerns. A deep trust deficit remains between Washing-
ton and Islamabad on nuclear security issues. U.S. efforts to assist
Pakistan in safeguarding its weapons are constrained by U.S. law
and Pakistani concerns that Washington seeks to “roll back” its pro-
gram. China’s nuclear assistance to Pakistan undermines the U.S.
nonproliferation agenda, but Washington’s concerns have so far
been ignored.
–– India-Pakistan rivalry. Continuing rivalry between India and Paki-
stan play out in Afghanistan as well as undercut efforts to encour-
age regional trade, investment, and security. Recent Indo-Pakistani
meetings, including between foreign ministers, have been conten-
tious at best.
–– Postconflict capacity. Pakistani stability remains threatened by
the limited capacity of its army, police, Frontier Corps, and other
civilian administrators to successfully “hold” and “build” after
counterinsurgency “clearing” operations in the FATA and Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa Province. These same areas have been especially
hard-hit by floods, sweeping away recent investments in infrastruc-
ture and development.
–– Civil-military relations. A recent period of relative political calm
masks deeper tensions between Pakistan’s military and its civilian
politicians. In this respect, the latest attempt to consolidate civilian
democracy is still a work in progress, with uncertain implications for
national security.
–– Public opinion. Negative Pakistani perceptions poison cooperation at
all levels. Anti-American critics dominate Pakistan’s airwaves.
Curren t U.S . P olicy i n Afghan istan
Since his inauguration, President Obama has conducted two major stra-
tegic reviews for Afghanistan. Together, these reviews endorsed a plan
intended to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and allied groups
in the region, and to prevent both Afghanistan and Pakistan from pro-
viding safe havens to international terrorists in the future. President
Obama repeatedly declared his intention to make up for years of U.S.
underinvestment in Afghanistan and announced major new deploy-
ments of troops, civilian officials, and other resources.
Current U.S. strategy is founded upon the belief that if the Taliban
were to retake power, the United States could have little confidence
in its desire or capacity to prevent al-Qaeda’s return. The Task Force
agrees that the United States cannot afford to underestimate the fact
that elements of the Afghan Taliban with close ties to al-Qaeda, such as
the Haqqani network and associated groups like LeT, are already active
inside Afghanistan and would pose an even greater threat if they gained
more operating space there. Rather than a war of attrition, Washing-
ton seeks to weaken the Taliban by depriving the insurgency of access
to its sustaining lifeblood: men, money, and safe havens among sym-
pathetic populations. These goals are possible because the Taliban is
not particularly popular among Afghans. It has mainly proven adept at
taking advantage of ethnic and tribal cleavages within Afghan society,
popular grievances against the state, and the nationalistic frustration
born of international military presence. The Taliban is also ruthless in
its efforts to eliminate or intimidate opponents and to cow the rest of
the population into acquiescence. By improving public security, creat-
ing new economic opportunities, and enhancing the quality of Afghan
governance, the United States and its partners seek to diminish Taliban
power and influence.
The Task Force finds that the Obama administration’s strategy for
Afghanistan may manage to turn the tide against the Taliban insur-
gency and reduce the risks of international terrorism. It holds out the
prospect of building a stable Afghanistan without permanent U.S. or
international security forces. However, these desirable outcomes will
be difficult to achieve, even with the additional resources at hand. Wash-
ington’s Afghanistan strategy will demand great sacrifices and will ulti-
mately rise or fall on whether Afghanistan’s people and leaders line up
behind it.
Starting in spring 2009, Washington’s strategy has been backed by a

surge of U.S. forces to a total of one hundred thousand in late summer
2010. Over a similar time frame, U.S. Special Operations Forces
have tripled their capacity.31 A primary mission for NATO is to train
Afghanistan’s national army and police, but NATO has been able to
field only slightly over half of the international trainers needed. So far,
the United States has spent more than $26 billion to build the ANSF,
and current plans would require $6 billion per year through 2015.32 In
July 2010, as part of a short-term effort to expand anti-Taliban forces,
NATO convinced the Kabul government to permit the equipping, train-
ing, and organization of community defense forces under the authority
of the interior ministry.33
A revamped civilian effort is also supporting the military surge. Since
January 2009, the overall U.S. civilian presence has tripled to one thou-
sand, while deployments outside Kabul have quadrupled.34 The Obama
administration has refocused economic assistance (more than $2.6
billion during the 2009–2010 fiscal year) to the agricultural sector, on
which approximately 80 percent of Afghans rely for their livelihoods.
In a revamped counternarcotics policy, the Obama administration has
emphasized interdiction and “alternative livelihoods” programs aimed
at targeting kingpins without angering farmers. The new approach is
supported by an increase in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
personnel and material, as well as technical assistance to farmers.35
Even as these major new commitments have been announced, Presi-
dent Obama has also pledged that the increased U.S. military commit-
ment will not be open-ended. The United States will begin to transition
lead responsibility for security to Afghan forces in July 2011, although
the specific pace of that process will be determined by conditions on the
ground in Afghanistan.36 At the July 2010 Kabul conference, the par-
ties expressed support for President Karzai’s objective that the ANSF
“should lead and conduct military operations in all provinces by the end
of 2014.”37
The geographic focus of the recent U.S. surge is Afghanistan’s Pash-
tun south, the birthplace and stronghold of the Taliban movement. In
NATO’s spring 2010 drive to secure the Helmand River valley, Taliban
fighters were dislodged from their sanctuary in the district of Marjah,
and new local officials were installed. Months later, Taliban intimida-
tion remains widespread. Marjah has shown the critical shortcomings
of Afghan state capacity and the difficulty of “holding,” “building,” and
“transferring” following the completion of initial military operations.

At the same time, the United States has also had some successes with
its approach, including in Nawa, just fifteen miles away from Marjah,
where Taliban fighters have been displaced, conditions are secure, and
U.S. development programs are taking hold. Such different outcomes
demonstrate the highly variable character of communities—and the
insurgency itself—across Afghanistan.38
NATO’s effort to secure Kandahar, a city of great strategic and sym-
bolic importance, has also proved difficult. Facing skeptical locals and
a calculated assassination campaign by the Taliban, ISAF command-
ers have limited military activity inside Kandahar and have focused on
outlying districts. There they have deployed additional troops, often
partnered with Afghan national security forces. It is worth noting that
despite heavy fighting—and some of NATO’s heaviest losses of the
war—Afghan civilian casualties caused by NATO went down by 30 per-
cent over the past year. Over the same period, the Taliban’s expanded
use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) increased overall civilian
casualties by nearly a third.39
On the political front, the Obama administration’s relations with
President Karzai have been rocky and subject to bouts of public dis-
agreement. They reached a low point in the fall of 2009, during and
shortly after Afghanistan’s deeply flawed presidential election. Kar-
zai’s visit to Washington in May 2010 focused on improving relations
with the Kabul government, an effort that has carried on in subsequent
senior dialogues. It is not evident that this has translated into greater
trust or a more effective working partnership. The June 2010 resigna-
tions of two major cabinet officials, both considered constructive U.S.
partners, raised another red flag about the political direction Kabul is
headed. Over the summer, Washington sparred with Karzai over anti-
corruption efforts and his decision to ban private security contractors
from Afghanistan. Perhaps the most contested political issue in Afghan-
istan in recent months has been the reconciliation process. Distinct
from the long-standing goal of reintegrating Taliban foot soldiers and
junior commanders into Afghan society, reconciliation is focused on
more senior Taliban members and has raised sensitive questions about
what concessions the Afghan government and international commu-
nity should be willing to make, what redlines they should draw, and the
extent to which negotiations offer a realistic prospect for bringing the
war to a close. President Karzai convened a National Consultative Peace
Jirga in June 2010 to win public endorsement for a reconciliation pro-

cess, but Afghan opposition leaders—as well as regional observers with
strong anti-Taliban leanings, such as India—have worried that a deal
might grant too much to the Taliban.40 Washington has declared itself
open to the possibility of resolving the conflict through talks and has
devoted attention to coordinating its approach with Karzai.41 However,
senior Obama administration officials have expressed varying degrees
of skepticism regarding prospects for a deal.42
The Obama administration’s fall 2009 decision to devote greater
military and civilian resources to the Afghan war has been completed
over the course of an extremely challenging year. Political and military
setbacks have raised questions of whether the United States has the
capacity to achieve its core goals with the present strategy. The follow-
ing important policy challenges must be addressed in order to improve
prospects for progress. If timely progress is not achieved, a more funda-
mental reassessment of U.S. strategy will be warranted.
–– Political weakness, corruption, and national division. Washington needs

Afghan political partners to succeed in their mission. The Afghan
government remains weak. It is too often corrupt and predatory.
Fundamental deficiencies of the Afghan political system divide the
Afghan public and could prove fatal to U.S. efforts. Disproportionate
responsibility is vested in the presidency. This imbalance is seen in
the weakness of the parliament, the lack of credible political parties,
and presidential control over the appointments of unelected local
government officials throughout the nation. Washington should seek
to build the strength of local Afghan authorities as a means to reduce
public grievances against the central government but not as a means
to build alternative power centers that threaten national unity.
–– Reconciliation. The present Karzai-led reconciliation process is insuf-
ficiently representative of the wide spectrum of Afghan interests. It
is raising fears among many of these groups and spurring concerns
throughout the region, particularly in India. The process requires
greater U.S. guidance and regional consensus building.
–– Assessing progress. The next U.S. strategic review is slated to begin in
December 2010. It should be a comprehensive assessment of whether
the present strategy is working. To accomplish this goal, the Obama
administration will need criteria for assessing progress, along with
supporting data, or it will lose the confidence of the U.S. Congress

and the American public.
–– Afghan National Security Forces. In most instances, Afghan security
forces—the army, police, and local community defense units—are
not capable of taking the lead in the short term. The ANSF are being
rapidly expanded at great cost, but a shortage of international train-
ers impedes their professionalization. Projections for future financial
requirements are likely to face increasingly tough budget battles in
the U.S. Congress.
–– Economic growth. Widespread poverty and lack of infrastructure
threaten self-sustaining economic development. Without greater
private investment and regional economic integration, Afghanistan’s
vast resources, whether mineral deposits or agricultural products,
will remain underutilized, and the nation will depend on interna-
tional donors to support its government and people.
Policy Options and Recommendations:
Pakistan
The Task Force endorses the Obama administration’s effort to cultivate

cooperation with Pakistan as the best way to secure vital U.S. interests
in the short, medium, and long run. This approach should include sig-
nificant investments in Pakistan’s own stability, particularly after this
summer’s floods. But in order for U.S. assistance to be effective over the
long term, Washington must make clear that it expects Pakistan to make
a sustained effort to undermine Pakistan-based terrorist organizations
and their sympathizers.
The recommendations in this chapter are intended to underscore
and complement current U.S. efforts. However, the Task Force is con-
cerned that even the best U.S. efforts in Pakistan may not succeed. Two
realistic scenarios could force a fundamental reassessment of U.S.
strategy and policy.
First, it is possible that Pakistan-based terrorists could conduct a
large-scale attack on the United States and that the Pakistani govern-
ment would—for any number of reasons—refuse to take adequate
action against the perpetrators. In the aftermath of a traumatic terrorist
attack, it would be impossible for U.S. leaders to accept Pakistani inac-
tion. The United States most likely would launch a targeted strike on
Pakistani territory led by Special Forces raids or aerial attacks on sus-
pected terrorist compounds.43 Even limited U.S. military action would
provoke a strong backlash among Pakistanis. Public anger in both coun-
tries would open a rift between Washington and Islamabad.
In a second scenario, Washington could reach the conclusion that
Pakistan is unwilling to improve its cooperation on U.S. counterterror-
ism priorities. The present U.S. policy consensus in favor of engage-
ment with and assistance to Pakistan is largely based on the assumption
that inducements, not coercion, offer the best way to win cooperation
from Pakistan’s people, government, and military. But this consen-
sus requires a steady demonstration of at least incremental progress.
45
Frustration over Pakistan’s persistent relationships with groups like

LeT and the Afghan Taliban frays that consensus.44 At some point, this
frustration could cause the United States to shift its approach toward
Pakistan.
In the event that fundamental strategic changes are considered, both
Washington and Islamabad should have a clear understanding of the
costs and benefits of alternative approaches. The most likely shift in
direction for the United States would be to move from its present strat-
egy of building a partnership through extensive outreach and induce-
ments (carrots) to relying upon coercion and containment (sticks).
Washington has a number of points of leverage with Pakistan. It could
curtail civilian and military assistance. It could also work bilaterally and
through international institutions, such as the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the UN, to sanction and isolate Pakistan. U.S. opera-
tions against Pakistan-based terrorist groups could be expanded and
intensified. In the region, the United States could pursue closer ties
with India at Pakistan’s expense.
To be clear, there are already coercive aspects to U.S. policy, but the
underlying goal is to work with and through Islamabad, not against it.
That would change if Washington determines that Pakistan is not pre-
pared to take action against militant groups that threaten U.S. interests.
“Sticks” would be directed against Pakistan-based terrorists, but also
against the Pakistani state, in an effort to alter its policies. The U.S.-
Pakistan relationship would become openly adversarial.
Americans and Pakistanis must understand that these options carry
heavy risks and costs. Both sides have a great deal to lose. Containing
the terrorist threat from Pakistan would be challenging if the Pakistani
and U.S. governments were at odds, intelligence sharing were reduced,
and U.S. officials were forced to operate from neighboring countries.
NATO’s presence in Afghanistan would be jeopardized without a
secure logistics route through Pakistan. At the same time, Pakistan’s
fragile political and economic stability would be undermined by greater
tensions with the United States. Pakistan’s military would suffer from
the loss of U.S. assistance and restricted access to training, technology,
and spare parts for American-made weapons and vehicles. In general,
U.S. coercion and containment of Pakistan could accelerate dangerous
economic, political, and social trends inside Pakistan. Americans must
recognize that as frustrating and difficult as Pakistan’s situation may be
today, it has the potential to get even worse.
For all of these reasons, building a more effective partnership with

Pakistan is preferable. To improve the prospects for achieving core U.S.
goals, the Task Force presents the following recommendations.
I mprove I mplemen tat ion of

U.S . Assistance i n P ost-Flood Pak istan
Washington must identify and prioritize Pakistan’s most pressing

needs as U.S. assistance plans are revised in the aftermath of this sum-
mer’s floods. In order to make the best use of U.S. assistance for flood
reconstruction and funds authorized by the Enhanced Partnership with
Pakistan Act over the next five years, Washington should:
–– Meet Pakistani needs. As Washington seeks to allocate more generous

resources, it must maintain a demand-driven approach. Close collab-
oration is required to create and implement sustainable projects that
fill gaps in Pakistan’s post-flood recovery and reconstruction efforts,
improve the lives of its citizens, and have supporting institutions that
can put them to good use.
–– Accelerate implementation of high-profile projects. The Task Force
endorses current U.S. plans to build high-profile projects targeted at
strategic sectors, such as water, power, and job creation. They should
support post-flood recovery, and in this area especially, the clock is
ticking to demonstrate tangible progress. Normal U.S. time lines for
major development projects have the potential to frustrate Pakistanis
in need. That frustration will embolden America’s detractors and
would be a major strategic setback. Streamlined procedures, includ-
ing the hiring and development of greater United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) in-house expertise, should
be a priority. If implemented effectively, these sorts of projects will
improve the lives of millions of Pakistanis for decades to come and
can serve as a visible testament to the value of a long-term partner-
ship with the United States.
–– Communicate U.S. intentions. Even though past and ongoing U.S.
assistance programs have been extensive, they have too often escaped
Pakistani public attention. Washington should launch a sophisticated
and sustained media campaign that harnesses the power of Pakistan’s
vibrant electronic media outlets and moves beyond standard ribbon-

cuttings, official visits, and press releases.
–– Improve law and order, fight corruption. In partnership with Pakistan’s
national and provincial governments, Washington should continue
to fund training programs, facilities, and equipment for Pakistan’s
police, and should promote exchanges between U.S. and Pakistani
judiciaries. These institutions are often on the front lines in fighting
militancy but lack the expertise and resources needed to fulfill many
of their most basic duties.
–– Build up Pakistani partners. The interests and priorities of important
sectors of Pakistan’s population are fundamentally aligned with
those of the United States. Members of Pakistan’s business com-
munity, for instance, seek stable conditions for growth and could
benefit from new U.S. initiatives to support private-sector invest-
ment. Mainstream religious leaders seek nonviolent conflict reso-
lution. Educators, artists, and other members of civil society seek
protection for speech and expression. Yet these groups tend to have
little direct contact with the U.S. government. The U.S. embassy in
Islamabad and consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar should
have more extensive, flexible resources at their disposal for outreach
and coordination with a wide range of community leaders who often
wield great influence.
–– Strengthen oversight and accountability. To protect U.S. funds from cor-
ruption and waste, the Obama administration should implement clear
and transparent monitoring mechanisms. These controls will enable
greater use of Pakistani contractors. The Government Accountability
Office and other U.S. government agencies should work with the Pak-
istani government to jointly set goals and measure annual progress.
The United States and Pakistan should also create a joint oversight
board that works through ministries and local governments, tracking
not only inputs but also outcomes, such as job creation.
E xpand U.S .-Pak istan Trade
U.S. economic assistance can never be sufficient to meet Pakistan’s

enormous challenges of unemployment, poverty, and illiteracy. All of
these will be made more difficult by the devastation of this summer’s
floods. They will be compounded over subsequent decades by rapid

population growth.
Problems of such magnitude make it clear that more dramatic mea-
sures are necessary. The Obama administration should propose—and
the U.S. Congress should adopt—legislation liberalizing tariffs on
textile imports from Pakistan. This would help stimulate Pakistan’s
economy and reinforce a partnership between the American and
Pakistani people. Pakistan’s leaders have long sought greater access to
Western markets. The United States is Pakistan’s top export market.
Currently, one-quarter of Pakistan’s exports are bound for the United
States, and one-third of foreign investment in Pakistan comes from
U.S.-based investors.45 But Pakistan still faces substantial barriers to
the U.S. market.46 Given that the textile industry accounts for 38 per-
cent of Pakistan’s industrial employment, this agreement could provide
employment opportunities for millions of young Pakistanis, discourag-
ing them from paths leading to militancy.47 Related industries that have
suffered terrible setbacks from Pakistan’s floods, such as cotton farm-
ing, would also stand to benefit from the expansion of the textile sector.
Consequently, the agreement would put more money in the pockets
of Pakistani consumers. It is the single most effective step the United
States could take to stimulate the Pakistani economy.
Relaxing U.S. textile tariffs on imports from Pakistan would not
put U.S. producers at risk.48 U.S. imports from Pakistan make up a
small share (3 percent) of total U.S. imports; imports of cotton knit
shirts and cotton trousers from Pakistan, for example, are 3.6 percent
of total U.S. imports of those particular products.49 Instead, a trade
agreement would reshape the proportion of U.S. imports from China
and other low-cost exporters that currently dominate this sector of
the market.
U.S. assistance programming should be used to maximize the
benefits of this agreement for regions most threatened by extremist
movements. Supporting infrastructure and training projects could
help shape where new textile industries are located. Pakistan’s cotton-
producing regions, including southern Punjab, would stand to benefit
most from the deal.
Recent experience with U.S. legislation designed to facilitate
greater trade and investment in Pakistan, including the Reconstruc-
tion Opportunity Zone initiative, has demonstrated the hurdles that
block efforts to liberalize textile trade with Pakistan. Domestically,
labor leaders, the U.S. textile industry, and members of Congress

from cotton-producing regions would need reassurances that their
core concerns can be met. Recognizing these challenges, the Task
Force urges the Obama administration and Congress to treat this
legislation as an important national security priority and a part of
America’s generous response to Pakistan’s flood recovery effort. On
a parallel track, Washington will also need a diplomatic campaign to
address the inevitable objections of other textile-producing states,
including China and India.
Bu i ld Pak istan ’ s Capaci t y

to Tackle Terror ism and M i li tancy
The effectiveness of the Pakistani security services in fighting terrorism

directed at others is a question of will and capacity. The United States
must direct its energies to both. U.S. efforts to improve counterterror
cooperation with Pakistan’s military and intelligence services should
continue. Washington should make clear that all violent extremist
groups based in Pakistan threaten U.S., Pakistani, and regional secu-
rity. There has been progress against groups that threaten the Pakistani
state, but insufficient commitment against groups based in Pakistan
that threaten U.S., Afghan, or Indian interests. Intelligence sharing and
liaison between U.S. and Pakistani agencies is an essential component
in this effort.
The Task Force recommends continued and expanded training,
equipment, and facilities for police, paramilitaries, and the army. Air
mobility, night vision, sniper, and surveillance capabilities all require
improvement. Pakistan needs helicopters and transport aircraft to rap-
idly deploy its forces in remote and difficult terrain. Enhancing Paki-
stan’s capacity for rapid and selective strikes against militant groups
without alienating local communities will help it maintain security in
areas so that stabilization and development efforts can take place after
initial clearing operations are over. U.S. training and assistance efforts
must stress the critical importance of respect for human rights and lim-
itation of civilian casualties. U.S. defense sales and assistance should
place the counterinsurgency mission first. Pakistani requests should be
prioritized according to the degree to which they are appropriate to
that mission.
U.S. military assistance to Pakistan should depend upon demon-

strable progress toward cooperation. However, writing conditions
into U.S. legislation can create severe diplomatic challenges and has, as
was the case with U.S. sanctions during the 1990s, produced inflexible
policies that were ultimately counterproductive. Instead, congressional
leaders should work with the Obama administration to craft U.S. goals
that can be shared with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. Progress
along these lines should inform Washington’s future decisions about
assistance programming.
Accelerate Sh i f ts
i n Pak istan ’ s Regional Strategi e s
The growing ambitions and capabilities of LeT and its affiliates (and its
ties to al-Qaeda) make it the ticking time bomb of South Asia. Washing-
ton should place greater pressure on Islamabad to degrade LeT’s capac-
ity and restrain its sympathizers, bearing in mind that a number of these
groups enjoy widespread popular support because of their humanitarian
outreach efforts. Pakistan’s floods may even redound to the advantage
of extremist organizations that mobilized to address local needs unmet
by the state. Unlike foreign terrorist groups operating on Pakistani ter-
ritory, such as al-Qaeda, LeT is entirely indigenous. Excising its tumor
from Pakistan’s body politic is a difficult and potentially deadly proposi-
tion that must be handled with care and precision. Washington should
look for ways to support Pakistan’s leaders on flood recovery efforts in
parts of the country where the contest for local sympathies will be espe-
cially important to the future authority and stability of the state.
Discussion of LeT should receive priority alongside al-Qaeda and the
Taliban in U.S.-Pakistan political, military, and intelligence dialogues.
Tougher U.S. talk must be backed by strong evidence. The United States
should therefore enhance its own intelligence and interdiction capabili-
ties to shut down LeT’s operations outside Pakistan and its recruiting
activities in the United States and Europe. By sharing intelligence with
India and contributing to its defensive capabilities against terrorists
based in Pakistan, the United States can undercut any in Pakistan who
still see strategic value in supporting militancy.
The United States should also continue its efforts against groups
based in Pakistan that are trying to destabilize Afghanistan, like the
Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani network. The Task Force sup-
ports the official international designation of the Haqqani network as
a terrorist organization. By weakening and sanctioning these groups,
the United States can demonstrate to Pakistan that they are unworthy
of continued passive or active assistance. To compensate for Pakistan’s
apparent reluctance to attack these groups, U.S. and NATO efforts to
dismantle them must remain a central component of military operations
in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border. This should include the
selective use of armed drones. Rendering these groups ineffective should
encourage a shift in Islamabad’s approach to Afghanistan—away from
armed proxies and toward constructive and legitimate political partners.
Up grade Nucle ar Dialogue

and Nonnucle ar Energy Assistance
The United States should pursue an upgraded, sustained, and for-

ward-looking nuclear security dialogue with Pakistan that builds on
prior strategic discussions and works to foster mutual trust between
Washington and Islamabad. In the context of that dialogue, Washing-
ton should explore options for new confidence-building and nuclear
risk–reducing measures. The dialogue should provide Washington
an opportunity to raise questions about Pakistan’s expanding nuclear
arsenal as well as about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and
materials. By establishing regular contacts and enhancing the flow of
information between governments, broader discussions on matters
of doctrine and strategy may become possible.
The United States should not tender an unrealistic promise to Islam-
abad of a U.S.-Pakistan civilian nuclear agreement. It does not enjoy the
support of the U.S. Congress or the international community, so pros-
pects for passage are dim. Such a promise would only serve to frustrate
both sides by raising false hopes and diverting attention from other
pressing issues. But the Obama administration should do more to help
tackle Pakistan’s serious energy needs by nonnuclear means. Pakistan’s
energy crisis goes far beyond a shortage of supply: the viability of the
energy sector is limited by problems of debt, ineffective regulation, cor-
ruption, theft, and inefficient distribution. The United States should
work with Pakistan to address the range of institutional and policy
reforms needed to attract greater private investment.
Support Effect i ve , Democrat ic

Governmen t
The United States should support the democratic process and responsi-
ble civil-military relations in Pakistan. Washington should continue to
engage with the broadest spectrum of Pakistani political parties with-
out wedding itself to any one in particular. It must also recognize the
limits of U.S. influence and leverage. The United States cannot rectify
the civil-military power imbalance that plagues the Pakistani state. It
can, however, regularly reiterate its preference for democratic rule and
take pains to involve Pakistan’s civilian leaders in all major bilateral dia-
logues. U.S. efforts to legislate specific political conditions on assistance
have routinely failed to compel Pakistan’s action. Instead, Washington
should target support to partners and institutions that share common
goals. For instance, the United States should encourage more effective
governance by funneling a portion of its assistance through government
ministries and local government agencies that demonstrate transpar-
ency and efficiency. This can strengthen deserving partners and show
that the United States is not complicit in corruption or in siphoning
U.S. aid to foreign contractors.
In areas of Pakistan where security forces have recently cleared the
Taliban and other militant groups, it is particularly important for the
United States to offer assistance and training for local civilian institu-
tions. Limited administrative capacity in these areas threatens to jeop-
ardize hard-fought military victories. Given security threats and local
political sensitivities, U.S. officials may need to operate in close coor-
dination with the Pakistani army or Frontier Corps or conduct their
operations indirectly through Pakistani nationals.
Encourage I ndo -Pak istan i

Dialogue and Trade
The United States should continue to encourage dialogue between

India and Pakistan to reduce the chance of crisis or war. But Washing-
ton should do so quietly. Neither side will respond well to public U.S.
pressure. Responsible leaders in Islamabad and New Delhi already
recognize the potential benefits of a normalized relationship but face
vocal, entrenched domestic opponents.
Washington should seek creative new ways to encourage Indo-

Pakistani trade and investment, including U.S. technical assistance for
infrastructure development along the international border and the
Kashmir divide. Specifically, the United States should advance with
India and Pakistan, and with multilateral institutions like the World
Bank, the idea of a fund exclusively for improving the road and rail
network between India and Pakistan. This would update facilities and
employ large numbers of people on both sides of the border. It would
demonstrate the advantages of improving bilateral relations. Over
time, this effort could be expanded to power grids and gas pipelines,
further demonstrating each country’s stake in the economic progress
of the region.
President Obama’s upcoming visit to India, scheduled for Novem-
ber 2010, offers an important opportunity to promote this and other
regional stabilization efforts.
Raise Pr ior i t y of Pak istan

i n Ot her Di plomat ic Dialogue s
China and Saudi Arabia enjoy special influence in Pakistan. They

play particularly important roles in promoting a stable and growing
Pakistani economy and have the capacity to deliver forceful messages
on counterterrorism and other sensitive issues. Although the United
States has many other priorities in its relations with these countries,
the Task Force recommends that Washington elevate the discussion of
Pakistan as a central issue in dialogues with Saudi and Chinese leaders.
The United States should also support multilateral efforts to coordi-
nate policy on Pakistan. Although many sensitive political and military
issues are not best addressed in multilateral settings, they can provide
platforms for improving cooperation among assistance donors. Expec-
tations should be kept firmly in check. The Friends of Democratic Paki-
stan group has achieved only marginal successes, frustrating officials
on both sides of the table. That said, regular meetings can help to jump-
start slow bureaucratic processes and force information sharing by
Pakistan and between the various donors. Washington should also seek
Pakistan’s membership—or at least observer status—in major interna-
tional forums, such as the Group of Twenty (G20), to connect it to new
power structures and familiarize it with emerging norms and respon-
sible international behavior.
Open U.S . Door s to Pak istan i Visi tor s
One of the greatest challenges to improving relations between the

people of Pakistan and the United States is the perception that America
does not welcome Pakistani visitors. This perception has been rein-
forced by heavy-handed U.S. border security policies and clumsy imple-
mentation. For instance, after the attempted airplane attack in Detroit
on Christmas Day 2009, the United States required citizens of fourteen
countries, including Pakistan, to be screened separately at airports. Pak-
istanis widely interpreted these requirements as unfair and discrimina-
tory, undermining U.S. efforts to cultivate a more positive image. Other
miscommunications and security precautions have even disrupted offi-
cial Pakistani travel within the United States. Although the U.S. govern-
ment must do what is necessary to secure the borders, future decisions
regarding travel restrictions and airport security should do far more to
take Pakistani sensitivities, as well as the diplomatic implications of new
regulations, into consideration. As a practical matter, an interagency
liaison team should be established to manage and avert diplomatic inci-
dents related to security procedures at U.S. airports.
Policy Options and Recommendations:
Afghanistan
The current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is at a critical point. To sustain

American public support, the Obama administration needs to assess
whether overall progress is being made, if that progress is enough to jus-
tify the costs of the present approach, and if it can be made to last. This
assessment process should begin in the context of President Obama’s
scheduled December strategic review. The criteria for judging the core
elements of the present counterinsurgency strategy should be based on
answers to some critical questions, including:
–– Has there been a significant improvement in the capabilities of the

ANSF?
–– Is momentum shifting against the insurgency in contested areas?
–– Once NATO operations have taken place, is normal life starting to
return?
–– Is progress being made in building local security and civilian
capabilities?
–– Has the government in Kabul taken serious steps to combat
corruption?
As this assessment unfolds, the Obama administration should share

with Congress its answers to these questions, along with extensive sup-
porting data. No single measure will define progress. The president has
said that the United States will continue its present military surge until
July 2011. If progress is being made, the United States should be able to
draw down its forces starting in July 2011, based on conditions on the
ground. However, if U.S. efforts are not working, a more significant
drawdown to a narrower mission that emphasizes counterterror objec-
tives with fewer U.S. forces will be warranted. As the war moves into
its tenth year, opposition has grown. Critics of the U.S. military surge
56
and counterinsurgency effort question the strategy, its execution, and

whether it can succeed. They believe that the American public will not
bear the costs of war in Afghanistan much longer; that the Afghan state
will remain predatory and corrupt, its nascent security forces depen-
dent on foreign troops; and that the range of security threats now facing
Afghanistan makes the war unwinnable. They put forth a range of stra-
tegic alternatives to the present U.S. counterinsurgency campaign.
None of them is without its own significant risks and costs.
An alternative to the present U.S. strategy calls for the United States
to address the threat of international terrorism in Afghanistan with a
military and civilian posture that is significantly smaller, more afford-
able, and less vulnerable.50 A “light footprint,”—some argue as few as
ten thousand to twenty thousand troops—led by Special Operations
Forces armed with cash, weapons, surveillance, and the ability to call
in U.S. airpower, could partner with elements of the Afghan state and
nonstate power brokers to continue counterterror missions long after
the bulk of NATO forces have pulled out. Even if the Kabul government
is unable to retain control over large portions of its territory, a force of
this sort would attempt to prop up enough partners to retain sufficient
bases inside Afghanistan. Washington would also continue to partner
with Islamabad on the other side of the border. A smaller military force
would be less reliant upon Pakistani supply lines, creating an added ben-
efit of reducing Islamabad’s leverage over U.S. operations.
By demonstrating that the United States is primarily concerned with
combating international terrorists, Washington might find new oppor-
tunities to negotiate with some members of the Afghan Taliban, cleav-
ing them from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups with more extreme
global ambitions. The reduced NATO commitment to Afghanistan
could lead states like China, Iran, and Russia—which contribute little
to security efforts and pursue self-serving agendas—to think more seri-
ously about issues of regional security. It might spark a new round of
regional diplomacy with the potential to create a messy but workable
Afghan peace settlement. As for shoring up Pakistan’s stability, U.S.
forces could try to assist Islamabad against militant threats that emerge
on the Afghan side of the border while Washington continues to work
against other Pakistan-based terrorist networks, like LeT.
All of these scenarios are conceivable, but they hinge on optimistic
assumptions. A shift to a light-footprint approach would carry signifi-
cant risks. A narrow counterterror campaign would almost certainly
offer Americans less protection against international terrorism than

the present strategy.51 This is because U.S. Special Forces would be
operating in a deteriorating security environment with even fewer sym-
pathetic Afghan partners. They would find it harder to move around
the country to collect intelligence or to attack the enemy. With fewer
personnel or facilities for training, U.S. forces would face greater chal-
lenges in building capable Afghan troops or local security units.
A light footprint would also have difficulty dealing with the fact that
in recent years al-Qaeda has forged closer ties with elements of the
Afghan Taliban, especially the Haqqani network. This new generation
of Taliban fighters is more likely to share al-Qaeda’s vision of global
jihad. It is plausible that the Taliban would revert to past practices,
expanding its partnership with international terrorists as a means to
destroy Afghan opponents. If successful, this would make it even harder
for the United States to find willing and capable Afghan partners.
Under those circumstances, Afghanistan could easily fracture into
full-fledged civil war. That war would be every bit as devastating as
earlier Afghan conflicts, creating millions of refugees and widespread
humanitarian tragedy. By its decision to remain focused on a narrow
counterterror mission, the United States would be held partly to blame
for the suffering, making many Afghans even less willing to assist U.S.
operations. A light footprint would bring Afghanistan no closer to
enduring political or economic stability. It would offer little in the way
of a realistic plan for a full, responsible U.S. military withdrawal. The
United States could find itself trapped in a long, bloody quagmire, with
worse prospects than it faces today.
The Task Force finds that if Afghanistan falls back into civil war,
its neighbors are more likely to take sides than to stand apart or try
to dampen the conflict. The Indo-Pakistani competition in Afghani-
stan could be particularly fierce and would hurt their broader bilateral
relationship. The United States would almost certainly find itself at
odds with Pakistan’s choice of proxy forces in Afghanistan—the Tal-
iban and its affiliates. Those differences would exacerbate tensions
that already exist between Islamabad and Washington. All of these
dynamics would take an added toll on the overstressed Pakistani state
and endanger its stability.
Based on these short-term threats and long-term costs, the Task
Force judges that the light-footprint alternative poses significant risks
to U.S. interests. Even so, the United States should consider alternatives
of this sort if it judges that timely, demonstrable progress is not being

made with the current approach. Either way, Washington must take
urgent steps to address the serious, unmet challenges with the pres-
ent approach that skeptics have identified. Three stand out. First, the
United States needs to find and strengthen Afghan political partners
capable of playing constructive roles in the counterinsurgency effort.
Second, it needs to gain confidence that Afghan security forces can
begin to assume responsibility for security at an acceptable cost. Third,
it needs to identify the economic means by which Afghanistan can sus-
tain its people and government, offering opportunities other than vio-
lence and illicit activity.
The Task Force recommends the following steps for U.S. strategy
and policy in order to better address these challenges.
Sei ze t he P oli t ical I n i t iat i ve
The solution to Afghanistan’s insurgency will need to be political, not

military. Irreconcilable insurgents will need to be killed or captured, but
enduring stability will come only when the vast majority of Afghani-
stan’s people reach minimally acceptable terms with their state. That
political arrangement, backed by more capable Afghan security forces,
economic development, and regional diplomacy, offers the United
States the best way to achieve a permanent withdrawal from Afghani-
stan at a reduced risk of resurgent terrorism or civil war.
The precise form of Afghanistan’s political arrangement is less
important than the requirement that its government should not be a
contributor to public discontent, insecurity, and division. Ineffective,
corrupt, at times predatory, the Afghan state now bears some responsi-
bility for the Taliban insurgency. The United States should continue to
seek leverage with the Karzai government, using everything from tar-
geted coercion to assistance incentives, to improve its record on corrup-
tion, to appoint more capable officials at the national and local levels,
and to take ownership of important components of the counterinsur-
gency mission.
Yet the problem is bigger than Karzai, his allies, or his appointees.
The 2009 presidential elections exposed flaws in the Afghan political
system and exacerbated rifts among major Afghan leaders. Natural
U.S. partners—in Afghanistan’s parliament, business community, and
civil society—have been alienated by Washington’s heavy investment

in the presidency. Karzai’s newly initiated reconciliation process has so
far failed to create more than the illusion of national consensus. The
regional coalition that supported the post-Taliban process of building a
new Afghan state has also fallen into disrepair. In response, the United
States needs an approach that combines three major initiatives: political
reform, national reconciliation, and regional diplomacy.
U.S. officials should encourage political reform that will allow for
greater power sharing and accountability while encouraging national
unity. Effective reforms could come in many shapes and sizes. Amend-
ments to the electoral laws, for instance, could enable political parties
and help to strengthen the Afghan parliament. Reforms to the appoint-
ment process for governors, police chiefs, and so on could make these
officeholders more directly accountable to local communities.
Karzai and other beneficiaries of the current system will oppose
such changes, but these individuals are not immune to domestic or
international pressure. Washington should identify several high-
priority reform initiatives, then seize chances for leverage and influence
as they arise. In this effort, the United States can harness popular dis-
content rather than—as is often the case—suffer from association with
the status quo. Eager and capable Afghan political partners would be
quick to join a U.S.-led reform effort if it is clear that Washington is seri-
ous about change.
The national reconciliation process also offers a potential opening
for constitutional reform. Insurgent leaders have explicitly rejected
the present constitution and are unlikely to reenter Afghan politics
without certain amendments. The two political initiatives—reform
and reconciliation—should therefore be managed in tandem. Wash-
ington should seek an inclusive negotiation process that—unlike the
present mechanism—involves a wide range of groups beyond Presi-
dent Karzai’s inner circle. By bringing more Afghan interests to the
table, the United States is also more likely to see its own core interests
served, such as making sure that insurgents make a clear break with al-
Qaeda. The process is unlikely to yield any rapid breakthroughs, but
it should be a part of Washington’s broader approach. Through vari-
ous means, including negotiation, most of today’s Afghan insurgents
must eventually be brought back into Afghanistan’s political, social,
and economic mainstream.
As any Afghan reconciliation process unfolds, the United States

should work to leverage the interests of regional powers in ways that can
support a stable settlement. No deal will endure that does not satisfy
bedrock regional interests. Pakistan will have a particularly important
role to play, but Washington should also move quickly to enlist the par-
ticipation of India, China, the Arab Gulf states, Russia, and the Central
Asian republics. Iran must be at the table as well. A small contact group
would offer the best mechanism for hammering out a regional agree-
ment on basic terms for an Afghan settlement.
Re alist ic E xpansion
of Afghan Secur i t y Force s
The ANSF are a central pillar in the Obama administration’s exit strat-
egy for Afghanistan. Over time, they—along with local community
defense units—must assume a greater security responsibility in order
for U.S. and other coalition forces to withdraw. But NATO need not
build an Afghan army in its image. The primary mission of the ANSF
should be to support NATO-led operations, to maintain security after
insurgents have been cleared, and ultimately to provide security to the
population. Such missions may be challenging, but they do not require
the creation of a military capable of full-spectrum operations. As it
builds the Afghan army, NATO should therefore continue to devote
its main resources to building light infantry forces. It is not clear, for
instance, that current plans to fund fixed-wing aircraft and training for
the Afghan National Army Air Corps are critical to the most urgent
missions at hand.52 Bearing more limited expectations in mind, the goal
of rapid ANSF expansion to bolster population security becomes more
conceivable, if still extremely difficult.
The United States is devoting unprecedented resources to ANSF
expansion, with budgets that may be difficult for the U.S. Congress to
accept over time and that will be too large for the Kabul government to
foot on its own. As of 2008, the Afghan government could provide only
$320 million toward the annual cost of the ANSF, a figure recently pro-
jected at $6 billion to $7 billion.53 Even a considerably reduced security
assistance program will therefore require strong, consistent support
from the international community for the foreseeable future. Greater
commitments from allies and the private sector could help reduce long-
term costs to the United States. In particular, the UN-administered
Law and Order Trust Fund, which provides salaries, equipment, and
other support to Afghanistan’s police, should be expanded.54
Despite massive U.S. expenditures and the clear strategic priority of
the ANSF, hundreds of additional trainers are needed to adequately staff
NATO’s ANSF training mission. Washington should press its allies and
partners to rapidly fulfill their pledges of institutional and embedded
trainers and mentors for the ANA and Afghan National Police (ANP).
Recruitment and training for the ANP, a force essential to a popula-
tion-centric counterinsurgency strategy, has lagged years behind that
of the army. The ANP should blend community policing, paramilitary
skills, and investigative capabilities. To increase professionalism and
reduce corruption, mentoring and partnering with police trainers is
needed at the local level. The best trainers have appropriate professional
experience; regular military units are not well suited to the task. A public
education campaign designed to inform Afghans about the proper role
of the police and ways that the public can report abusive predatory prac-
tices would also help to accelerate the ANP reform process.
New opportunities for fielding Afghan security forces should be
considered. NATO’s recent initiatives to expand community defense
forces have merit. Although the fighting potential of community polic-
ing forces is not yet clear, and there will undoubtedly be abuses of the
system, the threat that these groups might pose to Kabul’s author-
ity pales in comparison with the immediate need to oppose Taliban
advances and build public security. To establish the ultimate legal and
political authority of the Afghan government, these forces have appro-
priately been placed under the auspices of the Afghan interior ministry.
Promote Pr i vate Sector

Econom ic Growt h
International assistance for Afghanistan has played a tangible and

positive role in the lives of millions. In partnership with other donors,
USAID successfully led an effort that increased the percentage of
Afghans with access to some form of health care from 9 percent in 2002
to more than 85 percent in 2010. To facilitate the means of communica-
tion and transportation for Afghans, the agency rehabilitated over 1,677
kilometers of roads and worked to establish four mobile companies that

serve 6.5 million subscribers.55
That said, there is more that can be done to create economic growth
that is sustainable and offers opportunities for the many Afghans who
are locked into the war economy or narcotics trade. One of the primary
purposes of U.S. assistance should be to improve conditions for private
investment and regional trade. Diplomatic outreach to China, India,
and other potential investors should stress their central importance to
Afghanistan’s stability as well as the realistic potential for profit. Unless
Afghan and international businesspeople take a long-term interest in
Afghanistan, Kabul will never expand its revenue stream, and there will
never be enough jobs for ex-militia members. In that case, whatever
near-term stability the surge might deliver would soon be washed away
by renewed violence.
The following policy recommendations are intended to help enable
sustainable Afghan economic growth, recognizing that there will be no
quick fixes to the problems at hand:
–– Leverage extractive industries. Recent surveys estimate that the market

value of Afghan natural resources could run into the trillions of U.S.
dollars.56 Afghanistan would benefit from technical and planning
assistance as it navigates the high-stakes process of contracting with
foreign governments and firms as well as making sensitive political
decisions about how to allocate revenues. Washington should sup-
port continued Afghan participation in the Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative as a means to avoid the worst abuses—cor-
ruption, bribery, etc.—often associated with major natural resource
discoveries.57
–– Accelerate regional trade and transit. Security threats and political ten-
sions obstruct trade and transit throughout the region. Pakistani and
Afghan economic prospects over the medium to long run, however,
will depend largely on their ability to connect to regional markets.
Capitalizing on Afghanistan’s position at the crossroads of land
trade routes could provide the country with substantial customs rev-
enues. Opening pathways to major regional importers could vastly
expand business opportunities for Afghanistan’s exporters. The
United States should help lay the groundwork for future economic
integration by creating incentives for regional investment and trade
corridors in and through Afghanistan. Washington should throw
its weight behind initiatives that aim to increase cross-border trade

through infrastructure projects, such as expressways and rail links.58
The United States should also work with Kabul and Islamabad to
ensure the rapid implementation of the recent Afghanistan-Pakistan
Transit Trade Agreement, which should permit Afghan produce to
be trucked across Pakistan to buyers in India.
–– Buy Afghan. As the international coalition spends billions of dollars
to sustain its operations in Afghanistan, every opportunity should be
explored to procure goods from Afghan businesses, subject to safe-
guards against corruption and abuse. Every dollar spent will then do
double duty, first providing necessary goods and services, and then
helping to develop the Afghan private sector.
Conclusion
The Task Force endorses strategies for Pakistan and Afghanistan that
place severe demands on the American people. Tens of thousands of
U.S. forces are already engaged in bloody, exhausting combat; thou-
sands of U.S. civilians in the region labor under difficult, unfamiliar con-
ditions; and billions of American taxpayer dollars flow into the region
each month. The Task Force does so knowing that, at best, the margin
for U.S. victory is likely to be slim. And it does so in a time-bound way:
if President Obama’s December strategic review shows that progress is
not being made, the United States should move quickly to recalculate its
military presence in Afghanistan.
The United States faces real dangers in Pakistan and Afghanistan
that demand considerable attention, no matter what strategy Wash-
ington implements. An insurgency laced with international terrorism
is a menacing threat to regional and global security. Nuclear-armed
Pakistan’s persistent ties to some of these groups, particularly LeT and
elements of the Afghan Taliban, obstruct closer American cooperation
and undermine the long-term stability of the world’s second-largest
Muslim-majority state.
Afghanistan’s instability could drag the region into a proxy war that
would place still greater stresses on Pakistan, weaken fragile, energy-
rich Central Asian states, and exacerbate tensions between New Delhi
and Islamabad. The Task Force takes seriously the possibility that
a rapid U.S. exit from an unstable Afghanistan could re-create safe
havens for international terrorism.
In Pakistan, if dangerous social, political, and economic trends
are not tackled now, they will tax the world’s security and collective
resources for generations to come. In a worst-case scenario, a radical-
ized, nuclear-armed Pakistan of three hundred million people in 2050
would be an almost unimaginable threat to global order.
At present, the United States aims to address these threats by
65
building partnerships with Pakistani and Afghan allies that will turn
the heavy investments of today into sustainable, less costly, more solid
options over the long haul. These partnerships are essential. Without
them, the United States will not achieve its objectives. In fighting ter-
rorism and insurgency, progress should be measured by what America
builds, not just by whom it captures or kills. Improved cooperation
with Pakistan, strengthened Afghan security forces, and more terri-
tory secured from Taliban control constitute successes along the way.
Political reforms and economic development efforts must follow in
order for the region to achieve enduring stability. A final U.S. victory in
the region will not come through an enemy’s formal surrender; it will
come when U.S. partners in Pakistan and Afghanistan are committed
and stable enough to secure their own territories and U.S. forces can
withdraw completely.
The Task Force is well aware of the tough fiscal trade-offs between
struggles abroad and priorities at home. The present U.S. strategy
places pressure on U.S. budgets at precisely the same time as American
and global economic circumstances are forcing other painful compro-
mises. The budgetary gymnastics required to advance the Task Force’s
preferred approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot be overlooked.
It is undeniable, for instance, that delivering $1.5 billion per year in civil-
ian assistance to Pakistan, sustaining troops in Afghanistan at $6 billion
to $7 billion per year, and building the in-house capacity of USAID to
formulate, implement, and monitor programs in Afghanistan will come
at a cost to other domestic projects. This is why it is essential to deter-
mine whether the present effort is making progress in a timely way. If
not, less expensive options must be considered.
Budget-conscious Americans should not, however, equate U.S.
assistance programming in Pakistan and Afghanistan—for projects
like roads, schools, or irrigation canals—with charity. It is done with
a strategic, as well as a humanitarian, purpose: to help build more
stable and more secure societies that are less likely to export violence
and extremism. The effort to open the U.S. market to greater textile
imports from Pakistan will raise opposition from U.S. labor groups and
textile producers, even if—as preliminary studies indicate—neither
one would actually suffer from the deal. Overcoming political obstacles
will require energy and persistence. To have any hope of success, the
Obama administration must view its coordination with Congress as an
essential component of its overseas mission.
Conclusion 67
Without strong U.S. leadership, others have shown themselves

unwilling or unable to confront the challenges posed by Pakistan or
Afghanistan. The region has historically demonstrated a great procliv-
ity for competition and war. Too many of the world’s powerful states
would prefer to look the other way rather than shoulder a greater
responsibility. For now, the United States should assume the lead, with
the goal of encouraging and enabling its Pakistani and Afghan partners
to build a more secure future. Yet even the United States cannot afford
to continue down this costly path unless the potential for enduring
progress remains in sight. After nine years of U.S. war in the region,
time and patience are understandably short.
Additional or Dissenting Views
The report makes clear that any early and substantial reduction in the
American commitment to Afghanistan will increase the risks to the
United States, including the risk of terrorist attacks originating from
there. It goes on, however, to recommend a reduction in that commit-
ment beginning next summer, whether or not current efforts to coun-
ter the Taliban insurgency are making progress. We cannot concur in
prejudging what the president should decide if he concludes in 2011 that
our current strategy is not working. The global and regional context
for any decision in mid-2011 simply cannot be foreseen nine months in
advance. While lack of progress by July 2011 should rightfully be seen
as a dangerous indicator, the most logical response is to reassess the
strategy—not to reflexively end it and move to large-scale withdrawal.
Determining that response now in the absence of the broader national
security context of summer 2011 is an unsound recommendation that
would preemptively tie the president’s hands.
David W. Barno, Joseph J. Collins, James F. Dobbins, John A. Gastright,

John M. Keane, John A. Nagl, John D. Negroponte, Ashley J. Tellis
On pages 5, 13, and 56, the report suggests that if current efforts do not
work, in July 2011 “a drawdown to a narrower military mission would
be warranted” (page 5). In my view, if the current strategy falters, an
amended full-service counterinsurgency effort should be tried first,
before falling back on a narrower approach. We should not harness U.S.
national interests in a protracted conflict to a self-imposed deadline.
In any case, whether a broad or narrower mission follows in July 2011,
training and advising Afghan national security forces are more criti-
cal to the outcome of this conflict than any form of counterterrorism
68
or development policy are. Robust Afghan national security forces—

police and military—are the key to our exit strategy.
Joseph J. Collins
While I generally concur with the analysis, I do not agree with many of
the recommendations, particularly with regards to Afghanistan.
C. Christine Fair
The Task Force report is a highly insightful and useful document, but
is not incisive enough in assessing current prospects for success in
Afghanistan or in prescribing a viable alternative strategy.
The report provides scant hope that our current strategy can suc-
ceed, yet recommends we continue until July 2011. It catalogues the many
risks associated with an alternative “light-footprint” strategy, strongly
suggesting that it, too, cannot succeed, but it suggests it be attempted
anyway. One might thus conclude that the U.S. situation in Afghanistan
is hopeless, and that the United States should withdraw; the report does
not say this either.
I believe the current U.S. strategy cannot, in fact, succeed: the force
posture it requires is politically unsustainable beyond next summer, and
such progress as might be generated by then cannot be sustained by the
Afghan central government in contested areas. The time to adopt a sus-
tainable strategy is now; if we employ means that conform to Afghan
realities, the situation will be far from hopeless.
The report suggests that in opting for a light-footprint strategy, the
United States would be choosing “managing terrorist threats” over
“investing in sustainable Afghan options.” On the contrary, I believe
that a patient, limited U.S. effort that balances development of a sustain-
ably small but capable Afghan army with sponsorship and mentoring
of local militia forces tied to authentic, locally accountable leaders—
sometimes disparaged as “warlords”—can provide gradual and sustain-
able progress in countering the Taliban while providing a platform for
U.S.-led counterterror operations.
Robert L. Grenier
I do not share this report’s analysis and recommendations in every

respect. In particular, I believe that the report’s suggestion that Wash-
ington has a credible, coercive fall-back position to convince Paki-
stan’s security managers to change course is misplaced. In past crises,
when the possibilities of leveraging unwelcome choices on Pakistan’s
decision-makers were far better than at present, and when faced with
far more concerted, top-down U.S. pressures, Pakistan’s leaders suc-
cessfully parried Washington’s pressures to take actions that were per-
ceived to be unacceptable on national security or domestic political
grounds. This track record, as reflected in Pakistan’s pursuit of nuclear
weapon capabilities, its protection of unconventional military options
to influence Afghanistan’s future, and its policies to keep India off-bal-
ance, provides a cautionary tale of Washington’s ability to successfully
manipulate carrots and sticks.
To hold out the expectation that, this time around, with such a heavy
U.S. military presence in Afghanistan dependent on Pakistani logistical
support, Washington can coercively manipulate Pakistan’s orientation
toward the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Afghan Taliban, Kabul, and New Delhi,
seems unwise. Pakistan’s security managers have to come to their own
realization that their policies have resulted in profound damage to their
country. If they do not, the natural result, with no U.S. manipulation
necessary, will be the continued mortgaging of Pakistan’s future, its dis-
tancing from the West, and its economic decline. Likewise, it is hard for
me to envision an enduring, positive outcome in Afghanistan without
suitable authorities to whom U.S. forces can hand over their gains.
Michael Krepon
I agree with the recommendations of this report, but two issues deserve
more prominence.
First, the United States and Pakistan have a major difference in pri-
orities and objectives in Afghanistan. Pakistani leaders’ real objective
is to eliminate Indian influence in Afghanistan, and they are convinced
that the U.S. military aims to depart as quickly as possible. As a result,
Pakistan wants to make Afghanistan as close as possible to a client state,
regardless of whether that state respects U.S. concerns about extra-
regional terrorism.
The report rightly recommends that the United States build up

Afghan state institutions. The United States should also hem in extrem-
ist organizations linked to the Pakistan army and form a regional con-
sultative mechanism that includes Afghanistan’s neighbors, including
Iran and India, to facilitate stability.
Second, the role of the private sector in Pakistan’s development
deserves greater priority both in the report and in U.S. policy. Kerry-
Lugar-Berman provides generous funding, some of which ought to be
used to facilitate start-up companies and help forge links with U.S. busi-
ness. Private business initiatives in Afghanistan would be more power-
ful if combined with the expansion of trade and transit links between
Pakistan and India, something the United States could discreetly
encourage.
Teresita C. Schaffer
Endnotes
1. Ian S. Livingston and Michael O’Hanlon, Pakistan Index, Brookings Institution,

August 31, 2010.
2. Washington reimbursed Pakistan $756 million in FY 2010 for operations related to
the war in Afghanistan. U.S. assistance figures are found in K. Alan Kronstadt, “Paki-
stan: Key Current Issues and Developments,” Congressional Research Service Report
for Congress, R41307, June 1, 2010, p. 67.
3. Joby Warrick and Peter Finn, “CIA director says secret attacks in Pakistan have hob-
bled al-Qaeda,” Washington Post, March 18, 2010; Greg Miller, “CIA says gets money’s
worth from Pakistani ISI,” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 2009. For a list of many of
the top al-Qaeda leaders killed or captured by Pakistan forces, see http://www.alertnet.
org/thenews/newsdesk/L01675883.htm.
4. For example, in January 2010, charges were filed against Chicago-based U.S. citizen
David Coleman Headley and Canadian citizen Tahawwur Rana for conspiring with
LeT to plan a terrorist attack against a Danish newspaper as well as the November
2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai—which killed approximately 164 people, including
six Americans. Headley attended several LeT training camps beginning in 2003. He
pleaded guilty to a dozen federal terrorism charges, including charges involving the
Mumbai and Denmark plots, in March 2010. Details of the plea are outlined in a U.S.
Justice Department Office of Public Affairs press release dated March 18, 2010, http://
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/March/10-ag-277.html.
5. Dennis C. Blair, “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,”
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 2, 2010, p. 11.
6. Livingston and O’Hanlon, Pakistan Index.
7. Phil Stewart, “Pakistan’s Army accused of extra-judicial killings,” Reuters, April 5,
2010.
8. Transparency International, for example, ranked Pakistan 139 out of 180 countries in
its 2009 study of perceptions of government corruption.
9. Based on estimated population growth of five million per year. See Toufiq Siddiqi,
“Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the U.S.: Shared Concerns and Concerted Responses,”
East-West Center, 2010, http://www.eastwestcenter.org/news-center/east-west-wire/
pakistan-afghanistan-and-the-us-shared-concerns-and-concerted-responses/.
10. “Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says,” New York Times, May 17, 2009.
11. “1388 National Budget,” Ministry of Finance, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 2009.
12. William H. McMichael, “Afghan army improves, but still lacks leaders,” Marine Corps
Times, June 3, 2010.
13. Jim Michaels, “Afghan troops reach 240,000 goal early,” USA Today, August 11, 2010.
14. Alissa J. Rubin, “Afghans to Form Local Forces to Fight Taliban,” New York Times, July
14, 2010, A1.
15. For a recent history that makes this point, see Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural
and Political History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).
72
Endnotes 73
16. James Risen, “U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan,” New York Times,
June 13, 2010, A1.
17. Michael Wines, “China Willing to Spend Big on Afghan Commerce,” New York Times,
December 30, 2009, A1.
18. Karen DeYoung, “U.S. hopes Afghanistan-Pakistan trade deal boosts cooperation in
war effort,” Washington Post, July 19, 2010.
19. The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan has relied heavily on Pakistani cooperation
in transporting supplies to the theater. Currently, Pakistan serves as a thoroughfare
for over 80 percent of container cargo and 40 percent of fuel bound for Afghanistan.
Michael O’Hanlon et al., Pakistan Index, Brookings Institution, 2010.
20. See Public Law 111-73, Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 (signed into law
October 15, 2009), http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_
cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ073.111.pdf.
21. Hearing to Receive Testimony on the Challenges Facing the Department of De-
fense, U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Committee, January 27, 2009, http://
armed-services.senate.gov/Transcripts/2009/01%20January/A%20Full%20Commit-
tee/09-02%20-%201-27-09.pdf.
22. Dexter Filkins, The Forever War (New York: Knopf, 2008).
23. Hillary Clinton, “Opening Remarks at U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue,” July 19,
2010, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/07/144827.htm.
24. Information on flood response from U.S. Department of State website, http://www.
state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/08/146107.htm.
25. Glenn Kessler, “Washington objects to China-Pakistan nuclear deal,” Washington Post,
June 14, 2010.
26. This includes payments through the Coalition Support Fund. See K. Alan Kronstadt,
“Direct Overt U.S. Aid and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY2002–FY2011,”
Congressional Research Service, June 7, 2010, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/
pakaid.pdf. See also Griff Witte, “Billions of Aid Dollars Buy U.S. Little Goodwill in
Pakistan,” Washington Post, August 24, 2010.
27. For details, see K. Alan Kronstadt, “Major U.S. Arms Sales and Grants to Pakistan
since 2001,” Congressional Research Service, March 23, 2010, http://www.fas.org/
sgp/crs/row/pakarms.pdf.
28. Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, “The Year of the Drone: An Analysis of U.S.
Drone Strikes in Pakistan, 2004–2010,” New America Foundation, February 24, 2010,
http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/NAF_YearOfTheDrone.pdf.
29. Ibid.
30. For example, the U.S. tariff rate on Chinese exports is 3 percent, versus 10 percent on
Pakistani exports. The United States raises the same tariff revenue from Pakistan’s
$3.7 billion in exports as from France’s $37 billion in textile exports. See U.S.-Pakistan
Business Council, “Strengthening the U.S.-Pakistan Economic Partnership,” http://
www.uschamber.com/publications/reports/0903_uspakistan.htm; Pakistan Policy
Working Group, “The Next Chapter,” http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/
reports/2008/09_pakistan_cohen/09_pakistan_cohen.pdf. On the size of the Paki-
stani textile industry, see Aftab A. Khan and Mehreen Khan, “Pakistan Textile Indus-
try Facing New Challenges,” Research Journal of International Studies, Issue 14, May
2010, http://www.eurojournals.com/rjis_14_04.pdf.
31. “Special Operations Triple in Afghanistan—McChrystal,” New York Times, June 10,
2010, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/06/10/world/international-uk-afghani-
stan-usa-forces.html?ref=world.
32. Curt Tarnoff, “Afghanistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” R40699 (Washington, DC: Con-
gressional Research Service, March 5, 2010), pp. 10–11, http://fpc.state.gov/documents/
organization/139236.pdf; NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan Command Update,
74 Endnotes
briefing to Task Force, Kabul, February 2010.

33. Alissa J. Rubin, “Afghans to Form Local Forces to Fight Taliban,” New York Times, July
14, 2010, A1.
34. U.S. Department of Defense, Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Af-
ghanistan (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, April 2010), p. 9, http://
www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Report_Final_SecDef_04_26_10.pdf.
35. Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, “Afghanistan and
Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy,” U.S. Department of State, February 2010,
pp. 16–17, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/135728.pdf; Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, “Afghanistan’s Narco War: Breaking the Link between Drug
Traffickers and Insurgents,” 111th Cong., 1st sess., 2009, Committee Print 29, August
10, 2009, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_
senate_committee_prints&docid=f:51521.pdf.
36. The White House, “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on
the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” U.S. Military Academy at
West Point, December 1, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan.
37. Kabul International Conference on Afghanistan Communiqué, July 20, 2010, http://
graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/world/2010/Kabul-Conference-Communique.
pdf.
38. This point is made quite effectively by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Two Afghan towns.
One success story,” Washington Post, July 25, 2010.
39. Jan Boone, “Afghanistan Civilian Deaths up 31% this Year, Says United Nations,”
Guardian, August 10, 2010.
40. Joshua Partlow, “Minority leaders leaving Karzai’s side over leader’s overtures to in-
surgents,” Washington Post, July 23, 2010.
41. White House, “Joint Statement from the President and President Karzai of
Afghanistan,” May 12, 2010, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/
joint-statement-president-and-president-karzai-afghanistan.
42. Mark Landler and Thom Shanker, “U.S. May Label Pakistan Militants as Terrorists,”
New York Times, July 13, 2010.
43. See Greg Miller, “Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike,” Washington Post,
May 29, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/
AR2010052804854.html.
44. This is one of the most important potential implications of the WikiLeak online pub-
lication of intelligence documents related to the war in Afghanistan. See Mark Maz-
zetti, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt, and Andrew W. Lehren, “Pakistan Aids Insurgency in
Afghanistan, Reports Assert,” New York Times, July 25, 2010.
45. K. Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan-U.S. Relations, RL33498 (Washington, DC: Congressio-
nal Research Service, February 2009), http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33498.pdf.
46. Ibid., p. 83.
47. Khan and Khan, “Pakistan Textile Industry Facing New Challenges.”
48. Mary Jane Bolle, “Afghanistan and Pakistan Reconstruction Opportunity Zones:
Issues and Arguments,” R40627 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service,
October 15, 2009), p. 14, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40627.pdf.
49. “Extending duty-free, quota-free market access for all exports from UN-designated
least developed countries (LDCs), plus other low-income countries, including Paki-
stan and Vietnam, would reduce U.S. textile production by less than 1% and apparel
production by only 0.1%. About half that impact is due to increased imports from
LDCs, and the remainder is due mostly to higher imports from Vietnam, whose ex-
ports of textiles and apparel were nearly twice those of Pakistan in 2008.” Kimberly
Endnotes 75
Ann Elliot, “Stimulating Pakistani Exports and Job Creation,” Center for Global De-
velopment, April 2010, p. 2, http://www.cgdev.org/files/1424056_file_Elliott_Paki-
stan_Trade_Preference.pdf.
50. Variations on this line of reasoning include Richard Haass, “We’re Not Winning. It’s
Not Worth It,” Newsweek, July 18, 2010; Austin Long, “Small Is Beautiful: The Coun-
terterrorism Option in Afghanistan, Orbis, Spring 2010, pp. 199–214; and Robert
Blackwill, “A De Facto Partition for Afghanistan,” Politico, July 7, 2010.
51. John F. Burns, “McChrystal Rejects Scaling Down Afghan Military Aims,” New York
Times, October 1, 2009.
52. Fixed-wing trainers and close air support aircraft comprise roughly $250 million of the
FY 2010 request (including the supplemental). For a full breakdown of the Afghan Se-
curity Forces Fund, see “Justification for FY 2010 Supplemental Afghanistan Security
Forces Fund (ASFF),” Office of the Secretary of Defense, February 2010, http://asafm.
army.mil/Documents/OfficeDocuments/Budget/BudgetMaterials/FY11/OCO//asff-
sup.pdf.
53. Steve Bowman and Catherine Dale, “War in Afghanistan: Strategy, Military Opera-
tions, and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, June 8, 2010, http://
www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R40156.pdf.
54. For more information, see United Nations Development Programme, “Law and Order
Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA)—Phase V: Annual Progress Report 2009,”
http://www.undp.org.af/Projects/2009AnnualReports/LOTFAV_APR09.pdf.
55. United States Agency for International Development, “Afghanistan,” July 27, 2010,
http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia/countries/afghanistan/.
56. These estimates are generated, in part, by projecting future market values of untapped
Afghan mineral and energy deposits identified by the U.S. Geological Survey. See
http://afghanistan.cr.usgs.gov/airborne.php.
57. See Paul Collier, “In Afghanistan, a Threat of Plunder,” New York Times, July 19, 2010.
58. One example of this initiative is found in S. Frederick Starr and Andrew C. Kutchins,
“The Key to Success in Afghanistan: A Modern Silk Road Strategy,” Central Asia-
Caucasus Institute Silk Road Studies Program, May 2010, at http://www.silkroadstud-
ies.org/new/docs/silkroadpapers/1005Afghan.pdf.
Task Force Members
Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that

they endorse “the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the
group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation.”
They participate in the Task Force in their individual, not their institu-
tional, capacities.
Richard L. Armitage is the president of Armitage International and

a former deputy secretary of state (2001–2005). Prior to returning to
government service in 2001, Armitage was president of Armitage Asso-
ciates L.C. from 1993 until 2001. From 1989 to 1993, Armitage served in
various high-level diplomatic positions, including as a special emissary
to Jordan’s King Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War and director of U.S.
assistance to the new independent states of the former Soviet Union.
Prior to this, Armitage served in the Pentagon as the assistant secre-
tary of defense for international security affairs (1983–89) and deputy
assistant secretary of defense for East Asia and Pacific affairs (1981–83).
Armitage graduated in 1967 from the U.S. Naval Academy and served
three combat tours in Vietnam. He is the recipient of numerous U.S. and
foreign military decorations as well as awards for distinguished public
service. He was awarded a KBE and became a Knight Commander of
the Order of St. Michael and St. George and, as of October 13, 2010, he
became an Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia.
Reza Aslan is an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religion

and a contributing editor at the Daily Beast. He is an associate profes-
sor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and a
senior fellow at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Stud-
ies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is president and
CEO of Aslan Media Inc., a frequent commentator on CNN, CBS, and
NPR, and cofounder and creative director of BoomGen Studios. He is a
76
member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute

for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He
also serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, Abra-
ham’s Vision, and PEN USA. Aslan’s first book is the international best
seller No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which
has been translated into thirteen languages and was named one of the one
hundred most important books of the last decade. Aslan has degrees in
religions from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the Uni-
versity of California, Santa Barbara, as well as an MFA from the Univer-
sity of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote fellow in fiction.
J. Brian Atwood became dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public

Affairs in October 2002. He served for six years as administrator of
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) during the
Clinton administration. In the Clinton administration, Atwood led the
transition team at the State Department and was undersecretary of
state for management before being appointed head of USAID. During
the Carter administration, Atwood served as assistant secretary of
state for congressional relations. He was dean of professional studies
and academic affairs at the Foreign Service Institute from 1981 to 1982
and the first president of the National Democratic Institute for Inter-
national Affairs (1986–93). In 2001, Atwood served on UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan’s panel on peace operations. He writes and speaks
frequently on international development, postconflict reconstruction,
foreign policy, the role of the United Nations and other multilateral
organizations in international affairs, and the U.S. role in the world
order. He holds a BA in government and history from Boston Univer-
sity and received an honorary doctorate of laws from American Uni-
versity. He joined the Foreign Service in 1966 and served in the U.S.
embassies in Cote d’Ivoire and Spain.
David W. Barno is a senior adviser and senior fellow at the Center for a
New American Security. A career Army officer, he retired as a three-star
general in 2006 after a thirty-year career. General Barno commanded
all U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan for nineteen months from
2003 to 2005; his military command responsibilities included Afghani-
stan, Pakistan, and parts of Central Asia under U.S. Central Command.
His military career was highlighted by command at every level in the
U.S. Army from lieutenant to lieutenant general, and extensive service
78 Task Force Members
in airborne, infantry, and special operations units. Commissioned as an

infantry officer from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1976,
he also holds an MA in national security studies from Georgetown Uni-
versity and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff
College and the U.S. Army War College. Following his retirement from
active service, he served for four years as the director of the Near East
South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense Uni-
versity. From 2007 to 2009, he served as chairman of the Secretary of
Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on Operation Iraqi Freedom and
Enduring Freedom Veterans, Families and Survivors.
Samuel R. Berger is chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strat-

egy firm. Berger works across many of the firm’s engagements, with a
strong focus on Asia, Russia and Central Asia, and the Middle East. He
is also a principal of Albright Capital Management LLC. Berger served
as national security adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1997 until
2001, as deputy national security adviser during Clinton’s first term,
as senior foreign policy adviser to Governor Clinton during his 1992
presidential campaign, and as director of national security for the 1992
Clinton-Gore transition. Prior to his service in the Clinton administra-
tion, Berger served as special assistant to former New York City mayor
John Lindsay and as legislative assistant to former U.S. senator Harold
Hughes (D-IA) and former congressman Joseph Resnick (D-NY).
Berger also served as deputy director of the State Department’s policy
planning staff from 1977 to 1980. Currently, Berger is co-chairing a proj-
ect on the Middle East peace process with the United States Institute
of Peace. He is an active participant in the Aspen Institute’s U.S.-India
Strategic Dialogue and serves on the international advisory council of
the Brookings Doha Center. Berger received his BA from Cornell Uni-
versity and his JD from Harvard Law School.
Karan K. Bhatia joined General Electric Co. in 2007 as vice president

and senior counsel for international law and policy. At GE, he oversees
the company’s engagement on public policy issues with governments
around the world and works to expand its presence in global markets.
In November 2005, Ambassador Bhatia was confirmed by the Senate
to serve as deputy U.S. trade representative (USTR), overseeing U.S.
trade policy with Asia and Africa. Before joining USTR, he served
as assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs at the U.S.
Department of Transportation, where he crafted U.S. international

and domestic aviation policy and supervised the negotiation of inter-
national air services agreements with more than twenty countries.
Prior to that, he served in the Department of Commerce, where he was
deputy undersecretary and chief counsel for the Bureau of Industry and
Security, the U.S. government agency that administers U.S. export con-
trols. Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, he was an equity
partner at the Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering law firm, where he was a
member of the firm’s international and corporate groups. He holds a
BA from Princeton University, an MA from the London School of Eco-
nomics, and a JD from Columbia University.
Marshall M. Bouton became president of the Chicago Council on

Global Affairs in August 2001. Before that, he served for twenty years
at the Asia Society in New York, most recently as executive vice presi-
dent and chief operating officer. Previous positions include director
for policy analysis in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Near East, Africa, and South Asia; special assistant to the
U. S. ambassador to India; executive secretary for the Indo-U.S. Sub-
commission on Education and Culture; and program director for India
affairs at the Asia Society. Bouton earned a BA in history at Harvard, an
MA in South Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a
PhD in political science at the University of Chicago in 1980.
Steve Coll is president of the New America Foundation and a staff

writer at the New Yorker. Previously, he spent twenty years as a foreign
correspondent and senior editor at the Washington Post, serving as man-
aging editor from 1998 to 2004. Coll’s professional awards include two
Pulitzer Prizes. He won the first of these, for explanatory journalism, in
1990, for his series with David A. Vise about the SEC. His second was
awarded in 2005, for his book Ghost Wars, which also won the Coun-
cil on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Book Award, the Overseas Press
Club Award, and the Lionel Gelber Prize for best book published on
international affairs during 2004. Other awards include the 1992 Liv-
ingston Award for outstanding foreign reporting, the 2000 Robert F.
Kennedy Memorial Award for his coverage of the civil war in Sierra
Leone, and a second Overseas Press Club Award for international mag-
azine writing. Coll graduated from Occidental College in 1980 with a
BA in English and history.
Joseph J. Collins joined the National War College faculty in 2004 as

professor of national security strategy. Before this assignment, Collins
served for three years as deputy assistant secretary of defense for stabil-
ity operations, the Pentagon’s senior civilian official for peacekeeping,
humanitarian assistance, and stabilization-reconstruction operations
in Afghanistan. From 1998 to 2001, he was a senior fellow at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, where he wrote major studies
on economic sanctions, military culture, and national security policy.
A retired Army colonel, his twenty-eight years of military service were
divided equally between infantry and armor assignments in the United
States, South Korea, and Germany; a decade teaching at West Point in
the Department of Social Sciences; and a decade-long series of policy
assignments on the Army and Joint Staffs, and in the Office of the Sec-
retary of Defense. He has been a life member of the Council on Foreign
Relations since 1992 and received a doctorate in political science from
Columbia University.
James F. Dobbins has held a number of State Department and White

House posts, including assistant secretary of state for Europe, special
assistant to the president, special adviser to the president and secre-
tary of state for the Balkans, and ambassador to the European com-
munity. Dobbins had numerous crisis management and diplomatic
troubleshooting assignments as the Clinton administration’s and,
more recently, the Bush administration’s special envoy for Afghani-
stan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. Past diplomatic assign-
ments include the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia, the
American-led multilateral intervention in Haiti, the stabilization and
reconstruction of Bosnia, and the NATO intervention in Kosovo. In
the wake of September 11, 2001, he was named the Bush administra-
tion’s representative to the Afghan opposition with the task of put-
ting together and installing a broadly based successor to the Taliban
regime. He represented the United States at the Bonn Conference that
established the new Afghan government, and, on December 16, 2001,
raised the flag over the newly reopened U.S. embassy.
C. Christine Fair is an assistant professor in the Center for Peace and

Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School
of Foreign Service. She is also a senior fellow with the Counterterror-
ism Center at West Point and a research fellow with the National Bureau
of Asia Research’s National Asia Research Program. Prior to joining

Georgetown, she served as a senior political scientist with the RAND
Corporation, a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission
to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate with the United
States Institute of Peace. Her research focuses on political and military
affairs in South Asia. She has authored, coauthored and coedited sev-
eral books and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles covering a
range of security issues in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and
Sri Lanka. She is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Stud-
ies and the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the editorial board of
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and the Journal of Strategic Studies, and
is an associate editor of India Review. Fair has an MA from the Harris
School of Public Policy and a PhD from the Department of South Asian
Languages and Civilization, both at the University of Chicago.
John A. Gastright is the vice president for government affairs at Dyn-

Corp International. In 2005, he joined the Bureau of South Asian
Affairs as a deputy assistant secretary, where he focused primarily on
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Before this appointment, Gas-
tright was the director of House Affairs, Bureau of Legislative Affairs at
the Department of State. His State Department service also included a
brief term as the acting coordinator for Afghanistan in 2004. He first
joined the Department of State as the special assistant to the deputy
secretary of state, Richard L. Armitage, and from 2003 to 2004 he
served as the staff specialist for South Asia. Before his service with the
Department of State, he served on Capitol Hill as chief of staff to Rep-
resentative Jack Kingston (R-GA) and as projects director and military
assistant to Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC). He previously served as
a naval officer from 1988 to 1994 and as a police officer from 1987 to
1988 with the City of Charleston, South Carolina. Gastright received
a BA in political science from the Citadel, an MA in national security
studies from the U.S. Naval War College, and an MA in congressional
studies from the Catholic University of America.
Robert L. Grenier is chairman of ERG Partners, which provides stra-

tegic and financial consulting services for firms in the security industry.
He is a highly decorated twenty-seven-year veteran of the Central Intel-
ligence Agency’s (CIA) Clandestine Service. A specialist in the Near
East and South Asia with fifteen years’ experience in foreign postings,
Grenier has most recently served as director of the CIA’s Counter-

terrorism Center (2004–2006), as the CIA’s Iraq mission manager
(2002–2004), and as the CIA’s chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan
(1999–2002). Earlier in his career, he was deputy national intelligence
officer for the Near East and South Asia and a special assistant to the
undersecretary of state. He conceived and organized the CIA’s Coun-
ter-Proliferation Division, serving as its first chief of operations. He was
also chief of the CIA’s basic training facility, and authored the Clandes-
tine Service’s code of ethics. Grenier received an AB in philosophy from
Dartmouth College and later did graduate studies at the University of
Virginia. He has appeared widely in both broadcast and print media and
writes frequently on intelligence and foreign policy topics.
John M. Keane is a senior partner at SCP Partners. A four-star general,

he completed thirty-seven years of public service in 2003, culminating
as acting chief of staff and vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army. General
Keane is a career paratrooper, a combat veteran of Vietnam decorated
for valor, who spent much of his military life in operational commands
where his units were employed in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
He commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the 18th
Airborne Corps, the Army’s largest war fighting organization. He was
in the Pentagon on 9/11 and provided oversight and support for the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is a member of the secretary of defense’s
policy board and played a major role in recommending the “surge strat-
egy” in Iraq. General Keane graduated with a BS in accounting from
Fordham University and with an MA in philosophy from Western Ken-
tucky University. He is a graduate of the Army War College and the
Command and General Staff College.
Michael Krepon is cofounder of the Henry L. Stimson Center and

teaches in the politics department at the University of Virginia. He is the
author or editor of thirteen books and more than 350 articles. He divides
his time between Stimson’s South Asia and space security projects.
The South Asia project concentrates on escalation control, nuclear risk
reduction, confidence-building, and peacemaking between India and
Pakistan. This project entails field work, publications, and Washington-
based programming, including a visiting fellowship program. The space
security project seeks to promote a code of conduct for responsible
space-faring nations and works toward stronger international norms
for the peaceful uses of outer space. Before cofounding the Stimson
Center, he worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Carter
administration, and in the U.S. House of Representatives, assisting
Congressman Norm Dicks (D-WA). He received a BA from Franklin
& Marshall College and an MA from the School of Advanced Interna-
tional Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He also studied Arabic at the
American University in Cairo, Egypt.
Sloan C. Mann is the cofounder and managing director of Develop-

ment Transformations (DT), a small veteran-owned company that
focuses on improving the capability, capacity, and effectiveness of civil-
ian and military personnel involved in conflict and postconflict envi-
ronments. Before founding DT, he held a diverse array of jobs in the
military, private, and public sectors. From 2007 to 2009, he was U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) development adviser
to the U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. Mann worked for a number
of different offices at USAID, including the Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance (OFDA) and the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). He
was a field program officer with OFDA responsible for all operations
in southern and western Darfur, Sudan. In Iraq as a member of the
Disaster Assistance Response Team and OTI, he worked one year as an
abuse prevention officer focusing on identifying, monitoring, and pre-
venting human rights violations. While in the military, Mann served as
a U.S. Army infantry officer from 1997 to 2002 and was a member of
peacekeeping deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Mann
received a BS in international politics from West Point and an MA from
the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Daniel S. Markey is senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia
at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he specializes in security
and governance issues in South Asia. From 2003 to 2007, Markey held
the South Asia portfolio on the secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the
U.S. Department of State. Prior to government service, he taught in
the Department of Politics at Princeton University, served as executive
director of Princeton’s Research Program in International Security,
and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic
Studies. He received a BA in international studies from Johns Hopkins
University and a PhD from Princeton’s Department of Politics.
John A. Nagl is the president of the Center for a New American Secu-
rity. He is a visiting professor in the War Studies Department at King’s
College London and a member of the Defense Policy Board, the Council
on Foreign Relations, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the International
Institute of Strategic Studies. He served as an armor officer in the U.S.
Army for twenty years, retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He
taught national security studies at West Point’s Department of Social
Sciences and in Georgetown University’s security studies program.
He served as a military assistant to two deputy secretaries of defense
and later worked as a senior fellow at the Center for a New American
Security. He was awarded the Combat Action Badge by General James
Mattis of the U.S. Marine Corps, under whose leadership he fought in
Al Anbar in 2004. Nagl was a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Mili-
tary Academy and earned an MA in military arts and sciences from the
Command and General Staff College, where he received the George C.
Marshall Award as the top graduate. He earned his PhD from Oxford
University as a Rhodes scholar.
John D. Negroponte joined McLarty Associates as vice chairman in

2009 following a distinguished career in diplomacy and national secu-
rity. Ambassador Negroponte held government positions abroad and
in Washington between 1960 and 1997 and again from 2001 to 2008. He
has been ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United
Nations, and Iraq. In Washington he served twice on the National Secu-
rity Council staff, first as director for Vietnam in the Nixon adminis-
tration and then as deputy national security adviser under President
Ronald Reagan. He has also held a cabinet-level position as the first
director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush. His
most recent position in government was as deputy secretary of state,
where he served as chief operating officer. While in the private sector,
he was executive vice president of the McGraw-Hill Companies and
chairman of the French-American Foundation. He recently became a
distinguished senior research fellow in grand strategy and a lecturer in
international affairs at Yale University. He also serves as chairman of
the Council of the Americas/Americas Society and as a trustee of the
Asia Society. He has received numerous awards, including the State
Department’s Distinguished Service Medal on two separate occasions.
In 2009 President Bush awarded Ambassador Negroponte the National
Security Medal.
Charles S. Robb joined the faculty of George Mason University as a

distinguished professor of law and public policy in 2001. Previously,
he served as lieutenant governor of Virginia, as Virginia’s sixty-fourth
governor (1982–86), and as a U.S. senator (1989–2001). While in the
Senate, he became the only member to serve simultaneously on all three
national security committees (Intelligence, Armed Services, and For-
eign Relations). He also served on the Finance, Commerce, and Budget
committees. During the 1960s, he served on active duty with the U.S.
Marine Corps, retiring from the Marine Corps Reserve in 1991. He
received his JD from the University of Virginia in 1973, clerked for Judge
John D. Butzner Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit,
and practiced law with Williams and Connolly before being elected to
state office. He was a partner at Hunton and Williams and a fellow at
Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and William & Mary’s Mar-
shall Wythe School of Law. Since leaving the Senate in 2001, he has
served as chairman of numerous organizations, including the Board of
Visitors at the U.S. Naval Academy and the President’s Commission on
Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of
Mass Destruction.
Teresita C. Schaffer is director of the South Asia Program at the Center

for Strategic and International Studies. Her areas of expertise include
U.S.-South Asia relations, regional security, and economics, energy,
and health policy in India. During her thirty-year career in the U.S.
Foreign Service, she specialized in international economics and South
Asia, on which she was one of the State Department’s principal experts.
From 1989 to 1992, she served as deputy assistant secretary of state for
South Asia, at that time the senior South Asia position in the depart-
ment. From 1992 to 1995, she served as U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka,
and from 1995 to 1997, as director of the Foreign Service Institute. Her
earlier posts included Tel Aviv, Islamabad, New Delhi, and Dhaka, as
well as a tour as director of the Office of International Trade in the State
Department. After retiring from the Foreign Service, Schaffer spent a
year as a consultant on business issues relating to South Asia. She has
also taught at Georgetown University and American University. Schaf-
fer speaks French, Swedish, German, Italian, Hebrew, Hindi, and Urdu
and has studied Bangla and Sinhala.
Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli is currently a scholar at the Carnegie Cor-

poration of New York and is working on a monograph, “Diplomacy
Without Negotiation: America’s Outreach to the Muslim World
2003–2006.” Recently, Ambassador Tahir-Kheli was Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice’s senior adviser for women’s empowerment.
Before this, she served as the secretary’s senior adviser on United
Nations reform. From 2003 to 2005, she was the special assistant to
the president and senior director for democracy, human rights, and
international operations at the National Security Council. From 1993
to 1995, she was a senior fellow at the Center of International Studies
at Princeton University. From 1984 to 1990, she served as director for
South Asian Affairs on the National Security Council. From 1982 to
1984, she was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department
of State. The author of numerous books and articles on U.S.-Pakistan
relations, Ambassador Tahir-Kheli has been a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations since 1990. She has a BA from Ohio Wesleyan
University and an MA and a PhD in international relations from the
University of Pennsylvania.
Ashley J. Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace specializing in international security, defense, and
Asian strategic issues. While on assignment to the U.S. Department of
State as senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for political affairs,
he was intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement
with India. Previously, Tellis was commissioned into the Foreign Ser-
vice and served as senior adviser to the ambassador at the U.S. embassy
in New Delhi. He also served on the National Security Council staff as
special assistant to the president and senior director for Strategic Plan-
ning and Southwest Asia. Before his government service, he was senior
policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and professor of policy analy-
sis at the RAND graduate school. He is the research director of the Stra-
tegic Asia program at the National Bureau of Asian Research. He is also
a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Insti-
tute of Strategic Studies, the U.S. Naval Institute, and the Navy League
of the United States. Tellis received a BA and an MA from the Univer-
sity of Bombay and an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago.
John W. Warner is a senior adviser at Hogan Lovells. He rejoined

the firm after deciding not to seek a sixth term as U.S. senator for the
Commonwealth of Virginia. During his thirty years in the Senate, he

served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also served on
the Senate Health, Education, and Pensions Committee; Committee
on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Select Commit-
tee on Intelligence; Commerce Committee; Environment and Public
Works Committee; and Rules Committee. Senator Warner volun-
teered for two periods of active military duty, the first as an enlisted
sailor in the final years of World War II and the second as a lieutenant
in the U.S. Marines during the Korean War. Between 1953 and 1960, he
clerked for the Honorable E. Barrett Prettyman, U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia Circuit, and was an assistant U.S. attorney
for the District of Columbia. He joined Hogan & Hartson as an associ-
ate in 1961 and became a partner in 1964. In 1969, he was appointed and
confirmed by the Senate as undersecretary, and later as secretary, of the
U.S. Navy. Senator Warner received a BS from Washington and Lee Uni-
versity and an LLB from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Andrew Wilder is the director of Afghanistan and Pakistan programs

at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Prior to joining USIP,
he was a research director at Tufts University’s Feinstein International
Center. Previously, he worked in Afghanistan, where he established
and was the director of Afghanistan’s first independent policy research
institution, the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. Between
1986 and 2001, he worked for several international NGOs managing
humanitarian and development programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He served as the director of the Pakistan/Afghanistan program of Save
the Children (U.S.) for six years. He is the author of The Pakistani Voter
and a coauthor of A Guide to Government in Afghanistan. His recent
research and publications have looked at the effectiveness of aid in pro-
moting stabilization objectives in Afghanistan, police reform policies
in Afghanistan, Afghan refugee education policy in Pakistan, the poli-
tics of civil service reform in Pakistan, electoral politics and policies in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the politics of subnational administra-
tion in Afghanistan. Wilder has a BSFS degree from Georgetown Uni-
versity and an MALD and a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Task Force Observers
Wendy R. Anderson is special assistant to Dr. Ashton Carter, under-

secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, at the U.S.
Department of Defense. Most recently, she served as professional staff
on the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Com-
mittee, managing the international security portfolio for the Subcom-
mittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information,
Federal Services, and International Security, and was lead staff on South
Asia and the Middle East. During the 2008 presidential campaign, she
was a member of Senator Obama’s South Asia policy team. During her
Senate tenure, she also served as the intelligence liaison for Senator Bar-
bara Mikulski (D-MD) and as defense adviser for Senator Frank Lauten-
berg (D-NJ). As deputy director for external affairs in the Women and
Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government,
Anderson worked on postconflict reconstruction in South Asia and the
Middle East. Earlier, as a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship recipient, she
studied the prevention of deadly conflict in those same regions. Ander-
son received a BA from Hendrix College, an MA in religion from Harvard
University, and an MA in international affairs from Columbia University.
She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Stephen D. Biddle is the Roger Hertog senior fellow for defense policy
at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Previously, he held the
Elihu Root chair in military studies at the U.S. Army War College Stra-
tegic Studies Institute. A member of the Defense Policy Board, Biddle
served on General Stanley McChrystal’s Initial Strategic Assessment
Team in 2009, on General David Petraeus’s Joint Strategic Assessment
Team in 2007, and as a senior adviser to General Petraeus’s Central
Command Assessment Team in 2008–2009. He is codirector of the
Columbia University Summer Workshop on the Analysis of Military
88
Operations and Strategy and holds an appointment as adjunct associ-

ate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University.
His book Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle
has won four prizes, including CFR’s Arthur Ross Book Award Silver
Medal and the 2005 Huntington Prize from the Harvard University
Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. He was awarded the U.S. Army
Superior Civilian Service Medal in 2003 and 2006 and in 2007 was pre-
sented with the U.S. Army Commander’s Award for Public Service in
Baghdad. Biddle received an AB, an MPP, and a PhD in public policy
from Harvard University.
Jonah Blank is policy director for South and Southeast Asia on the
majority staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Before enter-
ing government service in 1999, Blank served as senior editor and foreign
correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. He has taught anthropol-
ogy and politics at Harvard and Georgetown and currently teaches at
the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Stud-
ies. An anthropologist by training, he is author of Mullahs on the Main-
frame: Islam and Modernity Among the Daudi Bohras and Arrow of the
Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India. He earned his
BA in history from Yale and his PhD in anthropology from Harvard.
Kara L. Bue is a partner at Armitage International, L.C., an interna-

tional business consulting firm. From 2003 to 2005, Bue served as
deputy assistant secretary of state for regional stability within the
Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM). Her direct responsibilities
included supervision of the Offices of Regional Security and Arms
Transfers; Plans, Policy and Analysis; and Weapons Removal and Abate-
ment. Prior to her position within PM, she served for nearly two years
as special assistant to Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage.
Bue advised the deputy secretary on South Asia, international security,
and counterterrorism matters. Prior to government service, Bue was
in private practice as a corporate and securities lawyer, specializing
in financial services law. In addition, she has held positions with the
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Department of the Army, and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bue is a graduate of Brown University
and Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. She is admitted to practice law in
California and the District of Columbia.
90 Task Force Observers
Isobel Coleman is senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Coun-
cil on Foreign Relations, where she directs the Civil Society, Markets,
and Democracy initiative and the Women and Foreign Policy program.
Her areas of expertise include democratization, civil society, economic
development, regional gender issues, educational reform, and micro-
finance. She is the author and coauthor of numerous publications,
including most recently Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are
Transforming the Middle East. In 2010, she served as a track leader for the
Clinton Global Initiative. Before joining the Council on Foreign Rela-
tions, Coleman was CEO of a healthcare services company and a part-
ner with McKinsey & Company in New York. A Marshall scholar, she
holds a BA in public policy and East Asian studies from Princeton Uni-
versity and an MPhil and DPhil in international relations from Oxford
University. She serves on several nonprofit boards, including those of
Plan USA and Student Sponsor Partners.
Zachary S. Davis is senior fellow at the Center for Global Security

Research and an analyst with Z Division, both at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, where he specializes in South Asia. Davis was an
analyst at the Congressional Research Service, where he worked with
Congress members and staff to develop nonproliferation, arms control,
export control, and sanctions legislation. He has served in the State
Department, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the National
Counterproliferation Center, and the White House. Davis is a visiting
research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, where he teaches
courses on counterproliferation. He received a BA from the University
of California, Santa Cruz, and an MA and a PhD from the University
of Virginia. His latest publication is a forthcoming edited volume, The
India-Pakistan Military Standoff: The 2002 Twin Peaks Crisis and Beyond.
Bjarne M. Iverson serves as the chief of staff, 25th Infantry Division,

Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. He will deploy with the division to Iraq in
December 2010 for a one-year assignment. He joined the Tropic Light-
ning Division after completing a one-year assignment as the U.S. Army’s
military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Most recently, Col-
onel Iverson served a seventeen-month assignment as the executive offi-
cer to General David H. Petraeus in Iraq and at U.S. Central Command.
Colonel Iverson received his commission as an engineer officer and
concurrently serves as a Middle East foreign area officer. He has been
assigned to a variety of command and staff assignments throughout the

United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, including
participation in operations Just Cause, Desert Shield, Desert Storm,
Desert Fox, Desert Thunder, and Iraqi Freedom (three tours). Colonel
Iverson holds a BS from George Mason University, an MA from Princ-
eton University, an MS from the U.S. Army War College, and a certifica-
tion from the Defense Language Institute for Arabic.
Meghan L. O’Sullivan is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on

Foreign Relations and the Evron and Jeane Kirkpatrick professor of the
practice of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. From
July 2004 to September 2007, she was special assistant to President
George W. Bush and also held the position of deputy national security
adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan for the last two years of this tenure. In
that role, O’Sullivan led a team of military and diplomatic personnel,
lawyers, economists, and political appointees in the Iraq and Afghan
directorates at the National Security Council. O’Sullivan also held
the positions of senior director for strategic planning and Southwest
Asia at the NSC; political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Author-
ity administrator and deputy director for governance in Baghdad; chief
adviser to the presidential envoy to the Northern Ireland peace pro-
cess; and fellow at the Brookings Institution. She has been awarded the
Defense Department’s highest honor for civilians, the Distinguished
Public Service Medal, and three times was awarded the State Depart-
ment’s Superior Honor Award. O’Sullivan holds a BA from George-
town University and an MSc in economics and a DPhil in politics from
Oxford University.
Marisa L. Porges was an international affairs fellow at the Council on

Foreign Relations from 2009 to 2010. Her areas of specialization are
counterterrorism strategies, including efforts to counter radicaliza-
tion and combat terrorist financing; detention operations; and Yemen.
Her most recent research compared global efforts to deradicalize ter-
rorists after capture and incorporated fieldwork in Afghanistan, Indo-
nesia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Yemen. Prior to joining CFR,
Porges was a counterterrorism policy adviser at the U.S. Department
of the Treasury and a member of General Petraeus’s Central Com-
mand Assessment Team. She also served in the Office of the Secretary
of Defense for Policy, as an adviser with the Office of Detainee Affairs.
92 Task Force Observers
Her responsibilities included negotiating with foreign governments

and coordinating U.S. government efforts to repatriate detainees from
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan. Porges is a commissioned
naval flight officer, serving on active duty flying the Navy’s EA-6B
Prowler and deploying aboard the USS Lincoln during Operation
Unified Assistance. She received an AB in geophysics from Harvard
University and an MSc in government from the London School of Eco-
nomics. She is currently pursuing a PhD in war studies at King’s Col-
lege London.
Daniel Silverberg serves as deputy counsel on the staff of the U.S. House
of Representatives. In this capacity, he provides strategic and procedural
counsel to members on legislation moving through committee and on
the House floor. Silverberg’s legislative portfolio includes defense issues.
Previously, he served as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel in
the U.S. Department of Defense, with responsibilities related to the Spe-
cial Operations and Low Intensity Conflict directorate. Before that, he
practiced law with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in San Francisco,
where he focused on commercial litigation and white-collar criminal
defense matters. Silverberg holds an AB in comparative study of religion
from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.
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America—Still Unprepared, Still in Danger

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Building Support for More Open Trade

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U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy and provide policymakers with con-
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U.S. Strategy
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Robert L. Grenier
ERG Partners
John W. Warner
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Andrew Wilder
United States Institute of Peace
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What is the Council on Foreign Relations and what is its mission?

What is the Council on Foreign Relations and what is its mission?

What types of activities does the CFR carry out to fulfill its mission?

What types of activities does the CFR carry out to fulfill its mission?

The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of

U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

James F. Dobbins Carnegie Corporation of New York

Richard L. Armitage and

U.S. Strategy for

Copyright © 2010 by the Council on Foreign Relations®, Inc.

Richard L. Armitage C. Christine Fair

Teresita C. Schaffer John W. Warner

Task Force Report 1

Additional or Dissenting Views 68

of military forces in Afghanistan to roughly one hundred thousand, and

I am grateful to many at CFR: CFR’s Publications team assisted in

Al-Qaeda’s attack on September 11, 2001, was the deadliest terrorist

tragic floods in August have the potential either to demonstrate U.S.

Militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan pose a direct threat to the United

elements of the Taliban have established deep ideological and opera-

a disastrous crisis between India and Pakistan. LeT is also one of a

U.S . Strategic Object i ve s

be the only one committed to partnership. To maintain momentum into

Curren t U.S . Strategy and P olicy

In Pakistan, the United States has publicly committed to a long-term

In Afghanistan, the current U.S. strategy seeks to weaken Taliban

President Obama inherited a difficult and deteriorating situation in

assert itself after nearly a decade of military rule. Pakistan’s efforts to

The devastating floods have compounded the problems facing

To continue the current course in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the

would deal a debilitating blow to the U.S.-Pakistan partnership. The

Strategic Opt ions

In Afghanistan, an alternative to the present U.S. counterinsurgency

Washington’s first order of business in Pakistan must be to help address

tackle other threats to internal, regional, or international security. In

To reduce regional tensions that distract from counterterror opera-

To foster Afghanistan’s viability as a security partner, the United

To assess U.S. objectives in Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is necessary

That Pakistan has made some important, positive strides in recent

fight against extremism. An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis have

Pakistan is already one of the world’s most significant bases of inter-

remains rampant. Today the poisonous political climate offers little

Pakistani intelligence community and to al-Qaeda, makes it especially

When it comes to assessing Pakistan’s future, these immediate military

administrators and leaders. Political uncertainty and upheaval have

Finally, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, estimated to house between eighty

political and development efforts among international donors has

Political and Economic Weakness

On the political front, Afghanistan’s weaknesses are even more appar-

Sh i f t i ng U.S . Object i ve s i n Pak istan

mission. The goal of supporting a Pakistani transition to civilian

Sh i f t i ng U.S . Object i ve s i n Afghan istan

the Afghan education system, and extensive investments were made in

Re alist ic Ends, Me ans, and T i metable s

without the cooperation of the Pakistani state; this requires improving

complemented by a harder edge: sustained U.S. efforts to weaken Paki-

Re alist ic Ends, Me ans, and T i metable s

The United States should pursue three main objectives in Afghanistan.

from once again becoming a sanctuary for these groups. Al-Qaeda is