book, review eating grass and afghan endgames

Games Nations Play
Ali Ahmed
http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1380/2013/october/10/games-nations-play.html

Games Nations Play

Ali Ahmed 

AFGHAN ENDGAMES: STRATEGY AND POLICY CHOICES FOR AMERICA’S LONGEST WAR 
Edited by Hy Rothstein and John Arquilla 
Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, 2013, pp. 229, price not stated.

EATING GRASS: THE MAKING OF THE PAKISTANI BOMB 
By Feroz Hassan Khan 
Foundation Books, Delhi, 2013, pp. 520, price not stated.

VOLUME XXXVII NUMBER 10 October 2013

The editors of Afghan Endgames are at the Department of Defence Analysis at the US Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. In their words, they have assembled an ‘all star cast of experts across a range of fields relevant to solving the strategic riddles of Afghanistan’. Given that Obama’s deadline of draw down and pull out of 2014 is nearing, the book is a timely one to inform thinking on American policies in ‘Afpak’ and consequences for the wider region that includes India. That it is the outcome of a research project funded by the Defence Department in around 2011 indicates that it was part of the input into the policy choices adopted in Afghanistan that finds the US finally talking to the Taliban.   Curiously there is no discussion in the book on this vital issue. This is perhaps the fundamental flaw in the book; perhaps testimony of the nature of the defence ‘establishment’ that in the US includes intellectual hangers on who build the rationale, legitimacy and strategic communication details cloaking US pursuit of its strategic interests through violence and the threat of violence over much of the globe.   Synthesizing the expert opinion in the concluding chapter, the editors suggest that ‘much less is more’. They want the US to ‘go local, go small, go long’. This entails closing most bases and downsizing others, stopping expensive development and infrastructure projects, displacing the ‘old guard’ with ‘young Afghan leaders’, downsizing the Afghan National Army, maintaining a very small anti- terrorist presence for high value counter terrorism missions, drastically reduce funding of Pakistan and persuade India to sharply reduce its footprint in Afghanistan. If the book has helped to arrive at this prescription for US policy, its credibility would depend on (a) whether the US is indeed embarked down this road, and (b) if such a policy makes strategic sense.   A negative answer to (a) is evident from the US initiating direct talks with the Taliban who have opened an embassy in the UAE for the purpose. The US adoption of this route of attempting to co-opt the Taliban, thereby making continuing counter insurgency redundant in Afghanistan dispenses with the book’s suggestions—the verdict on (b). It is clear to the US that it cannot do with a minimal force strength in support of ...
...Feroze Hassan Khan is not necessarily theone to write the definitive book on Pakistan’snuclear project as he has been a longstandinginsider in the Pakistani nuclear establishment.The fact that he has been allowed to draw onhis earlier official work to write the book byPakistani authorities themselves indicates thatwhile there is much that he has covered, thereis also much that may have been left underwraps. Pakistan has reasons to have its nuclearcapability dwelt on, not least for reasons ofdeterrence and transparency. The author’sproject was probably welcomed by the authoritiesto the advantage of the author, sinceit also helps him record his critical contributionto the development of the doctrinal aspectof the programme.Given this happy symbiosis, EatingGrass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb,while welcome and timely, must be read witha pinch of salt as to its claims of Pakistaniprowess, contribution to national and regionalsecurity and Pakistan’s ability to keeptheir nuclear capability under control. Thebook is important not only for what it saysof the bomb, but what it refrains from sayingout loud, though one discerns from thenarrative that the author has more to say butdoes not do so.The book does for the Pakistani bombwhat George Perkovich’s book did for India’s...
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