Pakistan

The reliance on unmanned drones to target terror suspects in Pakistan has been quietly lauded by U.S. officials. But the covert program, which has so far gotten little public scrutiny, is facing mounting legal and ethical concerns.

Summit-level meetings between Pakistani and Chinese leaders this week and a new civilian nuclear power deal underscore intensifying relations between these allies, though China is also signaling growing concerns about Pakistan’s stability, says expert Andrew Small.

As the United States and India move toward cementing their warmest relationship ever, India’s rival, Pakistan, is broadening its ties with its own powerful ally: China.

Pakistan’s latest moves to exert influence in Afghanistan, including possible brokering of talks with militant Taliban allies, could pose difficulties for U.S. stabilization efforts, says CFR’s Daniel Markey.

Despite recent successes, unmanned drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan remain a controversial tactic. CFR’s Micah Zenko says the Obama administration must shed new details on the "worst kept covert secret in the history of U.S. foreign policy."

June and July meetings between India and Pakistan could restart a peace process, if both sides show cooperation and political will, says Indian policy analyst Radha Kumar.

In the event of a successful terrorist attack by Pakistan-based militants, U.S. actions toward Pakistan are limited, but the United States can help Pakistan intensify its fight against extremism, says South Asia security expert Bruce Riedel.

In this exclusive interview with CFR.org in May 2010, Gen. David H. Petraeus discusses the Times Square bombing plot, militants based in Pakistan, and how the looming offensive in Kandahar will unfold.

Ties to Pakistan in the Times Square bomb case suggest a direct al-Qaeda influence on the goals of some of Pakistan’s Taliban militants, says counterterrorism expert Brian Fishman.

Pakistan’s constitution continues to be the focus of political struggle, with the nation’s prime minister, president, regional governments, and army vying for advantage.

Photo Courtesy of REUTERS/Jim Young Richard Holbrooke, the president’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, says that Washington and Beijing are “talking about common strategic symmetry.” “We’re consulting them. We’re sharing information,” Holbrooke told POLITICO. And the administration has intensified U.S. outreach to China as its level of concern about stability and extremism in Pakistan has increased. So, does China share Washington’s concerns? Not really. The Chinese are relaxed in public. (And they are nearly as relaxed in private). Just take China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, who told a press conference on the margins of last week’s National People’s Congress that the government of Pakistan “has effective control” of its domestic situation, then quickly returned to his Foreign Ministry-drafted boilerplate about “mutual benefit” in the China-Pakistan relationship. It would be hard to argue that the United States and China don’t have a common interest in, to use Yang’s words, “stability, development, and prosperity” in Pakistan. But U.S. officials, not least Holbrooke, are hardly so relaxed about developments there. The president’s national security advisor, General James Jones, says that “China can do a lot more in Pakistan than it’s currently doing.” No doubt what Jones means is that American messages to Islamabad—to get tough on extremism, deal forcefully with the domestic threat to the Pakistani state, and crack down harder on Pakistan-based terrorist groups—would be more effective if complemented by similar Chinese messages. If, as Holbrooke put it, we’ve reached a “common strategic symmetry,” why isn’t China taking General Jones’ advice? The answer, I think, sheds light on just why it’s so hard to turn common interests with China into complementary policies: First, Beijing rarely shares American threat assessments. And China’s leaders, even when they do sense a challenge to “stability,” are far more relaxed than are Americans about the scope and nature of those threats. This is certainly true of Pakistan, where Beijing trusts the military’s instincts and senses little threat to the Pakistani state. It’s true of Iran. And it’s true of North Korea, which few Chinese believe will collapse and where a managed transition toward Chinese-style reform is the medium-term outcome China seeks to achieve. Second, even when Beijing shares America’s sense of threat, countervailing interests still obstruct cooperation. In Afghanistan, for example, China certainly shares America’s core interest: a stable Afghan state that does not harbor, nurture, or export terrorism. But Chinese decision-makers become uncomfortable when told that the path to victory might require a long-term NATO presence on China’s western border, U.S. bases or other military arrangements in Central Asia, and enhanced U.S. and NATO strategic coordination with neighbors that have had difficult relations with China. Likewise on North Korea and Iran. It may well be that China doesn’t wish for a nuclear North Korea. But its emphasis on stability over and above every other objective puts it at odds with Washington and with the present government, at least, in Seoul about how to rank that objective relative to all others. The good news is that the United States and China share more interests than, say, ten years ago (much less twenty or thirty years ago). For all Beijing’s complaints about American primacy, no country has benefited more than China from the prevailing international system, which the United States continues to dominate in many respects and in which the U.S. provides many of the public goods. But translating that common stake into complementary policies will remain elusive unless the two countries’ threat assessments begin to converge. And in places like Pakistan and Iran, that is still a very long way off. Combine that with other tensions in the relationship and we’ve got a very rocky road ahead for U.S.-China relations.

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/B Mathur Although their leaders and foreign secretaries did meet in 2009, the February 25 talks between India and Pakistan were the first since the November 2008 Mumbai attacks aimed at normalizing dialogue. And they had raised hopes in some quarters that New Delhi and Islamabad might reenter into a peace process. For now, such expectations are very unrealistic. It’s worth asking four questions about today’s talks: 1. Were the talks significant? Somewhat. It’s no mean achievement that New Delhi and Islamabad returned to the table. But today’s discussion was about restoring contact, not making a breakthrough. An awful lot of water has passed under the bridge since the Mumbai attacks--and the two sides don’t agree on the parameters for discussion. India views Pakistan’s actions since Mumbai as insufficient. It has presented Islamabad with dossiers of information, but complains that many of the Mumbai suspects continue to walk free, not least Hafiz Saeed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, who only last week called for fresh attacks at a rally outside Lahore. Pakistan argues that it has acted against terrorism. It seeks to focus on political differences, not least the future of Kashmir, and wants an early return to formal peace talks, known as the "composite dialogue." But this isn’t likely anytime soon. 2. Is a breakthrough even possible? It is, but not easily. The two sides have come close to reaching breakthroughs in the past, principally through a "backchannel" negotiation that picked up a head of steam between 2004 and 2007. In one account, the two sides were down to "semicolons" in 2007. But the most sensitive disputes, such as Kashmir, are as much political as intellectual. And the politics on both sides just aren’t conducive to reaching a settlement. Conventional wisdom in India is that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh badly wants a breakthrough. But his Pakistan policy is very vulnerable politically. And Pakistan is fragmented between multiple power centers: Its military (the most important power center) is especially skeptical of India. And Indian leaders do not believe that Pakistan’s civilian politicians can deliver. 3. Could India and Pakistan go to war again? Yes. After the Mumbai attacks, the Indian government came under enormous pressure to respond. Another attack could increase the pressure further. Mumbai stole international headlines, but several major Indian metropolises were bombed throughout 2008: Jaipur in May; Ahmadabad and Bangalore in July; and New Delhi’s most famous shopping area, Connaught Place, in September. India has carefully avoided blaming Pakistan for attacks two weeks ago in Pune, but political pressure will intensify in the event of a future attack. Indians are divided over the effectiveness of military options. Some argue that tough military measures contributed to subsequent breakthroughs in the backchannel negotiations. Others disagree. 4. Does the United States have a role? Not an obvious one. Clearly, American interests are engaged by the possibility of war--and tension reduction is in the U.S. interest. But third-party intervention is utterly unwelcome in India. And it hasn’t been especially conducive to breakthroughs in the past. Pakistan would certainly welcome greater U.S. involvement, but India would reject an American role outright. And a public U.S. role narrows the political space available for Singh to maneuver: Any peace package seen to have been reached under U.S. pressure would be dead on arrival in Indian politics. Barack Obama learned this lesson the hard way. As a candidate, he told TIME’s Joe Klein that he would appoint a U.S. envoy to seek peace in Kashmir. As president, he quickly backed off after strenuous Indian objections. But some in his administration cling to the idea. And as I write in the new issue of Foreign Affairs, this remains a source of tension and one of five areas of difference that could threaten U.S.-India relations.

A profile of the Pakistani militant group India blames for some of the most severe terror attacks it has suffered in recent years, including the Mumbai assault of November 2008.