Uncanny Parallels with Vietnam

Contrary to US Defence Secretary’s much publicised announcement in Kabul, the US will deploy troops in Pakistan, except that they won’t be regular troops, they will be “Advisers” –   deja vu for anyone who still remembers Vietnam (see, for example, here and here, and here). (This, incidentally, is also how the US intends to withdraw all troops from Iraq; those left behind are to be called “Advisers”!)

The evidence for this can be gleaned from the weekly review of the War, posted on 8 May 2009 on the Foreign Policy website, by Robert Haddick, who reflects, among other things, on the War in Pakistan (reproduced verbatim below):

“Military advisors for Pakistan: too little, too late?

On May 6, U.S. President Barack Obama hosted a hastily arranged summit with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration’s objective was to improve coordination among all three governments in their common fight against Taliban insurgents. The U.S. team also sought to demonstrate that this was more than a military problem; at a meeting with the two visiting presidents at the State Department, Secretary Hillary Clinton brought in officials from the Department of Agriculture, the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ruled out the deployment of U.S. troops inside Pakistan. “Our goal is to work with [the] Pakistan Army and Pakistani government as they deal with this problem, and we are doing all that we can to help them,” he said. In his remarks after his meeting with Zardari and Karzai, Obama renewed his plea for Congress to approve $400 million in immediate assistance for Pakistan’s security forces.

It was very timely then for Gen. Martin Dempsey, the commander of the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, to announce at Small Wars Journal the release of the Army’s new field manual on security force assistance. As Gates has prescribed, the U.S. military would play only an advisory role in helping the Pakistani government confront its security problems. The field manual is a “cookbook” for soldiers assigned as advisors to foreign military forces, especially soldiers from general-purpose units whose training in past years did not include being an advisor.

By contrast, advising foreign military forces has always been a core duty for U.S. Special Operations forces. Writing at the Journal of International Security Affairs, Adm. Eric Olson, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, reminds us that the “indirect approach” of assisting foreign partners, though usually the best solution to irregular security challenges, is not a quick solution:

The key to success in applying the indirect approach is persistence. Building partnerships requires the development of meaningful military-to-military relationships. That effort is long-term, and the effects are enduring.

Is it too late for Pakistan? Last week, Gen. David Petraeus reportedly said the Pakistani government might fall to the Taliban within two weeks. With a week remaining, it seems as if Zardari will outlast Petraeus’s speculation. Even so, it might be too late in the game to hope for much from an advisor “surge” in Pakistan.”