US Pakistan Relations & Operational vs. Strategic Success

A week or so I wrote a brief academic paper on our activities and aims in Afghanistan in response to literature on the subject by Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson.  In part, Simon and Stevenson’s writing focused on the successes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or “drones” in our war on terror, and more specifically problems in Pakistan.  Hinging upon the operational successes of drones in eliminating US targets, the authors spent some time discussing the legality of these tools of warfare and even at times the ethical implications of doing so. Yet the overall strategic viability of drones seems overlooked both by the authors and similar thinkers in our armed forces.  Thus in light of recent protests over the continued use of drones to essentially assassinate militants on Pakistani soil, the subject seemed worth bringing up here.

One of the justifications for the use of drones in “targeted killing” lies in the reality that Pakistan is one of our core strategic allies in the region and that our continued military presence in Afghanistan rubs the people of Pakistan the wrong way.  This argument is typically used to express why a counter-insurgency policy in Afghanistan might be counter-productive and why it might be in our best interests to withdraw our military interests from the region. In policy making, this issue of public opinion has grown much more noteworthy lately, particularly since General Stanley McChrystal’s less than politically appropriate statements of last year.  It seems that many recognize this issue of public sentiment and the difficulty it poses in our efforts in Afghanistan and the broader war on terror, yet somehow the assumption has been made that the use of UAVs and targeted killing either doesn’t cause the same problem or isn’t quite as offensive to Pakistani popular opinion.

I would argue that the core of this problem lies in recognition of operational rather than strategic victories.  The use of UAVs has certainly been successful operationally, with no cost of American lives and a high rate of successful elimination of al-Qaeda assets.  However there is the broader issue of just what strategic end is ultimately being satisfied by the focus on targeted killing.  Assuming that the purpose of these attacks is to eliminate important figures and thus destabilize enemy leadership; the question remains whether or not that is a worthwhile goal in light of the increased public discontent and radicalization that results.  The question isn’t an easy one, but it is critical to answer in order to develop a consistent policy in the region.  Ultimately there is quite a bit of difficulty in actually defining our goals in this conflict, let alone the wisest means to accomplish them.  No matter how you slice it, the continued use of targeted killing via UAVs is putting the US, and consequently our allies in a very difficult spot politically.