Strategic Depth

One of the charming things about Land of the Pure's hopped up military command complex is that on the great (or terrible - depending on any personal feelings) day that India and Pakistan engage in a war is "Strategic Depth"

As best understood, PAK Army will roll with the New Delhi flow, trading space for time, fall back in Afghanistan, regroup, counter attack and hand India the worst defeat in military history.

Short of that event, Pakistan views Afghanistan as operational turf - best kept weak and discombobulated - especially for all those hot! goodies coveted by Rawalpindi.

"Pakistan's military intelligence establishment continues to define national security with reference to the weakness and pliability, rather than the strength, of its Afghan neighbor. There is both an external and an internal logic to this construction of national security.

"Externally, Pakistan seeks "strategic depth" against India, whose influence and friendly relations with the government of President Hamid Karzai threaten the Pakistani nightmare of strategic encirclement. Moreover, the Pakistani security establishment's sponsorship of the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba is today what Pakistan's sponsorship of Kashmiri militants was in the 1980s and 1990s -- a strategic tool to target and weaken India through terrorist attacks while enabling Rawalpindi to claim plausible deniability.

"At the same time, Pakistan's close relationship with the forces of Sirajuddin Haqqani (an important al Qaeda ally) and the Afghan Taliban give it critical leverage in its dealings with Washington.

Oh Snap! Plus, 44's "...flawed and halfhearted Afghan strategy has also created incentives for Karzai to look for new friends in a dangerous region -- leading to the Faustian bargain he risks making with Pakistan over political reconciliation that brings the Afghan Taliban into government without committing it to uphold the Afghan Constitution, and gives Rawalpindi a guiding hand in determining Afghanistan's future internal and external orientations.

Pic "Trillion Dollar Problems!"