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2014 AND BEYOND: U.S. POLICY TOWARD

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, PART I

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 3, 2011

Serial No. 112–97

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Chairman 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Zalmay Khalilzad, Ph.D., counselor, Center for Strategic and 

International Studies ........................................................................................... 6

Lieutenant General David W. Barno, senior advisor and senior fellow, Center 

for a New American Security .............................................................................. 14

Ashley J. Tellis, Ph.D., senior associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ...................................................................................................... 24

C. Christine Fair, Ph.D., assistant professor, Security Studies Program, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University ................ 36

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Zalmay Khalilzad, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ........................... 9

Lieutenant General David W. Barno: Prepared statement .................................. 16

Ashley J. Tellis, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ......................................................... 26

C. Christine Fair, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 38

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 62

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 63

(1)

2014 AND BEYOND: U.S. POLICY TOWARD 

AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN, PART I 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST

AND SOUTH ASIA, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steve Chabot (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. CHABOT. The committee will come to order. This is the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Subcommittee on the Middle East 

and South Asia. We want to welcome everyone here this afternoon. 

I have a couple of housekeeping items here to get to before the 

ranking member and myself will give our opening statements and 

we will turn to the witnesses. We also understand that we may 

well be interrupted by votes on the floor here shortly, so we are 

going to try to get in as many things as we can before that happens. 

I would first—I want to formally introduce our newest subcommittee member, the gentleman from New York Mr. Turner. We 

look forward to working with Mr. Turner on this subcommittee, 

hopefully for years to come, and we welcome you here this afternoon, Congressman Turner. Anything you would like to say? 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Welcome. All right. Well done. 

We would also like to recognize some very distinguished visitors 

who are here to observe the subcommittee this afternoon. And we 

would like to welcome a delegation of guests from Afghanistan who 

serve on the national security committees in the Afghani Parliament, members of both the Commission on Internal Affairs in 

the lower House and the Commission on Internal Security, Defense 

Affairs and Local Organs of the upper House. 

We want to welcome them to the Subcommittee on the Middle 

East and South Asia here, and we are very delighted to have you, 

and if you wouldn’t mind standing, we would like to recognize you. 

And last, but not least, I would like to note that the subcommittee is honored to have visiting here today a pair of scholars 

who are studying international politics at George Mason University 

in Fairfax, Virginia. They would be embarrassed if I mentioned 

them by name, so I won’t, but they know who they are. We welcome you here this afternoon, ladies. You don’t have to clap for 

them, but we do welcome them. 

2

And also I will go ahead and give my opening statement. I recognize myself for 5 minutes, and then we will recognize the very distinguished ranking member Mr. Ackerman for the same purpose. 

I want to welcome all my colleagues to this hearing. One week 

ago the House Committee on Foreign Affairs heard the testimony 

of Secretary of State Clinton on the administration’s policy toward 

Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although the details continue to 

change, the fundamental underlying policy remains the same, and 

it is driven by one key objective, withdrawal by the end of 2014. 

Unfortunately, although the 2014 withdrawal date may be politically expedient, it is, in my view, strategically risky. The 

counterinsurgency strategy that President Obama announced at 

West Point in December 2009 depends on two key objectives, providing population centric security to create the space for governance, and an enduring commitment to fighting the insurgents to 

ensure that there is no doubt that they will ultimately lose. 

Both of these are determined by setting and, more importantly, 

stating a withdrawal date. If Afghans and regional actors do not 

believe we are committed to their safety, then they are likely to accommodate insurgents in an attempt to hedge their bets in advance 

of our anticipated departure. Similarly, if the insurgents believe 

that we will depart by a certain date, they will likely be confident 

in their ultimate victory. This last point is especially important. 

Reconciliation, which is the administration’s current means of 

bridging the gap between the status quo and the 2014 withdrawal 

date, is, if at all possible, only so if the insurgents face certain defeat. 

As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger recently noted, ‘‘if 

you negotiate while your forces are withdrawing, you are not in a 

great negotiating position.’’

I will confess that trying to make sense of the administration’s 

policy calls to mind Yogi Berra’s famous admonition that ‘‘when 

you come to a fork in the road, take it.’’ This is what we appear 

to be doing, which is to say that it is not clear to me what we are 

doing. 

The administration initially refrained from a strict counterterrorism strategy and opted instead for a more robust 

counterinsurgency campaign. It has not, however, allocated enough 

time, resources or energy to properly implement this policy. It appears to lack what Ambassador Crocker has referred to as ‘‘strategic patience.’’

Transition has begun, yet it is taking place under conditions that 

have yet to be defined alongside inconclusive information on the 

current conditions. In short, it is unclear what we are doing, when 

we are doing it, how we are doing it, and even when we are trying—what we are trying to accomplish beyond withdrawal as soon 

as possible. 

As one reporter recently noted, the current strategy is an attempt to fold disparate policy elements into a comprehensive package as the administration tries to fashion an exit that will not 

leave Afghanistan open to civil war or the reestablishment of terrorist bases. Indeed it appears as though the administration is, at 

best, slouching toward the door instead of running to it. 

3

The situation in which the administration finds itself is nothing 

short, in my view, of a strategic mess. Sound strategic thinking dictates that you first define your objective and then formulate your 

policy to achieve it. The current policy, however, has it backwards. 

Until 2014, we will try everything possible to salvage something 

that can be called victory, because withdrawal by 2014 appears to 

be the administration’s sole objective. The result is a strategic race 

to the bottom in which objectives are stretched and sliced to fit the 

means that the administration is willing to employ on any given 

day. 

And then there is Pakistan. As I am sure our witnesses will explain, the continued sanctuary offered to insurgents on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border short-circuits any gains that we are 

able to make against key insurgent groups and renders them 

unsustainable. And although Secretary Clinton testified that the 

administration has made clear to the Pakistanis that the time has 

come for this shelter to cease, I remain skeptical. These warnings 

have been issued for years to no avail. 

I am also very concerned about the administration’s latest plan, 

which involves using the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services 

Intelligence, the ISI, to reach out to insurgents. Although it may 

make sense in the context of reconciliation, it risks rewarding the 

very elements which continue to be responsible for sheltering insurgents who kill Americans and Afghans alike. 

None of this, of course, even begins to address the implications 

of this policy for India, which has been, continues to be, and, I 

hope, will remain a close ally and friend of the United States. 

Unlike in some places, U.S. national security interests in South 

Asia are both dire and immediate. If we leave Afghanistan too 

soon, the odds are high that it will once again devolve into a state 

of affairs in which terrorists can once again thrive. If that is the 

case, I fear we may find ourselves not discussing our departure 

from Afghanistan, but our return. 

And I would now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New 

York, the distinguished ranking member of the committee, Mr. 

Ackerman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I thank my friend and chairman very much. I 

appreciate his remarks and thank him for calling this hearing. 

Before I begin, I would just like as well to welcome our new colleague to the committee. Mr. Turner, welcome. I would point out 

that he is not only new to the committee, but he is a neighbor of 

mine back in my home county of Queens. Welcome, Bob. 

There is an old saying well known to all of us: The enemy of my 

enemy is my friend. Unfortunately, this is nonsense. The enemy of 

my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. That is it. There are no implied 

obligations or warranties. International politics has no freebies. 

To state what should be obvious, but somehow is not, Pakistan, 

meaning both the nominally democratic civilian government and 

the unelected but ultimately decisive Pakistani military establishment, is not our friend. They are not our allies. They are not our 

partners. They are not on our team. They are not on our side. And 

no matter how much aid that we give them, no matter what military capabilities we provide them, and no matter what promises, 

4

assurances or pledges we make to them, these facts are not going 

to change. Pakistan is on its own side, period. 

Notwithstanding the considerable number of Pakistanis who 

would like to try life in the United States, or the great success of 

the many truly loyal Pakistani Americans who have done so and 

contribute so much to their new country, 75 percent of the Pakistanis in Pakistan have an unfavorable opinion of our country and 

believe that the United States is the source of that country’s problems. 

That is just a little piece of what $22 billion of our taxpayers’ 

money has brought us since 2002 in Pakistan. A considerable part 

of those funds have also enhanced Pakistan’s nuclear weapons delivery capability, notwithstanding either our nonproliferation laws 

or the purported limitations that we have insisted upon with regard to the F–16 fighter bombers that we have sold them. 

At the same time, there is simply no question that Pakistan has 

been a critical facilitator of our campaign to drive al-Qaeda out of 

Afghanistan and to dismantle and eliminate its capacity to conduct 

worldwide terrorist operations. Pakistan’s tacit cooperation has 

also been essential to our efforts to help establish an independent, 

democratic government in Afghanistan. The bulk of the fuel, ammunition and other supplies for our troops are sent through Pakistan. Critical counterterrorist assets of ours depend on Pakistan’s 

cooperation to operate effectively. Pakistan has been critical to the 

apprehension and delivery to justice of key figures in al Qaeda. So 

Pakistan is essential. 

But Pakistan is also perfidious, and that is our problem in a nutshell. While cooperating with us, Pakistan has also been a critical 

facilitator of Taliban and other violent, radical Jihadist organizations attacking our troops, seeking to undermine the Afghan Government, and conducting terrorism against our allies. These facts 

are not secret. One need not have access to classified information 

to know the details of Pakistan’s partnership with violent religious 

extremists. One only needs access to newspapers and magazines. 

It is not a secret that the Afghan Taliban has been based in 

Quetta, Pakistan, since Afghanistan and the United States drove 

them out of Afghanistan in 2002. Quetta is not an especially big 

city, and the Taliban presence there isn’t even particularly discreet. 

From Quetta the leadership of the Taliban every day is orchestrating attacks on our Government and on our troops. 

It is not a secret that the Haqqani network is responsible for numerous attacks on the Afghan Government and our troops. It is not 

a secret that Lashkar-e-Tayibba, which was responsible for the horrific November 2008 massacre of civilians in Mumbai, India, an attack that clearly implicated the Pakistani military, operates openly 

in Pakistan. 

The Government of Pakistan has made no effort to interfere, disrupt, arrest or shut down any of these groups or their activities. 

It is no secret that Osama bin Laden was living comfortably in 

Abbottabad, Pakistan. Pakistan insists it had no knowledge or complicity in his presence there. I would like to think that if the 

world’s most wanted criminal in the history of criminals purchased 

a sizable parcel of land and built a secure compound less than a 

5

mile from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, just 32 

miles from our Capital, we might just know about it. 

Pakistan is not our pal, our buddy, or our chum. It is a sovereign 

state pursuing its own self-defined interests in what it perceives to 

be a tough neighborhood, but they contribute to making it tough. 

And to state yet another obvious fact, Pakistan’s self-defined national interest has very little overlap with our own. In that small 

area where their interests and ours converge, we can and do cooperate. And the rest of the time they cooperate in varying levels 

of commission and omission, with the people killing our troops, conducting terrorist acts against our allies, and trying to bring down 

the Afghan Government. 

Currently the United States has designated Iran, Syria, Sudan 

and Cuba as state sponsors of terrorism under U.S. law. Such a 

designation requires a ban on arms-related exports and sales, strict 

controls over exports of dual-use items, and a prohibition on economic assistance and imposition of miscellaneous financial and 

other restrictions. But for our genuine need for cooperation in the 

campaign against al Qaeda, there appears to be very little standing 

in the way of designating Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism, 

very, very, very little. 

Were that it was so, but it is time to wake up from the naive 

and sentimental dream that there is friendship and broad cooperation and accept reality. Pakistan’s national interests are generally 

contrary to ours and that of our actual allies, and they pursue 

those contrary interests through the use of violent proxies and terrorism. That is not likely to change. It is time for our policy and 

our assistance to come back into relation with reality instead of 

fanciful expectation. 

Paying Pakistan to kill bad guys makes sense. Bribing Pakistan, 

which is what our aid really is, for license and cooperation in the 

efforts to kill bad guys is also reasonable. But we need to rid ourselves of the absurd notion that we can change Pakistan, reform 

its government or create real trust. We have neither the capacity 

nor the capability, and we certainly don’t have the spare billions 

to keep throwing away on those fool’s errands. No more magical 

thinking. It is time to grow up and deal with Pakistan as it is, not 

as we wish it to be. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. 

The bells that you have heard, or at least the buzzing that you 

have heard, is the votes on the floor. What I am going to try to do 

is get the introductions in here now, and probably, Ambassador, we 

will get your testimony in, which is limited to 5 minutes. And then 

we will go over and vote, and then we will come back as soon as 

the votes are over and take the rest and then ask questions. 

So I will try to go through these relatively quickly, although we 

have such a distinguished panel, there is an awful lot to say about 

them. 

We will begin with Zalmay Khalilzad. Ambassador Khalilzad is 

president of Gryphon Partners, a consulting and investment firm 

focused on the Middle East and Central Asia. From 2007 to 2009, 

he served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Prior to that he served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan 

from 2003 to 2005, and then as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from 2005 

6

to 2007. He also served as U.S. Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003. Ambassador Khalilzad sits on the 

board of the National Endowment for Democracy. He is also a 

counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

Next we have Lieutenant General David W. Barno. General 

Barno, a highly decorated military officer with over 30 years of 

service, has served in a variety of command and staff positions in 

the United States and around the world. 

In 2003, he was selected to establish a new three-star operational 

headquarters in Afghanistan and take command of the 20,000 U.S. 

and coalition forces in Operation Enduring Freedom. From 2006 to 

2010, General Barno served as the director of the Near East South 

Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He frequently serves as an expert consultant on 

counterinsurgency and irregular warfare, professional military education and the changing character of conflict. 

We next have Ashley J. Tellis. Dr. Tellis is a senior associate at 

the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, specializing in 

international security, defense and Asian-specific issues. While on 

assignment to the U.S. Department of State as senior adviser to 

the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, he was intimately 

involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India. Previously he was commissioned into the Foreign Service and served 

as senior adviser to the Ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in New 

Delhi. He also served on the National Security Council staff as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic 

Planning and Southwest Asia. In addition to numerous Carnegie 

and RAND reports, his academic publications have appeared in 

many edited volumes and journals. 

And finally, we have C. Christine Fair. Dr. Fair is an assistant 

professor in the Center for Peace and Security Studies within 

Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously she has served as senior political scientist with the 

RAND Corporation, a political officer to the United Nations Mission to Afghanistan and Kabul, and as senior research associate at 

USIP’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. She is also a 

senior fellow with the counterterrorism center at West Point. 

Dr. Fair holds a bachelor in biological chemistry, a master’s in 

public policy, as well as a master’s and Ph.D. in South Asian languages and civilizations, all from the University of Chicago. 

As I say, a very distinguished panel here this afternoon. 

Ambassador Khalilzad, if you wouldn’t mind beginning. Now, everyone gets 5 minutes, so we would ask you to stick within that. 

There is a lighting system. When the red light comes on, we ask 

you to all stop if at all possible, and then we are going to go over 

and vote. We will be back and hear the rest. 

Ambassador Khalilzad, you are recognized for 5 minutes. If you 

will just push the button there, that will turn the mike on. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ZALMAY KHALILZAD, PH.D., 

COUNSELOR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 

Mr. KHALILZAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Ackerman, Mr. Turner. It is a pleasure to be here, and thank you 

7

for the opportunity to testify. I have submitted a longer statement 

for the record, and, with your permission, I will summarize. 

Mr. CHABOT. Yes. Without objection, that will be included in the 

record, the full statement. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. I am delighted to be here with my colleagues, 

particularly General Barno, with whom I had the pleasure of serving in Afghanistan. 

This hearing is about U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan 2014 and beyond. The degree to which the U.S. exceeds in 

achieving key objectives over the next 3 years will determine policy 

options beyond 2014. 

We face a range of possible futures and a corresponding range of 

required adaptations and responses. At one end of the spectrum, 

the U.S. and Afghanistan could conclude a long-term strategic partnership agreement. Pakistan could support an Afghan agreement 

and bringing U.S.-Afghan relations, as well as U.S.-Pakistan relations, more in alignment. And the Afghan Government could make 

progress on governance issues. In such a scenario the U.S. role 

could shift to toward sustaining an internal Afghan settlement, 

turning the Afghan security force—training the Afghan security 

forces, providing a regional military overwatch against remaining 

al Qaeda and affiliate threats, and promoting Afghan economic development, reducing Pakistan’s reliance on militants to counter regional rivals, and assisting it in establishing enduring reserves of 

strategic strength to pursue its legitimate interests and compete, 

and regional economic integration. 

In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. would assist in 

strengthening democratic institutions and accountable government. 

The U.S. in such a scenario would be able to reduce its military 

presence in Afghanistan without assuming a significant increase in 

risk. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Pakistan could continue to support the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Afghan Government could 

remain on a path of denial regarding governance issues, and reconciliation efforts with the Taliban are unsuccessful. 

In such a scenario, the U.S. would need to consider a strategy 

of isolation and containment against Pakistan. Containment would 

require a larger residual U.S. force, and Afghan forces would need 

to be bolstered to withstand Pakistan’s possible escalation of pressure. 

But sustaining such a posture will be difficult if the Afghan Government continues its refusal to deal seriously with issues such as 

corruption and rule of law. Proceeding with a major withdrawal of 

U.S. troops in such a scenario would likely worsen the situation in 

Afghanistan, especially if other responsible regional powers such as 

India do not compensate for the U.S. withdrawal. 

Of course, there are a number of potential scenarios in between 

the two that I mentioned. The U.S., in my judgment, can increase 

the likelihood of a positive scenario in 2014 by taking two steps 

now. First, we should implement a two-stage policy to induce Pakistan to support a reasonable Afghan settlement. Stage one would 

consist of a high-level U.S.-Afghan effort with Pakistan to determine its legitimate interests in Afghanistan. 

8

Afghanistan and Pakistan should not be a source of security 

problems for each other. As part of a settlement, Pakistan would 

need to end its military support for the insurgents and use its influence to bring insurgent groups to the negotiating table for reconciliation. 

Since changing the Pakistani posture and getting to an Afghan 

settlement will be difficult, no doubt, the U.S. can increase prospects for positive movement by complementing its own bilateral efforts with each of these two countries by engaging other big power 

stakeholders in Afghanistan’s stability—China, India, Russia, European and Asian allies, and a number of regional states—and developing a joint approach to an Afghan settlement. 

If Islamabad refuses to cooperate, Washington will need to consider escalating pressure in stage 2 by dramatically reducing military assistance, curtailing and imposing additional conditions on 

support programs to Pakistan through international financial institutions such as IMF, increasing military operations against the 

Haqqani network and irreconcilable Taliban in Pakistan, reaching 

out to Taliban willing to reconcile without coordinating such effort 

with Pakistan, and decreasing reliance on Pakistan by expanding 

the northern corridor to transport goods to Pakistan. 

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Ambassador, I hate to cut you off. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. Can I say one more sentence? 

Mr. CHABOT. Yes. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. In addition, of course, we will have to push the 

Afghan Government to tackle governance issues that it has refused 

to do. In the aftermath of signing a partnership agreement and a 

sharper focus on Pakistan, in my judgment, there will be an opportunity for perhaps decreasing the gap between us and the Afghan 

Government and increasing the room for cooperation. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. We appreciate it. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Khalilzad follows:]

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Mr. CHABOT. We are going to be in recess now where we are 

going to vote. Apparently it is not going to be too long. We only 

have a couple of votes. Thank you. We will be right back. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. CHABOT. Okay. The committee will come back to order once 

again. Sorry for the interruption there. And we are back now from 

votes and ready to go, so we are going to go with General Barno 

now. And, General, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL DAVID W. BARNO, 

SENIOR ADVISOR AND SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR A NEW 

AMERICAN SECURITY 

General BARNO. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, thank you 

very much for granting us all the opportunity to testify today. I am 

certainly honored to be in this distinguished group of long-term 

friends here, especially Ambassador Khalilzad, who spent 19 

months together with me in Kabul here some years back. So I look 

forward to our opportunity to talk today. 

Over the last several years, I have had a number of chances to 

speak in front of this committee and others in the House and Senate about Afghanistan. I recently returned from a 7-day trip to Afghanistan and so have some current outlook based upon traveling 

around the country that I will try and share portions of in my 

opening statement and other aspects in my written report. 

I also have two sons that are Army captains in the U.S. Army, 

and both have served in Afghanistan and will continue to serve 

there as our presence is sustained in the coming years. So I have 

got a family connection and a lot of equity in the Afghan project 

for many years to come. 

This report in my written testimony is drawn just from my justcompleted trip to Afghanistan. I also traveled to Pakistan earlier 

this year and have some insights from that. 

I would start by making the larger strategic point, perhaps, 

about our presence in Afghanistan, and that is that the United 

States continues to have vital national security interests at stake 

in South and Central Asia, and these interests transcend our current presence and our current military activities in Afghanistan 

itself. 

The vital importance of protecting these interests must not become obscured by too narrow a focus on Afghanistan or our impending drawdown. In fact, I would argue that our drawdown must 

be shaped with the ultimate protection of our long-term vital interests first in mind. 

I had identified three vital U.S. security interests that should 

dominate our thinking as we continue to adjust our force presence 

in Afghanistan. This narrows down what I think we need to do and 

protect in the region. First, we need to prevent the region’s use—

and the region, I would say here, would include Afghanistan, Pakistan, surrounding states—prevent the region’s use as a base for 

terror groups to attack the United States or our allies, avoiding a 

repeat of another 9/11. 

Secondly, I think we need to ensure that nuclear weapons in the 

region do not fall into the hands of terrorists or otherwise proliferate. And this takes us clearly to Pakistan. 

15

And, third, I think we have an interest, a vital interest, in preventing a nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan. 

Protecting these vital U.S. interests in the coming years must be 

the ultimate objective of our upcoming transition in Afghanistan. 

If the outcome of our transition and drawdown puts these vital 

U.S. interests at risk, we will have failed entirely in our mission 

in Afghanistan, one that has cost the United States over 1,300 

lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and 10 years of great sacrifice. 

So a few observations, perhaps, from my recent trip. First, on 

success, it is unclear, traveling around Afghanistan, visiting with 

many American units and American diplomats over the last week 

or so—it is relatively unclear that the U.S. or the international 

community has a precise or clear definition of the end state of the 

conflict, one which equals success. 

There are many outlooks on where we are going, what is Afghan 

good enough, what is acceptable or unacceptable in terms of the 

outcomes, but this lack of an agreed-upon definition of success, and 

also an agreed-upon long-term U.S. presence, undercuts our aims 

and our claims of an enduring commitment to Afghanistan and to 

the region. 

There is deep uncertainty about the long-term seriousness of the 

U.S. commitment, and that colors every aspect of our involvement 

and distorts the judgments of our friends and foes alike. Signing 

this strategic partnership agreement is extraordinarily important. 

Secondly, on sustainability, nearly all U.S. commanders recognize that the significant success that has been achieved over the 

last 18 months is fragile and reversible. Unspoken often is the reality that these gains that have been achieved at significant cost 

in blood and treasure by the United States ultimately have to be 

sustained by Afghan security forces. While there is an energetic 

program in place to recruit, train and organize these forces, I found 

less evidence of a structure and an organization designed to advise 

and assist these forces in combat as the U.S. begins to draw down 

its combat presence in Afghanistan. 

Today most of the counterinsurgency fight is taken on by American units without the Afghan forces playing a central role. I think 

that needs to change in the coming years, and we need to focus on 

preparing the Afghans and getting them into the fight, reorganizing our military effort to do that. 

Finally, on troop morale, 10 years into a very hard fight, the U.S. 

military that is deployed in Afghanistan, Army, Marines, Air Force, 

Navy, is a superbly trained and well-led force. Their morale is 

high, and they continue to take the fight to the enemy aggressively 

every day. They are arguably the most militarily proficient units 

we have ever fielded, aggressive, focused, tactically skilled, agile 

and immensely professional. 

All Americans should be proud of these young men and women. 

They deserve our full support and undimmed admiration for as 

long as we ask them to sustain this very tough fight. They are true 

American heroes. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, General. Thank you for your 

service and your sons as well. 

[The prepared statement of General Barno follows:]

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Mr. CHABOT. Dr. Tellis, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ASHLEY J. TELLIS, PH.D., SENIOR ASSOCIATE, 

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

Mr. TELLIS. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, thank you for 

inviting us to testify this afternoon on the administration’s policy 

toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. I have submitted a longer statement, and I request that to be entered into the Record. 

Mr. CHABOT. Yes. Without objection, the full statement will be 

entered into the record. 

Mr. TELLIS. I will focus my oral remarks right now on the specific issue of the challenges facing the administration’s strategy. As 

you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement, the administration’s strategy is shaped by the realities of the security 

transition, which are coming in 2014. 

As best one can tell today, the transition will be completed on 

schedule. But whether it will be a successful transition is an entirely different matter. I think there are two reasons to suspect the 

success of this transition. First, even though Afghan National Security Forces have made remarkable progress in recent years, they 

are still not up to the task of independently being able to protect 

their country against internal and external threats. And second, 

President Obama’s decision to withdraw the surge troops in 2012 

rather than after denies U.S. commanders the opportunity to further decimate the Taliban, especially in the east, before the security transition takes place. 

These two facts, taken together, create an enormous conundrum 

for the success of the transition. And the administration has attempted to bridge the gap between what is required and what is 

available by focusing its resources on reconciliation with the 

Taliban. Reconciliation with the Taliban is a sensible strategy in 

principle, but it faces enormous obstacles to success in practice. For 

starters, it is not clear whether the Taliban have a genuine interest 

in reconciliation. They also do not believe that they have been decisively defeated by the United States at this point in time, and they 

certainly look to the security transition as heralding the moment 

when the United States will leave the region, thus leaving a weak 

Afghan state behind as easy pickings. 

Furthermore, the fact that the security partnership that we are 

negotiating with Afghanistan is likely to leave a long-term U.S. 

presence will make the Afghan Taliban leadership even more skeptical of accepting a reconciliation on these terms. 

All these issues, however, are manageable in comparison to the 

challenges posed by Pakistan. Pakistan’s commitment to a strategy 

of managed jihadism and its policy of providing sanctuary to the 

Taliban will not change in the near term for the very simple reason 

American objectives and Pakistani objectives are objectively incompatible in Afghanistan. 

What the United States seeks to do is to leave behind an Afghanistan after 2014, a state that is capable, effective and independent. 

What Pakistan wants in Afghanistan after 2014 is an Afghanistan 

that is anything but capable, effective and independent. And for 

Pakistan, the shura, the Haqqani network and all its affiliates are 

25

really instruments for enforcing the subordination of Afghanistan 

to Pakistan over the long term. 

Given this fact, the administration’s reliance on Pakistan to forge 

a reconciliation policy is a dangerous gamble. It is simply not clear 

that Islamabad can come up with a solution that protects its ambitions, while at the same time advancing American and Afghan interests with respect to stability. 

So what does that leave us in terms of what we ought to do? I 

think we ought to continue the efforts of reconciliation and regional 

support for reconciliation, but without any illusions about their 

success. I believe Afghan ownership of this process is critical, and 

the administration ought not to dilute it. 

Second and most important, we ought to recommit strongly to 

hardening the Afghan state, which means comprehensively 

strengthening its state capacity and continuing a commitment to 

fund Afghan National Security Forces over the long term. 

Third, we need to ensure that the strategic partnership reach of 

Afghanistan allows the United States sufficient basing rights to deploy the appropriate mix of air and ground forces both to satisfy 

our long-term counterterrorism objectives, as well as to be able to 

support Afghan National Security Force operations when required. 

In this connection, I would emphasize that we ought to not agree 

to the current Pakistani demand for the cease-fire as a precondition for negotiating with the insurgents. 

Fourth, I would urge the administration to strongly reconsider 

the current withdrawal plan to at least permit the surge force to 

stay in Afghanistan beyond 2012, and I would urge that we continue the expansion of the northern distribution network as a 

hedge against Pakistan’s continued failures. 

Where Pakistan is concerned, I would make simply three points. 

First, we need to clearly terminate all conventional warfighting 

military equipment transfers that are paid for by the taxpayers; we 

ought to review the coalition support funds that are coming to provide to Pakistan; and, third, we ought to support civilian aid only 

if we can get Pakistan to make changes in its own state capacity 

to mobilize domestic resources. 

Thank you for your attention, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Doctor. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tellis follows:]

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Mr. CHABOT. Dr. Fair, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF C. CHRISTINE FAIR, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, EDMUND A. WALSH 

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Ms. FAIR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, esteemed colleagues. I have 

also submitted a written statement I would like to request be entered into the permanent record. 

Mr. CHABOT. Yes. Without objection, it is entered into the record 

in full. 

Ms. FAIR. The last decade has made it very clear the strategic 

interests of the United States and Pakistan are absolutely in opposition. Despite this fact, the United States expanded its military 

posture in Pakistan, which deepened its dependence on Pakistan 

during a period when the latter was ever more determined to undermine U.S. goals there. 

This raises obvious questions about how the United States can 

secure its interests in the region when Pakistan is dedicated to undermining them. In my written statement, I lay out a number of 

possible engagement strategies toward Pakistan in the near and 

medium terms, and I will simply briefly recount them here. 

But I do believe that the year 2014 offers a window to reoptimize 

our position in Afghanistan and forge a more sustainable and effective relationship with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, between now and then, the United States willremain poised on the 

knife’s edge of logistical dependence upon Pakistan. 

However, a logistical transaction is not the basis for a strategic 

relationship. The United States should be practical. It is renting 

access to Pakistan’s air and ground space for its operations in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. There should be no illusions of anything else. 

This does not mean that the United States should disengage in 

the near term; however, while the U.S. repositions itself in Afghanistan, U.S. goals for engaging Pakistan should be modest, as detailed in my written statement. 

Looking to the next 10 years, things are no better. As you well 

know, Pakistan presents a dangerous set of threats to U.S. interests, worse over the coming decade. There are few prospects that 

Pakistan will be less dangerous. 

U.S. dependence upon Pakistan for its Afghan efforts has precluded realistic thinking about how the United States can effectively manage its Pakistan predicament, and, unfortunately, the 

ongoing outrage over Pakistan perfidy, coupled with the global economic crisis, has promoted policymakers to simply propose ceasing 

or stringently conditioning all aid to Pakistan. These urges must 

be resisted. 

However, this does not mean that the United States should continue its decade-long policy of seeking to appease Pakistan and induce its cooperation through large-scale economic and military assistance. This policy has simply failed for years. 

Over 2 years ago I argued that the United States cannot, 

through various inducements that it has tried, persuade Pakistan 

to abandon its strategic use of militants and other noxious policies; 

that it has to move toward reorienting its efforts toward containing 

37

and mitigating the various threats that emanate from Pakistan. 

And I believe that that time has come. And as the Americans begin 

to retract their large-scale counterinsurgency posture in Afghanistan, we need to gather the political fortitude to actually enact 

these steps. 

First, Washington needs to embrace the fundamental transactional nature of its relationship with Pakistan, but expect Pakistan to fully deliver on each transaction. A strategic relationship is 

not possible when our strategic interests diverge, and, in any event, 

Pakistan has repulsed such offers; for example, the two times a 

status of forces agreement has been offered to Pakistan. 

U.S. efforts to elicit changes in Pakistani society through its extended aid, also not likely to fructify. We should try to develop 

democratic institutions only when there is a credible Pakistani 

partner at the other side of the table. 

We should engage the military, but we should treat it like a military. There is no reason why the provision of strategic systems 

should continue when those weapons systems are for India, not for 

its insurgency or terrorism problems. The remaining training and 

weapon systems the U.S. provides should be for counterterrorism 

and COIN activities, and we should treat the military like the military. This means the Secretary of State doesn’t meet the Chief of 

Army Staff. And our goal of engaging the military should not be 

to transform, but, quite frankly, to observe. 

But, most importantly, we need to really think hard about what 

it means to contain the threat that emanates from Pakistan. We 

have considerable tools, and there is no reason why this Congress 

couldn’t make more: Designating persons in the ISI and military 

where there is credible evidence that they have participated in supporting terrorism or nuclear terrorism, denying them and their 

families visas, enforcing current laws, routing out Pakistan counterintelligence efforts in this country. Waivers are always preferable to simply misrepresenting Pakistan’s record in terms of certification requirements, and, in extremis, stating clearly that Pakistan is a state that supports terrorism. This requires political courage which can only be done when our posturing on Afghanistan begins to change. 

In conclusion, we do have to remember that our ultimate goal 

vis-a`-vis Pakistan is that it not become a North Korea, one that is 

removed and disengaged from the international community with no 

incentive to change, so there is a need to engage. There is also a 

need to hold Pakistan accountable for its actions. 

And let me put on the table, perhaps thinking about the relationship that the United States had with the Soviet Union. We had no 

illusions of amity. We stayed involved. We had a diplomatic presence there. We had military ties where appropriate. We cooperated 

where possible with civil society. In the case of Pakistan, this could 

mean modest cooperation on peacekeeping operations, climate 

change, water security, et cetera. But most importantly, we need 

to recognize that our interests clash, and that in the very near and 

continuing future, we will be operating against each other as much 

as we cooperate with each other, and I am going to suggest that 

more of the latter than the former. 

38

So while this is an imperfect paradigm for U.S. relations with 

Pakistan, I think it merits your consideration. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Doctor. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Fair follows:]


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Mr. CHABOT. I want to thank the entire panel now, and we will 

recognize ourselves here back and forth for 5 minutes each, and I 

will recognize myself first for that time. 

In my opening statement I outlined my deep concern over the administration’s announcement of withdrawal by 2014. This strikes 

me as an overly ambitious plan that signals to the entire region 

that, far from being committed, we plan to leave respectively as 

soon as possible. 

Just this morning it was reported in the Wall Street Journal that 

‘‘The Obama administration is exploring a shift in the military’s 

mission in Afghanistan to an advisory role as soon as next year, 

a move that would scale back U.S. combat duties well ahead of 

their scheduled conclusion at the end of 2014.’’

I am astonished at how this is progressing, with no time being 

allotted to test the waters. More to the point, we are doing it with 

an ill-prepared government, an ill-prepared military in their case, 

not ours, obviously, and a government incapable of sustaining its 

economic needs. 

What do you believe will be the likely result of this? And if I 

could give each of you a relatively short period of time, and we will 

just go down the line there, and we will begin with the Ambassador. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I share your concern about the speed of withdrawal; that I think 

giving the surge forces another fighting season that the military 

had suggested would have been a more prudent approach, in my 

judgment. 

I do not know about the announcement, the press announcement 

today, how seriously to take that, whether it is just testing a hypothesis. I don’t think that an approach as contained in the article 

today would advance security in Afghanistan. It will have the opposite effect, because as long as insurgency continues and is getting 

support from Pakistan, we would be accepting a much larger risk 

should we pursue that option as described in the article. 

I do want to say one other thing, Mr. Chairman, with regard to 

withdrawal. As I understand it, we are committed—the administration has said it is committed to a strategic partnership agreement 

beyond 2014; that the leadership in terms of responsibility for security will transfer to the Afghans, and there will be some reduction, 

a significant reduction perhaps, by U.S. forces. 

But as to how much forces will stay to pursue objectives with regard to Afghanistan and in the region, that is being discussed and 

negotiated. My own judgment is that it will have to be a relatively 

robust presence for some time to come beyond 2014, and that is my 

understanding that that is what the administration is committed 

to. And I think that would be prudent, and the sooner we conclude 

that agreement, the better. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

General, are you particularly concerned about the potential lack 

of a fighting season next year? 

General BARNO. No, and I think there is actually some merit in 

this idea, and let me explain why. The size of the force as it steps 

50

down will remain the same. What will change potentially is the 

mission assigned the force. 

One of the things that struck me and surprised me in my visit 

last week in Afghanistan was that American forces are prosecuting 

the counterinsurgency fight with American infantry battalions in 

the lead. We are prepared to keep American battalions in the lead 

for a long time. 

I think a change of mission to security force assistance over the 

next year or so, perhaps beginning next summer, next fall, to make 

that remaining military force we have there, which is going to be 

at least 68,000 troops, focus on preparing the Afghans and helping 

to advise the Afghans and enable them in this fight is the way to 

go. I think we would rather find out that the Afghans are unable 

to do this while we have a large force there, relatively speaking, 

with 68,000 than to kick this can down the road and let Americans 

take on full responsibility until very late in the game. 

The last point I would make, Mr. Chairman, as Ambassador 

Khalilzad noted, the 2014 date is not a withdrawal to a zero number. The end of 2014 is when we transition security lead over to 

the Afghan forces. The residual force for the Americans there at 

that point is undetermined. 

I personally think that force needs to be 25- to 35,000 Americans 

who do counterterrorism on the one side and also provide advisers 

and support for the Afghan forces that continue the 

counterinsurgency fight. That shuts the light at the end of the 

Taliban’s tunnel if that happens. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

I yield myself an additional 2 minutes, if it is okay, so I can give 

1 minute to Dr. Tellis and Dr. Fair. 

Dr. Tellis. 

Mr. TELLIS. I think the shift to an advisory role, if the report is 

true, is acceptable if that does not come at the cost of precluding 

combat. That is, the U.S. must be willing to stay involved in combat operations. 

Mr. CHABOT. And I think the general is nodding in agreement 

there;is that correct, General? And so is the Ambassador. Okay. 

Mr. TELLIS. The other point I would make, though, is if we go 

in this direction, it will have to be packaged carefully, because the 

region will draw very different conclusions from the conclusions 

being drawn in this panel. They will see this as the first step toward disengagement and will act accordingly. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much, Dr. Tellis. 

Dr. Fair. 

Ms. FAIR. I very much agree with what General Barno has said, 

although I certainly share Dr. Tellis’ concerns about messaging. 

But let me just say very clearly we haven’t had a Pakistan strategy, and I am very dubious that even if we were to defeat a 

Taliban 3.0, that as long as Pakistan is dedicated to erecting an 

order which is fundamentally orthogonal to our own, no matter 

what we do, at some point when we retract our position to a more 

normalized relationship with Afghanistan, Pakistan is simply going 

to continue doing what it has always done, which is supporting violent nonstate actors, which it hopes will act on its behalf. 

51

So it would be a genuine travesty if after all of this investment 

of lives and capital, American, Afghan and international, to simply 

throw it away because we have failed to put together a workable 

Pakistan strategy that makes any Afghan strategy functional. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. 

And the gentleman from New York is recognized for 7 minutes 

so that we can make it even. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. That is okay, Mr. Chairman. 

It seems to me that unless you set a deadline, nothing ever ends. 

If we didn’t have a date that session ended in Congress, we would 

never get anything done. And it seems to me that I can’t remember 

a year where 70 percent of the business of 2 years didn’t take place 

in the last 10 weeks, and most of it toward the end of that. 

How would that work if we didn’t have a deadline in withdrawal? 

And if we say we should extend the time, what do we extend it to? 

And when that runs out, what do we do then? I will ask a different 

question if I have to. 

General BARNO. Well, let me take a stab at that, if I could. 

I think 1 year ago I would have said setting a deadline and identifying October 2012 as the end of the surge period would have 

been very unhelpful. After coming back from Afghanistan on this 

recent trip, I think it has had value in sharpening the focus of the 

command to determine what are the essential tasks that have to 

be done, where do those troops need to be, and how do we start 

thinking about getting the Afghans into the lead. 

And so I actually return with a view that we need to continue 

to sharpen that focus, and that the force itself needs to be changed, 

and this may entail this mission change we talked about to hardening the Afghan state that includes the government, but it also 

includes making sure those Afghan security forces are hardened 

with American advisers, with American capabilities, and get into 

the fight and demonstrate their capabilities. 

I think there is value in the end of 2014 as the ‘‘deadline’’ for 

the transition of the security lead, because, as you point out, it 

forces everyone to move toward that objective. But I don’t think it 

should be the deadline for the American military commitment in 

Afghanistan. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. I agree, Congressman Ackerman, with the importance of having targets and timelines. I completely agree with 

that. But I want to complement what General Barno has said on 

the hardening of Afghanistan with the point that we—part of the 

hardening has got to be political with the Afghan Government. And 

we will talk about the Pakistan dimension of the problem we face, 

but there is an Afghan Government dimension that deals with 

issues of rule of law and governance. 

But if it doesn’t, the gap between the government and the people 

will grow, and the military, no matter how much we build this, ultimately will not be sufficient to establish the kind of Afghan state, 

the vision, that I think General Barno or my friend Dr. Tellis described. 

So that track, the Pakistan dimension, what we do, what the Afghans do, is extremely important. And, unfortunately, in more recent years, we have not been as able to get the Afghan Government 

to perform as well as it must for the objectives to be realized. 

52

Mr. TELLIS. If I may——

Mr. ACKERMAN. Dr. Tellis. 

Mr. TELLIS [continuing]. Just respond to that, too? I take your 

point that the deadline affects us in certain ways, and maybe in 

welcome ways. It provides focus to our campaign and forces us to 

do things smartly when we otherwise may not have. But we also 

have to recognize there are other groups there, the different objectives and different incentives. And for an adversary like the 

Taliban, what the deadline has done is simply given them room to 

hope that they can run down the clock, not to engage in serious negotiations with the government, with Afghanistan or with the coalition; to simply hold back their resources in the expectation that the 

real fight will come not before 2014, but after. So that is, you know, 

one of the consequences that we also have to keep in mind. 

Now, we can mitigate this if we had a clearer vision of what the 

post-2014 U.S. presence in Afghanistan would look like. What is 

the force structure we intend to leave behind? What are the objectives to which these forces will be committed to, and what is the 

extent of our commitment to supporting the Government of Afghanistan in combat operations as required? 

If these three other pieces of the puzzle are made more transparent, when the deadline was announced, then the downside with 

respect to perverse incentives with the Taliban could have been 

mitigated. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me ask a bigger-picture question. What 

should our aid package look like in Pakistan? What is essential? 

What is not essential? Dr. Fair. 

Ms. FAIR. So I am a big skeptic of USAID in Pakistan. And just 

more generally, it is not really clear that USAID business model 

really works. Many of the things that USAID have tried to do have 

actually just been totally inappropriate. Things like curriculum reform, educational systems are deeply sensitive national issues. 

And the worst thing is that USAID, for example, puts a budgetary amount on the table. It doesn’t expect the Pakistanis to put 

an equivalent amount. All Pakistan does is simply shift the monies 

available to another account. We have no way, given our security 

posture, to actually make sure that those monies go where they 

need to go. 

Holbrooke, of course, tried to change the paradigm by moving 

away from these institutional contractors where there were layers 

of overhead, whereby much of the funds actually came back here 

and tried to move toward Pakistani NGOs. But anyone who actually knows Pakistan well knows that apart from the government 

itself, Pakistanis hold NGOs to be even more unaccountable and 

dubious. So we went from one bad but well-characterized model to 

a model that wasn’t terribly workable. 

So, you know, I think some of the fundamental things we have 

tried to do have really been misguided. I think that there is an urgent need to do things like infrastructure. You can see from Pakistan’s flooding that the dam infrastructure that it has is really no 

longer appropriate, given the changing in the monsoon patterns. 

There is an urgent need for electricity, for roads. Road building is 

really important. But these are projects that can be actually executed. We can oversee some degree of quality. 

53

But, most importantly, this notion of USAID as a tool of 

counterinsurgency or counterterrorism, that USAID will make 

Pakistanis dislike us less and be more inclined to not support terrorism, there is no evidence for it, and it creates expectations that 

the United States simply can’t meet. 

So I am a big fan in Pakistan of doing away with these transformational goals and doing more with less. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman is recognized for an additional 2 

minutes, and then, unfortunately, he is going to have to leave, and 

I have got you all to myself. So I will let the gentleman go ahead 

here. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. And then you will really be in trouble. 

What about on the military side, do they need F–16s? 

Mr. TELLIS. What they need more than anything else is counterterrorism assistance. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Why are we giving them F–16s? 

Mr. TELLIS. I don’t know the answer to that, Congressman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I picked the wrong panel, probably, unless someone thinks they need that. 

Mr. TELLIS. I don’t think anyone can make the case that F–16s 

actually help Pakistan’s counterinsurgency exchange. 

General BARNO. I think militarily, though, the F–16 is not the 

weapon of choice for a counterinsurgency campaign and not terribly 

helpful for counterterrorism. They do need a helicopter lift. They 

do need training in which they are resistant to in terms of how to 

conduct counterinsurgency operations. And I think the intelligence 

cooperation continues to be an important area where our interests 

do overlap, particularly regarding al Qaeda, and I think continuing 

that would be wise. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Dr. Fair, you had said treat the Army, treat the 

military as the military, and the Secretary of State shouldn’t be 

meeting with General Kayani; she should be meeting instead with 

Mr. Gilani. Who is running the country? Who is deciding the policy 

and foreign policy? 

Ms. FAIR. You know, so there is a—I understand the compulsion 

to do one-stop shopping with the actual power center, but this idea 

just because we meet General Kayani or even General Pasha that 

somehow we are getting a more honest, transparent interaction is 

simply flawed. And, in fact, what we do is continue to bolster the 

political status of the military. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. But who is making the decisions? 

Ms. FAIR. Well, obviously on most issues of foreign policy that we 

care about vis-a`-vis India, it is going to be the Army chief. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If the Secretary of State doesn’t meet with the 

military, I don’t think that is going to make them decide that the 

military shouldn’t be making the decisions that a normalized kind 

of government——

Ms. FAIR. No, but it is about signaling the Pakistanis. And I have 

been going to Pakistan now for almost 20 years, and it is a perennial irritant to Pakistanis that Americans say that we support democracy and so forth, but if you actually look at our history, we 

supported the military. 

54

And let us be very clear about the F–16 canard. We didn’t give 

them the F–16s because we thought it would enhance their counterterrorism or their counterinsurgency capabilities. We did it to 

placate Musharraf, we did it to placate Kayani, and it hasn’t gotten 

us anywhere. 

If the Pakistanis want helicopters, they can buy helicopters. So 

far what they have wanted are weapon systems that can deal more 

effectively with India and have very little utility for their domestic 

threat. And we have—quite frankly, in our efforts to placate GHQ 

and to continue making the Director General of the ISI happy, we 

continue to go this path, and it completely undermines our regional 

interests in every possible way be it democratization of Pakistan, 

be it regional stability vis-a`-vis India and Pakistan. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Dr. Tellis—if I could just go one question, and then I am going 

to let you go. You had mentioned the term ‘‘managed jihadism’’ in 

your statement. Could you define that term and maybe expound 

upon it a bit? And what is your opinion about its chances for success and its implications? 

Mr. TELLIS. I think of managed jihadism as the Pakistani strategy of supporting some terrorist groups by fighting other terrorist 

groups simultaneously. In effect, Pakistan’s strategy since 2001 has 

been a highly differentiated counterterrorism strategy. They have 

identified groups that threaten the Pakistani state, and they have 

gone after them with a great deal of energy and concentration, and 

they have solicited assistance from the United States in support of 

that campaign. But even as they do so, they have been quite liberal 

in continuing assistance and support to other terrorist groups that 

don’t necessarily threaten the Pakistani state, but threaten Afghanistan, threaten India and, by extension, threaten the United 

States. And they believe that they are able to, in a sense, manage 

the contradiction in this policy quite well. That is, as long as the 

threats that they sustain don’t ricochet, don’t come back to haunt 

them, they think the policy serves its purpose. It keeps India on 

a tight leash, it keeps Afghanistan deferential to Pakistan, and it 

keeps the United States in a continuing payoff mode trying to bribe 

Pakistan to do the right thing. 

Mr. CHABOT. Doctor, in that, I guess, double game they are playing, the implications for, say, U.S. lives, especially our troops on 

the ground, that doesn’t seem to be a particular concern to them 

in this effort. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. TELLIS. I think they have—I think it is of concern. They have 

made the calculation, and they find that the strategy still serves 

their interests. That is, even though the end result of the strategy 

is that U.S. troops are threatened, they believe that Pakistan is so 

important that the United States will simply not call their bluff, 

will simply not call them on the impact of the strategy. And if you 

look at the record over the last 10 years, I regret to say that they 

have turned out to be right. 

Mr. CHABOT. Dr. Fair and Ambassador Khalilzad, I saw you kind 

of nodding your heads and chomping at the bit there, so I will go 

to both of you, if I could, and then I am going to go to the gentleman from Virginia here. 

So, Dr. Fair. 

55

Ms. FAIR. I really want to expand upon what Dr. Tellis has said. 

Let me give you a really good example of their coldhearted calculation that they can get away with this impunity. Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, 

the group we have already heard about that did the 2008 massacre, 

so they have been attacking our troops in Afghanistan since at 

least 2006, and probably, according to my interlocutors, maybe as 

early as 2004. And we have done very little, if anything, about it. 

And I have been raising this publicly. 

Another problem with their strategy—actually our understanding 

of their strategy is that many of the militant groups serve important domestic purposes for Pakistan. So, for example, Lashkar-eTayyiba, I have written a piece recently in Survival where I lay out 

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba’s important domestic strategy and the importance of Lashkar to the ISI. Even groups that they are going after 

decisively, they are ultimately strained because particularly the 

Daobandi groups, they have these overlapping networks, which 

means that part of those networks are in the Punjab, and as long 

as they stay in the Punjab, i.e., useful to kill Indians, they won’t 

go in and root them out. But those Punjab-based groups are actually some of the most lethal parts of the Pakistan Taliban. 

Very finally, the Pakistanis, I think, deliberately take advantage 

of the confusion between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan 

Taliban. They will say, we have lost X thousand troops fighting 

them, we have lost 35,000 Pakistani lives. I want to point out to 

you that the Pakistan Taliban itself is—in the same way Afghan 

Taliban are not coherent, there are actually some Pakistan Taliban 

commanders that are allies of the Pakistan state because they have 

agreed to not target the Pakistani state, but target us. Twentythree billion dollars later, this is where we are. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Doctor. 

And, Dr. Khalilzad. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. Mr. Chairman, I accept and agree with the notion that Pakistan has a differentiated approach, supporting some, 

opposing others. I also believe that Pakistan’s strategy and policy 

can be affected. We have not been as focused on affecting their support for insurgency as we have become more recently. I think it has 

been only in the last few months where we have really been sharply focused on it. And we have shown over the past many years that 

we—as long as we got cooperation on al Qaeda, we did not press 

them very hard and didn’t make them pay a high price for supporting insurgency in Afghanistan. 

And so I don’t want to say that the support for managed 

jihadism, as Dr. Tellis mentioned, is—independent of calculation, 

that it can’t be influenced, it can’t be shaped, and that is why I believe that we—as we increase the cost or as we—the message that 

the cost will grow for them out of this difficult time for us to do 

it as we—they think we are on our way out, but with an end point, 

as we described earlier, that there will be forces beyond 2014, and 

with the determination that we will impose costs if they don’t 

change, and a willingness that we are willing to accept legitimate 

Pakistan interests be respected in Afghanistan, we may have a 

chance for something that may be acceptable to all sides to take 

place there. 

56

And I think this is the challenge for our diplomacy to orchestrate 

the set of pressures on both ourselves and, more broadly, with 

other big stakeholders in that region to incentivize Pakistan to accept a reasonable settlement that respects that interest. If they 

don’t, then the cost will be quite significant for them. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you very much. 

General, let me conclude here with a final question, if you don’t 

mind. In light of what has been said here about the confusing landscape of this, how frustrating is it for our military personnel or 

men and women on the ground when you are not quite clear who 

your friends and allies are, and who the enemy is, and that sort 

of thing? 

General BARNO. Well, I think those military forces that are up 

against the Pakistani border have great frustration with—and this 

is particularly true in Eastern Afghanistan—with what they see of 

enemy elements coming across that border with impunity and attacking them inside of Afghanistan. And there have been numerous 

press reports. I heard reports while I was in Afghanistan from 

Americans about Taliban forces going right by Frontier Corps units 

from the Pakistani security services on their way in to attack 

Americans in Afghanistan. 

And, of course, the border is certainly more respected by our 

forces than it is by the Taliban, and so we do have some restrictions on our ability to engage across that border even if we have 

known targets there, known threats to Americans. That gets into 

the details of the rules of engagement, which we can’t discuss in 

the open forum here, but it is very frustrating and very difficult, 

and it puts our forces in the east along the border in many cases 

at a tactical disadvantage. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

And the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Virginia is recognized. And then we will wrap it up, because I have to meet with 

the Parliamentarians from Afghanistan who were here before. So 

the gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Tellis, how would you characterize the relationship between 

the Government of Pakistan or elements of the Government of 

Pakistan and the Haqqani network? 

Mr. TELLIS. I think the Haqqani network for years has been supported by the ISI. It still continues to be supported by the ISI. And 

I do not see at this juncture why the ISI would retrench that support given the perception that there is going to be a security transition in Afghanistan. I think Admiral Mullen’s characterization of 

the relationship between the Haqqanis and the ISI was absolutely 

on the mark. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Dr. Fair, what Dr. Tellis just described, if accurate, is antithetical to U.S. interests in the region; is it not? 

Ms. FAIR. It absolutely is. I think one has to understand why 

Pakistan hangs onto these groups. This is probably where I get accused of being too soft on Pakistan, ironically. From Pakistan’s 

optic over the last 10 years—and obviously Haqqani, we worked 

with them in the 1980s, and the Pakistanis make a lot of hay over 

that. But this is not the Haqqani. They are no longer working with 

us; they are working against us. But from the Pakistani point of 

57

view, their regional concerns have actually been injured over the 

course of the last 10 years. 

Many of Pakistan’s concerns stem from India in Afghanistan. 

Now, we can debate whether or not it is empirically defensible, but 

that is how they do see the world. And the Haqqani network, 

though they don’t control a lot of real estate in Afghanistan, they 

are very effective tools that they have used to kill Indians and obviously also to kill us. 

So you sort of dilate upon what Dr. Tellis said. When we understand the strategic motivations of Pakistan, this is why I am very 

cynical about our ability to succeed in Afghanistan, because Pakistan actually has more will to stay the course than we do. Pakistan 

sees more strategic interests at stake in Afghanistan than we do. 

So it is out of a really serious plan to put more pressure on Pakistan to cease supporting these terrorist groups. I don’t know what 

it means to succeed in Afghanistan even if that is possible. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Do you believe that the Pakistanis believe that 

the relationship with the United States has strategic value? 

Ms. FAIR. I do not, in some very serious sense. I think what the 

Pakistanis have become very accustomed to is taking advantage of 

historical events, and this has been true of every single period of 

engaging them; of saying that they support our strategic interests, 

while taking advantage of our cupidity, our gullibility, to take the 

massive aid that they get in each of those periods and funnel it into 

systems that really target their security interests, which have always been and always will be Indiacentric. And I believe that is 

how the Pakistani establishment sees it. 

I think we have been fools in trying to think that we can have 

a strategic relationship when our strategic interests differ. What 

they want is the goods without the obligation, and that is firmly 

what I believe. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I used to work up here during the Cold War. The 

relationship then was undergirded by the fact that the Indians tilted toward the Soviets, and the Pakistanis tilted toward us in the 

West. So one could at least explain away some aspects of the relationship, including our willingness to turn the other way on the 

proliferation issue at the time in the 1980s because of that Cold 

War metric. 

But that is all gone, and India has in many ways become transformed, and the relationship between India and the United States 

is warming by the day at almost every level. And so how does that 

change the relationship you have just described? It seems to me the 

United States has some other options in the region, the fact that 

Pakistan is a nuclear power notwithstanding. 

Ms. FAIR. Okay. So I think we can actually go back with the luxury of time and reread the Cold War history. The Pakistanis took 

advantage of our assistance to massively build up their armed 

forces, which had really—they didn’t really inherent a full complement during partition. So in some sense the Pakistani motivation, they said, we are doing this for you. 

Even their Afghan policy—I really would like to point this out—

they had developed essentially the seven militant groups by the 

mid-1970s under the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. By the time the Soviets 

had crossed the Amu Darya, they already had those groups into 

58

play. So in some sense what the Pakistanis got from us was the 

ability to amplify the policies in the region that they had already 

wanted to pursue. 

But I think your question about our relationship with India, this 

is something else we have to understand about Pakistan. They see 

our relationship with India, and indeed we basically said India is 

not only the regional power, it is a rising global power of significant 

consequence. What Pakistan sees in that is that we expect them to 

acquiesce to Indian hegemony. So Pakistan’s interests vis-a`-vis 

India no longer simply center around Kashmir, it centers around 

resisting India’s rise. Pakistan can’t change that fact militarily; no 

one diplomatically in the world, with the exception of possibly the 

Chinese, although they are kind of a declining asset from some 

sense. The only tool Pakistan has is militancy, and this means 

Pakistan becomes more dangerous, not less. And that is why we 

have to find some way of productively engaging Pakistan while also 

holding it accountable. 

Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman’s time is expired. 

I want to thank the panel very much for their insight. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t see you over there Dana. 

I still want to thank you, but we will thank you for real in a 

minute here. We will recognize the gentleman from California, the 

ranking subcommittee chairman here, the gentleman from California, Mr. Dana Rohrabacher 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, we will see if you still thank them after 

I get done. 

Hey, Zal, good to see you. Good to see all of you. Some of us go 

back a long way. Well, it has been all this time, Zal. Did you make 

some mistakes; was that it? Is this all your fault? I mean, we 

ended up—you were the guiding light when we set this thing in 

motion, and now it is all screwed up. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. Well, I don’t know if this is a moment of selfflagellation or not. I am not known for that. 

Well, I believe more seriously that during the period that I had 

the honor of representing the United States in Afghanistan, that 

is what we are talking about, and I had General Barno with me, 

and I don’t want them by saying he was with me that he should 

do self-flagellation as well. I thought we were doing very well, in 

my judgment. We liberated Afghanistan with very few Americans 

on the ground. We were very popular when we got there. Rather 

than governing Afghanistan, we catalyzed an agreement among 

them for a government. That government was a vast improvement 

over what they had before. An election, the Constitution, girls 

going to school and all that that you know. 

But I think there are two issues on which we didn’t do as well 

as we might have. One I believe they should be spending a lot of 

time on today, which is the sanctuary that was being developed in 

Pakistan for the Taliban and the other insurgents. We did not succeed with the effort that we made to bring that change about, although I remember that we did establish a trilateral commission, 

and that I was pressing very hard in Washington that we needed 

a mechanism to change parts of the situation in Pakistan. And one 

mechanism that we came about, and General Barno was actually 

59

the chair of that, to bring Afghans, Pakistanis and us together to 

deal with this issue. But I think it is fair to say that our level of 

effort and what we tried did not produce the results we were seeking. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the number one thing you could point to 

was the fact that we did not pay attention to the sanctuaries? 

Mr. KHALILZAD. In time. 

The second issue, I believe it is in relation to Afghanistan. One, 

I think we initially underinvested in the Afghan security force 

buildup because we thought Afghanistan being poor, that we didn’t 

want to plan for a big force that they couldn’t support themselves. 

And so, therefore, we were planning for a small force, and only in 

later years did that change. 

And second, I think that a working relationship, the trust relationship, that we had with the Afghan Government, which is related and a key issue for working together, has been undermined 

in more recent years. It is true that there is a huge—has been in 

recent years a great trust deficit between us and the Afghan leadership. And in combination, I think, of the Pakistan factor, the Afghan institutions, those two related, if the Pakistani issue had 

been dealt with, perhaps we wouldn’t need as big an Afghan security force as we do now and the Afghan Government trust issue 

have been a factor. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let us get back to your point. You are suggesting we underinvested in the security buildup. And let me suggest there are those of us, as you are well aware, that think that 

the strategy of a centralized defense buildup was the wrong strategy to begin with. And I remember when General Dostum, and the 

Tajiks, and the Uzbeks and our warlords in the north who would 

help defeat the Taliban were disarmed, and instead we went with 

General Wardak to create a national force. Was that not the wrong 

decision? Should we have kept the traditional militia system as the 

basis for Afghan defense against the Taliban rather than trying to 

create a central force? 

Mr. KHALILZAD. I know that you and I have had some of these 

issues. We have discussed them before. But let me say that at that 

time, the challenge that Afghanistan faced given the anarchy of the 

1990s, the fear that existed was a return to warlordism as it was 

described and a civil war situation that then led to the rise of the 

Taliban. And what the Afghans were looking for was with nostalgia 

to a period of——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. When the King was there, my guy. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. The King. And there were central institutions, a 

national army and other insurgents, and therefore they wanted to 

go to do that again. And as in many such postconflict situations, 

there was an effort to DDR—decommission, demobilize and reintegrate—the regional forces what helped us overthrow the 

Taliban into the central institutions. It was not that Afghanistan 

had suffered from having too much of a state, that, therefore, they 

wanted the decentralized approach. And as you know, I went to 

Iraq, as the chairman said, from Afghanistan, and there they had 

suffered under a very centralized state, and they wanted very 

much what—a Federal state. But Afghanistan had the opposite experience. 

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So we could argue about this. I mean, maybe honorable people 

could differ on it. But that was the circumstances of that time to 

which we were responding. We didn’t go with a cookie-cutter approach that we liberated Iraq, they should have this, and we liberated Afghanistan, they should have that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think the point you make that honorable 

people of intelligence can disagree——

Mr. KHALILZAD. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. Is an important point. And I do 

disagree and have disagreed with some of the things, but I have 

enjoyed our sparring over a decade. 

Mr. KHALILZAD. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

The gentleman’s time has expired. 

We now will thank the panel effusively for the tremendous testimony. I think you have all done a very good job this afternoon. It 

has been of considerable help. We will pass on the information that 

we learn, and our staffs will, to our colleagues who were unable to 

be here this afternoon, but are here in spirit. So thank you all for 

coming. 

If there is no further business to come before the committee, we 

are adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 3:54 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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