The Afghan/Pakistan Border -- What's Next

Soldiers from Bravo Company, Special Troops Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, Task Force Gladius wait for a CH-47 Chinook helicopter at the landing zone at Forward Operating Base Morales-Frasier on Jan. 20, 2008. The Chinook will air lift them into the Surobi District of Afghanistan to protect another CH-47 that made a hard landing there. DoD photo by Sgt. Johnny R. Aragon, U.S Army. (Released)

Six Developments Will Collide On The
Afghan-Pakistan Frontier -- Westhawk

The U.S. government will give Pakistan one more chance to fix its problem with Islamist militants in its frontier tribal areas. But while the U.S. watches to see what the Pakistani government does with that opportunity, the U.S. itself faces a moment of reckoning over its long-term strategy for the region.

That is the conclusion from Sean Naylor’s article in today’s Navy Times. Mr. Naylor is well-connected inside the U.S. special operations community; his article states that the U.S. will suspend direct-action raiding inside Pakistan after receiving a severe backlash from the Pakistani government after a SEAL DevGru raid against a Haqqani network target on September 3rd.

The raid represented “a strategic miscalculation,” the U.S. government official said. “We did not fully appreciate the vehemence of the Pakistani response,” which included the Pakistan government’s implication that it was willing to cut the coalition’s supply lines through Pakistan. “I don’t think we really believed it was going to go to that level,” the government official said.

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My Comment: I could think of a whole bunch of additional developments, but Westhawk nails the most important ones.