The New York Times has two stories today that neatly illustrate the challenges President Obama and his team face in working with our allies, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Afghanistan story reveals that there may well have been a serious discussion about "doing a Diem to Karzai" -- that is, discussion about whether to try to replace Karzai with a more pliant leader. The proponent of this idea was Peter Galbraith, an American who worked on the United Nations team trying to help the Afghan government transition to full, stable democracy. Galbraith is an interesting figure; he was the original author of what became known as the Biden Plan to divide Iraq into 3-parts, and he gained notoriety in recent months for not having revealed an alleged conflict of interest (he stood to make millions of dollars from oil deals in autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq).  

In the story, Galbraith emphasizes that he never actually implemented the plan, though he did apparently try to reach out to Biden's office to persuade the vice president on the matter. The problem, however, was that Galbraith's U.N. bosses were appalled at the proposal, and Karzai got wind of the plan. In short order the United States had to climb down. Karzai is (understandably) angry and suspicious about what he doubtless views to be arrogant and perhaps even imperialist behavior on the part of the Americans. And, as a consequence, our influence over the Kabul government is arguably less than it might otherwise have been.

The Pakistan story has a different lede, but perhaps is of a piece with Afghan story. The stated lede is: Pakistani harassment of U.S. contractors and junior diplomats is undermining the war effort. The implicit link to the other story is: our Pakistani allies believe the United States has been acting in an arrogant, imperialist fashion and, as a consequence, our leverage over them is less than it might otherwise be.

It may strike some as odd that an administration that has taken such pains to present itself as more reasonable and less prone to cowboy diplomacy than its predecessors would find itself in this predicament. The truth is that the Obama and Bush teams held to very different theories about how best to cajole our war allies into more constructive cooperation. The Bush team, belying the cowboy image, believed that we got better results when we pressured beleaguered allies like Karzai or Musharraf in private and offered assurances in public. The Obama team believes that they will get better results if they pressure in private and in public. Moreover, the Obama team feels the need to demonstrate to domestic critics that it really is getting tough on both the Afghan and the Pakistani government.

It is very hard, however, to do that kind of public pressuring without antagonizing the government you are trying to cajole. In the same way, it is very hard to engage in various regime-change plotting without generating similar antagonisms.

That has been part of the AfPak story over the last year and it is part of the reason that the policy results have been mixed.

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A story out of Pakistan today shows that the rhetorical/policy trimming that marred President Obama's Afghan escalation speech has done some damage to the prospects for the policy. The bottom line: the Pakistanis are not doing what we need them to do because they interpreted the escalation-plus-timeline as an indication of Obama's irresolution. Or, as the reporter put it:

The core reason for Pakistan's imperviousness is its scant faith in the Obama troop surge, and what Pakistan sees as the need to position itself for a regional realignment in Afghanistan once American forces begin to leave."

This story provides a timely, if unfortunate, rebuttal to the president's own efforts at post-speech spin control. Obama went on "60 Minutes" on Sunday to offer a vigorous defense of the West Pont speech.

What struck me was this exchange recorded in the transcript:

KROFT: The West Point speech was greeted it was a great deal of confusion.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I disagree with that statement.

KROFT: You do?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I absolutely do. 40 million people watched it. And I think a whole bunch of people understood what we intend to do.

KROFT: But it raised a lot of questions. Some people thought it was contradictory. That's a fair criticism.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I don't think it's a fair criticism. The situation in Afghanistan is complex, and so people who are looking for simple black and white answers won't get them. And the speech wasn't designed to give those black and white answers.

Part of my job here, I believe, is to make sure that the American people understand what we're getting into. What we where we've been and where we're going. And they're not simple. I think that what you may be referring to is the fact that on the one hand I said, "We're gonna be sending in additional troops now." On the other hand, "By July 2011, we're gonna move into a transition phase where we're drawing out troops down."

KROFT: Right.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: There shouldn't be anything confusing about that.

KROFT: Well--

PRESIDENT OBAMA: First of all, that's something that we did in Iraq. And we executed over the last two years in Iraq. So, I think the American people are familiar with the idea of a surge.

In terms of the rationale for doing it, we don't have an Afghan military right now, security force, that can stabilize the country. If we are effective over the next two years, by putting in these additional troops -- clearing enough space and time for the Afghan security forces to get set up in an effective way -- that then frees us up to transition into a place where we can start drawing down.

The alternative is to stand pat where we are, in which you never have a stable Afghan security force. And we are potentially signed up for being in Afghanistan for the next decade.

This is remarkable and a bit scary, because Obama's defense is so fundamentally misleading. It is, if you will forgive the historical reference, a moment when President Obama channels the predecessor he usually avoids talking about, the one who answered a direct question with the memorable line: "It depends on what the meaning of the word is is."

For let's concede at the outset that President Obama, like President Clinton, may be technically correct. Because so many people watched the speech, and even more heard about the speech, it is almost a statistical certainty that "a whole bunch of people understood what [the Obama administration] intended to do," especially if we accept a conventional interpretation of "whole bunch" to be in the hundreds, thousands, or even ten thousands.

But Kroft's leading question is more honest than Obama's response was, because the confusion arising out of Obama's "deadline" was far, far more consequential than the statistical probability that some fraction of the audience got it.  For days after the speech, administration officials offered contradictory clarifications, with Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen clearly suggesting that the deadline was a token target that would not drive the withdrawal schedule and spokesman Gibbs talking about the deadline as "etched in stone."

The policy compromise embodied in the speech and the underlying policy decision was in fact intended to square a number of circles. It was an escalation-with-a-prearranged-deadline-for-beginning-a-withdrawal-but-vagueness-about-how-fast-and-the-conditions-under-which-the-subsequent-withdrawal-would-happen sort of compromise.

It was designed to let administration hawks say we are in this war to win it and administration doves to say that we are not making an open-ended commitment to win this war. 

It was designed to split Obama's opposition so that, as has happened, some Republicans praised the escalation part and other Republicans excoriated the artificial deadline part, and some anti-war Democrats bit their tongues over the escalation and clung bitterly to the artificial deadline while others saw the artificial deadline as a fiction and loudly denounced the escalation.

It was designed to confuse domestic political enemies and it achieved that goal. An unintended consequence was that it also confused international allies, as the Pakistan story makes clear. Reasonable people can debate whether President Obama had better options that were less confusing. Reasonable people can debate whether the benefits of the confusion outweigh the costs of the confusion. Reasonable people will conclude -- and I am one of them -- that on balance the speech and the underlying policy position were worth supporting.

But -- and here is the absolutely crucial part -- no reality-based observer can pretend that the speech and the underlying policy was not confusing. To pretend otherwise is either to peddle absurd spin or, worse, to be so infected with a bunker mentality that one is operating in a bubble.  

As a general rule, I don't like media interpretations that reduce to "the president and the White House team are in a fantasy world bubble." In my experience, that allegation has been leveled many times when I know for a fact that it has been untrue. But if the administration really believes that the "deadline" that is not really a deadline has not produced confusion at home and abroad, then I am hard-pressed to come up with explanations that do not mention bubbles.

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By Will Inboden

President Obama deserves our support for his wise and courageous decision on America's Afghanistan policy. Embracing the counterinsurgency strategy recommended by Generals McChrystal and Petraeus and its corresponding substantial military force increase of 30,000 troops was a laudable act of principle, especially considering the tepid support among the general American public and the outright opposition of most Democrats. As Peter Feaver and many others have observed, Obama's speech itself was rather anemic and an inartful reminder of the political calculations and ambivalence which color his national security policy as he continues to grapple with embracing his role as a wartime president. But when it came to the hard crucible of making the decision, in this vital case he did the right thing.

There are many others who can comment on the details of the new policy and what it might mean for Afghanistan. But almost as important is how the rest of the world will perceive the new policy. In a column last week, Roger Cohen cited an observation by Henry Kissinger that "[Obama] reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games. But he hasn't completed a single game and I'd like to see him finish one." 

While the Afghanistan board is far from complete, in this case the President has made an audacious new move. To pick up on the Kissinger chessboard analogy (and to invoke a favorite geopolitical theme of Kissinger's), the six games are not being played separately but rather are all linked to each other. A move on one board often will carry significant ramifications for the state of play on the other boards, and will send important signals to the opposing players on each board.    

So what are the messages that Obama's speech sends to other important parts of the world, including ones where he has taken new steps?

To the nations of western Europe, the new policy shows a willingness to try to lead public opinion (and not just follow it) for a mission vital to national security, and to make a substantial troop deployment committed to taking the fight to the enemy. In light of the unwillingness thus far of many NATO members to increase their force deployments in Afghanistan, and the reluctance of some to even let their troops engage in combat, this is significant. Since European public opinion still remains largely opposed to the war in Afghanistan but the new strategy calls for another 5,000 NATO troops, President Obama might want to consider deploying his own considerable popularity by making a similar speech in Europe urging more force contributions from NATO members. Perhaps when he travels to Oslo next week to accept his Nobel Peace Prize?

To China, where in the wake of Obama's recent trip the government in Beijing may be questioning his general resolve, the new policy demonstrates an ability to make hard choices that risk his reputation and carry real costs. It also reinforces for Beijing that south and central Asia remain regions of profound strategic interest to the United States. These will be helpful reminders for China as the Obama Administration continues to press it to play a constructive role on other priority issues such as the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.

To Iran, where the Obama administration faces an acute challenge on the nuclear program, the policy demonstrates a willingness to use force if necessary to protect America's security interests. Ironically, it is sometimes just this type of willingness that strengthens diplomatic efforts and renders the use of force itself unnecessary.

To India (from where I write this week), the policy displays a renewed commitment to an American presence in a troubled region, and to finishing hard tasks. But as numerous Indian policy leaders privately said today, the announced date of July 2011 to begin troop withdrawals undercuts this message and renews fears of American fickleness, of the type that led to American disengagement from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990s, with disastrous results. David Ignatius today called this "the weak link in an otherwise admirable decision -- the idea that we strengthen our hand by announcing in advance that we plan to fold it."

To Pakistan, the new policy will hopefully signal to government and citizens alike that the United States is committed to defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda and to the sustained promotion of stable, secure, and free self-government in the region. This should give Pakistanis the additional assurance and incentives they need to make the right choices to side against jihadism and with efforts for reform, development, and responsible governance. Though again, in Pakistani minds these incentives might be mitigated by fears of the July 2011 drawdown date and yet another case of U.S. abandonment. 

The hardest days in Afghanistan lie ahead, and the Obama administration will face grave challenges and choices in many other areas, some known and others unknown. But at this point at least, Obama has decided on a policy that is best for American security interests not only in Afghanistan but in other places around the globe.

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By Daniel Blumenthal

Before President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao released their joint statement, Obama's Asia trip was underwhelming. But after the statement, Obama's foray into Asia went from empty to harmful.

Before Obama arrived in China, the trip's policy successes were minimal at best. He showed up to a major trade forum, APEC, with no trade policy. If, as Evan Feigenbaum has said, the "business of Asia is business," without a trade policy Obama is putting America out of business in the world's most economically dynamic region. And then he was stiffed by Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama's outright rejection of the American proposal for a high-level dialogue to resolve basing issues on Okinawa. Not exactly a sterling performance by the new team.

But then came the joint statement after talks with President Hu. Two items in the statement struck me: one about Taiwan, the other in regard to India.

On Taiwan, the statement says:

The two countries reiterated that the fundamental principle of respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity is at the core of the three U.S.-China joint communiqués which guide U.S.-China relations. Neither side supports any attempts by any force to undermine this principle. The two sides agreed that respecting each other's core interests is extremely important to ensure steady progress in U.S.-China relations.

The three communiqués do indeed mention respect for territorial integrity. But it is highly arguable that "respect for ... sovereignty and territorial integrity" represent the "core" of the understandings that led to Sino-American rapprochement. The Taiwan issue was treated more delicately by earlier American statesmen. Their basic idea was that we would acknowledge, without accepting, the position that Taiwan is part of China. We would continue strong, unofficial diplomatic ties with the island and we would provide for its security through the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). We thus found a way to normalize relations with China without letting China have its way with Taiwan. Both sides of the Strait have prospered since the U.S. rapprochement with China and the signing into law of the TRA and relations have been more or less peaceful.

Now consider the situation across the Strait today. China has built a military capable of destroying the island if America does not assist Taiwan. Though obligated by law, the Obama administration has not sold a single weapon system to Taiwan. There is in fact no U.S.-Taiwan agenda under the Obama administration. It is even more dangerous, then, to stress the parts of the Sino-American normalization documents that most appeal to China. Of course China wants us to reiterate that our respect for "territorial integrity" and "sovereignty" is at the core of the three communiqués. Beijing wants us to accept its argument that Taiwan is part of China and that we should respect their sovereignty over the island. Obama has thus far done so through deed. With the joint statement he comes closer to officially accepting the Chinese claim of sovereignty.

On India, the joint statement says: 

The two sides welcomed all efforts conducive to peace, stability and development in South Asia. They support the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, maintain domestic stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development, and support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan. The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.

Here, President Obama broke new ground in ways harmful to both American and Indian interests. India and Japan are the two countries within Asia that can check China's desired dominance. For now, China has less to worry about with Japan as the Hatayoma government sorts through its foreign policies. But India is a different matter. It stood firm against China's pressure when the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian territory claimed by China. Delhi was sending two messages. First, do not interfere in India's internal affairs; the Dalai Lama is free to visit anywhere in India. Second, Arunachal Pradesh is India's territory. China had been putting military pressure on the border region but the Indians did not back down. Delhi is also standing firm in its maritime competition with China in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Navy will not allow China to build a sphere of influence in that maritime region.

Beijing's India strategy is to tie it down in South Asia to stop it from breaking out as a major power. The strategy has three basic pillars. First, Beijing has supported Pakistan's nuclear and conventional military programs. Second, China wants an acknowledged sphere of influence in South Asia. And third, Beijing wants to resurrect the so called "hyphenated" approach to India. It thus needs the United States to again think of India as part of an India-Pakistan problem, rather than as an emerging great power.

During the Bush and Clinton administrations, Delhi and Washington negotiated an arrangement that acknowledged Delhi's global role and increasing influence. This arrangement is of mutual benefit. Pakistan matters less to India as Delhi expands its strategic horizons. As Pakistan's importance to India lessons, so will Indian-Pakistani tensions. But as India frees itself from the weight of its Pakistan problem it has greater maneuverability to increase its influence in East Asia. China is threatened by that.

Thus, China won a diplomatic victory by getting Washington to agree to "cooperate" on issues of peace and development in South Asia. If China and America work together on South Asian issues, such as peace between India and Pakistan, then China is the great power while India is simply another South Asian country that needs help from others to solve its problems. With the joint statement, Obama officially accorded India junior status in Asia.

We should not be surprised by China's positions. What is surprising -- and extremely problematic -- is that on these key issues Obama is acquiescing in them.

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By Dan Twining

What should we make of the current imbroglio over U.S. aid to Pakistan? The fact that a singularly generous American civilian assistance package has led to a crisis in U.S.-Pakistan relations rather than improving them reveals three things: one, Pakistan's continued civil-military imbalance, two, Pakistani public hostility to what has been viewed as Washington's transactional relationship with their country's leaders, and three, the imperative of a sustained U.S. commitment to Pakistan and its region that helps reconstitute the way Pakistan's military and civilian leaders define their interests -- and in turn reconfigures the possibilities for partnership between Islamabad (where the civilian government sits), Rawalpindi (the headquarters of the Pakistani Army), and Washington.

First, Pakistan's military leadership is clearly using the conditionalities contained in the U.S. assistance package as a hammer with which to beat the country's unpopular (and pro-American) civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari. That this is a manufactured rather than a genuine crisis should provide little comfort, however, for it demonstrates how well-intentioned U.S. congressional efforts to strengthen civilian governance in Pakistan can backfire. To take one example, provisions in the final congressional bill authorizing the assistance package urge the civilian government to assume some responsibility for military promotions -- anathema to the generals, who believe civilian meddling in internal Army matters threatens both its institutional integrity and, because they define their country's interests as derivative of the Army's, the national security of Pakistan.

The challenge for American friends of Pakistan is to pursue policies that strengthen the country's civilian institutions while at the same time not unduly threatening the prerogatives of the Army, working overtime to rebalance relations between them while engaging closely with both. But such is the gap between military and civilian capacity that this is the work of years, even decades -- not of a single assistance package. For the moment, Washington has a compelling interest in the sustained survival of civilian government in Pakistan, a country that has been ruled by the military for roughly half its 60-year history. Policies that threaten civilian government by crossing the Army's red lines do not contribute to that end.

Second, America needs to be a better ally of Pakistan's moderate majority of citizens who oppose Taliban or military rule but nonetheless view the United States as an enemy, not an advocate, of liberal values in their country. In the past, the United States has supported military dictatorship in Pakistan: Washington's embrace of General Zia al Haq and its partnership with him to support the Afghan mujahideen fighting Soviet forces in the 1980s contributed to the rise of a strand of militant Islam that had previously been quiescent in Pakistan. Washington's support for Gen. Pervez Musharraf, not only immediately following 9/11 but well after his sell-by date, created political space for opponents of dictatorship to define their dissent with reference to an ideology of anti-American, Islamist zealotry.

Pakistanis lament that their leaders rule only with the support of "the Army, Allah, and America." The United States is not responsible for Pakistan's pathologies, many rooted in its violent birth as a nation and the subsequent choices of its political and military elites. But no U.S. policy to stabilize Pakistan can succeed as long as most Pakistanis view Washington as a fickle, disreputable partner that seeks a transactional relationship with their leaders and then abandons their country when narrow objectives sought by Washington are secured. Setting the matter of conditionalities aside, the Kerry-Lugar civilian assistance package promises to reconstitute relations with the Pakistani people by making sustained investments in educational, judicial, governing, and developmental institutions that provide for their welfare. But the road to a relationship of trust will be long, and American public diplomacy faces extraordinary challenges -- not only in changing Pakistani public attitudes, but in emboldening Pakistani political and military leaders to speak out in defense of partnership with the United States, rather than leveraging it as a weapon against their political adversaries (see above).

Third and relatedly, America must sustain a long-term commitment to Pakistan and its region across the political-economic-military spectrum to change some of the intractable ground realities that lead Pakistani leaders to define their interests in ways inimical to those of the United States. Chris Brose and I have detailed the outlines of such an approach here. The goal of such a strategy would be to gradually reorient Pakistan's definition of national security away from its current manifestation -- supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan and terrorism against India, for instance -- policies destructive to its neighbors, to us, and to itself. This would be a slow, systematic, and evolutionary -- not revolutionary -- approach to changing the strategic context of Pakistani decision-making and so nudging Pakistan in a direction more favorable to the interests of the United States -- and the welfare of the Pakistani people.

The most important element of such a strategy is for the United States and its Western and local allies to win the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Construction of an Afghan state that can defeat the insurgency and govern its people legitimately, in conjunction with sustained investment in Pakistani civic institutions and a reorientation of the Pakistani military's worldview, would in the long term create a dynamic in South Asia in which states like India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan define their security in ways that are positive- rather than zero-sum. It would demonstrate to the jihadists intent on undermining civilian governments in Delhi, Islamabad, and Kabul that they have no hope, separating their violent aspirations from those of citizenries that instead aspire to modernity, security, and opportunity.

By contrast, failure in Afghanistan, no matter how many American resources were subsequently shifted to Pakistan, would only compound the latter's insecurity and misgovernance. The policy conundrums America confronts in South Asia today would pale against those we should expect if the Taliban continue their ascendance in Afghanistan, emboldening their fellow extremists in Pakistan. Just as our country should finish what we started in Afghanistan in part because it will strengthen the forces of moderation next door, so American assistance to Pakistan should empower our natural allies there rather than put them on the defensive.

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By Dan Twining

The problem with the current debate over Afghanistan is that it is too focused on Afghanistan. There is no question that the intrinsic importance of winning wars our country chooses to fight -- to secure objectives that remain as compelling today as they were on September 12, 2001 -- is itself reason for President Obama to put in place a strategy for victory in Afghanistan. But the larger frame has been lost in the din of debate over General McChrystal's leaked assessment, President Obama's intention to ramp up or draw down in Afghanistan, and the legitimacy of the Afghan election. In fact, it is vital for the United States and its allies to recommit to building an Afghan state that can accountably govern its people and defeat the Taliban insurgency -- for reasons that have to do not only with Afghanistan's specific pathologies but with the implications of failure for the wider region and America's place in the international system.

The surreal belief in some quarters that abandoning Afghanistan -- described as a "graveyard of empires" with its complicated tribes, forbidding terrain, and peripheral strategic importance -- would not have direct and bloody consequences for the United States, never mind the Afghan people, can be answered with three numbers: 9-11. It is troubling that our political and foreign policy elites even need to engage this debate (including its more sophisticated but equally illusory variants like moving to an "over-the-horizon" strike-and-retreat strategy). At the same time, the experts (correctly) advocating a counterinsurgency strategy make the same mistake of framing their arguments purely with reference to Afghanistan's internal dynamics. As important as they are, they constitute only part of a wider strategic landscape that would be upended by a U.S. decision to reduce its political and military commitment to Afghanistan.

A recent trip to Islamabad and Lahore revealed to me that most Pakistani elites -- including the small minority that could credibly be described as sympathetic to Western goals in Afghanistan -- already believe that the game is up: the will of the transatlantic allies is broken, Obama doesn't have the courage or vision to see America's mission in Afghanistan through to victory, and the U.S. is well along the road to walking away from Afghanistan as it did after 1989. This widespread Pakistani belief has encouraged behavior deeply inimical to Washington's regional aims, with the effect that the American debate over whether Afghanistan is worth it is inspiring Pakistani actions that will make success all the harder to achieve.

After all, why shouldn't the Pakistani security services continue to invest in their friendly relations with the Taliban if Mullah Omar and company soon will take power in Afghanistan's Pashtun heartland? Why should the Pakistani military take on the militant groups that regularly launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan when the NATO targets of those attacks will soon slink away in defeat? Why should the Pakistani government get serious about wrapping up the Quetta Shura when the Afghan Taliban appears to be ascendant in the face of Western weakness? Why should Pakistan's intelligence service break its ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world's most potent terrorist groups, when it forms such a useful instrument with which to bleed U.S. ally India? And why should Pakistani civilian and military leaders overtly cooperate with the United States when it appears such a weak and unreliable ally of the Afghan people -- incapable, despite its singular wealth and resources, of defeating a 25,000-man insurgency in one of the poorest countries on Earth?

As Chris Brose and I recently argued, it is vital for the West to prevail in Afghanistan because of its effect in shaping Pakistan's strategic future. Proponents of drawing down in Afghanistan on the grounds that Pakistan is the more important strategic prize have it only half right: if Pakistan is the strategic prize, it should be unthinkable not to press for victory in Afghanistan given the spillover effects of a Western defeat there. All of Pakistan's pathologies -- from terrorist sanctuary in ungoverned spaces, to radicalized public opinion that creates an enabling environment for violent extremism, to lack of economic opportunity that incentivizes militancy, to the (in)security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, to the military's oversized role in political life in ways that stunt the development of civilian institutions -- all of this will intensify should Afghanistan succumb to the Taliban as the West withdraws.

These dynamics, in turn, will destabilize India in ways that could torpedo the country's rise to world power -- and the strategic dividends America would reap from India's success. New Delhi is now a truer proponent of Washington's original objectives in Afghanistan -- the Taliban's decisive defeat by military force rather than reconciliation and the construction of a capable Afghan democracy -- than some American leaders are now. Afghanistan is in India's backyard -- they shared a border until 1947 -- and the collapse of its government would destabilize Pakistan in ways that would quickly cost Indian dearly. Indian strategists fear that the spillover from a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would induce Pakistan's "Lebanonization," with the Pakistani Taliban becoming a kind of South Asian Hezbollah that would launch waves of crippling attacks against India. India cannot rise to be an Asian balancer, global security provider, and engine of the world economy if it is mired in interminable proxy conflict with terrorists emanating from a weak or collapsing state armed with nuclear weapons on its border.

The strategic implications of a Western defeat in Afghanistan for American relations with other major powers are similarly troubling. The biggest game-changer in the nuclear standoff with Iran is not new sanctions or military action but a popular uprising by the Iranian people that changes the character of the radical regime in Tehran -- a prospect one would expect to be meaningfully diminished by the usurpation through violence of the Afghan government, against the will of a majority of Afghans, by the religious extremists of the Taliban. And despite welcome new unity in the West on a tougher approach to Iran's development of nuclear weapons following revelations of a new nuclear complex in Qum, how can Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin stare down the leaders of Iran -- a potentially hegemonic Middle Eastern state with an advanced conventional and near-nuclear arsenal and a vast national resource base -- if they can't even hold their own against the cave-dwelling, Kalashnikov-wielding despots of the Taliban?

Russia appears to be quietly reveling in the prospect that NATO, which appeared so threatening to Russian eyes during its multiple rounds of enlargement during the 1990s, could be defeated in its first real out-of-area operation. A NATO defeat in Afghanistan would call into question the future of the alliance and the credibility of American leadership with it, possibly creating a new and lasting transatlantic breach and intensifying concerns about the alliance's ability to protect weak European states against a resurgent Russia. China has no interest in Afghanistan's collapse into a sanctuary for Islamist extremists, including Uighers who militate against China's rule in Xinjiang. But a Western defeat in Afghanistan, which if historical precedent holds would be followed by a bout of U.S. isolationism, would only create more space for China to pursue its (for now) peaceful rise.

And that is the point: the debate over whether to prevail in Afghanistan is about so much more. An American recommitment to a sustained counterinsurgency strategy that turned around the conflict would demonstrate that the United States and its democratic allies remain the principal providers of public goods -- in this case, the security and stability of a strategically vital region that threatens the global export of violent extremism -- in the international system. A new and sustained victory strategy for Afghanistan would show that Washington is singularly positioned to convene effective coalitions and deliver solutions to intractable international problems in ways that shore up the stability of an international economic and political order that has provided greater degrees of human freedom and prosperity than any other.

By contrast, a U.S. decision to wash its hands of Afghanistan would send a different message to friends and competitors alike. It would hasten the emergence of a different kind of international order, one in which history no longer appeared to be on the side of the United States and its friends. Islamic extremism, rather than continuing to lose ground to the universal promise of democratic modernity, would gain new legs -- after all, Afghan Islamists would have defeated their second superpower in a generation. Rival states that contest Western leadership of the international order and reject the principles of open society would increase their influence at America's expense. Just as most Afghans are not prepared to live under a new Taliban regime, so most Americans are surely not prepared to live in a world in which the United States voluntarily cedes its influence, power, and moral example to others who share neither our interests nor our values.

By Christian Brose

The Obama administration is to be congratulated for its decision to provide $100 million of new assistance to Pakistan to address the humanitarian and refugee crisis caused by the Taliban's expanding violence. This is generous policy and smart strategy, which hopefully will not only save lives, but also provide greater evidence to Pakistanis that the United States is on the right side of their aspirations for a successful, civilian-led democracy. I was especially struck by this line from Secretary Clinton's announcement:

Altogether, the United States has provided more than $3.4 billion since 2002 to alleviate suffering and promote economic growth, education, health and good governance in Pakistan.

Consciously or not, Clinton put the lie to one of the Democrats' favorite and oft-repeated talking points -- that all the Bush administration did in Pakistan was prop up a military dictator and sell him F-16s. Now maybe we can all start trying to solve the real problem: why so much of that $3.4 billion of non-military assistance seems to have done so little good, either for the Pakistani people or for America's interests and image. Answering that question alone would go a long way to ensuring that the even greater sums of taxpayer dollars that we are poised to pour into that country will actually end up advancing our strategic interest in, and Pakistani aspirations for, an effective democratic state in Pakistan.

By Dov Zakheim

The momentum of Pakistani instability appears to be accelerating: Six months ago there was no evidence that the Taliban would break out of its mountain hideaways in the Northwest Frontier Province to move within 60 miles of Islamabad. While the Pakistani Army may finally have woken up to the threat, the loyalties of its rank and file are far from clear. In short, Pakistan in 2009 is looking more and more like Iran thirty years earlier, when the seemingly impregnable Shah fell in the face of hostile demonstrations and a passive army.

The United States cannot afford to stand by and let Pakistan either fall to the Taliban or fragment in some way. Yet it would be foolhardy to try to prop up any Pakistani government, be it the current Zardari regime, or as recent press reporting indicates, the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif. It was the last Sharif government whose incompetence and corruption prompted the 1999 military coup led by Pervez Musharraf. Sharif's government also conducted Pakistan's first nuclear test, continued the long-time support of A.Q. Khan's activities, and launched the first Kargil War. Why a new Sharif government would be more reliable or competent than its predecessor is not at all clear. Furthermore, American efforts to promote particular governments have not exactly been overwhelmingly successful in recent years, including in Pakistan itself. Surely one can ask if Pakistan is better off today under Zardari than it was under Musharraf.

Instead of trying to play politics in Islamabad, the United States should employ its forces to support those of Pakistan's military. Only in this manner can there be some assurance that Pakistani morale will not collapse, and that the Taliban insurrection can be crushed. The Pakistani military can be ruthless, and nothing else will do in dealing with the Taliban. American tactics and firepower can back up that ruthlessness.

It might be argued that the United States should try to "take out" Pakistan's nuclear capability. In so doing, it would certainly ensure that the Pakistani military would turn on the United States and come to terms with the Taliban. The United States must fight alongside Pakistan's army, not against it.
 
Now is not the time for squeamishness or political correctness. Do-gooders no doubt will howl at the sight of the collateral damage that would inevitably result if American units enable Pakistani forces to pulverize Taliban strongholds. The Zardari government may howl that America has sidestepped it by going directly to the military.

Let them all howl. A nuclear armed Pakistan, or even worse, a fragmented country whose nuclear weapons are up for grabs, would result in far more cries of anguish by far more people than anything that might result from the elimination of the Taliban threat. Time is running out. The United States must act now.