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the Pakistanis to shoot out of the sky.15 Rapid advances in drone technologies
could solve this problem, but the answer is not yet in America’s arsenal. An
ideal next-generation drone would operate around the clock and beyond the
range (or detection) of Pakistan’s air defenses. An armed, high-altitude stealth
drone might begin to solve the problem.
Until then, a combination of unarmed high-flying or stealthy surveillance
drones plus satellites could direct U.S. cruise missile strikes from outside
Pakistan. They would most likely be launched from Afghanistan to reduce
flight times and to make clear that they were not being directed from India (so
as to avoid an unnecessary crisis between New Delhi and Islamabad). To wage
its drone campaign from Afghanistan, U.S. officials would need to negotiate a
long-term deal with Kabul to maintain bases on Afghan soil well after other
U.S. and NATO forces depart. Defending and maintaining these bases could
be a challenge once the bulk of U.S. forces leave Afghanistan, especially if the
country becomes more violent or hostile to U.S. forces.
Islamabad would almost certainly see U.S. cruise missile strikes as acts of
war. Cruise missiles are larger and less “surgical” than drone-launched Hellfire
missiles. They would kill more Pakistani civilians. Influential anti-American
groups like the Defence of Pakistan Council and voices like General Baig would
have a field day. Pakistani opposition could lead Washington to limit its air
strikes to only the top terrorist targets like bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-
Zawahiri.
On the other hand, if international terrorist groups take advantage of a U.S.-
Pakistan rift to expand their planning and training operations on Pakistani soil,
Washington would have every incentive to launch air strikes and even mount
helicopter-borne commando assaults in cases where extracting intelligence was
worth the potential of a military standoff with Pakistani forces. In short, the
United States would shift from a geographically contained drone campaign
that enjoys at least the tacit consent of the Pakistani state to an unconstrained
campaign operating against Pakistani wishes.16 The gloves could come off, on
both sides.
Defensive insulation would demand more than U.S. eyes and missiles in the
sky. It would require intelligence gathering and covert operations on the ground
to go after groups like LeT that operate inside densely populated regions of
Pakistan and with the active or passive support of state authorities. Judging
from the Raymond Davis affair and the CIA’s ability to maintain a safe house in
Abbottabad to facilitate surveillance on the bin Laden compound from the fall
15 With a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet, top airspeed of 138 miles per hour, and wingspan of 55 feet, a Predator is an easy target for Pakistani air forces. For a short technical description of the Predator, see Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 151.
16 On Washington’s interpretation of tacit consent from Islamabad, see Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman, and Evan Perez, “U.S. Unease over Drone Strikes,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2012, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444100404577641520858011452
.html.
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America’s Options
209
of 2010 until the May 2011 raid, Washington has already attempted a range of
efforts of this sort.17 These high-profile episodes prompted an ISI crackdown
on official U.S. activities around the country.18
Washington will find it increasingly difficult to place spies or handlers inside
Pakistan, but defensive insulation would demand it. Compared to Iran or
North Korea, Pakistan is an open society where it is possible to forge working
ties with Pakistani groups, individuals, or political parties who already share
Pakistanis who share U.S. counterterror goals could be strengthened with U.S.
money, training, and in some cases, arms. If in the future Pakistan’s inter-
nal instability grows beyond the state’s capacity to respond, and especially if
Pakistan’s army is ever divided against itself, Washington would have greater
incentive to take sides in an incipient civil war.
U.S. covert operations inside Pakistan would need to grow, but the offi-
cial American footprint inside Pakistan – its embassy, consulates, and USAID
presence – would be downsized or even eliminated as part of a defensive insu-
lation strategy. There would be little reason to present soft targets to Pakistani
violence. A tiny skeleton staff could manage U.S. diplomacy.
Although intrusive, U.S. counterterror operations in Pakistan would not
necessarily risk all-out war. The United States has implemented hard-edged
strategies toward other states like Syria for decades without lapsing into war.
Islamabad would face the unenviable choice of whether to retaliate against the
United States, knowing that Washington will always retain the military and
diplomatic upper hand.
Shifting from counterterrorism to the nuclear challenge, rather than attempt-
ing to help Pakistan improve the safety and security of its arsenal through coop-
eration, reassurance, and assistance (as has been the case over the past decade),
Washington would shift its emphasis to deterrence. The U.S. goal would be
to introduce a credible threat of overwhelming retaliation in order to make
Pakistan think twice about using or sharing its nuclear weapons. That fear
would help to motivate responsible, even obsessive, nuclear stewardship.
To level such a threat against Pakistan for intentionally using weapons
against the United States would not be difficult. Presumably the basic point is
already appreciated in Islamabad.19 U.S. threats would be even more credible if
Pakistani leaders were convinced that Washington could launch a non-nuclear
17 On the CIA compound in Abbottabad, see Peter Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad (New York: Crown, 2012), pp. 126–7, 131–2.
18 See “Compliance Followup Review of Embassy Islamabad and Constituent Posts, Pakistan,”
U.S. Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Office of Inspector General, May 2012, p. 7, http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/193863.pdf.
19 Along similar lines but in the context of non-nuclear counterterrorism, Bob Woodward reveals that the United States had in place a “retribution plan” for bombing up to 150 sites in Pakistan in the event of a terrorist attack in the United States traced back to Pakistani soil. See Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), pp. 46, 345.
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No Exit from Pakistan
attack devastating enough to eliminate Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, thereby
avoiding nuclear use
altogether. The existence of American plans for such
an operation could be leaked or shared with Pakistani officials to make sure
the threat is appreciated.
At the same time, Washington would need to frame its deterrent threats in
ways likely to encourage responsible nuclear stewardship, not recklessness. In
spite of U.S. claims to the contrary, many Pakistanis already fear that the United
States has developed plans for its special forces to seize or destroy Pakistan’s
arsenal. In reality, such an operation, which would have to be mounted on
a massive scale against well-fortified targets, is probably beyond U.S. means.
Even so, Pakistani fears of an American raid could have counterproductive
consequences. In order to elude U.S. forces, Pakistan’s warheads would be
moved from well-defended but easily identifiable facilities to unmarked, lightly
fortified mobile vehicles. If so, the weapons would be more vulnerable to theft
or accident, two of the very circumstances Washington is most eager to avoid.
The other challenge to a successful U.S. deterrence strategy lies in convincing
Pakistani leaders that Washington would take similar retaliatory steps if terror-
ists use nuclear weapons or materials from Pakistan’s arsenal. To strengthen
that threat, Washington would need to be able to determine the source of
a nuclear attack since even Pakistan-based terrorists might have gotten their
weapons elsewhere.
That technical problem of attribution is considerable. While any nuclear
explosion would leave telltale signs of its origins, only something akin to a
“nuclear DNA test,” which starts with the collection of samples of a coun-
try’s nuclear fuel in advance, can yield conclusive results. Practical challenges
abound. Even if U.S. nuclear forensics teams manage to get their hands on
samples, they would need time to conduct their analyses. Time would be in
very short supply after a nuclear attack.20 According to a 2010 report by the
National Research Council, the chronic under-funding and under-staffing of
U.S. nuclear forensic programs reduces their ability to improve techniques,
sampling procedures, and evaluation times.21
To deal with the possibility that deterrence might fail, Washington would
also need to build and deploy defenses against Pakistan’s nuclear warheads.
Since Pakistan cannot yet launch a ballistic missile or long-range bomber capa-
ble of striking the United States, the only nuclear threat to the U.S. homeland
would be a nuclear device, or pieces of one, smuggled in a shipping container.
America’s port defenses have been improved since 9/11, as has its ability to
detect the movement of nuclear cargo through other ports around the world.22
Yet given the number of containers entering the United States and the reality
20 Jeffrey T. Richelson, Defusing Armageddon: Inside NEST, America’s Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), pp. 228–31.
21 “Nuclear Forensics: A Capability at Risk,” National Research Council, July 2010.
22 The Megaports Initiative, run through the National Nuclear Security Administration, aims to improve monitoring techniques of cargo passing through American and international ports.
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America’s Options
211
that radioactive sources inside a container can be shielded in ways that make
them very difficult to detect, it is clear that America’s homeland defenses still
need work.23
A breakthrough in the technologies devoted to locating nuclear weapons by
satellite, plane, or drone would be enormously helpful if any of Islamabad’s
warheads ever go missing inside Pakistan. Today’s overhead imagery can iden-
tify many things, but not, for instance, the difference between conventional
and nuclear artillery shells.
As part of its nuclear security tool kit, the U.S. Department of Energy has
assembled a group of technical experts known as the Nuclear Emergency Sup-
port Team (NEST).24 In combination with U.S. Special Operations Forces,
members of NEST would be on the front lines if one of Pakistan’s nuclear
weapons was lost or stolen. Members of the team are experts at handling
nuclear devices and rendering them safe. Although NEST “stays ready to deploy
[from Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, DC] within four hours of
notification” of any emergency, it does not maintain personnel in South Asia.
If a small group of technical experts from NEST rotated through a nearby base
in Afghanistan or one of the Gulf states, Washington would be able to respond
even more quickly to a regional emergency.
For obvious reasons, if U.S.-Pakistan relations fray, Washington will have
every incentive to limit the size of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and associated
delivery vehicles. Unfortunately, Pakistan will have the opposite incentive.
Pakistan’s military will see its nuclear program as its best guarantee against
American aggression, just as North Korea does. To add weight to its ability
to threaten the United States, Islamabad could conceivably attempt to build or
purchase intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching North America.
Short of that, Pakistan would rely on shorter-range missiles targeted against
U.S. ships, allies, and friends in the region.
Multilateral diplomacy has so far failed to end Pakistan’s nuclear or missile
development, but as part of its defensive insulation Washington would lobby
China to limit its sales and transfers of technologies that might aid Pakistan’s
missile development. In addition, Washington would need to expand missile
Security Administration, September 2010, http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourprograms/non proliferation/programoffices/internationalmaterialprotectionandcooperation/-5.
23 See Jerrold L. Nadler, Edward J. Markey, and Bennie G. Thompson, “Cargo, the Terrorists’ Tro-jan Horse,” New York Times, June 26, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/27/opinion/
the-dangerous-delay-on-port-security.html, as well as Douglas Frantz, “Deadline for Nuclear Scans of Foreign Cargo Passes By,” Washington Post, July 16, 2012, http://www.washington post.com/world/national-security/port-security-us-fails-to-meet-deadline-for-scanning-of-cargo-containers/2012/07/15/gJQAmgW8mW_story.html.
24 The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration maintains a variety of other technical teams to deal with a range of potential nuclear contingencies at home and overseas. See “Responding to Emergencies,” National Nuclear Security Administration, http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourprograms/emergencyoperationscounterterrorism/
respondingtoemergencies.
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No Exit from Pakistan
defense systems of the sort designed to thwart an Iranian attack so they could
also be directed toward Pakistan.25
Finally, a strategy of defensive insulation
would be most effective if Wash-
ington could count on firm Indian support. Joint military plans and shared
intelligence could ease the burden of containing Pakistan-based threats. In the
event of a military crisis, U.S. bases, or at least temporary basing rights on
Indian soil, would offer geographic and political advantages over alternatives,
whether at sea, in Afghanistan, or in the Persian Gulf. An enhanced Indian mis-
sile defense system, built with American assistance, would offer another layer
of protection against a Pakistani nuclear-tipped missile. Although Washington
and New Delhi have already taken tentative steps in some of these directions,
the United States would want to expand and accelerate the process – perhaps
in ways that would initially make India’s risk-averse leaders uncomfortable –
in order to address Pakistan-based threats with greater confidence.
Only a Stopgap
Depending on how relations between the United States and Pakistan unfold,
defensive insulation may be the only option available to Washington. This
would be true if, for instance, no common ground is found on the endgame
in Afghanistan, if new irritants like the Raymond Davis affair crop up, if a
new slate of Pakistani leaders adopts a more hostile anti-American posture,
or if clear evidence of official Pakistani complicity in offering sanctuary to al-
Qaeda is uncovered. All of these scenarios would at least temporarily stymie
cooperation and could raise new, more permanent obstacles. Properly crafted
and implemented, a range of defenses could enable America to address many
immediate security concerns, with respect to both terrorism and the nuclear
threat.
None of these facts should make defensive insulation Washington’s preferred
approach. The strategy does nothing to address the internal dynamics that are
likely to make Pakistan more of a threat to America and itself over time.
Pakistan’s weak civilian institutions and its failing economy (portrayed in
Chapter 2) would suffer from an American strategy defined by diplomatic
disengagement, bouts of unilateral military force, and an unambiguous tilt
toward India. Pakistan’s jihadists, not its reformers, would be best positioned