In combing through the Pakistan press today I find so many topics that one could write about that my head almost spins—with delight at the range of choices, with foreboding as to the grim subjects involved, with sadness that none are what could be described as uplifting, and all are concerned with trends or issues that portend continued deterioration of the state and society. Surely there are positive trends and happy stories in Pakistan, but the newspapers seem to avoid them. For our smiles, it seems we turn to the back pages of TFT.
I was tempted to write about President Trump’s “new” policy on Afghanistan, in which I see really only one new element, the invitation to India to increase its economic and development assistance there, an element that seems to me to ensure a Pakistan even less cooperative on Afghan issues. His threat to put more pressure on Pakistan regarding the “sanctuaries” and unmolested border transit for groups such as the Haqqani network is really only a threat to treat this issue more publicly; I am pretty sure that the US has been very vocal on this in private for at least the last couple of years.
One might describe Trump’s pronouncements on Afghanistan as new in a historical counterfactual sense—it is probably not what Obama would have done. But it seems pretty clear to me that Hillary Clinton would have added troops, and tried to up the ante for the Taliban in order to bring them to the peace table. This is clearly the strategy that the Generals in the Trump administration have wanted, and what they hope they have now. But whether they have got it has yet to be seen, and will not be seen for several years. Whether they have that long is doubtful. What is needed is not just more troops, but many more of the right kind of troops—trainers and instructors to shape up the Afghan National Army. More importantly our pressure needs to be on President Ghani to get rid of a slew of corrupt political Afghan Generals and promote serious military leaders into leadership roles in that military. We need to meet the commitments we have failed miserably to meet of putting together an Afghan Air Force—not with long range strike capability but with close ground-air support capability.
The truth is that the US owns the war in Afghanistan, but in the rigid partisan political atmosphere that obtains in Washington and the country, it is the Republican Party that owns it. I suspect that one reason Trump has, so far, the loyalty of so many talented, high level retired and active military officers is their understanding that a democratic President would find little if any support in that party for a strategy that would have a chance to achieve the objective of a negotiated peace, and sooner or later would find a way to get out. The enormous moral questions that accompany that kind of ending, as in Vietnam, would get short shrift.
I keep wondering whether, if Pakistani leaders, primarily the military, saw a US strategy in Afghanistan that included the above elements and seemed to have a good chance of bringing the war to a close with a negotiated peace in which the interests of the main players were basically balanced and whether they would not see greater cooperation as advantageous to Pakistan’s interests. Isn’t this what Pakistan always wanted, instead of a denouement that a friend of mine recently described as a seething cauldron of jihadist groups next door anxious to spread their influence into Pakistan?
I am tempted also to do a riff on what I see as the political fallout of the defenestration of Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court. The major fallout I see is the growing Praetorianism of the political process and of society itself. Though ambiguity surrounds the role of the Army in the Sharif affair, we know that there were military experts on the JIT, which would be contrary to the way such investigations are conducted in most countries, especially democracies. A pundit recently pointed out that the labyrinth of financial trails from the Sharif family to the outside world was so complex and arcane that someone must have been studying them for a long time. In any case, it seems clear that the military now has occupied a larger political space. I doubt it will hesitate to use that space to nudge society towards the direction it wants society to go. And by the way, Trump’s threats toward Pakistan were even more ill-advised given that an even more influential Army runs that policy.
But what really made my hair stand on end in the recent news was the preliminary data of the latest census just released. Its tardiness is bad enough, but the aggregated preliminary data is really scary. The preliminary data show the growth rate of population now could be as high as 2.4 percent. If that is correct and it continues at that rate, the population will double in less than 30 years. Think of it; by 2047, Pakistan would have 400 million people. It isn’t educating, feeding properly, or providing other needed services for the 200 million it has now. One lesson that can be drawn immediately from the preliminary data is that 18 years is much too long to wait between censuses. If it had been done on time the higher rate of growth would have been a fire bell warning that changes in family planning policy and its implementation were necessary. Instead planners trundled along projecting a 1.9 percent growth rate for almost another decade.
This preliminary data shows the population at 207 million. The press coverage indicates that there are many questions about this aggregated preliminary data, some of which lead to the assertion that this preliminary data is over counting, while equally persuasive arguments lead to the conclusion it is under counting. As to the former, there are concerns that a number of studies have suggested that the fertility rate (the number of children per lifetime per woman) has come down significantly over the last two decades, in part reflecting higher educational levels and an increasing middle class. Also the preliminary data for the provinces are anomalous and need to be dissected. As to the latter, previous undercounting in urban areas could have continued in this current census, and it is possible that estimates of fertility have been low; the World Bank Fact Book, for example puts Pakistan’s fertility at far higher than some studies have suggested.
One comparison that is always made in Family Planning is between Pakistan and Bangladesh since they were once a single country. When they separated the fertility rate in both was about 7.0. Bangladesh, with an aggressive family planning program, supported strongly by all its governments reduced that quickly and it now stands at 2.19. The fertility rate in Pakistan stayed higher for a longer period and despite significant gains in recent years, stands at 2.68. Another standard indicator is the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR). In 1975, the CPR in Bangladesh was 8 percent. It had grown to over 60 percent by 2010. By contrast the percentage in Pakistan is 35 percent. Thus, comparing literacy, poverty, and urbanization in the two countries is meaningless in the family planning context as in all those Pakistan scores better than Bangladesh; yet Bangladeshi women have far fewer children. So it appears that a determined government with the help of a large phalanx of international donors which specialize in family planning makes all the difference.
(The title of this article is taken from Matthew Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’, a poem on the human condition with the famous last lines that speak to Pakistan’s grim predicament today for the writer: “And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight/ Where ignorant armies clash by night.”)
The author is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh
I was tempted to write about President Trump’s “new” policy on Afghanistan, in which I see really only one new element, the invitation to India to increase its economic and development assistance there, an element that seems to me to ensure a Pakistan even less cooperative on Afghan issues. His threat to put more pressure on Pakistan regarding the “sanctuaries” and unmolested border transit for groups such as the Haqqani network is really only a threat to treat this issue more publicly; I am pretty sure that the US has been very vocal on this in private for at least the last couple of years.
One might describe Trump’s pronouncements on Afghanistan as new in a historical counterfactual sense—it is probably not what Obama would have done. But it seems pretty clear to me that Hillary Clinton would have added troops, and tried to up the ante for the Taliban in order to bring them to the peace table. This is clearly the strategy that the Generals in the Trump administration have wanted, and what they hope they have now. But whether they have got it has yet to be seen, and will not be seen for several years. Whether they have that long is doubtful. What is needed is not just more troops, but many more of the right kind of troops—trainers and instructors to shape up the Afghan National Army. More importantly our pressure needs to be on President Ghani to get rid of a slew of corrupt political Afghan Generals and promote serious military leaders into leadership roles in that military. We need to meet the commitments we have failed miserably to meet of putting together an Afghan Air Force—not with long range strike capability but with close ground-air support capability.
The truth is that the US owns the war in Afghanistan, but in the rigid partisan political atmosphere that obtains in Washington and the country, it is the Republican Party that owns it. I suspect that one reason Trump has, so far, the loyalty of so many talented, high level retired and active military officers is their understanding that a democratic President would find little if any support in that party for a strategy that would have a chance to achieve the objective of a negotiated peace, and sooner or later would find a way to get out. The enormous moral questions that accompany that kind of ending, as in Vietnam, would get short shrift.
I keep wondering whether, if Pakistani leaders, primarily the military, saw a US strategy in Afghanistan that included the above elements and seemed to have a good chance of bringing the war to a close with a negotiated peace in which the interests of the main players were basically balanced and whether they would not see greater cooperation as advantageous to Pakistan’s interests. Isn’t this what Pakistan always wanted, instead of a denouement that a friend of mine recently described as a seething cauldron of jihadist groups next door anxious to spread their influence into Pakistan?
I am tempted also to do a riff on what I see as the political fallout of the defenestration of Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court. The major fallout I see is the growing Praetorianism of the political process and of society itself. Though ambiguity surrounds the role of the Army in the Sharif affair, we know that there were military experts on the JIT, which would be contrary to the way such investigations are conducted in most countries, especially democracies. A pundit recently pointed out that the labyrinth of financial trails from the Sharif family to the outside world was so complex and arcane that someone must have been studying them for a long time. In any case, it seems clear that the military now has occupied a larger political space. I doubt it will hesitate to use that space to nudge society towards the direction it wants society to go. And by the way, Trump’s threats toward Pakistan were even more ill-advised given that an even more influential Army runs that policy.
When they separated the fertility rate in both was about 7.0. Bangladesh, with an aggressive family planning program, supported strongly by all its governments reduced that quickly and it now stands at 2.19. The fertility rate in Pakistan stayed higher for a longer period and despite significant gains in recent years, stands at 2.68
But what really made my hair stand on end in the recent news was the preliminary data of the latest census just released. Its tardiness is bad enough, but the aggregated preliminary data is really scary. The preliminary data show the growth rate of population now could be as high as 2.4 percent. If that is correct and it continues at that rate, the population will double in less than 30 years. Think of it; by 2047, Pakistan would have 400 million people. It isn’t educating, feeding properly, or providing other needed services for the 200 million it has now. One lesson that can be drawn immediately from the preliminary data is that 18 years is much too long to wait between censuses. If it had been done on time the higher rate of growth would have been a fire bell warning that changes in family planning policy and its implementation were necessary. Instead planners trundled along projecting a 1.9 percent growth rate for almost another decade.
This preliminary data shows the population at 207 million. The press coverage indicates that there are many questions about this aggregated preliminary data, some of which lead to the assertion that this preliminary data is over counting, while equally persuasive arguments lead to the conclusion it is under counting. As to the former, there are concerns that a number of studies have suggested that the fertility rate (the number of children per lifetime per woman) has come down significantly over the last two decades, in part reflecting higher educational levels and an increasing middle class. Also the preliminary data for the provinces are anomalous and need to be dissected. As to the latter, previous undercounting in urban areas could have continued in this current census, and it is possible that estimates of fertility have been low; the World Bank Fact Book, for example puts Pakistan’s fertility at far higher than some studies have suggested.
One comparison that is always made in Family Planning is between Pakistan and Bangladesh since they were once a single country. When they separated the fertility rate in both was about 7.0. Bangladesh, with an aggressive family planning program, supported strongly by all its governments reduced that quickly and it now stands at 2.19. The fertility rate in Pakistan stayed higher for a longer period and despite significant gains in recent years, stands at 2.68. Another standard indicator is the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR). In 1975, the CPR in Bangladesh was 8 percent. It had grown to over 60 percent by 2010. By contrast the percentage in Pakistan is 35 percent. Thus, comparing literacy, poverty, and urbanization in the two countries is meaningless in the family planning context as in all those Pakistan scores better than Bangladesh; yet Bangladeshi women have far fewer children. So it appears that a determined government with the help of a large phalanx of international donors which specialize in family planning makes all the difference.
(The title of this article is taken from Matthew Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’, a poem on the human condition with the famous last lines that speak to Pakistan’s grim predicament today for the writer: “And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight/ Where ignorant armies clash by night.”)
The author is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh