Shaun Gregory

The ISI and the War on Terrorism

Pakistans Directorate of Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI] plays an ambiguous role in the War on Terrorism. An important ally for Western intelligence with whom it has very close links, the ISI also has a long history of involvement in supporting and promoting terrorism in the name of Pakistans geostrategic interests. This article explores the nature of the ISI and its aims and objectives in the post-9/11 era. It argues that the focus of the ISIs actions are to shore up Pakistans ruling elite and to destabilize Pakistans enemies by the promotion of Sunni Islamism at home and of pan-Islamist jihad abroad. The ISIs strategy, however, deeply conflicts with that of the West, a point underlined by the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban almost six years after the War on Terrorism began. With grave new trends evident in Pakistan, reliance on the ISI is failing and a Western rethink of its intelligence strategy toward Pakistan is now imperative. [T]he ISI is a disciplined force, for 27 years they have been doing what the government [of Pakistan] has been telling them. —President Pervez Musharraf, interview, London Times, 28 September 2006

Towards strategic stability in South Asia

Abstract This paper introduces a collection of articles on strategic stability in South Asia that resulted from the launch conference of the South Asian Strategic Stability Unit, hosted by the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford on 7–8 October 2004. The paper provides a brief conceptual comment on the elements of strategic stability, and introduces the different approaches that are available to promote and enhance strategic stability.

A state in flux: Pakistan in the context of national and regional change

Over the past 10 years, Pakistan has passed through some of the most turbulent and difficult times in its history. The war in Afghanistan post 9/11 has put Pakistan on the front line of the war on terrorism and provoked violent Islamic militancy within Pakistan and some grave policy choices for Pakistan itself. Rivenin addition by the natural disasters of earthquakes and floods and hobbled by political instability, economic woes, and deep social, religious and ethnic divisions, Pakistan has reached a point of great flux with important national and regional changes imminent. This collection of six essays focus on critical elements of this flux – political Islam, militancy and religious minorities, political patronage and democracy, the economic impacts of the floods and Pakistans relations with the US and its regional foreign policy – to identify key trends which will shape Pakistans future.

Nuclear Command and Control in Pakistan

The two issues that dominate international security – terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons – are nowhere more closely intertwined than in Pakistan. Pakistan stands at the eastern edge of Huntington’s Islamic civilization fault-line and functions as a “conduit state” linking the security agendas of the Middle East, North Caucus and South Asia. As a weak state, under military rule since the coup of October 1999, and subject to civil-military tensions as well as factional violence of religious, ethnic, and regional character Pakistan also poses serious internal security questions, not least about the possibility of state failure, the rise of Islamic extremism, federal disintegration, or civil war. Furthermore, despite some progress, the issue of the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir continues to poison Pakistan’s relations with its main adversary India, a rivalry that has found expression in two significant crises – Kargil in 1999 and the 2001–2002 military stand-off following the attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001 – both of which occurred despite the overt nuclearization of the region. In this context many sharp questions have been posed about the safety, security and command and control of nuclear weapons in Pakistan. These boil down to three core concerns: (1) the risk that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists or some other extremist sub-national group; (2) the risk of unintentional or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons; (3) the dangers of loss of escalation control in a crisis or conventional conflict with its more powerful rival India. To assess these risks we need to understand the arrangements Pakistan has made for the safety, security, and command and control of its nuclear weapons and to draw on analysis of past patterns of behavior as a possible guide to future conduct.

Political Control of Nuclear Weapons in NATO

The uniquely destructive potential of nuclear weapons has necessitated that their use be governed only by the highest political authority. Each of the nuclear powers has consequently vested the authority to use nuclear weapons solely in the hands of their senior political leadership.1 Because of this the role of political leaders in nuclear command and control assumes central importance.

The Hidden Cost of Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons Accidents 1950-88

the consequent risks to the public. To explore such questions it is necessary to consider the development of nuclear weapons safety and to look at the causes of nuclear weapons accidents. There is fortunately a substantial, if diverse, literature upon which to base such an investigation. Although the chronological development of nuclear weapons safety has been well considered,6 rather less attention has been given to the relationship between safety and the development of nuclear weaponry and force postures. By considering the latter,

France and missions de paix

Since the end of the Cold War, France has been arguably the most active of the Security Council members and the most active European state in UN military operations (missions de paix). France has made much of the alignment between the nature of those operations and Frances historic role as a global player and nation phare, and in missions de paix France has found a contemporary context for French exceptionalism and a modem expression of the colonial mission civilisatrice. However, as Marie-Claude Smouts has pointed out:

French Defence in Context

To witness in the late 1990s the French celebration of Bastille Day on 14 July is to be offered a rich metaphor about the place and role of the armed forces in France at the end of the twentieth century. That an event in 1789 which came to symbolise the civilian overthrow of the existing political order should be celebrated more than 200 years later by a military parade may seem deeply incongruous, the more so because few European states today feel comfortable with a parade of military power at all. Yet the parade and its accompanying fly-past of military aircraft speaks volumes about the relationship between the French people and the French armed forces, or at least about the way that relationship is seen by political elites. It speaks volumes also about the importance of French military power as an instrument of statecraft and the way in which the French armed forces function as a symbol, perhaps the symbol, of French independence and rank.

The Reform of Defence

The publication of a defence white paper in March 1994 was evidence that the post-Cold War adaptation of French defence policy had reached a point of intellectual maturity. By 1994 there was considerable agreement about the nature of the post-Cold War security context, the lessons of the Gulf War, the defence and security implications of the Maastricht treaties, the lessons of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the nature of a new French ‘international mission’, the impact of technical military developments, and the broad aims and objectives of French defence and security policy. This did not mean that a new consensus had appeared – there remained sharp differences in particular about Franco-NATO relations, nuclear weapons and the defence budget – but it did mean that the post-Cold War ‘champ de bataille’ of the defence debate was becoming clear and that debates inside France were increasingly centring on the detail rather than the broad lines of policy, on means rather than ends, and on the pace rather than the trajectory of change.

French Defence Policy in the New Europe

The previous chapter left the discussion of French security adaptation to the ‘New Europe’ at NATO’s seminal summit at Brussels in January 1994, the formal point at which NATO’s evolution and French security ambitions for Europe became intertwined through the CJTF concept and the willingness of the United States to see the European role in NATO develop. By 1994 France had begun a meaningful rapprochement with NATO accepting both NATO’s continued dominance of European security and that ESDI could only be taken forward within it. It was by no means clear at the time however how far Franco-NATO rapprochement would go nor whether ESDI could become a functional reality. Five years later France’s role in both processes is clearer and the likely trajectory of future French policy evident. This chapter is intended to explore these issues.