WASHINGTON—Despite the level of international interest generated by American politics, there is a surprisingly meager tradition of commentary on the subject by outside observers actually read by Americans, flowing from Alexis de Tocqueville to Alistair Cooke. And yet every U.S. presidential election is also a global election. Four years ago, speculation as to whether Barack Obama, John McCain, or Hillary Clinton was preferable as an American leader went far beyond official circles in such capitals as Baghdad, Berlin, Brasilia, and Beijing, to living rooms, schools, and cafés from Mazar-e-Sharif to Marseilles and Montreal to Mumbai.

This year’s election has yet to generate a similar level of attention, because it is far less open or potentially groundbreaking. Still, misconceptions about the electoral process and U.S. political dynamics abound. As Mitt Romney appears set to seal his position as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate after his main rival Rick Santorum suspended his campaign yesterday, it may be worthwhile taking stock of some of the common errors made in popular commentary about U.S. presidential elections.

One of the most striking aspects about the 2012 election cycle so far has been the exaggerated influence attributed to certain groups and individuals. The mid-term elections in the U.S. Congress two years ago witnessed the arrival of the Tea Party, a movement that channeled popular dissatisfaction with tax increases, entitlement reform, and foreign wars to oust or threaten many long-term incumbents. Yet this year, the leading Republican candidates boasted competitively of their high income taxes. Admittedly, the remarkable success of Congressman Ron Paul — once considered a fringe member of his party — can at least partly be ascribed to his role in the Tea Party movement. But the presumed Republican presidential candidate has succeeded without Tea Party support this year.

Similarly, the former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — widely expected to be, if not a candidate herself, then at least a key power broker — has exerted little influence on the outcome of her party’s primaries. Various influential right-wing media commentators have also found themselves marginalized as Republican Party stalwarts have opted to rally behind Romney, a technocratic former governor of Democratic-leaning Massachusetts.

Premature attempts at divining the outcome of November’s election are another common source of errors. Many commentators — both in the United States and abroad — were convinced in mid-2011 that Obama’s chances of re-election were slim. At the time, unemployment figures and oil prices were both high and the president’s popularity rating was at an all-time low. But with the economy showing signs of recovery, and Obama faring well in head-to-head polls against Romney, the narrative has rapidly reversed.

And yet it is uncertain how long such sentiments will last. It is hard not to recall the example of 2008. Many forget now that John McCain had looked primed to win the election in August of that year. But by October — after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the U.S. economic downturn — Obama’s victory seemed all but certain. Republican and Democratic national conventions, which take place in the summer before a presidential election, have also historically shaped popular opinion in meaningful ways. And so the outcome of this year’s election will likely only be decided after August.

A final misconception about U.S. presidential elections by external observers involves exaggerating the role of international affairs in determining the final results. This is entirely understandable. It is natural to impose one’s own prisms and be concerned about how the election affects one’s own interests and fortunes. But the foreign policy dynamics of this election promise to be even less pronounced than in past editions. While Republicans have usually emphasized their strong national security credentials, their efforts this year will in part be blunted by Obama’s handling of several simultaneous wars and his ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. Romney, given his own lack of military experience and limited national security credentials, has also sought to portray himself more as America’s CEO than its Commander-in-Chief.

Of course, the Obama administration’s Iran policy and its support for cuts to the defense budget will come under heavy criticism from the Romney campaign, but such arguments are likely to be superseded by other pressing concerns. American voters will, in essence, be confronted with a choice as to which Harvard alumnus can better manage the U.S. government and economy at a time of spiraling debt, competing priorities, and diverse challenges. All politics are local, as the saying goes — but this election could well be more local than most.

Dhruva Jaishankar is a Program Officer with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington.

WASHINGTON–The protests in Afghanistan over the burning of copies of the Quran confiscated from detainees at Bagram Airfield have led to more than two dozen deaths, and have severely — perhaps even permanently — undermined the United States’ determined efforts to win hearts and minds in the country. The killing of NATO troops by members of Afghanistan’s security forces, or militants in their uniforms, is a dangerous new trend, and one that severely complicates relations between international security forces and their local hosts. It may now be time to consider new strategies by which to achieve U.S. and Western goals in Afghanistan.

Ever since the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in retaliation for the 9-11 attacks, the Western alliance in Afghanistan had two broad objectives: to defeat al-Qaeda, and to establish a viable non-Taliban alternative government to ensure that neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban resumed their prior positions. These objectives remain the foundation for the United States’ base lines for engagement with its adversaries: renouncing violence, breaking ties to al-Qaeda, and accepting the Afghan constitution.

In recent years, the United States has largely pursued a classical counterinsurgency strategy, similar to that employed in the later stages of the Iraq War. This has involved a focus on population security, capacity building, and the eventual transfer of authority to the local government and security forces. The military and civilian surges, efforts to accelerate the recruitment and training of Afghan security forces, and the reintegration of the Taliban, were all essential elements of this strategy.

But Afghanistan has been beset by at least three major challenges that distinguish it from Iraq. First, the Afghan leadership under President Hamid Karzai has as yet failed to establish itself as an effective and popularly mandated government, and it remains unable to provide adequate governance and security on its own. Moreover, given the endemic corruption, the absence of political reform, and the feeble state of the Afghan security forces, there is little hope for meaningful improvements soon. By contrast, at a similar stage in its conflict in 2007 and 2008, Iraq had held successful national legislative elections, thus ensuring that established political parties represented every sectarian group in its legislature and that the government could exercise its authority over a larger proportion of the population. But without the promise of improved governance, Kabul’s demands for greater development assistance and a long-term security guarantee from the United States are beginning to look like a moral hazard. Karzai’s increasing recklessness may well be based on the conviction that his government is too important for the West to let fail.

Second, an intransigent Pakistan military continues to play the role of spoiler, providing safe havens and other forms of support to various Taliban factions that target Afghan and Western interests in the country, including the particularly aggressive Haqqani Network. Yet the United States’ ability to respond to Pakistani transgressions is limited by the leverage Pakistan exercises as a conduit for essential supplies to Afghanistan, as a provider of occasional intelligence, and as a possessor of nuclear weapons.

Lastly, the United States’ has been ambiguous about its own intentions, as evidenced by a rather arbitrary deadline for concluding combat operations, and public vacillating over its strategic goals in the region. This enables various actors in South Asia to cherry-pick from a variety of official U.S. statements to justify their own agendas or reinforce preconceived notions.

The United States and its allies must now consider whether their strategic objectives —  which are no less important today than they were on September 12, 2001 — can be achieved with a lighter military presence, possibly one relegated to bases in Bagram and Jalalabad, and some of Afghanistan’s more stable northern and western provinces. This can only be seriously contemplated if there is certainty that violence will decrease, if relations with local stakeholders improve, and if the Afghan government and security forces behave more responsibly. At the same time, a lighter footprint may help address the challenges presented by inadequate Afghan governance, Pakistan’s leverage and duplicity, and the United States’ own strategic ambiguity by forcing Kabul to become more self-reliant, freeing NATO from its dependence on Pakistan for supplies, and reducing uncertainty about the United States’ long-term strategy. Such a strategy should not be misconstrued as withdrawal or abandonment, which is what the United States’ partners fear and its adversaries hope for. In fact, it will be a means of sustaining and prolonging the West’s presence in the region. At the same time, the only viable way forward in Afghanistan may require taking better advantage of the United States’ inherent strengths in dealing with an asymmetric threat: intelligence gathering, special operations, and drone capabilities.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Program Officer with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC. 

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WASHINGTON – Leadership transitions are inevitably accompanied by uncertainty. Promises made by aspiring leaders – particularly on matters of foreign policy – rarely bear themselves out.  In recent American memory, Bill Clinton decried the “butchers of Beijing” as a presidential contender but did his utmost to set U.S.-China relations on an even keel after the Taiwan Straits crisis. Candidate George W. Bush was thought to be primarily domestic-focused – America’s first “CEO president” – but the 9/11 attacks and a cohort of influential advisers ensured that his first term was dominated by foreign affairs. And even Barack Obama, who was seen as inexperienced on foreign policy and passionate only about nuclear disarmament, has found himself taking a very different tack on Iran, Pakistan, and East Asia than even he might have anticipated.

This year’s leadership handover in China is cause for far greater anxiety than any of the above, or for that matter any American or democratic transition. The ascension to the presidency of current Vice President Xi Jinping, who is visiting the United States this week, will mark only the second peaceful leadership transition in communist China’s history. Xi will inherit a China that is economically integrated to an unprecedented degree with the rest of the world – and a key driver of the roiling global economy – while remaining a latent security threat to most of its neighbors. Xi’s politburo colleagues will represent a new generation of leaders, many born after the Chinese Revolution, their upbringings colored by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, and their adult lives considerably more cosmopolitan than their predecessors. And Xi will, by many accounts, have less absolute authority than any previous Chinese leader, requiring consensus from his Politburo colleagues on important matters, and remaining mindful of the wishes of many other stakeholders, including the country’s increasingly influential business elites and military leaders.

Among the many challenges Xi will face upon his rise to leader of country, party, and (eventually) military, will be maintaining good relations with India. On the surface, the last year has appeared a particularly rocky one for relations between the two Asian giants. But that impression is informed in large part by a hyper-competitive and ill-informed media south of the contested border, and a nationalistic blogosphere to its north. A number of incidents involving Indian relations with Vietnam and poorly-detailed reports concerning China’s activities in Pakistan have also given the impression of unprecedented assertiveness by one side or the other. But in fact, the last year has also witnessed a surprising willingness by Beijing to acknowledge – if not yet accommodate – India’s rise. This manifested itself in a forward-leaning Chinese position at the 2011 BRICS Summit in Sanya and a renewed willingness to engage India on mechanisms to ensure a stable border after years of deadlock.

It may not amount to bonhomie, but China’s eagerness to maintain stable relations with India at this juncture – apparently driven by Washington’s renewed attention to the Chinese security challenge – suggests a curious dynamic at play in Asia. China is a fulcrum for the region’s security dilemmas, and its leadership appears more willing to engage certain potential adversaries when confronted with more assertive postures by others. This points to two possible courses for dealing with China under Xi Jinping. On the one hand, greater coordination among the powers on China’s periphery might help prolong China’s peaceful rise while gently urging its leadership to undertake necessary internal reforms to make its governance structures more transparent and representative. On the other hand, uncoordinated pressure by Washington, New Delhi, or Tokyo – which is far more likely given that all three, as well as Seoul, Jakarta, and Taipei, value their autonomy in decision-making – could force Beijing to productively engage other democratic states. That may also not spell bad news. If the only way China can overturn American primacy is by becoming more like America (or India), that can only be a good thing.

Dhruva Jaishankar is a senior program officer for Asia at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.

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BERLIN/MUMBAI–The announcement last week that India was entering into exclusive negotiations with Dassault for its Rafale fighter jet represents a major coup for the French defense contractor and for Nicolas Sarkozy. The embattled French president was evidently relieved by the prospect of the Rafale’s first ever foreign sale in a deal worth over US$10 billion, telling reporters, “we have been waiting for this day for 30 years.” The announcement is also a blow for the Eurofighter consortium, consisting of the leading aerospace manufacturers in Germany, Britain, Italy, and Spain, whose Typhoon had been the Rafale’s chief competitor. Two other recent decisions have gone against the Eurofighter group, with Switzerland opting instead for Saab’s Gripen and Japan for Lockheed Martin’s F-35. However, Eurofighter had thought itself better positioned in the Indian competition. It believed it was offering the technically superior aircraft and, indeed, the Typhoon had performed better in competitive trials in 2010.

Of course, defense sales are about much more than technical specifications, with considerations related to costs, technological transfers, joint production opportunities, and political relations playing vitally important roles. Indian observers had long discussed the higher up-front costs of the Eurofighter, but calculated over the total life cycle, the relative differences would not have been too significant. Cost is therefore unlikely to have been the sole rationale for the decision. One can only imagine that Dassault’s offers on technology transfers and joint production must have been generous. Yet Cassidian, the EADS subsidiary that led on the Eurofighter bid, had only last year signaled its commitment to India by opening the country’s first foreign-operated defense-oriented engineering center. Politically, the prospect of a sole partner in France should have been outweighed by relations with the four Eurofighter partner nations, although Indian officials may have calculated that a single partner would be easier to hold accountable than a coalition.

Where there was a real difference between the Dassault and Eurofighter bids was in the nature and scale of political support each received. The French government is comfortable with providing support for its arms export industries in ways that Germany—the lead nation on this Eurofighter bid—is not. In Germany, the idea of coordinating one’s defense, finance, and foreign ministries to support a major defense bid through the establishment of a “war room,” as Sarkozy did, is simply unimaginable. If nothing else, such top-down political support makes it easier to bundle incentives. The sale was also a clear priority for the French president, and given the Rafale’s non-existent record of exports and uncertain future, finding a foreign buyer for the aircraft had become a declared world-wide mission for Sarkozy.

These are trying times for Europe’s defense aerospace companies, with European spending on defense falling by about €24 billion in the past three years alone whilst the global marketplace is also becoming increasingly crowded. The sight of Eurofighter and Dassault competing for overseas sales is a further reminder of the complexities surrounding the ongoing attempt to pool and share Europe’s defense-industrial capabilities, efforts that should be finding new momentum in these times of austerity. Europe’s governments and industries know that between the Rafale, Typhoon, and Gripen, they have produced two more variants of fighter aircraft than they actually need. Such legacy programs  place a further  unnecessary burden on Europe’s shrinking defense budgets and constrain European militaries from effectively configuring their resources to meet evolving requirements. Worse, it is entirely unclear whether any lessons have been learned. The same national imperatives and industrial concerns are now in danger of driving the expensive development of two medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (MALE UAVs), Talarion and Telemos. The development of unmanned capabilities may well be the future for defense aerospace, but few in Europe think that two versions of a MALE UAV are really necessary. Fewer still think that Europe won’t end up with two anyway.

Sarah Raine is a non-resident fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Berlin and a consulting research fellow with IISS. Dhruva Jaishankar is a program officer with GMF’s Asia Program in Washington.

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WASHINGTON — World and Afghan leaders convened in Bonn earlier this week, a decade after that city hosted the first major conference to chart Afghanistan’s future following the ousting of the Taliban. Key priorities on the Bonn 2011 agenda naturally included the ongoing security transition to Afghan forces, reconciliation with the Taliban and armed insurgent groups, and the continuing international commitment to Afghanistan. Considerable emphasis was also placed on the country’s political and human development — particularly women, health, and corruption — and the durability of the Afghan economy. But while symbolism overshadowed any substantive developments, the summit’s participation provided a good sense of the ever-evolving strategic contours of the Afghan conflict.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai initiated discussions with an impassioned (if obligatory) plea for continued assistance from the international community. Only the week before, he had unveiled the second phase of the Afghan security transition, which would result in Afghan security forces assuming security responsibility for over 50 percent of the country. This had followed a consultative Loya Jirga, where more than 2,000 representatives agreed unanimously to support enduring relations with the international community, including the United States. Both developments marked important steps as Afghanistan prepares itself for a lighter Western military footprint, and were repeatedly referenced at Bonn.

Of greater significance at the summit, however, was the high-level official representation from the transatlantic community, which clearly indicated the West’s continued commitment to Afghanistan at a time when economic and political challenges at home might suggest looking inward, rather than at important challenges farther afield. While leaders generally avoided addressing the specifics of any long-term commitments to Afghanistan — such as a notional U.S. security agreement until 2024 — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did emphasize that “2014 doesn’t mean that the Afghan Security Forces are totally on their own,” a sentiment that was echoed in the joint statement issued at the conference’s conclusion. The United States and its NATO allies also made specific promises to help with Afghanistan’s reconstruction and institutional capacity.

Perhaps just as consequential as the West’s reassurances was Pakistan’s absence. Its boycott was the result of last month’s NATO strike in Mohmand, which resulted in over two dozen of its soldiers being killed. That clash and Pakistan’s response — coming soon after the assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, blamed on Pakistan-based militants — have further eroded the pretense of its being a supportive ally in efforts to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Tuesday’s attack in Kabul on the Shi’a holy day of Ashura, which resulted in over 55 deaths and was claimed by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, also points to a dangerous new strain of sectarian violence spilling over from Pakistan.

Finally, the high-level presence of other regional actors — Iran, India, and China — proved a good indicator of the importance these powers accord to Afghanistan irrespective of the United States’ and NATO’s presence there. Karzai singled out Iran’s position at Bonn as a particularly positive indicator of Tehran’s intentions toward Afghanistan, but Iran’s statement also underscored the difficulty of reconciling its cooperation on Afghanistan with growing U.S. and European concern over its clandestine nuclear development. The delegation from India, which recently signed a strategic partnership with Afghanistan, highlighted the continuing challenge Afghanistan faces from cross-border terrorism. Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister stressed the need to bolster Afghanistan’s sovereignty and autonomy, a careful message that conveniently lends itself to contradictory interpretations: Afghanistan’s independence from U.S. influence and security provisions on one hand, and its ability to counter Pakistani proxies on the other.

The Bonn summit may not have led to any concrete breakthroughs. The conference conclusions were not unexpected, and indicated a shared commitment to upholding the Afghan constitution, political institutions, and human rights; supporting Afghan security (including on counterterrorism and counternarcotics) after 2014; promoting Afghan-led political reconciliation under strict conditions; bolstering economic growth with international assistance; and facilitating regional normalization and integration. While such lofty ambitions may not necessarily result in the eradication of Afghanistan’s daunting challenges, they will help shape the country’s uncertain future. The responsibility for a stable and secure Afghanistan rests ultimately with its people, and the summit was simply a demonstration of continued faith in the country’s future. But, as they say, half of winning is just showing up. And at Bonn, the international community — with one notable exception — did.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Program Officer and Javid Ahmad is Program Coordinator with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC.

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WASHINGTON — Despite last-minute maneuvering on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, the tortuous Israel-Palestinian peace process is set to reach another critical juncture on Friday when the Palestinians submit a bid to seek full UN membership. Although polls indicate widespread support in the international community for a two-state solution and the creation of an independent Palestinian state, several recent developments suggest that the timing of the bid — which President Barack Obama has said the United States will block at the Security Council — could scarcely be worse from the standpoint of almost every stakeholder, including the Palestinians themselves.

Perhaps the most important such development concerns the political dispensation within the Palestinian territories. Hamas’s control of the Gaza Strip — secured by popular mandate through the ballot box — has undermined the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mamoud Abbas. In fact, the UN bid seems at least partly motivated by Abbas’ attempts to consolidate his domestic constituency. And yet, rather ironically, the Palestinian Authority owes its survival in the West Bank in large part to Israel’s continuing military presence there, which acts as a bulwark against Hamas. Paradoxically, the push for UN recognition that might strengthen Abbas’ position in the short run also threatens this temporary and tenuous alliance of convenience with Israel.

A second and more recent development is the Arab Spring, which has already resulted in the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and political upheaval in Syria and Jordan. Israelis are deeply worried about populist regimes emerging in these states, which might well be inclined to greater hostility toward Israel. Their fears are not entirely unfounded: relations between Israel and Egypt — which for three decades had remained a powerful stabilizing factor in the region — are now on a downward trajectory, especially following the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo two weeks ago. Israel will only be in a position to accept Palestinian independence if it feels secure; the Arab Spring has had the opposite effect.

Third, the United States’ status as an honest broker is in jeopardy, following the Obama administration’s poorly-handled mediation of the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The United States’ initially strong position on a settlement building freeze angered not just Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also painted Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas into a corner. In Abbas’ words, “We both went up the tree. After that, [Obama] came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump.” It’s a far cry from the years when former U.S. President Bill Clinton was seen as an even-handed mediator between then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat; today, both sides feel that Washington has let them down.

The fourth development involves other external actors. The Quartet — consisting of the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia, but represented by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — has proven largely ineffective as a mediating presence. Despite contributing almost half of all aid to the Palestinian Authority, Europe appears divided on what approach to take, making it harder to forge a common transatlantic policy. Meanwhile, Israel’s relations with other key players in its neighborhood — notably Turkey — have nose-dived, meaning the regional political climate is far from conducive to normalization.

An overarching problem, though, is one of priorities. A two-state solution requires a government in the Palestinian territories that is unified, stable, popularly-mandated, and status quo-oriented, but in contrast to the heady optimism of the days preceding the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Authority today checks only the status quo box. Prematurely seeking international legitimacy at the United Nations is sure to prevent progress towards a viable end state, while the disappointment resulting from a blocked UN bid may yet stoke violence.

The handling of the issue by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority has been remarkably clumsy. Neither side appears to have made adequate preparations for a soft landing after the vote. At the same time, various parties on both sides appear to be exaggerating the importance of this largely symbolic gesture for their own purposes. Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has warned of unspecified “harsh and grave” consequences, while other Israeli leaders have suggested abandoning the moribund Oslo peace process or annexing parts of the West Bank. Meanwhile, Abbas and many supporters of the Palestinian cause have framed the vote as the ultimate litmus test for the acceptance of Palestinian statehood. The roles, it appears, have reversed. Abbas has climbed down the tree and removed the ladder. And, barring a last-minute face-saving gesture, it is the United States that might have to jump.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Program Officer with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC. This article is partly based on interviews conducted on a recent visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories supported by the American Jewish Committee.

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WASHINGTON — Mythological allusions were probably not on the minds of U.S. military planners, but their designation of coalition operations against Libya – Odyssey Dawn – has a certain poetic appropriateness about it. For much of the past few weeks, U.S. President Barack Obama and his administration have resembled the Greek hero Odysseus, navigating the treacherous waters between Scylla and Charybdis. A full-fledged intervention in support of rebel forces might have led to confrontation with a monster of many appendages: escalation, insurgency, illegality, and even invasion. But silence, restraint, or overcaution would have risked drowning the United States’ standing in a whirlpool of perceived impotence and inexorable decline as a global power.

Accepting French and British leadership on the issue has proved a way out of this dilemma, but there are positive lessons that Washington can derive from this episode. The very process of retaining global preeminence, with the intention of maintaining and advancing an international system conducive to American and Western interests and values, is undergoing a transition. The immediate post-Cold War period necessitated American leadership and direct involvement in the Balkans, Haiti, and Taiwan. In the absence of American instigation, the world witnessed further violence and anarchy in such places as Rwanda, Somalia, and, yes, Afghanistan.

Today, U.S. fiscal constraints and the distribution of political, military, and economic resources to new powers – including many who share Washington’s general worldview – necessitate and enable a new manner of global leadership, one in which the United States may be best-placed to play a facilitating role to partner countries with convergent interests and values.  In effect, the U.S. handling of the Libyan intervention — more likely by accident than by design — helps set a valuable precedent for tackling future regional security challenges in states and regions that may not necessarily be top priorities for the U.S. government.

In this light, the Libyan intervention is neither tragedy nor comedy, but history. Homeric references aside, the operation’s designation does hint at more positive attributes; it might, in fact, augur the dawn of a new manner of maintaining American eminence in a multipolar world.

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WASHINGTON—As protests in the Middle East and North Africa spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya and Bahrain, another worrisome development in the extended neighborhood has gone relatively unnoticed.  Pakistan is now in possession of a nuclear arsenal consisting of 100 to 110 weapons, according to recent reports in two major U.S. newspapers that are based on several independent estimates. This figure represents a doubling of similar estimates conducted four years ago, and means that Pakistan now has a larger nuclear stockpile than Britain.

Although it caused some ripples, this revelation was not exactly a surprise to the nuclear cognoscenti, who have remarked for some time on Pakistan’s expanding nuclear infrastructure. U.S. intelligence analysts expressed their concerns about Pakistan’s buildup as early as 2008, according to documents made available by WikiLeaks. But despite this understanding, expert commentary on Pakistan’s motives remains subject to unfortunate levels of mirror-imaging and outmoded Cold War logic. Specifically, it is still widely believed that Pakistan and its regional competitors will inevitably pursue debilitating arms races, that India and Pakistan are locked in an intractable existential or territorial conflict, that these states are obsessed about the credibility of their nuclear deterrents, and that strategic forces still retain their preeminence as potential delivery mechanisms.

Wrong diagnoses will invariably lead to wrong prescriptions. Many commentators have assumed, for example, that Pakistan’s primary objective is to offset India’s growing latent power and conventional military advantages, even if only as a psychological boost, but the recent acceleration of its weapons production does not correspond to any increase in threat perception. Experts also point to a recent civilian nuclear agreement that Washington brokered with New Delhi as lending India’s nuclear weapons program distinct advantages and furthering a regional nuclear arms race.  Yet a race takes two, and India has hardly been rushing to build nuclear weapons. Independent estimates by Western experts of India’s arsenal have actually gone down since India tested its weapons in 1998. Informed, albeit crude, estimates based on its plutonium production capability suggest a current Indian stockpile of around 50 weapons, if not fewer. And given that India’s force posture – based on the size of its stockpile and declared no- first- use policy – is most likely counter- value (i.e. it targets major population centers), a much larger Pakistani arsenal adds little to Pakistan’s sense of security.

If this is not just about India, what could be Pakistan’s motives for rapidly increasing its nuclear stockpile, despite its being in dire economic straits? There are at least two other possibilities that need to be carefully considered. One is that Pakistan, cash-strapped and with a long and well-documented history of nuclear proliferation, is building up the arsenal for the benefit of a partner or client. China and Saudi Arabia have provided diplomatic, financial, and technical support to Pakistan over the years, and it is not unthinkable that Pakistan’s surplus weapons may be placed at their disposal under certain circumstances, particularly Saudi Arabia’s given its lingering concerns about a nuclear Iran.

A second possibility is that Pakistan’s nukes are neither for defense nor for sale, but are instead a potent form of blackmail directed at its primary benefactor: the United States. Washington is petrified of the prospect of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, and has made efforts to assist Pakistan in ensuring the safety and security of its arsenal. But the more weapons there are, the harder it is for the U.S. intelligence community to monitor them, and the greater the fear of their accidental or deliberate loss or misuse. The fact that Pakistan accelerated its weapon production just as its relations with Washington deteriorated may not be entirely coincidental. Like the wiles of a deranged lover, this form of masochistic extortion provides a guarantee for Pakistan against abandonment by Washington.

Whatever its primary motives, Pakistan is unlikely to be dissuaded from its current path of nuclear weapons development.  Its willingness to diplomatically isolate itself by single-handedly blocking negotiations toward a fissile material cutoff treaty at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva is ample evidence of this.  Nevertheless, looking at the problem through the narrow lens of India-Pakistan relations is unhelpful, particularly when it is accompanied by complacency regarding the potential of Pakistani nuclear weapons to compromise Western security interests. Only two weeks ago, a former senior Clinton administration official wrote: “The Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars each year in American aid, has a generally positive relationship with the U.S., and, should this relationship change, Pakistan’s nuclear delivery vehicles would still lack the range necessary to reach American shores.” This betrays both a poor understanding of U.S.-Pakistan relations as well as an outmoded way of thinking about the threat posed by nuclear weapons today.  But it is all the more reason for the recent revelations to serve as a wake up call, one that compels Washington and its partners to think more imaginatively about the forces propelling Pakistan’s self-destructive behavior.

Dhruva Jaishankar is a Program Officer with the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Program in Washington.

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My colleague Joseph Wood has nicely captured one aspect of the recent tumult in Egypt that has gone mostly unnoticed in Western commentary. “Part of the difficulty we have in seeing the next surprise is the “social science” mentality of the West and our policy processes,” he writes. “We want empirically validated conclusions with which to extrapolate trends into the future.”

There is certainly a limited utility in using the past as a guide to the future. Just because the Mubarak regime did not fall for ten thousand six hundred days does not mean that it won’t on the ten thousand six hundred and first. But observers of international politics are methodologically hampered by our tendency to extend current trend lines. Perhaps this boils down to the inherent futility of trying to perfectly model human behavior. We can be confident that the sun will rise tomorrow because we understand the workings of the solar system, but it appears that we don’t understand ourselves nearly as well.

The United States and other governments have tried to escape their methodological limitations in various ways. Andrew Marshall’s efforts at the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment represent one attempt, while Team Bs, low-probability high-impact analyses and other such exercises that the intelligence community carries out—or is expected to carry out—are others. Although the U.S. intelligence community has long contested the high standards of success that others judge it by, the question is whether in this case it was able to confer U.S. policymakers any decisionmaking advantage at all. That seems doubtful—given the early missteps by the Obama administration —although that may have been the fault of the recipients of intelligence in the administration as much as the intelligence community itself, as was the case with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It would be tempting, then, to simply treat the Egypt protests and other such events as ‘black swans’ outside the scope of modeling, or events assigned such low probabilities as to not merit contingency planning. After all, Israel too was caught completely off guard. But that explanation excuses an element of intellectual laziness. Rather, we should expect most competent governments—not least the United States’ with its $80 billion intelligence budget—to anticipate and prepare for such contingencies in states of strategic consequence such as Egypt. Equally, we should hold policymakers accountable for not being receptive enough to early indications of the occasional big surprise.

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WASHINGTON — In recent days, the world’s attention has turned once again to the terrorist threat emanating from Pakistan. Last week, the American and British governments issued heightened travel alerts for continental Europe following revelations of an extremist plot hatched in Waziristan. The operationalization of this plot, which reportedly involved coordinated raids on European cities in the vein of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, resulted in a dramatic increase in U.S. drone strikes in northwestern Pakistan over the past month. On Monday, one such attack killed several German militants training in Pakistan’s tribal regions. Also last week, a cross-border strike by NATO forces resulted in three Pakistani military deaths and the subsequent closure by Pakistan of vital supply routes to Afghanistan. This was followed by multiple militant raids on depots in Pakistan and the destruction of fuel and other supplies intended for NATO forces.  And on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported the presence of a critical White House assessment that bluntly accused Pakistan of being unwilling to take action against militants on its soil.

The centrality of Pakistan has long been acknowledged by members of the counterterrorism community in the West. But Pakistan’s approach to the festering terror threat at home — alternatively defensive and lackadaisical — has, due to the incapability or unwillingness of its government and security forces to take further action, ultimately been ineffective. For several reasons, the international community has demonstrated a high level of tolerance for Pakistan’s apparent ambivalence. As underscored by the recent standoff, the United States and NATO remain dependent on Pakistan as a conduit for supplies to Afghanistan. The United States also lacks an adequate intelligence infrastructure in northwestern Pakistan and consequently relies on Pakistani agencies for their support. Additionally, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons — and the risks they pose both in terms of proliferation and escalation — further limit the leverage of the United States and its partners.

The dominant Pakistani narrative is colored by several claims: that Western interests in South Asia are short-term and fickle, that Pakistan is limited in its capacity to act due to the threat to its east posed by India, and that the U.S. and NATO military presence in its region is fundamentally destabilizing. That these assessments are often based on selective facts, disavowals of responsibility, and conspiracy theories suggest a state in deep denial about the many problems it faces.  It behooves the West to refute such views and instead advance the wider international community’s assessment of the problems afflicting the region.

First, the West must make clear that it has a long-term interest in the region due to the nexus of challenges present there, from terrorism and WMD proliferation to political instability and energy security. Despite the announced July 2011 withdrawal date from Afghanistan, the United States underscored its commitment to Pakistan by agreeing last year to a long-term program of development aid.

For its part, India, appreciative of the potentially destabilizing consequences of assertiveness on its part, has to persevere with its admirable restraint in the face of acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil with the connivance of elements of the Pakistani security community. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has risked domestic political support in his effort to forge a lasting peace with Pakistan, even though these efforts have been repeatedly undermined by the Pakistani foreign minister. Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent, developed at considerable cost to the country, ought to be another source of security, but is rarely considered in discussions of the perceived Indian threat. The extent of Pakistani paranoia was made evident in a 56-page dossier presented to the United States by Pakistan in April, a dossier that contained a litany of unproven accusations against India.

Finally, the West’s objective of a stable, pluralistic, and democratic Afghanistan at peace with itself and in its region must come to be shared by members of the Pakistani ruling elite, many of whom blame the United States and NATO for pushing militancy eastward and view the Karzai government in Kabul as inherently pro-Indian and anti-Pakistani. The United States’ drone strikes, while much-maligned and used by Pakistani leaders and opinion-shapers to perpetuate anti-American sentiments, are in fact privately welcomed by the Pakistani leadership, with some reports even indicating active Pakistani collusion in drone operations. While by no means an adequate replacement for a counterinsurgency strategy, the strikes have been successful in decapitating the leadership of Pakistan-based terror groups, including groups bent on destabilizing Pakistan. As long as a full counterinsurgency campaign remains an unrealistic possibility, the drone strikes will continue to be employed out of necessity.

The exploitation of the United States’ supposed vacillation and India’s alleged belligerence against Pakistan, as well as popular outrage against the military endeavors of the United States and NATO, however justified, suggest a consistent strategy of Pakistani scapegoating that is unlikely to diminish despite the best efforts at the United States and its partners. U.S. officials have vented in private about the reluctance of Pakistani leaders to shape public opinion in the United States’ favor.  Rather than continue with a regional policy held hostage to Pakistan’s whims, the United States and the West should consider alternatives that draw an end to its long-running charade.  A necessary step may yet be a finely calibrated and targeted package of incentives and sanctions, for it seems that nothing less than such drastic coercive measures can align Pakistan’s objectives with the West’s, to the benefit of the long-suffering Pakistani people and regional and global security.

Dhruva Jaishankar is Program Officer for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

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