So what are the metrics? In Pakistan, they’re … way counterinsurgency heavy. It’s a lot of subjective stuff on governance, like the government’s “actions to create necessary steps to ensure economic stability, job creation and growth,” and “demonstrable action” against corruption; as well as military measures like the power of the Pakistani military to conduct “counter-insurgency operations across the clear-hold-build phases to defeat insurgent groups.” That’s not to say there aren’t counterterrorism-relevant metrics. Three of them include the “level of militant-initiated violence”; “extent of militant-controlled areas in Pakistan”; and “effectiveness of Pakistani border security efforts.” These may not be strictly counterterrorism metrics, but they’re certainly counterterrorism-relevant. The bigger concern is that the measurement doesn’t include any criteria for reaching a judgment, though the document refers to a “classified annex,” so perhaps that has more detail.

On Afghanistan, the metrics get more granular. There are 14 security-specific metrics, including the “degree to which security operations are integrated into the overall COIN campaign”; “level of insurgent-related violence”; “percent of population living in districts/areas under insurgent control”; “percent of populations living in districts/areas ‘held’ by coalition and/or [Afghan security forces] and where ‘build’ activities are ongoing”; “capability, to include size, of the [Afghan army] and [Afghan police]“; “level of corruption within the [Afghan security forces].” There’s a lot in here to appeal to the Carl Levins of the Senate, who want to focus on bolstering Afghan security capacity ahead of increasing troop levels again: “level of trust and confidence by the Afghan people in the [army and police's] ability to provide sustained security”; “ability of the [Afghan security forces] to assume lead security responsibility” and so on.

On the Afghan governance side, there are ten metrics, including on that already looks to have bit the dust: “Afghan government’s institutions at the national, provincial and local level, including ability to hold credible elections in 2009 and 2010.” Oh well. There’s also “support for human rights”; “demonstrable action by government against corruption”; “public perception at the district level of the Afghan Government’s effectiveness and sustained ability to provide services” (interestingly, not the volume or consistency of the services themselves); “volume and value of narcotics”; and perhaps most importantly, “Afghan Government’s efforts to develop and execute reconciliation programs at the national, provincial and local levels with U.S. and international support.” Finally, there are seven metrics about the international community’s support for Afghanistan, including the “effectiveness of international security, governance, and development assistance” and relations between Afghanistan and its neighbors.

Most of these look unfamiliar to the benchmarks established for Iraq in 2007, which included such granular measurements as electricity kilowatt-hours and sectarian-caused deaths and so forth. That’s what happens when Congress lets the administration write its own benchmarks instead of writing them for it. One pledge that the metric document makes is that by “March 30, 2010 and on regular intervals thereafter” — whatever that means — the Obama administration will provide assessments to Congress of how it’s doing, as well as a “Red Team” assessment to check the self-applied grade, conducted by a team led from the National Intelligence Council.

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The so-new-I-don’t-have-a-URL-yet report –  written by counterinsurgency luminaries David Kilcullen, Andrew Exum, Nathaniel Fick and CNAS researcher Ahmed Humayun and bluntly titled “Triage” — lays out a stark picture of the insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and the available U.S. options to reverse the worsening situations. As the title indicates, the authors think the best that can be accomplished over the next 12 months in the conjoined wars is a stanching of the bleeding caused by inattention and poor U.S., NATO and Pakistani strategy, not anything approaching “victory.” Their recommendations will be familiar to students of counterinsurgency: protect the Afghan population, which they call “the single most important task facing the United States and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the near term”; place U.S. civilian expertise into the Afghan ministries to “visibly decreas[e] corruption”; “strictly curtail” the drone strikes on “non-al-Qaeda targets” in Pakistan (which conspicuously stops short of the “moratorium” on the drone strikes that Exum and Kilcullen advocated in a recent New York Times op-ed); and boost a Pakistani police capacity so areas taken back from or not controlled by the Taliban can stay that way. (Interestingly, they phrase that by saying the U.S. should stop “unconditionally aiding the Pakistani military at the expense of other security forces” like the police.)

But the strength of the report comes from its helpful suggestions about how to measure the course of the war. The authors’ lodestar is that the U.S. should assess “outcomes for the population rather than inputs by governments.” In other words, don’t look at the resources that the U.S. or its allies puts into the wars to judge the strategies’ effectiveness — hey, we’ve got a new Brigade Combat Team in a place we didn’t before — look at what the population actually gets out of it. Though they concede such metrics are harder to gauge than, say, enemy body counts or NATO troops deployed, they contend that the administration will know whether it’s on the right or wrong track by examining

the proportion of the population that feels safe, can access essential services, enjoys social justice and the rule of law, engages in political activity, and earns a living without fear of insurgents, drug traffickers, or corrupt officials.

Specifically, they take the controversial step of contending that in Afghanistan, “the most telling measure of progress” will be the reduction of “Afghan civilian casualties,” either those caused by the United States or the Taliban-led insurgent coalition. Then comes the August Afghan presidential election, which can be considered a “qualified success” if it occurs “without major violence, and … is fair and transparent in accordance with international standards.” Next, count the number of Afghanistan’s 398 administrative districts that are under government or Taliban control. (They concede that can be a subjective measurement, but make a compelling case that it’s not an indeterminable one: “Can the official responsible for a district sleep there overnight? Can civilian officials travel without military escort in their district?” etc.) Rather than count enemy bodies, count “surrenders and defections,” patterns in IED attacks and attempted attacks, and whether the U.S. or the Taliban are initiating most attacks in a given area. And like in Iraq, the rate of intelligence tips from civilians about insurgent planning will be key.

In Pakistan, the CNAS authors write, the metrics are “less clear-cut,” since the United States doesn’t have remotely the influence and freedom of action it does in Afghanistan. As a result, much of what they suggest watching concerns Taliban actions — specifically, whether attacks and Taliban footholds expand beyond the Pashtun areas in the east from which the Taliban emerged; how many government-appointed tribal representatives the Taliban murder; and its infiltration rate into Afghanistan. When it comes to Pakistani government and military actions, they advise watching whether the military acts on U.S. intelligence tips and military advice about targeting and civilian control over the military. Interestingly, they do not propose looking at how the military and police forces hold areas cleared by the Taliban.

The report might be fairly criticized for not clearly articulating how these proposals and metrics contribute to the Obama administration’s objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan.” None of the proposals or metrics have to do with safe havens, with the arguable exception of the proposal to look at the Pakistani Taliban’s expansion (or lack thereof) into Sindh or Punjab. But since the paper has to do with the next 12 months in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it could be that the authors decided that such a goal wasn’t yet on the table in that time frame, and the apparent focus of the paper’s effort is to look at and quantify how the U.S. can stop digging itself into a hole and reverse the Taliban’s momentum.

At any rate, the paper is pretty much guaranteed to be taken seriously by the Obama administration, as CNAS scholars and leaders are now senior administration officials, like Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy. And some general with a Dutch last name is going to be delivering the keynote speech at next week’s big CNAS annual conference.

(Also, speaking to a point raised in a previous post, the CNAS authors credit Amnesty International’s assessment that the U.S.-led coalition is responsible for 25 percent of Afghan civilian casualties, and fault previous U.S. strategy for being “unwilling or unable” to protect the population. They wonder whether the U.S. military command is really embracing counterinsurgency principles while waging a counterinsurgency campaign: “One of the more worrying trends in Afghanistan has been the way in which the U.S. military—while claiming to faithfully execute population-centric counterinsurgency—has continued to articulate its aims in terms of terrain controlled and enemies killed or captured.” Hmmm.)

The sticking point appears to come in section 206 of H.R. 1886, the cutely-acronymed PEACE Act (“Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act,” to be formal), which places a number of restrictions on Pakistani aid. Under the section, President Obama would have to determine in four months and annually thereafter that Pakistan is cooperating with U.S. efforts to “dismantle supplier networks relating to the acquisition of nuclear weapons-related materials,” a reference to Pakistani hero and criminal proliferator A.Q. Khan. He’d have to annually vouch for Pakistan doing the following things:

(A) ceasing support, including by any elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency, to extremist and terrorist groups, particularly to any group that has conducted attacks against United States or coalition forces in Afghanistan, including Afghanistan National Security Forces, or against the territory of India or the people of India;CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(B) closing terrorist camps in the FATA, dismantling terrorist bases of operations in other parts of the country, including Quetta and Muridke, and taking action when provided with intelligence about high-level terrorist targets;CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(C) preventing cross border attacks into neighboring countries; andCommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(D) strengthening counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering laws.

And if he doesn’t, Pakistan doesn’t get any money. But the bill has a provision allowing Obama to waive certification if doing so “is vital to the national security interest of the United States,” so it’s hardly ironclad. And to get intrigue-y, there’s also a democratization requirement, stipulating that money made available under the PEACE Act  “may only be provided or made to, or received from, civilian authorities of a government of Pakistan constituted through a free and fair election.” But there’s a provision for Obama to waive that too, for the “vital national security” reason. (Like if, say, a U.S.-friendly military coup took place.)

So what would Flournoy prefer? “We support the approach to accountability as set forth in the Biden-Lugar bill introduced in the last Congress,” she said. OK then. Here’s the relevant portion of that bill’s summary from OpenCongress:

Limits certain military assistance and arms transfers to Pakistan until the Secretary of State certifies that Pakistan’s security forces:
(1) are making concerted efforts to prevent al Qaeda and the Taliban from operating in Pakistan’s territory; and
(2) are not materially interfering in Pakistan’s political or judicial processes. Directs the Secretary to develop a comprehensive, cross-border strategy for working with the government of Pakistan, the government of Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), and other allies to implement effective counterterrorism and counterinsurgency measurers along the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Stricter, sure, in the PEACE Act, but all along the lines of enforcing stated administration goals. Flournoy added that the administration was “in the process of developing robust measures of effectiveness that will allow us — and you — to hold us and our Pakistani partners accountable.” Still waiting for those.

Well, look, you know, our views on the whole issue of Swat are well known. And, you know, we believe that extremists, violent extremists, need to be confronted, and we’ve made that very clear. We’re very concerned about parliament’s decision, the decision of parliament yesterday with regard to the question of, you know, women’s rights. We’re going to continue to have discussions with the Government of Pakistan on these issues. But I just want to reiterate the point that our view is violent extremists need to be confronted, and the Government of Pakistan is aware of our concerns about this issue.

If only there were some kind of mechanism for accountability that the Obama administration could employ here.

Today Afghan women, about 300 of them, protested the law in Kabul. Dexter Filkins of The New York Times has this account:

The reaction was immediate. Hundreds of students from the madrassa, most but not all of them men, poured into the streets to confront the demonstrators.

“Death to the enemies of Islam!” the counterdemonstrators cried, encircling the women. “We want Islamic law!”

The women stared ahead and kept walking.

A phalanx of police, some of them women, held the crowds apart.

What have you done recently that’s half as brave?

“Sen. Reid believes sound criteria are necessary to measure the effectiveness of both our strategy in Afghanistan and the resources we spend in that effort,” said a statement from the office of Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev. “He expects that the administration and the Congress will consult extensively on how to best hold the Afghans accountable for taking responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.”

Well and good, but the keepaway nature of the benchmarks to date makes this a tiresome exercise. Will someone just announce some benchmarks? Like in a piece of legislation or from a department podium?

Here’s Robert Wood, spokesman for the State Department, on the subject yesterday:

I think you would expect when the U.S. taxpayer is providing money, assistance to a country, that we want to make sure that we’re not only getting our money’s worth, but that certain things that we care about, we want to see that they be dealt with. And so we have said we will provide and would like to provide $1.5 billion over a five-year period to Pakistan, but clearly we want there – we are going to establish benchmarks. We want to see certain standards and goals met. And that’s something you would expect that we would be willing to do. And – but I don’t have anything else beyond that.

Yeah, you would expect that.

Pakistan has not done a peace deal with the Taliban in Swat Valley. Period. Pakistan has negotiated an arrangement, locally, with the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammedi of Swat. The president of Pakistan has not signed the agreement and not approved the agreement yet because he’s waiting for the TNSM to fulfill its end of the bargain, which was, essentially, to make sure that the Taliban — whose leader happens to be his son-in-law — they do not continue to use force. Since that has not happened, the agreement has not been enforced.

That was then, reports The Wall Street Journal:

President Asif Ali Zardari effectively ratified the government’s deal with the Taliban Monday by signing a bill that imposes Islamic law in Swat, a key plank of the accord, hours after legislators overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging it. Pakistani officials have touted the deal, reached in February, as a way to restore peaceful order in the bloodied region — which lies just a few hours’ drive from the capital — and halt the Taliban’s advance.

The whole Journal piece really deserves to be read and digested. It’s a stark look at how Swat is an unambiguous safe haven for the Taliban and affiliated extremists. As a U.S. official puts it, the peace deal makes the valley “a rest stop for the Taliban.” If the flogging video wasn’t enough, this quote, from a Taliban spokesman named Muslim Khan, should leave doubt about life under the Taliban:

Mr. Khan, the Taliban spokesman, predicted there would soon be more executions, showing off a list of people whom the Taliban want to try in Islamic courts for what he called their “anti-Islamic” ways. The list includes senior government officials, a woman whose husband is in the U.S. military, and others. Many of them have fled or are in areas outside Taliban control

“These kinds of people should not live,” said Mr. Khan, who also is a commander in the Tehrik-e-Taliban, a broader Taliban alliance focused on battling the Pakistani government.

We’re still waiting to see what sort of benchmarks, if any, the Obama administration will place on aid to Pakistan as the Zardari government cedes territory to the Taliban. The hopeful scenario is that, as Haqqani indicated last week, this is a period of retrenchment for the Pakistani government, as well as the Taliban, preceding some sort of strike. But perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.

Now the earliest the bill could be introduced is Monday, March April 20, the first day back from spring break. More to come about what the holdup is.

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for the committee, didn’t want to get into specifics, as the bill’s final contours are still being worked out. But he said that the committee “may be leaving it up to the administration to establish benchmarks,” since “we’re not trying to micromanage in this bill.” Jones added that there were a “bunch of things in this bill that we’d be leaving to the administration to work out the details.” The bill could be introduced as early as today.

If you have a sensation that the Obama administration and Congress are playing keepaway with the Af-Pak benchmarks, you’re not alone. In today’s Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the administration “should have already established specific benchmarks” to judge the strategy. Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy who played a lead role in formulating the Af-Pak strategy, said the administration was still in the process of crafting “meaningful metrics,” since the ones currently used in Afghanistan are “input-related” and the administration preferred “more outcome, impact-related” benchmarks. “We want to make as many of them as public as possible,” she added. Thanks.