So It’s War, Then?

Oh, Spencer.

Whitman’s best attempt at putting on a happy face is to say “…we were immediately able to contact Pakistani authorities and determine the origin of the fire.” Well, great. You know what’s a lot better than that? Not having U.S. troops get shot at by an ostensible ally.

Chances are this is a situation where border guards overinterpreted an order given them by their chain of command. It’s not an international incident. But it most certainly is a massive alarm bell that the U.S.-Pakistani relationship has gone off the rails. The rate this is going, some American soldier is going to get killed if something isn’t done. Then we really will have an international incident on our hands.

No, we won’t. Ackerman is talking about an incident whereby another couple of U.S. helicopters came under fire by Pakistani troops while still in Afghan airspace. Of course, Pakistani actions have already killed U.S. servicemen, unless he’s forgotten about all the soldiers killed by Pakistanis living in Pakistan.

He neglects to mention something rather important as well: not all discussions happen in public. By this I mean, considering these incidents have remained incidents and the U.S. has chosen not to escalate them, there is nothing wrong with the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Oh sure, we’re all pissed at each other over the cross-border incidents—now going both ways. But it is perfectly likely that the U.S. and Pakistani governments have a secret memorandum allowing these strikes, and that it was drafted with the understanding that it remain a secret, and that the Pakistani government will complain in public but never do anything like cut off diplomatic relations, and will allow its soldiers to take pot shots at approaching units should they be dumb enough to be spotted, because this is what Pakistan’s domestic politics require.

So, no, until Asif Zadari thinks flirting with Sarah Palin is an inappropriate interaction—his love of pretty girls overridden by his desire to protect Pakistan’s interests however he defines them—there is little to worry about.

This post was written by...

Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.

Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust

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