The final decade of the Cold War saw the western alliance adopt something called the “dual-track” approach to arms control. On the one hand, NATO continued assembling thousands of new thermonuclear warheads and deploying missiles; the other hand held out an invitation to the Soviets for arms reduction talks in Reykjavik. That carrot-and-stick approach is sometimes misunderstood as having “bankrupted” the USSR into cooperation, but it was the low price of oil which finally accomplished that mission. In retrospect the dual-track theory seems to have been an expensive waste — much like wars on terror.
In fact, now we’re finding out the news about high-level talks in Afghanistan may be nothing but the same grand-scale psyops:
“That (psychological warfare) is exactly what it is,” said a former senior U.S. official in touch with the White House. “Petraeus has been upping the attack on the Taliban, and trying to intimidate, and at the same time, reaching out : ‘let’s talk.’” The former senior official requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing ties with the Obama administration.
While publicity about peace talks is partly psychological maneuvering, the former senior official said that Petraeus’ strategy of escalating attacks while expressing a desire for diplomacy “seems to me certainly worth trying.” He added: “I don’t know if it’ll work.”
While on the one hand I am glad to see Petraeus apply pressure creatively, it’s still too little too late. No amount of pressure now can make up for the fact that American forces have a time-limit in Afghanistan. They always have; and the Taliban have been secure in their assumption of that since shortly after we arrived. Furthermore, if peace talks really have been nothing more than a psyops campaign it damages the credibility of any actual peace talks — especially when the Pakistani ISI is holding all the Taliban cards.
And that’s really where the solution to Afghanistan lies, which is why confrontational attitudes towards Pakistan have been ramping up. Let’s hope Plan C (or D, by now) doesn’t involve Southeast Asian-style enlargement.
