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Wrong carrots, wrong sticks

The Centre for Strategic & International Studies latest report on US relations with Pakistan games a couple of scenarios and concludes:

This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.

A “game” based on these two scenarios was staged last year, whose most striking finding was that the policy tools the US was prepared to use were insufficient to bring about changes in Pakistan’s policies that US interests urgently sought. Neither enhanced “carrots” in the form of military supplies, nor expanded “sticks” in the form of economic and military sanctions produced any significant changes in the ambivalent relationship between Pakistan and militants active in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The anti-terrorism effort that Washington seeks from Pakistan was seen to depend on its success on the domestic rebuilding of the country, which in turn was found to be impossible without a significant change in the relationship between the army and the militant groups. Army-militant relations in turn were found inseparable from the country’s Kashmir policy.[Daily Times]

But of course - the carrots and sticks are being applied to the wrong recipients! It is Pakistan’s economy that needs the carrots and the military that needs the stick. It is ironical that in spite of the consistent failure of this wrongly administered carrot and stick policy successive US administrations continue to stick to the same formula.

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