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Updated Sunday, February 21, 2010 12:17 am TWN, By Arthur I. Cyr, Special to The China Post

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Capture of Taliban leaders, a very encouraging sign

Defense Secretary Gates and Gen. McChrystal both bring considerable strengths to the modern special operations arena. The former spent his entire career in the CIA, and was in fact the first such professional to emerge at the top of the agency. He achieved and occupied high office under Republicans, including notably his mentor George H.W. Bush, thus providing some implicit bipartisanship in fiercely divided Washington. The latter has spent his Army career in special operations, a distinctive branch that until recent years was not a road to senior command, but the reverse. Unconventional warriors were generally viewed as too independent and unpredictable by “straight leg” generals, with justification.

Special Forces doctrine traditionally emphasizes combating insurgents in part by winning over the wider population. This was a conscious response to Mao Zedong's famous dictum that Communist revolutionaries were fish swimming in a sea of civilians.

In short, McChrystal's background and expertise may suit him ideally to a comprehensive political settlement in Afghanistan, designed to recognize but absorb the Taliban, which remains extremely unpopular.

Pakistan historically has been a solid U.S. ally. The British-trained military is very capable. During the Cold War, Pakistan was a conservative counter-weight to neutralist India and Communist China.

In the 1950s, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ensured that this important ally joined both the Central and Southeast Asia Treaty Organizations. Both of these regional alliances are long dead, but the strategic importance of Pakistan continues.

If Pakistan is indeed now committed firmly to the Allied effort in Afghanistan, that would be very congruent with practices and outlooks predating the current struggle with the Taliban.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of “After the Cold War.” He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu.

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