Disrupting the ISI-Taliban Relationship: A Principal-Agent

Approach

Reviewed by Amina Aziz

Authors: Majors Christopher L. Hollingsworth and Joshua Sider

Pages: 66

Approved for public release: December 2018

Publisher: Progressive Management Publicatons

Reflectng the same kind of sentments conveyed in the U.S. President

Donald Trump’s January 2018 tweet accusing Pakistan of giving the

U.S. nothing but “lies” and “deceit” as well as of providing safe havens

to the ant-U.S. “terrorists,” this short book is a study aimed at offering

recommendatons to the U.S. government on how to disrupt the

relatonship between the Pakistani state and Afghan Taliban using the

principal-agent theory.

The study begins with a concise account of the history of the

relatonship between Afghan insurgents and the ISI beginning during

the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Afer the Soviet defeat, and against a

backdrop of civil war, clashing mujahideen leaders, disunity, and a lack of

cooperaton among their various factons, the Afghan Taliban emerged as

ISI’s preferred Pashtun force in Afghanistan during the 90s. Described by

the authors as a “proxy” but refraining to describe it as an ISI producton,

Pakistan sought to fulfil its natonal interests through the Taliban. The

Taliban took Kabul in September 1996 and Pakistan was among the only

three countries to recognise their government, the other two being Saudi

Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Links between the ISI and Taliban

were retained following 9/11 too despite Pakistan’s outwardly sympathetc

positon toward the U.S. that the U.S. was not able to prevent.

The book describes Pakistan’s relatonship with the three U.S.

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administratons afer

9/11: The Bush administraton

(2001-2008),

the Obama administraton

(2009-2016), and the on-going Trump

administraton, in all of which ISI’s dealings with the Taliban at the expense

of the U.S. surfaced as a problem.

The ISI began cheatng the U.S. from the outset of the war in

Afghanistan during the Bush administraton, suggest the authors, providing

the Kunduz airlif of November 2001 as an example where alongside ISI

employees, Taliban leaders were alleged to have also been evacuated by

Pakistan. Again, in 2007 and 2008 American and North Atlantc Treaty

Organizaton (NATO) intelligence disclosed authorisaton by the then

President Pervez Musharraf of deniable support to the Afghan Taliban.

When it was discovered that the 2008 bomb detonaton near the Indian

embassy in Kabul was influenced by Pakistan, it served to produce a more

critcal opinion of the ISI with Bush. Nonetheless, Pakistan’s strategic

importance meant that the administraton could not afford to sever tes.

Then the raid at Abbotabad in 2011, which resulted in the killing

of Osama bin Laden during the Obama administraton caused some in

the administraton to believe one of two possibilites: either Pakistan was

incompetent at intelligence or was willingly hostng terrorists. In January

2018, during the current Trump administraton, what the authors write as

being described as “the most significant punitve acton toward Pakistan

since 2001” took place where the U.S. suspended military aid to Pakistan

as a result of the deaths of the U.S. soldiers, which were said to have been

caused by the ISI military and intelligence aid to the Afghan Taliban.

The book goes on to atempt to identfy potental weaknesses in

the ISI-Taliban relatonship that may be exploited and provides optons for

disruptng the relatonship. Firstly, motvatons for the ISI to delegate to the

Taliban must be reduced or removed. If the U.S. and Afghan governments

leak intelligence on the support received by the Taliban from the ISI thus

sparking outrage from the internatonal community, suggest the authors,

it would force Pakistan to abandon its support for the group since one of

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Book Review

Pakistan’s motvatons to delegate to the Taliban is plausible deniability.

Secondly, tensions should be increased between the Taliban and the

ISI such that “one or both sides will develop a negatve view of their

arrangement” thereby disruptng the principal-agent relatonship. This can

be achieved through punishing those members of the Taliban that receive

Pakistani support by spreading disinformaton e.g. by inducing suspicion

among the Taliban of an ISI hand behind the killing of their leaders (Mullah

Akhtar Mansour’s death in 2016 was thus an ideal opportunity) and by

exploitng Pashtun natonalism in Afghanistan. And finally, the control

mechanisms used by the ISI over the Taliban must be removed by having

Taliban leaders take up residence in Afghanistan instead of Pakistan by, for

example, making the later less safe for them.

Overall, the framework provided by this study is one of first

studying the reason for the principal to delegate to the agent, potental

tensions in the principal-agent relatonship and understanding the control

mechanisms employed by the principal. On this basis, solutons may be

produced as to how to disrupt the principal-agent relatonship.

The authors rightly recognise that using money alone to encourage

or discourage Pakistan’s actons in relaton to the Afghan war may not

be wholly effectve as demonstrated by the policies of the previous U.S.

administratons afer 9/11. Apart from using money, therefore, the authors

have suggested that the U.S. also, for example, remove Pakistan’s status

as a major non-NATO ally or designate the country as a state sponsor of

terrorism which may negatvely influence the country’s perceived support

for the Taliban.

Suggestng that exposing an ISI-Taliban relatonship could result

in Pakistan’s outright abandoning of support for the Taliban may also be

overstatng the mater as accusatons and condemnatons of the like have

endured for years with litle effect and levelled by top US officials, whether

by counsellor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Eliot

Cohen, saying, “I think in some ways we were actually fightng the ISI,”

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or Joseph Biden’s public acknowledgement that “…the terrorists we’re

fightng and the extremists the Pakistani fear are not one and the same”

or the current US president’s own Twiter remarks.

The authors state that Pakistan ought to be assured its interests

can be met by other than “terrorism,” yet the Afghan Taliban are not a

designated terrorist organisaton by the U.S., in fact are sought out for

negotatons. The authors also failed to provide an alternatve actor in

Afghanistan through which Pakistani interests could be achieved if Pakistan

were to abandon its claimed support for the Taliban, as the U.S. desires.

Perhaps things come down to Obama’s advice here: “…let’s stop trying to

change their minds about where Pakistan’s interests lie.”

In conclusion, the study is a useful insight into possible strategies

adopted by the U.S. to disrupt the ISI-Taliban relatonship.

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