America Invades Pakistan - How Badly Does It Turn Out?

This got suggested over in Chat, and I have got to see it analyzed further. The basic premise is that America blames both Pakistan and Afghanistan for sheltering terrorists in the wake of 9/11, and invades both of them, or just Pakistan. My initial impression is that this a monumentally stupid idea, which is exactly why I want to discuss it. Compared to Iraq, Pakistan has a bigger and better military, a much larger population with fewer schisms, and the whole issue of nukes. Also a ton of logistical issues to work out. Very curious as to what India would do, who would join Bush's coalition, and how that coalition goes about the war.

Why would United States blame Pakistan over 9/11? Yeah, Pakistan had recognised Taliban regime but so had Saudi Arabia and Arab Emirates too.

I'd like to think (diabolical choice of words) that evidence linking the 9/11 attacks directly back to the ISI would lend impetus to an invasion effort. But Pakistani intelligence has been very actively assisting the Taliban and AQ's campaigns in Afghanistan for close to a decade, and there's barely been a tepid U.S. response, so it's a very tricky one indeed.

An invasion of Pakistan, whichever way you swing it, is going to be Iraq on bath salts. Who's going to offer themselves up as a launchpad? China won't. Iran definitely won't. India's setting itself up for its own funeral if it resigns to facilitate a U.S. war on its doorstep (I can actually see a really severe souring of Indo-American relations if it goes ahead). Anybody who has an inkling about the Afghanistan campaign will tell you an invasion through the Hindu Kush is logistically impossible - the virtual entirety of the U.S. Army's supply train runs straight through Pakistan, and Islamabad has used this as a bargaining chip in the past. So you're going to have to look at a pre-September 11th POD to pull this off, and the operation's going to have to be seaborne.

Now, there's a really nasty MacGuffin we can't afford to forget about here. Pakistan has a large, relatively sophisticated nuclear weapons arsenal, consisting of around 100-130 warheads. Within a week of international forces going ashore, the Pakistani state, a mess as it already is, is going to hell. The CIA's No. 1 priority is going to be the minute documentation and capture of every nuke in the country. Here's the hitch: there's so many militant groups and so many political divisions, I can't see a situation where, at the very least, a handful of those weapons don't go missing. That means India is fucked, and the West is staring straight in the face the nightmarish prospect of Osama Bin Laden calling the shots on a real WMD.

Now, let's apply the final logistical nail to George W. Bush's neoconservative cranium. Iraq has a population of 33 million; it's distributed sparsely across arid flatlands and marshes, terrain that, in theory, shouldn't owe itself to guerrilla warfare. Pakistan's population is 182 million (and counting), so good luck stringing together an effective policing regime - the government itself struggles right now. As if the stakes hadn't been high enough, the ultra-traditional tribal areas (i.e. where foreign forces are going to face the brunt of resistance) are impenetrably mountainous. If IS and the Mahdi Army can pull off a protracted, unending insurgency in Iraq for well over a decade, it's going to look like a cakewalk in comparison to Pakistan.

In short, an invasion of Pakistan can only turn out mega-bad. Like, impossibly bad. I can't see Washington ever authorizing it.

Abominable Princess said:

This got suggested over in Chat, and I have got to see it analyzed further. The basic premise is that America blames both Pakistan and Afghanistan for sheltering terrorists in the wake of 9/11, and invades both of them, or just Pakistan. My initial impression is that this a monumentally stupid idea, which is exactly why I want to discuss it. Compared to Iraq, Pakistan has a bigger and better military, a much larger population with fewer schisms, and the whole issue of nukes. Also a ton of logistical issues to work out. Very curious as to what India would do, who would join Bush's coalition, and how that coalition goes about the war.

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Its total and utter bull. Pakistan has nukes so the USA has to start the invasion with nkes. Its ASB.

ChazMo said:

snip. Good analysis

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Well, the guys in charge in the US were in many ways the definition of stupid. If someone wanted to pull off that madness, that would be them.

Falecius said:

Well, the guys in charge in the US were in many ways the definition of stupid. If someone wanted to pull off that madness, that would be them.

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This is reaching ASB levels unless Pakistan does something openly aggressive. Even if we find OBL and Company in Pakistan say, in late 2001, it won't happen. I know it's fun in this forum to think that Bush II would destroy the world though his idiocy, but he wouldn't. He isn't going to invade Pakistan. That's not his area of interest anyway.

Other guys in his administration, I'm not sure about, but that hasn't been speculated yet.

Falecius said:

Well, the guys in charge in the US were in many ways the definition of stupid. If someone wanted to pull off that madness, that would be them.

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I wouldn't call anybody in the Bush administration 'stupid'. Irrational and short-sighted, yes, but I seriously doubt their ability to muster the will to stage an invasion of Pakistan. That's incompetence on a whole different level.

Realpolitik said:

This is reaching ASB levels unless Pakistan does something openly aggressive. Even if we find OBL and Company in Pakistan say, in late 2001, it won't happen. I know it's fun in this forum to think that Bush II would destroy the world though his idiocy, but he wouldn't. He isn't going to invade Pakistan. That's not his area of interest anyway.

Other guys in his administration, I'm not sure about, but that hasn't been speculated yet.

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Well, put it this way. Darth Cheney wanted to invade Iraq and Iran at the same time and Bush told him no.

Mike Stearns said:

Well, put it this way. Darth Cheney wanted to invade Iraq and Iran at the same time and Bush told him no.

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Exactly. Bush II at least realized that Iraq was a big mistake by 2006 and was regretful. You never got that sense from Cheney, and that should be really disturbing.

But Cheney is more likely to hit Iran than Pakistan.

If the US invades and Pakistan goes nuclear then Pakistan is "abolished" in the US nuclear retaliation. US is afterwards regarded a pariah nation having commited nuclear genocide

Realpolitik said:

Exactly. Bush II at least realized that Iraq was a big mistake by 2006 and was regretful. You never got that sense from Cheney, and that should be really disturbing.

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Yeah, that's why some people are saying that in the light of the rise of ISIS Cheney should be put on trial for treason. He knew exactly what would happen if the Americans went into Iraq, and he did it anyway.

Mike Stearns said:

Yeah, that's why some people are saying that in the light of the rise of ISIS Cheney should be put on trial for treason. He knew exactly what would happen if the Americans went into Iraq, and he did it anyway.

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Treason, no. Treason is the only crime specifically defined in the Constitution. "Levying war against the USA or giving aid and comfort to its enemies." Cheney didn't do that, and that's ex post facto to begin with.

Total incompetence/irresponsibility is more like it.

Mesmerizing level of incompetence on a high strategic level (a lack of ability to question or think critically) combined with low level competence that allows one to rise through the ranks is a dangerous brew.

He also probably said that in the context of its time period-he was rising to power, and was going to defend his boss. If he believed anything then, he didn't show it.

I am not sure that the US could conquer Pakistan.

In relative terms. comparing population and territory, Pakistan is on a par with WWII Germany or Japan. It's not nearly as industrialized as those countries, either in relative or absolute terms. But that may not matter so much.

the only route of access would be sea based. an amphibious invasion would be incredibly difficult. taking an airfield and using it as a base in Pakistan to build and launch invasion forces would be suicide.

Indeed, it might be much more difficult than WWII invasion of Europe - the amount of coastline that the Pakistani regime is defending, the vulnerable points are fewer, the logistics lines for the Pakistani are very short, they aren't spread nearly as thin as the Germans were, they're not fighting a two or three front war, the logistics lines for America are immensely long - there's no England to be an unsinkable launching pad a few miles off.

We could bomb them extensively. But there is an order of magnitude more targets, much more hardened targets, exponentially better air defense and a lot more redundancy and industrial capacity.

We could of course resort to Nuclear weapons. But that's a razor gripped sword. In a limited nuclear exchange, Pakistan would retain at least a theoretical capacity to inflict a nuclear strike on American military or civilian targets or even the United States proper - depending on their delivery systems, including whether they have or can develop long range missiles, or have or can develop 'slow/covert' delivery systems. Look at it this way - Pakistan has a much greater ability to directly hurt the United States than either Japan or Germany ever had.

We could, of course, simply annihilate Pakistan with nuclear weapons. But at that point, you'd be looking at massive fallout and tens of millions of refugees streaming into India, and a set of international consequences ranging from global thermonuclear war, to worldwide economic collapse, a permanent realignment of the balance of world politics and economics, or simply America ending up as a pariah state.

In conventional terms we could well lose this war of aggression.

lionhead said:

Its total and utter bull. Pakistan has nukes so the USA has to start the invasion with nkes. Its ASB.

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That’s completely wrong.

Mike Stearns said:

Yeah, that's why some people are saying that in the light of the rise of ISIS Cheney should be put on trial for treason.

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Some people don’t have a clue what treason is, then.

He knew exactly what would happen if the Americans went into Iraq, and he did it anyway.

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So? What does that have to do with treason?

DValdron said:

I am not sure that the US could conquer Pakistan.

In relative terms. comparing population and territory, Pakistan is on a par with WWII Germany or Japan. It's not nearly as industrialized as those countries, either in relative or absolute terms. But that may not matter so much.

the only route of access would be sea based. an amphibious invasion would be incredibly difficult. taking an airfield and using it as a base in Pakistan to build and launch invasion forces would be suicide.

Indeed, it might be much more difficult than WWII invasion of Europe - the amount of coastline that the Pakistani regime is defending, the vulnerable points are fewer, the logistics lines for the Pakistani are very short, they aren't spread nearly as thin as the Germans were, they're not fighting a two or three front war, the logistics lines for America are immensely long - there's no England to be an unsinkable launching pad a few miles off.

We could bomb them extensively. But there is an order of magnitude more targets, much more hardened targets, exponentially better air defense and a lot more redundancy and industrial capacity.

We could of course resort to Nuclear weapons. But that's a razor gripped sword. In a limited nuclear exchange, Pakistan would retain at least a theoretical capacity to inflict a nuclear strike on American military or civilian targets or even the United States proper - depending on their delivery systems, including whether they have or can develop long range missiles, or have or can develop 'slow/covert' delivery systems. Look at it this way - Pakistan has a much greater ability to directly hurt the United States than either Japan or Germany ever had.

We could, of course, simply annihilate Pakistan with nuclear weapons. But at that point, you'd be looking at massive fallout and tens of millions of refugees streaming into India, and a set of international consequences ranging from global thermonuclear war, to worldwide economic collapse, a permanent realignment of the balance of world politics and economics, or simply America ending up as a pariah state.

In conventional terms we could well lose this war of aggression.

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If the USA wants to go full "Operation Downfall" on Pakistan, given the discrepancy in sheer levels of technology, national cohesiveness, and poverty, the USA does win, especially if this is a scenario circa 2002 and we discovered OBL in Pakistan, and some nuts took over in Islamabad.

But it won't be worth the cost.

Why do we have to nuke Pakistan? Nukes =/= ICBMs. IIRC Pakistan does not have the range to hit any American cities, at best they could target fleet units and military bases. There would be no need to "abolish" Pakistan with nuclear weapons, though we might respond with tactical deployments of our own weapons.

Side note: I wonder if we would be able to align India once the Pakistani nuclear arsenal was neutralized.

Realpolitik said:

If the USA wants to go full "Operation Downfall" on Pakistan, given the discrepancy in sheer levels of technology, national cohesiveness, and poverty, the USA does win, especially if this is a scenario circa 2002 and we discovered OBL in Pakistan, and some nuts took over in Islamabad.

But it won't be worth the cost.

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Land war in asia.

Success is not in the cards.

Vietnam failed.

DValdron said:

Land war in asia.

Success is not in the cards.

Vietnam failed.

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Not the same in the slightest. I said "Operation Downfall style", remember? Against a country that is multiethnic, with a severely alienated populace. Furthermore, it's an actual war against a country, not propping up a tottering government against a determined insurgency, and chances are we will have the support of it's gigantic neighbor to the east. That's just the beginning of it. Again, for this to feasibly happen, Pakistan has to do something incredibly stupid or has to be on the verge of going feral. That means the US has world support. Where is the Ho Chi Minh trail or superpower support for Pakistan?

It's not worth it. But Pakistan doesn't have a chance of beating India in a conventional war in every war game simulation that has been done. They won't be beating the US.

It's actually not that difficult to bring about:
During OBLs stay in Pakistan have him successfully bribe or otherwise get to enough people in Pakistan to procure a Pakistani nuke to attack the US with. Then have the plot get out before it's done with evidence implicating not just a few hotheads, but that the seniour civilian and military leaderships are neck-deep involved.

Under those circumstances even President Al Gore would attack.

To make the OP even remotely plausible, it would take another 9/11 level attack on US soil, and conclusive intelligence that Osama and Al Qaeda not only planned the attack from Pakistan, but were actively assisted by senior figures in the Pakistani government. AND the Pakistani government would have to make the utterly bonkers decision to reject even the appearance of cooperating with US authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

I agree with the earlier poster about the internal weakness of the Pakistani state being its downfall in such a conflict. More likely than a D-Day style invasion would be something more akin to Guatemala in '54. Escalating US pressure, starting with crippling sanctions on Pakistan, possibly limited airstrikes, while a great deal of back-channel communication with high ranking Pakistani general recommending a change change in government. End result would be a coup, followed by a joint Pakistani/US Special Ops operation to secure the nukes, with the USAF providing CAS. USAF would probably impose an absolute no-fly zone on Pakistan for a few tense weeks, since the most likely launch platform would be aircraft. India would be on edge, but as long is there is no Rogue Spear type situation, their interests would actually be advanced in the event of the US-Pakistani conflict.