Border Wars, Past and Present

Since the beginning of September American attacks on supposed Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists inside Pakistan have increased. To date there have been nine missile strikes by UAVs and for the first time a cross-border US commando raid has taken place; all violations of Pakistan's national sovereignty.

The United States and its NATO allies claim that the long-running guerrilla struggle against them within Afghanistan can only be defeated if the insurgents' safe bases in neighbouring Pakistan are destroyed. The efforts of Pakistan's army to carry out this task have had little success and the Americans increasingly feel that only they can carry out the operation successfully. However, any escalation of the border war may have serious consequences for all concerned.

Since 1945 there have been a number of conflicts in which cross-border activities by insurgents have played an important part. The forces fighting such insurgents have usually tried one of two main strategies, or a combination of the two, with varying degrees of success.

The first strategy is for the counter-insurgent force to establish a physical barrier along its side of the border, or, in one case, to establish such a barrier along a strip inside the neighbouring country that is playing host, willingly or unwillingly, to the insurgents. If sufficiently extensive, well-constructed, and well-manned, such a barrier can defeat guerrillas trying to rejoin the struggle from their safe havens abroad.

The classic example of a successful border barrier fulfilling this role was the so-called Morice line built by the French army along the Algeria-Tunisia border in 1957-58. Algerian insurgents trying to return to their homeland from their camps in Tunisia found it almost impossible to break through the Morice line. Their casualties were heavy and by the end of 1958 the Algerians in Tunisia were almost completely cut off from their fellow fighters inside Algeria. During 1959 French forces came near to stamping out the insurgency within Algeria, and the success of the Morice line was an important factor in achieving this result.

During the Vietnam war the USA tried to emulate the French by setting up the so-called McNamara line along the demilitarized zone separating North and South Vietnam from 1967 onwards. Unfortunately the principal routes taking supplies and reinforcements to the communist insurgents in South Vietnam passed through the neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The South Vietnamese border with these states was so long and its terrain so difficult that any attempt to build a continuous barrier was impossible.

In 1978 Israel seized a strip of Lebanese territory bordering its own northern frontier and established a militarized zone which was to act as a barrier preventing guerrilla attacks on its territory. This zone, which was later extended further into Lebanon, had some success in disrupting guerrilla attempts to reach Israeli territory, and Israel did not give up the zone until 2000.

The second strategy to prevent cross-border insurgent operations is to attack their safe havens in neighbouring territory with air strikes or, in the last resort, destroy them by a land invasion. Even counter-insurgent forces creating barrier lines may still feel the need to strike at enemy bases beyond those lines. The temptation to conduct such operations is even stronger for counter-insurgents who cannot create effective barriers, as in Vietnam in the past and in Afghanistan today.

Even as the Morice line took shape, the French military were ready to risk launching an air strike against an Algerian insurgent base at Sakiet in Tunisia in early 1958. The international outcry that resulted discouraged the French from repeating the operation. In contrast, Israeli air attacks on enemy bases deeper in Lebanon became a regular occurrence when guerrillas attempted to break through their security zone in the south of the country. In Vietnam, once it became clear that no border barrier could stop communist inflitration into South Vietnam, the United States began bombing enemy bases and supply routes in Laos and Cambodia. As in Pakistan today, the US government refused to admit that these air attacks were taking place.

The problem with direct attacks on guerrilla safe havens in neighbouring countries is that they become subject to steady escalation. Rather than helping to stop a war in one country, they end up spreading the conflict into the neighbouring state or states. Cambodia in 1970 is perhaps the best example. Dissatisfied with the results of the 'secret' bombing of that country, American and South Vietnamese forces launched a massive invasion of Cambodia. For three months they scoured border areas, destroying communist bases and inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Nevertheless the Vietnamese communists survived the blow and continued their struggle. The real victims were the Cambodians. Their country was politically destabilized and the newly installed pro-American government found itself under increasing attack from the communists, both Cambodian and Vietnamese.

Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 seemed initially to be a much more successful effort to destroy terrorist bases in a neighbouring state. The Palestine Liberation Organization and its fighters were driven out of the country. Unfortunately, Israel's methods in achieving this success increasingly alienated native Muslim groups in Lebanon. Local guerrillas, above all those of Hezbollah, began a war against the invaders in southern Lebanon. By 2000 the Israelis were ready to leave all Lebanese territory, including their security zone. Israel's new assault on Lebanon in 2006 was an attempt to destroy Hezbollah, but it failed to achieve any decisive success.

Launching direct military attacks on guerrilla bases in neighbouring countries clearly brings the risk of expanding wars rather than bringing them to an early end. A barrier strategy might seem a safer course of action. However, in today's conflict along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border no barrier can be built, largely because of the length of the frontier and the very difficult terrain it crosses. Even if a barrier could be built, America and its allies would never be able to man it. The Morice line required 80,000 troops to hold it, that is, more troops than the US and other foreign nations have deployed in the whole of Afghanistan.

The United States has moved towards a strategy of unacknowledged air attacks on insurgent targets inside Pakistan, operations reminiscent of its actions against Cambodia in the Vietnam war. In Cambodia the 'secret' bombing eventually led to a full-scale invasion of the country, with unfortunate long-term consequences for both Cambodia and its invaders. There can be little doubt that an American attempt to launch a major military incursion into Pakistan aimed at destroying Taliban and Al Qaeda bases would set off a chain of events whose consequences would be equally disastrous.

Like all counter-insurgency wars, the struggle in Afghanistan is basically political rather than military. Whatever strategy the US and its NATO allies pursue in the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands, it will not bring decisive victory. Militarily France's Morice line was a great success, but in the wider political context of the Algerian war it was almost irrelevant. By 1960 the war-weary French government was ready to negotiate with its 'terrorist' enemies, ending French rule in Algeria in 1962. Increasingly some sort of political settlement with the Taliban seems to be the only way to end the war in Afghanistan, regardless of whether such a settlement will deliver the leaders of Al Qaeda into American hands or not.