--- title: Command Post: The Pakistan Effect | TIME description: How will Pakistan react to the President's announcement that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan? canonical: https://time.com/video/WDUdGBdv/ og:title: Command Post: The Pakistan Effect og:description: How will Pakistan react to the President's announcement that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan? og:url: https://time.com/video/WDUdGBdv/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WDUdGBdv/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Command Post: The Pakistan Effect twitter:description: How will Pakistan react to the President's announcement that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan? twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WDUdGBdv/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Command Post: The Pakistan Effect > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Command Post: The Pakistan Effect [Watch (HLS stream): Command Post: The Pakistan Effect](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WDUdGBdv.m3u8) (4:46)  _Published 2011-07-12. How will Pakistan react to the President's announcement that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan?_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:15 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [The Pentagon Is Planning to Withdraw Up to 7,000 Troops From Afghanistan, Officials Say](/video/hFTrZcj6/) ### The Pentagon Is Planning to Withdraw Up to 7,000 Troops From Afghanistan, Officials Say [Nikki Haley on Pakistan and Afghanistan](/video/CTEDoYdq/) ### Nikki Haley on Pakistan and Afghanistan [Command Post: Pakistan After bin Laden](/video/VCsbMOfh/) ### Command Post: Pakistan After bin Laden --- ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] This is Command Post, a series of discussions, about military matters, from Time and The Center for a New American Security. So, General, how, happy or unhappy is Pakistan going to be with this US draw down? I think, the Pakistanis are going to try and figure out what exactly is going on. I think one of the problems, in a sense with the President's speech, at least as it's going to be perceived out there in, in the region, is the uncertainty that comes with it. The Pakistanis, I think, have had a, a security calculus for years, that was based on the question, what will this policy, what will this decision, that we, the Pakistanis are making, what will it look like the day after the Americans are gone? Because, they've lived through that experience before, at the end of the war against the Soviets. They've long expected there to come another day, when the Americans are gonna simply pull out entirely and leave the region. Pakistan will be left to deal with, the broken pieces that remain. So, their, their gonna be judging this speech, and judging our policy in the next couple years about. Is there a end game there that includes the United States remaining, as a serious influence in this part of the world? In my view, that means you include at least a small number of American troops. The President has been very opaque about that to date. Well, he did say in the speech that there was going to be an enduring commitment. And I think, it, he didn't mention it by name, but there are negotiations underway, for a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan that is designed to do many things. But in part, it's designed and to reassure Pakistan that the US will continue to have a military presence in Afghanistan even if it's at a, a much smaller level in the future. And I think it's incredibly important that, Pakistan, believe that, that is, in fact, the case. So Pakistan's strategy has been to hedge against, the day after America leaves. And they've been led to believe by our previous Departures from the region. That we don't believe, we don't understand. That we have long term security interest there, So they, they think they've seen this play before. The big question to be determined is, is the ending going to be different. Is the United States going to maintain a strong interest, in securing Afghanistan? In helping the Afghan people and providing security to that region. To ensure that it can't become a terrorist archipelago again, and, and, I don't think the President made, as clear, as I would have liked him to, that long term American commitment to the region. Do you, I mean, whenever you talk to the Pakistani's, they seem still preoccupied by India. To what degree could they be doing more, on their Afghan border? If they relinquished a little of that paranoia about India and should they, relinquish some of that concern? Yeah, I spend a week in Pakistan in January. In fact I was there the week that the American contractor, was about the killing of several Pakistanis, very contentious period. That preceded the killing of Bin Laden, in May. And I had some very interesting discussions, with the Pakistanis. They, their number one threat, I heard from them, at that time, was they were worried about their economic situation, that they were at grave risk of having their economy fall apart, inside of the country. And so there's a, you know, really a decline in their economic performance. They're having power shortages, electricity shortages, around the country. They're worried about their internal stability. They're also worried about the growth of internal, extremism inside, not only in their Army's rank, but also inside their broader population. They had, demonstrations in December in support of the assassin of one of the most moderate governors of the state of Pakistan. Not in support who was killed, but in support of the, the bodyguard who murdered the governor. So, that shook up the Pakistani, establishment pretty dramatically. So, I think they realized, they got some very serious internal problems. India's always out there. And for the military India, is always job one. That's the existential threat, to the Pakistani military. That's almost a culture that is, is unchangeable in some ways. So, until that relationship between India and Pakistan shifts, I see very little prospect that the army is going to move away from, being worried about India as the ultimate threat. That's also, the rationale behind the extraordinary advantages the Pakistani Army gets. They, they are very much a favored class of people. They are given essentially political as well as military control, because India has defeated Pakistan in a number of wars, and India is going to do it again. That's the, that's the national belief and the national myth. I personally, think that the, the far more severe risk to Pakistan is internal. And I think, that some members of the Pakistani military and intelligence service, now believe that. But that, that's a very basic tug of war with not just, political and economic and historical, but also economic interests, driving one particular perception the India first perception. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Command Post: The Pakistan Effect","description":"How will Pakistan react to the President's announcement that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan?","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WDUdGBdv/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2011-07-12T18:38:07.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WDUdGBdv.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/WDUdGBdv/","duration":"PT4M46S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/WDUdGBdv/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```