There is a line in Lewis Caroll’s, Alice in Wonderland which is relevant to the situation in which the US-led coalition finds itself in Afghanistan: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there”.

The core strategic objective that the US seeks to achieve has been defined by President Obama as, “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda.” The question is if pursuing other goals are also necessary: fighting the Taleban and “nation building” in Afghanistan.  The choice for the West cannot be between cut and run from Afghanistan and an open-ended military engagement. Both are unfeasible and can be disastrous for the region.

An effort to pull out precipitously from Afghanistan would repeat the epic strategic error of the 1990s when the US abandoned that country to the chaos that in turn nurtured Al-Qaeda. But open ended military escalation risks trapping the West, in a Vietnam style quagmire: a war without end and no guarantee of success.

Pakistan’s stability has been gravely undermined by three decades of   strife in Afghanistan. The twin blowback from the Soviet invasion 30 years ago and the unintended consequences of the 2001 US military intervention has created unprecedented security, economic and social challenges for Pakistan.

Pakistan’s involvement in the long war to roll back the Russian occupation  bequeathed a witches brew of problems including militancy and a huge number of refugees, 2 million of whom remain in Pakistan. The 2001 intervention fuelled more militancy and ferment in the tribal areas.

Installing a government in Kabul dominated by an ethnic minority had similarly deleterious effects. As the Afghan war was increasingly pushed across the border into Pakistan and Islamabad took action in its frontier regions, militants turned their guns on the Pakistani security forces.

It is easy to understand in this backdrop how militancy on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is interconnected. But it is also distinct in origin, goals and magnitude.

The conflict is connected first by common bonds of tribe and ethnicity; second, by the broad appeal of ideology; third, by links to Al-Qaeda and four, by the two-way cross border movement of insurgents who provide each other a degree of mutual support.

It is also distinct because; one, the Afghan Taleban is an older and  more entrenched phenomenon with an organized   command and control structure. Two, the Taleban have geographically a much broader presence in Afghanistan compared to the Pakistani Taleban whose support base is confined to only part of the tribal areas, which constitute   just 3% of the country’s territory and represent 2% of the population. Three, they have greater confidence that they will prevail over a foreign force.

In contrast, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a loose conglomeration of a dozen groups that primarily have local origins, motives, and ambitions. It lacks central command and control. Its core group led by Baitullah Mehsud has suffered a serious reversal by his death and the Pakistan military’s aggressive actions to blockade and contain his followers in South Waziristan.

Most importantly public sentiment in Pakistan has turned decisively against the TTP, leaving the organization in a position to launch periodic suicide missions, but not expand its influence. Without public backing the Pakistani Taleban are in no position to extend their sway.

But the continuing conflict in Afghanistan provides the TTP with its main motivation and legitimacy among its tribal support base.

Pakistan is in a better position than the coalition forces in Afghanistan to disrupt, contain and ultimately defeat its “Taleban” by building on the success of the recent operation in Swat and the tribal area of Bajaur. Within four months of the military being launched, the Taleban have been driven out of Malakand and the writ of the government has been re-established.

This shows that Pakistan has the capacity to deal with militancy, but without the compounding complications engendered by the fighting across its border. It underscores the most important lesson of counter insurgency: indigenous forces are better able to undertake successful missions.

On the Afghan side, the US and coalition forces will face greater difficulties against the insurgency especially if the present strategy remain unchanged and when a fraud-stricken Presidential election in Afghanistan has denuded the country of a legitimate government. One response being proposed in the US to this dire situation is a substantial surge of military forces. But to what end, at what cost and with what chances of success?  History shows that the Soviet Union deployed 140,000 troops at the peak of its occupation but failed to defeat the resistance.

Al Qaeda can only be neutralized in Afghanistan and in the border region with Pakistan if it is rejected by and ejected from the Taleban “sea” in which it survives. This urges a strategy to separate the two movements by military, political and other means.

Military escalation will push the two closer and strengthen rather than erode their links.

There are three possible scenarios for what could happen in Afghanistan:

1) Military escalation: This will inevitably be directed at the Taleban and will   evoke even more hostility from the country’s Pashtun dominated areas and closer cooperation between Al-Qaeda and the Taleban thereby further impeding the core objective of eliminating ?Al Qaeda.

Although the Taleban do not represent all Pashtuns, they do exploit Pashtun grievances and use the foreign presence as a recruitment tool.

If history is a guide in this graveyard of empires, a military solution is also unlikely to succeed for several reasons:

i) The enhanced military forces will still be insufficient to ‘hold’ the countryside: independent estimates suggest that the Taleban now have a permanent presence in over 70% of Afghanistan. If Moscow with 140,000 troops supported by a more professional Afghan army of 100,000 could not succeed against the Mujahideen, why should it be any different now?

ii)  Escalation will inevitably lead to mounting European/American casualties, which will erode further public support in the West. The insurgents can absorb higher losses and fight on. Pakistan has incurred 7,500 casualties among its security personnel (dead and injured). Can western forces envision such heavy losses and sustain ?public support?

iii)  The economic cost of the war will also escalate. Will Western Parliaments pre-occupied with economic recovery agree indefinitely to defray the growing costs of an unending Afghan war?

iv)      Escalation will likely intensify rivalries among the neighboring powers in a region where a subterranean competition is already in play. Pakistan’s concerns about India’s role in Afghanistan are well known.

As for the impact on Pakistan, further military escalation on its border is fraught with great risk. The threat of instability will grow not diminish, for many reasons.

i)  It will likely lead to an influx of militants and Al-Qaeda fighters into Pakistan and an arms flow from across the border.

ii)  Enhance the vulnerability of US-NATO ground supply routes through the country as supply needs will likely double. This will create what military strategists call the “battle of reverse front.” Protecting these supply lines will also over stretch Pakistani troops.

iii) It could lead to an influx of more Afghan refugees, especially destabilizing in Balochistan.

iv) A surge in Afghanistan can produce a spike in violent reprisals in mainland Pakistan.

v) Intensified fighting and its fallout could erode and unravel the fragile political consensus in Pakistan to fight militancy.

Maleeha Lodhi served as Pakistan’s ?ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom. By Dr Maleeha Lodhi, Khaleej Times.