PAKISTAN'S BORDERS

The Renaissance Man has a question.

If a country abandons sovereignty over its territory, or any portion of it, must other states recognize and respect the putative borders, particularly when they are attacked from bases located inside the abandoned territory?

This is the situation as it exists on the Pakistani-Afghani border. Pakistan has "negotiated" arrangements with tribal leaders in the acknowledgedly lawless provinces of North and South Waziristan. The agreement is that agents of Pakistani state authority (i.e. police and armed forces) will withdraw from those provinces provided that the tribal leaders will enforce the "law" and prevent terrorists (such as Al Quaeda and the Taliban) from setting up shop there. Effectively, the Pakistani state writ will be withdrawn from these provinces.

The tribal leaders said "Suuuuuure. No prob." People are complaining, rightly, about the suspension of Pakistani constitutional order as a result of the recently declared "State of Emergency", but what about the abandonment by the Pakistani state of these two provinces?

Consequently, Al Quaeda and Taliban training bases have been established there, Sharia law is enforced in the absence of Pakistani secular law. Meanwhile, Canadian, American, British and Dutch troops are getting killed by attackers raiding into Afghanistan from across the border. (The German, French, and other NATO troops are in Kabul and points north...safely out of harm's way).

This past week we saw the Islamist control expand out of the Waziristans and southward into the region called Swat. Pakistani troops there surrendered to the incoming Jihadists without a fight.

So what do we see: Islamists expanding their areas of control (a la Afghanistan following the departure of the Soviets) and the unwillingness of Pakistani state forces to assert control over their territory.

And so, back to the opening question. Why must Afghanistan recognize and respect the border if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to do so?

The reality is that the mountainous region straddling the Afghan-Pakistani border is one region. The border is an artificial construct. Historically, neither the British, nor the Russians, nor the Pakistanis have been able to assert full control over the area.

The Renaissance Man wonders whether it may be time that Afghanistan and the NATO forces assisting it, recognize the reality and treat the entire area as one region. This would entail and permit, of course, surgical strikes at Taliban/Al Quaeda targets located inside the border of Pakistan. However, such strikes ought to be proportional, and ought not to place in question Pakistan's legal authority to control the area, should it so desire. But, in the absence of the exercise of sovereignty over this region by Pakistan, is it not reasonable that those who are suffering from acts mounted from Pakistani territory be able to defend themselves?

The alternative, it appears to the The Renaissance Man, is that these attacks be attributed to Pakistan, a consequence that it is doubtful the authorities in Islamabad would want.