Stavridis: I Don’t Give High Hopes to Pressuring Pakistan on Afghanistan

EXCERPT:

STAVRIDIS: "Julie, I think you put your finger of where the story goes now in terms of Afghanistan and it goes to Islamabad and Pakistan. I think the carrots are military cooperation and technology transfer, assistance in a variety of soft power kinds of ways. We’ve used some of that, but we've withheld it. This gets back to bringing India into the equation, it puts pressure on the Pakistani military to say, 'We need that new kit, we need that new gear, we need to be more proactive with the United States.' In terms of sticks, it’s more cross-border and Pakistan operations, highly classified but using our actual Special Forces more aggressively in that region. It’s going to be a mixed picture. I don’t give it high hopes but, again, best of a bad set of options."