An (unnamed) American soldier was lucky on Dec. 29. The bullet, fired by a Pakistani “border guard” or “frontier scout” (or phony guard/scout – take your pick), only grazed his head. He was choppered back to Bagram, then flown to Germany. Condition: stable. Not so fortunate was 82nd Airborne Division paratrooper Sgt. Steven Checo, shot dead in the same zone earlier in the same month. Both men were attacked while searching for al-Qaida. “The assailants,” reads an Associated Press report, “fled back [from Afghanistan] into Pakistan.”

Tragic … and geo-historically true to form. The same thing has been happening on this same so-called border since it was first drawn – on international maps, not in local minds – 110 years ago, long before Pakistan existed. Here’s where our most concrete War on Terror is being waged … but not yet won.

Time out for a quote and a plug. These words of 2003 prediction of a private intelligence agency called Strategic Forecasting: “A victory in Iraq does almost nothing to give it traction on the United States’ most difficult battlefield and the heart of the war on al-Qaida: the Pakistan/Afghan complex. We expect the war in Afghanistan and along the Pakistani border to intensify throughout 2003, with the militants controlling the initiative.” Stratfor and other sources of useful commentary are provided by James Algrant of Camden, Maine, at www.maineworldnewsservice.com. Thanks to Jim for this splendid service.

What’s it like for American soldiers in the no-man’s-land where Afghanistan and Pakistan meet (or, more accurately, merge)? Despite CENTCOM efforts at integrated strategy, this front retains a small-scale, fragmented, unpredictable quality. Technology may have changed – helicopters for cavalry horses – but U.S. tactics mirror those described by Kipling in “Arithmetic on the Frontier.” Back then it was the British who engaged in “a skirmish at a Border Station, a canter down some deep defile.” Where’s the enemy? Who’s the enemy? In the absence of pitched battles, sniper bullets seek individual targets, and fate takes random, democratic forms. Kipling’s warning: Any interloper, no matter how expensively trained and equipped, can be “shot like a rabbit on a ride.”

December’s hostilities stem from events of 1893. Britain held India (including what now is called Pakistan), feared Russian advances, and had determined that Afghanistan should serve as a protective buffer. But Afghans themselves had often invaded India. Hence the British need for double protection: in effect, an additional buffered border with Afghanistan. And thus a negotiation process whose results, to this day, mock prospects for peace and security.

Setting: Kabul, spring of 1893. Enter, from Delhi, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand. His host and negotiating partner/opponent: Amir Abdur Rahman, the last truly successful Afghan ruler. The issue: Where, exactly, to draw the line between Afghanistan and British India (now Pakistan)?

Abdur Rahman had warned the British not to deprive him of “these frontier tribes known by the name of Yaghistan” (“Land of the unruly” – see this column March 26, 2002): “If you cut them out of my dominions, they will neither be of any use to you nor to me: you will always be engaged in fighting and troubles with them, and they will always go on plundering.” The tribes were Pashtun, and the territory had once been ruled (at least nominally) by Kabul. Abdur Rahman wanted the return of both.

But Durand, whom Abdur Rahman’s memoirs describe as “a clever statesman,” feared a re-enlarged Afghanistan. His Protect India mission had a double agenda: Afghanistan as a buffer from the Russians, and the “frontier tribes” as a buffer from the Afghans. And so the Durand Line was drawn precisely to divide Pashtuns – Afghanistan’s dominant ethnic group – who, in the past, had sided with Kabul against the sub-continent.

The British could only contain, never control, their half of this bisected people. So Delhi instituted the notion of “Tribal Areas” which, while technically within British India, remained autonomous. Pakistan inherited the system. Legacy for 2003: These are the self-same tribals who shelter Taliban remnants, anti-Karzai opportunists, and al-Qaida escapees from Afghanistan.

The 1893 deal, to complicate matters further, was never ratified by Afghanistan. Successive Kabul regimes have claimed that it represented “spheres of influence” rather than fixed a border. In 1947 Afghanistan opposed Pakistan’s 1947 U.N. membership for Pakistan over this issue. Another Afghan argument: That the treaty, like Britain’s with China over Hong Kong, came with a 100 year time limit, now expired. Then there’s the Line itself. Its 1334 miles of deserts and mountains have never been demarcated on the ground, less still manned, least of all enforced. Great pains (and bribes) are taken at a few official crossing points; otherwise you’re on your own.

But neither has Pakistan been consistently vigilant. During the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad and the 1990s Pakistani effort to manage Afghanistan, rulers in Islamabad largely ignored trespass of their own northwestern border – by Afghan mujahedin and refugees, by Pakistani intelligence officers, even by the likes of me. To this day, the best bargains in Pakistan’s border town of Peshawar are purchased just outside the city limits…and just inside the Khyber Agency Tribal Area: top-quality international merchandise offloaded at the port of Karachi, trucked in bond across Pakistan, driven into Afghanistan on the main road, diverted before getting to Afghan customs, and returned on back roads into Pakistan’s autonomous Tribal Areas. No taxes. Prices are lower than in the Dubai Airport duty free.

So, for practical purposes, these questions arise. Is there still a Durand Line? If so, where is it? How do you know when you cross it? And what does crossing it mean?

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Fast forward from past uncertainties to Dec. 29. Someone, at least looking like a Pakistan soldier, shot at an American soldier near the Line. We retaliated with the dropping of at least one 500-pound bomb. On this much Pakistan and America – supposedly staunch allies in Operation Enduring Freedom – agree.

But note how quickly the old questions led to new ones. Where – on which side of the Line – was the Pakistani soldier? On which side was the American soldier? If both were on the same side, which and how come? On which side did the bomb – or bombs – fall? What agreements existed at the time between Pakistan and the United States regarding hot pursuit across the line? What agreements now exist in the aftermath?

And note how quickly Pakistani-American relations were strained over two specifics. While our military said the bomb fell in Afghanistan, Pakistanis (government officials and local civilians) said that the bombs [plural] fell on a madrassah (Islamic school) in Pakistan. The second specific is hot pursuit. Pakistani foreign minister: “From the very first day, it has been absolutely clear and fully understood … that operations within Pakistani territory would be conducted solely and exclusively by our own forces and in response to decisions taken by Pakistan.”

U.S. military spokesman: “U.S. forces acknowledge the internationally recognized boundaries of Afghanistan, but may pursue attackers who attempt to escape into Pakistan to evade capture or retaliation. This is done with the express consent of the Pakistani government… We continue to operate, and have the freedom to operate where we choose.”

Our weird alliance of mutual need will survive, at least for now. Military leaders from both sides have met and agreed to agree that the whole incident was, according to Pakistan’s Daily Times, “masterminded by some terrorists who wanted to create misunderstandings between the two armies.” And this from an (unnamed) senior Pakistani official: “For the time being, the understanding is that if U.S. troops come close to the border, they would seek greater co-operation from Pakistani troops.” Whatever that means…

Tempest in a teapot? Sure, except that most Pakistanis drink tea. Likewise native to that country’s culture is a profound sense of political insecurity and consequent touchiness. Squabbles with America over Durand Line rules of engagement undermine the legitimacy of President Musharraf. Recent electoral victories by militant Islamists in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province confirm that public opinion has turned against him and us. Effigies of President Bush were burned last week in Peshawar.

Here – exactly here along this wild, crazy, fuzzy border – is where the Bush War on Terror needs to be most vividly won. Here, not Iraq, is where we need to win big. Final question: Are we winning here at all?

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world. He was last in Afghanistan in May on a U.S. government contract. Editor’s note: The second edition of Dr. Azoy’s definitive study, ” Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan,” is newly available from Waveland Press.