(This is a piece I wrote for an Indian think tank-link will be up soon)
The Indo-Pakistani Silent War in Afghanistan:
On the 7th of July 2008, a suicide bomber rammed a car crammed with explosives into the gates of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 41 people, and injuring close to 150.
Amongst the victims of the blast were the Indian defence attaché, Brigadier RD Mehta, and a senior Indian External Affairs official, Counsellor V Rao. The attack, subsequently traced back to Pakistan’s notorious ISI, or Inter-services Intelligence Agency, was only the latest episode of a covert war that India and Pakistan have been waging over Afghanistan for decades, and that has been gradually escalating in its grisly intensity.
Pakist Pakistani strategists have traditionally viewed the establishment of strategic ties with Afghanistan as a way of obtaining 'strategic depth' in the event of an all-out war with India. This notion of ‘strategic depth’ is most popular amongst the Pakistani military establishment, and predicates the following core concept: when confronted with a far stronger and larger neighbour, it is necessary for Pakistan, a far smaller and narrower country, to be able to counter an eventual Indian invasion by retreating into the Afghan hinterlands, and call on allied friendly forces and airspace in order to continue the fight.
The Taliban were thus aided and abetted by Pashtun field officers of the ISI in their rise to prominence over other warring factions in the 90s. Meanwhile, India, along with other regional powers such as Iran and Russia, attempted to dilute Pakistani influence in the region by bankrolling the Northern Alliance, led at the time by the charismatic Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.
While the fall of the Taliban in 2001 was a catastrophe in the eyes of many in the Pakistani intelligence community, it was perceived as a wonderful window of opportunity by their Indian counterparts to regain Delhi's lost footing in the region. This was greatly facilitated by the fact that many of the highest ranking members of the Karzai regime, such as Ismael Khan, are former Northern Alliance warlords.
India’s diplomacy towards Afghanistan, however, is far more multi-vectored than simply barring Pakistan from transforming it into its subservient backyard. Establishing a durable strategic presence in Central Asia is considered to be a vital component of India’s ‘Look West Policy’ and quest for global influence. Afghanistan is viewed as a potential ‘energy corridor’ leading to the oil and gas rich Central Asian republics, and, as potentially one of the country’s future security outposts on China’s western borders. These long and short term calculations have led Delhi to pour more than 1.2 billion dollars into Afghanistan, and in so doing, to become the beleaguered state’s fifth largest bilateral donor.
Four consulates have been opened, in Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar, and funds have flooded into education, food aid, and health services. Afghan diplomats, police officers, nurses and judges have received free training and Indian NGOs have been active throughout the country, often in conflict-ridden areas where their Western counterparts fear to venture. More than 4 000 Indian citizens are currently working on large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the Salman dam in Heart province, or the new national Parliament building, which is set for completion in 2011. The Power Grid Corporation of India is erecting power lines across the snow-swept Hindu Kush, and in January 2009, construction was finally completed on the Zaranj-Delaram highway. This 220km road runs from the town of Delaram in the south-western province of Nimroz to reach Zarang, on the Iranian border, which then connects it to the Iranian port of Chahbahar, nestled in the bay of Oman.
New Delhi has been helping Teheran revamp the port’s infrastructure, in the hope that access to its installations will allow it to gain better trading access to Afghanistan by completely bypassing Pakistan, thus alleviating the latter’s stranglehold over the Afghan economy. (Currently, most of Afghanistan's trade has to pass through the Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Karachi, and Pakistan only allows Afghan transit rights for its exports to India, consistently refusing to let Indian goods enter Afghanistan via its territory.)
With its focus on infrastructure and development projects, India has come to be well viewed by most Afghans. An unseen ramification of India’s growing soft power in the region has been the growing success of Bollywood, which has become wildly popular in Afghan households. When the Indian TV soap opera ‘Kynunki Saas Bhi’ was dubbed in Dari and aired on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV it was such an astounding success that it became a national obsession. 90% of television-owning Afghan families would follow the show, sometimes incurring the wrath of mullahs who viewed it as being responsible for the desertion of mosques during evening prayers.
Pakistan, naturally, has been infuriated with what it has come to view as an elaborate ‘hearts and minds’ campaign conducted in order to wean the fragile country permanently away from Islamabad’s influence. Over the past few years, Indian workers have been repeatedly abducted, and sometimes murdered; and grenades have been lobbed at the Indian consulates in Herat and Jalalabad. Although each time the Taliban were accused of the misdeeds, several members of the Indian security establishment harbour the suspicion that Adam Khan, the shadowy Kabul station head of the ISI, may be involved in the attacks.
On the other side, Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused Indian RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agents of establishing training camps in southern Afghanistan and the Panjshir Valley for the rebels of the Baloch Liberation Army, who are waging a separatist insurgency in Pakistan's troubled Baluchistan province. The Indian consulates have also frequently been charged with circulating counterfeit Pakistani currency.
Recent PakArmy propaganda videos detailing operations led by the Pakistani Army in Waziristan depict Pakistani soldiers brandishing what they claim is Indian made ammunition provided to the Pakistani Taliban. Despite the evidently far fetched and somewhat contradictory nature of these accusations it is widely believed in Pakistan that Indian intelligence operatives are using Afghanistan as a base from which they supposedly foment plots to dismember Pakistan.
Convergences and Divergences in Washington and New Delhi’s Approaches to Afghanistan:
Meanwhile American officials have been observing the effects of India’s growing presence in Afghanistan with a certain ambivalence, which can best be summarized by NATO ISAF Commander General Stanley McChrystal’s remarks in his Initial Assessment, in August 2009:
“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development projects and financial investment. In addition the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India.”
In short, Washington is concerned that its actions in Afghanistan will fall increasingly hostage to Indo-Pakistani rivalry in the region. This explains why the Obama Administration has been so intent over the past few months in attempting to convince Pakistan that its main threat is homegrown extremism rather than India.
Unfortunately these endeavours to modify the Pakistani Armed Force’s mindset are nothing more than an exercise in futility. The Pakistani Military has invested so much in its perennial conflict with India that is has become its main raison d’être. It would lose all justification for its disproportionate political and economic clout were it ever to concede that India no longer posed an existential threat to Pakistan.
Recent reports indicate that Islamabad shows no sign of abandoning its double-track policy of maintaining the Afghan Taliban as a strategic reserve force, while attempting to placate Western Intelligence Agencies by periodically handing over Arab Al Qaeda operatives. Its operations against the so-called ‘Pakistani Taliban’ in the Swat Valley or in Waziristan were wars of necessity against groups that refused to tacitly comply with Pakistan’s terms, which, to grossly summarize, implied that safe haven would be provided in exchange of a redirection of their militant fervour towards Afghanistan and/or Kashmir. Those who abide by Pakistan’s terms, such as the members of the Afghan Taliban Shura, are thus alive and well in Quetta, the capital of the Baluchistan province. Likewise, recent demands by US officials to crack down on the Haqqani network, which has as of yet limited its attacks to NATO troops in Afghanistan, have been repeatedly rebuffed.
Much of this Pakistani imperviousness to American demands can be linked to the fact that ISI operatives have a long term vision of Pakistan's national interest, and do not believe that the United States will maintain a permanent presence in the region. These convictions have only been compounded by the Obama Administration’s latest declarations regarding its Afghan strategy. After three months of often painstaking deliberation, Barack Obama finally announced in November his intention to commit 30, 000 more troops to Afghanistan. This troop surge, he declared, would take place over eighteen months before leading to a gradually staged American exit beginning in mid 2011. While the announcement of the troop surge was welcomed, the seemingly correlated exit strategy was greeted, especially in India, with consternation. It appeared to many that in attempting to assuage American domestic opinion’s fears over a seemingly intractable conflict, the President had in fact advised the Taliban to return to the Pakistani badlands to rest and reconsolidate for eighteen months. Obama administration officials subsequently swerved into damage control mode, both Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates stating that July 2011, was “not an exit strategy or a drop-dead deadline”, and that if any withdrawal did occur it would be “over an extended period of time”. It is unlikely however, that these backpedalling statements will be able to repair the damage that has been wrought. Pakistan and India are undoubtedly already gearing up for a possible regional realignment in eighteen months.
Another issue of divergence India has with the US regarding NATO’s Afghan strategy concerns the Afghan Reconciliation Plan, which involves bringing back low to mid ranking Taliban fighters into the government fold. The Afghan Reconciliation Plan is loosely modelled on the Awakening Movement, or ‘Sons of Iraq Program’, which stemmed the tide in Iraq by turning Sunni tribal militias against Al Qaeda and other Salafist outfits. A key architect of the Iraqi initiative, British Lt. General Graeme Lamb, has been recruited by General McChrystal to help bring its Afghan version into being, and the US Congress recently approved a defence appropriations bill of more than 1.3 billion dollars, known as CERP, and which provides discretionary funds for American officers in Afghanistan. The bill stipulates that the funds can be used not only for reconstruction projects but also to “reintegrate fighters into Afghan society.” It is hoped that via wads of cash handed out by Special Ops Officers or, more ideally, by offering jobs in development projects that Afghan tribal leaders help choose, NATO forces will be able to lure local fighters and petty chieftains away from the Taliban and thus bring back a semblance of stability in Afghanistan’s more war-torn provinces. Preliminary reports seem to show that in some regions this approach has started to bear fruit.
India, however, views what it has described as a ‘Good Taliban, Bad Taliban’ approach as a misguided fallacy, that may have a short term impact, but that ultimately will allow Pakistan to reassert its control over Afghanistan’s Pashtun areas as soon as NATO forces have packed their bags. India has consistently argued for a more hardline approach, which focuses solely on the Taliban’s eradication rather than on their fragmentation.
Imagining the Worst-Case Scenario:
The Obama Administration’s Afghan Strategy calls for a temporary surge in the hope that, by knocking the Taliban back on their toes, the troop influx will give the Afghan military and police services the time and breathing space they need in order to build a force capable of providing its own security. It is likely that in eighteen months, with the provision of new equipment and NATO trainers, the Afghan security services will have made strides in terms of both material capability and technical proficiency. An abiding concern, however, is the creeping ‘Tajikisation’ of the ANA. In 2003, General Karl Eikenberry (then chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Afghanistan, now the US Ambassador) issued the “Eikenberry Guidelines”, which sought to ensure an ethnic balance in the Afghan National Army in strict accordance with that of the country as a whole. The latest data, however, reveals a rather more depressing reality. The Tajik minority now accounts for more troops than the Pashtuns, which form the country’s largest ethnic group.
Furthermore, the ANA’s officer corps is almost exclusively composed of Tajiks, who often refuse to recruit Pashtuns, invariably regarding them as Taliban sympathisers. This evolution, if unchecked, will continue to breed resentment.
Faced with such an environment, and under pressure from domestic populations tired with the costs of a seemingly endless war, NATO will most probably begin to transition from a large-scale counter-insurgency campaign to a more limited form of engagement. This will in turn morph into what the US military jargon terms as an FID, or Foreign Internal Defence Operation,and will rely on a combination of Special Forces Teams, Predator Strikes, and Bombing Raids.
One can venture that absent the social and political reintegration of disenfranchised Pashtun communities; an unchecked Tajikisation of the ANA, combined with the departure of NATO troops will undoubtedly lead to a full-blown civil war with ethnic undertones, similar to that waged during much of the 90s. And just like during the 90s, regional powers will wade into the Afghan mire in order to back various factions, warlords, and ethnicities. Iran, India, and Russia will combine their efforts in a bid to support the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazara against the Pashtuns, who will stream from Pakistan’s border regions, flush with funds provided by Pakistani and Gulf State intelligence services. India’s massive financial investments in Afghanistan will be lost forever as the country lapses back into an unending cycle of destruction. Terrorists reared and groomed by the ISI in Afghan training camps will lash out at India’s soft underbelly, striking with ever increasing efficiency at its crowded markets, train stations and hotels. Emboldened by its reacquired strategic depth, the Pakistani military will stage ever more incursions into Indian territory, and Indian public opinion will clamour for retribution.
India’s Strategic Options:
What can India do in order to prevent such a nightmare scenario from unfolding? Is military intervention a viable strategic option? Already in 2006, the government took the decision to deploy 500 paramilitary troops from the China Border Security Force to protect the 4000 Indian citizens working in Afghanistan. In the wake of the 2008 embassy bombing, the debate over whether India should combine ‘hard power’ with ‘soft power’ in Afghanistan was renewed. Notwithstanding the opinions of some of India’s more hawkish security analysts, the consensus still remained solidly in favour of non-intervention.
It was concluded that any further deployment of troops, be they military, or even paramilitary, would run the risk of irretrievably aggravating tensions with a Pakistan consumed by a paranoid fear of encirclement and therefore of simultaneously encountering staunch US opposition.
Furthermore, if India intends to establish a permanent strategic beachhead in Central Asia, it must also rely on the good will of another regional power broker, Russia. An Indian military intervention in Afghanistan alongside that of NATO would be viewed by Moscow as a form of alignment, and would, unquestionably, have consequences. Only last year, Russia almost permanently denied India military access to the airfield at Ayni, in Tajikistan, that Delhi had spent over a million dollars renovating. Although no official explanation was given, it would appear that Russia had been irritated by Delhi’s growing proximity to Washington.
Direct military options having been ruled out, India should focus on strengthening the ANA. Earlier this year, it was announced that the Indian Army would train Afghan troops in counter-insurgency operations, and that help would be provided in the maintenance of Soviet-era helicopter gunships. These are steps in the right direction. Delhi should also consider establishing biannual training exercises and joint operations on Indian territory, and providing the Afghan army with spare parts for its Soviet-era tanks and artillery. Pressure should be put on the ANA leadership to open up its ranks to more Pashtun recruits in order to prevent the resurgence of ethnic warfare. Delhi could suggest to NATO the possibility of a national draft, which would send every Afghan male from 18-21, regardless of his religious or ethnic affiliation, to spend a year in an Afghan National Guard. This would deprive the Taliban of a prime recruiting source (the young uneducated male) and help forge a much needed sense of Afghan nationhood. Reading and writing courses could be made compulsory during the year of national service, thus helping fight illiteracy.
On a more socio-political level, everything must be done to durably reintegrate disenfranchised Pashtun communities and to prise them away from the Taliban.
Proper jobs must be privileged over cash handouts, and traditional Pashtun tribal structures must be erected as ‘counter-models’ to the Taliban movement. This will not be easy, however, as the traditional Pashtun tribal structure has been decimated throughout thirty years of war, tribal elders having been singled out and slaughtered by the Soviets, rival mujahedeen groups or the Taliban.
As long as Pakistan views India as its existential threat, India’s presence in Afghanistan will be viewed as an encroachment on Pakistan’s natural sphere of influence and hotly contested. Delhi must strive to convince Washington and its NATO allies that its goals in the region are not to be viewed solely through a Pakistani lens, but befit those of a truly global power, whose strategic preoccupations extend far beyond a long-standing neighbourhood squabble. In order to do so, India must continue to focus on winning over the Afghans themselves through its highly visible soft power initiatives, and must avoid falling into the pitfall of appearing to exclusively back one ethnicity as it has in the past. India has the advantage of enjoying good relations not only with NATO states, but also with Moscow, and the almost universally reviled regime in Teheran. It is through the savvy use of those ties, as well as through the continued implementation of its hearts and minds campaign that India will finally gain the international recognition it deserves for its role in Afghanistan.
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