Major global powers like Russia and China and regional powers like Iran are now ready to embrace the Taliban — in their own interest, but ostensibly for peace in Afghanistan.
The next round of Moscow talks on Afghanistan is scheduled for 10 April. Besides hosts Russia, other participants include India, China, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The conference seems to mark the beginnings of a new version of the Great Game among Asian powers with only one semi-European country, Russia. The US, having turned down the invitation to participate, presumably has its own rules of the game. It could be that the US does not want to be seen playing second fiddle in a Russian symphony at this stage of their bilateral relations. Each of the participant nations will naturally push their own agendas while pretending to be doing so for the benefit of the aggrieved nation, Afghanistan. Chances of a successful outcome of the Moscow meeting therefore remain dim. The only certainty is that major global powers like Russia and China and regional powers like Iran are now ready to embrace the Taliban — in their own interest, but ostensibly for peace in Afghanistan.
First, a quick review of the internal security and political situation is necessary. The Afghans say that the security situation is not as bad as outside experts suggest it is; but then, it is not as good as the Afghans would have us believe. Measured by any yardstick, the Taliban controls more territory today than they did last year. The fall of Sangin district in Helmand province to the Taliban on 23 March perhaps epitomises the security problem in the country. Strategically located between the Helmand River and Kandahar province, the district is a centre of the lucrative opium trade. Control of Sangin is thus very important for controlling the opium trade, and provides the Taliban a direct link between the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. The stakes are thus high and corruption is high alongside. No wonder that battles have been fierce and the largest number of British and American troops died in Sangin than in any other district in Afghanistan. Since 2013, when the control of the district was transferred to Afghan forces, hundreds of Afghans too have died battling the Taliban. It is possible that like in many other cases in the past, Sangin will also change hands, but for the moment the Taliban occupy the district.
This conflict became progressively more intense throughout 2016 and is likely to worsen in 2017. This enabled the Taliban to increase their footprint by about 15% all over the country as compared to 2015. The Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani controls about 60% of the territory. There will also be no reduction in Pakistani support to the Taliban. Unless the Afghan National Security Force acquires urgently needed weaponry and equipment, the ANSF will remain under considerable strain.
Individual valour does not make up for institutional weakness. A loss in morale would adversely affect ability to withstand increasingly intensified and sophisticated attacks by the Taliban.
Individual valour does not make up for institutional weakness. A loss in morale would adversely affect ability to withstand increasingly intensified and sophisticated attacks by the Taliban.
The US remained extremely deferential to Pakistani hypersensitivity about Afghan rearmament. The Afghans thus never had the equipment and adequate training to be able to function as an army that was both an effective counterinsurgency force and able to engage against conventional transborder threats. Ironically, foreign observers of the security scene in Afghanistan are now dismissive of the Afghan army’s capabilities as if the present state where everything possible is dysfunctional, is entirely the fault of the Afghans themselves. Consequently, despite the estimated 780 billion dollars spent mostly by the US all these 15 years, the Afghan army remains under equipped and under trained. A smarter, well-equipped, well-trained army comprising locals fighting on and for their own land would have been far greater value for money than well-equipped highly trained foreign troops.
Ultimately, American forces seen as saviours of 2001 became just another occupation force in the eyes of the Afghan. This is what the Taliban has capitalised. The Taliban has been able to attract some non-Pushtun to its ranks which increases their ability to withstand pressure or become more active in other parts of the country. Places like Kunduz, Sar-e-pul, Baghlan and Farah could be under Taliban pressure in the next few months.
Today, no one really wants to discuss the two major problems afflicting Afghanistan; one, the opium trade that financially sustains the Taliban and the impoverished Afghan farmer; and two, the support Pakistan has rendered Taliban and continues to do so.
Much is being made out of the presence of so-called Islamic State in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, bordering Pakistan. Informed opinion from Afghanistan asserts that there is no such entity like ISIS-K (Daesh) in the country. Some elements merely fly the ISIS flag. These are really those belonging to the Haqqani Network, closely associated with the ISI. The ISIS has brand equity amongst western nations, and now with Russia. Additionally, it provides Pakistan with deniability and innocence in its operations into Afghanistan. This might make the Haqqani faction look good, even humane, in the bargain. If the narrative about the Taliban among some powers can change to suit the occasion, so can that for the Haqqani Network. The ISIS is becoming a convenient diversion for various reasons from the main threat to Afghanistan — the Taliban.
The cynosure of the globe in Afghanistan
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US, as the sole super power, also became the global cynosure of other people hoping for American support in their struggles against oppressive regimes. The world hoped for a generous magnanimous nation trying to uplift the less advantaged. Instead, what they saw was an unshackled America pursuing only its interests and using other nations for promoting its interests. Besides, over the years, excessive use of military force has only exposed its limitations. In the 1990, as the Taliban threatened Afghanistan, the US was willing to do business with Taliban hoping this would help American petroleum companies like UNOCAL with the Turkmenistan gas connection. Less than a decade later, in a role reversal, the US was hunting the Taliban. Today, the discourse is that the US should do deals with them. In the process, the US does not get a high score on the reliability index. This is an unfortunate commentary on a superpower.
Meanwhile, the US is yet to decide what would be its next course of action in Afghanistan. But the White House has other items on its to-do list. Afghanistan is not one of them. One section seeks a greater military engagement in Afghanistan. The American commander in Afghanistan, General Nicholson, has sought an increase of US force by about a few thousand. If this increase is only to guard US embassies and interests in Afghanistan, this is bad optics. This implies that the US no longer feels safe in a country that it set out to rescue or fears its inhabitants. If this additional force is meant to reverse the tide, then it is hopelessly inadequate. America First is a fine slogan at home but this does not work in another country where troops are out to defend that country.
Years ago, writing for The Hindustan Times, I had said: “In Kashmir, Pak-sponsored terrorists have never numbered more than 3,000 to 3,500 in an operating season, yet the Indian force deployed along with the paramilitary has been anywhere up to 100,000. Assuming that there are 10,000 Taliban loose in Afghanistan, a force of 250,000 would be needed to engage the Taliban. What is needed is boots on the ground, not aerial attacks that create more enemies than they destroy. The present NATO/US force of 40,000 is not only inadequate, it is also counterproductive to deploy a force thinly.”
What is needed is boots on the ground, not aerial attacks that create more enemies than they destroy.
What is needed is boots on the ground, not aerial attacks that create more enemies than they destroy.
Daniel Davis, a former lieutenant-colonel in the US army, who served in Afghanistan at the height of 2010, made a similar observation. He confirmed that even with more than one hundred thousand US troops on the ground, there were still massive swaths of the country that were no-go territory for friendly troops, and the Taliban and other insurgents ran wild. [i]He added that so long as Pakistan refused to stop the Taliban from using its territory as a safe haven and the government in Kabul remained as corrupt as it has been, it wouldn’t matter if President Trump sent two hundred thousand troops to Afghanistan. The US, frozen by its dependency on Pakistan, could never bring itself to push that country far enough on this. The issue is that given the usual ratio between terrorists and counter terrorist forces, US would need upwards of 500,000 troops in Afghanistan to control the 50,000 Taliban. There just are not that many troops available nor the funds.
No comments:
Post a Comment