Paper no. 2928

19-Nov-2008

AFGHANISTAN: STRATEGIC DISCONNECT IN UNITED STATES – INDIA STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES IN THE MAKING 

By Dr. Subhash Kapila 

Introductory Observations 

Convergence of national security interests led the United States and India to a shared endeavor to displace the Taliban regime from Afghanistan in 2002 and thereafter underwrite the process of its emergence as a democratic, progressive and moderate Islamic state. 

Since 2002, the United States and India have invested in Afghanistan’s political future in terms of security and economic reconstruction.  The United States focused along with NATO Forces on military operations to liquidate the continuing and still existing resurgent Taliban onslaughts to ensure security and stability in Afghanistan.  India’s involvement in the economic reconstruction and restoration of infrastructure, communications, connectivity, power generation, administration and the social sectors has been massive amounting to over US $ 1 billion in Afghanistan. 

The overall central strategic objectives in Afghanistan of United States and India were two fold (1) Afghanistan should emerge as a democratic, progressive and stable state, and more importantly (2) Afghanistan should never ever become a Talibanised state and an epicenter of global terrorism.  Nothing has happened to warrant a change in these joint strategic objectives. 

Taliban of all hues, harbored, aided ad abetted by Pakistan continue to be the central instrument which challenges this shared US-India endeavor to reclaim Afghanistan.  Challenging the might of US & NATO Forces by asymmetrical warfare it has claimed hundreds of lives of US & NATO soldiers securing peace in Afghanistan. 

Taliban egged-on by Pakistan has attacked India’s reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and killed Indian engineers and technicians engaged in these projects. 

Taliban’s central message in these strategies for the United States and India is that both should get out of Afghanistan.  It is not the message of the Afghan people who hate the Taliban for their medieval Islamic brutalization of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2002.  It is the message of the Taliban on behalf of its masters, i.e. Pakistan. 

Pakistan has never invested in Afghanistan’s political future or its stability and security, ever since its inception in 1947.  Pakistan continues to view Afghanistan as the legatee overlord after British withdrawal and serve Pakistan as its strategic backyard.  The history of Pak-Afghan relations is replete with its continuous efforts by Pakistan to destabilize Afghanistan. 

Pakistan never realized that the manufacturing of 9/11 Islamic Jihadi onslaught on mainland USA in the ISI Jihadi factories in Taliban Afghanistan would bring about United States forceful military intervention in Afghanistan, displace its proxy Taliban regime in Kabul and deprive Pakistan of its strategic backyard in Afghanistan. 

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the fall of Taliban regime in Kabul due to US military intervention, Pakistan implemented a three-pronged strategy (1) Overtly, a façade of assisting United States in its global war on terrorism (2) Covertly, putting into effect a resurgent Taliban asymmetric warfare against US & NATO Forces in control of Afghanistan (3) By attrition over a period of time inducing strategic fatigue in US & NATO resolve and prompting their exit. 

Reverting back to the present, what is noticeable are three main trends, namely (1) United States officially shows no signs of strategic fatigue and is revising its strategies in Afghanistan (2) Indian Prime Minister even after the devastating major suicide attack on the Indian Embassy, engineered by Pakistan’s ISI (US official assertion publicly declared) that India will continue its reconstruction presence in Afghanistan, and (3) Within NATO, Britain more noticeably has exhibited strategic fatigue and advocated initiatives along with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for dialogue with the Taliban. 

The dangers of strategic fatigue in Afghanistan stand vividly discussed in this Author’s SAAG Paper No. 2902 dated 29 Oct 2008 entitled “Afghanistan: United States/NATO Strategic Fatigue Spawns Dangerous Alternatives”. 

This Paper brought out that the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan through such advocacy of partial power sharing in Kabul by the “moderate” Taliban ( an unholy interpretation of the Taliban) would be disastrous for United States global standing.  Also was brought out that “US Intellectuals Must Disabuse Their Minds that Pakistan’s Sensitivities are Paramount in Solution of Afghanistan Conflict”. 

The last named is a dangerous trend which has picked up more steam in the United States policy analysis circles.  Some excerpts of this line of thinking are listed in the Annexure to this Paper.

Pakistan-orchestrated line of thinking in the United States briefly runs as follows (1) Pakistan is hampered in extending full support to United States in Afghanistan because of its strategic insecurities emanating from India (2) At the heart of Pakistan’s strategic insecurities is the unresolved issue of Kashmir (3) United States should pressurize India to compromise on Kashmir to enable Pakistan to effectively cooperate with USA in Afghanistan. 

Pakistan's linkage of Kashmir with Afghanistan is only a blackmail attempt sensing that with strategic fatigue setting in policy advisory circles, Pakistan could reap rewards from USA on Kashmir or if nothing else cause a cleavage in the US-India Strategic Partnership.

The United States needs to arrest and officially refute such tenuous thinking in its policy advisory groups.  Implicit in this is the danger of a serious disconnect emerging in US-India strategic perceptions on Afghanistan and a greater danger of impacting adversely on the overall evolution of the US-India Strategic Partnership, still on the making. 

Some perspectives not covered in this Author’s above referred Paper are offered for pondering over now as follows: 

  • India Has Legitimate National Security Interests in Afghanistan.
  • Taliban Incorporation in Power-Sharing in Kabul Will be Opposed by Other Stake-holders in Afghanistan
  • United States Must Recognize that Afghanistan is Not Iraq

India Has Legitimate National Security Interests in Afghanistan 

The following points need to be made in this connection (1) India’s legitimate national security interests in Afghanistan pre-date United States involvement in Afghanistan (2) India’s national security interests have acquired heightened salience with its emergence as the regional power in South Asia and its ascendancy towards global power status (3) India’s national security interests today extend far beyond South Asian confines and a stable and secure Afghanistan, free of radical influences, on the immediate periphery of South Asia on the West, is an important pivot for India’s national security. 

Surely, neither US officialdom or its intellectual circles can dispute India’s national security interests in Afghanistan for today they are no longer Pak-centric but an extension of its growing power. 

The United States needs to review its Pak-centric South-West Asia perspectives and recognize the reality that Afghanistan as a democratic, progressive and moderate Islamic country in a strategic partnership with India as the regional power (and global power in the making) would together provide a strong bulwark of stability for South Asia, Central Asia and the Gulf Region. 

Should the United States not recognize this reality then it has to face harsh strategic realities (1) India will not sacrifice its national security interests in Afghanistan to facilitate United States’ assuaging of self-inflicted strategic insecurities of Pakistan (2) Kashmir would be “non-negotiable" for any Indian political dispensation in power and (3) US pressures in this direction could impact adversely on the evolving US-India Strategic Partnership. 

Taliban Incorporation in Power-Sharing in Kabul Will be Opposed by Other Stake-holders in Afghanistan 

India always opposed the Taliban regime and Taliban in Afghanistan – even when US Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel was hobnobbing with them in Mazar-e-Sharif and advocating US diplomatic recognition of the Taliban – a move wisely dropped by her seniors. 

Taliban is virulently anti-Indian in outlook and has been the nursery of Jihadi terrorism in Kashmir as it has been in Afghanistan.  The Indian psyche stands strongly singed by the visuals of IC-814 (Indian Airlines)  plane hijacking to Kandahar in Afghanistan depicting the Islamic Jihadi hijackers and other noted terrorists being spirited away by the Taliban to safe sanctuaries in Pakistan. 

Does this not evoke memories in the United States of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar (along with their hierarchies), all master-minds of 9/11, being spirited away to Pakistan in 2002? 

India is an important stake-holder in Afghanistan and would not look kindly on any British-Pak-Saudi efforts to bring back the Taliban in power in Kabul through a back-door entry, and pregnant with prospects of enlarging its hold in Kabul once established.  The US establishment does not ponder over the latter perspectives when it seconds the British proposal reluctantly. 

More importantly, there are other vital stake-holders in Afghanistan’s stability and who have consistently opposed the Taliban all along, namely, Russia and Iran.  Russia and Iran can be expected to vehemently oppose the inclusion of Taliban of any hues in power sharing in Kabul.  And if USA persists on such a course, then one can expect the “Great Game” to return to Afghanistan, to the detriment of US national security interests. 

Can the United States forget that US military intervention in Afghanistan was made successful with the tacit support of Russia and Iran. 

The only other stake-holder left in Afghanistan is China and China would whole-heartedly support Pakistan's position and of the Taliban with which regime it had strong linkages.

United States Must Recognize that Afghanistan is Not Iraq 

General Petraeus assuming command of US Central Command after a successful tenure in Iraq carries inherent dangers of repeating the Iraqi experiment in Afghanistan.  Afghanistan geo-politically, geo-strategically and geographically in terms of terrain configuration is vastly different from Iraq. 

Afghanistan therefore presents political and military challenges vastly different and vastly complex than in Iraq.  It is also challenging in terms of application of US military power as in Iraq armored and mechanized warfare was a force multiplier.  In Afghanistan reliance will have to be on heli-borne operations in the vast open space of this nation. 

More significantly, the United States with a rapid military surge coupled with the manipulation of Sunni tribals could engineer a workable exit strategy from Iraq.  Even in Iraq there is no exit of US Forces till 2011. 

Other than forsaking its vital national security interests in Greater South West Asia by an “exit from Afghanistan at any cost," the United States is in for a long, long military haul in Afghanistan. And for this it will require to double the Afghan National Army at its own costs as unlike Iraq, there are no oil revenues flowing in for the same. 

In such an extended and open-ended US involvement in Afghanistan, the United States could count handsomely on only one stake-holder and that is India.  And that too because India like the United States has vital national security interests in Afghanistan. and both enjoy a strategic convergence there without any competing interests.

Concluding Observations 

Pakistan’s diabolical attempts to engineer a hasty exit of United States and India from Afghanistan through the playing of the “Taliban Card” coupled with that card spawning advocacy of dangerous alternatives by the US policy establishment (under British pressure) carries in it the dangers of a serious disconnect emerging in US-India strategic perspectives on Afghanistan. 

India cannot be expected to sacrifice its national security interests in Afghanistan, which are comprehensive and not Pak-centric, to facilitate the United States assuaging Pakistan’s strategic insecurities. 

Should the United States deviate from its strategic congruencies with India on Afghanistan, then India would have been left with no other alternatives but to explore other options to protect her legitimate national security interests in Afghanistan. 

United States and India today share strategic convergences on a vast array of strategic challenges in the meeting of which India can play a sizeable part.  The United States should be mindful that neither by word  or deed a disconnect takes place in US-India strategic perspectives, least of all Afghanistan.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst.  He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group.  Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com) 

ANNEXURE 

SELECTED EXCERPTS  

The Strategic Challenge in Pakistan Afghan Hinterland by Michael Schuer, Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 15, Issue 30 dated August 12, 2008 

  • “The assumption based on the error that two nations can have identical interests had led the West to allow any and all nations to play a role in Afghanistan of their own choosing, a policy that will ultimately help undo Western interests there”.
  • “The best example of the destructiveness of the “we’re all in this together” policy is, the role India is being allowed to play in Afghanistan."
  • Commenting on why the Indian Embassy was bombed in Kabul and why it took so long in coming, he said “To ask that question would have to recognize that the United States and NATO have allowed their Kabul surrogate President Hamid Karzai and the Indian Government to use their supposedly selfless project of Afghan reconstruction as a tool with which to destroy one of the historic tenets of Pakistan’s national security (having a Pro-Pakistan, Islamist and Pashtun dominated Afghan Government).

Behind The Indian Embassy Bombing, Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, August 1, 2008 

  • “The Karzai Government is openly and brazenly strengthening its ties with India and allowed Indian consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.  It has kept alive the possibility of inviting India to help train the new Afghan Army.”
  • “Karzai’s open alliance with India is a casus belli for ISI” (Pakistan Army’s intelligence agency)
  • “Only by assuaging the ISIs fears while allowing India’s rightful place in Kabul, can we get more cooperation from Pakistan to fight extremism”.
  • “Pakistan is far more threatened by Talibanization than the US is but victory will require deft diplomacy including alliances with some Taliban elements against others.”

Bruce Riedel, Earlier President Clintons Security Advisor and now with President-elect Obama’s team 

  • “Pakistan should not be pressurized because its security establishment believes that it is threatened by US-India-Afghan alliance to dismember Pakistan.”
  • “Pakistan’s military command continues to believe the two nation theory and wants Kashmir to be incorporated into the South Asian homeland for Muslim.  To this extent, Afghanistan, they say is within Pakistan’s security perimeter.”
  • “Strategic fatigue has set in” (in the US and NATO Policy establishment.

Foreign Affairs Journal: Essay on Afghanistan by Barry Rubin and Ahmed Rashid 

  • "Pakistan cannot be pressurised"
  • "Pakistan feels that it faces both a US-Afghanistan-India alliance and a separate Russia-Iran alliance each aimed at undermining Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan an dismembering the Pakistani state."
  • "Pakistan's legitimate sources of insecurity need to be addressed while increasing opposition to its disruptive activities."
  • "Promote dialogue between India and Pakistan to resolve Kashmir issue."

 

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