Geopolitics

Resurrecting Afghanistan
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Issue Vol 24.4 Oct-Dec 2009 | Date : 23 Nov , 2010

The Afghan nation-state was one of the oldest states of Asia. It became the first failed state in Asia. In the interests of not only regional stability but global security as such, this contagion of collapse must be contained.

Indian Stakes in Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a state that is vital to India’s security. Historically it was  located at the junction of many great empires and was a classic buffer state. The unmitigated Cold War competition destroyed this buffer state and reduced it to a tragically failed state whose rugged terrain was transformed into a Somalia analogue of South West Asia. It became the base of Al Qaida and the launch pad for 9/11. The world realized the stark perils of accepting ungoverned regions in the heartland of Asia that have become havens for non-state actors.

Stake Analysis. Serious International efforts are on to revive the nation-state in Afghanistan. Any analytical study on Afghanistan that is done from an Indo-centric point of view, must first and foremost define what precisely are India’s stakes in Afghanistan? India has critical stakes in the viability and continued existence of an independent nation state in Afghanistan. Some of these vital stakes are listed below:

  • Jihadi_groups_af_pak_regionIn purely military terms, in the Soviet era, Afghanistan had tied down two Pakistani Corps on its western front. Post 1989, these became available to Pakistan for deployment against India. Pakistan’s consequent perception of conventional military parity has encouraged her to launch the proxy war in J&K, and now a terrorist jihad in Indian cities. The destruction of the Afghan nation-state has created the military resource surplus which has encouraged Pakistan to launch its asymmetric war of a thousand cuts against India.
  • The Afghan nation-state was one of the oldest states of Asia. It became the first failed state in Asia. In the interests of not only regional stability but global security as such, this contagion of collapse must be contained. It must not be allowed to spread. Pakistan’s ISI used the ideology of Jihad to destroy an old and established nation-state. By seeking to re-impose the irredentist Taliban, it is doing its best to reduce Afghanistan to the status of a Jihad franchise and colony that provides it strategic depth against arch rival India.
  • Afghanistan has traditionally been hostile to Pakistan on issues of the Durand Line’s legality and access to the sea. This has historically served to put Pakistan in a classic two-front situation. India therefore has vital geopolitical stakes in the continued existence of a viable and independent Afghan state.
  • As per Robert Gates, US Defense Secretary and former Director CIA, during the Taliban regime in Kabul (1996–2001), 22 percent of all terrorists operating in J&K were either from Afghanistan or had been trained there. India therefore simply cannot afford to let Afghanistan be controlled or dominated by any power hostile to India.
  • A client regime of Pakistan in Kabul seriously curtails India’s access to the hydro-carbon resources and markets of Central Asia.
  • India can accept Talibani resurgence in Afghanistan only at its own strategic peril. Even the “moderate Taliban” in Kabul could soon result in the domino effect of the Talibanization of Pakistan. This could place Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the hands of non-state actors. This would have very serious implications not just for Indian security but also the peace and stability of the existing global system per se.
  • Pakistan is acting from a baseline assumption that the USA and NATO lack the stomach for a prolonged engagement in Afghanistan (the traditional graveyard of empires). It is maneuvering to facilitate an American exit which leaves the so called “moderate Taliban” in power in Kabul. Even at the time of Op Enduring Freedom in 2001, Pakistan had tried to put forward Jalaluddin Haqqani as the moderate Taliban with which the US could strike a deal. Haqqani had then refused to disown Mullah Omar. India will have to clearly determine the stark security implications of such a restructuring of the security architecture in South Asia. It may have to weigh its options in the contingency of a US Exit from Afghanistan.

Episodes of Hubris

The situation in Afghanistan today is the result of two extreme episodes of hubris. In 2001, the Taliban decided most foolishly to fight like a regular army and defend cities and towns. The 12,000 Pakistani Pathan troops in mufti, who manned its tanks, artillery and aircraft, had been withdrawn under US pressure. The Taliban still insisted upon fighting like a regular army. It presented concentrated targets and was decimated by the US Air Force. The Northern Alliance had simply mopped up in the wake of devastating US air strikes and captured Kabul.

Occupation and pacification of a country needs boots on the ground. This tiny US military footprint has now bred a long term disaster.

This ridiculously easy victory in turn led to hubris in the Pentagon. The new Gurus of “effect based operations” jettisoned years of classical military theory. Lt Gen Tommy Franks decided to keep the US footprint in Afghanistan very small (just 10,000 men) supported by massive airpower. This small footprint was ostensibly designed to obviate local hostility against US troops as occupiers. Overtime however, the indiscriminate use of airpower to protect this handful of troops, has caused significant collateral damage that alienated the population much more thoroughly. At the very least, this ridiculously low level of force deployment stood CI theory and practice on its head. Occupation and pacification of a country needs boots on the ground. This tiny US military footprint has now bred a long term disaster.

There was no Afghan Army to secure the country post. The US therefore had to rely on the highly discredited and unpopular warlords (who had been overthrown earlier by the Taliban). The use of warlords seriously undercut the legitimacy of the Afghan Government of President Karzai. The first and foremost requirement for an independent state is a national Army. It is simply inexplicable why it has taken over a decade to rebuild a viable Afghan National Army. A professional Afghan Army would have consolidated the new Afghan state and been far, far cheaper than maintaining US or NATO forces in this region.

From Regular to Dispersed Warfare. The Taliban meanwhile had learnt its lessons. It had initially fled to sanctuaries in FATA and North West Frontier Provinces in Pakistan. America now diverted attention and resources away to Iraq. Seriously under funded and under resourced, Afghanistan was left to its own devices. The Taliban found the force to space ratio ridiculously low in Afghanistan. It simply seeped right back in. The Quetta Shura led by Mullah Omar was ensconced by the ISI in the city of Quetta itself. It targeted Kandahar. The Haqqani Shura based in Waziristan targeted Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces. Gen Parvez Kayani called Haqqani a prime strategic asset. The Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar made NWFP its base for targeting the Afghan provinces of Nangrahar, Nuristan and Kunar. Hekmatyar was the ISI’s poster boy during the Afghan Jihad. He had bombed Kabul to rubble because he could not capture it. There are thus three clear tiers of the Taliban:

For some strange reasons the Americans are planning an Afghan army of just 134,000 strong and a police force of 82,000.

  • First Tier: Quetta Shura led by Mullah Omar; this was based in Quetta and has now reportedly shifted to the Binori mosque madarasa in Karachi. It is active in Helmand and Kandahar.
  • Second Tier: Haqqani Shura is considered to be a strategic asset of the ISI. This is led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former Mujahideen commander and his son Sirajjudin Haqqani. It operates in Khost, Logar, Paktia and Paktika. It is based in Waziristan. Hafiz Gul Bahadur is one of its key commanders in North Waziristan. Abu Kasha al Iraqi, a key Al Qaida leader operates in tandem with this group.
  • Third Tier: The Hizb-e-Islami Shura based in NWFP; this is led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, former Mujahideen commander and asset of the ISI. It operates in Waziristan, Kunar, Laghman, Nangrahar, etc.
  • Local Cadres. The bulk of the IED, standoff fire attacks and rockets are fired by locally recruited cadres who are paid by the Taliban from its corpus of narcotics profits and extortion of aid agencies operating in Afghanistan.

In 2006, the then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced that America would be withdrawing from Afghanistan. Pakistan had then resolved to re-install the Taliban in Kabul. Even while it enacted the charade of fighting the US Global War on Terror (GWOT), it stepped up support to the Taliban in a major way. From that year onwards there has been a distinct upsurge in the attacks of the Taliban inside Afghanistan and a visible rise in the use of IEDs.

Narco-Terrorism. The ISI had simply revived the Narcotics Empire of the Golden Crescent to pay for this insurgency. 9 percent of the Afghan population had been killed, 33 percent had fled to other countries as refugees and 11 percent were internally displaced. Most of the cultivable areas were strewn with mines. The entire labour-intensive, traditional system of Afghan agriculture thus broke down and the Afghans had reverted to poppy cultivation, which is not manpower intensive.

If the Americans are serious about pacifying the region and want to protect the population, they will need to commit enhanced resources and stay the course for at least one to two decades

This opium economy has been fuelling the Taliban War since then. In 2008 the US 24 Marine Expeditionary Group( MEU) and the 205th Corps of the Afghan Army had launched major search and destroy operations in the Helmand province, the prime centre of gravity for opium cultivation and Taliban operations in Afghanistan. The American MEU withdrew in Sep’ 08 and handed this area over to the British troops. The British were woefully thin on the ground and had to cede most of this key terrain to the reinvigorated Taliban.

The ISAF troops have proved to be surprisingly soft and effete. The French and Germans hardly operate at night. The British troops are overstretched and visibly demoralized. The ISAF focused primarily on Force Protection with the help of indiscriminate airpower which distanced them physically and psychologically from the Afghan people. The lackluster combat performance of the ISAF forces led the US military to wryly comment “ISAF stands for – I Saw Americans Fight”. The Taliban has been relying on the large scale use of lethal Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and standoff fire to inflict casualties. Even after the surge, the 68,000 US troops and the 32,000 ISAF/NATO troops are far too thin on the ground to fight a proper CI campaign. LT Gen Stanley McChrystal has now asked for 40,000 to 60,000 additional troops.

The best answer to the Taliban however, is a strong and capable Afghan Army. The insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution. For some strange reasons the Americans are planning an Afghan army of just 134,000 strong and a police force of 82,000. This is far too small for a country the size and ruggedness of Afghanistan. The pre-Soviet era Afghan Army was 350,000 strong. The Soviets had rebuilt the Afghan Army strength to 550,000. This is the optimal size for Afghanistan. Anything less than this will lead to an imminent collapse after an US withdrawal.

The current US troop surge in Afghanistan has seen an induction of 17,000 additional combat troops and 4,000 trainers. The US 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade (over 130 helicopters), the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (8,000 troops) and the 5th Stryker Brigade have commenced heavy fighting in the Helmand province, the key opium growing belt. The British troops in particular have taken fairly heavy casualties. Is the surge too little too late? Proper CI operations would require a far higher committal of American troops. The US Commanding General in Afghanistan (Lt Gen McChrystal) has specifically asked for more forces and a doubling of the envisaged size of the Afghan Army and Police. Will he get these?

Pakistan is keen to see the US and its allies exit from Afghanistan. It has been stridently advising against further US troops build-up in Afghanistan.

As per media reports there is considerable debate and skepticism in Washington against these militarily sound and common sense recommendations. Vice President Joe Biden has reportedly proposed an alternative strategy that focuses more on Al Qaida and less on the Taliban. It seeks to actually reduce troops and rely more upon air power and precision strikes by Predator UAVs. In purely military terms there could not be a more surefire prescription for disaster. Predator operations have met with some success in Pakistan only because the Pakistani Army has launched large scale ground operations which have increased the pressure on the Taliban and its allies. Leaving the moderate Taliban in charge would be a short order prescription for a return of the Taliban and a needless cause for Jihadi Triumphalism.

Popular Support. The key issue, as in Vietnam however, would be public opinion. This seems to have been shaken by the initial casualties suffered in the surge. On this factor primarily hinges the success of the US surge in Afghanistan. Ultimately the war in Afghanistan would be won or lost in the opinion polls back home. Political sensitivity to casualties will be the key factor that moulds the American will to fight and stay the course. CI operations are manpower intensive and the Afghan campaign has been drastically under resourced for far too long. If the Americans are serious about pacifying the region and want to protect the population, they will need to commit enhanced resources and stay the course for at least one to two decades. Anything short of that will lead to a regional disaster with grave security implications for India.

Curtailing Ammunition Re-supply. Curtailment of ammunition re-supply to the insurgents is the key component of the defeat mechanism. Construction of effective border fencing helps to achieve this effect. It had drastically curtailed terrorism in the Punjab and later J&K. The money that the US is throwing at Pakistan could be better spent by constructing a fence on the Durand Line. At the very least it will stop large scale and brazen re-supply of the Taliban via truck convoys from Pakistan!

Probable End States

Near Term Future. The situation in Afghanistan is highly fluid and volatile and it is difficult to make viable forecasts beyond a three to five year time frame. A major scenario driving driver would be the military outcome of the US surge in Afghanistan and the level of casualties sustained by the US/ISAF. Based on this there could be three Alternative Military Futures:

  • Hold the Course Scenario. This would be an optimistic scenario premised upon a success of the US surge (and committal of additional US troops asked for by Lt Gen McChrystal) with minimal casualties. This could encourage the US and NATO to stay the course for armed nation state building for the next one to two decades.
  • Thin Out Scenario. The US surge is partially successful, but entails heavy casualties that raise political costs. Accordingly in 2011, President Obama declares victory and begins to thin out ground troops. However, US would retain Air bases and Special Forces in Afghanistan in an over watch role. Vice President Joe Biden’s Strategy would actualize this scenario in a much earlier time frame.
  • Precipitate Withdrawal Scenario. This would largely flow out from the Thin Out Scenario. It would be premised upon heavy casualties inflicted on US Air bases by suicide attacks/Rockets/Standoff Fire by the Taliban and a failure of Pakistan Army offensives in NWFP/FATA. This could raise political costs to a level where the US/NATO withdraw all forces and confine support to Naval Aviation from the Gulf. The apparent weakness of the ANA could thereafter result in a swift collapse of the Afghan state with Pakistan sending in its Pashtun troops in Mufti to assist the Taliban in switching to regular warfare for the re-conquest of Afghanistan.

Long Term Strategic Futures: Probable Scenarios. All long term futures that span a time horizon of 10–15 years would be a logical outgrowth of what happens in the near term future, i.e. the success or otherwise of the US surge. Results of this would be evident by 2011–2012. Based upon these probable end states/outcomes, a range of long term future probabilities can be outlined. These however would be purely hypothetical scenarios based upon probability. These hypothetical end states can be listed as follows:

The situation in Afghanistan is highly fluid and volatile and it is difficult to make viable forecasts beyond a three to five year time frame. A major scenario driving driver would be the military outcome of the US surge in Afghanistan and the level of casualties sustained by the US/ISAF.

  • Stabilization of a nation-state in Afghanistan.
  • Fragmentation along ethnic fault lines.
  • This could take two forms:
  • Taliban’s Pashtun Consolidation.
  • Emergence of Pakhtunkhwa that leads to a splintering of Pakistan.

These long term futures merit elaboration.

  • Stabilization of a nation-state in Afghanistan. The long term success of armed nation state-building could lead to the positive outcome of the stabilization of a relatively modernist and inclusive state in Afghanistan that is self-sustaining and resists external penetration/control.
  • Fragmentation along Ethnic Faultlines. The Taliban had practiced politics of ethnic exclusion and even the ethnic cleansing of Hazara and Uzbek minorities from the 1990s to 2001. This has deepened ethnic polarization in Afghanistan. A Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan is likely to lead to the fragmentation of that state along ethnic faultlines. Such fragmentation could assume two forms.
  • Taliban’s Pashtun Consolidation. The ISI has consciously tried to subsume Afghan nationalism by promoting the Salafi ideology of Jihad via the Taliban, to make national frontiers irrelevant. It has been its constant endeavor to gain strategic depth in Afghanistan. The Taliban insurgency has made the Durand Line irrelevant. If the Taliban insurgency triumphs, Pakistan could gain control of the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and expand territorially to gain the notional strategic depth.
  • Emergence of Pashtunkhwa. However, given the degree of alienation that could be caused by the Pakistan Army operations in NWFP and FATA, the reverse could equally happen. A new Pashtun national entity that straddles the Durand Line could come into being. If Afghanistan survives, its capital would remain in Kabul. Should Afghanistan fragment on ethnic faultlines, the new Pakhtunkhwa could emerge as a result of the splintering of Pakistan along the Indus faultline. The new entity may seek its capital in Peshawar. The Pashtuns therefore could create a state at the expense of Pakistan.

Impact on India

From the Indian security point of view, the best case scenario is the stabilization of the current relatively modernist state in Afghanistan (albeit in a more ethnically inclusive form). The worst case scenario would be a takeover of the whole or the Pashtun parts of Afghanistan by the hardcore Taliban–Al Qaida combine. It could pose a serious threat to Indian and regional security. Emergence of a Pakhtunkhwa that straddles the Durand Line could lead to the splintering of Pakistan with unpredictable consequences for regional and global security. The prime global concern then would be the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. These then are the range of possible futures that could actualize in Afghanistan.

India must also coordinate its strategy and response options, in Afghanistan with Russia that is increasingly reasserting itself in this region

The best course of action for India therefore is to provide maximum possible assistance for the capacity-building of the Afghan nation state. There is a specific need to assist in the capacity building of the Afghan National Army (ANA). India must pull out all stops in this regards and offer to train and equip entire formations of the ANA. An Afghan problem needs an Afghan solution. A modern nation-state is premised upon the state’s sole monopoly of violence in its territory. For that the ANA needs to be rapidly built up to an optimal size of 550,000 strong. This was the size of the reconstructed Afghan Army left behind by the Soviets prior to their withdrawal in 1989. This refurbished Army had held its own against the Mujahideen for well over three years. It had unraveled only once Gorbochov had pulled out the economic plug.

India must also coordinate its strategy and response options, in Afghanistan with Russia that is increasingly reasserting itself in this region. It has reportedly provided weapons worth US$ 100 million to the Karzai regime and agreed to provide alternate supply routes to the ISAF. Iran would be highly averse to the idea of the return of the Taliban in Kabul and India needs to urgently revive its cooperation with Iran in this regard. India thus needs to harmonize a regional response in concert with Russia, Iran and the Central Asian States.

Pakistan is keen to see the US and its allies exit from Afghanistan. It has been stridently advising against further US troops build-up in Afghanistan. It is keen to see the US fail so that its Military–ISI complex can emerge as the centre of a new Jihad Caliphate in South–West Asia. India must advise the US to accept the common sense advice of its field commanders and stay the course in Afghanistan. An US withdrawal could generate unwarranted hubris in the Jihad belt on the Af–Pak border and create a security disaster not only for the region but also for the USA and the West in the mid to long term. The hope that a triumphant Taliban would ditch Al Qaida is irrational in the extreme. It could prove to be downright disastrous not just for regional, but global security per se.

Recommended Thrust

Capacity Building of the ANA. The key to victory in Afghanistan therefore lies in a rapid capacity building of the ANA. The proposed size of 134,000 straight legged infantry force, is far too unrealistic. At the very least there is an urgent case to raise it to the level of the Afghan Army left behind by the Soviets in 1989 (550,000 strong). The Americans have spent over US$ 250 billion in Afghanistan so far. The bulk of it has been spent on sustaining their small military contingent and its cost of operations. It would have been far more cost-effective to rapidly expand the size and capacity of the Afghan Army and let it do the bulk of the heavy lifting. This was the core of the largely successful Soviet counter – guerilla policy.

In the absence of adequate boots on the ground there is simply no way that the US/NATO forces can reduce their reliance on airpower.

It is of paramount importance that the conflict be nativised at the earliest. The cost of expanding the ANA to triple its current grossly inadequate size, would, in real cost-benefit terms, be far less than the comparative cost of sustaining US/ NATO troops. Besides it would greatly dilute local hostility. This alone can provide security to the population and enable the actualization of the ‘clear, hold , build’ strategy. Nativizing the conflict is the key to victory. It is here that India can help by rapidly raising and equipping upto two ANA Divisions

Border Fencing: Key to Ammunition Management. Indian military experience in CI operations indicates that a key component of the defeat mechanism is curtailing the ammunition supply of the insurgents and their free movement to and from their sanctuaries. This can be achieved by physical barriers like fencing. This solution had worked very well in the Punjab and later in J&K. The disruption of the LTTEs ammunition supply was a key component of its defeat mechanism. It would assist greatly if the Americans could prevail upon Pakistan to fence the border with Afghanistan. It could in fact prove to be a battle winning factor.

Replicating the Soviet Strategy. It is important to closely study the Soviet strategy simply because it had been largely successful. The Soviets focused on holding the cities and key lines of communication and rapidly rebuilding the Afghan Army and secret police. They mentored it for four to five years in actual operations, and when they were confident of its combat capabilities; increasingly shifted the bulk of ground combat to the Afghan Army and then withdrew. This is precisely what the Americans need to do. They will have to strengthen the surge to put the Taliban under severe military pressure. Without this there is simply no way that it can be compelled to negotiate. These negotiations themselves will serve to curtail its activity levels and create the conditions for a rapid expansion of the Afghan Army. A rapid capacity-building of the ANA alone will lead to victory and a stabilsation of the Afghan state.

The Role of Air Power. In the absence of adequate boots on the ground there is simply no way that the US/NATO forces can reduce their reliance on airpower. This serves to increase collateral damage and further alienates the population. However, if the Americans are not willing or capable of such troop accretions, they will have to continue to rely upon air power despite its constraints. For the sake of national prestige and long term security, the Americans will have to stay engaged in Afghanistan. Any premature attempts to thin out ground troops and rely unduly upon Predator operations could lead to a long term security disaster.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Maj Gen GD Bakshi, (Retd)

is a war Veteran and Strategic Analyst.

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One thought on “Resurrecting Afghanistan

  1. Maj Gen Bakshi , I was surprised to read in your article that as per your analysis, Afghanistan was a launching pad for 9/11. I do not blame you since the subject of your Phd is Limited wars in South Asia and whatever happened in 9/11 was neither a limited war Nor was in South Asia. None of the people involved in 9/11 had any connection with Afghanistan and so far no definite connection has been established between the hijackers and Al Qaida. You have been teaching Psy Ops and it seems that this is a deliberate attempt of a psy op. In fact this is a repeat of the Indian habit of putting it’s finger in every wrong place even beyond its neighborhood. What has India got to do militarily in Afghanistan? You have been directly involved in the murder of millions of innocent muslims of Kashmir during your stint in the Indian Army then do you think the Afghans would appreciate what you profess?
    Please do not distort history because that would be tantamount to poor integrity and as an ex soldier You should prefer death rather than being known as a person with poor integrity,

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