Indian Defence Review

The subject has become centre stage primarily because the USA has made clear its intention to pull out from Afghanistan. The countries that would view it as a positive development would be Pakistan and China along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE that were major backers of the Taliban prior to 2001. However, the latter countries might no longer be as sure as to how they should view the development. Naturally, the countries supplying forces for deployment as part of ISAF would be relieved as well. It is not yet clear whether the US would exit fully as it did in Iraq or whether a residual force would remain; nobody in the country, however, is going to claim success for Mission Afghanistan.

The Americans are pulling out of their own volition due to the unpopularity of prolonged deployment, high casualty rate as well as their economic difficulties. They have not been defeated as such. They have decided to cut their losses. Speculation is rife within Afghanistan and in the countries in the region most concerned as to what the post-pullout situation will be after the departure of foreign forces that were deployed primarily for stabilizing Afghanistan and preventing it from again falling into the hands of the Taliban. Before entering into a more detailed consideration on the future of Afghanistan it is necessary to have a look at the unfolding scenario within the country as also the likely fallout on the countries most affected. How these countries deal with the fallout also needs to be assessed.

The USA having been the prime mover in Afghanistan for over a decade since 9/11 it would be best to start with that country. There would be policy makers in Washington who would be unhappy at the turn of events that have obliged them to pull back and leave Afghanistan to its own fate in the sense that for them the fight is over without achieving their objectives. Henceforth while they might continue to assist the Afghan Government, they do not foresee committing large forces again. Allowing the Taliban power sharing and control over parts of Afghanistan was evidently their last choice. For the same reason allowing Pakistan to assume a major role, even by proxy cannot be a welcome turn of events. On the face of it, for public consumption within the US the American sare quitting. However, there is bound to be serious thought for contingency planning for worst case scenarios. Enough assets and back up would have been planned to ensure that a Vietnam type collapse of their ally does not take place.

Of course the situation on the ground in Afghanistan in 2014 would be very different from the situation that obtained in South Vietnam when the collapse occurred. Similarly, enough planning would have taken place in the Pentagon to make sure that the residual force maintained, if maintained, does not lead to a repeat of Dien Bien Phu. Nor for that matter would the Pakistan military and the Taliban wish to risk retaliation by the US that would be fiercer than what took place after 9/11.

The second nightmarish scenario is the rising stockpile of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and the internal conditions that can never cease to be a matter of the greatest concern for the US and much of the world. On April 22, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that Pakistan was in danger of falling into terrorist hands: “I think that we cannot underscore enough the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state, a nuclear-armed state.” And again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview with Fox television on April 26, said that Pakistan had assured the United States about the safety of its nuclear weapons, but the current volatile situation of the country raises questions about all of Islamabad assurances. “One of our concerns, which we’ve raised with the Pakistani government and military,” she said, “is that if the worst, the unthinkable were to happen, and this advancing Taliban encouraged and supported by al-Qaeda and other extremists were to essentially topple the government for failure to beat them back, then they would have the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan.”  Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now with the Brookings Institution in Washington, and an advisor to President Obama on Afghanistan policy, in a May 30 Brookings paper pointed to the dangers this presents. He said that “the fighting has cast a spotlight on the shaky security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal – the fastest growing arsenal in the world…… Today the arsenal is under the control of its military leaders; it is well protected, concealed, and dispersed. But if the country fell into the wrong hands – those of the militant Islamic jihadists and al-Qaeda – so would the arsenal. The U.S.and the rest of the world would face the worst security threat since the end of the Cold War. Containing this nuclear threat would be difficult, if not impossible.”

The US and its allies have been concentrating on the nuclear proliferation threat building up in Iran and North Korea. After the A Q Khan episode Pakistan seems to have been put on the back burner. As a matter of fact the Pak nuclear threat is far more insidious and widespread than is currently assessed in most quarters. Iran’s capability vis-à-vis Pakistan on a scale of 0 to 9 is not even 1; Pakistan would be hovering around 7 or 8 in its comparative nuclear capability. Likewise in the case of North Korea although it has gone much ahead of Iran, it is not in the same league as Pakistan in the number of nuclear weapons that it possesses or is likely to possess. What is more relevant North Korea does not have the radical groups that are capable of carrying out terrorist acts of varying intensities practically across the globe; Iran to date limits its reach to Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. The Pak radical groups in concert with sympathizers in the Pakistan Army and ISI have developed the potential to capture power in the state in the not too distant future, perhaps sooner. It means that they could become masters of the Pakistan nuclear arsenal as also the delivery system vastly augmented by North Korea and China. A recent report attributed to Professor Shaun Gregory of Bradford University in the UK mentions that Jihadis thrice attacked Pakistan nuclear sites (Times of India, August 11, 2009). A headline on page 15 of the Indian Express dated January 11, 2009 quoting an article that appeared in the NYT stated: “Obama Camp Fears Pak Nukes Falling into Wrong Hands”. It needs to be added that these are incidents that the western analysts are aware of. There would have been others that were known only to the Pakistan authorities. Hence for the US and the world neutralizing Pak nuclear capability is far more important for the global community than going after the much lesser threat from Iran or North Korea. Of course, China would demur, but that is only to be expected.

In sum the Zero Option now being mentioned in some circles in Washington might not be an option.

Of the countries in the region directly impacted by the events in Afghanistan, Pakistan remains the most important among them. It is the country most affected by Afghanistan; it is also the country primarily responsible for the worsening situation in Afghanistan. Without going into the history of past events, it would be more profitable to examine the options now open to the Pakistan Army-ISI combine and the tools with which they operate – the Quetta Shura led by Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network. There are other groupings among the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that surface from time to time. On the face of it, Washington has been amazingly generous with Pakistan after the decision to quit leaving behind a residual force whose strength has yet to be determined. Going by past experience, the Taliban moving in strength into Afghanistan will be backed to the hilt in every possible way to enable them to take over a much larger area than is presently being envisaged by the Americans. Whether this phase is embarked upon gradually or at a much faster pace will again depend upon the fighting potential of the Afghan National Army (ANA), the support provided to the ANA by the residual US force and other forces that will surely come into play. It is these other forces and interests that might turn out to be the more important deciders of the outcome in Afghanistan over the coming years. Suffice to say that the strategic depth that the Pakistan Army and its operatives are carving out for themselves might turn out to be a strategic nightmare sooner than they realize or expect. The Pakistanis have been agitating for the Americans to quit Afghanistan; so that they can move in. Ironically not many years down the line they will rue the fact that the US opted out. In fact it was they who were providing a modicum of stability to Pakistan. Terrorism has grown into the most destructive phenomenon in Pakistan today. The list of victims of terrorist attacks is expanding rapidly, going up from 164 casualties in 2003 to 40,000 in 2011.

According to official data, damage suffered by the country from 2000 to 2011 exceeded $70 billion. An important element of the out of control terrorist activity now plaguing the country was Pakistan’s direct involvement in military actions in Afghanistan and the creation of themujahideen units, who after the end of the military actions rose to prominence as a military and political force first in Afghanistan and then in Pakistan. Since then they have grown from strength to strength. The point of view of George Friedman, a U.S. analyst, is that Pakistan is losing its “trajectory into the future.” This opinion is underpinned by the increasingly chaotic social and political life in Pakistan, the army’s involvement in domestic processes, the poorly regulated government economy and the inability of political parties to set up adequate political life for more than five years. This “institutional vacuum” is inevitably filled up by other organisations, in case of Pakistan, terrorist structures.

The next country that shares a large border with Afghanistan is Iran. Recently it had been suspected in certain circles that the Iranians might be aiding the Taliban to make things more difficult for the Americans. However, the situation changes dramatically the moment the Americans pull out and leave Afghanistan to its own fate with the hope that the ANA will be able to put up a good fight. Whatever be the case, the Iranians will certainly not countenance a Taliban takeover or even a major push beyond their acknowledged area of influence in the south and the east. Additionally, their policies would converge with those of Russia, the CAR and India. The Iranians would move boldly to solidly back the militias of a re-formed northern alliance and in the process become perhaps major stakeholders in Afghanistan at par with Pakistan. Here it is worth recalling that the Zaranj-Delaram road constructed by India confers upon Iran much greater flexibility and has opened several access point from the Iranian side into Afghanistan that were not available earlier, thereby further reducing the over-dependence of Afghanistan on Pakistan.

For the purposes of this paper the Central Asian Republics can be grouped with Russia as the threats that they would face from a resurgent Taliban would be common to them all. It may be recalled that these threats – as on the earlier occasion – related to sanctuaries provided to groups like the IMU under their leader Juma Namangani that had made deep inroads into the Fergana Valley and were threatening to de-stabilize Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. At some stage Kazakhstan would have felt the heat as well. The second major threat comes from the flow of drugs from Afghanistan, although the flow of drugs has continued regardless of who the power holder is in Afghanistan.