MKL 2015 - Afghanistan's Strategic Culture and Threat Perception

16.09.
2015 Afghanistan’s Strategic Culture and Threat Perception » Indian Defence Review
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16.09.2015 Afghanistan’s Strategic Culture and Threat Perception » Indian Defence Review
Home > Spotlights > Geopolitics > Afghanistan’s Strategic Culture and Threat Perception
Geopolitics
Afghanistan's Strategic Culture and Threat Perception
7 votes cast
By RSN Singh
Issue Book Excerpt: Asian Strategy and Military Perspective | Date : 27 Jan , 2015
Afghanistan has geographical interface with energyrich West Asia and Central Asia as also with nuclear
capable China and Pakistan. Its direct interface with India is precluded by Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Nonetheless, Afghanistan remains an important factor in India’s security calculus.
The export of terrorists to Jammu and Kashmir from Afghanistan has been the most pressing concern for
India. The role played in the hijacking of an Indian aircraft by Islamic fundamentalists demonstrated the level
of viciousness that the Taliban regime had acquired. A friendly and stable government in Afghanistan can
mitigate much of India’s security concerns.
Afghanistan shares a 76 km boundary with China, 936 km with Iran, 2,430 km with Pakistan, 1,206 km with
Tajikistan, 724 km with Turkmenistan and 137 km with Uzbekistan. This 1,240 km long (east to west) and
565 km wide (north to south) mountainous (50 per cent country above 2,000 mtrs) country has seriously
impacted on the security sensitivities of all its neighbours.
Strategically, Afghanistan is of great importance to Pakistan. Pakistan has always considered its lack of
strategic depth visÃ vis India as its greatest geostrategic disadvantage. A friendly and amenable
Afghanistan, in Pakistani perception, can compensate for this disadvantage during hostilities with India.
Afghanistan’s destabilisation has engendered the movement of a large number of refugees (approximately 6
million) to Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan. The presence of refugees in these countries and particularly Pakistan
has created serious social and internal security problems, which include drug trafficking and impetus to the
clandestine arms market. Even ‘Stringer’ surfacetoair missiles supplied by the US to Mujahideen groups
during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan were reportedly on sale.
The fundamentalist and terrorist elements in Afghanistan are known to have developed regional and global
links. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) cadres have been receiving active support from such
elements in the past. In fact, the IMU cadres fought alongside the Taliban against the Coalition Forces. All the
Central Asian States have been severely afflicted by smuggling of drugs that are cultivated in Afghanistan.
The country’s destabilising potential is enormous.
Historically, Afghanistan’s mountains are characterised by a number of passes of great strategic importance,
including the Khyber Pass (1,027 mtrs) leading to the Indian subcontinent. Between Quetta (Pakistan) and
Pakistan’s border with China, there are more than 200 passes leading into Afghanistan, of which nearly 50 per
cent are motorable. The existence of these passes had facilitated guerrilla operations by the Mujahideen
against the Soviet forces. Even at present, they hold the key to the defence and security of Afghanistan,
especially from the Taliban forces, which have melted away in the region.
Strategically, Afghanistan is of great importance to Pakistan. Pakistan has always considered its lack of
strategic depth visàvis India as its greatest geostrategic disadvantage. A friendly and amenable Afghanistan,
in Pakistani perception, can compensate for this disadvantage during hostilities with India. Moreover, the
Durand Line, which demarcated the boundary between Afghanistan and British India in 1893, has always been
repudiated by most of the Afghan regimes. The line divides the Pashtuns who have strong ethnic affinities into
two. In the 1980s, there were some 10 million Pashtuns in Pakistan and 6 million in Afghanistan.
The clamour for reunification by the Pashtuns in the two countries could exacerbate under a non Pakfriendly
regime in Afghanistan. It was because of such imperatives that Pakistan propped up the Taliban regime. The
most important leverage Pakistan has is the access to the sea that it provides to landlocked Afghanistan. For
Afghanistan, Karachi located at a distance of 1,700 km is the nearest and most accessible port. So far this
leverage has been ineffective due to economic regression in Afghanistan, but its potency is likely to increase
as and when an economic turn around takes place.
Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a major evergrowing concern for the entire world community. Drug
cultivation and trafficking is not only causing instability in Afghanistan, but has also become the most
important source of financial sustenance for terrorist outfits.
Afghanistan has some oil and gas of its own, but not enough to qualify as a major strategic concern. Its
northern neighbours i.e. the Central Asian Republics by contrast contain reserves, which could be critical to
future global supply. But Central Asia’s energy reserves are worthless unless they are efficiently moved and
marketed. The oil and gas supply of the Central Asian Republics continues to be predominantly predicated on
the old Soviet Union pipeline network that terminates in Russia. This dependency gives Russia a huge
leverage over the Central Asian States. The US has been rooting (albeit selectively) for alternate pipeline
routes in order to extricate the Central Asian Republics from Russian dependence. Piping it through Iran does
not appear to be a possibility given USIran relations. Piping it through China will be prohibitive in cost.
Potentially, the most attractive energy markets are in South Asia i.e. India and Pakistan, where demand is
booming and competitors are scarce.
In fact, it would be far more profitable than pumping it west and selling it in Europe. But the pipeline network
that would carry oil and gas has to necessarily pass through Afghanistan. Certain quarters allege that it was the
economic consideration, especially the interests of its oil industry that weighed on the US to acquiesce to
Pakistan propping up of the Taliban Government. Subsequently, it was the issue of refuge provided by the
Taliban regime to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda cadres that dominated all other considerations. In the
interplay between security and economics, the latter began to override. The 9/11 incident forced the US to
adopt a drastic military course. For the world, the strategic importance of Afghanistan from the geopolitical
point of view was yet again underscored.
Afghanistan has always been a robust buffer against competing influences. The Iranian revolution has had
little impact on it. China was prevented from making any inroads. Pakistan’s attempt to dominate Afghanistan
has been rebuffed time and again. The erstwhile Soviet Union’s southward expansion plans were put paid to in
Afghanistan. The key to regional and global stability, therefore, lies in the positive encouragement to
Afghanistan’s buffer status by the international community. If Afghanistan could turn positively neutral, it
would bring immense economic benefits to itself.
Threat Perception
Afghanistan’s strategic importance and geopolitical location has rendered it a constant victim of internal and
external power struggles, conflicts and combat. It was an apple of discord between Russia and Britain in the
19th century and between USA, USSR during the Cold War. At the UN Millennium Summit in September
2001, the ousted (by Taliban) Afghan President Rabbani had lamented that “foreign interference had turned
our land into a terrorist training camp, a centre for drug smugglers and a base for spilling instability.” Most of
the regimes in Afghanistan have been vulnerable to machinations by vested powers. Historically, there has
been no external power that has exercised a benign influence on the country. Even during the USSR’s decade
long physical occupation of Afghanistan in the ‘80s, the efforts at development, administration and
governance were ideology dominated.
Opium production also militates against the restoration of authority by Afghanistan’s central government
because it creates large incentives for the warlords to retain their fiefdoms.
While the US may have achieved its strategic aims in arming the Mujahideen during the Soviet occupation, the
Afghan society as a consequence degenerated. It gave a fillip to Islamic fundamentalism and gun culture,
which arguably culminated in the rise of the Taliban and subsequently 9/11. It is no wonder, therefore, that
socially and economically the country has remained stagnant. Afghanistan continues to be extremely
vulnerable to religious, political and economic manipulation by regional and extraregional powers.
Afghanistan is home to several ethnic linguistics and tribal groups. Rivalry and armed hostilities have been
common between them. Historical and geographical factors have contributed to the preservation of its
diversity. In the ‘80s Afghanistan experienced a most drastic decline in its population. Nearly onethird of the
population fled the country. Even the ‘90s were characterised by civil war and unrest. The country continues
to suffer from internecine warfare, acute poverty, a decaying infrastructure and its lands pock marked with
landmines.
The estimated 28.7 million population of Afghanistan is composed of various ethnic groups i.e. Pashtuns – 44
per cent (predominant in southeastern parts), Tajik – 25 per cent (west, northwest interior and northeast),
Uzbek – 8 per cent (northern borders) and Hazara – 10 per cent (central Afghanistan). The remaining 13 per
cent constitute Turkmen, Baloch and others. The many diverse ethnic groups have not been able to
psychologically integrate themselves into a nation. The policies of various Afghan governments have been
such that one or the other ethnic group has invariably felt marginalised and alienated. For more than 200 years
(17481973) all the kings who ruled Afghanistan were of Pashtun extraction. Even the Taliban Government
was overwhelmingly Pashtun dominated.
It is indeed the first time in Afghanistan’s history that the (present) government, even though an interim one,
has disproportionate representation of Tajiks and Uzbeks. Of the 38 Generals chosen by Defence Minister,
Fahim in February 2003, to constitute the general staff of the army, 37 were Tajik. After the victory of the
Northern Alliance over Taliban, such a reaction was expected, but in the long run an inequitable power
structure can prove to be selfdestructive. Nation building cannot be achieved by marginalisation and
parochialism. The warlords who are in government positions have been showing a great deal of reluctance in
amalgamating their militias into the national army. There is always the danger that in the event of a change in
political and ethnic equations, the cycle of internal attrition may recommence, thus pushing the country into
yet another period of regression. This problem is historical and traditional and poses the biggest threat to
Afghanistan’s peace and stability.
Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is a major evergrowing concern for the entire world community. Drug
cultivation and trafficking is not only causing instability in Afghanistan, but has also become the most
important source of financial sustenance for terrorist outfits. It is estimated that more than 70 per cent of the
world’s narcotics originate from Afghanistan. The total area planted with poppies was 1,52,000 acres in 2003
compared to 76,900 acres in 2002 and 42,100 acres in 2001. In fact, in the year 2003, Afghanistan produced
the highest amount of opium since 1999, estimated at 36,000 metric tonnes. As per a recent United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) report, opium production increased by 64 per cent in 2004 compared
to 2003. This is the highest drug production in Afghanistan’s history and the largest in the world.
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A quarter of Afghanistan farmers are believed to be engaged in poppy cultivation. While the farmers involved,
at an average utilise 27 per cent of their land for poppy cultivation, it accounts for 60 per cent of their income.
The increase in opium production is ascribed to persistent poverty, high opium prices and loans from
traffickers. The lack of control by the Hamid Karzai Government in many areas of Afghanistan dominated by
warlords has enabled poppy cultivation and drug trafficking to thrive. The Central Asian Republics are being
used as transit routes as well as selling point for drugs produced in Afghanistan. This has spawned many drug
cartels and syndicates in these countries. The security of these countries is being increasingly imperilled by
this problem. Opium production also militates against the restoration of authority by Afghanistan’s central
government because it creates large incentives for the warlords to retain their fiefdoms. Whatever the
drawbacks and pitfalls of the Taliban regime, it had made some cogent moves to deal with the menace, and did
make significant headways.
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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
RSN Singh
RSN Singh is a former military intelligence officer who later served in the Research and Analysis Wing, or
R&AW and author of books Asian Strategic and Military Perspective and The Military Factor in Pakistan. His
latest book is The Unmaking of Nepal.
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One thought on “Afghanistan’s Strategic Culture and Threat
Perception”
1. Abyss on February 8, 2015 at 11:03 pm said:
Great piece!
Btw, it appears that China has already made inroads into Afghanistan for it’s supposedly $ 1 trillion
mineral wealth with exclusive mining rights. However, it is also being said that China is wary of the
internal turbulence in Afghan politics, hence, going slow. However, I’m quite sure that China would like
to go full throttle in the region with the help of Pakistan.
Like(0) Reply ↓ Report Abuse
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