Vol. 6, No. 17, July 2010
Table of Contents:
To Our Readers
Comprehensive Approach and the New
Alliance Security and Technological Challenges
Zlatogor Minchev
Afghanistan: Possible Solutions
of the Conflict
Iliya
Nalbantov
The International Surge: If the
Afghanistan project is going to work on the long – run,
it must draw in the neighbors
Ivan Lidarev
Events
To Our Readers
This is the 17th
issue of the Security Focus and Security Sector Watch
Newsletter. It continues the Bulgarian debate about
NATO's New Strategic Concept and extends this debate
with some opinions within NATO's Comprehensive Approach,
including: security and technological challenges, the
Afghanistan mission problems and the Alliance's and some
other possible international efforts for its solving. We believe that in this way a better
understanding for the security
sector transformation in its wider context will be
achieved. As usual we have also noted some events
related to the security sector governance.
From the publishers
Comprehensive
Approach and the New Alliance Security and Technological
Challenges
Zlatogor Minchev*
Meeting the
21st century security
challenges, related to: fighting terrorism, improving
energy security, preventing proliferation of weapons and
dangerous materials (including weapons of mass
destruction), protecting against cyber attacks and
confronting piracy, evidently requires a good civilian
and military cooperation in the security area and
implementation of the security sector integration.
Today, we are starting to talk more
and more about “security” rather than “defense” and to
put the individual citizen’s security as a highest
priority. This requires regular coordination,
consultation and interaction among all security actors
involved. Regarding this NATO has developed a set of
pragmatic proposals aimed at promoting such a
Comprehensive Approach to Crisis Management by the
International Community and supporting it very recently
with a new division for Emerging Security Challenges.
Since the
Bucharest Summit (in April
2008) NATO has been seeking to improve its own crisis
management instruments and to strengthen its ability to
work with partner countries, international
organizations, non-governmental organizations and local
authorities.
The gathered recent experience in
Balkans, Central Asia and Middle East has demonstrated
the importance of contributing to the International
Community’s Comprehensive Approach for the success of
operations, which are increasing the civil-military
integration/cooperation.
The future New NATO's Strategic
Concept (expected in the autumn of 2010) will be based
on the Comprehensive Approach with the relevant
technological support. Within this context, the Alliance
is trying to build closer partnerships with other
international organizations (like UN) that have
experience and skills in areas like: institution
building, development, governance, judiciary and police.
The
transatlantic policy within the
next 20 years will be closely related to a broad
partnership, including EU/NATO
dialogue on security and defense topics and priorities
that exists in their both agenda.
In the context of the Comprehensive Approach, currently
NATO is developing pragmatic proposals, which seek to
make improvements in five key areas of work: planning
and conduction of operations; lessons learned, training,
education and exercises; enhancing cooperation with
external actors; public messaging; stabilization and
reconstruction.
According to the Alliance Comprehensive Approach idea
for an integrated security (that encompasses both EU and
UN) the areas of Consultation, Command & Control (C3)
will support NATO and Nations. These C3 areas are
gathered around the new challenges like: energy
security, climate change, piracy, cyber defense -
problem areas that are adding new dimensions for
Operational Analysis and technology support to the
already traditional areas of common defense situated
around Article 5, crisis response/emergency management,
fighting terrorism and maintaining the partnership,
transformation and enlargement processes for NATO.
The new EU agenda (ESRIA) is also considering these
problems in the next 10-15 years horizon, when the
defense and security boundaries will be less distinct
and the security will encompass defense in respect to
the society social security and the global context for a
“non-isolated” wider world.
Here it should be noted that nowadays
the transatlantic role of the Alliance is getting more
and more in the direction to support UN and to cooperate
with EU. The last will have to be responsible and to
develop own capabilities according to ESRIA in five
clusters: (1) security cycle - preventing, protecting,
preparing, responding and recovering; (2) countering of
different means of attack; (3) securing critical assets;
(4) securing identity, access and movement of people and
goods; (5) cross-cutting enablers.
This complex and quite ambitious idea
for building a Comprehensive Approach and meeting the
future irregular and asymmetric threats is also related
to the question of budgeting amongst all NATO members.
However, nowadays the financial aspect should be
carefully revealed in the security and technological
context because of the global economical crisis.
One of the possible solutions in this
situation is the multinational projects and
NATO Network
Enabled Capabilities building, i.e. shared Alliance
members’ responsibilities and more narrow nations’
specialization. Here the political consensus is
inevitable and e.g. for Bulgaria is related in the near
future to: security sector reform transition to
governance by getting an updated National Security
Strategy and Armed Forces modernization (as an initial
steps) and implementing research and analysis in the
field more broadly (as a next step, based on the
existing agreements between Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences, Bulgarian MoD and NATO C3 Agency), Iraq,
Afghanistan, ISAF and other future hot spots missions
support with expenditure forces, missile defense
building and regional energy security diversification.
Apart of this, here stands and the
technological question related to the challenging one -
whether the Comprehensive Approach will be really
capable to meet the future threats not just in theory.
Certainly, approaches like
innovations, emerging and disruptive technologies are
helpful but we should not forget that what is a threat
today, may be not tomorrow and when we talk about
security we should also consider threats that are either
unexpected/underestimated or with very low likelihood.
So, what else could we do? We could
consider future scenarios that are currently in the area
of science fiction or extremely unbelievable and to
prepare capabilities to meet them. However this requires
from one hand – more (difficult for explanation)
economical investments and from another – a very broad
cooperation, which also opens tuff political
discussions.
Thus, as a conclusion for the necessity of drawing a
careful joint consideration of the Comprehensive
Approach both in NATO and EU common context is a good
start but it should also be considered in the broader
geographical context including consultations (e.g. on
common projects and missions base) with organizations
like SCO and bilateral cooperations with technological
and resource leaders like, e.g.: Russia, India, China
and Brazil.
*Dr.
Zlatogor Minchev is the IT Director of George C.
Marshall Association – Bulgaria.
Afghanistan: Possible
Solutions of the Conflict
Iliya
Nalbantov*
Looking for a
solution of the Afghanistan conflict issue and ISAF role
there is a complex and difficult question. So, a brief
overview of the reasons for the presence of Western
civilizations (presently engaged in Afghanistan) through
their military troops will be initially given. Here it
should also be noted that this is an extremely important
question for the democratic civil societies of theses
countries including Bulgaria. This is because the 1800
military fatalities in this eight – year conflict have
fostered too many negative social attitudes and have
become social anchors which keep the political systems
in static position and assure a negative political
leaders’ attachment to their current positions, without
even a mere opportunity for achieving other (desired)
social benefits during the next elections in line.
The conflict in
Afghanistan has become crucial for establishing NATO as
the only internationally organized force which is
capable to face global challenges.
There are two
principal factors that are determining in the pursuit of
the optimal solution to this problem. Optimal here means
to achieve a balance between the interests of the major
international players and acceptable results for all
other countries involved or interested in the solution
of the conflict.
The first factor
is geographical. What is the location of Afghanistan in
terms of influence /control of the Middle East, Central
Asia (post-Soviet Asia), China, India and the Indian
ocean? It is sufficient to look at the map of this part
of Asia to understand that its importance is too great
to overlook. This importance is genetically coded in the
cultural matrix of each of Afghanistan’s tribes and on
this strong foundation they and their leaders look for
temporary benefits without making permanent commitments
to anyone.
This is one of
the main reasons why the political center in Afghanistan
cannot establish a strong political control over the
country unless it possesses significant resources.
However because the national resources of Afghanistan
are decentralized, it is not possible to gather and
concentrate them in order to exercise its power. In
short, the political center is able to exercise its
influence and command respect only as long as it
receives aid from external forces. This status quo has
been well documented by many analysts of the Soviet
military presence in Afghanistan (1978-1989).The ability
of the political center to govern the country in a state
of civil war for three years after the departure of the
40th Soviet Army was the result of the financial support
it received from the USSR before its disintegration. The
same is true for the Taliban during their governance.
They were unable to take control of the northern
provinces of Afghanistan which were occupied by militias
opposed to the Taliban which later became the basis for
the future Northern Alliance of General Dostum.
Another reason
is entirely psychological, the cohabitation of different
ethnic groups, a significant part of which are either
nomadic or semi-nomadic. Islam serves only as the
surface wrapping of the hectic cultural diversity of
this country. The industrial backwardness of Afghanistan
enables the persistence of patriarchical traditions and
feudal forms of government and self-governance in which
the respect toward the formal and informal (real)
authority of the local leader could hardly be superseded
by an equal respect toward the central government. The
latter would hardly impose its authority and oppose the
local leaders unless it commands sufficient financial
and economic leverage in order to form a loyal elite
that would enable it to impose its authority. In the
case of an industrially underdeveloped country with
significant internal and external migration this is a
too great goal to achieve. The respect towards the
family-tribal system of dependencies will continue to be
the dominant factor in social relations and social
coherence will be attained only at the expense of the
presence of foreign troops as long as they are stationed
in Afghanistan. This is the main reason for starting a
process of political planning for the withdrawal of the
military units of the coalition forces and of ISAF.
During the
process of political withdrawal the long-term necessity
of establishing stability and security in neighboring
Pakistan, a state possessing both nuclear weapons and
the means for their delivery, should be taken into
account. The existence of a space between Afghanistan
and Pakistan in which the state boundary is merely a
cartographical demarcation and state institutions are
not real but imaginary rightly worries the international
community. In practice, there are two sources of
authority in this region, the power of the gun and the
power of money, both of which derive from the amount of
opium produced in Afghanistan. The existence of this
grey, from state perspective, zone between the two
states generates instability together with the system of
more than 5000 Islamic schools (madrasa) which are part
of a social network for different castes and classes as
well as for the principal nomadic lineages and tribes.
This form of dependency generates power which has been
proved to have been efficiently used in the past and it
will be very difficult to find a solution to reduce the
ability of this social network to present opportunities
for violence directed against people different from its
members.
There are already statements that in the next five
years, both US and NATO will withdraw their forces from
Afghanistan. If we accept that this timetable is
socially acceptable to the countries of the Western
civilization, then a question immediately emerges – What
can be done during these five years to prevent the
return of these forces to Afghanistan in conditions
similar to those of 9/11?
There is no a
standard solution to this problem. In all cases various
mechanisms and instruments will be used. A question
arises about the extent to which the mechanisms and
instruments employed will be subject to the logic of
military command and to what extent this military
command will make conditions that will enable the use of
instruments different from those determined by military
logic.
Some of the
experts, indeed offer the model used by the leadership
of the USSR before its desintegration.The functioning of
the central government in Afghanistan for three years
after the withdrawal of the 40th Soviet Army is after
all a success, albeit regrettably a fleeing one. Nobody
can offer guarantees that a new civil war will not start
with the narco-money, leading to the rise to power of
the more radical fractions of the Taliban movements.
Maybe it is
useful to make an analogy with how Afghanistan’s
functioned after it was granted independence by Great
Britain in 1919. As a result of complex political
maneuvers and the impact of external factors, like the
emergence of Soviet Russia, a new balance between the
central government and local leaders emerges in
Afghanistan after 1919. This balance was irrevocably
broken in the 1970s .There are many factors which led to
this development but the most popular and widely
analyzed one among them is the ten year Soviet invasion
(1979-1989).
A question arises: Could such a balance be achieved in
the circumstances presented by the global economy and
global politics?
One possible
solution is to apply the principle of the governable
decentralization in Afghanistan. At present this
principle is applied through the granting of positions
in government to local leaders. However, this does not
give the population the benefits of the aid and
resources provided by the central government. These aid
and resources are diverted by the well-established
corruption schemes of the clans.
How can this
principle be put into practice? A profound analysis
which takes into account all the major factors like the
geographical, cultural/anthropological, economic, social
etc., should be made in order to achieve the ultimate
goal – the stabilization of Afghanistan. On the basis of
this analysis the country should be divided into
corresponding zones for reconstruction. For each zone
there should be prepared concrete programs for
reconstruction corresponding to the specifics of the
public expectations. The coordination and management of
these programs should be organized by a single center,
for instance in the European Commission. This solution
is not just by accident. The requirement for permanent
coordination with the forces of NATO in Afghanistan will
be of extreme importance in providing:
Research groups
which will work on the spot to prepare the preliminary
analysis and later will evaluate the effects of the
reconstruction programs Activity of the different groups
for reconstruction
The graph below
represents one of the ways in which this principle can
be embodied:
The country is divided into 34
provinces with 364 municipalities in which the social,
political and economic life of the country is organized
in widely varying geographical and climate conditions.
Due to the nomadic life of many Afghans their number
varies between 22,28 and 31 millions.
By employing the principle of
governable decentralization in the reconstruction of
Afghanistan the effects of the corruption practices in
giving aid will be minimized to a great extent. In this
way, the chances that the balance between the central
government and the local governments in governing the
country will be restored are significantly increased.
This result will give sufficient political justification
for the withdrawal of the majority of NATO forces from
Afghanistan and the transformation of the role of
foreign troops in Afghanistan into one which will focus
primarily on providing training to the Afghan security
forces.
*Iliya
Nalbantov is the Program Director of George C. Marshall
Association – Bulgaria.
The
International Surge: If the Afghanistan project is going
to work on the long – run, it must draw in the neighbors
Ivan Lidarev*
The
US-led project in Afghanistan has entered into a
critical phase in which the survival of the new
Afghanistan government that was founded after the fall
of the Taliban is staked on the success of a
two-thronged strategy of a military and a civilian
surge. However, this strategy primarily addresses the
immediate situation in Afghanistan and if it is to
succeed on the long-run it must be supplemented by a
third surge, the International Surge. The International
Surge would aim to draw the major regional powers of
Central and South Asia to cooperate with the US in order
to actively support the present Afghan regime and help
it to resist the threats of insurgency, terrorism,
islamic fundamentalism, separatism as well as the
narcotics production and trade. As it is obvious from
the list above these threats pose a challenge not only
to Afghanistan but also to the entire region. It is also
clear that a return of the situation in the country
before 2001 will only aggravate these problems. In the
last year a significant progress has been made by both
the US and the Afghan government in encouraging greater
support for Afghanistan by such regional powers as
Russia and Pakistan. Nevertheless, there is a long way
to go. An international surge will require a
re-orientation of both the American and the Afghan
governments’ policies toward the region.
For most
of the almost nine years since the Taliban regime fell,
the new Afghanistan was a Western project in which the
regional giants: Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran
had only marginal involvement. This situation can be
explained by the complex, even antagonistic relations
between the US and some of these countries (Russia,
Iran) and the cautious, almost suspicious attitude
toward the government in Kabul and its American backers
of such regional players as Pakistan and China.
Additionally, US have viewed with suspicion on the
involvement of other major powers and for many years
defined its Afghan enterprise as a democratizing project
from which most local powers, with their meager
democratic credentials, were excluded.
This situation improved dramatically in the last two
years. The Obama administration redefined the US project
in Afghanistan, politically and militarily, after the
Afghan elections in 2009 and has wisely opened the door
for greater regional involvement. In the meantime, the
emergence of a democratic government in Pakistan that
opposes the islamization of the country and Obama’s
“resetting” of US relations with Russia has offered new
chances for cooperation in Afghanistan.
These developments offer a good background for the
International Surge to begin. The principal strategic
objective of this surge should be to make three key
regional players: Pakistan, India and Russia,
stakeholders in the Afghanistan project. The
International Surge also aims to foster cooperation on
specific issues with both other countries in the region
and with an increasingly important regional
organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
However it is crucial to understand that this surge will
not be just a regional matter, because its success will
depend on the foreign policy of the indispensable nation
without which Afghanistan will revert to chaos – the US.
Thus this surge is an International Surge, a combination
between an American diplomatic surge and a regional
surge.
Pakistan
From the
three regional players named above, Pakistan is the most
critical one for Afghanistan’s future but also the
trickiest. There are four reasons why Pakistan is so
critical for the success of the Afghanistan project.
First, Pakistan has historically regarded Afghanistan as
vital to its national interests and consequently has
been involved in Afghanistan for all its modern history.
The existence of a big Pashtu population with separatist
tendencies in Pakistan’s north and west and in south
Afghanistan, combined with Afghanistan’s claims over
large territories in north-eastern Pakistan have
threatened Pakistan’s integrity and stability. Just as
important, Pakistani strategists have traditionally
regarded Afghanistan as Pakistan’s “strategic depth” in
the case of conflict with their archenemy, India, and
have often feared that the close Indo-Afghan
relationship might lead to Indian encirclement of
Pakistan. Second, as a result of this logic Islamabad
has tried to dominate Afghanistan and ensure that its
central government is weak and dependent of Pakistan.
For this purpose the Pakistani government, its powerful
military and intelligence services supported radical
forces in Afghanistan like the mujahidin movement and
the Taliban and promoted the islamization of Afghan
politics in the 1980s and 1990s in the hope that this
will weaken Afghan and Pashtu nationalism. Many analysts
believe than powerful elements in Pakistan’s military
and intelligence service continue this policy to this
day. Third, Pakistan’s tribal areas are the home of the
Taliban movement so that many of the tribes, strongholds
and madrassas which fuel the insurgency in both
Afghanistan and Pakistan are situated there. Thus the
only way to defeat the Taliban is to have coordinated
military action in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as the
US recently recognized. Fourth, historically Pakistan
has been Afghanistan’s main trading partner.
On this
background, Pakistan’s unwillingness to actively support
President Karzai’s government in Kabul beeing a major
obstacle to the stabilization of Afghanistan. Much
worse, when NATO troops withdraw and US commitment to
Afghanistan weakens Pakistan might be tempted to return
to its bad old ways and try to destabilize and dominate
Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban or some other
armed force. It can also seek support from its close
regional ally China to dominate Afghanistan and oppose
Indian influence there.
Therefore it is critical to gain the long-term support
of Islamabad and its political and military
establishment for Afghanistan’s government. There have
been some very positive developments in the last year
like the launching of two major offensives against the
Pakistani Taliban, growing awareness of the danger posed
by islamization inside Pakistan and major improvement in
border cooperation with Afghanistan.
Nevertheless it will not be possible to make Pakistan a
stakeholder in the stabilization and development of
Afghanistan without addressing Pakistan’s legitimate
interests there. This means that the US should work to
expand, to reasonable limits, Pakistan’s sway over
Karzai’s government, help to resolve some of the
divisive issues between the two countries and foster
greater cooperation between them. Several practical
steps can be taken in this direction. First, the US
might work to create joint military command structures
against the Taliban that include Pakistan, Afghanistan
and the US and thus provide an institutional basis for
Pakistani-Afghan cooperation that builds on the recent
success of the Tripartite Joint Intelligence Cooperation
Center. This policy will have the added advantage of
winning the support of a key constituency in Pakistan,
the military one. Second, the US should encourage more
Pakistani investment in Afghanistan. Third, the US
should make a systematic, albeit quiet, effort to help
both sides resolve their border dispute which has fed
Afghanistan’s claims to Pakistani land and consequently
has fueled Pakistan’s aggressive sense of insecurity.
Fourth, effort and financial support should be put
toward the goal of gradually repatriating the
approximately two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan
who are a destabilizing force inside the country.
To put
in practice these steps the US will need to artfully
exert pressure on both sides and especially on Pakistan
by making the large financial aid Islamabad receives
conditional on greater cooperation with Afghanistan. A
good relationship with India would add more leverage.
Russia
Russia
is another key player in the region that is
indispensable for the success of the Afghanistan
project. Russia’s importance is so great due to its huge
influence over Afghanistan’s northern neighbors
(Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), its
historical connections to Afghanistan and its close
relationship with both the forces from the former
Northern Alliance that was supported by Russia in its
war against the Taliban and a huge number of former
Afghan communists, educated in the Soviet Union, who
have returned from exile to serve in Afghanistan’s new
government after 2001. Moreover, as it was recently
revealed Russia can play a crucial logistical role in
supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan.
Russia
has critical interests in Afghanistan. It fears the
spread of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism from
Afghanistan into Central Asia and Russia itself where
the Taliban supported islamist movements in Chechnya and
Dagestan. Another key Russian interest is fighting the
regional drug trade which originates in Afghanistan but
has Russia as its largest market and transit route
through which pass $18 billion worth of heroin. It is
obvious, that Russia’s interests largely coincide with
those of NATO and the Afghan government.
Despite
such substantial interests in Afghanistan Russia’s
involvement there has been determined by its relations
with the US and its suspicion of the American presence
in Central Asia. Although this suspicion is unlikely to
disappear the dramatically improved climate of
US-Russian relations has opened the door for greater
Russian involvement in Afghanistan.
On
practical level this Russian involvement can take
several forms. First, Russian companies can increase
their relatively small investments in Afghanistan where
they can use their experience and knowhow in such fields
as the development of Afghan natural resources and
construction. For example, Russia is currently
negotiating to rebuild 142 Soviet-made installations in
Afghanistan including a $500 million dollar project to
rebuild hydroinstalations throughout the country.
Second, with its powerful intelligence services,
information network in Central Asia, as well as troops
stationed on the Tajik-Afghan border Russia can help
Afghanistan significantly in its fight against the
narcotics trade and islamic fundamentalism. Third,
Russia with its powerful military-industrial complex and
rich counter-insurgency experience can provide the
government in Kabul with training and weapons.
Some
very promising steps have been made in this direction in
the last year. Nevertheless, if the above projects are
to be fulfilled the US will need to take the lead and
facilitate them. Despite the grumbling of some
commentators the Obama administration has welcomed an
increased Russian involvement in Afghanistan. Such an
involvement is crucial because it will help stabilize
Afghanistan, balance Pakistan’s influence there and
serve the larger goal of improving US-Russian relations.
India
The
third major regional power whose role is crucial for the
success of the International Surge is India. India’s
importance lies in its traditionally good relationship
with Kabul meant to counterweight Pakistan’s attempts to
dominate Afghanistan, its rapidly increasing economic
clout in the region, its close connection with many
India-educated Afghan leaders (like President Karzai)
and its bitter rivalry with Pakistan. Equally important,
India is a rising great power close to both the US and
Russia which plays a critical role in the Asian balance
of power.
India’s basic strategic interest in Afghanistan has been
to prevent Pakistan from dominating the country and to
fight the emergence of the twin threats of islamic
fundamentalism and terrorism which stroked by Pakistan
have traditionally spilled into the Indian state of
Kashmir, a territory long claimed by Pakistan. For this
reason India has been the regional power most involved
in Afghanistan’s stabilization. Between 2001 and 2009 it
spent $1.2 million on reconstruction aid and is helping
Afghanistan build many key infrastructure projects,
including Afghanistan’s new Parliament Building. To
protect its workers and companies in Afghanistan India
has even dispatched a regiment of its mountain
paramilitary force.
India’s
interest in Afghanistan also has an economic-strategic
dimension as it considers developing a land road from
Afghanistan to the port of Chabahar that it jointly
develops with Iran in rivalry with the Pakistani port of
Gwadar, built with Chinese assistance. If India develops
this project it will have access to the rich resources
of Afghanistan and Central Asia without being impeded by
Pakistan, which will be a major strategic success.
Despite
its substantial involvement in the US-led project for
new Afghanistan, India can be both an asset and a
liability for the International Surge. This makes a
balanced US and Afghan policy toward India a vital
issue. A careful balance should be made so that India
continues its strong involvement in Afghanistan despite
Pakistan’s increased clout in the country but does not
engage in a destabilizing contest for influence with it.
Such a contest would not only result in the emergence of
competing or even warring Afghan factions backed by the
two countries but can also drag other regional powers
like China and Russia.
Regrettably, it is practically impossible to avoid
altogether a rivalry between India and Pakistan but it
is possible to put this rivalry within limits and make
it easier for the US to restrain it. Several key
policies can be undertaken for this purpose. First, the
US should encourage India to keep its involvement in
Afghanistan but to emphasize its economic side and so
avoid provoking Pakistan through greater security and
intelligence involvement. If the security of Indian
interests in Pakistan proves an obstacle to convincing
India the US can offer that these be protected by NATO
forces. Second, the US should take advantage of the
minimal but palpable improvement in Indo-Pakistani
relations and encourage this in an active but low key
manner. Third, and most difficult the US can try to
bring India and Pakistan to engage in joint projects in
Afghanistan, initially in harmless fields like
humanitarian aid and development but later in more
substantial areas.
In
short, the US needs to keep India actively involved in
Afghanistan in order to balance Pakistan, provide
economic aid to the country, support its budding
alliance with it and have it partner with its close ally
Russia. Nevertheless, it should prevent India from
provoking Pakistan and engaging in a struggle for
influence with it in Afghanistan.
To
achieve these results the US can use its new fledged
special relationship with New Delhi and its substantial
assistance it offers to India.
Thus
cooperation with India, Russia and Pakistan lie at the
heart of the International Surge. But where do the other
two major regional powers, China and Iran, fit into this
International Surge strategy?
Although
the US can cooperate with them on case-by-case basis or
through regional organizations like the SCO, at present
they cannot be part of the International Surge. Iran is
a bitter enemy of the US and despite its hostility to
the Taliban it cannot be trusted by the Washington.
The
situation with China is much more complex. China has
shown some interest in investing in the extraction of
Afghanistan’s natural resources, for example it has
invested $3 billion in the Logar copper mine, the
largest unexploited copper mine in the world, but it has
generally kept its involvement in the country to a
minimum. It seems that China waits for the US to
withdraw from Afghanistan to become actively involved
there, although in the meantime it has started to
develop good relations with the Karzai government. This
stance combined with the delicate relationship between
Washington and Beijing, China’s eyeing of Afghan
resources for its booming economy and the sense of
competition between the two powers excludes China as an
active shareholder in the Afghan project. Nonetheless
this does not rule out cooperation on a case-by-case
basis, for instance in combating terrorism which plagues
both Afghanistan and the Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Of course, a change of China’s stance will have major
impact on Afghanistan. However, if the International
Surge works, it will significantly limit this impact and
any negative consequences it might have by creating a
framework for China’s involvement in Afghanistan.
Multilateral Involvement
The
strategy of the International Surge is to involve
Pakistan, Russia and India in Afghanistan’s
stabilization and reconstruction project and to work
with China and even Iran in advancing these
goals on a case-by-case basis.
Nevertheless, the International Surge should focus not
only on involving individual countries in the Afghan
project but should also strive to make it a multilateral
regional project. There are three crucial elements to
this multilateral aspect of the International Surge.
First, a
major regional conference has to be made on Afghanistan
and should include all of Afghanistan’s neighbors, as
well as such regional powers like Russia and India and
the most important nation in the Afghan project – the
US. Such conference’s agenda should include aid to
Afghanistan, border security and cooperation in the
fight against drug trafficking and terrorism. Of course,
some of these questions can be addressed through other
meetings, like the coming conference on Afghanistan in
Paris, but it is essential to recognize that these
cannot bring all regional actors together in a regional
context as only a regional conference can do.
Second,
the establishment of a regional organization for the
purpose of engaging all regional powers in helping
Afghanistan. Such an organization will institutionalize
the involvement of regional powers in Afghanistan, will
make them cooperate in their efforts and will build upon
the regional conference mentioned above, at which, for
example, this regional organization can be launched.
Just as important, such a regional organization will put
pressure on the countries of the region to participate
more actively in Afghanistan’s stabilization and will
also keep any competition between them within limits. It
will also give a back door for some countries like Iran
to participate in the reconstruction of Afghanistan in a
case-by-case basis without directly engaging with the
US.
Third,
an active cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization in securing Afghanistan’s borders and
fighting drug production and trade, terrorism as well as
islamic fundamentalism. This cooperation can be put in
the framework of a joint NATO-SCO body. Despite SCO’s
silent opposition to major US presence in Central Asia,
it has gradually emerged as a leading regional
organization aiming to combat separatism, terrorism and
extremism and as such its cooperation on some practical
issues in Afghanistan can be important. Further, NATO
cooperation with the SCO will build upon the increasing
involvement of Afghanistan with the organization,
despite the fact that it is neither a member nor a
observer in it. Moreover, a joint NATO – SCO body will
be an important first step in establishing relations
between NATO and the emerging SCO and will foster some
limited practical cooperation between the two alliances.
In that way the International Surge will be put on the
twin foundation of the involvement of both individual
countries and regional organizations in ensuring the
success of new Afghanistan.
In
conclusion, the International Surge should be an
important complement to the military and civilian surges
that the US has launched to stabilize Afghanistan. If
successful, it will help the US, to share with major
regional powers the burden of sustaining the Afghan
project and will ensure
its long-term success. It will also transform the Afghan
project from a basically Western enterprise into one in
which all regional powers are stakeholders and have a
lot to gain or lose from it. Of course this will come at
a price, regional powers like Russia, Pakistan and India
to increase their influence in Afghanistan at the
expense of the US and its Western allies.
Nevertheless, it is important to realize that these
countries are major powers in Afghanistan’s neighborhood
and with the prospect of NATO withdrawal the increase in
their power is inevitable. If the US pursues the
International Surge it will be able to manage this
process and ensure that it contributes to the stability
of Afghanistan and serves the larger US goals there, to
stabilize the country, defeat terrorism and deny it as a
future safe heaven for terrorists and islamic radicals.
Just as
important, if the US acts now and launches the
International Surge it will lose some influence but will
keep the commanding share in the Afghanistan project. If
it waits it will lose more influence, in a more painful
way and the whole Afghanistan project might suffer in
this process.
In
short, on the long run the US, its NATO allies and
Afghanistan will all win from the International Surge.
*Ivan
Lidarev is a temporary assistant at George C. Marshall
Association – Bulgaria and MA candidate on International
Affairs, Concentration Asia at Elliott School of
International Affairs, George Washington University.
