Brian M Downing
Great powers have come and gone from Afghanistan. None have gotten what they expected. In the 19th century, Anglo-Russian rivalry centered in the Balkans and the Crimea, but Moscow’s expansion into Central Asia threatened British India, or at least seemed to. Officers from both empires parleyed with notables, skirmishes broke out along ill-defined frontiers. The Great Game was on.
In the twentieth century, Afghanistan came into the Soviet sphere. The United States and the Soviet Union clashed directly or indirectly in Korea, Africa, the Middle East, and Vietnam but Afghanistan was remote and irrelevant. In the late 1970s, after the shah fell, Afghanistan remained remote but became relevant. After the communist government in Kabul caused widespread discontent, the US and Pakistan encouraged rebellion, then supported a long fierce guerrilla war. Another game was on.
A third war came after the 9/11 attacks. The US, enjoying the support of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance and almost all the world, drove the Taliban and al Qaeda out of most of the country. Washington embarked on an ambitious if quixotic program to modernize the economy and government of a landlocked, tradition-bound, war-ravaged country. After a few years, the Taliban became an insurgency and spread throughout at least one-third of the country. District after district fell.
Over the last few years a fourth war has emerged, almost unnoticed. The international support the US once had is all but gone. Global rivalries with China and Russia range across the world and have come to remote but relevant Afghanistan. Iran and Pakistan have aligned with more powerful allies to form a four-power entente that is tying the US down in an unwinnable war.
American strategic thinkers and policy makers do not understand this fourth conflict. They hold to the belief that all concerned parties want peace and stability and will cooperate on a settlement. Until the US recognizes the nature of the war, it will continue to lose lives and money in a financial and strategic sinkhole.
The US can turn the tables on China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. It can withdraw from Afghanistan and leave the burdens of corruption, internal divisions, wars, and rising Islamist militancy in their hands. It would be an adroit geopolitical move on the part of the United States that would saddle four opposition powers with financial and strategic burdens, perhaps indefinitely. American security will not suffer. It will benefit.
The post-9/11 game (2001-2015)
Few human events have brought as much international condemnation as al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks. Global rivals in Beijing and Moscow condemned them, as did enemies such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. The NATO defense treaty was invoked for the first time. Russia and Pakistan gave critical logistical support. Even the UN supported the US.
American special forces made contact with Northern Alliance militias and began an offensive that drove out al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in an astonishingly brief period. Within two months, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kabul, and Kandahar fell to US and Northern Alliance forces. The American military had come through again. The American way would surely follow.
Over the next few years the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and numerous other powers began stabilization and development programs. The US State Department, Agency for International Development, Central Intelligence Agency, Health and Human Services, Treasury Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Agriculture, and other bureaus all took part in the effort. Other countries joined in. Russia, Iran, and India trained security forces or helped with development programs. China won contracts to develop iron, copper, oil, and rare earth deposits, and built railroads to bring commodities to factories back home.
Despite the large-scale effort, or perhaps because of the presence of so many foreigners, a Taliban insurgency began along the Pakistani frontier and spread over the next ten years. The insurgency would not have gotten very far had it not had help. The Afghan government was, and remains, hopelessly inept and corrupt. Large development programs yield little if anything, as even a Pentagon oversight group (SIGAR ) routinely reports. Huge sums of money are swallowed up into boondoggles or find their way into estates in Kabul and banks in Switzerland.
The Pakistani army supported the Taliban prior to the 9/11 attacks as they provided hope of Central Asian commerce flowing into Karachi and an ally against India. The generals even used al Qaeda to train Kashmiri guerrillas. Osama bin Laden of course was found to be living comfortably near a Pakistani army base. Islamabad’s support to the Taliban and al Qaeda continues to this day. Arms come in, their fighters enjoy havens south of the Durand Line, and their councils direct the insurgency from Peshawar and Quetta.
The American response was to try counterinsurgency programs. But with a huge foreign presence, continued government corruption, and Pakistani support, COIN had no chance to succeed. More recently, the US has responded by sending in additional troops and conducting more airstrikes. Airstrikes for 2017 are on pace to be four times those of the previous two years combined.
The coalescence of the four-power entente
There’ve been critical changes in the world over the last fifteen years. While attention has been focused on Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, the Afghan war has changed – not simply on the ground, but also in support for both sides. Cooperation has become conflict. Partners are now rivals or even enemies.
Russia is far stronger and more assertive than it was a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Former KGB officer Vladimir Putin is determined to see his country resume its position as a world power, preferably at the expense of the United States.
China too is stronger and more assertive. The leadership is determined to return their country to its place as economic and political leader of the world. The US, in their estimation, is blocking them. American military bases are all over East Asia and its carrier groups patrol sea lanes, particularly those connecting China’s industrial coastline with energy sources in the Persian Gulf.
Iran has recovered from the costly Iraq war of the 1980s and become a regional power. It has a long list of grievances with the US dating back to the Mosaddegh coup in 1953. More recently, the US has imposed sanctions and threatened attacks. The present administration in Washington is making new threats. Iran has aligned firmly with its chief arms provider, Russia, and its major oil purchaser, China.
Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and al Qaeda has been noted. It now acts concertedly with the other entente countries, China, Russia, and Iran, to thwart American efforts in Afghanistan and perhaps even deliver a stinging defeat there.
Russia routinely harass American planes and ships. Its bombers taunt American air defenses as in the Cold War. Putin has all but detached Turkey from NATO and is outmaneuvering the US in Syria, perhaps even with the Kurds. Russia is clandestinely providing arms to the Taliban, even though they are descendants of the mujahideen who fought it in the 1980s and an Islamist movement that poses longterm concerns for Russia’s southern periphery. Moscow has established communications with old Northern Alliance warlords such as Abdul Dostum. He served alongside Russian troops in the 1980s, until he saw better opportunities with the other side. Dostum today has a sinecure in Kabul and a sizable military retinue in Uzbek districts.
China builds artificial islands then installs runways and missile systems on them – all in violation of international law and the expressed wishes of neighboring countries. Chinese planes and ships disregard recognized territorial waters of neighboring countries. Beijing sends only mild protests to North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests and refrains from stronger action such as choking off commerce. China benefits from the display of American powerlessness. In Afghanistan, Chinese businesses have established close ties with the Kabul government, chiefly through investments, bribes, and presenting their country as the region’s economic and political leader.
Iran, like its Russian ally, plays both sides in Afghanistan. It has long had close ties with country’s Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras (the latter, a Shia people). Tehran supported them in the Soviet war and in the civil war that followed. It helped the northerners and US expel the Taliban and al Qaeda in 2001. A few years later, Tehran began arming and training Taliban fighters on an IRGC base near Zahedan in southeast Iran. It was not out of sympathy for their cause or ideology; the Taliban are a dangerous radical Sunni cult that slaughtered Iranian diplomats and fellow Shia. It was a warning to the US that an attack on Iranian nuclear sites would lead to more weapons to the Taliban. The nuclear program halted in 2015 but the Trump administration has renewed the tough talk. Iranian support to the Taliban returned.
Pakistan has refrained from expelling Taliban fighters or their war councils. It continues to provide safe havens and sends Kashmiris to train in camps in eastern Afghanistan. The generals occasionally remind the United States that logistics for Afghanistan rely on routes through Pakistan. The only other supply line comes through Russia.
Copyright 2017 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.