Tag Archives: Afghanistan

The Emperor’s New Words

23 Wed Aug 2017

Posted by in Opinion and Response, United States

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President Donald Trump’s speech on Monday in which he declared a new American policy towards Afghanistan and South Asia is a postmodern masterpiece – you can choose beforehand how you want to respond and find something in the address to validate your decision. The announcement was awaited with some trepidation by US and South Asia observers, accustomed by now to the 45th US president’s unceasing social and policy gaffes, but there was ultimately little need for concern at the end of the night.

The new US policy jettisons the previous administration’s phased withdrawal that was beholden to the calendar and instead replaces it with a withdrawal policy that considers local political and security conditions. This is exactly what regional observers had stressed to Washington over the years but had been disregarded by a weary Foggy Bottom that was eager to extricate itself from a war that did not seem to have any end in sight. “The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” Trump declared, reminding everyone of the American experience in Iraq where too rapid a US withdrawal precipitated in part the resurgence of terrorism and the birth of ISIS; scheduled US withdrawal from Afghanistan had caused a similar upswing in the Taliban’s fortunes.

While the Obama administration was willing to saddle the region with America’s mess, Trump has gone back to the thinking of George W Bush: a secure, stable Afghanistan and US withdrawal were desirable but in that order. In that sense, Trump’s new direction is actually a return to an old plan that had been abandoned by his predecessor, Barack Obama. The reasoning, Trump said, was that the security threats in the region were immense and the United States sought an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the sacrifices made.

Trump’s words will be met with approval in Afghanistan and India but with frustration back home. Despite near-total support among US parliamentarians (Senate: 98 ayes, 0 nays, 2 abstentions; House: 420 ayes, 1 nay, 10 abstentions), involvement in Afghanistan has steadily lost support among ordinary Americans over the years. Now, many would rather wash their hands off and forget about the whole misadventure than see it to an unforeseeable conclusion. The fundamental premise of Trump’s strategy – the use of military force to create a favorable political situation – was felt wanting by many the last time around.

Reminiscent of the George W Bush years, Trump emphasised that the United States was not there to “dictate to the Afghan people how to live or how to govern their own complex society” but as “a partner and a friend.” Afghans would be ultimately responsible for their own future, the United States did not want to build nations but kill terrorists.

More frustrating for many analysts was the lack of detail in the president’s Monday night address. Trump did not suggest what success in Afghanistan might look like nor did he mention any other details of how his administration was going to tame Afghanistan. To Delhi’s certain chagrin, who has consistently railed against the American concept of good and bad terrorists, the US president did not close the door on a negotiated settlement with the Taliban: “Someday,” Trump said, “after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban.” India can only hope that US estimation of what “effective military effort” entails would be maximal.

Trump’s address comes in the wake of news that the United States is redeploying 4,000 additional soldiers to join the 8,400 already present in the country. This number will be seen as insufficient in some quarters and as unnecessary in others.

What has probably attracted most comments about Trump’s Afghan policy is his statements on Pakistan. Calling out Pakistan’s practice of providing safe havens for terrorist activity on its soil while taking billions in US aid, the president warned that the United States can no longer remain passive on such perfidy. The threat is worse, Trump warned, because Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons and its actions cause tense relations in the neighbourhood that may well spiral into conflict. With uncharacteristic grace, Trump softened his rebuke by recollecting the Islamic republic’s contributions and sacrifices to the mission in Afghanistan.

Trump’s public rebuke to Pakistan has no doubt gladdened hearts in Afghanistan and India, where the afterbirth of Indian independence is seen as the greatest instigator of terrorism in its neighbouring realms. Peace in Afghanistan, many academics, bureaucrats, and politicians – from the United States as well as India and Afghanistan – have repeatedly stressed, can be achieved only after Pakistan has been effectively dealt with.

There is no cause for optimism, however. Trump is not the first US president to criticise Pakistan – and there have been countless other officials and analysts – for its links to terrorism and extremism and will unlikely be the last. Obama did the same – multiple times – and Bush ’43, Bill Clinton, and George HW Bush were all troubled about Islamabad’s ties to the Taliban and its support for terrorists in Kashmir. None of this concern manifested itself in any concrete manner and the United States continued to call Pakistan an ally in the global war on terror. Trump’s own flip-flop on China from campaign to presidency gives little reassurance that this time will be different.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Trump’s speech was his call upon India to do more in Afghanistan economically. In the past, the United States has usually sought a greater Indian military role in Central Asia but Trump’s call is a rare exception. Delhi’s military aloofness from Afghanistan has been criticised by many, myself included, in the past but it has been active in Afghanistan’s social and political recovery. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, India has extended over $3 billion in aid to Afghanistan, making it the fifth-largest donor to the country. Delhi has built roads, schools, hospitals, dams, and other vital infrastructure in its war-ravaged neighbour. The US president’s criticism of India in this regard is therefore puzzling.

What has jarred some observers, at least on Twitter, is Trump’s blatant and crass linking of Indian economic contributions to Afghanistan to the trade surplus it runs with the United States. The US president’s penchant of seeing the world through a prism of economic transactionality notwithstanding, it is unclear what the Trump administration’s larger economic role for India in Afghanistan specifically entails beyond the South Asian country’s already generous efforts.

What was left out of the Trump blueprint for Afghanistan is as interesting as what was said. One word the president did not mention at all is Islam, either as provocation or as platitude. The omission is striking because one of the first moves of this new US presidency was to restrict the entry of Muslims from certain countries into the United States. Although Pakistan was not in that original list, US visas have become harder to obtain even for legitimate visitors such as the Afghan robotics team in July.

A more consequential absence is China, widely accepted as Pakistan’s new godfather. Although the Trump White House is yet to publicly formulate how it intends to win Islamabad’s cooperation, it is unlikely that any coercion will succeed without some assistance from Beijing. And succour will not be coming from China, who has already proven unhelpful over North Korea, and feels threatened by Washington’s build-up of India and challenged by American proxies in the South China Sea. Although Beltway wisdom has been keen on impressing upon the president the seriousness of the Russian threat, China appears to be the one stuck in America’s craw.

Trump’s speech on Monday marks no new direction for American policy towards Afghanistan though it might still be celebrated as slightly more sensible than the earlier one to hie. As with all US presidents, it will be interesting to watch how Trump squares the Pakistani circle, especially now with China on stage. While success is doubtful, India and Afghanistan can at least hope that US policies will increase the pressure on Pakistan – a better alternative to sitting back and doing nothing.

Blindspots in our Narratives

01 Sat Apr 2017

Posted by in Book Review

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BacevichBacevich, Andrew. America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History. New York: Random House, 2016. 480 pp.

America can always be counted upon to do the right thing, to paraphrase Abba Eban, once they have exhausted all other possibilities. In the Middle East, then, the United States has shown extraordinary creativity – for four decades now, it has bungled its way through the region with devastating cost to the locals yet with little to show by way of securing its own interests. Andrew Bacevich’s America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History presents a scathing critique of Washington’s policies in the Arab world that have escalated in intensity over the years only to worsen the situation.

America’s War traces the beginning of Washington’s downward spiral in the (Greater) Middle East to the oil shock in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. A scarcity of petroleum, to the most automobile-obsessed culture in the world, was nothing less than an assault on its core value of conspicuous consumption. Much like the British Empire was built in a fit of absent-mindedness to protect the Crown’s Indian possessions, it was the United States’ quest for energy security that drove it deeper into a West Asian quagmire. This was not a simple case of an imperial presidency but the idea that the United States should be more involved in the Middle East – with boots on the ground, if need be – received widespread support from the media, think tanks, as well as legislators. As the author makes clear, this was a war of choice – there was no clear and present danger to the sovereignty or integrity of the United States or its allies.

Horrifyingly, as Bacevich shows, American views on the Middle East were unbelievably naive and obtuse. In all the Beltway policy advocacy, Islam hardly found a mention; nor did other schisms that have divided the Middle East for centuries – Shia-Sunni, Arab-Persian, Arab-Turk, Muslim-kafir. The United States was comfortably ensconced in its secular, post-Enlightenment bubble wherein such identities carried no meaning. This is intriguing because the mid-1970s was also the time when American academia was undergoing the Cultural Turn, an intellectual reappraisal of narratives, universality of values, agency, and points of view.

However, it was President Jimmy Carter’s decision to materially support anti-Soviet factions in Afghanistan that opened the floodgates of American weaponry in Central and West Asia. Aid that initially consisted of medical supplies, communication equipment, and small arms ballooned under his successor, Ronald Reagan, to include training, explosives, and the famous Stinger missiles.

Bacevich takes us from Afghanistan to Iran, Lebanon, Libya, the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Somalia, the Balkans, and finally to the regional war on Islamist terror. In every theatre, the United States was oblivious to local socio-cultural dynamics and believed that if brute force was not yielding the desired results, they were simply not using enough. US engagements with vastly outmatched foes, whether it was in the Gulf of Sirte or sands of Al Dibdibah, resembled a turkey shoot; most US casualties arose from asymmetric methods of warfare its foes employed.

US goals were further hampered by their gradualist approach to “decisive” action. Most involvement began with Washington dithering about playing a role, to be replaced by a search for regional partners in the Pollyannaish optimism that such allies would have the same motivations as those of Foggy Bottom. In the third stage, the United States would reluctantly deploy troops and advisors but never enough to get the job done, if that is even clear. Finally, Washington would be in an immense hurry to get its boys back; this haste, noticed by its enemies, would be exploited with the result that the region is more hostile and unstable than it was before US intervention. Bluntly put, American aid has done more damage than American bombs.

In the several incidents Bacevich focuses on, American hypocrisy is readily on display. The chapter on the Iran-Iraq War was particularly illuminating on Washington’s lies and double standards. For example, when an Iraqi Mirage fighter jet attacked the USS Stark, Washington promptly blamed Tehran! When the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, then President George HW Bush defiantly declared that he would never apologise for the incident. The United States did, however, later pay $61 million to the families of the 274 passengers who had died on board – still without admitting to any wrongdoing.

Bacevich’s observations are nothing new to anyone who grew up in the Middle East, perhaps to most who did not grow up in America. Much of the world has had the educational experience of having to live with the consequences of American intervention, whether it is the rise of Islamism or the nuclearisation of quasi-Islamist Pakistan. Bacevich is refreshingly candid that the United States was willing to support freedom, democracy, and prosperity as long as it got the lion’s share of it. However, the chronological flow of America’s War from debacle to unmitigated catastrophe has a powerful effect on the reader. The thread connecting what might appear to be loosely related yet disparate events – the results of one incomplete intervention fed into the next ill-advised adventure that catalysed a blowback elsewhere – weaves a depressing report card of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Worse, as Bacevich and countless others have observed, American justice would be unevenly, opportunistically to be less charitable, applied: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the twin pillars of Islamism, have consistently escaped the consequences of their actions.

The common theme in the making of US foreign policy, not just in the Middle East, is that Americans are cocksure of their righteous narrative and they are convinced that technological and military superiority will resolve sociopolitical problems. The United States sees itself as progressively marching with History, a narrative all others (should) want to imitate. It is this same thinking that fuelled Washington’s policies towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War – and got it to a place where its nuclear arsenal neared an insane 30,000 warheads. The only difference between the Cold War and the Middle East is that US assertiveness came late to the desert. This fundamental failure to understand the world, to occasionally think beyond Anglo-American or Western modernity only foretells more pain and suffering in the future.

Despite an acerbic evaluation of US policy in the Middle East, Bacevich does not offer anything by way of solutions to America’s wayward policies. The implicit suggestion is that Americans should introspect on what matters to them as individuals and as a society. This offering, though, can apply to anyone in any situation and is not of much help. In a manner, the author comes close to what he criticised Carter for doing, that is, tell Americans off for their lifestyle. A more pessimistic conclusion the book hints at is that it is also possible that the Middle East cannot be “solved.” Chaos may indeed be the order of the day and it, too, has beneficiaries.

The bigger question Bacevich’s work raises is of narrative: it is not just the United States but anyone that can be too caught up in their own world view. This is partly inevitable but greater self-consciousness may give us some warning. As Henry Kissinger once lamented, government does not leave much time for reflection and all you have when in office is the intellectual capital you went in with. This places a great responsibility on academia, the media, and other opinion shapers to genuinely grapple with the complex issues of the day and resist the temptation of a witty sound bite.

Rather than the narrative and linkages Bacevich lays out in America’s War, the book is a great insight into the American mind. The casual style will be appreciated by lay readers and the experience and expertise of an academic who also served in uniform shines through. All in all, America’s War for the Greater Middle East should be read as much for what it asks and implies as for what it actually says on the pages.

Modi’s Balochistan Gambit

20 Tue Sep 2016

Posted by in India, Pakistan, South Asia

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mere mention of Balochistan in his Independence Day speech probably caused more flutter than any actual Indian policy ever has. An earlier reference to the western Pakistani province by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval at the 10th Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture in February 2014 had already set the tone – in rhetoric, at least – of the Modi administration towards misadventures from its western neighbour. In the wake of the terror attack in Uri, these comments have acquired greater salience among the public.

To be sure, these utterances represent some bold and out-of-the-box thinking by anyone in the Indian government. However, supporting an insurgency – in whichever country – is a complicated and messy affair that cannot be dismissively relegated to a mere talking point. There is interest in many quarters about the feasibility of Indian support to Balochistan, especially since it appears at first glance to be analogous to the situation in Kashmir. Yet appearances can be deceptive and if Modi & Co. are serious about the option, there are some questions they must first consider.

Henry Kissinger is famously said to have asked, “Who do I call if I want to call Europe?” The same is true for Balochistan. Whom does the prime minister – or his national security advisor – call if he wants to call the Balochi rebels? The Balochi struggle, such as it is, remains deeply fractured and it is difficult to identify one clear leader or even someone who could potentially unify the different factions against their common oppressor. Needless to say, Islamabad would have picked off such a person at the earliest had one emerged.

Uniting factions in service of a common cause is not easy as even the United States with its several carrots found out in Syria. Even supporting the two or three major factions is a recipe for disaster as intra-faction fighting can quickly sap international sympathy and India’s patience.

Even if the Baloch were able to come together, what would India’s aid look like? The rebels would be committing suicide with small arms alone and heavy arms would only encourage the Pakistani Army to bring in even heavier arms such as armour and air support; Delhi can hardly supply the rebels commensurately. Yet India’s struggle to even overtly train and arm the Afghan Army puts the country’s role as an arms supplier to the Baloch in question.

There is also this to be considered: who stands guarantee to the suitability of Baloch targets? So far, India has had the advantage of international confidence that it does not distinguish between good and bad terrorists. Were Balochi fighters to target Pakistani civilians, especially schools or hospitals, it could tarnish India’s reputation for no apparent gains. This is not an unlikely situation – Baloch anger at their harsh treatment by Islamabad so far would only naturally boil over and lash out at the first instance it can strike where it hurts. Wars seldom remain kosher for long.

An armed and active Baloch insurgency would cause alarm in the neighbourhood – Tehran, Kabul, and Beijing at the very least. Historically, the Baloch people have lived in what is today western Pakistan, eastern Iran, and southwestern Afghanistan. If the insurgency were to excite dormant aspirations among Balochis outside Pakistan, it would very well sour India’s relations with Iran and Afghanistan. Baloch leaders would have to promise to abandon any dreams of an akhand Balochistan and even if they were to, could they be trusted? For how long?

Beijing would have its own concerns with a Baloch uprising. After having invested heavily is propping up a teetering state like Pakistan, China would be loathe to see its interests washed away. First, they would lose the strategically important port of Gwadar; second, they would have to abandon their economic corridor into Pakistan; third, and most vitally, their dagger pointed at India’s back would be blunted. It is highly unlikely that China’s leaders would sit idly by for long if Baloch fighters gained momentum against Islamabad’s forces, with or without India’s help.

The international community would have its own nightmares – it is not often that a state possessing nuclear weapons succumbs to such a virulent separatist movement. There would be immense pressure on India – if links were established – to cut all support to the Baloch rebels and to do so quickly.

Allowing for the moment that a Baloch insurgency is successful and Kalat regains its independence, how would it benefit India? Pakistan would lose approximately five percent of its population and 45 percent of its territory; electoral results suggest that it is unlikely that this would excite other separatist movements such as in Sindh. Will the new Balochistan tilt towards India? Delhi’s experience with Bangladesh in 1972 suggests that even this is not a given.

The nuclear arsenal, India’s primary concern, will in all likelihood remain in Punjabi hands. Punjab, the brightest ember in Pakistan’s fire of anti-India hatred, will emerge even more concentrated and certainly in no mood for negotiations henceforth. While the new situation may affect the tactical military situation, there would be little impact strategically except perhaps to lower the nuclear threshold even more and make the subcontinent an even more dangerous place.

Finally, if answers to all these convolutions do already exist somewhere in South Block, is it really wise to announce Indian support for an independent Balochistan so publicly? Declaratory wars have not been in fashion for over a century now. Plausible deniability is a very effective strategy; if Indian fingerprints were indeed found on a resurgent Baloch insurgency, there is no guarantee that it will not cross Pakistan’s nuclear threshold…especially if the insurgency makes initial gains.

None of this is to say that Modi should not extend support to the Baloch. The first step, however, might be to regularly highlight their plight on the international stage. If indirect funding could be made available for the diaspora and others to produce documentaries, organise conferences, and lobby important politicians in major capitals, it would create momentum around their cause. Exaggeration and too shrill a tone, however, would only set back the cause. A model one might learn from is how Armenians got the massacres of 1915-1917 internationally recognised as genocide. Such recognition opens several legal avenues for concerned states as well as affected people to take against Islamabad’s policies.

If aid were to ever include weapons, the Indian government would do well to closely consider the impediments to their action, potential fallout, and certain blowback.

This post appeared on FirstPost on September 21, 2016.