Pakistan's Worry in Afghanistan

**Deltacamelately** · 28th February 2009 09:38

April 11, 2008 | 2253 GMT

MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images
Afghanistan’s Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak
Summary
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak is visiting India amid talks of New Delhi providing counterinsurgency assistance to Kabul. Increased Indian-Afghan cooperation — at a time when Islamabad’s Taliban card has become problematic — would place the Pakistanis at a disadvantage with India, its long-time rival.

Analysis
The Indian army will train Afghanistan’s army in counterinsurgency operations — the latest development in a growing alliance between India and Afghanistan that threatens the country sandwiched between: Pakistan.

For Pakistan, it would appear that this triangular relationship is coming full circle.

Afghanistan’s Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak met with his Indian counterpart A. K. Antony in the Indian capital April 10 to discuss bilateral military cooperation, The Associated Press of Pakistan reported April 11.

While the Indian defense minister ruled out any military involvement in Afghanistan, the increased cooperation between New Delhi and Kabul puts Pakistan in a weakened position with its neighbors.

Wardak also visited the 15th Corps of the Indian army headquartered in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, and will visit the Indian air force’s training command and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Bangalore in southern India. These visits are coming amid reports that Afghanistan might be considering sending its air force pilots for training to India. Moreover, Wardak said his country would seek New Delhi’s help in maintaining Soviet-era helicopter gun ships and medium helicopters to provide logistical support to its armed forces.

NATO can also use the increased interest in Indian involvement in counterterrorism with Afghanistan as leverage against Pakistan to rein in militants on its soil.

India and Afghanistan are pushing the idea that the faster India trains the Afghan army, the quicker NATO can withdraw troops from Afghanistan. India’s goal is to gain a toehold in the Afghan military establishment, creating goodwill that it can cash in when the time comes. This prospect worries Pakistan, which sees India as its biggest rival. Antony assured Wardak that India would remain “actively engaged” in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of war-wrecked Afghanistan.

While it will be some time before the relationship between the Indian and Afghan militaries is solidified in a meaningful way, even the meager assistance India provides Afghanistan would be a significant enhancement of its military involvement, which until now has been mostly related to reconstruction and development work in Afghanistan. New Delhi’s key interest in Afghanistan has to do with its security vis-a-vis its neighboring rival, Pakistan, and the transnational Islamist militant groups headquartered in Pakistan.

To best understand the impact of India’s growing support in Afghanistan, one must understand Pakistan’s recent history of backing Islamist militant groups and how Pakistan has tried to use Afghanistan to gain strategic advantage against India.

Long before the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan during the 1980s, Islamabad viewed Kabul as aligned with New Delhi. Pakistan felt sandwiched between its archrival to the east and a hostile regime to the west. Another issue was secular left-leaning Pakistani Pashtun forces were pushing for a separate homeland for their ethnic group — a demand backed by Afghanistan in those days.

To deal with these threats, the Pakistanis decided to employ the Islamist card to counter Pashtun nationalism on both sides of the Durand Line — the line drawn in 1893 that divides the Pashtun people, and a continual source of tension between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Even before 1977, when the Islamist-leaning regime of Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq came to power, the Pakistanis had aligned themselves with Afghan Islamist dissidents such as Gulbadin Hekmatyar. Then came the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan starting in 1979, when Islamabadâ€™s backing for Afghan Islamists increased, with the support of the United States and Saudi Arabia.

By the time the Soviets withdrew in defeat from Afghanistan a decade later, the Pakistanis had successfully contained ethnic Pashtun nationalism. Pakistan unwittingly sowed the seeds of a deadlier Frankenstein’s monster in the form of jihadism, which would bite the hand of its creator years later.

The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan provided the Pakistanis the opportunity to direct its attention to Indian-administered Kashmir, the disputed region on the border that Pakistan has long sought to control. A separatist rising in Kashmir gave Pakistan a chance to play a new hand in its same Islamist militant strategy. As early as the 1947-1948 India-Pakistan War, the Pakistanis employed Pashtun tribesman in its bid to seize control of the parts of Kashmir that are now under Pakistani administration.

In 1996, the Pakistani military realized its objective of installing a pro-Islamabad regime in Kabul when it supported the Taliban, the extremist Islamist movement that controlled Afghanistan until the U.S.-backed coalition drove them from power after Sept. 11, 2001. Pakistan had hoped that with its rear flank secure it could then deal with India, especially in the context of Kashmir, which it unsuccessfully tried to do in the Kargil mini-war in 1999. Between the failure of the Kargil operation and the events of 9/11, Pakistan lost its ability to project power into Kashmir and Afghanistan. The Pakistanis also began to lose control over the Islamist militant landscape with the rise of al Qaeda, which brought together the various strands of militant forces that threatened both Kabul and New Delhi.

Thus, Pakistan opened a process of normalization with India and established a cooperation of sorts with Washington against al Qaeda but continued to maintain an ambiguous stance toward the Taliban. That was because the Pashtun jihadist movement was the only available card Islamabad could play as it pursued its interests in Afghanistan and keep India out.

By offering economic and developmental assistance to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government, India has been able to establish a sphere of influence, which has alarmed the Pakistanis. Even so, Islamabad had been able to take comfort in knowing that it had an asset in the insurgent Taliban, which they could use to block Indian moves in Afghanistan.

However, things have changed. With the complex nature of Pakistan’s alignment with the United States and the gravitation of jihadist forces toward al Qaeda, Islamabad no longer has an effective response to India’s plans for counterinsurgency cooperation with Afghanistan.

The relationship between Islamabad and the Afghan Taliban has been complicated by the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan.

Moreover, Pakistan’s ability to counter India’s moves has been weakened because it is going through internal convulsions brought on as a coalition government — formed by foes of President Pervez Musharraf — swept parliamentary elections, and Musharraf no longer heads the military. If, at some point in the future, the Taliban gain a larger share of power in Afghanistan, Pakistani influence would be limited because of the break between the Taliban and Islamabad.

With the Taliban no longer in the Pakistani camp as they once were, Afghanistan could return to being hostile to Pakistan. There is significant anti-Pakistani sentiment in Afghanistan because of the perception of Pakistani interference in their country. In contrast, Afghan attitudes in general are far more positive toward India because of the increased assistance India has begun to provide.

Thus, when it comes to Pakistan and its complicated relationship with neighbors Afghanistan and India, it appears what goes around comes around.
http://www.stratfor.com

Its really time to think of the unthinkable :
A supply route through Iran.

**Neo_Arch** · 28th February 2009 16:04

Sir,

Is there any possibility of an Indian Military base in Afgan, As India already offers them economic assistance and now would be getting involved in to Military training.

Also India's military involvement would encircle Pak from both sides which is favours both the Indians and the Afgans.

And in conditions like the 26\11 these forces can be of a great help in neutralizing Talibani bases.

**Tajmahal** · 28th February 2009 18:32

Originally Posted by Neo_Arch

Sir,

Is there any possibility of an Indian Military base in Afgan, As India already offers them economic assistance and now would be getting involved in to Military training.

Also India's military involvement would encircle Pak from both sides which is favours both the Indians and the Afgans.

And in conditions like the 26\11 these forces can be of a great help in neutralizing Talibani bases.

Alas! US/NATO wants that and Afghanistan trying their best to have Indian military presence in Afghanistan but again our Babus have to look at vote bank as well as some 100 years old ideals!!!

**Cactus** · 1st March 2009 03:01

Originally Posted by Tajmahal

Alas! US/NATO wants that and Afghanistan trying their best to have Indian military presence in Afghanistan but again our Babus have to look at vote bank as well as some 100 years old ideals!!!

The IPKF mission to Sri Lanka is 100 years old? The geopolitics in Afghanistan is a 1000 times more complicated than in 1980s Sri Lanka, not to mention the highly dubious nature of military "advantage" it is supposed to give India. Please show us any official requests from the US or ISAF forces for Indian combatant presence in Afghanistan.

If Brigadier Kanwal is correct in saying that there are militant camps within 50 km from the LC and geopolitics prevents India from retaliating to 26/11, how does adding an entire another nation (with its own national priorities and interests) make the response more possible?

=====

Deltacamelately, I think, is talking about the worst-case scenario: The US and other ISAF forces withdraw from Afghanistan before the government is completely secured. That scenario simplifies the geopolitics considerably, but it also makes it a lot more bloody. It would implicitly mean an Afghan civil war, and a proxy war between Russians, Iranians and Indians on one hand and Paks and Gulf Arabs (plus maybe PRChinese) on the other. In any other scenario it is absolutely useless to speculate how any country can go into Afghanistan while the US is running the show in A'stan and the US is also in diplomatic freeze with Iran. It may become more interesting if the US breaks the ice with Iran, but that is a whole different story.

**Officer of Engineers** · 1st March 2009 06:47

Originally Posted by Cactus

Please show us any official requests from the US or ISAF forces for Indian combatant presence in Afghanistan.

I'm sure that you know as well as I that official requests don't come unless back door agreements were reached first ... though governments have been known to back out at the last second, even after the official request has gone through.

**Cactus** · 1st March 2009 12:47

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

I'm sure that you know as well as I that official requests don't come unless back door agreements were reached first ... though governments have been known to back out at the last second, even after the official request has gone through.

Colonel, as far as I know there has not even been any expression of intent from any US official of rank (though I am not sure about other ISAF members {like Gordon and PRChina}, which is why I ask). In contrast I easily recollect dozens of officials expressing interest in involving Indian combatants in Iraq, starting from SecDef down, though it never became an official request.

**johnee** · 1st March 2009 13:44

Originally Posted by Cactus

Colonel, as far as I know there has not even been any expression of intent from any US official of rank (though I am not sure about other ISAF members {like Gordon and PRChina}, which is why I ask). In contrast I easily recollect dozens of officials expressing interest in involving Indian combatants in Iraq, starting from SecDef down, though it never became an official request.

I think it was Astan not iraq. indian forces in iraq was never feasible.

**johnee** · 1st March 2009 13:45

Originally Posted by Tajmahal

Alas! US/NATO wants that and Afghanistan trying their best to have Indian military presence in Afghanistan but again our Babus have to look at vote bank as well as some 100 years old ideals!!!

26/11 should be a waking call for our babus.

**Tajmahal** · 1st March 2009 14:04

Originally Posted by Cactus

The IPKF mission to Sri Lanka is 100 years old? The geopolitics in Afghanistan is a 1000 times more complicated than in 1980s Sri Lanka, not to mention the highly dubious nature of military "advantage" it is supposed to give India.

Sri Lanka in 80s and Afghanistan are two very different scenario. There we were middle-man, as a 'peace-keeper'. One hand we have to protect integrity of Sri Lanka on the other hand we had to handle the Tamil population there, who has great support from the Indian Tamils.

But in Afghanistan we have major interests. Here will be the destroyer of Taliban and AQ for many reasons.

1. They support militancy in Kashmir (70% of the Kashmiri militants are from FATA and Afgahn Talibans).

2. Taliban is a weapon of ISI to control Afghanistan. We didn't forget Kandahar hijack, bomb blasts at Indian consulates???

3. Iran + Afghanistan is a way to Central Asian resources and markets.

4. Encircling Pakistan from both Eastern and Western sides.

Please show us any official requests from the US or ISAF forces for Indian combatant presence in Afghanistan.

Many times US officials declared their intentions about this but no joint statement or prorposal made as EoE already stated the reason. Our Babus still has colonial mindset and vote bank hysteria.

If Brigadier Kanwal is correct in saying that there are militant camps within 50 km from the LC and geopolitics prevents India from retaliating to 26/11, how does adding an entire another nation (with its own national priorities and interests) make the response more possible?

If we think like that India will be India for next 1000 years, no promotions!! So according to you if Prithvi missile fails once we sould not send our missions to the Moon!! If USA cannot control local crimes they should not try to destroy AQ and Talibans!!!! USA could not destroy Cuba but destroyed the USSR!!!! If we can manage to take Afganistan and Tajikistan on our side will it not help to fight a war with militancy as well as ISI????

**Cactus** · 1st March 2009 14:18

Originally Posted by johnee

I think it was Astan not iraq. indian forces in iraq was never feasible.

Nevertheless Indian combatants in Iraq was officially considered on both sides, though it was later rejected by both sides. My Google-Fu is a bit weak this morning, so you will have to settle for an US Ambassador and an Indian minister's words:

http://www.expressindia.com/news/ful...p?newsid=22182

... US Ambassador Robert Blackwill told a group of reporters in New Delhi.

Asked about the American request for deployment of Indian troops as a stabilising factor in war-ravaged Iraq, he said "there is no pressure from the US on this score. Even Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani (who is currently in the US) did not feel any pressures nor did we ever any".

Making it clear that a no from India on its request for troops would "not damage" ties with Washington, he said Indian troops would not be used for combat operations and would operate under the Indian flag.

Days ahead of a Pentagon team's arrival here, he said "we want Indian troops as they are highly professional and experienced...A decision to send them will be positive and will enhance Indo-US relationship".

http://www.financialexpress.com/news...-powell/86212/

The process of consultation with the United States on the issue of sending Indian troops to Iraq for participation in the stabilisation force is still not complete.

This was conveyed to the United States secretary of state Colin Powell by external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha in Pretoria during a telephonic conversation on Thursday.

On the other hand I can only recollect one vague reference by a NATO secretary general to the issue of sending Indian combatants to Afghanistan, which incidentally was immediately followed by this denial:

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100121179.html

New York, Nov 19 (IANS) The US joint commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, Tuesday clarified that India has not been approached by the United States to send its troops to the troubled country. “That is not true,” McKiernan said during the course of his interaction with members of the Atlantic Council - a Washington-headquartered think tank for NATO countries.

Again, I may be missing something with this whole issue and I am fully willing to be corrected.

**S-2** · 1st March 2009 16:32

No troops. It's too sensitive and Pakistan's concerns are heard as well as Indian ambitions to envelop. Those ambiitions must stop as they're needlessly threatening, destabilize Afghanistan, and hint strongly of your own proxy motivations.

We can't even comfortably introduce Turkish troops without putting Islamabad's panties on fire. They are INTENSELY uptight these days and EVERY action in Pakistan is now the product of "foreigners" directed by "hidden hands".

A stunning collective narrative has been sold by an out-of-control Pakistani press and, I believe, continues to be perpetrated by the armed forces through the ISPR.

Pour all the aid and associated "workers" you wish into A-Stan. That's a separate arrangement between the GoA and GoI and provides your most tangible ROI. More power to you there.

**johnee** · 2nd March 2009 03:07

Originally Posted by S-2

No troops. It's too sensitive and Pakistan's concerns are heard as well as Indian ambitions to envelop. Those ambiitions must stop as they're needlessly threatening, destabilize Afghanistan, and hint strongly of your own proxy motivations.

We can't even comfortably introduce Turkish troops without putting Islamabad's panties on fire. They are INTENSELY uptight these days and EVERY action in Pakistan is now the product of "foreigners" directed by "hidden hands".

A stunning collective narrative has been sold by an out-of-control Pakistani press and, I believe, continues to be perpetrated by the armed forces through the ISPR.

Pour all the aid and associated "workers" you wish into A-Stan. That's a separate arrangement between the GoA and GoI and provides your most tangible ROI. More power to you there.

frankly, if US continues to be worried about protecting pakistan's strategic depth, your war in pakistan is unwinnable. pakistan is against indian/foreign troops in Astan, because it is against their so called strategic depth option. they expect US to fail in Astan just like vietnam, and when US runs away, they can relocate taliban to Astan and rule through it. just like 90s. I think US should stop worrying about pakistan's so-called concerns.

and also, indian involvement in Astan is the only solution to this regional problem, I think. pakistan has caused mischief in both the nations for its geopolitical ambitions. and we have to get together to fight it. Astan and india.

**Officer of Engineers** · 2nd March 2009 04:54

Afghanistan is for the US/NATO to lose. It is not for Pakistan to win.

**Deltacamelately** · 2nd March 2009 06:25

Sir,
It is a paradox in itself.
My pov stems from myriad of events.....
A supply chain collapse through the Khyber Agency, closing bases in the CAR nations, increased Russian reluctance/bargaining for supply of non-military wares, expenses skyrocketing in maintaining the supplies/logistics, increase in causalities due to lack of supplies and an eventual NATO withdrawal before consolidation of a strong Afghan civil-military establishment and PA again in the driving seat, re-establishing the Talibs and regaining their strategic depth.

What would that spell for the West in general and India in particular?

Let me guess....I would prefer a softened Iran providing an assured supply chain and a strong Iranian guards presence in the Baloch borders to breach any infiltration to-and-fro and a multi divisional InA presence in Astan, till times that a strong and capable Afghan Army, trained in COIN operation gets in place.....irrespective of the number of bodybags we may witness.

What's your contention Sir?

**Officer of Engineers** · 2nd March 2009 06:37

Major,

The only acceptable force in Afghanistan are the Chinese and they're not coming any time soon.

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