Lorenzo Zambernardi - 14/06/2012

     At a bilateral meeting on the fringe of last May 20th’s NATO summit in Chicago, Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai confirmed the roadplan for transition from military government of Kabul under NATO to proper Afghani rule: a process due to be completed by the end of 2014 when the Kabul government will take control of virtually the whole country. Unlike the American policy in 1989, when all military and humanitarian aid was stopped on the very day Soviet troops completed their march-out, the international community has no intention of leaving Afghanistan to her own devices in coming years.

     After 2014 the United States and other members of ISAF will continue to play a triple role: they will provide economic assistance for at least ten years and go on training Afghani troops and police, while Washington carries out a series of military operations, notably targeted killings on the pattern of the Osama bin Laden elimination and drone bombing. The US/NATO exit strategy thus rests on a combination of factors designed to “Afghanise” the conflict. But what is missing from this recipe is any international ingredient, meaning the solution to tensions outside Afghanistan that have rocked her stability these thirty years and more.

     Supposing the transition does come to an end with withdrawal of combat troops, it is by no means sure that the central government will manage to keep control, at least as long as insurgents can count on their so-called “sanctuaries” in the border strip of Pakistan. Some of the prime terrorist bases of the Taliban and the Haqqani are sited east of the Durand line that demarcates Pakistan and Afghanistan, splitting the Pashtun community in half as it does so. That border has never been recognised by Kabul, and it is precisely that refusal which underlies Pakistan’s systematic political interference in Afghan affairs.

     The same absence of geopolitical security explains one of Islamabad’s chief strategic objectives: to prevent the alliance that linked Afghanistan and India between 1947 and 1978 from forming all over again. Pakistan, as it were, finds herself somewhat like Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century, trapped between France and Russia with a real danger of war on two fronts. As we know, Germany tried to solve the problem by a military strategy (the Schlieffen Plan) which was to defeat France by a blitzkrieg lasting a few weeks and then shift troops to the eastern front. By contrast, for at least thirty years Pakistan has preferred an indirect strategy designed to secure a stable ally in Afghanistan: since the mid-Nineties that ally has been the Taliban movement.

     If the Pakistani sanctuary issue is geopolitical in origin, the solution ought likewise to reckon with the regional dynamics bolstering the position of the insurgents. That would suggest it was in the interest of Washington and the international community to tranquillise Islamabad as to the geopolitical context and regional security, and not just proffer empty words of solidarity and cooperation. So far, unfortunately, US foreign and military policy has done nothing but heighten Pakistani concern. Not only is Washington lending technical and economic assistance to India’s nuclear programme – civil, allegedly, but with potential implications for the military arm – but it is currently in the process of asking New Delhi for a greater commitment to Afghanistan. India is no doubt able to bring more stability to central Asia; not, however, by extending her influence over Kabul, but by working for détente with Pakistan.

     America’s foreign policy towards India hence looks like the latest blunder in her relations with the region. Greater involvement in the Afghan war can only cement the bond between Islamabad and the insurgents. One may safely bet that the recent pressure by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, on top of America’s interruption of military aid to Pakistan, will fail to persuade Islamabad to dismantle the sanctuaries on her territory. The most likely outcome will be that the whole American exit strategy will fail to bring peace to a country at war for over thirty years, and may even intensify the conflict.

Lorenzo Zambernardi
(University of Bologna)