Afghanistan is famous for many things, the most diabolical notorious of which is its graveyard of empires. Ancient empires adopted the light-handed approach of doling out financial parcels to the tribal heads. Luckily, Alexander had a pass through the barren countryside with a scarce Afghan population. Otherwise, the Bucephalus(his horse) would have bogged down in the wilderness. The great game of the 19th century in which two empires engaged to disengage in Afghanistan was to pitch the tent at the edges of this necropolis. Recent history saw the USSR melted across the Amu Darya and the emergence of Putin’s Russia. For the last twenty years the exceptional superpower, the US, has strolled across the necropolis of empires but as the luck would have it, retreated in the name of drawdown. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki asserted on the occasion that “A war that president Biden continue to feel does not have a military solution.”
Afghanistan is a land of surprises with eggs-of-the-basket geography, strong cultural identity, traditional code of tribal conduct, a natural gradient towards its east (present-day Pakistan) and a strong religious affinity. These factors created a determinism that no one could rule Afghanistan in the comprehensive sense of the word. So the hinterland, depth, depth of field (the Afghan landscape) or the strategic depth are all intermingled knots wrapped in the mystery of history and geography. The Gordian knots. To solve the Afghan issue, first, it has to be understood that it is the only country where modernisation and centuries-old tribal traditions are simultaneously at interplay. For any political scientist, it is a dilemma. For any military strategist, it is a nightmare and for post-modernists, it is a paradox. Presently, different players are playing political roulette. The first is India. It has invested heavily in Afghanistan. The Afghan parliament building, the Salma Dam, electric grid lines, roads, libraries, publishing houses are a few of the corporate social responsibility projects it has funded.
The Afghan identity is cocooned inside the tribal history and the Pashtun traditions of malmasti, hospitality, revenge, protection and freedom
The military side includes training the Afghan army (ANDSF), the Afghan police, providing four MI-24 helicopters, small arms and ammunition. All the training modules made by Indian trainers had one thing in abundance: hatred for Pakistan. As of now, the Taliban have captured over 200 districts out of a total of 421, after the US withdrawal. The Indians are biting the nails and as many as 3000 strong Indian trainers and advisors are queuing up at tarmacs to fly back. Indian foreign minister Jai Shanker is on a whirlpool visit to the world capitals from where he can influence the Taliban. Strange coincidences are taking place. When he was in Doha, the Afghan Taliban delegation was already there. When he was in Tehran, the Taliban representatives were there. More recently, when he was meeting the Russian foreign minister, the Afghan Taliban delegation was also in Russia. Strange are the norms of modern diplomacy. Although Indians are denying it they are meeting discreetly with Taliban leaders through the good offices of Iran, Russia and Qatar. The recent flights of C-17 transport aircraft are delivering artillery and infantry ammunition to the Afghan army for a re-supply to Taliban counter-forces on one hand and creating mischief at the Pak-Afghan border on the other. India is supplying arms through other sources and is eager to convert this border into a permanent hot spot like LOC. The Indian- Afghan policy was born with an idea and a lie. The idea is to harm Pakistan by all means and the lie is the way to meet this end. India says that its main concerns remain vulnerability to Indian interests, Pakistan and the divided Afghan political government. India is also trying to scare the central Asian states by quoting the recent Afghan army soldiers’ meltdown into Tajikistan and Turkmenistan at the hands of the Taliban. Taliban’s fast -paced victories, capturing of military hardware, large-scale military defections and regular troops joining their ranks are all a part of something that was not expected by anyone so soon. Afghan airforce has 136 aircraft. If the momentum continues, within weeks, it will be difficult for the Afghan army to defend these bases. As the Americans were leaving, the opium trade and its cultivation were at their peak. Even the manufacturing of ecstasy is gaining pace in the rural areas. Here, the same drug is being made from a natural herb. If the situation worsens, the same drug money will be pumped by warlords to secure their products and drug extraction trails. Robert Jervis once said that state policy lay somewhere between perception and reality. In Afghanistan, it is way difficult to differentiate between these two sans the state policy. Taliban’s present strategy is based on the initiative of capturing the rural districts and, thereby, making it difficult for provincial capitals to sustain the encirclement and then going for Kabul. This seems to work for now. At this pace, Kabul seems just months away on the road to Taliban victory. Some say that the US had no strategy for Afghanistan, which is not true. It did have a strategy but one that was not played well. Before 2015, it was to establish a political system and eradicate al-Qaida. Afterwards, it was to just stay and ensure that no threat emanates from Afghan soil towards the US mainland. The US faltered on the concept of terrorism—the motivation of all forms of terrorism is revenge. It had come to Afghanistan for justice and revenge. Political dispensation or rebuilding Afghanistan was sadly never a consideration. So, it was revenge against revenge. Al-Qaida and ISIS have become brands with a further branching off into many sub-brands. The reality is the entity that is using some version for their territorial gains, may it be in Africa, Middle East, India or Afghanistan. Secondly, the US might have also become myopic once it made its strategy of AFPAK—sort of packaging the two together. There is a lot of affinity between the two countries but the political and social orientation is quite different. The third blunder remained being unable to read the Afghan identity, which was cocooned inside the tribal history and the Pashtun traditions of malmasti, hospitality, revenge, protection and freedom as governed by Pashtunwali. The occupier in Afghanistan will not find the occupied. This is the reason that the Afghan army is melting down. Pakistan has nothing to do with the phenomenon when 200 strong, well-equipped Afghan army soldiers surrender to the 50 barely-armed Afghan Taliban. Taliban are driving their combat power from the culture, geography and religion. The natural gradient is still towards Pakistan, which certainly wants peace and stability in Afghanistan more than any other country. India should take a lesson or two from the living necropolis of empires and stop its run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Because hare and hounds of Hindukush have bigger rare legs to climb the pine bluff.
The writer is a freelance contributor on security related issues. He is also a Ph.D Scholar who can be reached at [email protected] Twitter: @Abid_Latif55