By Mostafa Mousavipour.
The bilateral U.S.-Afghanistan relations have hit rock bottom as the disagreement between Washington and Kabul has reached a crescendo over the signing of Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) by the end of 2013. Despite the mounting pressure and threat of total pull-out by the U.S., and the green light given by a grand assembly of Afghan tribal elders and notables, otherwise known as Loya Jirga, attended by 2,500 delegates from across the country last November, Karzai was hell-bent on not signing the accord unless his preconditions – halting the raids on Afghan houses during military operations, supporting meaningful peace process with the Taliban, and ensuring transparent elections slated for April 5 this year – were met by the U.S.. What entails in Afghanistan will however prove costly for both Washington and Kabul as the former’s mission has not yet yielded favorably and the militant insurgencies are less than resolved. The emerging tense dynamics in Afghanistan – the post-NATO scenario – particularly against the backdrop of regional neighbors’ involvement in the Central Asian country’s affairs after U.S. and coalition forces drawdown by the end of 2014 have perturbed Islamabad as the transformations in Afghanistan in 2014 and beyond can have the most far-reaching implications due to the contiguity of the two countries.
The Agreement
As stated in the periodic report published by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in July 2013, the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) signed by Presidents Barak Obama and Hamid Karzai in May 2012 laid the foundations for a legal framework – otherwise known as BSA – that delineates the status of U.S. forces presence in Afghanistan after 2014, authorizes their defense cooperation activities with Afghan forces, and replaces the 2003 U.S.-Afghanistan Status of Forces Agreement (DOD, 2013). It will also “…confirm their enduring partnership, and send a clear message that the United States will not abandon Afghanistan” (DOD, 2013, p. 17). As envisioned in the accord, the remaining U.S. and International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) troops post-2014 will largely shift their fundamental modus operandi to “Train, Advise and Assist” (TAA) Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) at tactical and operational levels.
BSA negotiations began in November 2012, with a goal to conclude them within one year. At their January 2013 meeting, Obama and Karzai expressed their shared desire to see the BSA settled as soon as possible. The BSA, if concluded, would enter into force on January 1, 2015. Separately, NATO intends to negotiate a new Status of Forces Agreement with Afghanistan for its post-2014 TAA mission. About 47,000 U.S. troops are present in Afghanistan while the BSA would establish a training and counterterrorism force of roughly 8,000 to 10,000 in 2015 and beyond.
The Stakes for the Players
Reaching an agreement concerning the future security-military and politico-economic dimensions of U.S.-Afghanistan co-operations would be equally in the interests of both governments as the absence of such an accord would not only put the $4.1billion a year U.S. and allies have pledged to fund Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in jeopardy, as well as much civil aid, but would also put the kibosh on American efforts in the longest war in their history waged to settle a score with al-Qaeda, to fight the rising Taliban militancy, and to prop up the Central Asian country’s shaky and defunct infrastructure and institutions preparing the grounds for a viable democracy to take root in the country.
The U.S. troops withdrawal in the context of heightened security situation in Afghanistan can have certain security and strategic implications: 1- The culture of militancy and suicide bombing is still the Taliban’s mainstay to further their political objectives and the threat from extremist groups like the Haqqani Network is exponentially on the rise from their bases in North Waziristan, threatening stability in Afghanistan and the neighboring nations. 2- The Obama administration’s threat of “zero-option” – the total pullout of troops in the face of Karzai’s relentless refusal to ink the pact – has riled up an already discontented American public and strengthened their conviction that the whole Afghan episode was an unrewarded sacrifice. 3- The U.S. troops in Afghan battlefields, including the commanders and soldiers, have become absolutely disillusioned by the sheer march of events as “there’s a pervasive sense among elite U.S. troops that the end of next year is too early to go home” as they believe all their “repeated combat tours, an untold number of divorces and nearly 2,300” American fatalities would be rendered pointless if they leave the landlocked country before accomplishing the original mission goals (The Wall Street Journal, 2013). The U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East was hastened, as Washington did not afford to reach an agreement with the Iraqi government to provide legal immunity for its troops. The same sticking point has so far inhibited Karzai in acceding to the pact.
Implications for Pakistan
As one of the neighbors that have shared a lot of what has historically befallen Afghanistan, Pakistan is unsettled by the dramatic transformations in store in 2014 and beyond. The worst-case scenario would be the full exit of the coalition forces by the end of 2014 and the outbreak of pandemonium in its wake. The resurgent Taliban and other militant groups like the Haqqani network against the backdrop of Afghan National Army (ANA) and ANSF inability to confront the challenge would exert immense pressure on Pakistan in terms of economy and security.
Historically, Pakistan’s foreign policy-making has been heavily informed by the regional dynamics affecting strategic security exigencies. The deep-seated rivalry with India and the long-running national proclivity for a pro-Pakistani government in Afghanistan to compensate for the lack of “space, depth and a hinterland” in the face of giant India – known as “Strategic Depth Doctrine” (Rashid, 2002, p. 186; Shaikh, 2009) – are among the sources of what has come to be known as “ontological security” (Kinnvall, 2004; Mitzen, 2004; Steele, 2008) impairing the South Asian nation’s sense of self-identity and thus a threat, so much so that successive governments – both civilian and military – have been deeply involved in otherwise destructive struggles on both fronts ever since the nation’s independence in 1947. This collective sense of insecurity and the consequential urge to placate it by engaging in identity-sustaining enduring rivalries (Paul, 2005) have invariably predisposed successive governments in Pakistan to take a confrontational approach to settling disputes with India, particularly over the controversial region of Kashmir. The insecurity-instigating geopolitics could be exacerbated by an unfriendly Afghanistan or one that would probably plunge into intractable chaos after the exit of foreign forces.
Pakistan has itself been undergoing a transition ever since Nawaz Sharif’s accession to power in June 2013. Known as a relatively moderate politician, Sharif has planned to lift Pakistan out of its manifold chronic problems such as sectarian violence, rising militancy, faulty governance, elite corruption, moribund civil institutions, fragile economy ridden with energy shortages, and sour global partnerships. The new Pakistani administration under Sharif has set sights on holding peace talks with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and on continuing Composite Dialogue with India (The Economist, 2014) in order to stem the tide of the crippling woes of the country. At this juncture, the US-led coalition forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan and the possible breakdown of the nascent order bear heavily on Pakistan’s domestic dynamics by affecting the peace talks with Taliban and exacerbating the existing tensions with India.
Peace, democracy and stability in Afghanistan, as has been long reiterated by Pakistani officials, are vital to the resolution of multitudinous woes in South Asia and can even have profound impact on Indo-Pakistani rapprochement (Dawn, 2013a; The Nation, 2013a; The Express Tribune, 2014a; The News, 2014). The post-NATO conditions in Central Asia can have heightened national interest and security significance particularly in view of the military strategy under the new Pakistani Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, who sees “the homegrown militants as the biggest threat to national security” (The News, 2013) as instability in Afghanistan rings the same bell for its eastern neighbor.
Despite the growing desire to have a peaceful neighbor to its west, Islamabad has understandably strived to secure a substantial presence in Taliban-Karzai peace due to the fears that a peace spearheaded by the U.S. would not necessarily represent Pakistan’s interests. To this end, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar – the most senior Afghan Taliban detainee in Pakistan whose arrest in 2010 sabotaged attempts at reconciliation with Taliban – was released in September 2013 in a bid to “further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process” (The Nation, 2013b). Accordingly, Islamabad cannot afford standing on the sidelines and “needs to carefully monitor the terms of reference and raise its voice, well in advance, if anything appears cooking up that could impinge upon Pakistan’s security” (The Nation, 2013c).
As of the intense post-2014 ramifications, former Pakistani diplomat Najmuddin Shaikh warned of the consequent influx of Afghans into Pakistan through the long porous border as a major concern inflicting an extra burden upon an already-under-resourced country (The Express Tribune, 2014a). Border management is, therefore, one of the issues demanding much stricter handling calling upon Pakistan to work in tandem with NATO to “[…] set up border coordination centers … where the military can exchange information” (The Express Tribune, 2014b). Besides that, Pakistan’s crippling energy crisis has added another grave dimension to the situations. Sharif’s government initiatives (Dawn, 2013b) to strike deals with China, India, Iran and Turkmenistan on a number of key sources such as water, gas and electricity in order to shore up the energy-starved infrastructure would consequentially hang in the balance.
The fate of long-awaited Composite Dialogue – a comprehensive deal with India on security, peace, energy, commerce and trade, yet to bear fruit – would be uncertain if Afghan fledgling security and police forces cannot stem the tide of insurgencies after 2014 on their own. Due to the existing modus vivendi and complicated symbiosis between Afghan Taliban and Pakistani militants in Kashmir, the breakdown of rule and order in Afghanistan can have far-reaching consequences for Indo-Pakistani relationship. Moreover, against the backdrop of Indo-Afghan strategic partnership, India, to the resentment of Pakistan, may tend to play a more central role in Afghan transition and therefore “Pakistan needs to be cautious of … India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan … as a destabilizing factor for Pakistan’s security” (Wazir, 2012, p. 97).
However, as reflected in the media, despite averring the intense post-withdrawal repercussions for the whole region in general and Pakistan in particular, the media pundits have so far perceived it in different lights, some favoring American presence to prevent Afghanistan from “ falling back into civil war” (Dawn, 2013c), whereas some desiring an early full exit of foreign forces from Afghanistan as being a panacea for the chronic problems of South and Central Asia resolving “the country’s militancy issues” (The Nation, 2014a) as it would improve Pakistan’s competitive edge over India to play a more pivotal role in the region in the years to come.
On the whole, considering the existing costs and benefits, a rapid miscalculated withdrawal fueled by mutual grievances will be detrimental to both short and long-term interests of both the U.S. and coalition countries and Afghanistan and neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan, as it would give rise to many unfavorable events affecting the aims of NATO mission, jeopardizing Afghanistan and leaving many efforts in South Asia undone. At this juncture, Pakistan can play a fundamental role to affect the ensuing transformations in the region.
