Moscow’s changing role in Afghanistan’s stability

Vinay Kaura
Russia has decided to postpone a multilateral conference on Afghan situation which was scheduled to be held in Moscow in the first week of September. Many countries, including India and the United States, were invited to attend the consultations. The Afghan Taliban had also agreed to participate. However, since the US decided not to attend and Afghanistan wanted more time to forge a unified position, Russia was left with little option but to postpone the meet. New date is yet to be announced.
It has been around four decades since Moscow sent its troops into Afghanistan in 1979, beginning a disastrous war that is often viewed as the precursor to Afghanistan’s endemic violence.
After remaining relatively inactive in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, when the arrival of NATO troops had complicated a civil war already under way, Moscow’s increasingly active role in recent years to end the Afghan conflict may be attributed to the genuine anxieties about the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Afghanistan and Washington’s failure to end the conflict.
This is not the first time that Russia planned to host a regional conference on Afghanistan. In February 2017, it had hosted talks of six countries – Russia, Iran, China, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan – in Moscow.
The meet followed from a previous conference in December 2016 when Russia invited only Pakistan and China, drawing protests from India and leaving Afghan authorities to dub the initiative “legitimate and dubious.” Since then, Moscow has broadened the scope of its Afghan-related consultations. But the US continues to remain skeptical of Moscow-led efforts to bring about peace in Afghanistan.
Both Washington and Kabul often accuse Moscow of providing moral and material support to the Taliban as a counterweight to the ISIS. In fact, the Trump administration has sought to make Moscow appear a cold practitioner of realpolitik by abandoning counter-terrorism goals for hardcore strategic interests. Rather than receiving accolades for fighting against the ISIS, Moscow looks rogue as pictured by Washington. Therefore, Moscow’s decision to postpone the Afghan talks must be seen as a positive development since it indicates Moscow’s eagerness to take Kabul on board.
The roots of the Taliban insurgency can be traced to the Mujahideen, who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. During the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal, Russia along with Iran and India provided financial and military support to the Northern Alliance which was opposed to the Taliban. Pakistan’s military establishment has displayed remarkable consistency in its Afghan policy since the Soviet invasion, seeking to establish a favorable regime in Kabul by playing a fundamentalist Pashtun card. But Moscow no longer views the Taliban as a security threat; it views them as a legitimate stakeholder in Afghanistan. The Taliban have been fighting against the ISIS in Afghanistan and assured the regional states that their struggle remains confined to Afghanistan.
No matter the venue, no matter the topic—the Afghan peace talks return again and again to the role of Pakistan. Rawalpindi’s unnecessary involvement in Afghanistan has brought nothing but chaos and disorder for Pakistan, including the world’s largest refugee population, emergence of a Kalashnikov culture and the rise of Pakistani Taliban who got inspiration from the Afghan Taliban.
But no lessons have been learnt. Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus has continued to play a crucial role in the professionalization of the Taliban’s military and intelligence apparatus. And the fact that Russia and Iran are accused of supporting the Taliban debunks the dominant narrative that the insurgents are only dependent upon Pakistan.
The US engagement is essential to the success of Afghan reconciliation efforts, as would be Russia’s and China’s involvement. But Pakistan continues to define the Afghan conflict very narrowly, in anti-India terms. Of the countries bordering Afghanistan, only Pakistan seems to have a strategy that is underpinned by indirect control of Kabul. Other states are simply interested in creating a buffer zone and keeping certain stakes in the Afghan political game.
Given its developmental and strategic partnership with Afghanistan, India has stakes in ensuring a government in Kabul that is truly independent of Islamabad, but New Delhi currently lacks the means to take action towards that end. And the manner in which Pakistan’s military establishment has been trying to install a Taliban-infested regime in Kabul with the help of Russia and China is only prolonging the Afghan conflict. All hold a dim view of American staying power as the conflict is getting protracted amidst apparent failure of Trump’s Afghan policy announced last year. But a hasty retreat from Afghanistan would seal the decline of American influence in Central Asia to the advantage of Russia and China.
There is no indication that the Taliban have changed their fundamentalist attitude. Their deep-seated desire for hegemony, their claim to be the only legitimate political force in Afghanistan, and their refusal to recognize other political forces continue to remain impediments in the path to reconciliation. In fact, Russia is also not very happy at the Taliban’s intransigent rejection of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s latest offer of a second truce following a successful three-day cease-fire in June. Although the Taliban did offer to release several hundred prisoners, there was no direct positive response to Ghani’s proposal of a three-month truce. For the Russians, it would not be easy to accept the Afghan Taliban if they do not agree to assume power through a democratic process. When the Taliban talk about a power-sharing deal, what they have in mind is to grab a slice of power on a platter.
The Taliban are leaving no stone unturned to make themselves acceptable to the international community; a Taliban delegation recently held direct talks with the US delegation led by Alice Wells. Their participation in Moscow-sponsored talks is understood to be a politically smart move for exploiting America’s poor relations with Russia and putting more pressure on Washington to agree to liberal terms in power sharing deal. The Taliban’s recent assault on Ghazni was also part of a strategy which relies on the simple calculation that success on the battlefield can gain them more leverage on the negotiating table.
In the present circumstances, diplomatic steps are unlikely to deter the Taliban from military actions against the Kabul government. The Taliban has little incentive to stop fighting since their battlefield achievements have been truly impressive. What it really wants is huge concessions in order to consider giving up fighting. As long as Russia cannot convince the Afghan Taliban to give up its terrorist activities, it is unlikely to play a major role in bringing about peace and stability in Afghanistan.