While the Trump Administration has experimented with both offensive and reconciliatory gestures, violence perpetrated by the Taliban as well as ISIS continues stifling the process of political resolution and state-building exercises. This would prolong US presence in Afghanistan regardless of the Taliban’s demand that the foreign troops leave Afghanistan before any peace talks begin.
However, the reasons why the present US Administration may choose to stay for an indefinite period seem to be geopolitical than continuing violence.
Afghanistan’s importance in the Great Game during the Cold War
Geopolitical importance of Afghanistan for the US was underlined by the fact that most of the sophisticated weapons were brought to strengthen insurgency against Soviet occupation within a short span of time. The first arms-mainly .303 Enfield rifles-arrived in Pakistan on January 10, 1980, fourteen days after the Soviet invasion (Charles G. Cogan, “Partners in Time: The CIA and Afghanistan since 1979”, World Policy Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2, Summer 1993, p. 76). While US President Carter gradually increased the level of aid to the insurgents, Ronald Reagan expanded it considerably.
In the mid-1980s, the success of the mujahideen, combined with more aggressive tactics by the Soviet forces, led to a further increase in the US involvement (Ted Galen Carpenter, “US aid to anti-Communist Rebels: The “Reagan Doctrine” and its pitfalls”, Cato Policy Analysis, No. 74, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa074.html, accessed on March 15, 2011).
The escalation of conflict was authorized in a March 1985 National Security Decision Directive. In the latter part of 1986, the US brought the first ground-to-air missiles in the form of American Stinger, a hand held, “fire and forget” anti-aircraft missile to Afghan territory to fight the Russian forces (Kenneth Katzman, “Afghanistan: Current Issues and US Policy”, CRS Report for Congress, updated in August 27, 2003, p. 2). This shows the continued Congressional interest in the covert action program. The level of the US aid to the Afghan resistance is believed to have risen to over $400 million annually at the height of the program in fiscal years 1987 and 1988.
Gradually, as the American involvement deepened in Afghanistan, its strategy took a shift from containment of the Soviet Union to one of forward presence. The United States and Pakistan pursued an anti-Soviet “rollback” policy not only to wipe out Soviet influence in Afghanistan but to weaken the continental power and divide the heartland as well (Barnett R. Rubin and Abubakar Siddique, “Resolving the Pakistan-Afghanistan Stalemate”, Special Report, No. 176, United Stated Institute of Peace, October 2006, p. 9). The US National Security Decision Directive of March 1985 not only authorized increased aid to the mujahideen, it also included diplomatic and humanitarian objectives as well, including guaranteeing self-determination for the Afghan people.
However, when many Afghans considered the jihad ended with the departure of Soviet troops, the rollback policy increasingly relied on Salafi Arab fighters. Furthermore, the US resorted to diplomatic measures like excluding the Eastern Europe from the purview of economic sanctions meant for the Soviet Union which could have no other objectives other than dividing the heartland which was then firmly occupied by the Soviet Union.
The US in order to gain preponderance of power in Afghanistan did not agree to a ‘neutral and friendly’ Afghanistan as there were clear signals that the mujahideen would come to power following the withdrawal of Soviet forces and provide Washington with necessary leeway in the region.
The Afghan War and Attempts at Political Resolution to the continuing Conflict are not immune from Geopolitics
The preceding Administration led by Obama while stressed on the drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, it concluded the Afghan-US security pact which enabled the US and its NATO partners to establish permanent military presence in Afghanistan. The pact allowed the US to maintain nine permanent military bases along the Afghan side of the shared border with China, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian states like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Long-term geopolitical underpinnings of the Trump Administration’s Afghan strategy became clear from the objectives that the President set out for himself from the beginning of his rise to power.
A published opinion piece in the ‘Providence Journal’ on 11 September, 2017 noted: “Candidate Trump vowed to get the US out of Afghanistan…but he made clear his plan to participate in economic development (in Afghanistan) to help defray the costs of the war”.
In February 2018, the Trump Administration began the process of laying down the US-funded Trans-Afghan pipeline project (part of the Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India or TAPI pipeline project) euphemistically called as ‘peace pipeline’ which is, in reality, a geopolitical move to marginalize Iran in energy politics by putting it under stringent economic sanctions and preventing it from laying down Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline. It could happen only after the Afghan Taliban assured its support to the project given their ability to destroy the pipeline.
The Taliban were not only aware of the windfall financial gains for Afghanistan from the project, they probably believed that they could easily come to power by directly pursuing peace talks with the US. However, it is unlikely that the US would relinquish its hold over Afghan geopolitics without providing for arrangements that would assure the US government of preservation and promotion of its long-term geopolitical interests in and around Afghanistan.
From a geopolitical perspective, Afghanistan provided the US accessibility to a large continental expanse to operate against both conventional threats like Iran, China and Russia and non-conventional threats like the Afghan Taliban, the Haqanni network and ISIS. Apart from the economic value and utility of natural resources, its production and supply carry a geopolitical significance. In this context, Afghanistan’s importance as an alternative route to transfer Central Asian resources needs to be underlined. First, multiplying the pipelines would end the hegemony of a few particular powers.
Second, controlling the production and supply of natural resources would require military projection of power which would go a long way in securing supply of these resources to regional allies and denying the same to countries adopting adversarial foreign policies. Therefore, natural resources can be used as an instrument to control and shape foreign policies of state actors.
Third, the supply routes for their safety would require military presence and thereby would contribute to development of military strategies of the controlling power.
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