| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Geopolitical problem makes it tough for troops in Afghanistan |
| 2006-08-11 |
| With mounting Canadian combat deaths in Afghanistan, most recently the four killed last week, then rocket attacks on Canada's base at Kandahar airport on Saturday and Monday, not to mention a warning from a Taliban spokesman on Sunday that the rate of attacks will increase, it's beginning to look like the last thing we expected — a mission of containment. In the beginning, after all, we thought it was peacekeeping. Then, with a resurgence of the Taliban in the south early this summer, it looked more like combat, but still, combat in a war that could be won locally. All we had to do, it seemed, was to pacify southern Afghanistan up to the southern border with Pakistan. The problem is that there isn't any southern border with Pakistan. And it's from that area in the south that most of the Taliban are coming in. It's a part of Pakistan called Baluchistan, a place with a lot of resources for insurgents, a rugged, isolated region where Pakistan doesn't have a lot of control. The southern border between Pakistan and Afghanistan was scratched out through tribal lands by the British in 1893 and named the Durand line. When Pakistan got its independence from Britain in 1948, Baluchistan also wanted independence. Baluchis considered themselves a single people divided between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But Pakistan took control and put down several Baluchistan rebellions. In the 1980s, Pakistani Intelligence found restive Baluchistan useful as a base from which to help the Taliban throw the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Then, in 1993, the Durand line "lapsed." Pakistan moved Pashtun tribesmen into the borderless area to form a bulwark between separatist Baluchistan and Afghanistan. But the Pashtuns, instead of forming a border, have made a conduit between the two regions for Taliban recruits and the heroin traffic that supports them. To make matters worse, Pakistan's ISI, the intelligence arm that helped the Taliban against the Soviets, may have gone back to helping them again — this time against the Coalition. Baluchi separatists have little interest in helping the Pakistani army to assert itself and secure the border. Conversely, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is more interested in dealing with Baluchi separatism than he is in the added burden of clearing out the Taliban. As a consequence, southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan are, for all practical purposes, a single "nation" neither under the control of Kabul nor of Islamabad. The Taliban gets support from local tribes for whom Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, is too far away to be of any benefit; tribes whose links of trade, locality and culture are with Baluchistan. Baluchistan is also home to poverty, radical Islam, Madrassa schools, drug trafficking and 231,000 Afghan refugees, all of which supplies the Taliban. What's more, the smuggling routes, both for drugs and Islamist guerrillas, run from Pakistan through Baluchistan and neighbouring Iran to Iraq. There couldn't be a better expression of the area's effective autonomy than the attendance, not long ago, of six Baluchistan politicians at the funeral of a Taliban commander. Now, Canadian troops sit at the heart of the problem. Helmand province to the west, where the British are stationed, and Kandahar Province in the south-centre, where the Canadians have their base, both border on Baluchistan. A single road runs from Quetta, Baluchistan's capital, north to Kandahar, where it joins an east-west road that runs from Kabul in the East to Herat in the west. The Canadians have to defend Kandahar, which, if captured, would open the way for the Taliban to Herat and Kabul. And like the rest of the NATO and Afghan forces, they have to win over local sympathies, bring in the infrastructure that will link the area to Kabul and win Afghan farmers away from growing the heroin used to fund the Taliban. They have to do all this in the face of an enemy backed by the bottomless resource of Baluchistan. As long as we don't mention Baluchistan, our victories over the Taliban look noble, our casualties the price for ground gained, the Taliban's more numerous casualties the sign of a desperate and foolhardy enemy. But the Taliban don't care a lot about taking casualties. They care mostly about wearing down NATO's morale and making reconstruction costly and hopeless. Supply from Baluchistan is allowing them to fight that very war of attrition at any cost. It follows that the war in Afghanistan must be recognized as a geopolitical problem and not simply a military problem. And unless the international community persuades Pakistan to control Baluchistan, there is little hope of depriving the Taliban and its cousin, Al Qaeda, of a base. Not to mention, of rescuing Afghanistan itself. |
| Posted by:john |
| #5 J: Musharraf and the Pak military will not close them down. They are funded by the ISI and trained by Pak army officers masquerading as Taliban. My feeling is that the Pak government has established red lines beyond which the jihadis aren't allowed to cross - post 9/11, and the consequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, i.e. future attacks against the US can't be of the same scale. This is the meaning of Pak cooperation with the West over the airline plots. Pakistan feared major American military retaliation. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-08-11 22:56 |
| #4 6, this is actual Pak military strategy From an article: The concept of the 'strategic depth' doctrine is not new: it was first articulated by the army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg and tried out in the high-profile Zarb-I-Momin military exercise in 1989-90. Simply put, the doctrine calls for a dispersal of Pakistan's military assets in Afghanistan beyond the Durand Line and well beyond the current offensive capabilities of the Indian military. This would ensure the protection of Pakistan's military hardware. However, to be really effective the doctrine calls for Pakistan having the ability to field these assets at a time and place of its choosing, which in turn requires not just neutralareas around the Durand Line but Pakistan-dominated areas well within Afghanistan. |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-11 19:05 |
| #3 John when you talk about "strategic depth" what do you mean? An ally? Maneuvering room? It seems like Afghanistan is on the wrong side of Pakistan for good strategic depth. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-08-11 18:59 |
| #2 John! you |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-08-11 17:54 |
| #1 Pakistan still hopes to have Afghanistan as its strategic depth, for a war with India. It is not in its interests for NATO to succeed and Afghanistan become a strong, stable nation. The jihadi camps are operating to provide fighters for the wars in both Afghanistan and Indian Kashmir. Musharraf and the Pak military will not close them down. They are funded by the ISI and trained by Pak army officers masquerading as Taliban. |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-11 17:49 |