The Aug 2021 videos of American troops, struck at Kabul airport, Afghanistan (Af), invited comparisons with the photos of Americans atop their embassy, at
Saigon, in April 1975, desperately awaiting evacuation. Captions proclaimed a
Vietnam redux with dire predictions, warning of the end of the Unites States’ (US)
world domination. Snatching Af from the Taliban, in 2001 & tamely handing over
the territory in 2021, after spending over $1 Trillion, losing 2442 soldiers
& 3846 private contractors & obligation of lifetime care to over 20,000
military veterans, rightfully, invokes ridicule.
Obituaries
of the US, as a superpower, though, are vastly exaggerated. It must be
remembered that the US, quickly recovered from its ignominious exit from Vietnam,
in 1975, & intervened in Afghanistan, by 1980, training the Mujahedeen, to
counter the Soviet invasion, helping breakup its ideological adversary, the
USSR, leading to the onset of the unipolar world order. Don’t bet against the
US repeating the act.
Against
the aforementioned background, there are 2 intriguing questions:
(1)Has
the US, exited Afghanistan, to concentrate on its main challenger China, in the
Indo-Pacific?
(2)Does
the US, deliberately, want a civil war in Af to create nuisance to its
strategic competitors – Russia & China – in their backyard?
The US Pivot
The President
of the US (POTUS), Biden’s statement, on 16th August, provides some
clues on American strategy. He clarified ”our mission should be narrowly
focussed on counterterrorism – not counterinsurgency & nation building”.
Emphasizing that degrading al Qaeda & preventing the use of Af as a base
for terror activity & hunting down the culprit of 9/11 Osama Bin Laden were
objectives achieved a “decade ago” he wanted that the US to “focus on the
threats we face today in 2021 – not yesterday’s threats. And our true strategic
competitors – China & Russia – would love nothing more than the US to
continue funnel billions of dollars in resources & attention in stabilizing
Af indefinitely.”
As per
Jeffrey Sachs, Professor Colombia University, & President of UN Sustainable
Development Solutions Network, the US, between 2001-21, invested $946 billion
($47 billion per annum) - $816 billion for US troops, $83 billion to Afghan
Security forces, $10 billion on drug interdiction operations, $15 billion on US
agencies operating in Afghanistan leaving a meagre $21 billion ($1 billion per
annum) in ‘economic support” funding. He argues for funding healthcare,
education, nutrition etc. ‘together with other nations through institutions
like the Asian Development bank”. The inference from the data points indicates that
over 98% of the US spends went to its own Military industrial complex which it
can redeploy into the Indo-Pacific to contain China; it can continue
spending the $1 billion as “economic support” to Af. Unsurprisingly, the
Taliban aware of such a reality are keen to woo China to write the cheques.
US plan to encourage instability in Central
Asia & trap Russia & China
My
hypothesis is borne out by the following sequence of events:
Dec 28th 2014: US & North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formally end combat operations in Af & reduce force size to 13000 - to train Afghan troops.
Sept 2018: US appoints
an experienced hand as Special representative for Afghan reconciliation; Zalmay
Khalilzad, an ethnic Pashtun - the largest ethnic group in Af - earlier worked
as ambassador to Af (2004-05), Iraq(2005-07) – during which time he helped
craft their constitution & conduct elections - & UN(2007-09).
Oct 2018: Abdul Ghani Barader, a
co-founder of the Taliban, who was jailed by Pakistan, since 2010, for being in
touch with Af President Hamid Karzai (2002-14) & broaching rapprochement
was released at US insistence He led the Taliban peace talks with US at Doha,
Qatar.
Oct 2020: US removes KTIM (East
Turkistan Islamic Movement) from the list of “Terrorist organizations’”, after
nearly 2 decades, to weaken China’s brutal crackdown in Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous region. While China wants the Taliban to eliminate the ETIM & is
offering investment via the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) as a carrot, it
will not be surprising if the US wills otherwise.
July 2021: US forces exit Bagram
Air base – their nerve centre – overnight without even informing the Afghan
counterparts.
Aug 2021: US completes withdrawal from Af but leaves behind 200
aeroplanes & helicopters, 75000 vehicles including Humvees, 6 lakh small
arms which now lies in Taliban hands. 46 Afghan aircrafts scrambled into
neighbouring Uzbekistan, escaping the Taliban who now want them back while the US has
not cared to offer them immigration support. US had frozen $9.5 billion of overseas
assets of the Afghan central bank though & thus continues to hold
leverage on the regime.
In the UN
Security Council meeting on 30/8/21, Russia & China abstained from the vote
on resolution 2593, since the joint Sino-Russian proposal to brand some
organizations like ETIM as terrorist organizations was not accepted. The “chaos in Af is a
direct result of the hasty withdrawal of troops” China averred.
The
abrupt US withdrawal, chillingly, appears to have been copied from the playbook of the
British, who left India, in 1947, preponing their handover date, creating
avoidable fissures, in the sub- continent, that remain to this day. It appears
that the US wants a volatile Af with its consequent tremors in other Central
Asian republics to trap their strategic competitors – Russia & China. Games that great powers play!!
Why did the Afghan forces fall like a pack of
cards?
It was
indeed surprising how a 3 lakh strong Afghan National Army (ANA) with a
supporting air force fell against a 75000 strong Taliban without one. Biden
conceded that ‘this did unfold more quickly than we anticipated. The Afghan
military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. Af political leaders
gave up & fled the country”.
India too
appeared to be caught unawares as it was, perhaps, betting that the Ashraf
Ghani regime shall survive, for some more time, if not for 3 years like the Najibullah
did, post the Soviet retreat in 1989.
Strategic
analyst, Ajai Shukla, with the Business Standard, has an interesting analysis
on the ANA retreat. He alludes to the Afghani tradition of settlements &
payoffs before the battle & argues that it is based on the principle of
“survival” & not “cowardice” – as “there is no glory in fighting to the last
man, or even to the point of dissipating one’s strength to the point where the
next engagement is jeopardised. Centuries of hard experience in Af has proved
that a defeated commander or one whose army has suffered heavy losses badly
loses credibility. Commanders avoid grave attrition, negotiating with the enemy
or defecting along with troops live to fight another day & avoid damage to
their reputation.”
He adds
that the ANA is not fighting hard against the Taliban as they realize that the
wind had shifted & the eventual outcome of battle would be to their
detriment & money has changed hands. He shares his experience, as a
reporter, in 2001, attending a negotiation between the Northern alliance
commander & a Taliban commander with the latter agreeing to withdrew, a few
hours before the former’s attack & it played out as per the plan. He
predicts that it could very well be the same pragmatic Taliban militiamen who
retook Kabul lately.
In
popular folklore Afghans are “brave & proud” people while foreigners - are “treacherous
meddlers not to be trusted”. In the Afghan worldview, negotiating a defection
with another Afghan faction is usually permissible, but capitulating to a
foreigner bears the stigma of disgrace. That he explains is the reason why
generals like Rashid Dustum have defected more than once between various afghan
factions without loss of reputation.
Finally, all bets are off when Afghan fighters smell victory. That explains the Taliban entering Kabul on 15th
Aug despite promises to the contrary just as the Northern alliance entered
Kabul, in Nov 2001, despite promises to the US not to enter Kabul until it
approves. Capturing Af seat of power would be far more useful than a reputation
for sticking to promises he concludes.
Conclusion:
President
Biden has conceded that withdrawal from Af has been “hard & messy’ &
“far from perfect”. Surely, they would have avoided the humiliation of Taliban
taking over Kabul & Ashraf Ghani
taking flight even while their forces were yet to withdraw from Af, had they
anticipated it. Furthermore, he added that the US has developed “over the horizon
capability” indicating that the US plans to achieve its counterterrorism
objectives, henceforth, without boots on the ground. The way forward was
elucidated thus: “Human rights must be the centre of our foreign policy”
achieved “not through endless military deployments” but with “diplomacy, our
economic tools & rallying the world to join us”. The obituary of the US as
a superpower is thus premature.
The US
appears keen to pivot to the Indo-Pacific to take on its new challenger –
China. Leaving Af in a mess, just as the British did India, in 1947, could be a
strategy to create a volatile Central Asia – forcing its strategic competitors
- China & Russia - to be busy dousing flames in their backyard, controlling
warring factions, preventing terror & drug trade. By removing the ETIM,
from the list of terror organizations, in Oct 2020, US appears to have
expressed its intentions to support an insurrection in Xinjiang, China. Will
China perish playing the great game in the “graveyard of empires” like its
predecessors – the British, Soviets & recently the US or will it emerge
with a new successful template to manage the region? Only time will tell.
