For thousands of years, life in Afghanistan flourished. Geography dictated lifestyles with vast valleys and barren stretches, grouping tribes with different takes on living. The imposition of modern social constructs started with this collection of tribal identities being defined in the boundary of the nation-state of Afghanistan. Empires thereafter tried their best to ‘manage’ this landlocked place, only to add entropy and leave. Today, the world is live-viewing a human calamity with the Afghans having the illusion of freedom as a choice.
In a very cold and callous way, countries are doing in / for Afghanistan whatever is necessary (for them). It may be an over-simplification, but this simple statement can be injected with reality when we start defining ‘necessary’. Certainly, Peru is not in the field, but the customary suspects of the ‘perpetual great game’, are. The US, et al left because they did not want to focus on winning a game that will soon become irrelevant to domestic politics. Russia played the silent watch game, waiting for someone to remove them from the unwanted position of the last empire buried in Afghanistan. Pakistan gained from war profiteering in its Strategic Depth & its master China is now looking at an unavoidable involvement, even if just to prove that it is a superpower.
It seems to be a checklist of superpower-ship; amassed wealth, powerful military, interventionist policies & involvement in Afghanistan. The Chinese hope not to repeat the mistakes of the Greeks, the Mongols, the British, the Soviets, and finally the Americans and their allies, but new mistakes will still be mistakes. If Afghanistan sinks into chaos, it could become a serious obstacle on the way to a stable and secure "Silk Road", China’s global infrastructure development strategy. Beyond serving as a sanctuary for anti-Western terrorists, unruly Muslim fundamentalists in power in Kabul might be eager to support the Uighur cause in China.
Stakeholders like United States, China, India, and Russia articulate two interests that justify allocating resources to stabilize Afghanistan:
• Preventing terrorist groups from establishing secure bases
• Promoting the economic rise of continental South Asia by securing investments in connectivity and integrating Afghanistan into those networks. (BRI, Rare-earths etc)
The best way to realize both of these objectives is to establish an effective state in Afghanistan, which raises the question of who will build it, pay for it, and fight for it. Taliban doesn’t seem to emerge as an answer to these questions. Even historically, No Afghan ruler or government has been able to build and sustain a state within its territory using solely domestic resources. The presence of foreign donors or security providers, as well as economic cooperation with some neighbours, can threaten other regional players. While the stabilization of Afghanistan produces a partial public good for the international community, the actors who establish such stability eventually exploit the position they acquire in their own interest. Both the Soviets in the 1980s and the US since 2001 intended to “stabilize” Afghanistan in ways consistent with their interests. But rivals and adversaries such as Pakistan and Iran, the United States (against the Soviets), China (likewise), and Russia (versus the United States), perceived their efforts as threatening, even when those states also benefited from the limited stability imposed by the foreign presence.
Given Afghanistan’s economic and demographic profile as well as its linguistic, religious, ethnic, and economic links to neighbouring countries, virtually any neighbour or great power can destabilize the country at minimal cost by offering benefits to clients willing to fight. So how do you find common ground when the vector sum of individual interests is zero? Should the world let the Afghans find their path?
It is too early to conclude the analysis. For now, away from the news, one might like to focus on what is ‘not’ being said on Afghanistan:
• China’s diplomatic dealings with Taliban
• Race for the Lithium deposits
• How the Taliban allowed all western (enemy) military personnel to leave, unharmed.
• Should UNAMA now consider peacekeeping
• Indo-Afghanistan trade through Chabahar
• Will the Taliban remain contended with Afghanistan or will they……
And finally, Pakistan. What new play does that bewilderment of a nation have to ensure that it continues to extort rent threatening its own collapse?
