Pakistan: Now or Never?

Beneath the radar, a Russia-Pakistan entente takes shape

One of the early calls that Vladimir Putin took following his expected victory in the Russian presidential election last weekend was from Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. He congratulated Putin on his success and invited him to visit Islamabad in September which the Russian leader accepted, according to newspaper reports citing an official statement.

It would be the first visit by a Russian head of state to Pakistan which stood on the other side of the Cold War, peaking in its emergence as the staging ground for the U.S. campaign  to defeat the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. It’s now again the frontline state in America’s war against Islamist militants in Afghanistan, but it is a far more conflicted partner than those days of war against the godless communists. So fraught and uncertain is the nature of the relationship with the United States that Pakistan has sought to deepen ties with long-time ally China, but also Russia, the other great power in a dangerously unstable neighbourhood.

Last year Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari made the first official visit to Russia by a Pakistani  head of state in 37 years after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s trip to Moscow. The visit capped a series of  exchanges including on the sidelines of a four-way summit that Russia has promoted involving Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, besides Moscow, to discuss regional security. Zardari and outgoing President Dmitri Medvedev have met six times in the past three years, according to a count by an Indian security affairs expert, and last month Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was in  Moscow negotiating an  agreement to guide futue ties including Russian investment  in the Pakistani economy.

There is always a risk of reading too much into bilateral  exchanges that you would expect between two major countries, both nuclear powers with shared interests in the region. Visits alone don’t transform ties, and especially ones with a troubled history behind them. And then there is India to be factored in, both for Russia and Pakistan.  Moscow  has long stood in India’s corner from  the days of the Cold War to its role as a top weapons supplier to the Indian military, still ahead of the Israelis fast clawing their way into one of the world’s most lucrative arms markets.A nuclear-powered submarine has just sailed from Russia to be inducted into the Indian navy - a force-multiplier in the military with the sub’s ability to stay beneath waters long and deep and far from home.

And while Islamabad and Moscow are planning a first visit this year, India and Moscow have long held summits each year alternating in the two capitals. Indeed the Hindu quoted Putin as saying last month that Russia was engaging India “full thrust” when a questioner said Russia must engage powers such as India, China and Iran to advance its interests.

But the stepped up Russia-Pakistan diplomacy suggests a thawing of ties at the very least. And at another level, by raising the quality and quantity of these exchanges, is Russia signalling it will pursue a multi-vectored policy in a fast changing South Asia ? Tanvir Ahmad Khan, a former Pakistani foreign secretary who was also once the country’s ambassador to Moscow, says the two countries are on the verge of ending a “long history of estrangement” and that two factors have led to this landmark development. One is that there is now a national consensus in Pakistan to engage Russia earnestly. And two, “Vladimir Putin’s Russia has read the regional and global scene afresh and recognised Pakistan role as a factor of peace and stability.”

Both Pakistan and India, the two big actors in South Asia,  look a lot different today. Pakistan’s ties with the United States have soured so much that it can longer be considered be an ally, ready to do its bidding as in the proxy war against the Red Army in Afghanistan. And India’s ties with the United States, on the other hand, have been transformed, with Washington virtually legitimising it as the world’s sixth nuclear weapon state, something that even Russia never went as far to support during all the years as close allies.

The missile shield and the “grand bargain” on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Back in 2008, even before Barack Obama was elected, Washington pundits were urging him to adopt a new regional approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan involving Russia, India, China, Saudi Arabia and even Iran. The basic argument was that more troops alone would not solve the problems, and that the new U.S administration needed to subsume other foreign policy goals to the interests of winning a regional consensus on stabilising Afghanistan.

It would be simplistic to suggest that the Obama administration’s decision to cancel plans to build a missile-shield in eastern Europe was motivated purely — or even primarily — by a need to seek Russian help in Afghanistan. But it certainly serves as a powerful reminder about how far that need to seek a “grand bargain” on Afghanistan may be reshaping and influencing policy decisions around the world.

“Securing Afghanistan and its region will require an international presence for many years, but only a regional diplomatic initiative that creates a consensus to place stabilizing Afghanistan ahead of other objectives could make a long-term international deployment possible,” Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid argued in their much-cited 2008 policy paper titled “From Great Game to Grand Bargain”. (pdf document).

Many of those arguments reappeared in a more recent report by the Asia Society (pdf document) — formerly chaired by U.S special envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke – so they are worth studying closely.

The ideas were ambitious and far-reaching, from remapping relations between Russia and the United States, prodding India and Pakistan towards a peace deal on Kashmir, seeking help from Iran and drawing in China and Saudi Arabia.  Some of those ideas were blown off course by the financial crisis, by the row in Iran over its disputed election, and by last November’s attack on Mumbai which undermined U.S. attempts to steer India and Pakistan towards a peace deal.

And recently, they had been almost completely drowned by the media focus on military tactics and the merits of sending more troops to Afghanistan. With the U.S. decision to cancel the missile shield, one of those ideas — about seeking Russian help in Afghanistan — may have finally managed to break above the surface again.

In the case of Russia, the question was always about what price the United States was willing to pay to win Moscow’s help in Afghanistan, possibly through less ardent support for NATO aspirants Ukraine and Georgia and a review of the missile shield due to be set up in the Czech Republic and Poland.

Obama says not seeking military bases in Afghanistan

When President Barack Obama unveiled his plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, he promised to involve other countries with a stake in the region, including the Central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran; Russia, India and China. But a major sticking point in enlisting regional support has been distrust over the United States’ long-term intentions for Afghanistan.  Washington has never been able to shake off suspicions that it is using its battle against the Taliban and al Qaeda to establish a permanent military presence in the region. 

In that context, Obama’s statement during his speech in Cairo that the United States is not seeking to set up permanent military bases in Afghanistan is rather interesting:

“Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.”

It will be worth watching to see whether the Obama administration is able to build on this to win more regional support for its policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  But at the same time, it has to avoid feeding Pakistani fears that the United States might one day abruptly leave the region, just as it did when the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. 

(Photo: Obama speaks at Cairo University/Goran Tomasevic)

(For Reuters analyses of Obama’s speech in relation to the Middle East, please see here and here).

Of Afghanistan and backpacks

According to George Friedman from the Stratfor intelligence group the United States should forget the idea of sending more troops to Afghanistan and concentrate instead on covert operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

As has become increasingly clear, the administration of President Barack Obama faces a hard time raising its troop presence in Afghanistan without either relying on precarious supply lines through Pakistan or making political compromises with Russia to win its support for using alternative routes through Central Asia.

“So how can Mr. Obama reconcile the two goals of strengthening the American presence in Afghanistan while curbing Russian expansionism?” asks Friedman. “The answer is to rely less on troops, and more on covert operations like the CIA. Covert operators are far more useful for the actual war that we are fighting (and they can carry their supplies on their backs). The primary American interest in Afghanistan, after all, is preventing terrorist groups from using it as a base for training and planning major attacks. Increasing the number of conventional troops will not help with this mission.”

His article struck me not so much for the suggestion about the need for covert operations. One wonders whether Friedman has ever lived in a small-town environment where you can barely open a curtain without being noticed let alone carry a backpack with satellite phone and whatever other equipment you might need to hunt down equally sophisticated militant groups who will have made a point of recruiting intelligence from the local population.

What is interesting is his assertion that sending more troops is not the answer.

There are a few articles out there suggesting that Afghanistan could be Obama’s Vietnam, including from U.S. analysts Juan Cole and Norman Solomon.  But such suggestions are usually dismissed as the talk of the American left, and most of the discussion in Washington seems to be more about the fine details of exactly how the United States should refine its strategy in Afghanistan to focus on limited, achievable goals rather than a grander vision of a tolerant pluralistic democracy — while nonetheless accepting the need for more troops

Afghan supply routes face setbacks in Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan

U.S. efforts to improve supplies for its troops in Afghanistan just had a double setback after militants in northwest Pakistan severed the main supply route for western forces and Kyrgyzstan’s president said the United States must close its military base there.

Militants blew up a bridge on the Khyber Pass, cutting the supply route to western forces in Afghanistan and underscoring the need for the United States to seek alternative supply lines. The U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through Pakistan but has been looking at using other transit routes through Central Asia. Although Washington has been sketchy on the details of its plans, its Manas military airbase near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek has so far provided important logistical support for its operations in Afghanistan.  During a visit to Moscow, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced the closure of the base, opened after the 9/11 attacks.  Bakiyev made the announcement after securing a $2 billion loan and a further $150 million in aid from Russia.

So what is going on here? Is Russia taking advantage of U.S. vulnerability in Afghanistan to flex its muscles in Central Asia? Or responding to a perceived threat of U.S. expansionism in the region?

“Russia has the capability to exact a steep price for its cooperation, and it seems fairly certain that the Kremlin will strive to do just that,” he wrote. “One area in which it will likely try to exact that price is in the Caucasus and Black Sea regions, specifically in seeking NATO assurances that Georgia and Ukraine will not be offered membership in the alliance for the foreseeable future, if ever. It is a mark of the strategic malpractice of past U.S. policymakers in Central Asia and Afghanistan that Moscow now finds itself in position to potentially dictate conditions for participation in an endeavor that is clearly in Russia’s best interests.”

There are still lots of stray threads in this struggle for influence in Central Asia. Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon just reversed an earlier decision to cancel a trip to Moscow, in what was seen as an attempt to put pressure on Russia to increase financial support for Tajikistan. Meanwhile the United States is quietly rebuilding ties with Uzbekistan, despite its human rights record, according to this article in the Christian Science Monitor. Uzbekistan evicted the U.S. military in 2005 after Washington and other Western governments called for an inquiry into the reported massacre of hundreds of civilians during a protest in the city of Andizhan.

Afghanistan and the breakdown of the balance of power

Keeping track of the many countries with a stake in Afghanistan — and the shifting alliances between them — is beginning to feel awfully like one of those school history lessons when you were supposed to understand the complex and tenuous balance of power whose breakdown led to World War One.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer became the latest to call for a regional solution to Afghanistan when he said this week that the United States and its NATO allies must directly engage with Iran if they are to win the war there. “If we are going to succeed in this game, we need to be playing on the right field,” he said. “And that means a more regional approach. To my mind we need a discussion that brings in all the relevant regional players: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Russia and, yes, Iran.”

The idea of seeking Iran’s cooperation as part of a regional strategy for Afghanistan has been around for a while, as I have discussed in previous posts here, here and here. It gained currency during the U.S. presidential campaign among foreign policy analysts looking for an alternative to the policies of former president George W. Bush. But what seems to be new is a certain realpolitik creeping into the discussion after the inauguration of President Barack Obama turned a subject for debate into one of actual policy decisions.

Shi’ite Iran has reasons to cooperate with the United States over Afghanistan. It is deeply suspicious of the hardline Sunni ideology of the Taliban which regards Shi’ites as apostates. But at the same time, among the issues up for discussion is how far the United States and Iran can find common ground, given Washington’s concerns about Tehran’s nuclear programme and backing for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Then even if Washington were to find an accommodation with Iran over Afghanistan, where would Russia – one of the other regional players seen as crucial to a regional solution — fit into the picture?  According to this piece in Eurasia, Moscow might act to undermine any rapprochement between the United States and Iran, fearing this would damage its commercial interests and threaten its stranglehold on gas supplies to Europe.

The scramble for Central Asia

Central Asia is much in demand these days, whether as a transit route for U.S. and NATO supplies to Afghanistan as an alternative to Pakistan or for its rich resources, including oil and gas.

So it’s worth noting that India has been hosting Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev as its guest of honour at its Republic Day celebrations while signing a bunch of trade deals in the process. According to reports in the Indian media, including in the Business Standard, the Week and the Times of India,  India is seeking supplies of uranium for its nuclear plants and access to Kazakhstan’s oil and gas and in return would be expected to support Kakazhstan’s bid for membership of the World Trade Organisation. (India’s state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) said on Saturday it had signed a deal to explore for oil and gas in Kazakhstan.)

Before anyone gets too carried away about India stealing a march in Central Asia, this Indian website adds a note of realism: “India’s strategy towards Central Asian countries has been no different than its strategy towards African nations, and can be only summarized as ‘playing catch-up with the Chinese’,” it says. “In this new “Great Game” of the century, India is consistently assuming the role of “Johnny-come-lately” to China in Central Asia.”

That said, it still struck me as an interesting signpost in the competition between Asia and the U.S-led west for resources and influence, with Central Asia likely to become increasingly important both as a source of energy and as a supply route to Afghanistan.

The significance of this competition is unlikely to be lost on Russia which, according to this article by former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar ,could end up playing off the United States against China.  He writes that while Russia does not want to see the United States and NATO defeated in Afghanistan, nor does it want them to use Central Asian supply routes to Afghanistan as an excuse to win access to the region’s oil and gas. “Russian experts estimate that the proposed Caspian transit route could eventually become an energy transportation route in reverse direction, which would mean a strategic setback for Russia in the decade-long struggle for the region’s hydrocarbon reserves.” So as part of this complex balancing act, he says, it is looking for a bigger role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — dominated by Russia and China — in stabilising Afghanistan.

What price Russian cooperation on Afghanistan?

According to the Washington Post, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sees opportunities for the United States to cooperate with Russia on Afghanistan. The newspaper says Gates, a longtime Russia analyst during his years with the CIA, sees Moscow as less of a threat than do many inside and outside the U.S. military establishment. ”Russia is very worried about the drugs coming out of Afghanistan and has been supportive in terms of providing alternative routes for Europeans in particular to get equipment and supplies into Afghanistan,” it quoted him as saying.

The story is interesting in the context of the United States searching for new supply lines through Central Asia into Afghanistan as an alternative to Pakistan before it sends in thousands more troops.  “The plan to open new paths through Central Asia reflects an American-led effort to seek out a more reliable alternative to the route from Pakistan through the strategic Khyber Pass,” the New York Times said.

It quoted U.S. officials as saying that delicate negotiations were under way not only with the Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan but also with Russia, to work out the details of new supply routes. “The talks show the continued importance of American and NATO cooperation with the Kremlin, despite lingering tension over the war between Russia and Georgia in August.”

In an editorial, the International Herald Tribune picked up the same theme, saying that the passage from Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass, had become too dangerous. “Despite the tension in U.S.-Russian relations since the war in Georgia last August, Russian officials are saying openly that they share with NATO a strategic interest in helping protect Afghanistan from the Taliban. Toward that end, Russian and NATO representatives have been discussing the transport of NATO supplies to Afghanistan through Russia’s airspace.”

The question of how far Russia and the United States will cooperate on Afghanistan could have a major influence on both Pakistan and India.  Going back to the days of the Soviet occupation, Pakistan’s relationship with the United States has been driven by its status as a frontline state in wars in Afghanistan. India in turn resents Pakistan’s pivotal role in the Afghan campaign, fearing this might undermine its efforts to convince the United States to lean on Islamabad to crack down on militants it blames for the Mumbai attacks.

India – aiming for diplomatic encirclement of Pakistan?

India is piling on the diplomatic pressure to convince the international community to lean on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militants blamed by New Delhi for the Mumbai attacks.

According to the Times of India, “India has made it clear to the U.S. and Iran as well as Pakistan’s key allies, China and Saudi Arabia, that they need to do more to use their clout to pressure Pakistan into acting…” The Press Trust of India (PTI), quoted by The Hindu, said India had used a visit by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal to Delhi to drive home the same message.

As discussed previously on this blog, in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, India’s response was to look to the United States to put pressure on Pakistan. It also appears to have won some support from Russia, whose officials said publicly that the attacks were funded by Dawood Ibrahim, an underworld don who India says lives in Pakistan. China, Pakistan’s traditional ally, supported the United Nations Security Council in  blacklisting the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity accused of being a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba.  China’s Foreign Minister has also telephoned his counterparts in India and Pakistan urging dialogue, according to Xinhua. 

And to complete the tour of the permanent members of the Security Council, Britain blamed Pakistan-based militants for the Mumbai attacks, while France has also called on Pakistan to take action.

That’s a fairly broad consensus in favour of diplomatic pressure. There certainly seem to be more players more visibly involved than in 2001/2002 when India and Pakistan came to the brink of war over an attack on the Indian parliament that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants. You might therefore be tempted to argue that the diplomatic approach is working — and as long as this stands a chance, the prospects of military escalation are slim.

So what is going wrong? Despite the flurry of diplomatic activity, the military tensions are rising.  Pakistan has cancelled army leave and redeployed troops.  The Washington Post said thousands of troops were being redeployed from the Afghan border to the border with India.

Russia points to Dawood Ibrahim in Mumbai attacks

Indian newspapers are reporting that Russian intelligence says underworld don Dawood Ibrahim – an Indian national who India believes is living in Karachi in Pakistan — was involved in the Mumbai attacks.

The Indian Express quotes Russia’s federal anti-narcotics service director Viktor Ivanov as saying that Moscow believes that Dawood’s drug network, which runs through Afghanistan, was used to finance the attacks. Ivanov said these were a “burning example” of how the illegal drug trafficking network was used for carrying out militant attacks, the paper said, citing an interview in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

The stories caught my eye not just because of the alleged link to Ibrahim, but because it highlights the extent to which Russian and Indian intelligence may be cooperating over Mumbai and on the wider issues over Afghanistan and the heroin trade. (A colleague in our Moscow bureau tells me that Ivanov is close to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and has good connections in the Russian intelligence community.)

“The gathered inputs testify that regional drug baron Dawood Ibrahim had provided his logistics network for preparing and carrying out the Mumbai terror attacks,” the Asian Age quoted Ivanov as saying. “The super profits of the narco-mafia through Afghan heroin trafficking have become a powerful source of financing organised crime and terrorist networks, destabilising the political systems, including in Central Asia and the Caucasus.”

The Times of India also quoted the special representative of the Russian president for international co-operation in the fight against terrorism, Anatoly Safonov, as saying the drug network was a joint problem for India and Russia.

Pakistan has historic reasons to fear any strengthening of Indian-Russian cooperation in Afghanistan. India and Russia both supported Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance when it was opposition to the country’s Pakistan-backed Taliban rulers, before they were thrown out by the U.S.-led invasion following 9/11.  Their close relationship during the Cold War left Pakistan feeling particularly vulnerable during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 and 1989, when it faced India on its eastern border and Russian troops on its western border.