Af-Pak -> Pak-Af Watch

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 05 Jul 2012 04:57

Ramana ji, what's your take on whether Pakhtuns can be convinced with the idea of an independent Afghanistan under Karzai? Based on the topography it feels like the best we can hope for is independent northern state - with Tajik, hazaras on one side. Rest on the other.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 05 Jul 2012 06:20

Currently my thinking is that Afghanistan is not a natural state. It was formed by Ahmed Shah Abdali/Durrani by melding pieces of Persia and Mughal India with parts of Tajik and Uzbek. If the Westphalian state demand nation-states then you can see Afghanistan with its many nations can't survive.
One can argue how to make it a state of many nations like India? The question then arises as to what is Afghanistaniyat or who is an Afghan? King Zahir Shah and his uncle Daoud were working on creating Afghanistaniyat but got derailed being caught between two stools (super powers assisted by a mendacious not to mention rapacious neighbor).

Karzai might pull off Afghanistaniyat but the prospects look dim as US is not supporting him. They constantly undermine his stature for their short term objectives of which they themselves are not sure.

Assuming that he can't pull the project thru, then Afghanistan fractures into greater Paktunistan or Pathanland for Pathans and the rest of the Northern areas revert to the neighbors. A Northern Areas state will not be viable and will be in constant threat from new Pakhtunistan. Being merged with Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan could lead to some stability.

As to your question if Pashtuns can be convinced with idea of independent Afghanistan under Karazi, yes if the US drops their double dealing support to TSP. Otherwise no as the Pashtuns realize Karzai doesnt have gora/white/angrez support.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 06 Jul 2012 04:48

Thanks for the food for thought. Creating a Taliban controlled southern Afghanistan - that would still not create a Pakhtunistan ? Taliban is used to suppress the idea right?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 06 Jul 2012 05:06

ramana wrote:
As to your question if Pashtuns can be convinced with idea of independent Afghanistan under Karazi, yes if the US drops their double dealing support to TSP. Otherwise no as the Pashtuns realize Karzai doesnt have gora/white/angrez support.

Generally agree. A point to consider is the Pashtuns will not let go of Kabul. Kabul is the nerve center for the north. Control of Kabul demands control of the Tajik areas. Pashtuns will not let go without a fight.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Jul 2012 09:14

ShyamD, Thanks for seeking the roots of the pashtun problem.

Will answer in a little while.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 07 Jul 2012 20:34

^^ Thanks

India seeks better physical links with Central Asia

Jayanth Jacob, Hindustan Times
Dushanbe (Tajikistan), July 04, 2012

After years of neglect, India is now gathering pace to increase its commercial and strategic ties with Central Asia. While Iran figures prominently in New Delhi’s ‘connect Central Asia’ policy, Afghanistan is also factored into the strategic calculus as it lays out plans to mark the 20th
anniversary of diplomatic ties with countries in the region.

“As this region undergoes rapid transformation, a time has come for us to evolve calibrated and coordinated responses in our engagement with each of the countries as well as the region to further secure our core national interests”, external affairs minister SM Krishna told Indian ambassadors there.

The minister urged the envoys to convert the “enormous goodwill” that exists for India “into a tangible economic and strategic advantage.”

“To overcome the connectivity problems, be it land or sea, efforts are underway to re-energise alternate sea and land routes through Iran,” the minister said.

Iran holds key to India’s plans for connecting to Afghanistan and Central Asia. India and Iran are closely working on the issue of connectivity. India has already kick started an ambitious north-south corridor that connects India’s west coast to Bandar Abbas in Iran to the border of Azerbaijan onwards to Kazakhstan, that will lead up to Russia.

Afghanistan endgame leads to Tajik gambit

With the end game in Afghanistan at sight, India is stepping up its engagements with central Asian countries, the key neighbours of the strife-torn country.

India’s external affairs minister SM Krishna arrived in the capital of Tajikistan on Monday ahead of all major donor countries get down to discuss their future commitments to Afghanistan on July 8.

Tajikistan a key and strategically located neighour of Afghanistan, has remained on the same page with India on Afghanistan. Both the countries also supported the Northern Alliance in their fight against the Taliban regime. More importantly, India using the Ayni airbase in Tajikistan gives an impetus to the growing strategic ties between the two countries.

What will also top the agenda at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan that Krishna will be attending is the international commitment to Afghan National Security Forces once the western forces exit most of their responsibilities.

New Delhi has been maintaining that whatever happens in Afghanistan is of direct national security implication for India. India also visualises the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) keeping Afghanistan as a top priority issue once the NATO forces withdraw from there. And the central Asian countries have a decisive role in the grouping.

Indian officials said that India will be giving special attention the Central Asian countries. Despite having robust ties with most of the countries in the area the trade with the region is pegged at 500 million US$, which is much beyond the potential.

“Energy, economy and counter terrorism are the three areas of our vital cooperation”, an official remarked. Besides his discussions with the Afghanistan leadership, Krishna will also meet with all Indian ambassadors in the Eurasian region. India is also looking the region for its energy purposes. The Chinese have a keen interest in the region, especially in Turkmenistan. The Chinese also have also ambitious railway plans for the region. While India is keenly working on the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan that passes through Afghanistan and Pakistan, it wants to firm up its energy ties with other countries in the region as well.

India-Tajikistan discuss Afghanistan, counter-terrorism

July 03, 2012 01:59 IST

Afghanistan was the focus of the high-level talks held between India [ Images ] and Tajikistan, but the host country shied away from the Ayni air base issue, says Sheela Bhatt.

Foreign Minister S M Krishna [ Images ], who is on a two-day visit to Tajikistan, and his counterpart Hamrokhon Zarifi discussed issues of mutual interest such as Afghanistan, with which Tajikistan shares over 1,400 km of border.

In the talks that were extended by a day, both sides finalised the September visit of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon to New Delhi [ Images ].

While talking to the media, an Indian ministry official said that Zarifi told Krishna about what his country is doing to improve bilateral co-operation with Afghanistan. Both sides discussed the mutual perception of the region and the 'ethnic issue'.

Zarifi also talked about India and Tajikistan's old cultural ties. Tajikistan is looking forward to India's help in developing the hydropower sector. The Tajik side told India that hydropower, road building and communications are three sectors where Tajiks are talking with their Afghan counterparts.

India can help in providing logistical and technical support in the region in these three sectors.

Both sides also discussed United Nations reforms and the ways to co-operate in global issues.

Krishna also talked about counter-terrorism mechanism. Both sides are committed to enhance the counterterrorism measures to improve security.

In an interesting business development, both sides discussed about the possibility of mining gold and silver in Tajikistan.

The Ayni air base issue has remained under shadow, and on Monday, the Tajik foreign minister avoided talking about it. India, in an exceptional event, has built the air base near Dushanbe at a cost of $70 million.

More than 150 India Air Force pilots were brought to Dushanbe to execute the project. It was completed two years ago. In fact, few staffers of Indian Air force have stayed back to look after the logistics.

This is a rare case where Indian defence forces are present outside the country without a UN cover. But, both sides are playing it down.

On one hand, Tajikistan is taking care of Pakistan's sensitivities, and on the other hand, the Russians are pressing Tajiks to let them have the air base where they would like to park their Sukhoi fighters. Tajikistan has not taken the final decision on it.

Meanwhile, India's low-key and silent presence remains at Ayni without any fighter jets.

Tajikistan is unable to say 'no' to Russia [ Images ]; the power that dominates the region, and is not saying 'yes' to India to use Ayni air base to kick start its plans in the central Asian region.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Jul 2012 06:56

ramana wrote:ShyamD, Thanks for seeking the roots of the pashtun problem.

Will answer in a little while.

If we look back in history, Afghanistan or Gandhar was and is a frontier region of the Ganga Valley. The presence of Indus Valley clouds the picture into thinking that Gandhar is the forntier of Indus Valley aka Punjab.

But if we reflect IVC is a near frontier of Ganga Valley while Gandhar is not too far frontier.

Throughout history, Gandhar was a Janus faced region(or Ghanda Berunda Bird) looking towards West Asia(Persia) and Central Asia(Turkestan, Mongolia etc) on one head and the other gazing towards Indus Valley and beyond to Ganga Valley.

The frontier of Ganga Valley powers was Gandhara and beyond till Arrat (Herat)
Even Ashoka came to power with the help of Gandhar.
Indo Greeks or Bactrian kings came till Mathura.
The Trukish invasions under Ghazni and Ghori were another Eastward foray.
Timurlane came thru the breach.
Babur came to power in India via same route.
Nadir Shah also invaded via Kandhar.
Last recorded invasion was by Ahmed Shah Abdali or Durrani.
So what happened between Babur and Ahmed Shah Durrani?

The first loss occurred in Akbar's time. In 1585, Qandhar was lost to Afghans. (Incidentally Birbal was killed in the battle).
Then in 1649 the Shah Abbas II captured Qandhar and Mughals could not take it back. Aurangazeb turned towards conquest of Deccan to consolidate the Empire.

The loss of control of the frontier was debilitating and could have led to dissolution of the empire. And this has been seen through out history.

Lose Afghanistan it will lead to loss of Dilli in greater India.

The British made Afghanistan a buffer state between British India and Tsarist Russia.
Ideally Afghanistan should be part of greater India.

Partition clouded the strategic picture for India. The historical narrative painted the invaders as coming from Afghanistan and creation of Pakistan was seen as a new buffer.

The FSU intervention and subsequent US support to jihadis has made that land a mess. The 20 years since FSU collapse have shown that Afghanistan has to turn its gaze Eastward. That is the force of history we are confronted now.

SAARC/Vaarc are to bring allow the Afghans to come back to their historical roots.

TSP wants to swallow the frontier so it can become a viable threat to Ganga Valley.

That is the historical perspective.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 08 Jul 2012 08:41

^^ Could not agree more on the perspective. Mao took the same historical perspective to ensure that Xinjiang and Tibet did not pose ingress routes for the northern hordes into China and ensured PRC dominance. They largely accomplished this except for the area North of Manchuria, which a stronger Russian empire took over (Vladivostok and surrounding areas).

Our natural borders in the NW is the Hindu Kush and the Makran coast on the sea.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 08 Jul 2012 10:10

ramana wrote:
The British made Afghanistan a buffer state between British India and Tsarist Russia.
Ideally Afghanistan should be part of greater India.

Partition clouded the strategic picture for India. The historical narrative painted the invaders as coming from Afghanistan and creation of Pakistan was seen as a new buffer.

The FSU intervention and subsequent US support to jihadis has made that land a mess. The 20 years since FSU collapse have shown that Afghanistan has to turn its gaze Eastward. That is the force of history we are confronted now.

SAARC/Vaarc are to bring allow the Afghans to come back to their historical roots.

TSP wants to swallow the frontier so it can become a viable threat to Ganga Valley.

That is the historical perspective.

Modern statecraft can take of all this problem of Kandahar being distant from Nai Dilli
New political players in Afghanistan can be educated by India and strategic connection be maintained for long term.

Modern communicatoiin and logistic can bring region closer than ever before
The distance is reduced and Afgan people will feel that they are closer to their kind of people and who would help them and stay with them. Afg is sandwiched between Iran a different Land and Pakistan - frenemy for Afghan people.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 08 Jul 2012 19:35

Great perspectives, keep em coming.

What about the current perspective - will Pakhtuns be happy with the relative autonomy they enjoy in FATA/NWFP and a Taliban controlled south Afghanistan and the use of Islam to suppress Pakhtun nationalism ?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Jul 2012 19:50

No. They will take over the Indus basin just as they did in Ghorid times.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 08 Jul 2012 20:12

^^ ramana ji, What makes you say that ? What are the factors ?

Samudragupta · Post by **Samudragupta** » 08 Jul 2012 20:16

The people living in the Indus basin themselves want to be taken over by the Pustuns.....the only difference is who will rule over the combined entity....will it from the Indus basin or from the Hindukush.....this faultline still exist....

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 08 Jul 2012 20:19

Samudragupta wrote:The people living in the Indus basin themselves want to be taken over by the Pustuns.....the only difference is who will rule over the combined entity....will it from the Indus basin or from the Hindukush.....this faultline still exist....

Modern education and statecraft can take care of this. Only by learning the past history Indians can flourish and protect themselves.

Modern education can prepare the next generation about how Pathans can be made friendly to Indian interest.
THis concept of "people living in the Indus basin themselves want to be taken over" can be erased permanently from the population. These are long term goals.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 08 Jul 2012 20:36

ShauryaT wrote:
Our natural borders in the NW is the Hindu Kush and the Makran coast on the sea.

India can compensate by creating blue water navy and also satellite states

With Blue water navy *all* the peripheral states can be controlled by India.
Also by increasing the influence by trade and investment all the near states can be made to be freindly or near neutral.

Each case is different but the historical capital of the Indian memory can be preserved for long term.
This is the Indian interest and the fundamental goal of the Indian state for the next 100 years.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 08 Jul 2012 22:45

Can you elaborate on that? People are writing after quite some thought and to respond with one liners is not proper.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 09 Jul 2012 00:23

ramana wrote:No. They will take over the Indus basin just as they did in Ghorid times.

Agree, if not on their own then through alliance of some other power in CA or Persia or even Russia. Although things are not exactly the same in modern days of nation states. Pashtuns have to either be integrated or dominated, if separate. Persia itself should be like Tibet, never really a part of India but a buffer from other civilizations. Soft power should rule over these regions.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 09 Jul 2012 05:07

P.S: ShauryaTji, this is not about you or your post.

Why is it ok for Taliban to occupy Afghanistan or Pakthunistan or Pakistan but it is not ok for India to do the same?

Why is it Ok for USA to indiscriminately bomb Af-Pak and not for India?

Will my brother who converted to Islam (willingly or not) automatically becomes my enemy and is an acceptable cannon fodder for the ideology he for infected with?

How can we, the proud Indians, think very coolly that some USA, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Taliban, KSA, turkey, non-state actors destroying our brothers across borders without any consequences, but it becomes a definite NO NO for us to do the same?

How can we, the dharmic Indians, reason that it is ok for us to focus on our materialistic progress while our neighbors go thru ideological purge and inhumane treatment by others. Is it dharmic to be a mere spectator to an Adharmic incident, provided we keep our hands clean?

How come the world, the west and the international bodies so helpless when it comes to a Rwanda or an Afghanistan but somehow become extremely powerful when Hindus Bharatiyas demonstrate an honest assertion of self-respect? Is India that week that it cannot assert its national interests? How did we do that in 1971?

Is this I want to teach my kid? That he is dharmic as long as he doesn't commit murder, even when he is a eye witness to a murder of a helpless being by a less powerful (than my kid) thug? Where is the honor in it? Where is the morality in it?

Kanishka · Post by **Kanishka** » 12 Jul 2012 06:55

Taliban commander: We can’t win Afghanistan war

KABUL: One of the most senior Taliban commanders has admitted that it is unlikely the insurgents can win the war in Afghanistan, according to an interview published by Britain's New Statesman magazine. The identity of the Taliban leader is not revealed but the interview was conducted by Taliban expert and author Michael Semple, who was a UN envoy to Afghanistan and is now with the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard.

"It would take some kind of divine intervention for the Taliban to win this war," the commander, who is referred to only as Mawlvi (mullah) tells Semple, according to excerpts of the interview on the magazine's website. "The Taliban capturing Kabul is a very distant prospect."

The Islamists were in power in Afghanistan from 1996 until they were ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001 for harbouring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, and have since waged an increasingly bloody insurgency.

"At least 70% of the Taliban are angry at al-Qaida," Mawlvi is quoted as saying. "Our people consider al-Qaida to be a plague that was sent down to us by the heavens. To tell the truth, I was relieved at the death of Osama.

Through his policies, he destroyed Afghanistan. If he really believed in jihad he should have gone to Saudi Arabia and done jihad there, rather than wrecking our country."

The Taliban insurgents now face the growing forces of the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai, supported by some 130,000 US-led Nato troops, who are due to withdraw by the end of 2014.

"It is in the nature of war that both sides dream of victory. But the balance of power in the Afghan conflict is obvious," says Mawlvi, who is described as one of the most senior Taliban commanders and a confidant of the movement's leadership.

"Any Taliban leader expecting to be able to capture Kabul is making a grave mistake. Nevertheless, the leadership also knows that it cannot afford to acknowledge this weakness.

To do so would undermine the morale of Taliban personnel. The leadership knows the truth — that they cannot prevail over the power they confront."

The views presented in the interview contrast strongly with the Taliban's belligerent public statements, but Mawlvi said that "for the moment, as long as (supreme leader) Mullah Omar is alive, the Taliban will be prepared to follow him in this fight".

It seems, at last, the reality is beginning to sink in.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Jul 2012 10:38

Could be psy ops.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 12 Jul 2012 22:41

Reports that US Special forces will stay in pak AF till 2017. Still no clarity on numbers that will stay.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 13 Jul 2012 04:03

Joke on Poqe

Mullah Omar can run for president:Karzai

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Thursday on Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar to give up fighting his US-backed government in return for the chance to run for president of the war-torn nation.Mullah Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader who has been on run since the United States toppled his regime in late 2001, is one of the world's most wanted men and is leading a Taliban insurgency aimed at ousting Karzai.Karzai has repeatedly called on Omar and other insurgents fighting againsthis administration to renounce violence and accept peaceful reintegration."I repeat my call on all Afghans, those who aren't the puppets of others and have (only) issues with us at home -- they're welcome for any talks," he told a news conference."can open political office for himself but he should leave the gun."He along with his friends can come and create his political party, do politics, become a candidate himself for the elections. If people voted forhim, good for him, he can take the leadership in his hand," Karzai said.The Taliban have repeatedly turned down Karzai's peace offers and earlier this year withdrew from exploratory talks with the United States in Qatar.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 13 Jul 2012 05:38

Could be psy ops.

and

Mullah Omar can run for president:Karzai

Or it could be cyclops.

Kanishka · Post by **Kanishka** » 14 Jul 2012 13:31

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Baluchistan Hearing, February 8, 2012
Testimony of Ralph Peters, military analyst and author

PAKISTAN AS A FAILING EMPIRE

Pakistan’s Empire and Baluchistan’s Freedom Struggle

Pakistan is not an integrated state, but a miniature empire that inherited its dysfunctional and unjust boundaries from Britain’s greater, now-defunct empire. Pakistan consists of two parts: the core Pakistan constituted by the comparatively rich and powerful provinces of Punjab and Sindh, and the territories, primarily west of the Indus River, treated as colonial possessions by the Punjabis and Sindhis. Once an observer grasps this elementary fact, Pakistan’s internal problems and our own difficulties with Islamabad come into focus.

We must set aside our lazy Cold-War-era assumption that Pakistan is a necessary ally and recognize that the various insurgent movements challenging the Islamabad government are engaged in liberation struggles against an occupier. Whether Baluchi separatists or the Pakistani Taliban, these fighters (some of them certainly distasteful to our social values) are not an isolated phenomenon – as we would prefer to believe – but simply more players in the long struggle for the devolution of power that began with the collapse of European empires. Their version of freedom may not match our criteria, but they are, nonetheless, freedom fighters on their own terms and for their own people.

Pakistan’s borders make no sense and don’t work. The Durand Line, delineating the state’s border with Afghanistan, was just a convenient inheritance from British India: Originally, it established how far the British believed they needed to push out a buffer zone west of the Indus River to protect “the Jewel in the Crown,” British India, from tribal warfare and imperial Russian machinations. The Durand Line marked a military frontier, but the “real” frontier of British India and its rich civilization was the Indus.

Anyone who travels to Pakistan and drives across the Indus in either direction recognizes that the river remains what it has been since the age of Alexander: the divide between civilizations. To the east, in populous Punjab and Sindh, you encounter the complex cultures of the Subcontinent: Even the food is dramatically different. To the west, you find tribal societies whose characteristics, cultural and physical, are those of Central Asia. To the east, relative sophistication; to the west, tribal norms. From Gwadar northward through Quetta, Peshawar and on to Gilgit, the visitor stands on occupied territory.

The Durand Line arbitrarily divided tribal territories for British (and now Pakistani) convenience. It would be hard to devise a more dysfunctional international border. Along with the rupture of minor ethnic groups, it split the substantial Pashtun and Baluchi populations between the artificial constructs that emerged as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Also for convenience, the rest of the world agreed to pretend that these are viable states. Yet, Afghanistan is little more than a rough territorial concept: Its historical rulers controlled, at best, major cities and the caravan (now highway) routes between them. At its birth sixty-five years ago, Pakistan was a Frankenstein’s monster of a state, cobbled together from ill-fitting body parts to award the subcontinent’s Muslim activists a state of their own.

Afghanistan’s borders don’t work, and Pakistan’s borders don’t work. It’s not our job to alter them, but it’s a fool’s errand to defend them. We have stranded 100,000 American troops at the end of vulnerable supply lines through hostile or unreliable states in order to defend borders left behind by defunct European empires. This is a travesty of the first order.
And our support for Pakistan is not only un-American, but facilitates the ongoing murder and mutilation of our troops.

Killing terrorists across the border in Pakistan is the sole useful aspect of our presence in Afghanistan. It doesn’t take 100,000 troops.

Unfortunately for Pakistan, the obsession with strategic depth ultimately trumped anti-separatism policies to the extent that Pakistan assisted in the rise of the Taliban and maintains support for it today. Pakistan’s generals assumed, naively, that terrorists and insurgents could be managed (we’re not the only victims of wishful thinking). But the Afghan Taliban in turn gave birth to the Pakistani Taliban. Now the Pakistani security establishment is riven, intermittently fighting some insurgents, while tolerating or actively supporting others, and unsure how to move forward.

In supporting the Pashtun insurgency in Afghanistan, Pakistan has sown the seeds of its own destruction. While its generals remain skillful at manipulating the United States Government, they have lost control of significant portions of their own country.

Only a gross perversion of Realpolitik could justify our acceptance of this military’s brutality toward the Baluchis and other minorities. We are in bed with an imperialist, militarist and thoroughly corrupt state that barely makes a pretense of democracy. We want to be duped.

AfPak in a Global Context

The problem of dysfunctional borders left behind by the retreat of European empires isn’t limited to AfPak. One of our own worst blind spots lies in the conviction of our diplomats that all borders currently on the map have existed since the age of the dinosaurs and must never change. But borders have always changed and will continue to change. Our own age is one of breakdown: first of those European empires, now of the vestigial empires and artificial states that appeared in their wake. Not only in AfPak, but around the world the grim joke is that the United States of America, the greatest force for freedom in history, now defends the legacy of bygone European empires.

Consider this: Every one of our wars and significant military engagements since and including Desert Storm has been triggered or exacerbated by artificial borders left behind by European empires: Iraq has always been a phony state created for British clients, and Saddam Hussein decided that the Ottoman Empire’s old borders entitled him to Kuwait; Somalia is a bizarre amalgamation of territories that divides some peoples, while thrusting together others who hate each other (yet, our diplomats refuse to recognize Somaliland as a separate – thriving – state, insisting that it must remain under the mastery of a Mogadishu government that cannot defend itself against Islamist terrorists); Yugoslavia, too, was a mini-empire doomed to collapse, yet Republican and Democratic administrations alike continued to argue that the shrinking state should somehow remain unified; we went to Afghanistan and decided that the will of the locals didn’t matter and that we would build a western-style, rule-of-law, unified democracy within European-designated borders; and we deposed Saddam Hussein, but refused to countenance freedom for the Kurds or a judicious break-up of the dysfunctional state, insisting again that those European-drawn borders remain sacrosanct. Now we face a conflict with Iran – the latest, shrunken version of a Persian Empire – while Turkey dreams of re-establishing the Ottoman Empire. Not one of the borders listed in this paragraph worked or works.

Beyond the litany of our recent and pending military involvements, consider just a few of the other crises underway that stem from European-demarcated borders that either thrust together those who do not wish to be together, or divide peoples who seek reunion: Nigeria only maintains its current borders because those boundaries were established by British colonialists; otherwise, Nigeria makes no sense as a state and, by nature, would be two or even three states. Congo does not and cannot possibly work as a unified state, but other European empires awarded it to the King of the Belgians in the 1880s, so we accept it as a sovereign state for all eternity. Today’s Syria was created for the French in a bout of Franco-British horse-trading (or land-swapping). Jordan was created as a prize for British Great-War clients. Indonesia – another empire – is just the post-colonial name of the Dutch East Indies, with no other unifying principle than the might of the Javanese. And Russia maintains much, though not all, of the empire of the czars.

The unifying thread – beyond the false borders themselves – is the centrifugal pressures created by peoples determined to rule themselves. When we automatically side with the “imperial” powers against the right of self-determination, we betray our own history and professed values. This certainly does not mean that every secessionist movement is admirable, only that these movements are inevitable in a world so long deformed by European empires.

Nor will these problems soon resolve themselves. Every person in this room will be dead before the legacy of the European imperial era is fully behind us. Apply simple logic: Depending on which part of the globe we examine, European imperial powers forcefully altered local social, governmental, military and economic structures for between one-hundred and five-hundred years. The post-colonial era began in earnest in 1945. Can we really believe that dilemmas that took up to half a millennium to create can be resolved in an American election cycle or two? Nor is this to say that all of Europe’s imperial legacies were bad: They were a mixed bag, varying from the monstrous cruelty of the Belgians in Africa, to the unifying legacy of the British in today’s India. Rather than arguing over just how bad the colonial powers were, we need to accept their interlude of rule as historical fact and move on from that point.

The best way to explain the varied upheavals we see around the world, from Benghazi to Baluchistan, from Caracas to Kandahar, is to think of human societies as eco-systems or simply physical systems. In the Newtonian order (and ninth-grade physics), when an external agent forces a system out of its natural balance and holds it out of balance, the sudden removal of the external agent causes the affected system to seek to regain its equilibrium. For centuries, the external force of European colonialism forced human societies around the world out of the “organic” balance they had achieved for themselves (although it doesn’t do to shed tears for the Aztecs). With the sudden removal of that external force, we’ve seen the liberated societies strive to find a new functional balance. The process is difficult and fraught with mistakes, and patience is not a salient human characteristic. When the process frustrates the participants sufficiently, they turn to violence. Almost all of the wars and conflicts we see around us, from South Sudan to Daghestan, reflect the challenges of rebalancing social and political ecologies. Artificial borders make it all worse.

And there’s more bad news: Globalization, which we were assured would bring us all together, only unified the world’s most privileged. For the masses, globalization and its consort, the information revolution, have created a wrenching crisis of identity: Around the world, disappointed human beings have defaulted to the elementary question “Who am I?”

Increasingly, their answer is not the one academic theories predicted. Instead of answering, “I am a Pakistani” or “Afghan” or “Nigerian” or “a citizen of the world,” their answer is “I am a Baluch” or “Pashtun” or “Hausa,” or, even more fundamentally, “I am a Muslim” or “Christian” or “Jew.” In times of stress and dislocation, primary identities reassert themselves – and no identities are more powerful or persistent than those of faith and ethnicity. Kabul intellectuals may tell us that they’re “Afghans,” but our Western-educated interlocutors only deceive us (and themselves). This is an age of comprehensive breakdown, when even Europeans insist that they are Walloons, Catalans, Lombards or Scots.

What Should We Do?

None of the points made above are intended to spark an American campaign to fix all the world’s flawed borders. We can’t and we shouldn’t. Rather, the purpose is to warn against the folly of defending the doomed relics of the colonial era. There may be times when preserving specific artificial borders are a strategic necessity, but we should not reflexively defend all extant borders for the convenience of diplomats delighted with their embassy housing assignments. When borders are under great local pressure to change, it’s usually best to get out of the way and let them change. The process and result will often be messy, even disheartening … but we cannot resist the deepest currents of history. Our demand for instant gratification is our greatest strategic weakness.

We must stand back and try to understand the roots of strategic diseases and not just rush to treat the topical symptoms.

We also need to accept that the Cold War is over. Russia remains a self-destructive nuisance, but some old alliances – not least, ours with Pakistan – do far more harm than good (as did our long support for the Mubarak regime in Egypt, for example). Instead of applying a comforting twentieth-century template to the world, we must work to understand the new orders that are emerging – and will continue to emerge for generations. And unless we wish to continue to waste the blood of our troops and our treasure, we must not be afraid to be politically incorrect.

We must stop casting geostrategic challenges in simplistic us-vs.-them terms. Every conflict in which we have been engaged in recent years has been many-sided and many-layered. I used to quip that, in the Balkans, you can’t ask “Who’s guilty?” but have to ask “Who’s guilty this week?” In complex, multi-generational conflicts such as those playing out in the semi-governed territories we call “Pakistan” and “Afghanistan,” players may be helpful and treacherous simultaneously. Instead of forever asking “Who are the good guys?” we need to ask “Which course of action is to our advantage?”

We need to ask honestly why Baluchis are not entitled to a Free Baluchistan, why the Pashtuns – despite their abhorrent customs – are not entitled to a Pakhtunkhwa for all Pashtuns, why forty-million Kurds aren’t entitled to a Free Kurdistan, or why its eastern provinces must remain part of the geopolitical monstrosity we call “Congo.” Again, the point is not to encourage an activist foreign policy, but simply to recognize that it’s usually wise to get out of the way of the oncoming train.

We live in a great age of contradictions and confusions, even in our terminology. While the Taliban are insurgents, they are not revolutionaries, but reactionary forces fighting for the old ways of tribal life. We are the revolutionaries, but tribal, religion-tyrannized cultures don’t want our program of secular values and social liberation (we’re willfully blind to the fact that in Afghanistan we are attempting exactly what the Russians attempted – not only governmental, but social and moral modernization; for example, the Russians did more for the plight of Afghan women than we have). While we may hold our own ideological convictions dear, we have to learn to content ourselves with doing what’s necessary and doable.

Serious strategy begins with three questions: What precisely do we want to achieve? Is it achievable? And, if it’s achievable, is it worth the probable cost? In our recent conflicts, we failed to answer a single one of those questions honestly.

Except for existential wars of survival, sound strategy aims at a positive return on investment – just as we expect a positive return on the money we put into our retirement accounts. In conflicts in which we have a choice of engagement or non-intervention, we have to become more sophisticated at analyzing the “investment quality” of our decision. Again, we return to the basic question: “What do we get out of it?” Turning our occupation of Iraq into a looting orgy for well-connected contractors did not enhance the security of our citizens.

The old American argument of Crusader America versus Fortress America, of interventionist versus isolationist, is dangerous and childish. We cannot hide in Kansas because, as on 9/11, the world comes to us. But we also cannot embark upon spendthrift nation-building efforts where there’s no nation to build.

We need to re-learn the strategic art of acting in our own interests. Generally, our interests are not served by clinging to old, dictatorial or corrupt regimes, but by declining to support the dying order. At times, military intervention in support of change may be to our advantage. More often, it will be a matter of getting out of the way of the inevitable. But what we should never do is to align ourselves with violent oppressors of minorities, with blackmailers, or with those who help our enemies kill our troops. In other words, it’s time to abandon Pakistan and switch our support wholeheartedly to India.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 14 Jul 2012 19:31

^

Globalization, which we were assured would bring us all together, only unified the world’s most privileged. For the masses, globalization and its consort, the information revolution, have created a wrenching crisis of identity: Around the world, disappointed human beings have defaulted to the elementary question “Who am I?”

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 14 Jul 2012 20:56

sanjaykumar wrote:Could be psy ops.

and

Mullah Omar can run for president:Karzai

....

Recall three years ago I said Karzai has to work on Ghilzai-Durrani reconicliation as part of peace process.

This is one step in that direction.

Allowing the Ghilzais the top slot if they get support from all Afghans.
Not by guns but by popular vote.

This is very opposite of the Paki plans which is to use force and religion to terrorize Afghans to bring in Ghilzai/Taliban rule.

Samudragupta · Post by **Samudragupta** » 15 Jul 2012 01:12

When America Leaves: Asia after the Afghan War

Afghanistan is passing inexorably into a post-American phase that will have far-reaching consequences for the interconnected space encompassing the Indian and Pakistani portions of Kashmir, Pakistan proper, Afghanistan, the five Central Asian “Stans”, eastern Iran, China’s western province of Xinjiang, and the seven republics of Russia’s South Caucasus region. In this zone, Greater Central Asia, multiple sources of conflict already exist even as new patterns of trade and investment are emerging, not least in energy. Increasing competition between long preponderant powers and challengers whose presence has heretofore been minimal are changing the calculus of risks and opportunities. Note as well that Greater Central Asia provides a bridge for competition and conflict to migrate and shape the larger interactions among China, India, Russia and the United States.

Greater Central Asia is also a zone in which ethnic groups (Tajiks, Uzbeks, Pashtuns, Uighurs, Turkmen and several others) are divided by state borders, with a potential to extend conflicts in one country into others, fanning fears of separatism and irredentism as they do. Migrants and revolutionary ideologies (democratic, nationalist and Islamist) are also unsettling the status quo in places where their influence has hitherto been minimal. Unable to assay the combined consequences of such variegated changes, states and various groups within the region increasingly view competitors with suspicion. To all this is now added the uncertainty about the aftermath of America’s exit from Afghanistan

http://www.the-american-interest.com/ar ... piece=1232

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 15 Jul 2012 04:00

Kanishka wrote:Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Baluchistan Hearing, February 8, 2012
Testimony of Ralph Peters, military analyst and author

PAKISTAN AS A FAILING EMPIRE

...

We must set aside our lazy Cold-War-era assumption that Pakistan is a necessary ally

...

We must stand back and try to understand the roots of strategic diseases and not just rush to treat the topical symptoms.

...

In other words, it’s time to abandon Pakistan and switch our support wholeheartedly to India.

...

I think, Ralph Peters is trading one lazy premise (support for TSP) for another lazy one: it is now time for US to support India. After pontificating about not treating symptoms etc., he never bothers to lay out what "support" to India means or what the US should expect from it, or what the alternatives are. I mean, why not make PRC take the responsibility for what TSP does, for instance?

Bad idea for Indians to embrace any US Af-Pak strategy that is based on lazy thinking, just because it happens, for the time being, to make us feel that US is favoring us.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 15 Jul 2012 17:22

Hopefully NSA SSM meeting will resolve this. Question is, do people want this project?
Funding delay for India’s Afghan project may prove costly

Sandeep Dikshit
Share · Comment · print · T+

One of India’s showpiece projects in Afghanistan is in trouble mainly due to procrastination on the part of New Delhi. Unable to approve the revised cost for the Salma Dam, South Block faces the risk of a deteriorating security situation which might worsen after the bulk of the NATO forces withdraws from the war-ravaged country in 2014.

What is galling to those involved in the project is the leisurely approach of the bureaucracy here to providing additional financing. This is in sharp contrast to the risk taken by engineers to keep the project going. They preferred to brave the uncertainties of travelling by road mined by the Taliban after the Afghan government twice denied helicopters to take them to the site.

Work slows down

A high-level meeting of the country’s security managers was told that construction activity had slowed down and was on the verge of “complete stoppage because the Afghan contractors had lost complete faith in the revival of the project and the subcontractors were refusing to supply material on credit to the contractors.”

The Salma Dam is one the two big projects India undertook in Afghanistan, the other being the Parliament building. The dam was to have been completed by 2010 but the timeline has been pushed back by two years. This time frame has caused perturbation in South Block because even before the NATO withdrawal, the area around the dam site in western Afghanistan has begun witnessing frequent gunbattles between the project security detail and the Taliban.

In fact, what worries officials is that hostility to the project, evident since 2009, could spiral out of control when the NATO forces leave the country. The security situation began deteriorating three years ago with kidnappings taking place in the area. From last year, the Taliban, besides engaging the project’s security team in gunbattles, has been laying mines on the dilapidated 160-km access road to the site.

Following intelligence inputs, the Indian consulate in Herat fears that the dam, a symbol of benign Indian aid, is also in the cross-sights of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, said senior officials privy to the meeting which took stock of the progress of the project.

Sources said the files have been shuttling between the Ministries of External Affairs and Finance since December last. While the Afghan contractors are on the verge of pulling out, Indian companies such as BHEL have been waiting since September last for the cost revision proposal to be approved.

Cost escalation

“Further delay may result in demobilisation of the existing Afghan infrastructure and it, in turn, may lead to security problems,” officials told the project review meeting. The cost of the project has escalated from Rs. 350 crore to over Rs. 800 crore.

The dam has the potential to irrigate 75,000 hectares and generate 42 MW of electricity.

Apparently Afghan investment summit was a failure... Shame... but it brought peoples attention.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 15 Jul 2012 22:53

Kanishka wrote:Taliban commander: We can’t win Afghanistan war

ramana wrote:Could be psy ops.

It might look that way at first glance, but I don't think so.

What is the Taliban's notion of victory?

The same as the Mujaheddin's in 1978-92; Capturing Kabul and the government.

The reality is that the Taliban is a long, long, long way from that ever happening. American withdrawal like Soviet withdrawal is just a morale booster.

It happened in 1992 because Kabul's only real support came from Moscow, which was bankrupt, in upheaval, and convinced it no longer had major interests in Afghanistan.

Taliban commanders understand that today, the Karzai government has broad, deep and wide sources of financial and military assistance from the West, India, Russia and Iran. Even China's willing to do business with either Karzai, the Taliban or whoever will accept and protect their investments. And to top it all America is nowhere as broke or confused as Russia/Soviet Union of 1991-92.

So what we're going to have is a long, festering, grinding war.

This was the underlying warning that Ashley Tellis had for Pakistan. The highest price of this permanent instability will of course be paid by Afghans, and its going to be bad for everyone (including India and the West), but the second highest price will be paid by Pakistanis and Pakistan.

The PA can not wage this war just because the ISI has the guns and money. They can do it because the Deobandi movement in Pakistan, especially in the Pashtun areas is completely committed to the Afghan jihad.

If the movement becomes convinced that the PA generals, rather than the ulema are benefitting from the war they will turn on the PA and ISI. The longer the war goes on, the more likely this is to happen.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Jul 2012 00:28

KLNMurthy wrote:

We must set aside our lazy Cold-War-era assumption that Pakistan is a necessary ally

...
I think, Ralph Peters is trading one lazy premise (support for TSP) for another lazy one: it is now time for US to support India. After pontificating about not treating symptoms etc., he never bothers to lay out what "support" to India means or what the US should expect from it, or what the alternatives are. I mean, why not make PRC take the responsibility for what TSP does, for instance?

Bad idea for Indians to embrace any US Af-Pak strategy that is based on lazy thinking, just because it happens, for the time being, to make us feel that US is favoring us.

This concept of lazy assumption and thinking was based on a global geo political reality during the cold war.
The cold was was about making sure that the countries align with US and do not support the soviet union.
Non aligned countries were seen with suspicion and then dismissed as along as they are neutral or harmless. India was in the harmless category and it was pushed into 'geopolitical isolation'. This term will be used many times and will be heard more often. India was put into a regional rivalry with Pakistan and this game was good as long as it was far away from home. This was supposed to have put India into 'geopolitical isolation'.

But once the Afghan jihad was over and the cold war was finished this jihad machine was used for a global expansion with UBL. Af Pak became a hot spot and this spread of the Jihad machine made sure that Af Pak became the most critical region in the world after 911.
Now the region is no long in 'strategic isolation' and Indian Ocean has become the most critical region for global stability. They want a solution in which they want to control the outcome of the policy. But now things are different and it has become a global problem and not many countries want to support the US war on terror. Even after 2014 withdrawal there is no visibility to a solution or a stability.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 19 Jul 2012 01:44

Game is still on

Bomb attack destroys 22 NATO trucks

MAZAR-I-SHARIF: A Taliban bomb attack Wednesday destroyed 22 fuel tankers carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, local officials said.A pre-dawn explosion triggered a fire which engulfed the trucks, parked in the northern province of Samangan overnight on their way from Uzbekistan towards NATO forces in the south, Samangan deputy governor Ghulam Sakhi Baghlani said."The first explosion resulted in a fire which quickly engulfed as many 22 trucks," he said, adding that three drivers were also injured in the blaze.A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said initial reports showed 24 tankers were destroyed after an improvised bomb attack.But he said he could not immediately confirm that the civilian tankers were carrying fuel for ISAF, which relies on contractors to move many of its supplies.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 19 Jul 2012 02:17

^
Isn't Mazar Sharif mostly taliban-free zone, Tajik dominated?

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 19 Jul 2012 07:10

Waziristan (VI and last): Roe's lessons

Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan

Unraveling Afghanistan

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 21 Jul 2012 18:43

Talebs/ISI tried to take over a few provinces in one go in the last 2 days. Attempted assassinations of major officials. ANSF extra troops were able to prevent coup.

------------
Karzai’s trusted aide now Afghan envoy - IE

With the appointment of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s trusted aide Shaida M Abdali as the new Ambassador to India, Kabul has shown its intent of closer ties with New Delhi, especially in the area of security cooperation, South Block sources said here on Monday. Abdali was one of the key members of the National Security Council who vetted the India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership agreement signed last October. “He has stuck to him through thick and thin. The fact that the Afghan President has sent him to New Delhi underscores the importance he attaches to the relationship with New Delhi,” a South Block source said.

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 22 Jul 2012 23:03

Cross-border: Shelling, rocket attack kills 4 in Afghanistan | Tribune

Pious uniformed Jihadis of the military of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan kill Afghan civilians during the holy month of Ramadan.

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 23 Jul 2012 20:29

Afghan Police Officer Kills Three NATO Contractors

An Afghan policeman shot dead three foreign staff at a police training center in Herat Province on July 22.

Afghan security and intelligence officials say the gunman also injured the trainers' Afghan translator.

The attacker reportedly worked for the regional police command.

He was killed later in a shoot-out with troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

An ISAF statement said the three foreign staff were civilian contractors working for NATO as trainers.

Meanwhile, officials say an Afghan army soldier opened fire on his NATO colleagues in northern Afghanistan on July 23, injuring two U.S. troops.

The deputy governor of Faryab Province, Abdul Satar Barez, said the Afghan soldier was killed when U.S. soldiers returned fire.

Killings of foreigners by Afghan government forces has escalated this year as Kabul recruits more Afghans to take over security ahead of NATO's planned withdrawal by the end of 2014.

A total of 29 foreign troops or civilian contractors have been killed by Afghan police or soldiers since the beginning of the year

http://www.rferl.org/content/three-isaf-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan/24652778.html

Three soldiers from the NATO-led international coalition (ISAF) in Afghanistan have been killed in two separate incidents.

A coalition statement said that two soldiers were killed on July 22 by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan and one was killed on the same day during a firefight with insurgents, also in the eastern part of the country.

The statement did not identify the slain service personnel or give their nationalities.

Elsewhere, six Afghan workers at a NATO base in Wardak Province were abducted on the night of July 21 by Taliban militants and five of them were found dead early the next morning, a local government official said.

The sixth worker managed to escape.

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 24 Jul 2012 02:49

India Means Business in Afghanistan…And All over Central Asia

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... tral-asia/

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 27 Jul 2012 00:04

The Indian army have an assessment to journalists that they expect after 2014 (US pullout) that terrorists will be diverted from AF-Pak to Kashmir.

This confirms what I said many moons ago.

I'm happy they are making preparations.

Diversion of ultras from Afghan-Pak border possible: GOC-in-C

PTI | 04:07 PM,Jul 26,2012

Diversion of ultras from Afghan-Pak border possible: GOC-in-C Drass (Kashmir), Jul 26 (PTI) The army today said there is a possibility that the militants operating in the Af-Pak border will be diverted to Kashmir once the US troops withdrawal begins and called for preemptive measures to check this. "It is quite likely that the terrorists who are being used there, who are carrying out terrorist activity on the borders of Afghanistan-Pakistan, some of them could be diverted to our border...we cannot rule out this possibility," General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Northern Command Lt Gen K T Parnaik told reporters at the Kargil War memorial here, 150 kms from Srinagar. The Army commander said the impact of what happens in Kashmir after US military withdraws from more than a decade of war in Afghanistan is an "open source debate". "US drawdown from Afghanistan is an open source debate which is going on and not only the army, but intelligentsia, the government sources, the civil institutions are all saying that once the drawdown starts the possibility of the focus slowly shifting from Afghanistan to other regions will always be there," Lt Gen Parnaik said. He said the army needs to take "caution" so that it is not caught "unaware" from the fallout of the Afghan situation. "We need to take caution, we need to take preemptive action and we need to put things in place that should this happen we are not caught unawares...as a nation, as an army, as a state we need to be cautious, should that happen we should be able to take preemptive action and not let it affect us," he said. PTI AZH

Roperia · Post by **Roperia** » 27 Jul 2012 20:30

Jihadis train with live ammunition in Pakistan? and then raid US military base while Secretory Clinton apologizes to Pakistan.