Context

Without doubt, all major stakeholders are now worried about the post 2014 Afghanistan. As the date of US withdrawal approaches quickly, many of the variables connected to the smooth transition are far from resolved. Meanwhile, the attention of western nations is increasingly diverted towards the affairs of Syria and Iran.

Some of the interconnected factors complicating the Afghan situation are:

1. The strength and preparedness of the Afghan Security Forces to handle the security situation in the absence of NATO forces.
2. The scale of US military presence in the country beyond 2014.
3. The nature of security agreement between the US and Afghanistan, on which depends the American military footprint after 2014.
4. Afghan representation: the status of Afghan reconciliation and how it relates with the upcoming Afghan elections.
5. Who will be the next president of Afghanistan and what that signifies?
6. Addressing the role of regional players and managing their rivalries.

Amongst these, the most critical component is the Afghan representation. The simultaneous existence of Karzai government that came to power after 9/11, and the budding Afghan reconciliation, poses a unique dilemma. The challenge is how will these two elements of Afghan representation, which are the antithesis of each other, now merge and coexist. As US withdraws, the strategic thinking of Pakistan on Afghanistan is taking on addtional emphasis. The nations economic perils and turmoil in the Middle East are forcing the country to pivot towards Central Asia. However, the stability of Afghanistan is a key to the success of this strategy.Analysis

The Issue of Afghan Representation

If the upcoming elections were to decide the future dispensation of Afghanistan, then how does this relate with the Afghan reconciliation. Clearly, whoever wins in the elections will claim to be the true representative, and this is likely to produce more infighting if not properly handled. The smooth fusion of the existing establishment and Afghan Taliban is a critical objective of the Afghan reconciliation process. Achieving this goal is further complicated by the fact that there are no clear winners and losers to the conflict.

Moreover, the Afghan Taliban consider Karzai government to be illegitimate and have wanted to talk directly with the US. On the other hand, US for its part has conducted direct talks with the Taliban, most probably with the assistance of Pakistan. This, however, created a serious backlash from the Karzai administration, accusing the US of attempting to sideline his government. Some recent reports indicate that Taliban are now talking with the Afghan High Peace Council.

The Size of the US Presence, Reconciliation, And Afghan-US Security Agreement

The other puzzle connected with the political solution has to do with the size of American troops past 2014. One of the Afghan Taliban precondition for negotiations had to do with the complete withdrawal of foreign troops. Although some of the recent Taliban statements have shown more flexibility in this regard as well. Meanwhile, Karzai has used the pending status of forces agreement as leverage against the US. The more Americans are perceived as sidelining Karzai, the more his administration delays signing the agreement, which complicates the reconciliation and US withdrawal. At the same time, US has also countered Karzai’s bluff with the introduction of zero troops option.
Sensitivities of US Presence In Afghanistan

The size of US presence in Afghanistan is also a sensitive issue for Pakistan, Iran, China, India and Russia. One of the reasons for Pakistan’s seeming inability to develop a clear counter terrorism strategy has to do with this very factor. The country has two narratives related to the US presence in Afghanistan. One of them holds that as US withdraws, the extremism will start to taper down, as the raison detre for different extremist groups would cease to exist. The proponents of this school of thought deem the sooner US troops withdraw, the quicker the state of normalcy would return to the region, especially to Pakistan. The believers of this school perceive American presence in Afghanistan as threatening towards Pakistan, especially in the post Osama operation environment.

The other thinking considers the complete US withdrawal as risky for Pakistan. Embolden with their success in Afghanistan, the extremist groups may focus more of their efforts towards not only Pakistan and India, but also spread towards Central Asian republics, Iran, and other hot spots in the Middle East. Some of this is already at work with the reported presence of Pakistani Taliban in Syria.

Pakistan, India and Central Asia

In this context, the regional countries recognize that once US leaves, and even if it maintains a light foot print in Afghanistan, a lot will depend on Pakistan’s strategic thinking about the post 2014 environment. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s emerging posture appears to be comforting; it wants to facilitate a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, as indicated by the release of Mullah Baradar. However, it does not seem to desire a complete return to the pre 9/11 configuration, which perhaps is not possible either. Towards this end, the country has already established regular contacts with the representatives of Northern Alliance. PM Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Turkey may also be a move towards easing concern in the Central Asian republics, and amongst Afghanistan’s non-Pushtun ethnicities, regarding Pakistan’s future thinking.

For its part, China, Pakistan’s strong ally, is also deepening its ties with Central Asian republics. The Chinese President made a trip to four Key Central Asian republics from September 3 to 13 before heading to the SCO meeting in Kyrgyzstan. China has been promoting its own version of Silk Route that rhymes well with Pakistan’s proposed Kashgar-Gwadar trade corridor and CASA 1000 electricity sharing project. However, many believe the inroad China is making in the energy sector of the region is occurring at the expense of India. While India’s ONGC had planned to buy 8.42% shares of Houston based ConocoPhillips in Kazakhstan, that deal has reportedly fallen in jeopardy because Astana used its preemptive right to buy those stakes instead. During President Xi’s visit to Kazakhstan in early September, the country agreed to sell China 8.33 percent of the offshore Caspian Sea oilfield for $5 billion.

The strongest concern regarding Pakistan’s intent will continue to come from the Indian quarters, and this is why the normalization of ties between the two is critical for the amicable solution in Afghanistan. Even a semblance of stability in Afghanistan could bring a new era of trade and economic boom for the country itself, Pakistan and the region. The energy and economic pressures, including turmoil in the Middle East, are forcing Pakistan to diversify its approach towards Afghanistan and to pivot towards Central Asia. However, if the stalemate continues in Afghanistan and the situation of Middle East continues to worsen, affairs could take a turn for the worse in South and Central Asia as well.

The post Post 2014 Afghanistan, Reconciliation And Central Asia appeared first on Politact.

Context

US President Barack Obama left Washington November 5 for a 10 day tour of Asia, stopping first in India, then Indonesia and finally to South Korea and Japan. The trip is occurring soon after another round of US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue. While the US hasn’t come out and said as much, the Asia tour, which excludes Asia’s superpower China and doesn’t even consider the US’s partner in the region Pakistan, symbolizes Cold War style containment policies, by highlighting a ring of countries around China which are friendly to the US and not all crash-hot with China.

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Analysis
First Leg

Obama landed first in India where he was quick to praise India’s democratic institutions and flourishing economy, before making a $10 billion arms deal with the emerging power. The deal is ostensibly going to create 50,000 jobs in the US although this is primarily in the defense sector, and is hardly a drop in the ocean of the jobs shipped to India via off shoring, especially in the technology and services sector. Obama also affirmed his ‘fervent’ support for India’s admission into an extended version of the United Nations Security Council.

India’s increasingly aggressive military spending is worrying for both China and Pakistan, who each have border disputes with India. The Kashmir issue, which has been inflamed of late, will likely be on the minds of most Pakistanis who hear of the arms deal-the US is supporting Pakistan’s adversary in its long, on-going struggle over Kashmir. There is little that the US can do to cover this blow to Pakistan, except for a mightily convoluted act of political speechifying (not unheard of), but most are foreseeing US-Pak relations souring because of the visit.

This comes on the back of talk that Russia is in the works to start aiding NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, which would lessen the strategic importance of Pakistan for the US-NATO effort in Afghanistan, perhaps opening the way for a harder US line towards Pakistan once it is no longer the main route of supply into Afghanistan for the US and NATO troops. Russian representative to NATO Dmitri Rogozin announced today that the decision regarding NATO transit via Russia will be made at the November 20th Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon.

Onlookers have been raising eyebrows about why Pakistan wasn’t included on the tour list; however there are a number of valid reasons to not include Pakistan on the president’s Asia tour.

Firstly, there is yet to be any clear delimitation of Pakistan as an Asian country. While India has been enacting it’s ‘Look East Policy’ for many years now, and is clearly throwing its weight into the Asian arena, Pakistan is on the border of what can reasonably be called Asia and moreover in the past has been more inclined to be grouped with its Muslim neighbors to the West-yes it is considered South Asia, but in an Asian tour encompassing mostly South East and East Asian countries, Pakistan is not an obvious country of choice.

A visit to Pakistan is also a far more complex, politically dangerous, and economically unproductive effort for the US than the four countries Obama is visiting.

His overt goal on the tour is to make trade ties – and Pakistan has little to offer in this regard. Plus, the secondary, or some may say the covert primary goal of the tour is to send a very clear signal to China-also excluded from the visit-that the US is serious about reengagement in the region, and that its friends surround China. Pakistan, as a clear friend of China would not serve this purpose also.

Interestingly, analysts within Pakistan are saying that the Asia visit should be considered a wakeup call for Pakistan: that if they considered the countries on the list of the tour, Pakistan most definitely does not belong there, which is, according to security analyst Talat Masood, because of Pakistan’s “own domestic situation.”

Obama headed from India to Indonesia, his home of four-years in boyhood, where he was welcomed both warmly by his political counterparts, and with a little too much heat by protestors with burning Obama effigies and other US symbols. Obama was once again quick to point out the democratic, pluralist sides of Indonesia which most people are seeing as a bid to showcase another important friend of the US on China’s doorstep.

Second Leg

The second leg of the Obama tour takes him to Seoul in South Korea for the G20 Summit and finally onto Japan for the meeting of APEC. On the surface this trip is all about trade and economics: both official meetings at the end of his tour deal predominately with trade issues and economic concerns, and the vast majority of Obama’s talks with India and Indonesia have been about trade and democracy.

But in reality, there is a deeper message being sent by this tour. The countries Obama visited are the four biggest economies surrounding China, and all have, to some extend, a troubled relationship with China. Many analysts are seeing a kind of cold-war mentality in the division of countries into broad groups of ‘ally, partner or adversary’ behind the current US foreign policy and it is especially evident in this visit to Asia. China has not been blind to the similarities between current Asian policy in the US and policies of containment practiced against the USSR.

Obama’s speeches have all been about finding similarities in these Asian countries to the US, and highlighting their qualities which stand in stark contrast to those of China – this is the real underlying intent of the tour, to say to China that “hey, there are these four countries on your periphery which are the US’s buddies-they have large, important economies, and they are on our side.”

For Pakistan the tour is somewhat less of an all-out thumb-to-nose, but more of a signal of the changing relationship Pakistan and the US face. The US is no stranger to turning the tide on Pakistan and the hot and cold relations between the two countries is somewhat of a pattern. However with a new arms deal between India and the US, and the increasing rhetoric coming out of the US that Pakistan is the real harbor for terrorism, this tour could be precipitating a new level of sourness between the two countries. Nevertheless, Obama refrained from all-out criticism of Islamabad while in India, which is a signal that he doesn’t want the relationship to ice over just yet.

The post Obama’s Visit to India and the Asia Pacific – The Changing Alliances appeared first on Politact.