Afghanistan - Big Questions About South Asia

By Gautam Adhikari 

President Donald Trump delivered an intriguing address to the nation on Monday. It was intriguing not only because of the paucity of detail on what exactly his new policy on Afghanistan and South Asia would entail, but because of its apparent reliance on a sequenced military response with little light cast on diplomatic repercussions.

From the speech, it is hard to detect a clear aim. What exactly is the U.S. goal in Afghanistan? There have been two purported goals thus far: One is defeating the Taliban and stabilizing the country from Kabul; the other is to choke any future possibility of Afghanistan being a base for the export of terror as happened on 9/11. Neither is achievable any longer, if it ever was, by a primarily military onslaught. A few thousand additional troops cannot do the job, even if they are not bound by a time constraint as Trump suggested.

All efforts over 17 years to achieve the first goal have not succeeded. The Taliban today controls roughly 40 percent of the country; the government in Kabul less than a quarter directly, while retaining some influence in the remaining parts, according to published reports. A massive American and allied presence, lasting several years, of over 100,000 did drive the Taliban away temporarily, but they're back and gaining ground.

The second goal of stemming the export of terror was probably the initial aim of the George W Bush administration and it seemed to succeed for a while. But today, the Islamic State group operates there and al-Qaida remains on the loose. This is to say nothing of groups like the Haqqani network and other terror networks that operate with apparent impunity across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to inflict casualties on U.S.-NATO troops as well as Afghan forces.

Trump appeared to come down hard, rightly, on Pakistan, without whose support and encouragement neither the Taliban nor the terrorists would find it easy to operate. But U.S. policymakers have known this for a while. It has nevertheless remained a crucial roadblock in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

So Trump added a new element to the mix: India would offer the US more support in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Trump hinted, had better watch out. Well, that too has its problems.

The president's suggested shift in strategic alignments did not indicate the scope of the role India would play, more than its ongoing assistance in development and reconstruction. Was he expecting India to involve itself militarily more directly than it might be ready to? Has a plan been worked out with New Delhi or is it just dire words?

Aside from alarming Islamabad to drive it closer into the arms of China – its "all-weather friend" – such a move would complicate the balance of power in nuclear-armed South Asia. Currently, India is in a mutually belligerent face-off with China on its border in the trifecta of Bhutan, China and India, to say nothing of its perennial tension with Pakistan on its western border. And China, as it has quickly indicated, would move even closer to Pakistan if it begins to lose U.S. military and economic backing.

With a military victory over the Taliban out of the question, absent a highly unlikely years-long presence of hundreds of thousands of U.S.-NATO forces once again, a holding operation with a few thousand U.S. forces until "conditions" improve would take a major diplomatic initiative in the region.

It would have to involve not just Pakistan and India but also two other rising players in Afghanistan – Iran and Russia – while ensuring that China agrees that reining in Pakistan would be in its global strategic interest. Beijing, however, sees matters differently. Meanwhile, clandestine financing of the Taliban and terrorists by some Gulf states, particularly hard-to-confront Saudi Arabia, must be stopped.

Such an intricate diplomatic minuet is necessary but may be beyond the present capacity of the Trump administration. Apart from severely weakening the State Department, the administration has not even appointed an ambassador to New Delhi following the departure of Richard Verma at the end of Obama's term. Further, diplomacy with China and Russia has become more complicated than it already was with the imposition of sanctions announced on Tuesday. And, with Iran, the possibility of getting its cooperation for Afghan peace is remote as things stand.

Trump's speech, therefore, raises many more questions than it cared to answer.