TRANSITION IN THE AFGHANISTAN- PAKISTAN WAR: HOW DOES THIS WAR END? Anthony H. Cordesman Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy July 11, 2012 [email protected] Cordesman: The Afghanistan/Pakistan War and Role of the Great Powers 7/11/12 ii Acknowledgments This paper was written for the 2012 Aspen European Strategy Forum, “Sustainable Strategies for Afghanistan and the Region After 2014.” Cordesman: The Afghanistan/Pakistan War and Role of the Great Powers 7/11/12 iii Executive Summary The near-term future of Afghanistan and Pakistan is not going to be shaped by cooperation between the “great powers:” Russia, China, and the US. A “new great game” between the great powers may emerge after the US and its European allies withdraw. However, it is the way in which the US, NATO/ISAF, and major aid donors interact with the Afghan and Pakistani governments as they “transition” by withdrawing their forces and cutting their spending and aid that will shape events for the foreseeable future. This “transition” is already underway, but no one can yet predict how the withdrawal of US and other NATO/ISAF combat forces from Afghanistan in 2014 will play out over time. It is not clear how the US and its NATO/ISAF allies will actually manage the withdrawal of their forces. It is not clear how much continuing support aid donors will provide to Afghanistan through 2014 and beyond, or whether the coming massive cuts in military spending and aid will trigger a major recession or depression during a period when outside troops will leave and Afghanistan’s weak government and forces must go through another election. The Uncertain Prospects for Transition The US and its European allies are encouraging a negotiated settlement between the Afghan government and the insurgents, but this effort is uncertain. It seems unlikely that talks between the Afghan government and various insurgent factions can produce any meaningful or stable agreement that does not either accommodate the Taliban and risk a Taliban takeover after the US withdraws, divide the country, or create some new form of Northern Alliance and civil conflict. It is equally unlikely that that the Taliban will accept anything like the level of human rights and effective democracy the outside world has sought to bring to Afghanistan. Uncertain Gains in Afghanistan After a Decade of War NATO/ISAF have reduced the level of Taliban influence and control in the south, and the number of Taliban and insurgent attacks on NATO/ISAF forces in most of the country – especially insurgent initiated and complex attacks. They have made progress in reestablishing an Afghan military and government presence in a number of areas, and in establishing some degree of control and security in Kandahar. The security situation is uncertain in the East, however, and insurgent forces have expanded operations against Afghan officials and their presence in some areas in the North. It is also unclear that Afghan national security forces (ANSF) and the Afghan central government (GIRoA) can hold the territory in the South and East now secured by US and ISAF forces once they and Provincial Recovery Teams (PRTs) phase out from 2012-2014. It is even less clear that the US, ISAF, and Afghan military will be able to counter the impact of insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan or defeat the Taliban, Haqqani network, or Hekmatyar group at the political level, and keep insurgents from dispersing and establishing new operating areas in Afghanistan. The insurgents have raised the level of assassinations, kidnappings, and other low-level forms of violence in some parts of Afghanistan and the decline in the number of military attacks may reflect the fact they are now avoiding direct combat and seeking to wait out the NATO/ISAF withdrawal. Cordesman: The Afghanistan/Pakistan War and Role of the Great Powers 7/11/12 iv The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) remains a major problem. It has yet to show it can successfully combine honest elections with effective government, or that its overcentralized government structure can make its legislature effective or bring honest and effective governance to the provincial and district level. The most recent Presidential and legislative elections have been corrupt, power brokers dominate the de facto governance in much of the country, and there is no effective governance and legal system in many of Afghanistan’s 403 districts. A decade of aid has had little effect in fully restoring or developing the part of the economy that most Afghans participate in. Statistics show that GDP growth is now heavily dependent on NATO/ISAF military spending and aid to the Afghan budget. Average per-capita income is very low, and military and aid spending have not raised many Afghans above the poverty level. The ANSF is almost totally dependent on outside US and allied aid, and both the ANSF and GIRoA budget will remain dependent on such outside aid long after the withdrawal of most or all US and ISAF forces in 2014. Dubious Options for Successful Peace Negotiations The US and ISAF have put a rising emphasis on peace negotiations, and some form of serious talks may begin with a new Taliban entity to be established in Qatar. The US has also signaled that it will not see the Taliban as an enemy if it accepts a peace where it rejects violence and joins the Afghan government. The Taliban, however, has continued to attack peace negotiators and killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the lead Afghan government negotiator, on September 20, 2011. The insurgents may come to treat talks as a delaying tactic, or a way to win the war through political means, but they do not feel that they are being defeated and have reason to believe that all they have to do is outwait NATO/ISAF in a battle of political attrition. They may also increasingly see the US and allied countries as having to seek peace on steadily less demanding terms to allow them to end the conflict, and as a means of exploiting a weak and vulnerable Afghan central government.. Failure in Dealing with Pakistan The US made major progress in attacking Al Qa’ida and insurgent networks in Pakistan before the steady deterioration in US and Pakistani relations in late 2011 led to Pakistan expelling US advisors, closing a US unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) base on Pakistani soil, and limiting US UCAV flights over Pakistan. The CIA had not conducted any missile strikes in Pakistan for two months as of mid-January 2012, giving Al Qaeda and insurgent groups a chance to regroup.1 A combination of the US special forces raid into Pakistan that killed Bin Laden at the end of April 2011, an incident on the Afghan Pakistan border on November 26th where US forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and a Pakistani civil-military crisis called “memogate” over claims the President of Pakistan sought US aid to avoid a military coup have transformed long-tense US and Pakistani relations into near hostility. At present, Pakistan -- and especially the Pakistani military -- show few signs of restoring even the past limited level of cooperation with the US. Even Pakistani willingness to allow the US to use Pakistani supply routes and air space is uncertain – although Pakistani need for US aid may preserve at least the façade of some aspects of cooperation. Cordesman: The Afghanistan/Pakistan War and Role of the Great Powers 7/11/12 v Pakistan also sees the Afghan conflict as one where it needs to do what it can to gain advantage once US and ISAF forces have left. There are many signs that Pakistan will seek to exploit a US and ISAF withdrawal, and any peace negotiations, to its own advantage and to seek influence over at least the Pashtun areas on its borders and to use Afghanistan to provide strategic depth against India. China and Russia do play a role in Pakistan, but the Russian role is small and China has carefully limited its commitments. It is the tense relationship between the US and Pakistan that is now driving Pakistan’s role in the conflict. More broadly, it is Pakistan’s own internal problems that will shape its future role in the region. Pakistan is caught up in its own major political, security, and economic problems that are only tangentally related to Afghanistan, and is drifting towards the status of a failed state. Its deep political tensions with the US continue to grow, and it seems committed to trying to expand its own influence in Afghanistan, and counter Indian influence, as US and NATO/ISAF forces leave. At the same time, Pakistan’s civil government has deep and growing tensions with the Pakistani military, and is divided by political struggles that sharply limit the effectiveness of a weak structure of governance and one that faces growing internal political violence throughout the country. There is always hope that Pakistani relations with India may improve, but Pakistan’s military continues to focus on the Indian threat and to build up Pakistan’s missile and nuclear forces. Creating Unpredictable Sideshows in the New Great Game At some point in the coming decade, the outcome of “transition” will produce a new equilibrium of regional power between Russia, China, the US, the major European states, and local powers like Iran, the “Stans,” and India. The nature of this equilibrium will depend, however, on now unpredictable levels of US and European action during the course of “transition.” It will also almost certainly be an extension of each regional state’s view of its own national interests, and how best to serve them that will depend on how transition plays out in Afghanistan during 2012-2014 and beyond, and how Pakistan’s growing internal tensions and drift towards state failure play out over time.