THE AFGHAN TRANSFORMATION: PRIORITIES AND KEY PROBLEMS
Keywords:
Afghan transformation, Afghan national army and police, Afghanization of the conflict, armed opposition, Talibanization, political dialog, internal Afghan actors, national security, international community.Abstract
This article examines the Afghan transformation that has been manifesting itself in such spheres as security, politics, and the economy. It is fed by the withdrawal of the international forces from Afghanistan. But, according to the author, this process, which is of an all-encompassing and systemic nature, is having a direct effect on the key aspects of society’s vital activity, as well as, due to Afghanistan’s particular geopolitical position, on the situation in Central and South Asia. Political and ethnic fragmentation is the main component in the current internal Afghan situation.
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Governor of the North-West Frontier Province in British India (1946-1947).
For comparison: at present around 100,000 international servicemen (at the peak of the foreign military presence there were up to 140,000) and more than 350,000 Afghans (national army and police), not counting the contract soldiers from private security agencies and volunteers, are involved in the fight against the armed opposition or in its overthrow.
See: S.G. Jones, “The Rise of Afghanistan’s Insurgency: State Failure and Jihad, International Security, Vol. 32, No. 4,Spring 2008, p. 7.
Lahdar Brahimi, Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General for Afghanistan and architect of the first Bonn Agreement, post factum called the exclusion of the Taliban from the Bonn Agreement and, correspondingly, the formation of the transition government, a mistake (see: L. Brahimi, “A New Path for Afghanistan,” Washington Post, Sunday, 7 December,2008). Asad Durrani, former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, also claims that in 2002, the Taliban’s proposal regarding cooperation was rejected by the Kabul regime (see: A. Durrani, “Post-NATO Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security,” Russia in Global Affairs, No. 4, October-December 2012).
Quoted from: Statement by Hamid Karzai at the opening of the Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan: Security &Cooperation at the Heart of Asia, 2 November, 2011, available at [http://mfa.gov.af/en/news/4585].
Afghanistan ranks 180th among 183 world states in terms of corruption level (see: K. Gannon, “Taliban Popular Where U.S. Fought Biggest Battle,” The Washington Times, 11 December, 2012, available at [http://www.washingtontimes. om/news/2012/dec/11/taliban-popular-where-us-fought-biggest-battle/]).
A three-phase ISAF withdrawal plan has been drawn up. Its first phase began in July 2011 with the withdrawal of 650 U.S. servicemen from Parwan Province to the north of Kabul (see: Afghanistan, an IHS Jane’s Special Report, October 2011, p. 26).
Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces, Department of Defense, USA, April 2012, p. 4.
See: Ibidem.
See: The Economist, 27 October-2 November, 2012, p. 55.
See: The Economist, 12-18 January, 2013, p. 48.
A. Karpov, “Perspektivy razvitia voenno-politicheskoi obstanovki v Afghanistane v sviazi s vyvodom inostrannykh voisk,” Zarubezhnoe voennoe obozrenie, No. 7, 2012, p. 13. At present, Afghanistan’s air force is for the most part deployed in Bagram (more than 40 units), Kandahar, and Shindand. Their capabilities are expanded by means of facilities in Herat,Mazar-e-Sharif, and Jalalabad.
This practice was begun by Afghanistan’s founding father Ahmad Shah Durrani, who made active use of the Qizilbash and tribes of Kohistan as a counterbalance to the Pushtun tribal armies. This role was also given to Najibullah’s special guards, who were mainly ethnic Tajiks subordinate neither to the Ministry of Defense, nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A. Dostum’s 53rd division (at the end of the 1980s), the numerical strength of which reached 40,000 people (1991),served as the backbone of the regime and its only effective mobile reserve (see: B.R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan,2nd ed., Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 157, 160).
British subsidies, a kind of reward for Afghanistan’s buffer status, were actively used to maintain the army of recruits. Beginning in 1882, emir Abdurahman-khan received an annual subsidy of 1.2 million Indian rupees, which increased to 1.8 million after an agreement on the so-called Durand Line was signed in 1893 (see: B.R. Rubin, op. cit.,p. 49).
Traditionally, the Afghan tribes were endowed with certain government functions: tithes and taxes were imposed on them and they were responsible for calling the regular tribe members to war, etc. Abdurahman-khan did not violate this tradition, retaining the leading role of village or clan elders. He used the system of indirect call-up, according to which a recruit was nominated by choosing one person from a group of eight people. In so doing, the other families were to pay for his upkeep,which also promoted an increase in money into the treasury (see: L. Temirkhanov, Vostochnye pushtuny (osnovnye problemy novoi istorii), Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 1987, p. 7; B.R. Rubin, op. cit.).
In particular, in 1987, 92% of all the recruits were people from Kabul (see: A. Arnold, “The Ephemeral Elite: The Failure
of Socialist Afghanistan,” in: The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, ed. by M. Weiner,A. Banuazizi, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1994, p. 58).
See: A. Rashid, Taliban: The Power of Militant Islam in Afghanistan and Beyond, I.B. Tauris, London, New York,2010, pp. 80, 103.
See: Afghanistan, an IHS Jane’s Special Report, p. 27.
At present, ethnic Tajiks predominate in the army and police, including among the officers (also high-ranking).
The Economist, 2-8 March, 2013, p. 56.
In 2012, more than 112,000 people, that is, one third of the entire ANAP, signed up to take literacy courses organized
within the framework of the NATO training program (see: Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan,Department of Defense, p. 5).
See: Afghanistan, an IHS Jane’s Special Report, p. 26.
See: Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, available at [http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/2012.06.01u.s. afghanistanspasignedtext.pdf].
Barack Obama said during Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington: “Nowhere do we have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops” (Afghanistan: Obama Wants Immunity for Soldiers Who Remain after 2014,available at [http://theaseantimes.com/4971/afghanistan-obama-wants-immunity-for-soldiers-who-remain-after-2014/]).
N. Shahrani, Resisting the Taliban and Talibanism in Afghanistan: Legacies of a Century of Internal Colonialism and Cold War Politics in a Buffer State, available at [http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/M.-NAZIF-SHAHRANI.pdf].
Barack Obama said during Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington: “Nowhere do we have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops” (Afghanistan: Obama Wants Immunity for Soldiers Who Remain after 2014,available at [http://theaseantimes.com/4971/afghanistan-obama-wants-immunity-for-soldiers-who-remain-after-2014/]).
N. Shahrani, Resisting the Taliban and Talibanism in Afghanistan: Legacies of a Century of Internal Colonialism and Cold War Politics in a Buffer State, available at [http://sam.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/M.-NAZIF-SHAHRANI.pdf].
These two programs resulted in reintegrating more than 5,000 oppositionists into peaceful life (see: Afghanistan, an IHS Jane’s Special Report, p. 27). But the reintegration efforts are not yielding the desirable results. The reintegrated members of the armed opposition, as regular fighters, do not have the right to vote in political decision-making. What is more, many of them are returning to the ranks of the Taliban.
“Vremia SShA proshlo. Eks-glava razvedki Pakistana Asad Durrani o voine, kotoruiu vedut Vashington s Islamabadom,” Rossiiskaia gazeta, No. 5633 (257), 16 November, 2011.
J.M. Smith, G. La Manno, “India Key to U.S. Afghan Success,” The Diplomat, 2 June, 2012, available at [http://
fpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/12/18/does_afghanistan_need_a_dictator].
See: 2014 and Beyond: U.S. Policy Towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, Testimony by Ashley J. Tellis, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, 3 November, 2011, available at [http://
arnegieendowment.org/ files/1103_testimony_tellis.pdf].
See: Th.R. Pickering, “Negotiating Afghanistan: When? With Whom? About What?,” PRISM, 3, No. 1, 2012 p. 24;H. Mendkovich, O. Hessar, “Afganskie taliby v Pakistane—struktura i strategiia,” 4 June, 2012, available at [http://www.entrasia.ru/news.php].
M. Mullen, the then chairman of the U.S. Army Joint Headquarters, called the Haqqani Network “the veritable arm”of the IRP’s Interdepartmental Intelligence Service (see: “Special Report, Pakistan,” The Economist, 11 February, 2012, p. 5).
See: Th.R. Pickering, op. cit.; 2014 and Beyond: U.S. Policy Towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.
U.S. Afghan Policy: The Big Questions, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., 9 November,2009, p. 10. According to Dorronsoro, “Pakistan literally holds the key to the talks with the upper crust of the Taliban movement” (see: G. Dorronsoro, “Afghanistan: At the Breaking Point, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,Washington, D.C., 2010, p. 35).
In particular, former Taliban Minister of Defense mullah Obaidullah Ahund died in Pakistani jail (see: N. Mendkovich,O. Nessar, op. cit.).
Ahmed Rashid notes that Pakistan’s foreign policy is still deeply rooted in the Cold War syndrome (see: Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Transcript by Federal News Service, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., 22 March, 2012, p. 1).
See: Afghanistan, an IHS Jane’s Special Report, p. 26.
See: “Afghanistan in Transition: Looking Beyond 2014,” The World Bank, 2012, p. 16.
See: “U.S. Military Participation in Central Asia and its Influence on U.S.-Central Asia Relations,” Expert Forum on Central Asia, Issue 1, April 2012, available in Russian at [http://www.centralasiaprogram. org/images/Policy_Forum_1-RUS.pdf].
“Discussion of the New Silk Road Strategy,” Expert Forum on Central Asia, Issue 2, June 2012, available in Russian at [http://www.centralasiaprogram.org/images/Policy_Forum_2-RUS.pdf].
“Economic development in Afghanistan is not something to be pursued after political stability and security have been established; rather, it is what must be achieved in order to forge political stability and communal peace” (see: S. Frederick Starr with Adib Farhadi, Finish the Job: Jump-Start Afghanistan’s Economy, A Handbook of Projects., Silk Road Paper, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program, 2012, available at [http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/ilkroadpapers/1211Afghan.pdf]).
“Discussion of the New Silk Road Strategy.”
See: Ibidem.
See: Th. R. Pickering, op. cit., p. 31.
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