Afghanistan, US, and lessons for India

For once, President Donald Trump could complain justifiably of an unfair press. American media “experts” roundly criticised his Afghanistan speech last week, even those not just eager to find another fault, repeated age-old analyses without any more workable solutions. Unless they mean, just get out. There are wider lesson in all this, both about international relations generally and about our challenges, which need examination.

The fact is, as so often in life and in history, there are no solutions: When existing circumstances do not permit one, you must wait – and work – for circumstances to change, meanwhile coping with events as best possible. Getting out would only make the future more dangerous. The American decision deserves approval – and support – for trying to prevent that.

Of course there are no specifics, there cannot be. Americans especially like timetables, but expecting one here means not understanding the problem. It is indeed a war that cannot be won in the commonly-accepted sense: That could only happen when the Afghan state became coherent and powerful enough to overcome the Taliban, hardly a foreseeable possibility. But the Taliban can be prevented from winning, but only by outside intervention. Certainly, the desirable victory is when you can win a war, pack up and go home, but it is also a commendable and desirable achievement if you keep your enemy from winning.

Critics also labour such obvious points as the problem not being just military, but requiring political and diplomatic initiatives. That does raise a worry: Today’s America does not inspire confidence in any organised, comprehensive, enduring commitment. Washington’s moves away from what we were all accustomed to, towards the unpredictable, are causing seismic changes in the world’s geopolitical configurations, power equations, and action-reaction estimations. The old familiar landmarks are gone, unfathomable currents swirl around. 

This broader situation makes handling the Afghan-related issues enormously more difficult. Critics of the Afghan speech pick on the denunciation of Pakistan: Acknowledging its age-old double-dealing regarding terrorists, they emphasise America needs it to access Afghanistan, also that being tough would drive it more into China’s hands. Both points are valid, but so is the underlying reality that nothing else has worked all these decades. Any ointments sought to be applied to the running sores caused by the Taliban have in it the very large fly of Pakistan, and nobody knows how to deal with it — another problem without an evident solution. Being tough carries obvious dangers, but nothing else has worked either. As for China, Pakistan may have initially intended only using it calculatedly for advantages over India, while maintaining beneficial relations with America, but China has developed such a hold there, it is difficult to see what Chinese purposes it is not willing to serve. Short of a formal alliance to give it bases, Pakistan is already doing what China wants.

Every objection to the American statement is valid, except the conclusion. Indeed, who is offering conclusions, except for counsels of perfection — or abandonment? Only the Afghans can solve things, state-building is not for outsiders, political solutions demand bringing in the Taliban, diplomatic solutions demand bringing in all neighbours. All winged words, leading where? None of the imagined outcomes are even imaginable unless America maintains a credible presence — precisely what Mr Trump’s speech promises. Which brings up the key question: Is the promise credible?

Usually, one might dare hope, but for so much else happening in America. At the best of times, one always wonders about American public opinion’s staying power. Staying on will be highly expensive, in casualties more unbearably than money, the necessary politico-diplomatic concomitants endlessly frustrating. The Austria example – all concerned powers accepting a neutral state left to itself, would be wonderful, except Austria was really a two-sided, East-West problem, while here, multiple interests clash — American, Iranian, Russian, Chinese, even apart from India-Pakistan aspects. Actually, the worst could be contained if the first four could devise an understanding, which leads back to the broader global situation and America’s role in it. That being un-precedently unpredictable, how do others decide what to do to adjust to America’s Afghanistan intentions, leave alone the broader global equations, which are so decisive for this problem among so many others? 

Pakistani apprehensions (inventions) about Indo-Afghan joint hostility are wholly unfounded. India and Afghanistan each have disputes with Pakistan but neither ever supported the other on them: We were always wary of questioning the Durand Line, while Kabul never supported us on Kashmir. Indeed, during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war Afghans openly rooted for Pakistan. Certainly, there is great Indo-Afghan goodwill now, but if Pakistan insists on alienating Afghanistan – and, of course, India – what else can anyone expect?

What India cannot expect is much benefit from America’s announcement. It is not that Sino-Pakistani ill-intentions will increase, or Washington expect what we cannot comply with, those are constants. It is that the new American unpredictability makes an already turbulent world more complex to deal with. Our biggest handicap is our almost total dependency for advanced weapons systems on outsiders (leaving aside other defence deficiencies). The dubious distinction of being the world’s largest arms importer only underlines our vulnerabilities. Developing our own capabilities was in any case going to take ages; the uncertainties now flowing out of America look like carrying incalculable consequences. It is not apparent that we as nation are alive to this troublesome world environment — we seem diverted by mindless, even dangerous preoccupations. The one thing we can do entirely on our own to cope better with storms ahead is to make our apparatus of governance – both the decision making and the implementing parts – really worthy of our country and its challenges. Doklam’s outcome betokens the statecraft we are capable of in the international field; it is even more necessary at home, not least in curing the many ailments of our apparatus of state action. Domestic politics seem fixated on preventing that. One can only appeal.

The writer is a former ambassador to Pakistan, China and USA, and secretary, External Affairs Ministry