India-Pakistan tension eclipse Taliban peace talks
Growing tensions between Pakistan and India have threatened to thwart the nascent Afghan peace process, talks for which are currently underway in Qatar. Just as the US peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, and a high-level Taliban delegation were ready to kick off what some analysts believe is a decisive round of negotiations, a military altercation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors appeared to be spiraling out of control and pushing the sub-continent toward a dangerous war. The rising military tensions between the two countries, which are also key regional players in Afghanistan, bode ill for the prospects of the peace process and stability in Afghanistan.
Even before the current crisis with Pakistan, the prospects of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban, which would see the full departure of US troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, has been unsettling for India. Additionally, India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan has been predicated on the security umbrella of US-led NATO forces. The US' military presence in Afghanistan has allowed India to substantially expand its economic, developmental, and security presence inside Afghanistan. While India has traditionally enjoyed good relations with Afghanistan, its relationship is less defined by overarching strategic or economic goals and more by Pakistan’s limited influence in landlocked Afghanistan. Since 2001, by using its expanded presence and substantial aid of $2 billion to Afghanistan, India has managed to successfully undercut Pakistan’s influence within Afghanistan.
The results are obvious: Afghan-Pakistan bilateral trade was down to $1.2 billion in 2018 from $2.5 billion in 2014. In 2014, there were close to 70,000 Pakistani professional and technical experts employed in various services across Afghanistan. That number has come down substantially. Afghan businessmen privately report that it has become literally impossible to make wire transfers or payments to Pakistan through the official banking sector in Afghanistan. Furthermore, Afghan businessmen and government employees also report that they are reluctant to have Pakistani visas stamped on their passports as it would be difficult for them to travel to India. From a security perspective, India — for the last several years — has invested resources in the training of Afghan police, army, and intelligence officers as well as the Afghan government's bureaucracy, resulting in the fact that, today, there is a new cadre of Afghan civilian and military bureaucracy, which remains hostile to Pakistan.
Many would argue that adverse relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are a result of Islamabad’s support for the Taliban which have been fighting the Afghan government and the military for almost two decades. The fact that until 2014 Pakistan, despite its known support and Taliban sanctuaries inside the country, continued to see rising levels of trade as well as business activities within Afghanistan hints at deeper issues. Since 2014, especially after the Pakistan military launched the decisive Zarb-e-Azb operation which pushed Pakistani militants into Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, it has accused some elements in Afghanistan’s security agency, alongwith India, of supporting TTP militant camps in Afghanistan. Pakistan has responded to the threat by sealing the porous Pak-Afghan border, thereby constraining normal transit trade, impacting Afghan consignments, and the free movement of people across the border.
The rising military tensions between the two countries, which are also key regional players in Afghanistan, bode ill for the prospects of the peace process and stability in Afghanistan.
Dr. Simbal Khan
As the Doha-based peace talks make headway, the growing acrimony between Pakistan and India suggests that the regional guarantees needed to support the peace settlement after the withdrawal of the US forces will be difficult to come by. India has thrown its weight behind Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's government, which is yet to join the US-Taliban peace talks. Officially, India has supported an “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled” peace process. India had also sent a low-ranking delegation to the Russia-led peace talks in November 2018 where the Taliban representatives were also present. Recently, there are unconfirmed reports that India may be considering reaching out to the Taliban. This would be a viable policy move for India, except deteriorating relations with Pakistan would make any meaningful engagement with the Taliban off the table for now.
For many analysts in India, the current situation has echoes of the 1990s when India failed to predict the fall of the Soviet-installed Najibullah regime in Kabul and consequently had little influence with the governments that followed after. India continued to support Ahmed Shah Masood, part of the Northern Alliance resisting the rising Taliban till the Taliban were ousted by the US military invasion in 2001. Now that the Taliban are poised to join the mainstream Afghan political government through the power-sharing formula being discussed in Qatar, India’s future role in Afghanistan appears to be predicated upon two very difficult options: One, to open channels of communication with the Taliban leadership; and two, to play an active spoiler and jeopardize the US-led peace process by encouraging anti-Taliban Afghan factions within and outside the Afghan government to reject the peace talks. The state of the India-Pakistan relationship is likely to determine which option India will eventually go for in Afghanistan.
• Dr. Simbal Khan is a political and security analyst and a South-Central Asia specialist, with experience in regional security and development spanning 20 years. Her work has focused on issues related to trans-border militant movements in South-Central Asia and the geo-politics of border spaces. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS) Islamabad. Twitter: @simbalkh
