The Great Game around Afghanistan
Saturday, December 20, 2008 at 2:27AM ARTICLE: All roads lead out of Afghanistan, By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times, Dec 20, 2008
All fairly logical analysis from the other (e.g., Indian, Russian, Iranian) perspectives. To the extent these conjectures are real and come true, it would signal to me an Obama administration that is already captive to a neocon perspective and likely to experience huge frustrations in Afghanistan (meaning wasted American lives and a distinctly suboptimal outcome that ultimately will be deconstructed by regional players over time--perhaps in great similarity to Iraq).
To me, this really would be a third Bush term in foreign policy. By pursuing such a strategy in Central Asia, you could pretty much kiss goodbye any great power cooperation for the U.S. beyond our usual Western powers. In that case, I would have preferred McCain, because this will be a very risky business indeed, likely to spur follow-on conflicts where proxies are employed at will.
Frankly, if such a scenario unfolds, then we're talking a JFK-like start heading to its own Bay of Pigs fiasco (any number of scenarios could fit the bill), except the damage and the legacy here would be far larger.
On the other hand, it's hard to believe Obama is that dumb or that weak-willed or that lacking in self-confidence to be talked into this path (Gates too), because what's the great upshot here? A lot more geographic responsibility in order to engage in intimidating relationships with Iran AND Russia AND China AND ultimately India? Where in the hell do you go with that plan over the long haul? I mean, if we were sitting pretty financially and in terms of our economics right now, I might give a longer listen to this logic, but given our current situation, I don't see the argument for dealing the SCO a delegitimizing blow or any other such nonsense.
That's where the logic breaks down for me--almost comically so, because this presumed trajectory argues that Obama-Biden will simply rerun all the deadly sins of Bush-Cheney, as if no learning has occurred.
In some ways, this is a great description of what a Big Bang strategy would have looked like for Afghanistan absent the redirection in 2003 to Iraq. If you sell me this vision at the end of 2002, then we have a different, more serious conversation. But given everything that's happened since then, it comes off as rather fantastic--like a neocon time capsule dug out of the ruins of the Bush-Cheney administration. It has all the hallmarks of primacy, hubris, etc.
That's not to say that the U.S. shouldn't or won't seek additional access rights as a result of ramping up our effort in Afghanistan, because that's pretty straightforward in logic, including the bit about the Caucasus. But if all this is pursued in an FU! attitude toward interested regional powers, then we're just setting ourselves up for their spoiler efforts. It would be the opposite of regionalizing/socializing the problem, or a complete rerun of the neocons' strategy on Iraq. Frankly, it'd be so strategically obtuse that I have a hard time thinking Petraeus and the Chiefs would stand for it, because it would make our forces wage their struggle in Afghanistan/Pakistan under the worst possible strategic circumstances--again, a repeat of our follies in the Persian Gulf.
Of course, one takes the whole analysis with a grain of salt when you see that the author is veteran Indian ambassador. Indians are like the Turks in their capacity for weaving fantastically complex scenarios of attempted U.S. domination (like some demented "Frontline" special on PBS!), so the entire article may be simply a sort of worst-casing info operation designed to elicit all appropriate fears from each player--sort of letting all your fears hang out in a pre-emptive bid at therapy.
Still, a fun read. Who knew everything in Afghanistan and Pakistan was actually going our strategic way!
(Thanks: Sudip Chowdhury)
Reader Comments (1)
Here's a simpler and less byzantine explanation. Everybody seems to agree that an important part of fighting an insurgency is to improve the economy so that everybody has more to lose and wants the fighting to end so that everybody can make money. Afghanistan is short on most of the natural resources, infrastructure, social structures or trained people that would enable it to participate easily in the global economy. One thing that it has going for it is location between Asia and Europe. If Indian goods could be economically transported by land to Europe, it might raise the living standards of everybody along the route as well as moving them up the Gap-Seam-Core ladder a bit. It would also serve as an incentive for India and Pakistan to cool the rhetoric to keep the route open.
Here's an even simpler and less devious explanation. The logistics route through Pakistan is looking kind of unreliable. It would be good to have a back up plan. A back up plan that does not go through Russia or Iran is less diplomatically vulnerable than one that does.