Indo-Afghan Bilateral Relations - 2 | UPSC Mains: International Relations PDF Download

Strategic factors undergirding India’s Partnership with Afghanistan 

India’s growing engagement in development cooperation with Afghanistan reflects its increasing regional and global ambitions.

• Securing Access to Energy and Natural Resources

  
  The development assistance India provides to Afghanistan increasingly has an underlying goal of facilitating India’s access to the natural resources within Afghanistan and through Afghanistan in Central Asia (see figure 3 for potential mineral mining locations in Afghanistan). For example, India’s support for hydroelectricity generation and power transmission in Afghanistan’s Herat province has largely benefitted the local Afghan population. However, a secure source of electricity in Herat, along with India’s investment in the Iranian port and container terminal at Chabahar, investments in the Delaram-Zarang highway connecting Iranian roads from Chabahar port across the border with Herat and other major cities in Afghanistan through the A01 ring road, and proposed investments in a railway linking Chabahar with Bam on the Iranian-Afghan border and into Afghanistan, all help India in accessing land-locked Afghanistan. India is also working to connect Iran and Afghanistan with Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries via these roads, thereby increasing regional trade as well as creating a route for India to access the rich gas and oil reserves of Central Asia.
  This infrastructure will provide Indian private and state-owned companies, like the Indian consortium that has the majority rights to mine the Hajigak iron-ore mines in Bamiyan province, with a route for exporting this natural resource from Afghanistan through Iran back to India. These resources of course also represent huge potential income for Afghanistan. Finally, this infrastructure provides India with a route for Indian exports (and continued aid) to Afghanistan. This sea and land route to and from Afghanistan through Iran is all the more important to India given the continued intransigence of Pakistani government in not allowing India access to the quicker and cheaper land route across their country, even for the transport of humanitarian goods.
• Economic Diplomacy
  India’s development cooperation with Afghanistan increasingly has a second goal of economic diplomacy.Indian companies and services are significantly cheaper than their western counterparts and entry into the Afghan market thus offers opportunities for the Indian private sector. For example, India has provided significant development assistance in the field of health care: India funded the construction and upgrading of Afghanistan’s only children’s hospital, and supplied the hospital’s infrastructure and training of its medical personnel along with a telemedicine project that links it with Indian hospitals. India also provided ambulances to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health and built numerous basic health clinics in border areas.
  The government’s development assistance has helped pave the way for India’s private sector to find a market for its goods and services in Afghanistan. As Afghanistan seeks to shift the foundation of its economy from aid to trade, this economic diplomacy angle of India’s development cooperation will further increase in significance.
  To this end India has tried to use its development projects to support the capacity of the Afghan government and its democratic institutions through significant allocations to a training program in India for Afghan bureaucrats and by financing the construction of Afghanistan’s parliament. Indian development assistance is also used to tie Afghanistan closer into the economy of Iran and the neighboring Central Asian republics in the hopes that this will provide greater economic integration and prospects for the Afghan government beyond 2014.

Afghanistan after Nato Withdrawal (Post 2014)

United States have completely pull out its forces from Afghanistan and had delegated control of the war-torn country to Afghan authorities.
But the US also has kept about 10,000 troops in the war-battered Afghanistan after 2014. NATO allies are expected to provide around 5,000 troops if the security-related agreement is agreed to among the stakeholders in Afghanistan, US and NATO.

Brief history

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on twin towers in USA, the then US president, George W. Bush waged a war in Afghanistan with an aim to eliminate Bin Laden (the said mastermind behind 9/11) and the Al-Qaida terrorist network; two, to remove the Taliban from power and to prevent Afghanistan from continuing to serve as a safe-haven for terrorists; and three, to bring stability to Afghanistan and its people through the creation of a functioning stable and democratic state.
With the establishment of the Afghan Interim Authority as a temporary local authority in the Bonn Agreement in December 2001, the issue of state-building was added to this agenda. And indeed, after NATO took permanent command of the ISAF force in October 2003 and its mandate was expanded territorially to reach across most of Afghanistan, ISAF’s goals were further expanded to cover the maintenance of security, the aiding of reconstruction and development and the facilitation of governance.
The Afghan situation is unfolding rapidly.  From the Bonn Conference in December 2011 till the Tokyo conference of July 2012, international meetings have been “an awkward mixture of hope, fantasy, and failure”, according to an American observer. At Tokyo, the international community did make a pledge of $16 billion for the next four years, which is much less than what the Afghan President had quoted at Bonn ($10 billion per year) and short of what the Afghan Central Bank estimated ($6-7 billion per year) as necessary for sustaining economic growth.
The reconciliation efforts do not seem to be succeeding. There is no regional consensus on how to approach the post-withdrawal situation.

• Pakistan is looking for strategic depth;
• Iran wants to see the back of American forces from Afghan soil;
• China eyes Afghan resources without any definite commitment to invest in Afghan security and stability;
• Russia is ready to engage as a service provider if the funds can be arranged elsewhere. All in all, there is not enough international support for keeping the ‘new Afghanistan’ afloat.

Implications of withdrawal of troops

There could be many challenges to Afghanistan of which some are discussed below:

• Regional Security
  It is assumed that after reduction/withdrawal of the coalition forces from Afghanistan, the militants would be reorganized/restructured and could threaten the peace of the entire region by drawing the neighbouring countries in the war. Thus the reduction/withdrawal can endanger stability of the south and central Asia.
  History reveals that after complete withdrawal of Soviet Union forces from Afghanistan in 1988, America ceased taking interest in Afghanistan and the fighters made their way to Pakistan-India eastern borders.  If the terror activities persist in Afghanistan after 2014, they are likely to spill over into neighbouring countries, and Afghanistan could become “a staging ground for an Indo-Pakistan proxy war.
• Afghan Forces
  The key question is: Will the Afghan forces be able to discharge their responsibility effectively? NATO´s withdrawal from Afghanistan can provide a golden chance to Taliban to challenge the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) potential to keep the country intact. The ANSF will simultaneously combat on two fronts.Firstly, it will fight against Taliban, which will use all their strength to re-take areas from army in the remotest rural territories. Secondly, the Taliban will strive to eliminate the country´s internal security and political apparatus - the police, government and the army by demoralizing and deserting the security forces.
• Economy
  Afghanistan’s economy is totally dependent on foreign aid that has been cut down to a great extent. Some foreign funded media outlets, including TV and Radio channels have shut down or limited their services. In case of instability, foreign investors can cease their projects in Afghanistan that will be a great blow to its economy.
  After 2014, the dependent Afghanistan would need to stand on its own feet, which would be something very difficult for this war torn country. Afghans who are drawing salaries in dollars and Euros now will plunge into severe despair when dollars are stopped. Afghanistan will need a minimum of 3-4 billion dollar apart from security fund to maintain the functioning of the government.
  Afghanistan spent very little amount of the foreign funds on its industrial sector. Afghanistan imports are larger than its exports, the biggest export of Afghanistan are dry fruit. Rampant smuggling and corruption have almost ditched Afghanistan’s economy. There is no proper check and balance system in this regard and there is a fear that after 2014, a weak economy will be one of the biggest challenges to Afghanistan.
• Political Uncertainty
  Currently Afghanistan has a very weak government. Karzai government has no or very weak control beyond Kabul. The Presidential elections are very important because Afghanistan needs a strong leader to implement not only the writ of the government, but also bridge the gap among the conflicting ethnic groups.
• Pakistan  Interference
  After 2014, Pakistan interference can mount in Afghanistan. The stability of Afghanistan is closely intertwined with developments in neighboring Pakistan. Islamabad has assisted the Taliban in the past and once again stands accused by the United States of supporting the Taliban groups fighting ISAF forces in Afghanistan.
  Some researchers argue that the Pakistan military actively aids the insurgents through funding, weapons, strategic planning, and so on, as well as through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
• Illegal drug trafficking
  llicit drugs is one of the major post-2014 problems that must be urgently addressed. Afghanistan remains by far the leading cultivator and producer of opium in the world. Poppy cultivation and illicit trafficking of opium threaten the health and well-being of people in the region and beyond. They fuel crime and corruption, undermine stability and can be used to finance terrorist activity.