Afghanistan: Can India and Pakistan work Together?

Lt General (Retd) R K Sawhney, Distinguished Fellow, VIF

Sushant Sareen, Senior Fellow, VIF

With the US drawdown (perhaps even complete withdrawal) from Afghanistan looming large over the horizon, there is growing pessimism (a lot of it unwarranted) over the prospect of the Afghan state’s ability to survive without the crutches of foreign security forces. Clearly, the impact of any collapse of the Afghan state as a result of ceaseless onslaughts by Islamist radicals (the Taliban/Al Qaeda combine) will not remain limited to Afghanistan. If anything, a destabilised Afghanistan will severely destabilise the entire region. Countries like India and Pakistan are very likely to be buffeted by developments in Afghanistan. This is one of the main reasons that has given rise to talk among academics, think-tanks and policy wonks about the two countries which most fear the fallout of Afghanistan descending into chaos working together to ensure that such a catastrophe doesn’t occur. While on a theoretical plane such cooperation between India and Pakistan might sound like a great idea, on a more practical level, the possibility of such cooperation is nothing but a pipedream.

Much of what has gone wrong in Afghanistan is the result of Pakistan trying to compete with, counter and check India and to now expect it to change tack and cooperate with India at this rather late stage is quite unrealistic. Apologists for Pakistan and Western academics who discovered the Afpak region only after 9/11 often dumb down the spectre of instability in Afghanistan by attributing it to “the hostility between India and Pakistan” which according to these people “lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan”. Equally egregious is the peddling of the illogical theory that the road to Kabul passes through Kashmir. Obviously, the purveyors of such specious theories deliberately try to pin some, if not most, of the blame on India for Pakistan's malignant acts against Afghanistan.

By equating India’s benign and beneficial development oriented involvement in Afghanistan with Pakistan's malign and destructive interference in Afghan affairs, a disingenuous attempt is made to draw some sort of moral equivalence between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan, blithely ignoring the fact that India has no, repeat no, interest in making Afghanistan a proxy battlefield against Pakistan. The same however cannot be said for Pakistan which has not only used Islamist terror networks to target India in Afghanistan but has forged its entire Afghan policy with an eye on denying India any presence inside Afghanistan. If therefore a proxy war is being fought inside Afghanistan, it isn’t India that’s fighting it but Pakistan and to club the two countries together is nothing but a travesty.

While it is true that India has a vital interest in Afghanistan’s stability, security and independence, this interest is far transcends a desire to use Afghanistan to only poke a finger in Pakistan's eye, much less ‘encircle’ Pakistan and catch it in a ‘pincer’. If anything, India sees Afghanistan as critical for ensuring regional stability because an unstable Afghanistan will inevitably destabilise the entire region. Unlike Pakistan, India has imbibed this immutable lesson of history and is therefore committed to helping Afghanistan stabilise politically, economically and militarily. Ironically enough, this is also what is in Pakistan's interest because more than anyone else, it is Pakistan that will suffer the immediate fallout of any instability in Afghanistan. Indeed, over the last three decades, Pakistan has faced the brunt of the various wars that have been fought inside Afghanistan.

Although Pakistan publicly never tires of declaring its interest in a stable and secure Afghanistan, and professes to back an “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-driven” solution, behind the scenes it has done its damnedest to undermine all that it so piously declares in public. The entire ‘strategic depth’ policy remains very much in place, if not in the strict military sense (which actually never made any sense in the first place) then at least in the politico-strategic sense. Cut through the clap-trap, and it is clear that the Pakistani concept of ‘strategic depth’ is essentially reducing Afghanistan into a sort of subsidiary alliance in which the foreign and security policy of Afghanistan is decided not in Kabul but in Rawalpindi. While Pakistan is trying to replicate the British Raj’s policies in Afghanistan, India wants to see Afghanistan re-emerge as an independent nation that is sovereign in all its decisions.

It is this quest of Pakistan to make Afghanistan a vassal state that is at the root of all the troubles in the region. In its maniacal desire to call all the shots in Afghanistan, Pakistan seems to have ignored the simple reality that it wields a certain natural influence in Afghanistan which emanates from geography (trade routes etc), ethnic overlap, and to an extent, common religion. No other country in the world can ever replace this influence, which can be exercised by Pakistan in either a benign manner or a malign manner. Unfortunately for Afghanistan, Pakistan has chosen the malign way to wield influence in Afghanistan. The single most destructive example of this malign influence is the export and imposition of Taliban, which is a Pakistani and not an Afghan product. Add to this the sowing of ethnic differences by pitting the Pashtuns against other smaller ethnic, linguistic and sectarian groups. Pakistan has buttressed the ethnic divide in Afghanistan by constantly harping on the need to ensure Pashtun dominance. Despite the ethnic tug of war for influence, resources, power in Afghanistan, the Afghans have a unique sense of nationhood wherein none of the ethnic groups talk of breaking up the country. Compare this to Pakistan where the fear of balkanisation along ethnic lines has remained an abiding fear. And yet, the Pakistanis have planted this virus in Afghan minds.

For their part, the Afghans know that the tyranny of geography forces them to accept a certain amount of Pakistani influence. This the Afghans try and balance by building relations with other countries like India and Iran. Pakistan needs to learn to live with this reality because Pakistan itself has done the same thing against India through its relations with the US and China. Because of the development work inside Afghanistan and the fact that India has never done anything inimical to Afghanistan, there is enormous goodwill for India among all Afghans. Coupled with the Afghan quest to balance Pakistan, the benign image of India (including its soft power) bestows upon it a certain level of influence on Afghan polity and society. And yet, this influence doesn't outweigh or undermine the influence, both natural and coercive, that Pakistan exercises.

Rather than deal with Afghanistan with a degree of assuredness that should come with its natural influence, Pakistan has tried to impose an imperial design, which it can neither justify nor sustain politically, economically or militarily. It is quite clearly unacceptable for any self-respecting Afghan to accept Pakistani diktat on how Afghanistan should conduct its foreign policy. What role India will play in Afghanistan and how deeply it will get involved in that country is something that the Afghan government and the Indian government will decide. Pakistan cannot have a veto on what India can or cannot do.

If there ever has to be any possibility of India and Pakistan working in conjunction to stabilise Afghanistan, then this will only be possible if Pakistan junks the concept of ‘strategic depth’ and lets Afghans decide their own future. What is more, as long as Pakistan's primary objective remains denying India any presence inside Afghanistan, there cannot be any way that the two countries can cooperate on Afghanistan. For this to happen, however, Pakistan needs to get over its obsessive insecurity and hatred of India. All of this is clearly a very tall order and unlikely to happen any time soon, certainly not before the pullout of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Therefore, instead of wasting time on pipedreams about working with Pakistan, India should do whatever it can to bolster the Afghan government against the forces of fanaticism and obscurantism that once again threaten Afghanistan. 

The Phenomenon of Urban Terrorism in India

Dr. N Manoharan, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

Recent bomb blast in Bangalore (17 April 2013) and twin bomb blasts that took place in Hyderabad in February 2013 have reiterated that the phenomenon of urban terrorism has taken firm root in India. In less than a decade, the Indian urban areas like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkotta, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Varanasi, Pune, Kanpur, Coimbatore, Srinagar, Jammu and Ahmedabad have witnessed over 20 major attacks. There have been large-scale casualties, material damage and disruption of life and economic activity as a result.

The Phenomenon

The phenomenon of urban terrorism is relatively new to India, but it has a long history in the international arena. The Irish Republican Army had fought British forces in Northern Ireland for several decades mostly in urban areas. The Baader-Meinhof gang, a communist urban guerrilla group, was responsible for several acts of terrorism in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. Most of the terror groups in Latin America are urban-based. Palestinian militants have managed to launch numerous urban terror attacks on Israeli civilians despite Israel’s vigorous pre-emptive measures and a pro-active response strategy. Members of Aum Shinrikyo, a cult group, carried out five coordinated sarin gas attacks on several lines of the Tokyo metro in March 1995. Chechen rebels have been fighting Russia since the 1990s mostly in the urban set-up.

As terrorists are rational in their choice of terrain and targets, evaluating strengths and weaknesses and costs and benefits, urban terrain holds significant advantages. As is the characteristic of urban areas, population is not only high, but also densely concentrated. Unlike in rural areas, inhabitants in cities and towns are more heterogeneous that gives more space for anonymity. It is this posture of anonymity that enables the terrorist fish to swim easily; an excellent place for camouflage. For terrorists, logistical support like arms, medicines, food, and lodging are readily available in an average urban area. Manoeuverability of terrorists is guaranteed by the presence of public and private transportation facilities that are both dependable and unobtrusive. In urban areas, a terrorist group may find it easier to recruit prospective terrorists in a predictable manner, for it is the city that nurtures dissidence in general.

Cities are the nerve centres of any country. It is in urban areas where targets are most varied and abundant: laymen, officials, foreign nationals, corporate heavy weights, government buildings with symbolic/strategic value, bus stands, railway stations, airports, markets, foreign missions, communication centres etc. By attacking high profile symbolic targets, the terrorists wish to make a point that if a government fails to protect high value targets; it is obvious that it may not be in a position to protect the normal ones. As a result, the credibility of the government of the day is undermined. Since the quality and quantity of terrorists’ ‘defined enemy’ is high in cities, the impact of a destructive act is more widespread. This also gives an added advantage to terrorists to prevent any kind of indiscriminate counter-terrorist operation by the state that could maximise collateral damage. For the same reason, use of aerial bombardments against the terrorists becomes difficult. Urban operations for terrorists also often demand less in the way of brute physical strength and endurance than do operations in mountainous or rural terrain. And they do not need sophisticated long-range weapons to inflict desired damage.

Since terrorism is ‘propaganda by the deed’ the attention seeking goal of terrorists is well served in the urban environment where the immediate audience is greatest and where representatives of print and electronic media are readily available and quite eager to report. The media coverage of 9/11 and 26/11 attacks exemplify this. Such coverage also magnifies the fear-generating capabilities of terrorists. If the general population begins to fear, the objective of a terrorist group may have been achieved. Overall, an urban landscape facilitates terrorists in realising their goals: surprise, maximum damage with minimum risk, hyper media attention and subsequent disappearance. As the 26/11 experience has shown, well-armed terrorists are not easy to fight in urban terrain as tall buildings and narrow lanes and alleys provide inherent protection to them and make the security forces easy targets. The presence of hostages further complicates military or police operations. Similarly, IED attacks and suicide bombings are extremely difficult to detect or prevent in time.

Counter-measures

The key to success in fighting urban terrorism lies in obtaining accurate intelligence about impending attacks and the neutralisation of the terrorists before they can launch their planned attacks. Since the threat of urban terrorism is transnational in nature, there is an urgent need for regional and international networking of friendly intelligence agencies. Most importantly, the Central and state intelligence agencies should share information methodically and it must trickle down in real-time to the user. While electronic surveillance, including the interception of communications, is no doubt useful, it is of critical importance to penetrate the networks and sleeper cells of the terrorist organisations so as to gain actionable intelligence.

Since the terrorists usually choose high-profile soft targets, where the presence of ‘defined enemy’ is abundant, they should be put under maximum surveillance and protection. The staff manning these places should be trained in rendering first aid, evacuation techniques, and rescue and relief operations. Surveillance cameras, metal and explosive vapour detectors and X-ray scanning machines should be installed at key access points. Technology to detect and alert for suspicious activity such as loitering by an individual or vehicle should be made use of. Security personnel should be sensitised to spotting and segregating suspicious objects that are left behind.

The success of counter-terrorism operations, especially in the urban domain, depends to a considerable extent on a speedy response by the right force that is trained, armed and equipped suitably for the job at hand. As the National Security Guard is India’s primary strike force for counter-terrorist operations, it must be given the wherewithal to respond swiftly to urban terror attacks to minimise casualties and deny the perpetrators the ability to consolidate. The Central Government’s recent decision to locate NSG echelons in the cities that have been targeted most frequently will enable the force to respond in a swift manner. The NSG, however, must also be equipped with state-of-the-art technology and equipment to enable the commandos to enhance their operational performance and minimise their own casualties. Where necessary, the Indian Army’s elite Special Forces should be employed to counter terrorist attacks in urban areas. Every state, in fact, should have a NSG-type of commando force to counter lethal terror strikes. Rehearsals should be periodically undertaken for search-and-rescue operations after large-scale terrorist strikes. Different contingencies should be simulated and practised. Future training should also cater for tackling terrorist attacks using WMDs.

Without the eyes, ears and intuition of the general public, it is difficult to identify a terrorist who is anonymous and blends seamlessly into the environment in which he is living and operating. An effective battle against terrorism can be waged only by involving members of the public. This includes creating societal awareness to keep a steady eye on tentative or errant behavior in the neighbourhood and sharing of information of suspicious movements with point persons in the police and intelligence agencies. For instance, on every New York City subway train, the message to passengers since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 has been clear: “If you see something, say something.” For this purpose, urban Indians must organise themselves into neighbourhood watch committees through community consensus mechanisms based on genuine concern to prevent future terrorist attacks. All communities should be co-opted in counter-terror measures instead of perceiving some as the “other”. The community of Indian fishermen should keep a constant tab on coastal waters. Awareness creation among people should also include ‘golden rules’ to be followed by the people in case of a terrorist attack. Such familiarisation will not only minimise the lethality of terrorist attacks, but also reduce the consequent panic. In short, unless a comprehensive approach is adopted, involving all stake holders of the society, it is difficult to counter urban terrorism.