Commentary: North Korea Takes Advantage of Flags of Convenience Regime

12 Jan, 2018  | Dr Vijay Sakhuja

Amid high decibel ‘verbal exchanges’ between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over latter’s nuclear ambition, the United Nations Security Council announced on 22 December 2017 new economic sanctions against Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The current sanctions, the ninth in the series since 2006, were pursuant to the recent intercontinental ballistic missile tests conducted by Pyongyang. These include limiting DPRK access to energy resources with ‘ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products and a cap on crude oil exports to North Korea at current levels’.

The international shipping has in the past scrupulously adhered to UN sanctions and refrained from transporting embargoed goods to DPRK, barring a few vessels that were suspected of defying the sanctions. The US had also sought blacklisting of at least 10 vessels that are involved in illegally transferring oil at sea to be delivered to North Korean. These suspected vessels are flagged in Panama, Hong Kong and other registries including DPRK’s own register. Russian oil tankers were also suspected of providing ‘lifeline to the regime’ by engaging in ship-to-ship transfer at sea. The US put out satellite images of a North Korean ship trying to conduct a ship-to-ship transfer in October 2017, and President Donald Trump accused China ‘being caught red-handed selling oil to North Korea’.

The Panama Maritime Authority announced cancellation of registration of ship Koti operating under its flag (detained at a port in South Korea), and suspected of breaching the UN sanctions against North Korea. Another vessel, the Hong Kong flagged Lighthouse Winmore, also suspected of transferring refined petroleum products to the North Korean ship, the Sam Jong-2 in October 2017, was seized and remains in South Korea. Meanwhile, Taiwanese authorities brought before court a man ‘prosecutors allege to have made false declarations in the case of a Hong Kong-flagged tanker suspected of transferring oil to North Korea in violation of international sanctions’, but was later released on bail.

In the past, a number of North Korean vessels have been detained for carrying embargoed cargo. In fact, the country has a rich history of transporting illegally a variety of commodities ranging from drugs, small arms and weapons, oil and gas, missiles and even weapons of mass destruction. For instance, in 1999 the Indian authorities detained in the port of Kandla MV Ku Wol San, a North Korean vessel carrying Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) accessories bound for Pakistan/Libya. On August 6, 2009, the Indian Navy undertook VBSS (visit, board seize and search) operations in the Andaman Sea against a North Korean vessel in support of UN Security Council Resolution No. 1874 that ‘strengthens arms embargo, calls for inspection of cargo vessels if states have ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe contain prohibited items’.

The ongoing imbroglio over the ship-to-ship transfer at sea in breach of the UN sanctions against DPRK has brought to fore the weaknesses in the Flag of Convenience (FoC) regime, which has been under scrutiny by the law enforcement agencies and international community. Linking ‘a State’, ‘a ship’ and ‘a flag’ is an age old practice and documented in antiquity. It helps to determine who owns the vessel, or has jurisdiction over it, and therefore empowered to prosecute it in case it is engaged in any illegal activity, or defend its operations in case national interests are in jeopardy.

As with any commercial enterprise, international shipping is market driven and therefore competitive. The primary aim of any shipping company is to enhance fiscal advantage, maximise revenue, and minimise costs. Ship owners’ carefully choose register for their ships and hence fly that country’s flag. In essence, economics is the decisive factor that will determine the flag a ship flies. Likewise, it is a win-win situation for the FoC registries. This practice generates revenue for the flag state in the form of fees, transactions and services provided to the ships seeking registration. These funds are critical for the flag state and bring in significant income. This widespread phenomenon has resulted in larger percentage of the world fleet under the FoC when compared with the traditional maritime countries themselves.

Since the last century, the practice of ‘closed registers’ witnessed changes due to stringent domestic manning regulations, restrictive taxation regime, and other commercial considerations in home countries. Panama was the first to set up an ‘open register’ in 1916, and by 1950 there were more open registers and accounted for nearly 4 per cent of the world’s fleet. In the mid-1980s, the share of FoC in international shipping registration increased to over 30 per cent and by 2009, nearly 73 per cent of the global merchant fleet was under open registers. According to 2017 UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, today more than 70 per cent of the commercial international fleet is flagged out and registered under a different flag from the country of ownership.

Interestingly, there are agencies which specialize in helping shipping companies to obtain FoC registries, For them it is a business model, and according to ‘ship solutions’, an agency which specializes in such a venture since 2010, they help shipping companies and owners to register or reflag ships. The agency enables ‘ship managers to streamline their operations during peak times and leave the registration of the vessels to us … to keep overheads to a minimum and thus … offer a very competitive price and can perform jobs of any size within a tight timescale’.

It is a fact that States operate FoC registry to ‘earn a great deal of money, usually from registration and maintenance fees and taxes, from the ships in its registries, but expend very little money to ensure that such ships meet international standards’. Further, FoC offers numerous opportunities to devious ship owners to “hide so long as they pay the requisite registration fees and tonnage taxes, leading to dangerous consequences, such as the funding of terrorist activities and lack of liability for substandard ships sailing the high seas”.

In the case of DPRK, it has skillfully used the FoC regime and engaged in maritime commerce violating various UN sanctions. Of particular interest is Ocean Maritime Management (OMM) Limited, a shipping company with operations in at least 10 countries, has a dubious record of engaging in illegal activities at sea. The company has taken advantage of the FoC regime and been renaming its vessels. For instance, it has not only renamed as many as 13 of its 14 vessel , but also transferred the ownership to shell companies. This is perhaps a clever way to, reflag the vessels and thus ‘effectively erase’ these vessels from the ‘blacklist’, ‘a strategy to evade assets freezes’ by the international community. For instance, the U.N. Security Council’s Panel of Experts on North Korea, that monitors implementation of sanctions on Pyongyang, blacklisted OMM for ‘arranging an illegal shipment on the Chong Chon Gang ship, which was seized in Panama and found to be carrying arms, including two MiG-21 jet fighters, hidden under thousands of tons of Cuban sugar’. However, the company was not deterred and OMM evaded ‘sanctions by changing the registration and ownership of vessels’ to a shell company.

Some DPRK flagged vessels have been intercepted while carrying military cargo bound other States. For instance, in December 2002, So San, a North Korean vessel carrying fifteen Scud missiles hidden under cement bags and bound was Yemen intercepted by a Spanish frigate and a support vessel Patino in the Indian Ocean. The vessel was allowed to proceed to its destination after the Yemen government announced that the consignment was bound for it and it has been argued that ‘there was no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting delivery of missiles from North Korea’. Similarly, in 2016, one of the OMM ships was apprehended for carrying imported weapons from Cuba, but authorities ‘in Havana admitted being behind the stash, saying they were Soviet-era arms from Cuba headed for repair in North Korea’.

Given the complexity of the political economy of merchant shipping and its close relationship with global economy, the FoC system has the potential of being a major challenge for the safety of ships, national security in general, and maritime security in particular. International law (1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, Articles 90, 91, 92, 94 and 110; United Nations Convention on Conditions for Registration of Ships; Convention on the International Maritime Organization) and national legislations stipulate the mandatory requirement of a genuine link between ship and flag state. This is so due to the need for ‘an absolute minimum entity’ which can be made responsible for the ‘actions of the ship owner and on which penalties of adequate severity can be levied so as to discourage violations of applicable international minimum standards’ wherever they occur.

While that may be necessary, North Korea has blatantly yet cleverly, contravened international law and successfully defied UN sanctions. In the future too, it can continue to marshal its national shipping fleet as also other FoC vessels to conduct illegal commerce and clandestinely obtain embargoed goods from the international market. It is fair to state that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is not perturbed by UN sanctions and DPRK will continue flagrant violation of sanctions.

(Dr Vijay Sakhuja is former Director National Maritime Foundation, New Delhi)

(Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the VIF)

Russia Looks at Regaining its Space Glory

Radhakrishna Rao, 

Visiting Fellow, VIF

Behind the successful 2013 test flight of Antares rocket –designed and developed by the US private space enterprise Orbital Sciences Corporation— at Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island in Virginia, there was a tale of “Soviet connection.” This two stage launch vehicle meant to help launch cargo resupply runs to the International Space Station(ISS), which will be in operational service till the end of this decade, features in its first stage an improved version of two N1 engine originally developed by the former Soviet Union as part of the strategy to race fast the American Saturn-V programme that constituted the cornerstone of the American manned missions.

Significantly, in early 2014, an Antares rocket carrying a commercially developed cargo ship made its first operational flight to ISS. Antares is also capable of providing low cost and reliable access to space for payloads weighing upto 6120-kg. Interestingly, Orbital acquired an improved version of N1 engine from the US firm Aerojet which had purchased 40 of the N series engines from Russia after the disintegration of the once mighty Soviet Union. ”The Soviet N1 booster had the highest lift off thrust of any rocket built in the history of space exploration,” notes Asif.A.Siddiqi, a US based historian of the Soviet space programme.

Interestingly, Russians could not put N-1 to operational use though it was developed as an answer to the American Saturn-V. As it is, a string of four failures of N-1 mega booster meant that the Russian dream of launching a cosmonaut to the moon went up in flames. Subsequently, the N-1 project was cancelled by a decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Russia. N-1 had a massive cluster of 30 engines at its base. Incidentally, the cryogenic engine developed for N-1 ended up as the upper stage of India’s three stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) capable of placing a two tonne plus satellite payload into a geostationary transfer orbit. Under an agreement, Russia made available to India seven cryogenic engine stages for powering the flights of GSLV as a stop gap arrangement till India’s own cryogenic engine stage could take off.

Because of the complex technological challenges involved in the development of a cryogenic engine in late 1980s, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) decided to acquire the cryogenic engine technology from Russia with the purpose of giving a quickening impetus to the development of GSLV, the first two stages of which are derived from the modules of the highly successful and reliable space workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Accordingly, in 1991, ISRO entered into an agreement with the Russian federal space agency Glavkosmos for the supply of two flight ready cryogenic engine stages along with the transfer of critical cryogenic engine technology. But then in 1992, USA, citing the provisions of the so called Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), pressurised Russia that was just suffering the pangs of disintegration, to abandon its commitment of transferring the cryogenic engine technology to India. The stand of USA was that cryogenic engine technology has dual use potentials. But the ground reality is that cryogenic propulsion technology is not well suited for a missile system for the simple reason that the cryogenic fuel cannot be loaded on into the missile well in advance.

Under US pressure, Russia watered down the original agreement and as a face saving device decided to supply seven ready to use cryogenic engine stages to ISRO without any technology transfer. This was to enable India carry out GSLV flights till such time as an indigenous cryogenic stage gets ready. Following the denial of the cryogenic technology, ISRO launched its Cryogenic Upper Stage Project (CUSP) about two decades back. The mission objective was to realize a three stage launch vehicle capable of placing 2-2.5-tonne satellites into a geostationary transfer orbit. And thanks to the painstaking efforts of ISRO, the superb technological performance of the home grown cryogenic engine stage was convincingly demonstrated by the successful January 2014 flight of GSLV. Indeed, the flawless GSLV maiden flight featuring an Indian cryogenic engine stage was a slap in the face of the technology denial regime spearheaded by USA.

Evidently, a cryogenic engine stage is highly efficient since it makes available more thrust for every kg of fuel it burns in comparison to solid and earth storable liquid fuel driven rocket stages. A cryogenic stage is technically a very complex system in comparison to solid or earth storable liquid propellant stages due to its use of propellants at a very low temperatures and associated thermal and structural problems.

Meanwhile, Russia’s struggling space programme has projected a new multi billion dollar plan focussed on the development of a replacement for the obsolete and aging Soyuz cargo spaceship by 2020. This US$70-billion plan of the Russian space agency Roscomos also envisages the launch of new unmanned missions to the moon and beyond. Soyuz has remained the backbone of Russian space travel since its development in 1960s.One major setback suffered by the Russian space programme was the failure of the Progress-44 capsule meant to carry supplies to ISS .The Progress-44 carrying more than three ton of food supplies to ISS crew fell back to earth moments after its launch in August 2011, following the failure of a Russian Soyuz space vehicle.

The Soyuz became the world’s only manned link to the ISS following phasing out of the US space shuttle in July 2011. Against this backdrop, the Russian space agency’s outline called for the introduction of an “energy transportation module with a promising propulsion installation that will be ready for testing by 2018.” Roscosmos also said that it intends to “deploy a programme for detailed study of the moon and launch a series of unmanned missions for studying its soil samples.”

In what has been perceived as a major boost to the Russian space programme, President Vladimir Putin told the astronauts on-board ISS in 2013 April that Russia will send manned flights from its own soil in 2018 using a new ultra modern launch complex. Putin expressed the optimism that the upcoming launch pad will help the once pioneering space power explore deep space and the moon .In particular, he drove home the point that he wants the Vostochny cosmodrome to help Russia catch up with other powers in exploring beyond the near earth orbit. ”We are lagging behind the world in some areas. We have developed a noticeable gap from the leading space powers in the technologies of so called deep space exploration,” observed Putin.

Russia is planning to use Vostochny, located in the Far Eastern part of this former Communist empire, for launching a new generation of rockets carrying heavier payloads to rival its current launch site at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, the lease of which has been in contention since the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union. Baikonur cosmodrome in the steppes of Central Asia was the nerve centre of Soviet space launch activities. The first human to go to space, Yuri Gagarin made his pioneering space flight from here. However, the unresolved dispute over the lease terms continue to cast a shadow of uncertainty over its use by Russia.

According to Putin, the first launch from Vostochny will be in 2015 .The site, near Russia’s Pacific coast, was chosen to allow cosmonauts to splash down on water after their mission. “It is clear that in the 21st century, Russia must preserve its status as a leading space power,” said the Russian President. He also announced that the town being built around the new cosmodrome to house its engineers, researchers and their families would be called Tsiolkovsky in honour of the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who spearheaded rocket design in early Soviet era. There is no denying the fact that this new launch complex in eastern Amur region would enable Russia to shift much of the launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome. Russia leases Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for U$115-million annually.

Putin also revealed that Russian space programme will get backed up substantially to the extent of US$52-billion over the next eight years. In 2011, Russia spent close to US$4-billion on its space program. However, the new push announced by Putin will imply that Russian space will get US$6.5-billion per year which means more than50% increase.

Between 2011 and 2013 Russian space programme had to sustain a series of failures and setbacks. Mishaps struck two Soyuz rockets in 2011, resulting in the loss of a military communications spacecraft and a Progress resupply ship heading for ISS. The once formidable Proton launch vehicle, which had come cropper in July 2013 with the three Glonass satellites it was carrying, turning into a ball of flame, however had its successful run in Sept.2013 when it launched a European telecom satellite. The July 2013 failure of Proton rocket was blamed on the placing of three rocket sensors in an upside down fashion. However, one of Russia’s most conspicuous failures was the loss of its Phobos-Grunt probe to Mars launched in 2011 which ended up crashing back into earth rather than coming close to completing its mission of visiting Martian moon. Indeed, this space flop has highlighted the infirmity of the Russian space progamme compared to NASA which in recent years had scored impressive success with its unmanned missions to Mars including Mars rover Spirit.

However, 2014 seems to have proved luckier to Russian space missions. In March this year, a Russian Proton-M rocket successfully launched two Russian telecom satellites. Prior to that in February, a Russian Proton rocket delivered Turkey’s domestic satellite Turksat-4A into its intended orbit.

Looking beyond its failures and setbacks, the Russian space programme has its vision focussed firmly on planetary missions. According to Oleg Ostapenko, Head of the Roscosmos Russian space agency developing technologies for robotic exploration of the moon and Mars is one of the important focus areas of the Russian space programme. The first mission named Luna-25 is slated for launch on the southern polar region of the moon in 2016. The next two missions will include an orbiter probe to monitor the moon in 2018 and a polar lander with a drill to search for water ice in 2019. Subsequent missions are planned to deploy robotic base on the moon and bring lunar soil back to earth for analysis.

Certainly there is no denying the fact that the landmark spaceflight of the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin strengthened the space leadership position of the erstwhile Soviet Union which had also to its credit the inauguration of the space age with the successful launch of Sputnik in October 1957. But in 1969, the USA took the then Soviet Union by surprise by successfully accomplishing the first human landing on the moon. The former Soviet Union had also proven its excellence in orbital complex technology. It is a tribute to the Russian mastery over the challenging technology of realizing an orbital complex that its Mir space station launched in 1986 continued to be operational till 2001. Incidentally, it was the world’s first and only permanently manned orbital outpost till the construction of ISS in 1998.Significantly, Russia had contributed to ISS with its Zanya module, technologies and expertise to build and operate an orbiting complex.

The plan to extend the operational life of ISS till 2020 has provided Russia an opportunity to boost its income by providing crew and cargo transportation service based on the Soyuz vehicle. As the US reusable space transportation system, the space shuttle, has been grounded, Russia’s reliable space workhorse Soyuz will be the only means of taking international crew to ISS. But then not long back Putin had observed, “Russia should not limit itself to the role of an international space ferry man. We need to increase our presence on the global space market which is roughly worth around US$200-billion”.

The high point of the Russian space programme is that it is developing a futuristic nuclear propulsion system for its proposed interplanetary missions. This is an area where Russia has a certain edge over the USA. According to Dr.Asif Siddiqi, Soviet space activities were essentially driven by militaristic ambitions and not due to the push provided by a well planned and centrally funded organizational set up. His thesis is that the Soviet space programme had an “accidental evolution” not because of the support from the Communist Government in Moscow but because of the vision of a few motivated individual scientists.

Clearly and apparently, Soviets did not have a long term space vision on the lines of the goals set by NASA. From launching Sputnik to sending its first cosmonaut into space, Soviets relied on modified versions of its ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile). But then the Achilles heel of the Soviet space programme was that the outfit which produced space systems and hardware also worked on missiles and defence devices. This resulted in a diffusion of focus on the space activities. Consequently, without a long term planning and sustained funding, the development of a high performance booster required to realize a manned flight to moon took a serious hit.

Before the break up of the Soviet Union, Russians had carried out a number of tests for developing a reusable space vehicle called Cosmolyot and a heavy lift off Energia vehicle as the most powerful and versatile booster developed anywhere. However, following the political turmoil and economic crisis that accompanied the break up of this mighty communist empire, Cosmolyot and Energia programmes came a cropper. But then the world cannot forget the innumerable space records set by the former Soviet Union which included the launch of the first animal, the first man and the first woman into space. Similarly, the first space walk was undertaken by a Soviet cosmonaut. The first pictures of the moon’s hidden sides were shot by an orbiting Soviet spaceship.

Meanwhile, in an interesting development, researchers of Russian Space Forces are working on developing an unmanned reusable space vehicle somewhat similar to American X-37 orbital vehicle now being developed by Boeing for United States Air Force (USAF). In the ultimate analysis, Russia is working hard to push ahead with its projects meant to reclaim the space glory of Soviet era.

In a major shift in its launch strategy, Russia’s new manned spacecraft will now be launched by means of Angara -5 rocket, originally developed for unmanned missions. The country’s new cosmonaut spacecraft getting ready for its maiden flight test in 2018, which was to have been launched by another rocket named Rus-M, will now be orbited by Angara-5. The Angara rocket will replace the existing launch vehicles including heavy lift off Proton to become the core of Russia’s unmanned launch fleet. Russia’s state space research and production centre Khrunichev is also developing a super heavy lift Angara-7, capable of orbiting payloads of 45 to 75 tonnes and for which there is no equivalent in Russia’s current rocket fleet. The main aim of the Angara family of rockets is to help Russia minimize its dependence on Baikonur cosmodrome. In addition, Angara will help Russia meet its diverse launch needs. South Korea’s Naro-1 rocket uses an Angara RD-151 engine as its first stage. Meanwhile, preparations are on for the debut flight of Angara, considered the first new big rocket since the end of Soviet era.  

Russia’s New Silk Road Strategy: Connecting to Pakistan

Vinod Anand
Senior Fellow, VIF

Even though much awaited President Putin’s visit to Pakistan in the first week of October has been shelved, causing disappointment among the Pakistani establishment, the doors for finding a new understanding between the two on Afghanistan and regional issues remain wide open. Putin was to pay a bilateral visit to Pakistan before the quadrilateral summit that was scheduled for 2-3 October in Islamabad. Pakistan had become part of the quadrilateral of Russia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan in July 2009 when the forum’s first summit was held in Dushanbe. The main goals of the quartet are to promote regional trade and undertake joint projects in energy, transport, communications, agriculture and infrastructure. Combating terrorism, extremism, illegal trafficking of drugs and trans-national organized crimes, supporting peace and stability in Afghanistan and in the region are the other major objectives. These are usually the objectives of any number of multi-lateral structures and organizations that exist in this troubled region, for instance the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Finding a regional solution to many of the problems being faced by the region especially that of instability, insecurity in Afghanistan and improving the socio-economic environment have driven the major players like the U.S., China and Russia to advance their own formulations and structures. However, the competing strategies of the main players in the arena have only added to the complexity of the regional issues.

At a time when Pakistan’s stock is running at all time low with the U.S. and its coalition partners in Afghanistan, Islamabad has been working to find a new strategic equation in the post-2014 Afghanistan scenario. Russians believe that Pakistan remains central to the Afghan imbroglio and has an important role to play in the unfolding scenario. Pakistan hopes to obtain a favourable outcome in the Afghan end game with Russia on its side. Moscow has also not been much enamoured by the so called ‘reset’ in its relations with the U.S., as promised by Obama administration. American policies on BMD, eastwards expansion of NATO and contesting Russia’s ‘privileged status’ in Central Asian region has soured the U.S-Russian relationship. Even though Russia is providing logistics routes through its territory for ISAF troops in Afghanistan it continues to oppose American bases and transit facilities being provided by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Further, in the long run both Russia and Pakistan would like to see the back of the American troops in Afghanistan. They are against the long term presence of the American bases in Afghanistan as these have adverse strategic connotations for both Russia and nuclear Pakistan.

There is also a wide-spread belief that in its approach to Afghanistan, China is becoming wary of putting all its eggs in the Pakistani basket and has embarked on establishing a direct relationship with the Kabul regime. On the sidelines of the SCO Summit in June this year, China and Afghanistan signed a strategic partnership agreement. At the summit, Afghanistan was admitted to SCO as on observer. Further in September Zhou Yongkang – member of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party - visited Afghanistan and signed a number of agreements on assisting Afghanistan in its security sector development programmes. He committed to training 300 Afghan national police officers which in effect could help the ISAF/NATO efforts of training the Afghan National Security Forces.

Thus, Pakistan has been aiming at finding new partners in the power play taking place in the region. As part of Pakistan’s desire to forge a cozy relationship with Russia Gen. Kayani has also traveled to Moscow in the first week of October. In fact, as a military head and one who is the final arbiter of Pakistan’s security and foreign policies, his visit would give an opportunity to Russian leaders to obtain insights into Pakistan’s fresh thinking, if any, on Afghanistan and regional security issues. While Kayani was in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Minister was in Islamabad for parleys with his Pakistani counterpart to explain the absence of Putin and identify with Pakistan’s role in the region. Sergei Lavrov supported Pakistan’s stance on the U.S. Drone strikes and denounced these attacks as violations of Pakistani sovereign territory.

Russia and Pakistan are looking for many benefits from mutual cooperation. The Russian gas company Gazprom has been looking forward to being awarded a contract for building the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline without many of the processes associated with the laid down procedures. Russia has agreed to modernise, reconstruct and expand the Pakistan Steel Mills that has been running far below its capacity. Russia would also be supporting Pakistan Railways by undertaking a joint venture for developing a carriages workshop and may even supply Russian rail carriages. The Russians are also converting two Pakistani thermal power plants from furnace oil to coal.

Gaining access to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean has been a long cherished Russian desire since the days of Tsarist Russia and a route through Pakistan could be one useful option. Writing recently in Pravda, an analyst Lyuba Lulko suggests that “establishing close cooperation with Pakistan will give Russia a real chance to gain a foothold in Central and South Asia. In addition, Russia will be able to access the Indian Ocean, and make the U.S. troops in Afghanistan directly dependent on its logistics.”

The proposed multimodal transport links, another version of the old Silk Road are expected to provide benefits to all the four countries involved. Pakistan will gain access to Central Asian markets while Tajikistan and Russia would gain access to Pakistani ports. Commenting on last year’s Quadrilateral Summit at Sochi, Chairman of the Russian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev, observed that “Russia may become a donor of economic, social and military-political security for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.”

Russia has also offered to revive all the Soviet era industrial and infrastructure projects (numbering about 140) in Afghanistan. Russia is also willing to help Tajikistan in the hydro-power sector. The Central Asia South Asia 1000 (CASA-1000) power transmission project of exporting electricity from hydro-power rich Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan is a much touted project. However, it is difficult to be realized because of objections to hydro-power projects by the down stream Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan. Another project is of building a road from Tajikistan across the Wakhan corridor to Pakistan in order to enhance regional connectivity. If Russia is able to support such projects and find the finances for the same then it would also gain a degree of control and enhance its influence in the region.

However, Pakistan and Russia would certainly have competing objectives in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Unlike Pakistan, Russia would be apprehensive of a radical Taliban regime in Kabul that may have the agenda of spreading its ideology to the Central Asian republics and beyond to Chechnya. Pakistan has not been able to control its own radical jihadis and it is unlikely that it would be able to have a degree of control over a resurgent Taliban regime in Kabul.

So far as India is concerned, the pipeline projects like Iran-Pakistan-India or TAPI gas pipeline project or for that any other multi-modal transport corridors can become economically viable only when India is included in them. A limited grouping like Russia-Afghanistan-Tajikistan-Pakistan may only produce a limited benefit. Pakistan’s obtuse policies of denying overland transit to Indian goods to Afghanistan and beyond deprive Pakistan and other regional countries the benefits of revenue and beneficial economic engagement and trade. Equally, its sponsorship of terrorism, and proclivity to use transit for political purposes, as shown most recently by its shutting down the NATO supply lines to Afghanistan, ensure that India remains wary of any such projects.

Connecting South Asia to Central Asia, especially through Pakistan (the shortest overland route) could be a win-win situation for all countries in the region with Afghanistan emerging as an important hub of communications in all directions. This would have positive effect on security, stability and economy of Afghanistan. But Pakistan will have to undertake a root-and-branch transformation of its security outlook for that to happen.