A continuing slide in security conditions across Afghanistan, ahead of the drawdown of US-led western forces from the central Asian country, has only reinforced an increasingly acute security challenge for nuclear-armed Pakistan. More than a decade after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, following the New York terror attacks of 9/11, the Taliban, who were targeted in Washington’s campaign, remain a potent military force.
In the months ahead, the Taliban are widely expected to launch attacks on Afghan government forces and possibly on the withdrawing western forces as well, as they make their presence felt increasingly. Coming close on the heels of a controversy-stricken Afghan presidential election, an increasingly active Taliban on the military front could well pose a serious threat to the fragile Afghan ruling structure in Kabul. For Pakistan, this raises the dangerous possibility of an increasingly weak central government in Kabul placed in the impossible situation of holding Afghanistan together, while alternate centres of authority outside the Afghan capital grow robustly.
For Pakistan’s security network, there are at least three equally compelling risks emerging from an Afghanistan falling increasingly into disarray.
First, in addition to the considerable challenge of confronting domestic hard-core militants along the Afghan border, Pakistan faces a further risk of facing the effects of Afghanistan’s insecurity spilling over across the border. This poses the all-too-formidable challenge of Pakistan’s security forces confronting more than just one enemy as they seek to take control of a part of the country’s territory along the Afghan border. It is for this reason that Pakistan needs to receive generous international financial support and military assistance to carry the fight forward. On the contrary, uncertainty over the future of the US provided Coalition Support Fund (CSF) to Pakistan hardly helps strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to fight terror. Even though a significant drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan may compel some in Washington to argue for a scaling down or even ending the CSF, that will hardly be a prudent choice. Growing economic constraints surrounding Pakistan’s capacity to fight terror will only weaken Islamabad’s ability to tackle growing insecurity in its surrounding region.
Second, the humanitarian fallout from conflict-stricken Afghanistan, that has uprooted countless families in the past three decades, must not be ignored. Recently, almost one million Pakistanis fled their homes in the country’s restless north Waziristan region after the Pakistan army stormed the area to erase suspected militant sanctuaries. The campaign in north Waziristan has become an important trend-setter for the future, with Pakistan’s civil-military establishment clearly drawing the line. The ongoing battle has reinforced the view of Pakistan’s refusal to tolerate the presence of militant safe havens on its turf or allow militant entities like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to roam about freely on its territory.
However, the recent case of displacement of innocent civilians from north Waziristan has once again become a powerful reminder of the cost endured by Pakistan since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by troops from the former Soviet Union. Following that event, up to three million Afghans were forced to leave their country and take refuge in Pakistan. Going forward, Afghanistan will continue to force large segments of its population to keep on heading towards Pakistan as long as conflict remains a recurring feature of that country’s body fabric. That is why it is vitally important that an internal power-sharing mechanism is devised in Kabul that will work as the essential first step to begin restoring long-term peace in Afghanistan.
Finally, amid the prospect of long-term instability in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s internal conditions are unlikely to improve radically. The Afghan conflict has already brought a culture of drug-trafficking and gun-running to parts of Pakistan. Greater instability in Afghanistan will continue to destabilise Pakistan. For the global community, the prospect of increasing instability in the latter, which is armed with nuclear weapons, promises to unleash a far bigger global security threat than what has been witnessed in Afghanistan.
At a time of growing security challenges across the Middle East and south-west Asia, ignoring emerging events in Afghanistan will be nothing than sheer short-sightedness. While the global community may not be able to take full control of events in Afghanistan, there are a few important pointers that are worth considering. Rather than withdrawing from Afghanistan in a haste, it is advisable to scale down the pace of the withdrawal until a workable Afghan security structure is put in place. Ultimately, the success of efforts to create a new security framework for Afghanistan will depend on how far Pakistan can be brought on board. To date, however, little appears to have been done by the western world to solidly work towards establishing Pakistan as a long-term, key guarantor of a future security framework surrounding southern Afghanistan, along Pakistan’s border.
In spite of occasional differences between Washington and Islamabad on key policies, it is important to note that Pakistan remains the only country around Afghanistan that has a well-established military capacity to block Afghanistan from becoming a further breeding ground for terrorists. Events preceding the 9/11 attacks must work to be a continued reminder of Afghanistan’s centrality to global terrorism. But tragically, as Afghanistan’s ruling structure fails to hold the country together, disarray in Pakistan, due to events spilling over from its border, is hardly welcome news.
Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.
