Bleeding Empires

Land redistribution to peasants, Ambitious literacy campaign, Soviet factories running around the clock, Abolition of forced marriage, bride price, promotion of compulsory education for girls; Sounds developing right? So how come the administration is toppled, leaders were assassinated, and the region became the infamous graveyard for two most powerful empire of the modern era? Why does every regional power wants India to fail in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan

Afghanistan graveyard of empires; from Cyrus the great to US-led coalition forces; they all bled in the treeless mountains capes until they’re blood out. Situated in the hearts of Asia, geography was always part of Afghanistan’s history.

Afghanistan was always notoriously hard to govern by one central power. Once foreign armies enter Afghanistan, its internal geography has also made a habit; it seems, of flinging everything it can at them. And when Red Army set foot on Afghan soil they sealed their fate.

Reforms and Afghans

When Soviets came to Afghanistan, they never thought the invasion will become the last failure of the biggest communist empire the world ever witnessed. But it all started way back; in 1926 when Amanullah declared himself king; and Afghanistan a monarchy rather than an emirate, he launched series of modernization plans, frustrated by his reforms critics took the arms and king abdicated the throne and left the country.

Another attempt was made in 1953 when pro-Soviet General Mohammed Daoud Khan, introduced several social reforms under the communist rule like allowing women a more public recognition, later in life, he proposed a new constitution that grants women rights and works to modernize the largely communist state; Three years later he lost his life in a communist coup.

Khan’s so-called ‘Successor’ looked sympathetic to Islamic principles, and banked his support on Afghan nationalism, his modern reforms like land redistribution, woman’s education, nationwide literacy campaign. But as usual conservative Islamic and ethnic leaders who drastically criticized these reforms since Khan’s regime revolted against the regime.

In 1979 when US ambassador Adolph Dubs is killed, it was way out of control by the regional government. The US cuts off ties with Afghanistan; Power struggle between President Taraki and Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin gulped the country, and The USSR had seen enough.

In December of the same USSR invaded Afghanistan Amin and his followers were executed Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal becomes Prime Minister, But the problem just started.

REDS in Afghanistan

When an American diplomat Archer K. Blood sent a cable to Washington D.C. stating that “I think he wants an improvement in US-Afghan relations” It spooked the Soviets to the core, here Blood was referring to Amin and his efforts to counter Afghanistan’s over-dependency on the Soviet Union.

Well… that was American narration, why Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Russian take is also not very different, Oleg Grinevsky, a, a, a former Soviet ambassador to Sweden, said in his book “The Secrets of the Soviet Diplomacy” that the Soviet Union’s intelligence agency the KGB, which was monitoring Afghanistan, released information claiming that Amin was incapable of sustaining power and that his policies would cause instability in the country.

There is one thing to remember that the Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty was signed by Amin in 1978 and he permitted military assistance and advice to Afghanistan if requested. Amin was in power for more than a hundred days and later assassinated by the KGB agent.

The hard truth for USSR as they were in the graveyard, now everybody wanted to know can they be able to survive?

Mujahedeen

By early 1980, the Mujahedeen (from Arabic “those who engage in Jihad”), rebels have united against Soviet invaders and the USSR-backed Afghan army, inside Afghanistan or across the border in Peshawar, Pakistan. These rebel factions were provided financial and military aid by the, US, Pakistan, China and several European and Arab states––most notably Saudi Arabia. Intelligence agency of Pakistan ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence) took the responsibility to funnel this money and weapons to these Mujahids.

It’s hard to tell anything about USSR because of the secrecy they maintained with their record (Hasn’t changed since then) some 2.8 million Afghans have fled from the war to Pakistan, and another 1.5 million have fled to Iran. Afghan guerrillas gain control of rural areas, and Soviet troops hold urban areas.

The war caused unimaginable hardship in many parts of Afghanistan: over a million people lost their life and 5 million Afghans were displaced which was a third of the total population of the country. The nine-year war was devastating for Soviets as well, the Mujaheeds cleared in the first few days after they were backed by the US and Pakistan that they want to fight till the end.

In September 1988, Osama bin Laden and 15 other Islamists from the group al-Qaida, or “the base”, to continue their jihad; or holy war against Soviets or any other power who will oppose their goal of a pure nation governed by Islam.

Pakistan’s exclusion of secular groups from any role in the struggle fit the ideological temper of the military regime of General Zia-ul Haq—which played heavily on Islamic symbols for legitimacy—but also suited Pakistan’s determination that no aid would go to Afghan nationalists who might harbour long-standing territorial designs on Pakistan. We can imagine the condition of Soviets who got locked in this endless struggle through the interview given by then President of the US Jimmy Carter “My opinion of the Russians has changed most drastically in the last week than even the two and a half years before that. It’s only now dawning upon the world magnitude of the action that in the Soviets undertook in invading Afghanistan”.

Donation of anti-aircraft missiles to the Mujahedeen fighters by the US caused major losses to Soviet aircraft and troops. The US boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics. By 1986, amid continuing the struggle between Mujahedeen and Soviet forces, Barbak was ousted as Prime Minister by the Soviets because of his ineffectiveness and replaced by the Mohammad Najibullah, the former chief of Afghan Secret Police. The Soviet desperation can be sensed by the way Soviets hackled the Afghanistan administration.

But when the US and Soviet Union signed the Geneva Accord in April of 1988, the blood lock struggle officially put to an end. The Soviets began their withdrawal in May 1988 and by the end of February 1989; they were out of Afghanistan with a bloody nose of course.

As per the records released by CIA, in their report “The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan lands on the mark of 33,000-38,000 Red Army Soldiers; However Soviet by ending a long silence about an exact number of its casualties in the war in Afghanistan said: 13310 soldiers lost their life, 35478 wounded and 311 are missing till now. But as per CIA data, almost 115,000 Soldiers entered Afghanistan in late 1979; and Red Army suffered a third in causalities, making the losses ‘Quite Heavy’.

Of course, the Afghan casualty list is higher CIA’s estimate is over a million dead; including women and children. The Soviet-Afghan War ended for USSR in May of 1989. But in Afghanistan and for Afghanis ‘The War’ is still on.

Afghan Civil War and 9/11

Mujahedeen or Mujahids were relatively small guerilla insurgents, with only basic combat techniques and US-financed weaponry; They were never a traditional disciplined armed force, many of these small fighting groups or warlords were brought together by ISI and provided necessary training in Peshawar and Swat Valley; They’ve been assisted with intelligence as well by other power involved in the house of war. The ISI kept the strong iron grip over these factions, but later in time when the fighting ends and the dust settles they kept losing the grip. When the last Soviet foot left Afghanistan; the country was in rubble the government and National Army was alone, people were homeless and hungry and exactly at this time they these factions broke the union.

The same year Soviets left the country civil war broke out between the faction sworn to drive away from the infidels out of the holy land of Afghanistan’ that’s how they portrayed there Jihad (a holy war to save the Islam and Islamic culture), But when USSR left there fighters armed to their teeth started to struggle to gain control of the country.

The civil war in Afghanistan had sputtered back into the news with increased levels of fighting in Kabul and northern areas of the country between the three principal militias led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Rashid Dostum and Ahmed Shah Masood. The immediate provocation for this three-way struggle was the unhinging of a tenuous alliance between Masood and Dostum. This fighting or power struggles sent alarming signals to neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Tajikistan and Iran and external influentials like Saudi Arabia, whose periodic efforts to patch up peace among the mujahedeen have come to bought time and again. Through 1994 the Afghan-Civil war claimed over 35000 more souls.

By the end of 1993 ISI backing made the Pashtun hardliners and non-Pashtun commanders into a single interim administration.

The 31 member council was formed headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani. Later made his name as the chief of Haqqani network. Here there’s one thing also notable that by signing the treaty with Afghanistan at the time of Soviet withdrawal Pakistan promised to stay away from Afghanistan’s interior matters.

When Mujahedeen called for Jihad many independent fighters and financiers come from abroad to join; one such notable figure was Osama bin Laden. By the 1996 Taliban had seized control much of the country under the leadership of Mohammad Mullah Omar and took Kabul; Taliban declared Afghanistan an Islamic emirate. Masood leading Northern Alliance controlled the northern part of the country. On September 9, 2001, Masood was assassinated by Taliban members, the alliance failed; as if you notice nearly two days later the terrorist cell Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Centre in New York.

Attack of 9/11 was a clear indication to the world that terrorism is not contained in a particular state; It has a far bigger plan and quite the firepower, as David Ignatius defined in his book “Body of Lies” ‘These men they do not want to negotiate, what we are dealing here is potentially global conflagration, that requires constant diligence to suppress, They want universal caliphate to establish across the face of the earth. So what’s changed is that our enemy has got to a truth that we’re an easy target, and our world as we know is a lot simpler to put to an end then you might think, we take our foot from this enemy for one minute and our world changes completely.” You can at this point the US and its allies started treating terrorism far seriously (or at least they tried to) instead of using terror front as a weapon to counter another potential superpower the US drastically change its foreign policy towards these extremists group and then president of US George W. Bush declared War on Terror.

The US and Afghanistan

It is important to remember that Al-Qaeda was Saudi Arabia based terror cell and its leader and founder Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi national, but he was expelled from the regime in 1992 for criticizing the policy of alliance with the US. From then he was offered asylum in Taliban controlled Afghanistan which he gladly accepted.

The US asked then-ruling Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden, Taliban refused then Taliban head Mullah Mohammed Omar said; “hand anyone over is not an option” Bush administration gave the final warning to Afghanistan to get into this Bush added, “The bombing would not stop unless the ruling Taliban turn [Laden] over.” The robust reply cleared one thing America was not in the mood to play diplomacy at all. Al Qaeda delivers the biggest terrorist attack on the American soil, and they made it clear not a single country is safe from them. Bush continued “There’s no need to discuss guilt or innocence. We know he’s guilty.” American started bombing the south and east of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Before the air campaign, the Taliban asked for the evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in the attack of September 11 attacks.

The policy like the USA Patriot Act was passed, patronizing national security and defence, often at the expense of civil liberties.

The theatre of War

Less than a month after 9/11 US troops invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to dismantle al-Qaeda––the same terrorist group that emerged from the ashes of Mujahedeen, the same fighter who was armed by US finances, the same ideology which was preached by Pakistani clerics, the same enemy, same principle, same ground different invaders.

The US declared the war on Afghanistan; the US was the next empire in the graveyard. There’s a very famous quote of George Santayana “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

The US used the Mujahedeen as a weapon to contain communism in Soviet and deduce the growing Soviet influence in the region but just the way almost every political leader in this world learned this one way or another “Terrorism is a gun, backfires always” time played in a way that the US was facing the same monster they created; world asked the question again how long can they survive; For now 19 years and counting.

According to the US Department of Defense, the total military expenditure in Afghanistan (from October 2001 until September 2019) was $778bn.

Since the war against the Taliban began in 2001, US forces have suffered more than 2300 deaths and around 20660 soldiers injured in action.

But the US casualty figures are dwarfed by the loss of life among Afghan security forces and civilians; President Ghani said last year that more than 45000 members of the Afghan security forces had been killed since he became president in 2014, and it kept rising.

Why India?

As an Indian we all see the geopolitics with different perspectives, there’s always a thought it’s not our fight and the traditional habit of Indians not get involved in other’s matter. But believe me when I say: We are involved in this entire issue just like Soviets and the US. Of course, India didn’t create Mujahedeen to counter Red Army; or invaded Afghanistan like Soviet and US (thank god for that) but India got its vast interest laying all around Afghan soil.

India and Afghanistan have a historic and strong bilateral relationship and are a part of several regional partnerships, including the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. According to MEA, the friendly relations can be traced back to January 1950 when five-year Treaty of Friendship was signed by then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and Afghanistan’s then Ambassador to India Mohammad Najibullah.

India has been a major stakeholder in peace and stability of Afghanistan. It has already invested $2 billion in aid and reconstruction activities in the country. Also, India has been supporting a national peace and reconciliation process which is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled. India’s been keenly watching the US-Taliban peace deal in February. The deal provided for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, effectively drawing the curtain to Washington’s 18-year war longest in their history. New Delhi is major concerns are maintaining that care should be taken to ensure that any such process does not lead to any “ungoverned spaces” where terrorist and their proxies can relocate.

It is also very necessary for India to consider the Taliban a political section instead of a terror cell. And since India got into the high table of peace talks, which Pakistan hate deep down, India got the platform to direct its dialogue to the Taliban. Another hurdle India is facing in Afghanistan is that almost all the regional power is opposed with the Indian presence and influence in Afghanistan. Peace is paralysis to them the war on Afghanistan caused Trillions to both American and Russian people but it gave the exact amount of money to Arms manufacturers and Contractors. War is an economy and that’s the truth.

Another problem is that when Soviets pulled out from Afghanistan, it evidently raised Pakistan’s role in Kabul, the similar condition would be disastrous for the Indian interest there, although President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai said to The Hindu that Afghanistan will continue to defend its sovereignty and independence and absence of US troops does not mean Pakistan will interfere in the matters of Afghanistan, but only time will tell how much peace and stability this peace process will deliver.

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About Author:

Author Name: Vaibhav Shukla

Bio: Vaibhav Shukla is currently perusing his degree in law from RTMNU; he's a reader by day and writer by night; his passion for international affairs and obsession with politics made him write about topics like this. He's inspired by the writings of Jay Soloman and Meisha Glenny.