"If the British Government would only play the grand game — help
Russia cordially to all that she has a right to expect — shake hands with
Persia — get her all possible amends from Oosbegs — force the Bokhara Amir to
be just to us, the Afghans, and other Oosbeg states, and his own kingdom…The
expediency, nay the necessity of them will be seen, and we shall play the noble
part that the first Christian nation of the world ought to fill."
Arthur Conolly, 1840
Alphen, Netherlands. 24 August. The Great Game was the nineteenth
century struggle between Britain and Russia for India, with much of the
conflict over all-important control of Afghanistan. It was British diplomat
Arthur Conolly who in 1840 coined the phrase Great Game. This week President
Trump committed the US to the latest iteration of it, the latest twist in
America’s now sixteen year Afghan War, its longest. The President also said, “We
are going to win”. He would be the first. No outside power has ever won the
Great Game in Afghanistan. And, the US will have little chance of ‘winning’ it
without a counter-terrorism, governance and regional strategy reinforced by
strategic patience. What can President Trump hope to achieve?
In his address to the American nation on Monday the President clearly indicated
the continuing need for multifaceted strategy which came out of last week’s
meeting with his senior generals at Camp David. The main effort at present is
to reinforce the Kabul government of President Ashraf Ghani by focusing on the capacity-building
of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). An extra 3,800 troops will be sent back to
Afghanistan to reinforce the 8,400 troops already in theatre to bolster
counter-terrorism operations and reinforce ANSF training. This ‘new approach’ has the fingerprints of
Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster
all over it.
The Administration is correct to be concerned. Since the withdrawal of US forces from
Afghanistan at the end of 2015 the Taliban have extended their traditional
reach beyond the Pashtun heartlands on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border, into Uzbek and Tadjik areas. Worse, according to London Al Qaeda (AQ) are
also showing signs of once again exploiting a lack of governance to re-establish
safe havens, and ISIS is also now present on the ground.
Critically, the Administration seems to want to establish a proper joined-up
regional strategy, without which there can be no stability in Afghanistan, and may
just work this time. The threat posed by Al Qaeda and ISIS is one of those
strange conjunctions in geopolitics that could unite all the contending Great
Powers and regional-strategic powers that surround Afghanistan. Shia Iran hates
ISIS, and it is in the interests of China, Russia, and India, all three of
which are very active in Afghanistan – both overtly and covertly – to block the
return of AQ to Afghanistan, and most certainly ISIS.
The challenge, and the key to the strategy having any success, is
Pakistan. Or, to be more precise, the need to separate the Indian-Pakistan
regional-strategic conflict from the path to something like stability in
Afghanistan. Some years ago the late, great Ron Asmus and I were briefed by Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) at the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Naturally,
we were given the Pakistani regional view. It was a view all about the strategic
threat posed to Islamabad by Indian activities in southern Afghanistan, Pakistan’s
fear of being caught in a strategic sandwich between Afghanistan and India, and
the consequent need for Pakistan to maintain ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan.
Of course, if the strategy is to have any chance
of succeeding the ‘Talib’ will need to brought to some form of accommodation
with Kabul government. To that end, the US is also offering ‘unconditional’
peace talks with the Taliban in an effort to get them to abandon AQ and ISIS.
However, the Taliban will not feel at all obliged to talk until their two main shuras (councils), based in Pakistan’s
Peshawar and Quetta respectively, are forced to treat terms. In other words, Islamabad will need to be
either convinced or coerced to help exert such pressure.
The American plan, as it stands, represents a limited US reengagement in
Afghanistan. Washington is certainly
right to reinject political energy and capital into a struggle that is central
to the World-wider challenge posed by Islamism.
Sending 4000 or so extra troops that boost the counter-terror and ANSF
training missions will indeed be useful. However, the most that can be said for
the strategy is that it is a blocking/holding/reinforcing move. As the British,
Russians, and indeed the US and its NATO allies have discovered, what matters
in Afghanistan and the surrounding region is not force levels, important though
they can be, but sustained good strategy over time and distance.
In November 1841 Conolly was captured in Afghanistan on a
rescue mission to free a fellow British officer. The two were executed by the
Emir of Bukhara on 24 June 1842 on charges of spying for the British Empire. That
same year some 16,500 British soldiers and civilians were massacred at a mountain
pass, the Khurd Kabul. As Rudyard
Kipling once wrote, “And the end
of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, and the
epitaph drear: A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East”.
A word of warning from history?
Julian Lindley-French
