Russia returns to Afghanistan, on request Vladimir Radyuhin | The Hindu | 26 June 2008
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/26/stories/2008062655351000.htm Two decades after it pulled out of Afghanistan, Russia is returning at the request of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Moscow will allow land shipment of NATO supplies to Afghanistan across the Russian territory and will supply weapons to the Afghan army. There is a rich irony in the fact that the U.S., which fought a proxy war against the Russian forces in Afghanistan from 1979-1989, is now asking Russia to help NATO combat the same mujahideen who were armed and trained by Washington to fight the Russians. Russia promised to resume defence supplies to Afghanistan at a meeting of the Russia-U.S. Working Group on Counterterrorism in Moscow last week. This will greatly boost NATO efforts to rearm the Afghan army and enable it to stand up to the Taliban. Russian weapons make up almost 100 per cent of Afghan inventory and are far more popular with local combatants than western arms. Russia supplied $220-million worth of military equipment to the Afghan army from 2002-2005 but then halted deliveries allegedly "to avoid duplicating American activities," as a Russian diplomat put it. Of even more crucial importance to NATO is the Russian consent to provide a transit corridor for the movement of food, non-military cargo and "some types of non-lethal military equipment" to Afghanistan. At present, over 70 per cent of all supplies go through Pakistan with the rest flown in by air. The route has recently proved extremely hazardous, with the Taliban stepping up attacks on the U.S. and NATO convoys. U.S. and NATO officials play down their losses but the dangers were highlighted when a convoy of 40 oil tankers was attacked and destroyed at Torkham in March, and American helicopter engines worth over $13 million were stolen in April when they were being trucked from Afghanistan to a port in Pakistan to be shipped back to America. The Russian corridor will greatly reduce the NATO dependence on the violence-plagued Pakistani route, impart critical flexibility for military operations in Afghanistan, and dramatically cut the shipping costs. According to NATO estimates, airlifts to Afghanistan cost a whopping $14,000 a tonne, compared with about $500 a tonne by rail from Europe to Afghanistan across Russia. The Russian land route also has no viable alternatives for civilian supplies to support reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. NATO has been seeking the transit deal with the Kremlin for years. In 2003, Russia opened an air corridor for French and German supplies but balked at offering a land corridor. Today, Moscow has weighty reasons to be more accommodating. Russia fears that NATO may pull out of Afghanistan, leaving unfinished the job of rooting out the Taliban insurgence. During the Bucharest NATO summit in April, member nations were reportedly given a secret German-inspired plan for a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan. The plan reflected a growing weariness in Europe with the Afghan conflict and the reluctance of NATO members to expand troop commitments as Washington has been urging them to do. Russia has offered assistance to NATO to keep it engaged in Afghanistan. "We will not let them out of Afghanistan until they solve the problems they have created international terrorism [and] unchecked increase in drug trafficking and build a strong state, and rebuild the economy," Russian ambassador in Kabul Zamir Kabulov said in an interview earlier this year. Bargaining chip Russia is further using its offer of help to NATO in Afghanistan as a bargaining chip to stop the alliance's eastward expansion. President Vladimir Putin, who attended the NATO summit in Bucharest, firmly linked Russia's assistance to the shelving of alliance membership plans for the strategically important ex-Soviet nations of Ukraine and Georgia. "Let us be honest with each other we will treat you as you treat us," the Russian leader said at a post-summit press conference. In Bucharest, NATO decided not to put Ukraine and Georgia on track for membership but promised to review the issue in autumn, after the change of guard in the Kremlin. However, Russia's new President, Dmitry Medvedev, has shattered western hopes that he would take a softer line on NATO expansion. During his maiden visit to the West to Germany last month, he said the NATO should not "jeopardise" cooperation with Russia in Afghanistan by "clinging to the inertia of bloc mentality." Russia is well aware of its value to NATO in its Afghan mission. In Bucharest, Mr. Putin bluntly stated that the alliance would achieve nothing in Afghanistan without Russian help. "Is it possible to succeed in Afghanistan without Russia, given its vast capabilities in the region? Negative. That is why we are being constantly urged to open transit, provide aid, etc.," Mr. Putin said. Moscow believes that the U.S. and NATO are heading for defeat in Afghanistan. "The longer NATO remains in Afghanistan, the worse it will be for them," the outspoken ambassador, Mr. Kabulov, remarked. The veteran diplomat, who was first posted in Afghanistan in 1977, faulted the U.S. and NATO forces for repeating the mistakes the Soviet Union made in Afghanistan and committing more blunders of their own. "They are winning the battles but losing the war," Mr. Kabulov said. Russia's promise of logistical support to the U.S. and NATO and weapon supplies to the Afghan army was a strategic decision. It gives Moscow a key role in Afghanistan that is likely to further expand. Russia wants to make sure that if and when the U.S. and NATO forces pull out, it will not be confronted with a hostile regime or a power vacuum in Kabul. The problem of Afghanistan has been high on the agenda of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, dominated by Russia and China, and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a defence pact of former Soviet states. The SCO and the CSTO have both declared their resolve to take responsibility for the security and stability in Central Asia. Last year, the SCO conducted its first full-scale war games on Russian territory, while the CSTO approved the establishment of peacekeeping forces which would be ready to undertake U.N.-mandated peace missions "anywhere in the world," according to CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha. The SCO and the CSTO have signed a security cooperation pact focussed on helping Afghanistan stabilise and rebuild. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has attended all recent summits of the SCO, while the CSTO has set up a Working Group on Afghanistan that has instituted regular contacts with Afghanistan's military, security, and law-enforcement agencies. NATO has long resisted Moscow's proposal for a CSTO-NATO cooperation agreement on Afghanistan but the worsening situation in the region has made many NATO members change their opinion. Earlier this year, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said "an overwhelming majority of NATO countries favour such an agreement" but "several member-states" continued to oppose it. In fact, it is the U.S. that has blocked any formal pact between NATO and the CSTO. De facto cooperation Washington has opposed the idea as it clashes with its concept of a Greater Central Asia that should link former Soviet Central Asia with South Asia through a pacified Afghanistan to the exclusion of Russia and China. However, today, Afghanistan is farther from peace than it was seven years ago when the U.S. troops went after the Taliban. On the other hand, NATO transit through Russia, and Russian arms supplies to Afghanistan are signalling the beginning of a de facto cooperation between NATO and the CSTO as all the shipments will go through the territory of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, both CSTO members. Grim realities in Afghanistan will tie NATO to Russia and its allies in the region, both for supply lines and for wider-ranging military and economic cooperation. NATO has been sounding out Russia for military involvement on the ground in Afghanistan. Moscow has refused to send troops but experts do not rule out the deployment of Central Asian military in northern Afghanistan. There are good prospects for India-Russia cooperation in Afghanistan. An Indo-Russian Joint Working Group on Afghanistan has been meeting regularly since 2000. New possibilities for closer interaction emerged when India joined the SCO as an observer in 2005. In a significant development, during a trilateral meeting of Russia, India and China at the level of Foreign Ministers in Yekaterinburg last month, India welcomed a Russian proposal to set up anti-narcotics belts to control drug trafficking from Afghanistan. The proposal had earlier been endorsed by the SCO and the CSTO. Russia aspires to play a key role in the economic reconstruction of Afghanistan as well. During his visit to Russia last month, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said his country would welcome Russia's participation in prospecting for mineral resources and building roads and power stations. Moscow said it was willing to reconstruct and modernise some of the 140-odd industrial projects the Soviet Union built in Afghanistan, and also to invest in the mining industry. Last year, Russia unveiled its new spacious embassy building in Kabul. Touted as the biggest foreign mission in the Afghan capital, the embassy stands as a symbol of Russia's strategic return to Afghanistan.
