The Moscow meet: An Afghan solution possible only through political means.

As India tiptoes toward the six-nation conference on Afghanistan in Moscow on Wednesday — comprising Russia, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan — a new process is beginning with regard to regional security. Quintessentially, a novel regional format is in the making. Kabul’s participation in such a process will give it added international legitimacy. However, issues remain, which can be put into three clusters. At the most obvious level, it needs to be understood at the outset that India happens to be the odd man out in this proposed regional format. India is not quite there where the rest of the grouping has reached as regards perceptions regarding Taliban. The regional consensus — as indeed international consensus — is that Taliban’s reconciliation, being an Afghan entity, is the key to an enduring settlement. Also, there is consensus that the prolongation of the war makes no sense, and the stalemate cannot be broken except through political means.All the other five countries participating in the Moscow meet maintain contacts with the Taliban in one way or another and they are willing to acknowledge it, too. India, therefore, needs a reality check: How long can it bury the head in the sand and insist on the imperative of waging a robust war against the Taliban when others tend to see the conflict more as fratricidal strife?Second, there is no gainsaying the fact that Pakistan has a key role to play in an enduring Afghan settlement. Even Iran, which has been at loggerheads with Pakistan over the Afghan situation, has harmonised its stance with Pakistan. Again, India is a solitary exception. From the second half of the nineties, India began viewing the Afghan situation in zero sum terms – although Taliban or the al-Qaeda operating out of Afghanistan — never perpetrated terrorist acts on Indian soil. Suffice it to say, India-Pakistan tensions today have become a significant complicating factor in reaching an Afghan settlement, and, arguably, that could be an unspoken leitmotif of the Moscow meet. The surprising part is that Pakistan is no longer insisting on the exclusion of India from regional formats on Afghanistan as a pre-condition. Has Moscow prevailed upon Pakistan to show flexibility? Or, did Moscow and Beijing act in tandem during their ‘trilateral’ meeting with Pakistan in Moscow in late December? Interestingly, all the participants in the Moscow meet have one common credential – namely, their association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). India must decide how far it is comfortable with that proposition. Pakistan, evidently, is. So are the others meeting in Moscow. Clearly, a new regional security paradigm is taking shape. So far, India largely bandwagoned with the US-led war in Afghanistan. That has reached a stalemate and the US’ effort is primarily to see how outright defeat can be averted. Meanwhile, the regional states doubt the US’ intentions in Afghanistan. Certainly, SCO states are “frontline states” in the war that so far has been dominated by the US and NATO, given its genesis in the 9/11 attacks. The regional states harbour profound disquiet that the war has been mishandled. It has become difficult for the US to shoo them away.   This aspect highlights a third cluster of vital issues: How far Indian concerns and interests coincide with those of the United States in the period ahead? The answer to this also brings us to the Donald Trump presidency. We still do not know Trump’s likely policy trajectory in Afghanistan. There is evidence of a tussle going on within the Washington establishment regarding foreign policies. It is playing out against the tumultuous backdrop of US’ future relations with Russia and the future of “Euro-Atlanticism” as well as the application of Trump’s “America First” doctrine in relation to the US’ wars abroad. Afghanistan is a classic case demanding US-Russia cooperation and coordination. But Washington establishment thinking takes a negative view of Russia. Trump wants a muscular military but he also claims to be less interventionist in the application of military force. On the other hand, he also disavows the kind of ambivalence (or nuance) that had been the hallmark of the Barack Obama administration. Things have deteriorated on the ground in Afghanistan. The US Special Inspector-General for Afghan Reconstruction, John Sopko, estimated last month that Afghan forces are losing territory and only around 60 per cent of the country’s districts are under government control or “influence”. The US acknowledges that the war cannot be won on the battlefield, but Trump has not shown interest in “nation-building”. Without micro-management from Washington it is difficult to see how the tottering National Unity Government in Kabul can hold out, especially with the return of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, which rips open old ethnic rivalries. However, the phone conversation between Trump and Afghan President Asraf Ghani on Thursday hints at broad continuity in policies. Notably, Trump emphasised the “on-going importance of the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership” and discussed “the opportunities to strengthen” security. A beefing up of US/NATO troop presence may ensue. In fact, in a two-hour testimony last Thursday before the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, the US’ top commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Nicholson, while admitting that the war is in stalemate, promised that Pentagon is working on a strategy to succeed in the war. He harped on the threat to “US homeland security” emanating from Afghanistan. Nicholson’s remarks regarding Pakistan were highly nuanced. While repeating the long-standing complaint that Pakistan has not acted against the Haqqani Network, he also stressed “common interests” with Pakistani military  and the need “to work closely together” with Rawalpindi, underscoring that Pakistan’s cooperation is the “number one factor that can produce positive results” in Afghanistan. Nicholson called for “holistic review” of the US’ policies toward Pakistan. The US approach toward Pakistan is likely reverting to the traditional mode, leveraging the special ties that existed between the security and defence establishments of the two countries.Meanwhile, Afghanistan is turning into an arena of contestation between Washington and Russia. The timing of Trump’s call to Ghani just ahead of the Moscow conference is no coincidence. Nicholson was critical of Russia’s “return” to Afghanistan. All too obviously, Pentagon feels challenged. Nicholson alleged that Russia is “legitimising”  Taliban and “undermining” the US and NATO presence. He touched on the geopolitics of holding on to a regional hub of high strategic significance bordering China, Central Asia and Iran. The regional environment of unprecedented big-power rivalry shaping up right on India’s doorstep doubts the efficacy of Delhi’s current foreign-policy trajectory toward Afghanistan, which is largely derived through the prism of India-Pakistan tensions.