A New Look At The Afghan-Pakistan Problem

[Kirkhill]

+1 Arthur.

 

[Journeyman]

(Historians and educated people know this is not true......)

Historians AND educated people??  Are you suggesting there is no overlap there?  :rofl:

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Not in our current system, military history is so not PC, except for the nagging problem of it being so damm popular with the unwashed masses. 

 

[3rd Herd]

Not in our current system, military history is so not PC, except for the nagging problem of it being so damm popular with the unwashed masses. 

And the revisionists.

 

[3rd Herd]

Found an interesting quote on this topic:

"I hold it a principle in Asia that the duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict upon the enemy."
General M.O. Skobelev
Conqueror of Turkestan, 1881

 

[Kirkhill]

One of the arguments constantly thrown in the faces of the old colonialists is that their admininstrative boundaries didn't take into account ethnic realities on the ground.  Not unreasonably perhaps because a lot of the territory was inaccessible to them at the time the boundaries were drawn but still.....  Anyway, despite disagreements over the basis of the boundaries it is interesting to note that when the colonialists decamped the locals were quick to seize on their right to those boundaries. They have then fought all comers to maintain tribal suzerainty within them and also to expand their range to include potential supporters located on the neighbour's turf.

Woodrow Wilson is noted for his stated belief that each "nation" (tribe?) was entitled to self-determination and its own "state".

Is there an opportunity to weld these to concepts into a realpolitik strategy that would meld with Canadians' view of themselves and would also break up the influence of the islamists?

3 cases in point:  Darfur, Kurdistan and Baluchistan (Balochistan).

Darfur has much in common with Chad rather than Khartoum.  Chad is amenable to French influence. Should Chad be encouraged to extend its borders so as to protect the Darfur region?

Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey all have Kurdish populations.  They are in the ascendance in Northern Iraq ( and influential in Iraq generally ).  They are disposed towards the west.  They are considered threats to Syria and Iran (interesting that there is a non-contiguous Kurdish enclave on the Afghanistan side of Iran).  They are also a threat to Turkey.  Could Kurdistan be used to bring down Syria and Iran and also used to prop up Turkey?

Baluchistan presents a similar problem to Kurdistan occupying SW Pakistan, SW Afghanistan and SE Iran.  Interestingly it contains Quetta from where Mullah Omar's Pathans and Arabs operate as well as the Pakistani and Iranian coast from Karachi to the Straits of Hormuz.  Therefore it has three critical strategic assets for the West.  Access to Bandar Abbas, a sea connection to Afghanistan and opportunity to deny Quetta to the ISI and the tribes.

The question is can the aspirations of the Baluchis and the Kurds be combined with the aspirations of secularists in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey to create something of an EU type of arrangement?

Suppose we in the west were to let it be known that if Musharraf, Ahmadinejad and Assad don't come in line then we will actively campaign to assist Baluchis to form a union with Afghanistan and all Kurds with Iraq?  Both Iraq and Afghanistan would gain because Iraq would gain an outlet to the Mediterranean for its oil - reducing the importance of the Straits of Hormuz - and Afghanistan would gain an outlet to the Indian Ocean.  This would reduce both the strategic importance of Pakistan and Iran as well as putting Syria in its place - Turn Al Ladiqiyah into a Kurdish port.

These days it is easy to forget that not all Pakistanis are tribal, burkah'd fanatics.  Pakistan is also the home of Benazir Bhutto - and many of her ilk - professional women that run businesses, expose their faces, wear make-up and western dress as well as the shalwar kameez and occasionally a head scarf.  Where english is still a widely spoken language. I don't think that the people of Karachi and Lahore are necessarily of a single mind with the people of Peshawar and the tribal areas.  Perhaps if some sort of accomodation could be reached amongst the people of the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan and Afghanistan then the tribes could be isolated and Iran discomfited.

But such a strategy would be at odds with the United Nations concept of inviolable borders although it would be in sync with the notion of self-determination and the responsibility to protect.  It would also be in sync with practice in the Balkans.

PS this does draw on the notion of "logical" borders - courtesy of Ralph Peters  http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899  and Journeyman http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/51227/post-454975.html#msg454975

While logic may not be involved in the current discussion perhaps it can be turned to our advantage.

 

[tomahawk6]

Even if you could get all the countries to agree to having their borders redrawn one has to consider the viability of the new country you are creating. In many cases the new countries would not be economically viable. Second problem would be other ethnic groups that also want their own state.

 

[Kirkhill]

Arthur - accepted.

tomahawk - agreed on all counts. The point is one of trying to break a log-jam.

With respect to Chad for example - how much would it cost to set up an aid package to encourage them to extend their "support and protection" to Darfur?  Make the aid contingent on their observance of the rights of the Darfurians and bring them into some sort of assembly.

Similarly with Iraq, Turkey and the Kurds. Make the Shia and the Sunnis the offer of access to the Mediterranean if they accept an extended federal Kurdistan and assist Turkey to see the benefits of allowing a "friendly" Kurdistan on its borders rather than an "unfriendly" Kurdistan within its borders.

No matter what happens from here on out it is likely to be messy and likely to involve deals and compromises.

PS - This would not be so much about countries agreeing to revised borders as the UN backing the realignment of borders in order to protect at risk populations - Just like it did in Palestine/Israel in 1947.  And we all know how well that worked out. 

Israel survives on foreign aid and military strength.  No reason Chad/Darfur, Iraq/Kurdistan, Aghanistan/Baluchistan couldn't survive on the same basis.

 

[Trinity]

Israel survives on foreign aid and military strength.  No reason Chad/Darfur, Iraq/Kurdistan, Aghanistan/Baluchistan couldn't survive on the same basis.

Israel also has one hell of an economy based on developing technology (read it or saw it on tv).
That really helps to have well trained/educated people as your population.  I don't think you can
say the same for the other countries mentioned.

 

[Kirkhill]

Point taken Trinity.

You're right.  But what was the state of play in 1947?  Or for that matter Korea in 1952?  There was an infrastructure base in Israel and an educated population. I could be mistaken on this as well but I don't think that Korea was much more advanced than Afghanistan is just now.  It had been pretty badly beaten up by Japan first and then the Korean War. 

In fact, if you go back to the 1940s many of the current economic miracles and developing powers were peasant societies.

We are talking about a multi-generational effort here.

 

[Trinity]

True

thats if we survive the next few generations to see if it would work again .  ;D

 

[Kirkhill]

Given the news out of North Korea, maybe we should just worry about getting past tomorrow.  ;D

 

[Kirkhill]

Answering my own question on the Pakistan & the Taliban thread:

And an incidental - is there any cultural affinity between the Balochis and the Omanis across the Arabian Sea?  I ask that because apparently a good chunk of the Sultan's forces were/are Balochis and he has proven a good friend to the west and fairly moderate by the standards of the region.

 

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/51455/post-458393.html#msg458393

In the early 19th century, Oman was the most powerful state in Arabia, controlling Zanzibar, the southern coast of Iran, and much of Baluchistan (between Pakistan and Iran). Zanzibar was separated from Oman in 1856, and the Persian coast and much of Baluchistan was detached from Oman during the latter half of the 19th century. In 1958 Oman's sole remaining Baluchi possession, the city-state of Gwadar, was ceded to Pakistan in return for a monetary settlement

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2004/07/15/travel/NYT_ALMANAC_WORLD_OMAN.html?ex=1160452800&en=fb1ecbd097d3e773&ei=5070

Is there an exploitable modernizing nexus there that could tie Pashtun Karzai, the Afghan Northern Alliance, the Baluchis and the Sultan of Oman? He has managed to keep the lid on his country since the 1970s and has been slowly converting the country into a modern state with a bicameral legislature and universal suffrage for men and women over 21.

Such an alliance would have the advantage of creating one friendly entity that straddled Iran's access to the Indian Ocean as well as putting pressure on Pakistan and Iran.

 

[a_majoor]

More than that, this is a great avenue for the "purple finger" strategy to gain more traction in SW Asia. If the Sultan is seen as the leading light of democratization, and his people are the ones on the front line with the "Diplomacy" and "Development" "D's", then quite a bit of oxygen will be removed from the Jihadis.

 

[Kirkhill]

Further to the discussion on Balochistan/Baluchistan.  It appears that the Great Game continues.

http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1188

Iran's Pasdaran, Ex-KGB, Indian Mafia, Baluchi Liberation Army, Pakistan, Dubai, Oman, China, Russia, America, Chines pipelines and ports, Anti-Pakistani training camps.......Only thing missing is James Bond.

Edit:The article seems to come from a Turkemistan friendly paper - lots articles about Gazprom and oil.

 

[Kirkhill]

And here's another.  Seems, as usual, I am late to the game.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GA15Df07.html

South Asia
    Jan 15, 2005 

 
Tribals looking down a barrel in Balochistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - With its deep, warm sea waters, extremely rich mineral resources and most vital strategic position, southwestern Pakistan's Balochistan province has been the home of many regional and international intrigues for almost half a century. With the Cold War over, new players, including Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, India, Iran and the United States have new agendas in the region, ranging from a proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, oil and gas exploration, a deepsea port to military bases. ....

 

[Kirkhill]

And this - from 2003.
http://www.pabe.org/news21.htm

Interesting that the other articles reference the Chinese investment in Gwadar - the port that the current Sultan of Oman's father sold to Pakistan in 1958.

Oman plans investment in Balochistan


March 10, 2003 - The Daily Dawn News Paper


Oman is planning significant investment in Balochistan, including in the expansion of Gwadar airport and construction of jetties at Gwadar port.
A number of investment projects would come under discussion when Pakistan-Oman Joint Ministerial Commission (JMC) meets here on Monday.

Adviser to the prime minister on finance Shaukat Aziz would lead Pakistani side while Sheikh Bin Hilal Bin Ali Al-Khalili, Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries of the Sultanate of Oman would lead his eight-member delegation.

The two sides would cover areas of mutual interest and economic cooperation relating to the improvement of air-traffic between the national carriers of the two countries.

The fourth session of the JMC would discuss projects relating to the extension of Gwadar airport, upgraduation of Gwadar hospital, construction of seven jetties at the Gwadar Port, provision of 100 engines by Oman to the fishermen and augmentation of water supply schemes in Balochistan.

The JMC would finalise projects for a $7 million grant announced by Sultan of Oman during his visit to Pakistan in April 2001. The Omanese government has already provided 43 new generators to the province.

For the utilization of the grant, Pakistan has already furnished projects relating to the construction of Gwadar-Hoshab Road, Water Supply Scheme from Shadi Kaur Dam to Pasni town, construction of three irrigation dams and replacement of pipes from Akrakaur Dam to Gwadar and Jiwani towns. 

So how "on-side" is the Pakistani business community of Karachi and Lahore, Sind and Punjab with the Army and the Tribes?  Are the Tribes the real reason for the army to exist?  Unrest in the hills, even moreso than unrest with India, justifies military rule to protect the people of the plains?

And, as always, China is playing its own game in the region.

 

[Kirkhill]

Last one - and I will shut up for a while.  Really intriguing though.

'Balochis will rise again'
Muslim World News
By G.S. Bhargava

As a correspondent in Pakistan I had an insight into Balochistan for the first time in 1960-61. The area was in the news when Western wire services reported rumblings of revolt in Pakistan's largest province.

Luckily for me there was a knowledgeable Balochi lecturer in Rawalpindi where I was stationed. He taught history part-time in the local Gordon College. A young man in his late 20s, he was the source on Balochi developments to many of our Pakistani colleagues but they could not use most of what he told them about the happenings in the area. So they would pass it on to me.

Like Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, 'Bugti' for short, the lecturer also was from Sui, where massive reserves of natural gas had been discovered in 1952. (There was an abortive agreement for the sale of piped Sui gas to India when Field Marshal Ayub Khan's was president.)

Mind you, although martial law had been lifted, Pakistan remained under 'Field Marshal law', referring to Field Marshal Ayub Khan's dictatorship. Indirect elections under his 'basic democracy' system were still to take place. As the two Indian correspondents in 'Pindi, we were under intense watch.

For a government institution, the Gordon College was an interesting establishment. The geography lecturer would openly say in the classroom that he was not used to drawing the map of a truncated country. That was nearly 15 years after the partition of the subcontinent.

He was in his late 40s and apparently did not mind speaking out his sentiments. But our colleagues - many of them Mohajir migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar struggling to strike roots in Ayub Khan's capital after having shifted from Karachi - were uneasy to be seen in my company.

Archaeological and historical evidence showed that what had come to be known as Balochistan was already inhabited in the Stone Age, 7,000-3,000 B.C. Until overrun by Alexander the Great, it was part of the Persian Empire, with the appellation of "Maka".

Muhammad bin Qasim brought Islam to it in 711 A.D. when he conquered Sind, but the area was too remote to be controlled by any of the later local dynasties.

More significantly, the lecturer and my Pakistani colleagues credited me with kinship with the Balochis because the Brahui language of the tribes occupying the hills around Kalat belonged to the same family as Tamil - Dravidian, which is outside the Indo-European group. (They did not perceive any difference between Tamil and my mother tongue Telugu because we are all "Madrasis"!)

The Brahuis are seen as the last survivors of a Dravidian population, which perhaps helped in the founding of the Indus Valley civilisation.

Another nugget was that Balochistan was not part of Pakistan at its birth in August 1947. It had to be virtually annexed in 1948. The last ruler of Kalat, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan (1902-79), did not sign the merger treaty with the new dominion, taking advantage of loopholes in the state's 1876 treaty with the British.

That led to Kalat's forcible merger with Pakistan along with Balochistan in tow to become Pakistan's largest province. Ten years later, the Sultan of Oman sold the strategic Gwadar port and adjacent area to Pakistan, completing the present territorial shape of Balochistan. The Gwadar area had been gifted to an ancestor of the Sultan of Oman by the then Khan of Kalat.

The current phase of turmoil in Balochistan began in January 2005 when Frontier Corps personnel stationed at Sui reportedly raped a local woman doctor. The victim, Shazia Khalid, was ultimately sent off to Canada but public resentment against "Punjabi atrocities" simmered.

Bugti and his nationalist allies, especially Balaj Marri, the Balochistan Liberation Army leader, made an issue of their demand for an increased share of wealth from natural resources extracted from the province.

Bugti was not a run-of-the-mill rabble-rouser. After graduation from the prestigious Aitchinson College of Lahore, he went to Oxford for higher studies. A polished speaker in Urdu as well as his native Balochi, he was forward looking and creative in his approach to public life.

Although the Pakistani Army and bureaucracy were gunning for him, Ayub Khan found him a potential ally in the nation building. So with the help of the Khan of Kalat, related through his daughter's marriage, he sorted out the trouble amicably. Later, General Zia-ul-Haq also got on famously with Bugti, who was made governor of the province from 1973 to 1977.

But Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, first when he replaced General Yahya Khan as chief martial law administrator and later as prime minister, unleashed terror on Balochistan using helicopter gunships and missiles to maim and kill the tribals.

In the present crisis, General Pervez Musharraf's troops have killed Bugti, his two grandsons and at least a score or so tribal followers of Bugti. The tribals have undoubtedly suffered a setback in the armed struggle. But the psychological aspect of the Balochi struggle continues.

As the president of the Balochistan National Party, Sardar Akhtar Mengal, has poignantly pointed out: "After every 10 years they gift us dead bodies of our leaders... We will not forget this. Bugti's murder shall not go unavenged."

In other words, "the Balochis will rise again".

(G.S. Bhargava, who served as a newspaper correspondent in Pakistan, is a former principal information officer of the Government of India. He can be reached at gsbhargava@hotmail.com)

http://www.indianmuslims.info/news/2006/september/05/muslim_world_news/balochis_will_rise_again.html?PHPSESSID=9e827e998d85d0c6f98d22cf32a7c27d

OK Last one.  Really. I mean it.

In 2001 steps were taken by Pakistan to develop a deep-sea port at Gwadar and China agreed to participate in its construction and development. The Chinese were nudged into action and involvement by the arrival, post 9/11, of United States forces in Afghanistan. and in March 2002, Chinese vice-premier Wu Bangguo arrived to lay the foundations of Gwadar deep-sea port.

The first phase of the port (which includes three multi-purpose ship berths) was completed in January this year, ahead of schedule, and the plan was that Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, would inaugurate it on his visit to Pakistan during the first week of April. However, the formal inauguration had to be cancelled at the last minute for to ‘security’ reasons. As is usual, Balochistan was in turmoil, with widespread rocket and bomb attacks on government installations. A further put-off was last year’s killing of three Chinese technicians and the wounding of nine others by Baloch nationalists opposed to the building of the port. An additional reason was the rain and flood damage to the highway linking Gwadur and Karachi. Not at all a felicitous situation.

The port, completed, remains uninaugurated until things settle and fool-proof safety is ensured for either President General Pervez Musharraf or our prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, to travel to wild and woolly Gwadur and perform the inauguration.

Our great friend China’s participation in this port is huge. For the first phase, it has sent some 450 engineers, provided technical expertise, and it has contributed some $ 198 million, to Pakistan’s $ 50 million, making a grand total of $ 248 million. The total cost is estimated at $ 1.16 billion. A further $ 200 million has been invested by China in building a highway connecting the port of Gwadur to Karachi.

China will also finance the second phase — nine more berths, an approach channel and storage terminals.

The reference to China’s pearl in Pakistani waters is taken from a “report sponsored by the director, Net Assessment, who heads Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld’s office on future-oriented strategies” (Washington Times, January 18, 2005), which describes China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy : “China is building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive positioning to protect China’s energy interests, but also to serve broad security objectives...”. The ‘string of pearls’ “strategy of bases and diplomatic ties stretching from the Middle East to southern China that includes a new naval base under construction at the Pakistani port of Gwadar. Beijing has already set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar [which] is monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea.”

Apart from Gwadar, other pearls in China’s sea-lane strategy are facilities in Bangladesh, Myanmar (from which it has leased an island in the Andaman Sea), Thailand, Cambodia and the South China Sea. The Pentagon has made public its jitters about China’s ominous looking long-term development.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/20050911.htm

 

[GAP]

What I see, woven through this and other threads, news releases, etc., is that China is really pushing the envelope in the Asia/Pacific and South American regions where they are gaining footholds as Russia and the US lose them for fall out of favor. This does not bode well in the next few decades.

 

[a_majoor]

While not discounting the vast efforts the Chinese have made, I wonder if they are actually capable of exploiting this in a cultural sense.

Back in the 1400's, the Chinese built vast fleets of ships, both greater in size individually and collectively than the European fleets of the day. These vast ocean going junks sailed throughout the Indian Ocean basin, and archaeological evidence clearly establishes these fleets landed in India and East Africa. There seems little doubt they were also active in the Indonesian and Phillipines as well, and there is no technical reason they could not have reached Australia or even the West Coast of North America (although there are very few indications this may have actually happened, Gavin Menzies excepted).

Despite the vastly superior organization and technology of these treasure fleets, the Chinese never established colonies, full time trade networks or even (apparently) diplomatic relations with the various kingdoms and peoples they encountered. Even with tiny cogs,the Hanse in the North Sea did far more in their trading voyages across Northern Europe, and of course when the Spanish finished the Reconquista; they very rapidly moved in force out into the global ocean and established themselves pretty much wherever they landed.

The Chinese are very smart, determined and hard working, what I might not be able to wrap my head around (and I think many others are in the same boat here) is if they are doing these things in Pakistan, the Sudan, Venezuela etc. for the same sort of motivations that we would have. Ascribing the incorrect motivations to Chinese activities could lead to disaster, as we either react to something which isn't really there or our activities upend some sort of calculation that the Chinese are making and they ascribe this to malice on our part.

Regardless, we have to remain awake at the wheel, and certainly can outperform the Chinese or anyone else with our cultural attractors should we need an asymmetrical lever to move things in our direction. Clever co opting of people and groups like the Sultan of Oman simply make our job that much easier.