Prospects for the development of situations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India
Acting us Secretary of defense Christopher Miller at his first briefing at the Pentagon announced to the media that by January 15 next year, the United States will reduce its military contingents in Afghanistan and Iraq – the number of troops in each of the countries will be 2.5 thousand people. Currently, there are about 4.5 thousand American troops in Afghanistan, and 3 thousand in Iraq.
By agreement with the leaders of the radical Taliban movement (banned in Russia. - "HBO") all units of the US armed forces must leave Afghanistan by the end of spring next year. Even PMC employees will not be able to stay in the country. According to some estimates, they currently number at least several hundred people. And if the new White house administration breaks the deadline for the withdrawal of troops, the Taliban will most likely resume fighting and, most likely, capture Kabul, then American fighters will have to escape from Afghanistan the same way they fled from Vietnam.
SOURCE OF THREAT
On the same day that the acting head of the MOD held a press conference, the us strategic research Institute Heritage Foundation published its annual report "the Status of US military power 2021". In this document, the Foundation's analysts usually consider all issues related to ensuring America's national security, starting with the conditions in which the US armed forces have to operate in various regions of the world, and ending with assessments of the combat capabilities of Washington's allies. One of the points of the latest report is an assessment of the state of Affairs and prospects for the development of situations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, which determine the situation in this region of Asia.
According to the authors of the report, the threats to America coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan are diverse, complex and mostly indirect in nature, since non-state militants are acting against the United States. Terrorist groups such as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda, and the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; is) (organizations banned in the Russian Federation. - "HBO"), extremely hostile to America. Despite the broad and deep us relations with the ruling elites of Islamabad and its military establishment, according to the Foundation's scientists, there is a fairly high probability that the military-political situation in Pakistan and instability in Afghanistan will continue to have a significant impact on the growing threats to Washington.
In addition, continuing tensions between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan may eventually lead to a broader military conflict with some prospect of escalation, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. But since neither side wants a new world war, both countries pursue only limited goals and demonstrate a desire to avoid an escalation of the confrontation. However, the likelihood of rising tensions between the two has increased significantly since 2016, as India announced it would use force in response to Pakistan-backed terrorist attacks.
situation in Afghanistan
Almost a month after the militant attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001-October 7-American troops entered Afghanistan. This was the beginning of operation Enduring Freedom, aimed at eliminating the threat from al-Qaeda and destroying the leadership of the Taliban that covered this terrorist group. Washington, in Alliance with London and the anti-Taliban forces of the Afghan Northern Alliance, removed the leaders of the movement from power in December 2001. Many Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders and fighters have fled across the border to the Pashtun tribal areas under the government of Pakistan. They regrouped there and resumed attacks on Afghanistan in 2003. In August of the same year, NATO joined the war in Afghanistan and took control of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
In 2011, at the height of the war with the Taliban, 50 countries joined ISAF, and the total number of NATO, US and other military personnel on the ground in Afghanistan was almost 150,000. On December 28, 2014, NATO officially stopped fighting and transferred responsibility for maintaining stability in the country to the Afghan security forces, including the army and police, which numbered about 352 thousand people.
Following the signing of the bilateral security agreement with the United States and the status of forces Agreement with NATO by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the international coalition launched operation Resolute Support, which is aimed at training the personnel of the Afghan security forces and assisting them in the fight against militants and insurgents.
In August 2017, us President Donald trump, refusing to disclose the actual number of troops opposing the Taliban, reiterated America's commitment to action in Afghanistan and announced that "from now on, US strategy will be determined by conditions on the ground, not arbitrary schedules" of combat operations. He also expressed the view that his administration would seek to resolve the situation in the country through negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban. After this statement, in 2018, the United States began direct negotiations with the Taliban in Doha and Qatar, the purpose of which was to try to find a political solution to existing problems and stop the fighting.
In February 2020, after nearly two years of negotiations, US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban co-founder and chief negotiator Abdul Ghani Baradar signed a phase one peace agreement in Doha. Among other things, this action was aimed at obtaining the consent of the Taliban to sit down at the negotiating table with the legitimate government of Afghanistan and allow all American and international troops to leave the country by the spring of 2021. As part of the agreement, the Taliban were to commit to severing all ties with al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorist groups.
However, the implementation of this agreement still faces many obstacles. Since it was signed in February 2020, the level of violence and the number of clashes between us troops and the Taliban has significantly decreased. Nevertheless, the Taliban continue to attack Afghan security forces, and this is likely to continue until negotiations between them and the government lead to some form of peace agreement. The global COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily suspended intra-Afghan negotiations, and there is currently no available information on how the US and its supporters in the international community intend to ensure that the Taliban's commitment to renounce transnational terrorism is met.
MILITANT GROUPS IN THE AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN REGION
The Afghanistan-Pakistan region (AFPAC), according to experts of the Heritage Foundation, is a source of deadly danger for the United States and other countries of the world. In 2017, General John Nicholson, commander of the NATO-led Resolute support mission and the US armed forces in Afghanistan, said that AFPAC is home to 20 of the 98 identified by Washington experts "terrorist groups around the world", which is "the highest concentration of terrorist groups" operating in various parts of the world.
A wide variety of Islamist fundamentalist groups have settled in Pakistan, many of them carry out their attacks with the support or authorization of Islamabad and continue to pose a direct threat to Washington. Some of the armed groups are focused on carrying out attacks in Afghanistan, Kashmir and other regions of India. Some of the actions of these groups are directed against non-Muslim communities and Muslim minorities, which are considered non-Islamic entities in Pakistan. Other militants are targeting Pakistan and its security forces. The threat posed by al-Qaeda in Pakistan was somewhat reduced by the destruction of Osama bin Laden at his hideout in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in may 2011. The head of the most violent militant group has been eliminated by Pakistani security forces through the massive use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Nevertheless, the remaining al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan and the Islamic state terrorists that have emerged in neighboring Afghanistan remain of serious concern to Washington.
The us military is in no hurry to leave the hot spots they have created. Photo By Reuters
The efforts of the is leaders to invade Pakistan and Afghanistan and establish the Islamic state-Khorasan-IS – K (is-K) on their territories have met with only limited success, which is most likely due to the presence of other terrorist groups that have settled in this region. The Afghan Taliban see IG-K as a direct competitor in the fight for financial resources, recruitment and ideological influence. The existence of this competition became apparent after a letter from the Taliban sent on June 16, 2015 to the then head of is, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Taliban urged his group not to take actions that could lead to a " division of the Mujahideen command."
The Taliban has repeatedly attacked the formation of the IG-K. US officials have acknowledged that, although us forces did not directly coordinate with the Taliban, it was US airstrikes and ground attacks by Taliban fighters that caused is-K to lose its stronghold in the Afghan province of Nangarhar.
The first reports of the presence of is in Afghanistan appeared in 2014, and the group gradually managed to gain a small foothold in this country. Although the number of militant groups was small, their large-scale terrorist attacks with a large number of victims helped them attract some followers to their ranks. In March 2019, General Joseph Votel, who headed the Us Central command at the time, said that, in his opinion, the Islamic state-Khorasan "really has ideas focused on external operations" against America.
The lack of publicly available information and the willingness of local fighters in the region to change their allegiances without much thought make it almost impossible to determine the exact number of is-K fighters in Afghanistan at any given time. A report published by the UN Security Council in February 2019 claimed that is has between 2.5 thousand and 4 thousand fighters in Afghanistan. In September 2019, American experts estimated that the number of is militants in Afghanistan is 2-5 thousand people.
According to some US officials, in 2019, is-K suffered a number of major defeats, which led to its "collapse" in Eastern Afghanistan. Strikes by the us armed forces and Taliban formations in late 2019 led to some reduction in the capabilities of the is, and in November, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said that the is was completely destroyed.
Experts believe that there is no clear coordination between the is-K units operating in Afghanistan and the Central militant group stationed in the middle East. Is-K leaders in Afghanistan are on the path of recruiting disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban and radical citizens of Afghanistan, so they often find themselves in conflict with the Afghan Taliban, with whom they compete for resources, territory, and recruits. Is-K, the authors of the report note, could benefit from the Taliban militants ' dissatisfaction with the peace agreement with the United States and the commitment of their leadership to conduct intra-Afghan negotiations. In addition, the leaders of the IG-K are trying to counteract the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan and to this end are conducting large-scale actions in the country, involving a large number of human victims, hoping that the international community will blame the Taliban for this.
Pakistan's continued support for terrorist groups with links to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, according to the Foundation's scientists, creates certain obstacles for the United States to fight terrorism in this region. Leaders of the armed forces and the intelligence community of Islamabad conduct short-term tactical operations that include fighting some terrorist groups that are considered sources of threats to the state, and support other militant groups whose actions are consistent with the objectives of the government of Pakistan to expand its influence in the region and reduce the influence of new Delhi.
In 2015, after a series of terrorist attacks against state and security services, the government of Pakistan adopted a national action Plan (NAP) aimed at intensifying the fight against terrorism. The implementation of the NPA and the operations of the armed forces of Pakistan to eliminate the secret shelters of the TTP in North Waziristan helped to reduce the internal terrorist threat in the country to a certain extent. According to the India-based South Asia terrorism Portal, the total death toll in Pakistan, including terrorists and insurgents, has been steadily declining since 2009. At that time, their number was 11,704. In 2014, their number decreased to 5,496, in 2016-to 1,803, in 2017 – to 1,260, and in 2018-to 691. As of June 23, 2019, there were only 228 people in the ranks of militants and insurgents.
However, there is little evidence that Pakistan's crackdown on terrorism extends to groups operating against India: for example, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks; or Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which attacked the Indian Parliament in 2001, attacked an Indian air force base located near Pathankot in 2016, and carried out an action against Indian security forces in February 2019.Kashmir, which led to the greatest loss of life in the history of terror.
PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR ARSENAL
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an American magazine covering international security and threats caused by nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, climate change and new technologies, published a report on Pakistan's nuclear weapons in September 2018. It stated that Islamabad "has a nuclear Arsenal of 140 to 150 warheads", which by 2025 "may actually increase to 220-250 warheads" if the "current trend" of its build-up continues. According to experts from the arms Control Association, as of July 2019, Pakistan had 150-160 nuclear warheads.
The likelihood that terrorists can actually gain access to these weapons is determined by many different factors, but the possible consequences of such a development make this scenario the most dangerous for the region. The concern of the Pakistani services responsible for the protection and security of nuclear weapons increases significantly during periods of heightened tension between India and Pakistan. For example, during the Kargil war (the border armed conflict between India and Pakistan that occurred in 1999), us intelligence agencies managed to obtain data that Islamabad conducted "nuclear training", and this stimulated more active us diplomatic participation in resolving the crisis.
If the Pakistani authorities decide to relocate their nuclear assets storage depots or, even more dangerously, take measures to pair nuclear warheads with their delivery systems, the likelihood of such munitions being stolen or accessed by terrorists will increase significantly.
Washington is also particularly concerned about the increased dependence of the country's armed forces on tactical nuclear weapons (TNW), since the authority to launch tactical nuclear missiles is usually granted to lower-level field commanders who are located at a considerable distance from the Central authorities in Islamabad. Another problem is the possibility that incorrect assessments of the current situation could lead to a regional nuclear war. This can happen if Indian leaders lose confidence that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are under the control of the government, or, conversely, assume that they are under the control of the ruling structures that have lost their powers.
Additional concerns in the United States are that Islamist extremist groups with links to the Pakistani security establishment may use these links to gain access to nuclear technology, facilities, and/or materials. The fact that Osama bin Laden's residence was located within a few hundred meters of Pakistan's main military Academy for six years has raised significant concerns that al-Qaeda militants may operate relatively freely in some areas of Pakistan and may eventually gain access to the country's nuclear Arsenal. The nuclear Security Index, which is part of the nuclear Threat Initiative, ranks 22 countries that possess "materials suitable for use in such weapons"as far as possible to control the safety of nuclear weapons and their loss. In 2018, Pakistan ranked 20th in the list of countries ranked by the level of security of weapons-grade nuclear materials, followed by Iran (21st) and North Korea (22nd).
There is an additional, though less likely, scenario of extremists gaining access to nuclear weapons as a result of the collapse of a nuclear state. Although Pakistan, due to the weakness of its economy, with regular terrorist attacks, sectarian violence, high civil and military tensions, and the growing influence of religious extremist groups, remains a rather unstable country, it is unlikely that the Pakistani state can undergo total disintegration. The country's most powerful institution, the 550,000-strong army that has ruled Pakistan for almost half of its existence, is sure to intervene in the event of a crisis and take control of the political situation again if the country begins to lose its statehood. The possible collapse of the Pakistani state would have to be preceded by the collapse of the army, which is currently an unlikely event.
India and Pakistan are engaged in a nuclear competition that threatens stability across the subcontinent. Both countries tested nuclear weapons in 1998 and acquired the status of nuclear powers, although India was the first to conduct "peaceful" tests of nuclear weapons back in 1974. Both countries are developing naval nuclear weapons and already have ballistic missiles and aircraft means of delivering them to targets.
Since terrorist groups operate relatively freely in Pakistan and maintain links with the country's military and intelligence services, there is a moderate risk that both countries may eventually become embroiled in a full-scale armed conflict. And the recent intention of Pakistan to include in its military doctrine a provision on the possibility of using TNW has caused concern to the world community that now any major conflict between India and Pakistan may be associated with a higher risk of an exchange of nuclear strikes.
As a result of their research, experts from the Heritage Foundation concluded that non-state terrorist groups stationed in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose the greatest threat to the United States. According to them, Pakistan is a kind of paradox: on the one hand, it is a partner of the United States in ensuring international security, and on the other, it can be considered a challenge to America's national security. Islamabad provides safe haven and supports terrorist groups hostile to the United States and other American partners in South Asia, such as India and Afghanistan, which is particularly vulnerable to destabilizing influences. Pakistan and Afghanistan are already among the most unstable States in the world, and the instability of the former, given its nuclear Arsenal, is directly related to US security.
Thus, the overall threat to the United States from terrorist and insurgent groups based in AFPAK is extremely high and must be overcome by all means available to Washington.
Vladimir Ivanov
Columnist for the Independent military review»