[Excerpt from essay by Michael Kugelman, Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.]
With the Taliban rejecting Pakistani demands to rein in the TTP, and with Pakistan committed to rooting out the terrorist group, this conflict looks likely to intensify. It has also proved resistant to outside mediation efforts. If Afghanistan and Pakistan truly do come to blows, the fighting could not just destabilize the two countries; it could spur militant attacks against Americans and American interests in South Asia, cause chaos in the wider region, and even trigger further conflict between India and Pakistan.
leopardbaseball on
Oh boy! first I don’t think it was necessary to drag India into this mud.
Second,it is well documented that ttp is a direct result of the militant factions that were created by Pakistan to use in Afghanistan to begin with, Now they came back to bite Pakistan and they are blaming Afghanistan and ‘external’ forces for it??
Halfie951 on
Unexpected???? They have been fighting for Decades lol
streetmagix on
‘Unexpected’?
vovap_vovap on
I would think that “Taliban” is not a one thing. That different people. Some of those idiots who only know how to fight and some understand that they now have a country to feed. Clearly they can not fight Pakistan and can be just wiped out.
Additional-Library55 on
Firstly, kudos to Kugelman to get published in FA after years of hardwork at the Diplomat, foreign policy etc.
However the analysis misses key points. 1) Afghan Taliban doesn’t recognize the Durand line as border and wants to change it. 2) Almost all of the Afghan leadership grew up and studied in Pakistan (KP area) and considers it “home” 3) Afghans are extremely rugged people who don’t mind hardships, they infact thrive in it. 4) And most importantly, in over 800 years of pre-Raj history of subcontinent Afghans have always attacked and plundered the fertile plains and mostly docile population in India (these plains now lie in Pakistan’s Punjab).
So this won’t die down from Afghanistan’s side
Now what Pakistan can do – 1) they don’t have economic or military might to sustain a large operation 2) even then, their military can’t be trusted enough to fight against fellow deeply religious muslims Deobandis and Barelvis. Over years, religiosity has hardened inside Pakistani army too. 3) Most importantly, a typical punjabi is pretty docile (and wants all comforts, esp at lower effort). Therefore it is highly unlikely that Pakistan can generate domestic support for a long battle against Pushtuns (Punjabis have always railed Pushtuns to carry their dirty work, e.g. tribal attacks on GB and Kashmir in 1947 were done by Pushtuns, ofcourse railed up by Punjabis. A good working stereotype would be Punjabi = sweet talker, Pushtun = brute muscle).
therefore most likely Pakistan would resort to covert ops and strategic strikes to wipe out Taliban from within. This has added advantage of deeper collaboration with CIA, which all Pakistani Generals deeply desire at personal level. Pakistan could infact support rival factions to keep Taliban “busy”.
Thus it is unlikely that both sides would yield from their current positions and we would see more Guirella attacks on both sides going forward.
Edit: What’s India’s position in all thjs? This is precisely where Kugelman is right (although he doesn’t explain the rationale explicitly). Pakistan could use its proxies to do some terrorist attacks in India – nothing unites common Pakistanis more than a threat from India. Whenever Pakistani army starts losing support domestically, a threat from India goes a long way in helping them rise like a Phoenix. India would like to support Taliban but that has massive long term costs, so it would be worth seeing if the Taliban can show that they can generate enough short term benefits so as to compensate for the long term costs. Today, that equation is not so much in their favor. But ofcourse it could change rapidly (remember Mujib’s mukti bahini received overnight support from India once the short term benefits, aka, breaking up Pakistan were apparent)
1-randomonium on
Pakistan has been cleverly trying to get Trump involved in this. They signed a deal with Trump-linked mining companies to mine rare earth metals from a region on the Afghan-Pakistan border where they’ve been fighting rebels for decades. They’ll probably try to push Trump to send in the US military to fight the Taliban and other rebels in order secure the new American assets.
Severe_Science9309 on
as clinton said, “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard”
8 Comments
[Excerpt from essay by Michael Kugelman, Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.]
With the Taliban rejecting Pakistani demands to rein in the TTP, and with Pakistan committed to rooting out the terrorist group, this conflict looks likely to intensify. It has also proved resistant to outside mediation efforts. If Afghanistan and Pakistan truly do come to blows, the fighting could not just destabilize the two countries; it could spur militant attacks against Americans and American interests in South Asia, cause chaos in the wider region, and even trigger further conflict between India and Pakistan.
Oh boy! first I don’t think it was necessary to drag India into this mud.
Second,it is well documented that ttp is a direct result of the militant factions that were created by Pakistan to use in Afghanistan to begin with, Now they came back to bite Pakistan and they are blaming Afghanistan and ‘external’ forces for it??
Unexpected???? They have been fighting for Decades lol
‘Unexpected’?
I would think that “Taliban” is not a one thing. That different people. Some of those idiots who only know how to fight and some understand that they now have a country to feed. Clearly they can not fight Pakistan and can be just wiped out.
Firstly, kudos to Kugelman to get published in FA after years of hardwork at the Diplomat, foreign policy etc.
However the analysis misses key points. 1) Afghan Taliban doesn’t recognize the Durand line as border and wants to change it. 2) Almost all of the Afghan leadership grew up and studied in Pakistan (KP area) and considers it “home” 3) Afghans are extremely rugged people who don’t mind hardships, they infact thrive in it. 4) And most importantly, in over 800 years of pre-Raj history of subcontinent Afghans have always attacked and plundered the fertile plains and mostly docile population in India (these plains now lie in Pakistan’s Punjab).
So this won’t die down from Afghanistan’s side
Now what Pakistan can do – 1) they don’t have economic or military might to sustain a large operation 2) even then, their military can’t be trusted enough to fight against fellow deeply religious muslims Deobandis and Barelvis. Over years, religiosity has hardened inside Pakistani army too. 3) Most importantly, a typical punjabi is pretty docile (and wants all comforts, esp at lower effort). Therefore it is highly unlikely that Pakistan can generate domestic support for a long battle against Pushtuns (Punjabis have always railed Pushtuns to carry their dirty work, e.g. tribal attacks on GB and Kashmir in 1947 were done by Pushtuns, ofcourse railed up by Punjabis. A good working stereotype would be Punjabi = sweet talker, Pushtun = brute muscle).
therefore most likely Pakistan would resort to covert ops and strategic strikes to wipe out Taliban from within. This has added advantage of deeper collaboration with CIA, which all Pakistani Generals deeply desire at personal level. Pakistan could infact support rival factions to keep Taliban “busy”.
Thus it is unlikely that both sides would yield from their current positions and we would see more Guirella attacks on both sides going forward.
Edit: What’s India’s position in all thjs? This is precisely where Kugelman is right (although he doesn’t explain the rationale explicitly). Pakistan could use its proxies to do some terrorist attacks in India – nothing unites common Pakistanis more than a threat from India. Whenever Pakistani army starts losing support domestically, a threat from India goes a long way in helping them rise like a Phoenix. India would like to support Taliban but that has massive long term costs, so it would be worth seeing if the Taliban can show that they can generate enough short term benefits so as to compensate for the long term costs. Today, that equation is not so much in their favor. But ofcourse it could change rapidly (remember Mujib’s mukti bahini received overnight support from India once the short term benefits, aka, breaking up Pakistan were apparent)
Pakistan has been cleverly trying to get Trump involved in this. They signed a deal with Trump-linked mining companies to mine rare earth metals from a region on the Afghan-Pakistan border where they’ve been fighting rebels for decades. They’ll probably try to push Trump to send in the US military to fight the Taliban and other rebels in order secure the new American assets.
as clinton said, “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard”