Page 2 of 2 Medvedev's wishful thinking
By M K Bhadrakumar
Simply put, Moscow could not choose a better beachhead than Tajikistan as it
gears up for its historic return to the Afghan chessboard as a grandmaster
after an absence of two decades.
The leitmotif of the Russian-Tajik-Afghan-Pakistani quadrilateral format is
indeed Russia's return to an active role in the search of an Afghan settlement.
The Kremlin's account of Wednesday's Sochi summit acknowledged it saying that
the meeting ''concentrated specifically on the situation in Afghanistan,
fighting terrorism and preventing drug trafficking ... to step us efforts in
these areas, including through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] and
the CSTO.''
Evidently, Moscow is taking into account the huge variables in the Afghan
situation and the any number of directions the current
situation may take. It therefore keeps the option of working on the Afghan
problem both bilaterally and multilaterally, bearing in mind the slim
possibility that the US may abruptly decide on a dramatic drawdown of forces in
Afghanistan against the backdrop of exigencies in domestic American politics in
an election year or the high probability that Washington aims at a long-term
military presence in the region as integral to its global strategies.
The status of the US forces in Afghanistan from a medium-term perspective
certainly worries Moscow. This came out clearly in Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov's speech at the international conference in Kabul on July 20 when he
singled out that ''[O]ne of the key factors in cresting an atmosphere of
good-neighborliness and cooperation in the region after completion of the
international stabilization efforts here is to be the restoration of the
neutral status of Afghanistan. We expect that this idea will find support among
the Afghans.''
US diplomats have been soft-pedaling the idea of a ''neutral'' Afghanistan and
Lavrov thought it necessary to remind Washington that ''[T]he Presidents of
Russia and the United States already spoke for it in their joint statement
adopted on June 24 in Washington.''
Moscow has utilized the Sochi summit to develop a ''chemistry'' with Afghan
President Hamid Karzai that has been hitherto lacking, in spite of sustained
Russian efforts. To be sure, Moscow has taken note that Karzai's crisis of
confidence with the US is deepening and he is gradually beginning to shift his
dependence onto the regional powers to help him to incrementally ease the
current American stranglehold on him.
Moscow is willing to play a role here. As the Kremlin's top aide, Sergei
Prikhodko, put it in a media briefing, the core Russian agenda of the Sochi
summit was ''the stepping up of regional cooperation in the efforts to assist
the stabilization of the situation in Afghanistan and on the Afghan-Pakistan
border, with the participation of authoritative organizations, such as the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Organization.''
Some ''chemistry'' seems to have developed in Sochi as Karzai invited Medvedev
to visit Kabul ''as soon as possible, as your [Medvedev's] schedule allows it.
And Afghanistan is more than happy, rather privileged, to engage with Russia in
all forms of economic, cultural, and political relations.''
Most certainly, Washington will have reason to feel irritated that Moscow is
inserting itself so blatantly into its Afghan preserve. It will keep a close
tab on Karzai. A defining moment will be the upcoming Afghan tender for
purchase of military helicopters for the army. Washington is nervous that
Russia is eyeing the prospect of shaping up as the provider of equipment and
weapons for the Afghan army.
To quote Prikhodko, ''The Russian side is definitely interested in this
[helicopter deal]; there are no impediments on our side.'' Russia has a
tactical advantage insofar as Russian military equipment has proven more
suitable for the tough Afghan conditions and the Afghan army is quite familiar
with them already. Curiously, even NATO uses Soviet-era weapons, especially the
Mi-17 helicopters, out of the stockpiles with the erstwhile Warsaw Pact
countries of Central Europe who are today participants in the war as member
countries of the western alliance.
Briefing the media after Medvedev's talks with Karzai, Lavrov said:
We
are talking [with NATO] about a couple of dozen helicopters with the relevant
equipment. I hope that in a month or month and a half there will be more
clarity on the issue ... We handed our proposals about how we would carry out
the initiative to Brussels a few months ago. We are now waiting for a definite
answer from our partners.
Washington finds itself in quandary
here as NATO would do well to acquire Russian helicopters on their merits from
the operational (and commercial) angle, but then such cooperation would not
only make Moscow a "participant" in the war but also might alter the overall
alchemy of NATO-Russia ties. Moscow is not helping matters by offering that it
is open to dealing with individual NATO member countries directly in such arms
transactions.
The crux of the matter is what sort of Russian role Washington is willing to
concede to Moscow in the Afghan endgame. Some time ago, in a media remark last
October, Russia's irrepressible envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, who has a
panache for hitting hard in the most colorful diplomatic idiom available,
forecast the developing paradigm in the Hindu Kush when he said that while ''no
Russian soldier will step onto Afghan soil'', Moscow would not ''sit on the
substitutes' bench as regards supporting the fight against Taliban militants.''
The linchpin is Pakistan
Rogozin was prescient about the way the Kremlin was likely to think, and what
he forecast is exactly what is happening. Which also explains the urgency with
which Moscow is sensing the importance of forging some sort of a meaningful
relationship with Pakistan on which it has been in a mode of self-denial,
historically speaking, due to its apprehension that any perceptible warming up
of Russia-Pakistan ties might raise hackles in the nearby Indian capital with
which Moscow has a time-tested partnership of profound significance to the
Russian global strategies.
The fact of the matter is that Moscow - like Tehran or Washington or London -
understands that any effective Afghan policy needs to go hand in hand with a
meaningful bilateral relationship with Islamabad. Ideally speaking, a degree of
strategic understanding becomes necessary, but then the Pakistanis aren't easy
customers. Moscow sees the usefulness of the quadripartite format from this
perspective.
What Moscow needs to work on is to emulate the current policies of Iran, the US
and UK to also ''engage'' Pakistan bilaterally. The Sochi summit seems to have
been a step in this direction. The original plan was that Pakistani President
Asif Zardari would undertake a full-fledged visit to Russia alongside the Sochi
summit, but in the current emergency of the floods in Pakistan, this had to be
scuttled.
All the same, the Kremlin account of the Medvedev-Zardari bilateral was
exceedingly warm and indicative of a promising future period of close
cooperation between the two countries. Medvedev made it clear that Moscow is
making up for lost time in building a partnership with Islamabad:
I
think that now, unlike in the past, we have very regular, frequent contacts,
and this is good, as it enables us to promote our relations with Pakistan, our
economic ties, and our contacts on security issues and regional problems. We
live in an unsettled region and the way we work together is crucial for the way
a whole number of complicated processes will unfold.
Prikhodko
was far more specific in his media briefing. He anticipated that Medvedev and
Zardari would discuss ''Russia's interaction with Pakistan, Pakistan's
interaction with Afghanistan and India and the situation in the region in
general.'' He added:
The two leaders will consider stepping up trade
and economic ties, including the implementation of joint projects in the
fuel/energy, metallurgy, and railway transport sectors ... we're hoping that
the Sochi meeting will give an impulse to the preparation of a full-scale visit
by the Pakistani leader to Moscow.
Russia has formed an
intergovernmental commission with Pakistan - on the pattern of its traditional
cooperation with India - and the first meeting of the commission is due to take
place on September 21. Equally, the Sochi meeting has created a quadripartite
format of foreign ministers within which Lavrov will have the opportunity to
''work on foreign policy coordination'' with his Pakistani counterpart in a
structured fashion on a regular basis.
In sum, Moscow is not only copying the US approach to ''engage'' Pakistan but
is also outstripping it by conducting such engagement within the bilateral and
regional framework.
Catherine's dream
No matter what ultimately happens to Catherine the Great's dream of dipping her
toes in the warm waters of the Arabian Sea, the regional security paradigm is
witnessing a transformational phase even as the current Afghan conflict is
uneasily edging toward a denouement.
Several vectors come into play. 1. Russia is showing a muscular policy to
assert the legitimacy of its interests in the Hindu Kush and Central Asia.
2. The Russian ''entry'' changes the nature of the brew in the Afghan cauldron:
it is no more an American concoction and Karzai has a new recipe to try for
creating political space for himself.
3. Any form of long-term US military presence in the region will be severely
contested by Russia (alongside China and Iran).
4. Moscow has accepted Beijing's counseling as regards the critical importance
of not leaving Pakistan to the wolves.
It is now up to the Pakistani elites (civilian and military) to expand
Islamabad's autonomy in regional politics so as to withstand the US's coercive
diplomacy although they are passionately wedded to the strategic partnership
with the US.
Finally, of course, an overarching template is appearing - a potential
transformation of the Russian-Indian partnership in the event of the nascent
Russian-Pakistan strategic partnership gaining traction in the period ahead. As
things stand, Moscow is uneasy about the huge build-up of the US-Indian
partnership in the recent years. Curiously, so is Islamabad.
Moscow's choice of Islamabad as its partner in regional security issues will
not go unnoticed in Delhi. To be sure, the upcoming visit by the US President
Barack Obama to Delhi in November will take place against the backdrop of a
massive shift in what the Soviets would have called the ''correlation of
forces'' in the region's politics.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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