“SCO-led approach towards Afghanistan seems to present the only viable option for ensuring a relative degree of predictability and normalcy in Afghan state’s behavior regardless of which group emerges as the main power broker in the post-US Afghanistan”, – political analyst Nima Khorrami notes in an article, written specifically for the analytical platform CABAR.asia.
That the Taliban (editor’s note: the terrorist movement banned in Central Asian countries) are likely to dominate politics in post-US Afghanistan should not, unfortunately, be surprising. Not only Taliban forces are significantly more cohesive compared to most of their counterparts in the national army, but, according to a newly leaked NATO document, Taliban have also become financially more independent in recent years; so much so that they may soon be in a position to withstand “pressure to comply with obligations to cut ties with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups”. Unlike their counterparts in Kabul, in addition, Taliban have a clear vision on what they want: an Islamic Emirate governed in accordance to their rigid interpretation of Islam. Added to these are the deeply rooted and highly publicised rivalries and frictions both between and within various political factions in Kabul which have undermined the Afghan government’s ability to represent a united front in its ongoing negotiations with the militant group.
Surely, Taliban themselves are not a monolithic front. There are reports of power rivalries within the group with Mullah Omar’s son, Mullah Yaqoob, allegedly having his eyes on unseating the current leader. By making peace with the USA and talking to foreign powers, furthermore, the group has effectively deprived itself of a discourse which it had skilfully developed to discredit the Afghan government; that is, its newly found international recognition and legitimacy is a result of the group talking to, not fighting against, the so-called ‘invaders and non-believers’.
Still, it’s possible that the corrupt political elites in Kabul will fail to display a united front against Taliban, and that their rise to political dominance is only a question of time. In the face of this bleak prospect, the bulk of international community’s efforts must be guided by a healthy dose of pragmatic thinking; one that seeks to prevent a potentially Taliban dominated Afghan government from reverting back to its old habits of turning Afghan territory into a launching pad, and an ideological incubator, for violent extremism. By granting Afghanistan full membership and establishing close working relations with the Afghan security forces, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) could play a pivotal role in mitigating worst case scenarios.
What is on the Menu?
To begin with, it is important to highlight that there is a multitude of both new and old partnerships and organizations that are either striving to provide a degree of stability in post-NATO Afghanistan or could be used to that effect.
On top of the list is Russia dominated Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). In what might initially appear as a positive development or good news for Moscow, Tajikistan has already lodged an official request to receive assistance from CSTO. Equally important, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in close cooperation with Russia, have begun to beef up their military readiness on their borders with Afghanistan, and that they are set to hold a 10 days long joint military exercise beginning on August 1. However, Russia’s limited resources as well as CSTO’s poor track record in honoring its commitments towards its members indicate that neither a CSTO-led approach nor a bilateral arrangement with Russia could satisfy Tajikistan and Uzbekistan desire for border security let alone stability in Afghanistan.
CSTO’s inadequacy as a reliable partner is best evidenced in its failure to fulfil its responsibility towards Armenia in its most recent conflict with Azerbaijan as well as its abysmal record in securing Tajik-Afghan border eight years after it made such commitment. Equally revealing is its response to Tajikistan’s recent request for help has been limited to the sending of a task force to the Afghan-Tajik border and the issuance of rhetorical statements in support of Tajikistan. Above all, China’s absent from CSTO is problematic. As the most important external actor in Central Asia, it is hard to contemplate how any security initiative could bear fruit if it excludes Beijing. In other words, Chinese inputs are a prerequisite for any proposal to have a realistic chance of success in Central Asia.
There is then the so-called ‘four-country mechanism’ or ‘Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism, which consists of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. Set up at the request of the Chinese government, the main objective is to enable Beijing to better respond to the potential spillover effects of increased instability in Afghanistan on its Xinjiang region. Although details on its activity have been thin, the problem with this grouping is twofold.
First, neither Russia nor India are party to it and that it is mere existence could raise suspicions in Moscow and New Delhi. In particular, Russia’s desire for retaining a privileged position in Central Asia could render the group ineffective. Moscow might feel excluded and hence try to put a cap on the group’s scope of work by threatening to seize its bilateral defense and security cooperation with Tajikistan. This becomes all the more troubling for a country like Tajikistan given that Beijing itself has so far failed to “deliver tangible security plans to support its neighbors on the western periphery in the event of an escalation of instability in Afghanistan”.
Finally, there is the recently announced Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and the US quadrilateral diplomatic platform, which aims at contributing to Afghanistan’s future stability by revitalizing US’s own version of Silk Road first introduced in 2011. At its heart, this is a long-term endeavor to turn Afghanistan into a regional hub via enhanced commercial and infrastructural connectivity between the three regional states. And for that to happen, socio-political stability in Afghanistan is a prerequisite.
However, chances for its success are at best slim. For one, the key word in the State Department press release is ‘in principle’; that is, none of the four has made a real commitment to the realization of the project. Rather, they have only agreed to “meet in the coming months to determine the modalities of this cooperation with mutual consensus”. This is inherently problematic in the sense that time is not on Afghanistan’s side; that is, what Afghanistan needs is a model or solution ready for implementation. Given the manner with which US’s drawdown was announced, furthermore, the United States does not seem to have the will to commit itself to the project at a time when its resources are limited, its strategic priorities lie elsewhere, and the American public is simply fed up with anything that has to do with Afghanistan.
How Could SCO Membership Help
Established in 1996 as Shanghai Five, SCO membership and mandate have expanded rather rapidly over the years and that it now counts both India and Pakistan as members while its mandate covers areas as wide as counter-terrorism and economic investment. Most importantly, membership does not call for unity in that member states can, and do, have different political systems. Equally significant, membership requires member states to refrain from policies and alliances that could pose a threat to other members. To this end, members are obliged to ban or dismantle groups and actors from using their territories to carry out hostile actions, directly or indirectly, against other members.
Put together, these provisions allow for a high degree of flexibility and pragmatism in admitting new members to the club — at least on paper. Should Afghanistan be offered a full membership, therefore, its government will be obliged to fend off and root out extremist movements, which may otherwise be seeking to upend rule of law in neighboring countries. Thanks to the same provisions, Kabul’s membership would also compel Pakistan to terminate its support for certain factions within Taliban and the broader extremist networks in Afghanistan.
Also at stake is the efficiency of SCO’s own counterterrorism efforts. Having been operating a dedicated counterterrorism center since 2005, the modus operandi of its Regional Counterterrorism Structure (RATS) closely reflect the Chinese and Russian approaches to counter-terrorism by placing a heavy emphasis on the role of state and socioeconomic development as critical components of any counterterrorism strategy. It follows then that a stable and/or functional state in Afghanistan capable of attracting foreign aid and executing developmental projects is of paramount importance to SCO’s own ability to fight extremism. SCO can contribute to Afghanistan’s stability by utilizing its financial muscle as well as some of its member’s experiences with development policies thereby assisting Kabul to begin making substantive moves towards the development of its formal economy.
Furthermore, SCO is the only institutional venue that can help India to improve its ties with Taliban. At the very least, SCO allows New Delhi to approach Taliban indirectly and start building a relationship with the group; one that safeguard its investment in the country and reduce Islamabad’s ability to use Taliban as a mean for pressuring India. New Delhi can also use SCO to limit the prospect of a China-Pakistan-Taliban development nexus. Already, Indian diplomats have begun to ring the alarm bells on an alleged Chinese effort to finance developmental projects in Taliban dominated Afghanistan via Pakistan although they have failed to provide any evidence to support their claim.
Finally, Beijing and Moscow neither can nor wish to unilaterally fill up the vacuum once Washington troop withdrawal is completed. Their apathy, in turn, is not just due to their lack of resources. For Russia, the memory of Soviet’s embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan is still fresh, and thus Moscow is emotionally hesitant to get tangled in Afghanistan once again especially at a time when it is directing the bulk of its resources to reinvigorate its military assets on its Arctic and European fronts. For China, its leadership acute sense of historical awareness means that it will not seek to repeat the British, Soviet and American mistakes by seeking to become the dominant force in Afghanistan. However, a common SCO approach would ease such concerns since it would lead to a division of labor, and thus pave the way for the participation of two strategic heavyweights in bringing about a relatively stable environment in Afghanistan.
SCO’s Potential Pitfalls
Notwithstanding the above advantages, there ought to be no doubt that elevating Afghanistan status from an observer state to a full member would not be easy.
For one, China seems to have lost its interest in the organization in recent years evident in dispatching low ranked diplomats to the most recent SCO meetings. Meanwhile, recent media reports indicate that Moscow is keen on using the emerging vacuum in Afghanistan to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and regain its status as the main security actors in Central Asia. Moreover, SCO’s smaller member states, as well as India, may have reservations about US’s reaction to their support for, and participation in, a Chinese-Russian led organization at a time of heightened geopolitical competition.
There are also uncertainties with regard to SCO states’ commitment to implementing and/or respecting their membership obligations. In other words, the mere existence of provisions does not automatically translate into their implementation. This is best demonstrated by the case of India and Pakistan whereby the two continue to take hostile actions against one another in spite of their SCO membership. Similarly, it is not at all certain that Afghanistan’s full membership could reduce hostilities between Taliban and India and/or compel Islamabad to significantly cut its ties with extremist networks in Afghanistan.
Equally significant, SCO tends to adhere to an extremely loose definition of counter-terrorism to the extent that it can be, and indeed has been, used as a disguise for the suppression of domestic political opponents. Hence, it is plausible that a future government in Afghanistan would seek to use SCO’s counter-terrorism framework for the purpose of power consolidation as opposed to tackling terrorism/extremism.
The Road Ahead
Still, a SCO-led approach towards Afghanistan seems to present the only viable option for ensuring a relative degree of predictability and normalcy in Afghan state’s behavior regardless of which group emerges as the main power broker in the post-US Afghanistan. By placing obligations on member states in a ‘rights equates responsibilities’ format, SCO’s membership could essentially condition the Afghan state’s behavior by defining what it can and cannot do. It is also critical to be mindful of the fact that a dizzying number of countries have an interest in Afghanistan’s future trajectory, and thus only a platform capable of bringing them all together and facilitate collective policy making can be of merit. SCO does that.
More importantly, post-US Afghanistan, one could argue, is SCO’s own moment of truth, and thus it is only fair to suggest that its time as a credible security player has come and gone should it fail to meaningfully engage with Afghanistan.
To prevent its obsoletism, in turn, Beijing and Moscow need to realize that to maintain their influence in Central Asia they must be able to live up to the expectations of the Central Asian states. While none of the Central Asian states except them to fill the vacuum in Afghanistan on their own, they nonetheless expect Beijing and Moscow to adopt a more hands on approach towards the country and use their respective strengthens to ensure a degree of stability and predictability in post-US Afghanistan. They can do so within the institutional confinements of the SCO whereby Beijing employs its economic muscle and Russia utilizes its military might to stem out the flow of fighters, weapons, and drugs across the Central Asian landmass.
For this to happen, however, Beijing and Moscow must stop their bilateral dealings with Taliban and instead formulate a common SCO-led strategy with active participation of India.
An Afghanistan outside the SCO allows its neighbors to implement a zero-sum strategy and keep at lending support to their own ethnic proxies. Such policies will ultimately fuel instability and even civil war. The chaotic environment that is typically associated with civil war and/or prolonged periods of instability, in turn, would effectively mean that no group could single handedly monitor and curtail extremists movements or factions even if it wants to. Internal instability could also encourage certain factions to tolerate and/or enter alliances with dubious actors in their drive towards political dominance. These, in turn, would set in motion a range of unforeseeable developments that could leave Taliban with no option, but to renegade on its promises.
Last but certainly not least, India must be encouraged to take a more active approach in both initiating and implementing SCO-led initiatives aimed at counter-terrorism in Afghanistan and beyond. SCO’s involvement in Afghanistan could provide China and India with a golden opportunity to move pass some of their differences and improve their ties.
Thanks to their shared concern with the rise of Islamic extremism as well as their common desire for a stable Afghanistan, the two giants should think pragmatically and seek to build a more stable bilateral relations within the institutional parameters of the SCO; one that is centered on counter-terrorism. Given the importance of web-based communication and cyberspace to counterterrorism efforts, moreover, such cooperation could pave the way for the emergence of a new type of relationship, if not partnership, between Beijing and New Delhi on cybersecurity and digital cooperation more broadly. India’s involvement could also ease some of US’s potential concerns with the prospect of a Sino-Russo led organisation making inroads in Afghanistan. New Delhi can, and should, use its close ties with Washington to serve as a trusted link between SCO and USA.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek