Will Pakistan flinch?
US president in his new policy on Afghanistan has termed Pakistan’s alleged support for militant groups, a key factor that undermines Washington’s peacemaking efforts in the country. Trump has warned Pakistan of dire actions if the latter continued to stick to its current policy. Moreover, Trump has invited New Dehli’s greater presence in Afghanistan which arguably is a major shift in terms of American new policy in the country.
On the level of rhetoric and perception building, if one is to consider Trump’s warnings to Pakistan, the latter should not be worried about the former’s actions, for Islamabad has outlived and out maneuvered such warnings in the past. While Trump has blatantly said that Pakistan’s policy behavior will instantly change, it remains to be seen what tools and measures Trump is willing to deploy to force Pakistan into changing its policy toward Afghanistan.
While Trump has lambasted Pakistan for taking aid and not delivering on the US’s demands, it would be premature to argue that Pakistan has ever formulated its Afghan policy through the prism of US’s global War on Terror. Rather, Pakistan’s own security assessment has remained the key in its policy making. What is further important to note is that Pakistan has always had one policy toward Afghanistan, particular since the 9/11. On Pakistan’s part, whatever change of policy came due to the September 9, 11 attacks, it didn’t touch the core part of Islamabad’s threat assessment in Afghanistan and the region in general. General Pervez Musharraf while discussing the change of policy in his autobiography, In the Line of fire: A memoir, argues that ‘I also analyzed our national interests. First, India had already stepped in by offering its bases to the US. If we didn’t join the US, it would accept India’s offer. What would happen then? India would gain a golden opportunity with regard to Kashmir … Second, the security of our strategic assets would be jeopardized. We didn’t want to lose or damage the military parity that we had achieved with India by becoming a nuclear weapons state’.
Much of the policy changes that Trump has announced for Afghanistan are something that Pakistan’s strategic community might have expected in advance. The only thing which Pakistan could not have expected was India’s increased role in Afghanistan. If Trump administration believes that by inviting India in Afghanistan, Washington might force Islamabad into making amends in its regional security policy, it’s a failed policy in the makeup.
Moreover, by inviting India, Trump has actually played out a larger regional plan to counter act Russia and China’s growing role in the South Asian region. It can be argued that Washington’s recent policy on Afghanistan is more about new regional geopolitics rather than about U.S. winning the war in Afghanistan, and ensuring the effective and early withdrawal of its troops from the country. In fact, if one is to look at the emerging geopolitical terns, one can contend that the U.S. is not interested in making withdrawal from Afghanistan, for that will only allow the former’s major regional rivals – China and Russia – to deepen their footprint in the country and region at large. By targeting Pakistan and making vague commitments in Afghanistan, Trump is directly and indirectly, sending a message to China and Russia that Washington’s presence in Afghanistan is here to stay.
The fact that China and Russia have openly supported Pakistan and have warned Trump against putting unnecessary pressure on Islamabad, tells that neither Washington nor Beijing or Russia are looking for small contest. Rather, the return of new regional politics is back to Afghanistan with smaller countries, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, being employed for larger gains.
This whole situation leaves Pakistan in a conundrum. Pakistan’s security policy is primarily motivated by the essentials of geography and India’s escalating foothold in Afghanistan. One of the key reasons that Pakistan maintains connections with different stake holders in Afghanistan – be it at the state level or sub-state level – is because of the country’s exiting geopolitical and geostrategic interests which are continuously at stake due to a number of internal and external security threats. For Pakistan, India’s greater presence in Afghanistan makes Kabul hostile towards Islamabad, which either increases the risk of Pakistan’s encirclement or increases the prospects of their collusion, which is detrimental to Pakistan’s interests.
How can Pakistan use China and Russia’s diplomatic weight to leverage against India and the US? What does Pakistan do if Trump decides to ramp up drone strikes inside Pakistan, which may also include the use of ground troops to target militants in Pakistan?
Certainly, Trump’s new policy puts Pakistan in a difficult situation. Pakistan needs to weight its policy options before making any decisions in response to Trump’s new “do more” list.