The drawdown and Pakistan

With the US announcing a postponement of the drawdown from Afghanistan, and the rising number of Taliban attacks on US and Afghan troops, the future of the region’s security situation appears grim.

If the situation in Afghanistan does not stabilize, an Afghan implosion cannot be ruled out. The US has already announced temporary deployment of additional security assets to safely withdraw its personnel from Afghanistan. On the other hand, the Taliban are taking over districts without facing any resistance from Afghan forces.

Post September 11, when the US entirely exits from the region, it will be difficult for the Afghan government to sustain without foreign aid and support from the US and the West. The United States sent its secretary of state and the defense secretary to pacify the concerns of the Afghan officials, and has also promised substantial financial support. However, it is doubtful that the US would be able to fulfil its aid promises.

The Biden Administration has announced a 1.9 trillion dollar domestic stimulus package and has proposed increasing defense spending to counter the China in the Asia Pacific region. The US government wants to raise corporate taxes and increase the tax rate on high income individuals to fund the stimulus. However, if the White House is unable to generate money for the stimulus package, then it would have to cut down proposed expenditure in other areas, including perhaps its promised aid to the Kabul government. This likely abandonment of support to the Afghan government and subsequent civil war in Afghanistan has dire spill-over risks for Pakistan in terms of terrorism, organized crime, and refugees.

The rise of the Afghan Taliban will bolster the remnants of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch insurgents. While the Pakistan military over the last few years has won the kinetic war against the TTP, it is yet to be established if these are long-term gains, since the Fata region is yet to be properly assimilated into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Without a sustainable governance model and public service delivery mechanism, non–state actors, as observed in the case of the TTP in Swat and Islamic State in the Middle East, garner considerable pubic support. TTP splinter groups too have re-grouped and started attacking the Pakistan military.

The lawlessness in Afghanistan could also potentially create turmoil in Balochistan. In the past, due to fragile law and order in Afghanistan and the porous border, Baloch insurgent groups have also found refuge in Afghanistan. For instance, Aslam Baloch, the main mastermind behind the Chinese consulate attack in Karachi, was killed in Kandahar.

Second, an unstable Afghanistan also leads to a rise in organized criminal activities in Pakistan. While criminals in Afghanistan use Pakistan as a conduit to smuggle narcotics to Europe and other parts of the world, the chemicals used in the manufacturing of heroin are trafficked into Afghanistan using Pakistan’s territory. In 2019, Pakistan seized 19,000 liters of Acetic Anhydride, a chemical used to manufacture heroin. In all, drugs worth more than 10 billion dollars were seized by the ANF in 2019.

The UN in its recently released report on Afghan opium has noted that the total area under opium production has increased by 37 percent to 224,000 hectares. The Helmand province which borders Pakistan is still the largest opium producing province, thus making it easy for smugglers to traffic narcotics through Pakistan.

Lastly, Pakistan will face another refugee crisis in case of civil strife in Afghanistan. Due to historical and cultural links, it is natural for Afghans to migrate to Pakistan. Up until the civil unrest in Syria, Pakistan hosted the largest number of refugees in the world. The influx of refugees also meant that big cities that already had serious governance and infrastructural challenges struggled to provide basic amenities to the refugees. In the 90s, the US and the West did not provide any substantial help to Pakistan and this time as well, Islamabad will be left to deal with the refugees on its own.

While the Taliban do have a role to play in the future of Afghanistan, it is in the interest of Pakistan that the Taliban do not gain singular foothold in the country. Pakistan cannot afford to have an unstable government in Kabul and a nationalistic leader in New Delhi who uses war-mongering as a political strategy to canvass electoral support. Therefore, Pakistan has more to lose than any other external stakeholder if Afghanistan plunges into lawlessness and civil war after the withdrawal of the US forces.

The writer is a graduate of Middlebury and the University of Oxford.

Twitter: @Ummer_Khan