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The NATO Operation in Afghanistan:
Results and Possible Scenarios for Russia
M. Konarovsky
THE JOINT American and NATO campaign in Afghanistan which has
been going on for over a decade now became the Alliance’s largest and
most expensive operation.
It has already sucked in over $1 trillion, claimed over 3 thousand lives
(over half of them American) and left over 100 thousand wounded. As the
hardest psychological test for NATO it triggered talks about its systemic
crisis.
Operation Enduring Freedom launched in October 2001 was geared
at liquidating the main bases of al-Qaeda (which had its training camps in
the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan) and the regime of the
Taliban which openly sided with it. The general counterterrorist trend
ensured wide international support. At the same time, Washington and
later NATO used their presence in Afghanistan to realize their strategic
task: to entrench in Central Asia as a challenge to Russia and China. The
International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) with the responsibility
zone limited, at first, to Kabul and its environs were set up under the mandate of the UN Security Council. From the very beginning, the UK,
Germany, Turkey, France, Italy, Canada and other countries were
involved, on a great scale, in ISAF; this placed the Afghan operation
under the NATO aegis.1
Contrary to expectations, the counterterrorist operation launched a
new round of the civil war (the world had already seen this when the
Soviet troops were brought into the country). The new government and
the foreign military contingents joined forces against the Taliban, some of
the former mojaheddins and other fighters connected with al-Qaeda and
Central Asian opposition groups. The squabbles inside the new ruling
_____________________
Mikhail Konarovsky, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian
Federation to Afghanistan (2002-2004), Candidate of Science (History);
[email protected]
The NATO Operation in Afghanistan
37
elite which split into Pushtuns and non-Pushtuns* did no good to the situation in the country.
It should be said that the new people in Kabul were much quicker on
the uptake than their Western allies: as soon as foreign troops had been
moved into the country, the Afghan Transitional Authority began its
active lobbying of a wider ISAF mandate. At first, the U.S., Great Britain,
Germany and some other NATO members were skeptical. As time went
on, however, making a long military campaign a grim reality the West
became much more receptive to the idea of a wider mandate.
By the fall of 2002, the
The restored neutral status,
issue was put on the agenda;
in August 2003, Brussels
suggested by Russia and the
announced that it was prepared
SCO countries, looks like the
to assume leadership over
best option for Afghanistan:
ISAF. Resolution 1510 of the
this will consolidate Kabul’s
UN SC said that while “recoginternational positions irrenizing the constraints upon the
spective of who will hold the
full implementation of the
Bonn Agreement…. [the UN
helm.
SC] authorizes expansion of
the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force” to the country’s entire territory and called upon “the International Security
Assistance Force to continue to work in close consultation with the
Afghan Transitional Authority and its successors and the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General as well as with the Operation
Enduring Freedom Coalition in the implementation of the force mandate.”2 Despite the coalition’s determination to act together so that to fulfill the mission in the shortest time possible it was still far from easy to
reach concerted decisions on many concrete problems, especially when it
came to allied military operations in the most difficult southeast area.
The Alliance involved in Afghanistan in many spheres and in many
roles had no choice but to combine the “hard” and “soft” power to
achieve the tasks it had posed itself. It did not limit itself to “hard” power
(military operations) but also paid much and increasingly more attention
____________________
* The units of the Northern Alliance which had sided with the international coalition and
did a lot to liquidate the regime of the Taliban obviously expected to strengthen their positions on the domestic political scene. The United States and its allies, however, were
determined from the very beginning to trim the Alliance’s influence and to promptly dismantle its military potential in favor of the local Pushtuns.
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to the tasks central for the government of Hamid Karzai: training the
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF); reintegration of former combatants into peaceful life; spreading the influence of the central government to regions; economic assistance to central and local powers, including the so-called provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs).
As could be expected much attention was paid to the law-enforcement
bloc: to a great extent Washington correlated the coalition’s withdrawal
with the time when the country had acquired battle-worthy armed
forces.* It was believed that the numerical strength of ANSF should be
limited to 80 thousand (the army of 60 thousand; the air force of 8 thousand and 12 thousand strong border gendarmes** operating under the
Ministry of the Interior). The United States assumed responsibility for
some of the organizational, financial and professional issues and shared
responsibility in certain concrete spheres with London, Berlin, Paris, and
Rome. Late in 2002, in accordance with the Afghanistan Freedom
Support Act Washington allocated Kabul about $3 billion for the period
between 2003 and 2006 to set up the Armed Forces; $2 billion for the law
and order structures and $1 billion of economic and humanitarian assistance. By 2007, the Allies revised their operational plans and increased
the number of military instructors in the Afghan army. The 2008 NATO
Summit in Bucharest approved a “comprehensive approach” to security,
administration and development of Afghanistan.
Set in motion, the mechanism ran into a stall because of numerous
problems including massive desertion; it was far from easy to recruit people in the Pushtun regions even though it was planned to make Pushtuns
the backbone of the country’s armed forces. On the other hand, national
minorities encountered the mistrust of the influential Pushtuns in the corridors of power and among NATO officials. The reintegration program
aimed at the units of the former Northern Alliance caused painful
responses from minorities.
Mounting tension accompanied by the mounting military-political
activity of the Taliban confirmed that NATO had grossly miscalculated
the required ANSF numerical strength. By 2012, it had been practically
trebled (to reach the number of 170 thousand); the police became ten
____________________
* At first, the George W. Bush Administration scheduled the pullout to 2004-2005; even
at this initial stage many of the Afghan politicians did not expect the pullout earlier than
2007.
** It was at that early stage that the Afghan side started talking about a much larger contingent, something which Washington and Brussels refused to discuss at that time.
The NATO Operation in Afghanistan
39
times larger (135 thousand).
The number of foreign military was gradually increasing: in 2006, the
Western contingent in Afghanistan comprised 36 thousand (22 thousand
of them were Americans) while by the early 2012 there were nearly 120
thousand stationed in the country (90 thousand of them
Americans).*
The PRTs had both military and civilian components which concentrated at infrastructure and reintegration. The program had its share of
contradictions: apprehensive of possible losses the British preferred not
to set up their PRT in the highly unstable Kandahar. In the north, which
until 2009 was practically free from the Taliban, the national minorities
treated the PRTs with a great deal of mistrust as an instrument through
which Kabul tried to put the non-Pushtun enclaves under its control to
quench separatist sentiments there. By October 2004, however, all northern provinces had acquired their PRTs; the entire program was completed two years later.
The Alliance’s energetic military-political and economic efforts did
nothing to change the situation to the better: military confrontation was
escalating. The negative trends were deepened by the fact that the Taliban
remained as active as ever while the state structures of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan were too inefficient; the Allies could not agree
on the sizes of their contingents and the volume of their economic aid to
Afghanistan; Pakistan was growing less reliable as the key partner of the
U.S. and NATO in the Afghan issue. This negative context was complemented by the 2008 economic crisis in the United States and Western
Europe and the widening protest sentiments in the NATO countries.
Late in March 2009, Washington adopted A New Strategy for
Afghanistan and Pakistan (known as the AfPak strategy). The president
announced: “I’ve already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops to the
south and the east” and “later this spring we will deploy approximately
4,000 U.S. troops to train Afghan security forces. That’s also why we
must seek civilian support from our partners and allies, from the United
Nations and international aid organizations.”3
Washington needed close cooperation with Islamabad because of
Pakistan’s traditional impact on the situation in Afghanistan and because
of special, practically strategic, relations between America and
____________________
* By the early 2013, Americans cut down their contingent by a third (68 thousand); it is
planned to pull out half of the remaining troops by late 2014.
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Pakistan.*
Late in 2009, the White House readjusted its strategy once more:
Americans started talking about the beginning of the military pullout in
summer 2011 to be completed by late 2014 when strategic control would
be transferred to the Afghan security forces. People in Washington
expected that this would allow the allies to concentrate at the programs of
intensive training of the military and the police. The pullout decision was
caused by the deepening mistrust between Kabul and Washington at the
political level and between the NATO contingents and the Afghan military; a strong allergy of the local people to the continued presence of foreign troops in their country; the rising number of casualties and psychological tiredness of the Western contingent. The West had to admit that its
efforts to “democratize” the IRA and adjust the local society to the
Western patterns of functioning and administration had failed.4
The November 2010 Lisbon Summit of NATO announced a period of
transition between 2011 and late 2014 and adopted a Declaration on an
Enduring Partnership with Kabul.5 In June 2011, Barack Obama
announced the beginning of America’s gradual withdrawal from
Afghanistan.** The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement
signed in May 2012 on the eve of the NATO summit in Chicago no longer
contained many of the priorities which the U.S. Administration had formulated for Operation Enduring Freedom and at the early stages of the
post-Taliban government. The document did not specify what government the United States would like to see in Kabul after 2014; Washington
refrained from recommending what should be done to confirm democratic principle, human rights, etc. In fact, the document was another proof
that the counterterrorist operation in Afghanistan had failed and that the
political tasks (a “new statehood” for Afghanistan, in particular) remained
unfulfilled. The Chicago summit summarized the Alliance’s obligations
under the Lisbon Declaration and declared their long-term commitment
to Afghanistan stretching beyond the period of transition.
On June 5, 2013, the NATO Defense Ministers endorsed the detailed
____________________
* These relations suffered because the Americans liquidated bin Laden without discussing
it in advance with Pakistan and also because of loss of life among the Pakistan military
caused by the coalition’s antiterrorist inroads into the territory of Pakistan in 2011-2012.
This negatively affected the coordination between the two countries on the Afghan issue
and brought their cooperation to the brink of a crisis.
** Earlier, in 2010 the Dutch began moving out their troops from Afghanistan. François
Holland, President-elect of France, announced that France would complete its pullout in
2012.
The NATO Operation in Afghanistan
41
concept for the new NATO-led mission to train, advise and assist the
Afghan security forces after 2014. “That concept will guide our military
experts as they finalize the plan in the course of the coming months.”6 At
the same time, the last stage of transfer of responsibility for the country’s
security to the Afghan security forces took place in Kabul in the presence
of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The fact that the
numerical strength of ANSF will be increased by 1.5 times (or over 350
thousand) against the planned (the United States will continue funding it
until 2017) testify that both Washington and Brussels have their doubts
about the post-2014 future of Afghanistan. This confirmed that Moscow
was absolutely right when it doubted that the Afghan security forces
would be able to ensure stability in the country on its own:
“Unfortunately, the current situation in IRA is far from stability and has
aggravation trends.”7
THE CLOSE and not so close neighbors of Afghanistan will be more and
more concerned with the political arrangements in Kabul if and when the
final stage of transfer of control over the country to ANSF is completed.
For a long time, the expert community has been discussing all sorts of
post-2014 scenarios inside the country and around it ranging from favorable for those now in power in Kabul to extremely pessimistic: catastrophic destabilization in Afghanistan and Central Asia. The optimists
pin their hope on the successes in state building and defense spheres and
the promises of considerable external economic and military aid in future.
The pessimists point to the extreme fragility of the state structures,
acute ethnic contradictions and the dialogue with the Taliban which ran
into an impasse. The Taliban responds to the demands coming from
Kabul to end armed confrontation with a demand to let their supporters
out of prisons and to form the new interim government on the principles
of a new Constitution based on the Sharia. Another round of direct talks
between the Taliban and the United States in June 2013 further complicated the positions of people in power in Kabul. There is an opinion that
the events might follow both scenarios simultaneously; those who think
so do not exclude that a certain third force might emerge on the scene
with its slogans and political ideas.
The restored neutral status, suggested by Russia and the SCO countries, looks like the best option for Afghanistan: this will consolidate
Kabul’s international positions irrespective of who will hold the helm.
Some of the Western experts have formulated the “neutralization” idea
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and specified: “In addition to Afghanistan itself, participants in a neutralization agreement should include those states most threatened by potential future instability.”8
It seems that despite the general agreement that a common strategy
applied to possible challenges coming from the Afghan territory is badly
needed, the external forces involved in Afghanistan, however, will hardly arrive at a clear and coordinated plan of concerted efforts at the Afghan
political front. The interests of Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors and
extra-regional forces are too many and too varied to be easily coordinated. At the same time, the world community should agree that the future
rulers of Afghanistan should not allow their country to become a source
of terrorism and extremism and, therefore, a threat to regional and worldwide stability.
Foreign aid to Afghanistan, without which it will sink into social and
economic degradation, remains one of the most prominent issues on the
agenda. The Istanbul Process launched in 2011 is expected to create a
“positive agenda”: the IRA and its neighbors should work together to
build up and develop economic interaction while Afghanistan should be
recognized as the main link in the chain which keeps the region’s countries together. At the same time, the United States and the leading countries of the West will serve as “supporting nations” to the process. This
might mean that the U.S. and its European allies are ready to shift responsibility for the social and economic development of Afghanistan mainly
onto the regional states while preserving their military-political dominance in the country.
In June 2012, foreign ministers of the Istanbul Process member-countries outlined seven priority trends of multisided confidence measures; a
year later, in summer 2013 they specified their concerted efforts, supported the plans of cooperation between the regional countries and the
IRA and reconfirmed the importance of such plans in the light of the coming pullout of the foreign contingent. Practical realization of these plans,
however, should be further specified. Many, including the key regional
neighbors of Afghanistan, obviously prefer bilateral economic cooperation with this country.
Everybody agrees that a new post-2014 government of Afghanistan
will be actively oriented at political Islam; its foreign policy agenda
might be geared at supporting the Islamist movements in the Middle East
and Central Asia as one of its key elements. The recent attempt of the
American administration to talk to the Taliban in Qatar confirmed that
The NATO Operation in Afghanistan
43
Washington, being aware of the failed experiment with Karzai, tries to
ensure its interests in Afghanistan irrespective of possible future developments.
The White House seems to be ready to accept the Taliban as the predominant post-2014 political force. This will make political Islamism
much more obvious in Central Asia and also Russia, the degree of its
impact and aggressiveness remains to be seen. Uncontrolled migration to
Russia from the southern post-Soviet republics bordering on Afghanistan
will create more problems. Today, the cases of recruitment of mercenaries and setting up illegal centers of propaganda of Islamist extremist ideas
have become more frequent in Russia.
The state structures of Afghanistan will be highly unstable because
the country itself for a long time after the 2014 pullout will remain a zone
of instability and contradictions while the world community will have to
work hard to make it part of regional economic cooperation. Brussels
plans to sign new agreements with Kabul on a new NATO mission; in
fact, when the ISAF mission is concluded its results should be summed
up in accordance with its international mandate. The Alliance wants to
approve the new agreements on the bilateral basis bypassing the UN SC
lest, Brussels argues, the Afghan side imagines that the agreements are
imposed on it.
This will call for a revision of the Northern Distribution Network
agreements with Russia and some of the Central Asian states, based on
corresponding UN decisions on Afghanistan and will practically exclude
the world community from monitoring the post-2014 situation in
Afghanistan and NATO activities in this country. It is absolutely necessary to clarify the intentions of the United States and the Alliance to leave
behind several military bases since they are causing justified concerns of
Russia and China, as neighbors of Afghanistan. So far, NATO demonstrated no intention to establish practical contacts with CSTO on the
Afghan file. This and the highly unpredictable future of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan and possible developments around it force
CSTO to take additional preventive measures.9
AT THE INITIAL STAGES of the Karzai administration, America,
NATO and the European Union were dead set against closer political,
economic and traditional military contacts between Russia and postTaliban Afghanistan. Influential members of the Kabul government
actively sided with these intentions and even initiated some of them. By
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2003, the obviously protracted military stage of confrontation which
sucked in the allies into the Afghan problems forced Washington and
Brussels to somewhat readjust their positions while expanding NATO’s
involvement in Afghanistan.
The Alliance removed many of the obstacles which interfered with
the smooth realization of the military-technical component of cooperation
between Russia and Afghanistan; NATO became much more interested in
the discussion of the Afghan developments within the NATO-Russia
Council (NRC). In May 2003, Russia reconfirmed its readiness to help
stabilize the situation in Afghanistan, including the corresponding role of
Brussels. It pointed out that its NRC partners should keep to the UN ISAF
mandate. Later, the sides agreed to widen their cooperation up to and
including transit of ISAF cargoes across the territory of Russia (the socalled Northern Distribution Network).* The sides started cooperation in
training antidrug cadres for the IRA and the Central Asian states and within the NRC Helicopter Maintenance Trust Fund; training technical personnel for the Afghan air forces in Russia and maintenance and supply of
Russian helicopters.10
An upsurge of narcotics production and illegal drug trafficking in the
post-Taliban Afghanistan has become one of Russia’s worst headaches.
“The U.N. figures to be released in September are expected to show that
Afghanistan’s poppy production has risen up to 15 percent since 2006 and
that the country now accounts for 95 percent of the world’s crop.”11
Moscow repeatedly pointed out (within the NRC) that the anti-narcotic
thrust of the Alliance’s activities in Afghanistan should receive more
attention. For a long time, Washington and Brussels remained indifferent
to Moscow’s concerns and to the voices of those who insisted that the
uncontrolled increase of drug production should be stopped.
In 2013, experts of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime
(UNODC) forecasted an increase of areas under opium poppy in the south
and west of Afghanistan and continued expanding poppy plantations in
____________________
* Military operations of the Taliban made the main transit route across the Pakistan unreliable and forced Brussels to look for northern alternatives. The 2008 Bucharest Summit
of NATO approved the concept of another “transit bridge” for non-military cargoes across
Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Corresponding agreements were signed with
Moscow, as well as with Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. The 2010 Lisbon
Summit arrived at an additional NATO-Russia transit agreements further specified as the
beginning of the pullout scheduled for 2011 was approaching. In summer of 2012, the
government of Russia issued a decree which outlined a comprehensive approach to the
ISAF land and air transit to Afghanistan and back.
The NATO Operation in Afghanistan
45
the country’s north. West European NATO members (especially France
and the UK) demonstrated a better understanding of the problem caused
by the flow of Afghan drugs to the Old World. By the late 2005, cooperation of sorts between the Federal Anti-Drug Service of Russia and ISAF
was finally organized; at the same time, the NATO members continue to
avoid the responsibility to fight the expansion of the areas under opium
poppy referring to the lack of a corresponding mandate, necessary training and special equipment.
Taken together the above problems have made a new post-2014 strategy for Russia an absolute necessity. In view of the wide regional and
international aspects of the Afghan problem this strategy should be comprehensive to embrace the entire range of foreign policy issues related to
the Middle East, Central and partly South Asia. Its realization will require
considerable means, as well as stronger cooperation with the Central
Asian partners, China and other neighbors of Afghanistan (all of them are
either SCO members or observers). The aim of this policy should be
stronger regional positions of the CIS and CSTO. The economic component of this strategy is equally important for Afghanistan and its Central
Asian neighbors. The “second echelon” of this strategy is formed by
extended preventive measures designed to fight terrorism, religious
extremism and illegal migration. These problems have been pushed to the
fore by the increasing “Afghanization” (term by E. Yatsenko) of Russia’s
“southern soft underbelly.”12
Unilateral direct interference in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan,
irrespective of motives, should be ruled out. This scenario will create negative strategic repercussions for Russia’s national interests; will complicate its relationships with the Islamic world, its regional and international partners; might end in international isolation, complicate the situation
inside the country and start disintegration processes.
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NOTES
1 “As of July 2012, fifty nations are contributing troops to the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF). They include 22 non-NATO partner nations from around the
globe, working alongside the 28 NATO Allies, constituting the biggest coalition in recent
history” (NATO and Afghanistan. Questions and Answers // NATO Public Diplomacy
Division, p. 4).
2 http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/555/55/PDF/N0355555.pdf?Open
Element
3 Obama`s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, March 2009// www.cfr.org/publication/18952
4 American experts pointed not only to disagreements in the White House on what to con-
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sider the most efficient methods of Afghan settlement but also to “the intractable nature
of the problems” of this country. See: S. Indyk, Martin S.; Liebertal, Kennet G.; O’Hanlon
Michael E. “Scoring Obama’s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs. 2012. May/June. Vol. 91,
pp. 34-35.
5 The document said, in part: “Recognizing that stability and prosperity in Afghanistan are
of strategic importance to the security of the North Atlantic region” NATO confirmed its
obligations to help the security sector in the country and stressed “a continuing NATO
liaison in Afghanistan to help the implementation of this declaration with a common
understanding that NATO has no ambition to establish a permanent military presence in
Afghanistan or to use its presence in Afghanistan against other nations.” See: Declaration
by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Government of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan on an Enduring Partnership signed at the NATO Summit in
Lisbon, Portugal, 2010, November 20 // www.nato.int
6 NATO Defence Ministers endorse concept for new post-2014 mission in Afghanistan //
www.nato.int 05.06.2013.
7 http://www.iranwatch.org/library/government/russia/ministry-foreign-affairs/interviewrussian-foreign-minister-sergey-lavrov-kuna-kuwait-news-agency
8 These countries are “Pakistan, China, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United
States.” See: Cronin, Audrey Kurth. “Thinking Long on Afghanistan: Could It Be
Neutralized?” The Washington Quarterly. 2013. Winter, p. 56.
9 The informal summit of 2013 passed several decisions designed to consolidate its military component and to help the Afghan powers to ensure stability // www.odkb-csto.оrg
June 7, 2013.
10 www.nato-russia-council.info/en/articles/20130204-nrc-grushko-interview/05.02.
2013
11 See: Zhmuyda I.V., Morozov M. “Afghanskaia narkoekspansia: severnoe i iuzhnoe
napravlenia,” Sovremenny Afghanistan i sopredelnye strany. Sbornik statey, Moscow,
2011, pp. 222-230; Lee, Matthew. “Afghanistan Poppy Cultivation Skyrockets,” The
Washington Post. 2002, September 4.
12 See: Yatsenko E. “Snizhat riski nestabilnosti. O nevoennykh instrumentakh zashchity
interesov Rossii,” Strategiya Rossii. 2013. No. 5 (113), pp. 54-55.
Key words: NATO, Afghanistan, ISAF, Central Asia, strategy, NATO-Russia
Council, CSTO.