Conflict Prevention

Afghanistan’s social and political development is at a critical juncture—as NATO troops withdraw this year and elections are to occur next month. In Afghanistan Reconnected: Linking Energy Supplies to Consumers in Asia, EWI Fellow Danila Bochkarev proposes that a trans-Afghan “energy bridge” could ease the transition by bringing new investment and trading opportunities to Afghanistan.

Investing in connecting the rapidly industrialized-South Asia with the resource-rich Central Asia will raise Afghanistan’s living standards across the board, Bochkarev argues. Local and regional businesses will grow and new revenues will be generated. The energy-bridge approach will reconnect Afghanistan with its neighbors and help Kabul promote joint undertakings, including interconnections with Central Asia’s electricity grids and power generation projects. 

“Examples demonstrate that the benefits of the cross-border cooperation may outweigh political disagreements and intra-state disputes, especially if there is sufficient political will and a readily available framework for cooperation,” Bochkarev explained. “In recent years, energy cooperation in various conflict environments helped secure vibrant trade relations and significantly reduced existing tensions. This was the case in the Barents Sea region, the South Caucasus and in relations between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan.”

Afghanistan Reconnected illustrates how this energy infrastructure would strengthen economic, political and social ties between Central Asia and South Asia and contribute to a more stable Afghanistan for years to come.

Click here for the full report: Afghanistan Reconnected 

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Read an opinion piece on the report, on The Hill's Congress Blog.  

“Putin looks out at the West and doesn't see a lot of strong leadership. He’s not terribly worried,” said Nagorski. With regards to sanctions, he highlighted the importance of Western European energy markets to Russia's economy. 

See the full clip here: CBS New York - Andy Nagorski. 

Last week the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping is personally presiding over a newly founded government body entitled the Central Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group. A similar and less senior group, in the past headed by the Chinese Premier, has been in existence since 1993. The purpose of the new group is to “lead and coordinate Internet security and informatization work among different sectors, as well as draft national strategies, development plans and major policies in this field.” 

The exact mechanism, mission and scope of this new body are unclear. However, the two deputy heads of the group, Li Keqiang and Liu Yunshan, the former the leading figure behind China’s economic policy, the latter the director of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, suggest that a principal emphasize will be placed on streamlining content control (e.g., internet censorship) and to ramp-up cyber security in the ever modernizing Chinese private sector. 

This new body reconfirms emphatically the strategic importance of cybersecurity to the Chinese leadership. Diplomats and foreign policy makers in both the United States and China can no longer deny that this issue will be of the utmost importance in the years ahead (Coincidentally, in the U.S. State Department, a new function has been added to the post of Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Catherine A. Novelli, as the Department’s Senior Coordinator for International Information Technology Diplomacy). It also confirms that even in the high echelons of power, leaders agree that cybersecurity can no longer be viewed in isolation, merely confined to the technical level and technical experts.  Cybersecurity permeates all spheres of the China-U.S. relationship in one way or the other, whether it is the relationship with Taiwan, human rights, trade negotiations, or military to military dialogues. 

With regard to the China-U.S. relationship in cyberspace in particular, impaired by the NSA scandal and accusations of Chinese industrial espionage, this new body should be seen as an incentive to more than ever push China-U.S. cooperation on a selective number of cybersecurity issues such as the protection of mutually beneficial critical information infrastructure from cyber attacks and better ways to cooperate on jointly combatting cyber crime. 

Ostensibly, this may seem difficult. The report of the U.S.-China Economic and Secuirty Review Commission bluntly stated that China has not cut down on its industrial espionage activities in the United States. Conversely, China has not stopped pointing out the alleged double standard of the United States on this subject, perennially citing the Snowden revelations as a backup. During the China-US Summit in June 2013 in California, Xi Jinping insisted that China was also a victim of “cyber theft.” President Obama characterized the discussions on cybersecurity “very blunt.” Even progress of the official China-US Working Group on cybersecurity, hailed as a step in the right direction, has also been very slow. 

Yet, given the volatile nature of the current world economy and the importance of both the United States and China within it, ways have to be found where both countries can cooperate on certain mutually beneficial issues, while circumventing their disagreements in other domains. For example, my colleague Dr. Greg Austin, in a keynote delivered at the 2014 Canada-US Cybersecurity Conference: Securing Our Financial Infrastructure proposes that China and the United States cooperate on the international protection for exchanges and clearing houses in cyberspace. 

Austin argues, “states should commit by treaty to the absolute protection in cyberspace of designated exchanges and clearing houses in the same way as they now commit to the absolute protection of diplomats as internationally protected persons and embassies as internationally protected premises.” For example, a China-U.S. working group could look at the 1997 Convention on Crimes against Internationally protected persons and use it as a framework for a “Convention on Internationally Protected Facilities.” Of course, this will be a tricky thing to sell to the private sector. Government intervention especially in the financial sector is a touchy political subject. Yet the risks in cyberspace are ever increasing and time for voluntary best practices may have run out. 

With regard to the United State and China jointly working on such a sensitive issue there is surprisingly a precedent from 2010. Back then, the United States and China were among some 24 countries to sign the 2010 Beijing Convention and 2010 Beijing Protocol, multilateral agreements which require states, inter alia, to criminalize cyber attacks (though the convention used a more general term of “new technologies”), and certain preparatory activities, that target civil air navigation facilities and aircraft in flight, as Austin outlined in his addressed. 

Perhaps then, the new emphasis by the Chinese political elite on cybersecurity, as exemplified by the new Central Internet Security and Informatization Leading Group, should be used by the United States to explore this option. 

Read the full piece on China-U.S. Focus. 

The major problem facing this country is the vacillation of the government in dealing decisively with terrorists because of a fear of blowback in the urban areas if there is any major counter-insurgency operation in the mountains. The other reason is that some terrorists groups in Punjab have loose links with influential political elements. They not only fear their presence in their constituencies but depend upon them for their electability. 

Both assumptions are only partially correct. Terrorist sleeper cells in the urban areas can cause both human and material damage. With the counter-insurgency operations being successful, this capacity has diminished considerably and will be further depleted when our troops go into North Waziristan. 

While blowback is a distinct possibility, the extent of collateral damage will not be in keeping with the claim of the TTP. This canard is only force-multiplied in the public mind by their supporters and apologists who have good media access. No civilised society can allow such abhorrent people, who foment anarchy just to create sensation and increase their coverage in the media. 

The TTP is keen for a ceasefire now because it has suffered considerable damage by the PAF’s precision hits, not only in North Waziristan but in Mohmand and other adjacent districts as well. The TTP’s rank and file do not possess equipment for snow warfare. While they can operate for a short time above the snow line, it is impossible for them to maintain hideouts in the snowy heights. 

Until the snow melts in late April, the TTP will have to find hideouts in the valleys. There is a window of opportunity here where the militants are vulnerable to both air and ground interdiction. During spring and summer, they have numerous hiding places in the mountains to operate from. To compound their problems the precise nature of the attacks has unveiled two important facts: (1) the TTP has been infiltrated across the board by ISI operatives and (2) these operatives had the capacity to pass on information as ‘actionable intelligence’. 

The TTP, therefore, desperately needs time to regroup. There is no surety that in the valleys it will not again be hit by the PAF, or more likely face a ground offensive by the Pakistan Army. While on the surface its spokesmen, and those helping it, maintain their charade of bravado, the TTP has been sending desperate signals through back channels seeking a temporary ceasefire. This has also been conveyed through intermediaries among the tribals who are not actively engaged against the government.

Contrary to the perception given to the public, but now expressed by the TTP’s inability to rein in its recalcitrant elements, both within its ranks and those that give it lip-service mandate, there is active infighting going on between some TTP factions. They vehemently disagree with each other about the conduct of the future war against the state in attempting to overthrow the present system of government and replace it with their model of a Shariah-complaint one. 

Fazlullah has only lip-service dominance over the TTP; the Mehsuds mostly hate him. Moreover the displaced tribals that are not part of the TTP, particularly the Mehsuds, are aggrieved over being deprived of hearth and home. For the tribals it is not honourable to leave their homes and seek refuge elsewhere. Reports indicate they have been pressurising the militants to seek accommodation with the state so that they can return to their own tribal areas.

While the Afghan Taliban do not engage in or encourage any activity against Pakistan, they have an alliance of sorts with the TTP, mainly for the sake of convenience. The areas occupied by the TTP along the borders gives them depth and sanctuary. Because of the army’s successful CI operations, they feel the effect because their sanctuaries and bases are being denied to them. For them to maintain these in Pakistan has been a dire necessity. 

Moreover, most religious militant groups in Pakistan send their fresh recruits for a few weeks into Afghanistan to gain battlefield experience. This manpower induction, even for a short time, is invaluable support for the Afghan Taliban. These battle-trained, if not battle-hardened, TTP personnel return to their various original militant outfits. The Afghan Taliban are pressing the TTP to somehow keep the peace with the Pakistan Army till the end of the year when they expect most (and maybe all) the coalition troops to leave. 

The government must get its act together. More importantly, it must capitalise on the partial awakening of Imran Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The PTI leader recognises now that there are TTP factions that will never stop acting against the state and society, and is now advocating a selective approach, targeting only those who show no inclination for peace. The misplaced perception in the mindset of the PTI rank and file that the TTP really wants peace has evaporated. However, some heavyweights in Imran’s media cell remain unguided missiles, causing him and the party damage. 

The army and the ISI are on the same page. One major misperception being spread by TTP militants and enthusiastically espoused by some in the media is that there is a divide between the army and the ISI. This is sheer nonsense. The army has made huge sacrifices in the battlefield in a tremendous officer to men ratio (1:10-11).

Will those officers, some of whom who have done a stint in the ISI, support the jehadis inflicting great casualties among their own brethren engaged in CI operations? While the army is engaged in CI operations, the government could possibly give ISI the mandate, along with the legal cover it would need, to conduct counterterrorism (CT) operations in the urban areas. This they can do today with only limited budgeting support in contrast with the long lead time needed to activate Nacta and a rapid response force (RRF). 

Why is the government set on a course of seeking appeasement when the cacophony of pleas it is getting from backchannels confirms that the TTP is hurting badly, and has nowhere to go at present and in theimmediate future? One must leave room for negotiations, overt and/or covert. However, it is simplistic to suggest in the case of the TTP and its motivated supporters in society that you cannot both fight and talk at the same time. Talking can take precedence over action and sometimes fighting can come over negotiations, but one can both talk and fight. 

In the present circumstances where the opposition forces are not united and those that claim to represent them have only limited mandate for those engaged in terrorism (and pure criminal conduct) against the state, it is ridiculous to suggest a ceasefire when the other side knows very well that it cannot neither rein in nor restrain its disparate elements. And certainly not those giving it nominal lip-service mandate at best, or none at worst.

One cannot ignore terrorism for the sake of those with a perverted mindset. Fighting it is the government’s responsibility and should be its priority. One clear unambiguous message for our present rulers: ‘blowback’ is a challenge you have to take on. 

Photo Credit: martnpro