#4
The Russia Journal
December 7-13, 2001
Russia notches up victory in Afghanistan
Political change is set to stay as the benefits of U.S. cooperation appear
By ANDREI PIONTKOVSKY
After an absence of 12 years, the appearance of armed Russian soldiers on the streets of Kabul made a strong impression on Afghans and foreign commentators alike.
The soldiers’ appearance didn’t stir the happiest memories. Though Russia has played de facto ally to the Northern Alliance for several years now, the looks and comments of passersby in Kabul had nothing welcoming about them. No one has forgotten the decade of "international aid" from the Soviet Union.
From the point of view of its propaganda impact on the Afghan population, the arrival of the Ministry of Emergency Situations’ "limited contingent" (approximately 100 servicemen) wasn’t the most successful action.
International media, meanwhile, compared the descent of 12 Russian transport planes on Afghanistan to the notorious episode when Russian paratroops descended on Pristina in June 1999.
Starting World War III
I don’t think the two events are comparable. Though there’s an outward similarity of action and to some extent motives (Moscow wants to increase its influence and take advantage of the confusion to stake out its presence), the context of each event is different.
The Kosovo conflict that was still raging in the summer of 1999 had fired confrontation between Russia and the West to the breaking point. It’s enough to remember the British general ordered by Brussels to take the airfield at Pristina before the Russians got there. The general disobeyed the order, saying, "I don’t want to start World War III."
In the Russian General Headquarters’ plans, taking the airfield was only a prelude to a mass restationing of troops, which was thwarted only by Hungary’s and Romania’s refusal to let Russian transport planes use their airspace.
In the case of Afghanistan, the context is an unprecedented closeness between Russia and the West and a de facto military alliance formed between them to fight international terrorism. No one today would dream of using the phrase about World War III, which seemed suitable in 1999 but would look somewhat far-fetched now.
And the Russian Embassy and hospital security men who arrived in Kabul are not going to be followed by regular Russian Army units. Russian society, the Russian Army and the country’s leadership still haven’t got over the trauma of the Afghan syndrome. If it wasn’t the main reason for the demise of the Soviet Union, the debacle in Afghanistan certainly sped up its collapse. The very idea of sending Russian ground troops into Afghanistan is a nightmare for people in Russia today.
Afghanistan’s future
Of course, this doesn’t mean Moscow wouldn’t like to expand its political influence within the limits of its alliance with the United States. In this respect, the arrival of a dozen Russian diplomats in Kabul could prove more significant than the presence of a 100 soldiers drawing so much attention to themselves.
Moscow has long since built close relations with the Northern Alliance, or, more precisely, with its ethnic Tajik component led by Gen. Ahmad Shah Masoud, who was killed in September, and former President Burhan-uddin Rabbani. Naturally enough, Russia would like to see this faction play a major role in the future Afghan government. But I don’t think there’s any need to exaggerate or hunt for nonexistent contradictions between Russian and U.S. views on the future of Afghanistan.
Though Moscow supports Rabbani, it understands that any central government wanting to achieve effective control over all of Afghanistan would have to involve the country’s Pashtun ethnic majority. Likewise, the United States has no plans to sideline the Northern Alliance, which played such a key role in American military operations.
I think U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was speaking the truth on Nov. 30 when he said after speaking with his Russian counterpart over the phone: "The presence of Russian personnel in Kabul doesn’t worry me. It wouldn’t be right to call this a military presence … I think that Moscow shares our views on the political future of Afghanistan."
An interesting question in this context is just how long-lasting this military-political cooperation or even military-political alliance between Russia and the United States can be? How solid is this alliance between Russia and the West, born out of the conflict in Afghanistan?
Skeptics remind us of what happened to the military alliance between the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain, which held out through World War II and then ended with an embattled half-century of Cold War.
But the Soviet Union and the West were divided then by fundamental ideological and geopolitical contradictions. Then Soviet leader Josef Stalin sought to bring the whole of Europe under communist rule. Today, however, ideology has been consigned to the archives and Russia’s geopolitical objective in Central Asia is not territorial expansion, but the creation of a secure buffer zone that would protect its southern borders from Islamic radicalism.
Looking west
A year ago, Moscow was itself seriously discussing the possibility of bombing the Taliban and the terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Fortunately, the authorities rejected that idea. With the Russian Army in its present state with combat-ready units tied up in Chechnya, attempts to deal with Afghanistan would have turned to disaster.
Now, American aviation has done the job for Russia. Russia has already won its Afghan war. No matter what happens next, the threat of Islamic extremists penetrating into the C.I.S. Central Asian republics won’t raise its head for another decade at least.
Russia has learned in practice how the United States as an ally can be an effective instrument for resolving Russia’s national-security problems in the 21st century.
This newly gained knowledge could radically change the Russian political class’s geopolitical thinking. President Vladimir Putin was simply quicker than most of his entourage in sizing up the new reality and new opportunities.
Once again, the Russians are coming. But this time, the Russians are coming back to the West.
(The writer is director of the Center for Strategic Research.)
Next Article