Russia’s changed role in Afghanistan

Russia is playing a surprisingly positive and proactive role in Afghanistan after the hasty and disastrous retreat of the United States from Afghanistan. Russia of course carries scars of its own bitter experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It had to withdraw its troops in 1989, a decade after the then Soviet Union sent the forces into Afghanistan to support a communist government in Kabul. It can be said that the American exercise in Afghanistan of propping up a regime in Kabul follows in many ways the Soviet script of the 1980s.

But post-communist Russia sees itself as a key player in Afghanistan and in the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan, Turkmenistan lying to the north of Afghanistan. The Russians have adopted a positive and proactive stance towards the Taliban. Moscow has not yet recognised the Taliban government. It has not yet removed the Taliban from the list of banned organisations. But the new Russian formulation of describing the Taliban has changed from “terrorist” to “radical.”

Surprisingly, Americans have accused Russia of supplying arms to the Taliban in 2017, which the Russians have denied. Then United Stats secretary of state Max Tillerson said that the Russian act was “perplexing.” It looks like that the Americans and Russians would continue to accuse each other about their respective roles in Afghanistan. As of now, it looks like that what Russia is looking for is a guarantee from the Taliban that they should not allow foreign jihadi groups to spread terrorism in central Asia. The Chinese have a similar demand as well. Beijing does not want the Taliban to support the terrorist elements like East Turkistan Islamic Movement among the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

Ironically, the Americans have entered the fray in Afghanistan because they wanted to check the influence of Russian/Soviet communists. And the Americans created the jihadi groups rooted in religious faith to take on atheistic communism. The Taliban had emerged from the soup of jihadi groups in the early 1990s Afghanistan. And the Americans entered the fray directly in Afghanistan in the wake of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001 on the pretext that the Taliban supported and gave shelter to Al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. Of course, the Americans never made it clear that they were opposed to the Taliban on ideological grounds.

Russian under President Vladimir Putin is playing the same power game that the Americans had played in the 1980s by taking a calculated stance of supporting the Taliban at the tactical level while holding back official recognition. What Russia wants is an active involvement in Afghanistan, and regain its position in the war-ravaged country through diplomatic games instead of the failed attempt through war. The keenness of great powers – it was Great Britain and Russia in the 19th century and the United States and the Soviet Union in late 20th century – to have a direct or indirect hold over Afghanistan is intriguing. In the last two centuries, Afghanistan had not yielded any economic advantages to the great powers the way African countries like Congo and Angola did for Belgium and Portugal respectively. There are, however, estimates that Afghanistan is sitting over untapped mineral wealth, and that is the reason these big powers are scrambling for Afghanistan in the same manner that there was a scramble for African countries in later 19th century. This time round, the big game is not confined to America and Russia. China is the new big power which is keen to take advantage of the situation in Afghanistan. Afghanistan remains the centre of the power tussle of the big players in geo-politics.