Left to Fend for Itself in Asia

India remains an important player in the New Silk Road project which hopes to integrate the Afghan economy into that of Central and South Asia. But can it succeed without the US's help? America seems to have given up on the initiative

 From all available reports, there isn’t much to write home about the first India-China dialogue on Central Asia that happened in Beijing last week, apart from the fact that it happened. Still the two-day meet, which was similar in structure to the recent bilateral dialogues on Africa, West Asia, Afghanistan and counter-terrorism, managed to briefly move the spotlight to Central Asia — the newest theatre of Sino-Indian rivalry and the one where New Delhi is seemingly performing the worst.

The Dialogue may have been designed to bring both countries on the same page as they increase their engagement in Central Asia, but New Delhi knows well that Beijing has long since raced ahead of it. In fact, India lags behind not just China but all other major players in the region — definitely the US and Russia but also Iran and Turkey. This is despite the fact that India has civilisational ties with Central Asia that go back centuries; more recently, New Delhi has also made a conscious effort towards strengthening its presence in that region. The Government of India’s official Connect Central Asia policy was unveiled by Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed at the India-Central Asia Dialogue in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek in June 2012. More than a year later, the policy remains more aspirational than it is in the actual.

Yet, a strong presence in Central Asia is important for India for two key factors: Energy security and military security. In the first case, India currently receives almost all of its oil and gas from West Asia but given how volatile that region can be, it is a good idea to look for other suppliers. Moreover, as the country’s energy demands continue to grow, New Delhi has no choice but to tap into other sources. In this context, energy-rich and proximate Central Asia is best positioned to become India’s next big oil and gas supplier.

China faces much the same challenges (growing economy, growing population) — except that it seems to have responded to them much better, as is evident from the deep inroads that it has already made into the Central Asian energy market. Beijing’s two trillion-dollar-strong foreign exchange reserves and a ruthlessly efficient Government not encumbered by the demands of democracy, have meant it has consistently managed to out-bid New Delhi in oil deals not just in Central Asia but across the world. For example, just weeks before the dialogue in Beijing, India lost to China the world’s largest oil find in five decades — the giant Kashagan oilfield in Kazakhstan.

In November 2012, India’s state-run ONGC Videsh Limited had struck a deal with America’s ConocoPhillips to buy the latter’s 8.4 per cent stake in Kashagan for five billion dollars.  However, the deal fell through in July when the Kazakh Government itself stepped in and informed ConocoPhillips that its own national oil company, KazMunaiGaz, will buy the American company’s stake for the same amount. Kazakh law allows the Government certain pre-emption rights as a result of which it has the authority to buy any oil asset for sale in the country at the price agreed on by the buyer and seller. KazMunaiGaz will now sell that stake to China National Petroleum Corp for a reported $5.3-5.4 billion.

But China is only one of India’s problems in Central Asia. What has most significantly limited New Delhi’s diplomatic efforts in that region is a stubborn Pakistan which has wholly refused India overland access to Central Asia, through Afghanistan. Ideally this would have been the shortest route for India; however, that is not to be — one of the big reasons why the ambitious Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India oil pipeline project, for example, has been a non-starter.

Consequently, New Delhi has had to look for new routes that bypass Pakistan altogether. Towards that end, the North-South Transportation Corridor which connects India to the Central Asian region through Iran was envisaged as a game-changer. Initiated in 2003, this project aims to connect the port in Mumbai to the Iranian ports of Chabahar and Bandar Abbas through maritime transport, and then develop road and rail networks linking these two ports with Afghanistan and other Central Asian republics. Some initial progress was made in this regard — India’s Border Road Organisation invested $136 million to set up a road link from Zaranj to Delaran which was inaugurated in 2009. This 215km long road is a crucial part of what is known as Afghanistan’s garland road network that goes around the country connecting Herat to Kabul via Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar. But this road link apart, the North-South Transportation Corridor has mostly been gathering dust for a decade now.

In the meantime, the Chinese have aggressively built similar road and rail networks penetrating deep into the heart of Central Asian Region. The Karakoram Highway, which is under-construction in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and stands a direct threat to India’s security interests in that region, is also essentially an extension of this plan, and so is the Gwadar port in Pakistan that is being developed as a counter-balance to the Chabahar port in Iran, located less than 200km away.

This brings us to military-security aspect of India-Central Asia dynamic. As of now, India’s military footprint in that region is next to nothing. New Delhi had sought to shore up its prospects by taking over the Ayni air base in Tajikistan which would have given tremendous strategic depth in the region but its plans have most definitely been thwarted by Russia, the big brother in the region. India began renovating the Ayni air-field, located just outside the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, in 2004 and up until the end of 2010, Indian engineers were still working there. However, in the last three years, the Tajik Government which depends considerably on Moscow for financial aid, seems to have made clear that it will only let Russia use the air-base.

India’s other military assets in the region include a military hospital in Farkhor, also in Tajikistan. Set up in 2001 to treat Northern Alliance members fighting the Taliban, it was shut down after the US removed the militant group from power. But in recent years, there have been talks of re-opening that field hospital. 

The India-Tajik relationship is as far as India’s military presence goes in that region. And while there have been some positive indications of improving that footprint, it is unlikely to change significantly in the near future. Not only because China and Pakistan will do all that they can to limit India’s presence but also because Russia will probably not go all out to support India. The US is the only country which has unequivocally stated that it would like India to emerge as its regional partner (this explains Russia’s reluctance) especially post the 2014 Afghan pullout.

India remains an important player in its New Silk Road project that hopes to integrate the Afghan economy into that of Central and South Asia. But America’s diminished clout at this point (the NSR project has been all but discarded) it is unclear how far Washington, DC will be able to help on the ground. In other words, India is on its own.

(This article was published in the Op-ed sector of The Pioneer on August 22, 2013.)

Al Qaeda isn't going away soon

The ‘Syria problem' is playing out in other post-Arab Spring countries, from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt, where the space vacated by despotic regimes has been taken over by Islamic militants. Terror organisations have a ready platform

In May, US President Barack Obama said that he was hoping to “refine and repeal” the mandate that he got from the Congress to fight the war on terror against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, as the core group was on the “path to defeat” and “this war, like all wars, must end”. Less than three months later, he has evacuated the US embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, shuttered as many as 19 diplomatic missions across West Asia and North and East Africa and issued a month-long global travel advisory, fearing an attack by the terror outfit that was supposedly retreating.

The two don’t square up, not even if you take into consideration the Benghazi factor. Last year, the American Ambassador to Libya and three others were killed when the US mission in Benghazi came under attack. It was later revealed that the US Government had intelligence about the attack but had ignored it, causing much embarrassment, especially to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was accused of a cover-up.

Against this backdrop, it is understandable that the Obama Administration has this time around taken extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of its citizens. But this also proves that the Al Qaeda still has the ability to mount a major terror attack on even well-guarded Western targets. 

Of course, questions may be asked about the quality of the threat perception that prompted Washington, DC, to take these unusual steps. But given the limited information in this regard that is available — we only know that the alerts were issued after intercepted electronic communication between Al Qaeda top bosses showed that chief Ayman al-Zawahiri had ordered the group’s head in Yemen, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, to attack Western targets —such questions can only lead to speculation and conspiracy theories regarding Edward Snowden’s former bosses at the National Security Agency.

Assuming that the threat is as significant as the US authorities believe it to be, there can be no denying that Al Qaeda and its affiliates remain strong and lethal. What’s more, there is ample evidence that the group will quite possibly grow stronger and more resilient in the immediate future. Recent developments in South and West Asia show that Al Qaeda will secure for itself more physical sanctuaries around the world in the next few years.

Historically, it is this access to safe havens that has been the group’s lifeline. As long as its leaders and operatives have a place to hide, Al Qaeda has repeatedly shown that it has the ability to adapt itself to changing circumstances, regroup and hit back with a renewed vengeance.

We are already seeing it in the AfPak region. Despite the fact that it has been at the receiving end of an international military campaign and its leaders have been hounded and hunted for more than a decade now, Al Qaeda has managed to survive because it continues to enjoy the hospitality of the Pakistani establishment. The extent to which Islamabad has shielded the terror outfit and others of its ilk is well delineated in the Abbottabad Commission report which shows how the entire state machinery looked the other way as Osama bin Laden built himself a veritable fortress on the outskirts of the national capital. Not only did he live there for nine years with many members of his family without anybody being the wiser, he also managed hands-on his global terror network from the Abbottabad residence — as we know from documents that were seized following the May 2011 US raid that killed him.

Now, with the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, the physical sanctuary that Al Qaeda has in Pakistan will quite possibly extend in full to Afghanistan again — and before you know it, the group’s central command, or what President Obama refers to as the ‘Al Qaeda Core’, will be back to its original strength.

Interestingly, the weakening of the Al Qaeda Core has been one of the biggest achievements of President Obama’s otherwise tepid counter-terrorism policy, and indeed it was this that led him to proclaim that the group had been virtually defeated.

But now it seems that even that one significant gain might be reversed and soon, especially if the new Government that will replace Hamid Karzai’s administration in 2014 in Afghanistan, is unable to keep the militants at bay. In this context, the nature and number of US troops that will stay back in Afghanistan (and we know for sure that there will be some kind of a residual force) will be crucial.

Outside of the AfPak region, events in West Asia have been equally disconcerting. Syria, particularly, seems to have been run over by Al Qaeda operatives who have captured the popular revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. In fact, the Syrian civil war has played an important role in energising the group in the Levant, much like how the latter received a boost from the war in Iraq in the previous decade, as security analyst Bruce Hoffman notes in his latest article.

Not only is Syria yet another safe-haven in-the-making for Al Qaeda, it is also in the heart of the Arab world (and, therefore, closer to the group’s financiers in the region). Equally importantly, it places the terror group at the doorsteps of its sworn enemy, Israel, and another enemy, though to a lesser extent, Jordan. The recently created Al Nusr front, Al Qaeda’s flag bearer in Syria, has already established its credentials as a deadly sectarian force in the country and can no longer be ignored as a “bunch of guys” that owe allegiance to the black banner. That, instead of helping crush this force, the Obama Administration is planning to arm the Syrian rebels, is deeply distressing.

The ‘Syria problem’ is playing out in other post-Arab Spring countries as well, from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt where the space vacated by despotic regimes has been taken over by Islamic militants. Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the region have taken advantage of the weak and unstable Governments that have come to power recently to expand their toehold in the Sinai and the Sahel (think of the Al Qaeda flags that have become a regular at Muslim Brotherhood rallies in Egypt).

In effect then, more than a decade after the war on terror was launched, Al Qaeda is stronger today than it was before, having expanded and strengthened its footprint around the world.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on August 8, 2013)