Winning the Afghan border

A variation of this article first appeared in The Guelph Mercury December 31, 2008.

Kandahar province, adjacent to the border with Pakistan, is the Canadian Forces' area of operations in Afghanistan. Consequently, understanding the history of this border and its implications for the Canadian Forces is imperative.

Throughout the 19th century the British tried to annex the Afghan plain to British Imperial India -- the Raj. When repeated diplomatic missions were rebuffed and military incursions defeated, the British settled for an independent Afghanistan as a buffer between the Raj and Russia.

Sir Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of the colonial government of India, was the architect of the border of the new state and the Raj. Consequently the southern and eastern borders of Afghanistan are commonly referred to as the Durand line.

The Durand line was predicated on colonial concerns and bisected the traditional lands of the Pashto, the majority ethnic group in southwestern Afghanistan and eastern Pakistan.

The Pashto nation remains divided today. There are approximately 10 million Pashto living in Pakistan and six million in Afghanistan. Many of the Pashto in Pakistan are Afghan refugees who fled the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and have remained.

Despite the ostensible border, social, cultural and commercial ties among the Pashto have endured.

The Durand line has led a tenuous life. Legally, it was never ratified by a Loya Jirga (grand assembly) or any other Afghan assembly. Its only claim to legitimacy was the signature of Abdur Rahman Khan, the man Britain had declared ruler of Afghanistan.

A multi-ethnic and tribal society, it is open to question how many residents of the newly created state accepted his appointment and authority.

In 1949, a Loya Jirga declared it recognized "neither the imaginary Durand nor any similar line." Further, it was established by a treaty that was limited to 100 years duration.

Signed in 1893 it expired in 1993 and has never been renewed by any Afghan government in the interim. Any de jure legitimacy it may have had ended 15 years ago.

In de facto terms it is a porous border that has been violated by combatants repeatedly since its establishment. In the first half of the 20th century insurgents used sanctuaries in Afghanistan for attacks into the northwest frontier province of the Raj. Following the independence of India and the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, cross-border attacks continued against the new state. In 1949, Pakistan responded by bombing a village inside Afghanistan.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) encouraged the mujahedeen to establish bases in Pakistan to support operations against the Soviet forces.

There is nothing new in the current insurgents' use of bases in Pakistan to attack Canadian troops operating in Kandahar province. American and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in the neighbouring border provinces are confronted with the same problem.

"A resilient insurgency" has developed in southern and eastern Afghanistan, according to a Pentagon report released June 27, based on "the insurgent sanctuary within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan."

The current situation does not bode well for the Canadian Forces committed to Kandahar.

Writing in The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly in 2008, Michael Mihalka noted, "Any counter-insurgency has great difficulty succeeding, especially in the long run, if the insurgents have a reasonably secure cross-border sanctuary."

The Pakistani government is loath to increase activity in the FATA, fearing the insurgents will turn their attention to Pakistani cities.

Further, the insurgents continue to enjoy a close relationship with the Pakistani Intelligence Service. A solution to the problem is unlikely to come from the Pakistanis.

The Canadian government is reluctant to even acknowledge the problem. A June 10 government news release entitled, "Government of Canada sets future course for engagement in Afghanistan," was silent on the border issue.

The Department of National Defence website has a page dedicated to border issues. It states that Canada will facilitate dialogue between Afghanistan and Pakistan at the governmental level and in the field, train Afghan border officers and provide infrastructure and equipment to Afghan border patrols.

These initiatives alone will not stop the infiltration of insurgents into Kandahar.

The simplest solution would be attacks against the insurgents' bases in Pakistan. This is an option U.S. president-elect Barack Obama raised during the presidential election campaign.

The United States and the Afghan National Army have already adopted a policy of entering Pakistan in "hot pursuit" and when insurgents are supported by fire from within Pakistan.

Politically, however, this is a dead end. It will destabilize the Pakistani government, increase tension between the Afghan and Pakistani governments and enrage the Pashto.

The most efficacious solution is increased border security.

"We need to switch our ideology from winning the war to winning the border," according to Ashley Bonner of The Washington Post. This would limit the insurgents' ability to infiltrate into Afghanistan and to return to their safe havens following operations.

This approach will require more than biennial extensions of Canada's commitment and longer troop rotations; more than NATO allies with limits on the deployment of their military forces and restrictive rules of engagement; and, more than an American government chasing wraiths in Iraq and Iran.

It also requires the Afghan National Army, Afghan police and border guards to increase their operational effectiveness. This is the only practical approach to the border problem. It will require a long-term commitment of larger quantities of men, material and money from NATO and the U.S. as well as Canada to have a chance of being successful.

Ultimately,however, the solution is a new paradigm,a new understanding of the Pashto, the border issue, and the question of Pashtunistan. The Pashto and the Taliban are not synonymous, although they share an aversion to a foreign imposed solution and the presence of foreign troops. As long as the Pashto are divided by the artificial and externally imposed Durand line they will continue to support an insurgency. On the other hand, recognition of their national aspirations, sure to be vigorously opposed by the governments in both Kabul and Islamabad, would drive a wedge between the Taliban and the Pashto.

If the current situation is allowed to persist, Canadian troops will remain committed to a war of attrition that cannot be won and the casualties of 2008 will pale beside the death toll in 2009.