How did Taliban Win and What are India's Options?

 

Nearly a month ago, on July 8th, President Biden said this:

Q    Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?

THE PRESIDENT:  No, it is not.

Q    Why?

THE PRESIDENT:  Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban.  It is not inevitable.

 And now the Taliban has taken control over Afghanistan and with it the residences of the warlords who were supporting the Afghanistan government.

The same day President Biden said that the Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army of the 70s. There would be no need for evacuating officials by lifting them off the roof of the US embassy. A few days later, we saw these images. 

Many thought that after the withdrawal of the US army, there would be upheaval in the country and the Taliban may take back control over some regions. But no one expected the collapse of the government so fast and to this extent. Between 13th April and 14th August, the Taliban increased its control from 20% of the country to over 60%. It took control of more than 10 provincial capitals, with the most important being Kandahar and Herat, Afghanistan's second and third-largest cities. In the last couple of days, even Mazhar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad have fallen into their hands. And eventually Kabul. Consequently, the President of Afghanistan left the country. And the Taliban took hold of the Presidental Palace. Maulana Abdul Ghani, the co-founder of the Taliban, was declared the new Afghanistan President. The desperation of commoners could be seen from such photos where Afghans were lining up at visa processing centers hoping to get visas to the US.

 Meanwhile, the US has asked its staff to destroy sensitive documents. A few days ago, the US asked the Taliban to spare the US embassy if it wants aid in the future. Imagine, the same US that was fighting the Taliban for 20 years, so much so that this was the cover of the Times Magazine, is now asking it to spare its embassy if it wants aid. And what awaits Afghanistan can only be imagined by many of us. Taliban spokesperson when asked whether stoning and public executions will happen under the new Taliban regime, chose to remain silent. No wonder why women are afraid of the Taliban regime. (The flight headed to Delhi from Kathmandu has been hijacked.) (The people of Afghanistan have changed their ways of veneration but not their culture.)

 In this blog, we will answer two questions. First, how did the Taliban gain so much territory so quickly? when the US spent US$83 billion in weapons, equipment, and training for the Afghans security forces over two decades? Second, what does this development mean for India? So how did the Taliban defeat the Afghanistan forces so quickly? Let's try to break down the reasons. First, the US has been exaggerating the size of the Afghan army. They say that it is nearly 3 Lakhs but it is much less than that. Second, the Afghan army wasn't built for long-term sustainability. Yaroslav Trofimov, a foreign affairs journalist, says that Afghans army was molded to match the way the Americans operate. The US military, the worlds most advanced, relies heavily on combining ground operations with air power and using aircraft to resupply outposts. But when the US pulled its air support, intelligence, and contractors servicing Afghanistans planes and helicopters, the Afghan army simply couldn't operate anymore. For example, a police commander in Afghanistans western Herat Province says that "I have been in this job for eight months, during this time we only got air support once. 

Unsurprisingly, "At least 30 of his officers have abandoned their posts". Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, who commanded the US' s mission to train Afghan forces in 2011-2013, said that the same happened with another failed American effort, the South Vietnamese army in the 1970s. Third, the Doha agreement signed between the US and Taliban in Feb 2020 gave the Taliban one year's reprieve from the American airstrikes. This damaged Taliban the most. Taliban used this time to regroup, plan, and strengthen their supply lines even when it was negotiating peace deals with the US and Afghanistan. Fourth, when U.S. forces were operating in Afghanistan, the Afghan forces were trying to maximize their presence by spreading out throughout the country and maintaining more than 200 bases that could be resupplied only by air. When the US announced its withdrawal, strategically, the Afghan government should have consolidated the areas where it had stronger control. But it failed to do so. Consequently, the Afghan forces were spread throughout the country and remained vulnerable in the rural areas. 

And Taliban easily attacked such areas. Because it's not as if these posts are full of government control. In fact, there are reports of some districts falling into the Taliban's hands after merely 10 of their fighters showed up, which tells us that such areas barely had any government presence in the first place. It massacred soldiers who resisted but allowed safe conduct to those who surrendered, often via deals negotiated by local tribal elders. The main reason behind the surrender was that the soldiers who had received no salaries from the government were bribed. The elite commando units of Afghanistan was the only unit that could fight the Taliban without surrendering. But they were too few in number and lacked aircraft to move around the country. The Afghan Foreign Minister blamed the lack of transition time for this issue, due to which they couldn't arrange for a new military situation. Finally, the government paid little attention to the needs of the forces. An Afghan soldier said that “In the last days, there was no food, no water, and no weapons. So by the time the Taliban attacked the urban areas, the morale of the forces was already down. And it became a piece of cake for the Taliban to take control over Afghanistan. 

Now the golden question for India is: should the Indian government engage with the Taliban?Publicly, India refuses to speak to the Taliban, even if behind closed doors it might have some communication with them. The Indian government argues that the Taliban is a terrorist organization and that it doesn't communicate with terrorist outfits. But now that the Taliban is back in Afghanistan. What now? Suhasini Haider in her article argues that India has three major interests in Afghanistan. India's first interest is the safety of its own citizens - diplomatic staff and other professionals and religious minorities in Afghanistan like Hindus and Sikhs. Second, its strategic assets in Afghanistan. For example, the $300 million Salma Dam and the $135 million Zaranj-Delaram Highway built by India's support are now under the Talibans control. Not only infrastructure, but it also includes military equipment. 

 India financed  Mi-25 helicopters  for Afghanistan and handed them to the Afghanistan government in December 2015 as part of PM Modi's visit to Kabul. But a week ago, news reports showed that the Taliban had captured the Kunduz airport and with it the Mi-25 helicopters. Many of the helicopters cannot be used by the Taliban due to operational reasons. But it does show how quickly India's investments have evaporated. And one of India's most strategic assets is the Chabahar port it built in Iran for which India spent crores of rupees. This port was meant to increase trade between India and Afghanistan without the help of Pakistan. But with the Taliban in control, the trade will only take place through Karachi and Gwadar ports. The third interest for India is the threat of terrorism. Taliban may provide direct or indirect support to anti-India terror groups. India has several options to defend these three strategic interests. The first is by recognizing only a democratically-elected government in Kabul and providing it any support. India could also consider a proactive route by aiding the Afghan military with supplies via the Iranian route. But this looks unlikely because of two reasons.

 First, India's support might not be enough to help Afghan forces defeat the Taliban. Second, the Taliban has warned India against any military intervention. Taliban recently blamed the Afghan Government for perpetrating war crimes by bombing hospitals using India-supplied aircraft. The spokesperson of the Taliban has expressed that its precondition for talks is for India to remain impartial between the Taliban and Afghanistan government. Another proactive step India can take is to offer sanctuary to senior Afghanistan leaders as it did for the ones with Tibet nearly 50 years ago. We discussed this in a previous video. The third and final option for India is to get in touch with the Taliban. If India wants to control Afghanistan's strategic direction, talking with the Taliban is inevitable. Avinash Paliwal, who is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London says that this decision to talk or not to talk is not India's alone. 

Taliban also has an equally difficult choice. Why? Talking to China, Russia, Iran, UK, and the US isn't tricky for the Taliban. India is a tricky subject for the Taliban because the Taliban's key supporter is Pakistan. And Pakistan would like to control the Taliban's relationship with India to any extent possible. If a senior Taliban leader is seen with an Indian leader in public, the Taliban might have to face grave consequences. Pakistan will either reduce financial and armed support or target those Taliban leaders who are engaging with India. In fact, some old Taliban leaders have maintained contact with India. But the current Taliban leaders cannot do so openly. This partly explains why India wouldn't officially confirm its backchannel talks with the Taliban. Even the backchannel talks are facing challenges. One of the reasons is the brutal killing of Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui. India's narrative according to Avinash Paliwal is that the Taliban targeted Siddiqui on command from their handlers in Pakistan. Afghanistan officials also reported that he wasn't killed in the crossfire but in fact, he was captured, killed, and his body was mutilated.

 The second challenge to backchannel communication is that the Taliban is promising to not allow the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to target other countries from Afghan soil. But it remains silent on its relationship with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. The Taliban's indications to India are that they will not become embroiled in Kashmir, but if they are supporting such terrorist groups then this statement is meaningless. Some can argue that engaging with the Taliban is its only option. Others might criticize the Indian government for not doing more to support the Afghan forces. But let's understand that Afghanistan was always going to be a challenging situation for India, especially because of the geography of both countries. Moreover, the reality is that India has always been a minor player in Afghanistan's situation. The way the Taliban overran the government forces, India's support won't have mattered much. India's challenging economic situation also meant that India's foreign aid to Afghanistan decreased in the past 5-6 years. India should consider its investments in Afghanistan as sunk costs i.e. investments that it should forget about. What's more important than the investments is its security situation. After the recent tensions with China at the Line of Actual Control, India is threatened by a two-front war. And now one more is emerging even if these threats are direct or indirect. Consequently, it has become challenging for India to protect its strategic interests. But the immediate cause of concern for the world should be what awaits the citizens of Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.