Opinion | The Durand Legacy and the Fault Lines of Regional Security

The seeds of the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan were sown in 1893, when Sir Mortimer Durand drew the 2.5k Kilometer Durand Line, dividing the native Pashtun homeland. Afghanistan never accepted this division, as was evident in 1947, when it opposed Pakistan’s UN membership. In the early 1940’s, the act across the line aroused secessionist nationalist passions among the Pashtuns, leading to the Pashtunistan Movement, flaring intense border tensions between the two neighbouring countries. The border remained closed for a couple of decades, affecting trade and people’s movement. However, Pakistan’s continuous efforts to install friendly Islamist regimes in Kabul continued till the Soviet invasion. During the Soviet-Afghan war, Pakistan, with the aid and assistance of the US and Saudi Arabia, through ISI, trained and funded Islamist Mujahideen to unite the resistance on the lines of religious ideology. However, this led to a refugee crisis, leading to the alteration of the demographic and the security landscape of Pakistan.

The emergence of the Pakistan-backed Taliban after the Soviet defeat in the 1990’s, who captured Kabul in 1996, also boomeranged. They refused to recognise the Durand Line, thus keeping the lamp of nationalist sentiments burning. Post 9/11, despite Pakistan’s support for the US war, the US backed Afghanistan government continuously accused Pakistan of harbouring the anti-Afghan Taliban militia in its territory. Meanwhile, the emergence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in 2007, seeking to overthrow the Pakistani State, led to internal security issues within the country. The TPP’s immense presence in the Pak-Afghanistan border has destabilised the already fragile border. Even after the return of the Taliban government in Kabul, they failed to curb the activities of the TPP, leading to the current cycle of border airstrikes and drone warfare.

Apart from the regional peace disturbance, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan, Paktia, Paktika, Kunar, Kabul, and Kandahar regions, the recent war has not only affected the economy of the two conflicting neighbours, but also the whole landlocked South Asian countries. The choking of the Torkham and Chaman crossings has severely distressed market connectivity, leading to the collapse of bilateral and transit trade. Plummeting trade deficits and export crashes led to rerouting of regional supply chains, which, however, are affecting the trade timelines and the freight charges. Moreover, the high cost of maintaining border operations is draining Pakistan’s economy, which may lead to regional turbulence that in turn might risk the disruption of the energy corridor in the Middle East.

The volatile Pakistan-Afghanistan border lurks regional destabilisation, which may shift the dynamics of transnational terror groups and may affect India’s massive strategic investments in Central Asia. Since Jash-e-Muhamad (JeM) and Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT) have operated alongside Afghan networks, India fears that the escalating border tensions and internal instability in Pakistan will create ‘ungoverned spaces’ that may lead to proxy resurgence in the northern-western states of India. The potential use of low-cost, combat-tested warfare technologies that may lead to spill-over to the cross-border infiltrators in J&K, like that of the early 1990s, is the second security concern stemming from the dispute. Last but not least, India fears the risk of ‘Two Front’ Militancy from the prolonged dispute between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The failure to control the Tarek-e-Taliban Pakistan by the Pakistan military establishment might lead the latter to externalise its failures by redirecting its proxy assets towards India.

To secure its economic and diplomatic interests, and for wider world reach, India has strategically invested in Iran’s Chabahar Port as a bypass route; besides, as a part of strategy and diplomacy, it has also invested in the development of infrastructure inside Afghanistan. Therefore, the protracted Pak-Afghan war poses a direct threat to India’s diplomatic, strategic, and economic interests in the region. Unabated war will have impactful effects on India’s transit networks, and the violence may lead to expansion in the operational footprint of the Afghan radical factions like ISIS-K, posing a severe threat to India’s diplomatic missions and assets. One of the greatest threats of the war that looms over India and the whole of Southeast Asia is the systemic risk of command and control or security breaches involving the volatile nuclear strategic assets in Pakistan. Any instability in internal security or the frail economic strains within Pakistan might lead to the strategic and nuclear assets falling into the hands of radicals, which may push the nuclear trigger, leading to world war and catastrophic human consequences.

To assert regional supremacy and to act sensibly as a dominant influential player, and to isolate Pakistan at the UNSC, the MEA smartly condemned Pakistan’s ‘flagrant violations of international law’. Besides, by absorbing a substantial amount of the Afghan exports to divert the Taliban-led government away from Pakistan’s economic dependence, India has systematically and successfully pivoted its foreign policy in the region. At a time when the clouds of war and ambiguity are spreading in the Asian skies, India, through its sensible and responsible foreign policy, is asserting its historical prominence as a staunch devotee and ambassador of peace.

akramiiim@gmail.com