Deadly game
>> A conference looks at the dangerous, though potentially profitable, post-war jockeying in Central Asia

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Photos by Jason Felker

One of the more heavily quoted works of literature referred to since bombs began falling on Afghanistan has been Rudyard Kipling’s 1901 novel Kim. It’s in this book, about a young Anglo-Indian orphan recruited to spy on Russian advances through Central Asia, that the term “The Great Game” was coined. Played with gusto by Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain throughout the 19th century, the Game was a precursor to the Cold War, with proxy armies, espionage and the occasional advance of heavily-armed columns up the Khyber Pass from India and over the Amu Darya River from Russia’s Muslim colonies.
As the old empires fell, however, and new ones emerged, the rocky, remote kingdoms of Central Asia fell from importance, only to reappear on the international stage with the December 1979 intervention of Russian troops to prop up the faltering communist Afghan regime. While the Soviet experiment ended in disaster for all parties, the American endgame in Afghanistan remains speculative at best.

On Saturday, at an Alternatives-organized conference at UQÀM, several experts offered their thoughts on the nature and possible outcome of the American war and the prospects of rebuilding a shattered Afghanistan. Among the chief concerns—and the perceived chief tool—for reconstruction are the yet-to-be-constructed oil and gas pipelines, which would run from the Black Sea in the west to China in the east. Although multinational corporations, especially American ones, had been involved in discussion with the Taliban’s mullahs before September 11, the new war has left a vacuum that different players—the oil and gas companies, the autocratic ex-Soviet Central Asian states, the Americans, the Russians and of course the Afghans—are eager to exploit, each one banking on the potential wealth the region’s vast reserves can bring.

As discussed below, while there exists the potential for huge economic windfalls, Central Asia still remains a very dangerous playground for the participants.

Mohammad-Reza Djalili, professor at the Graduate Institutes of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and author of Iran: l’illusion réformiste and co-author of Géopolitique de la nouvelle Asie centrale.

There is a school of thought that believes that we have entered a new historic period. Some go as far as saying that the 21st century began on September 11 and the 20th century ended with the crumbling of the Soviet Union in 1991. That suggests that there has been a 10-year no-man’s land between the 20th and 21st centuries, and that the present conflict in Afghanistan is the first war of the 21st century. It is an open debate, and one that will continue probably for decades.

For me, Afghanistan is a geopolitical paradox, because it is a country both at the centre and at the periphery of the world. It is at the heart of Eurasia, vital for communication, it is an ancient land route, as we saw with the Silk Road and so on, and so central. But at the same time, Afghanistan is the end of the world, existing on the margins of the historical empires of Asia. As an essential consequence, important things can happen in Afghanistan without the world noticing, as has happened for decades.

Sometimes, however, Afghanistan is at the centre of the world’s attention. The most important event for that country in the 20th century was the Soviet intervention in 1979. For a decade at least, the world paid close attention to Afghanistan, not because of Afghanistan, but because of the Soviet intervention and how it changed the balance of power of the Cold War. And now, after September 11, for reasons that are not directly Afghan, Afghanistan is once again the centre of the world’s attention. It is interesting to note that it is external events, not directly related to Afghanistan, that focuses world attention upon it.

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist and author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia
[via pre-taped telephone interview] Since December, we have seen the international community fail on two major pledges. The first is that it had pledged to provide sufficient security for the Afghan interim government to extend its authority and allow for the reconstruction for the country. However, we have seen the Americans now reject any idea of any expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), made up of 4,800 Western troops based in Kabul, to other Afghan cities, which is essential if reconstruction, demobilization, de-weaponization, and diminishing of the power of the warlords is to take place.

The other major problem has been the international community’s failure to quickly disperse a major proportion of the $4.5-billion (U.S.) that were pledged at the Tokyo conference in January. At the moment, no foreign aid projects, that is no reconstruction and development projects, have started in Afghanistan because the money hasn’t come. The humanitarian aid does continue, and has been sufficient to prevent mass starvation, but reconstruction was seen as a major tool for the interim government in order to expand its authority and win the population to its side.

Also, of course, investment in agriculture is needed to deal with the drugs issue and in demobilizing the warlord armies, because it is only through agriculture that you can offer these young soldiers the opportunity to return home to their farms.

I think there will be a very severe reaction in the months ahead from the Chinese and the Russians to a sustained, continued American presence in Central Asia. This involves not only the idea that they might lose out on political and economic influence, but also on the considerable oil and gas wealth that exists in Central Asia. There will certainly be a Great Game unless the Americans make much clearer what their intentions are, and how long they intend to remain there.

Gilbert Achcar, professor of political science and international relations at the University of Paris-VIII, and author of La Nouvelle Guerre Froide and The Clash of Barbarisms.
It is hard to imagine a Russia [that would] take on a role such as that of Germany and Japan after the Second World War, that is an ex-great power that would be content to become a commercial, economic power. Unlike Germany and Japan, Russia never suffered a military defeat and therefore maintains global aspirations and pretensions.

So Putin’s game, a game he knows better than chess, is judo. One of judo’s strategies, especially facing an adversary who is heavier and stronger, is to use the adversary’s energy. Not to block and absorb his blow, but to use the force of the blow against him. It can use the strength of the United States against itself, as Russia lacks the power to truly block American power.

Putin has chosen to accept the situation while it enjoys some political and economic benefits, notably regarding Chechnya. But, regarding the American military deployment in this part of the world, which Putin could do nothing about anyway, he still has the ability to make their lives uncomfortable. He can transform American troops in that part of the world into political hostages because it is an extremely sensitive region. From this perspective, the Russians are expert at matters of manipulation and can put the Americans in quite a tight spot. And that is exactly what people in the United States who are opposed to a long-term presence in the region are afraid of.

John Cooley, journalist and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism

The Soviet difficulties in Central Asia were increased by the spread of drug addiction, probably instigated by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. This possibly followed a plan first proposed to President Reagan and his CIA director William Casey by [French intelligence operatives.]

The plan called for the planting of opium, hashish and other narcotics among the Soviet army troops, especially among those from Central Asia, and for black and grey propaganda actions to demoralize them. Quite early in the war Moscow had to remove most of the Muslim troop units from war or occupation duty in Afghanistan because they were becoming addicted to drugs and were selling their weapons and supplies to the mujahideen.
The new American forces now moving into Central Asia may discover another backlash to the 1979–89 Afghan jihad. Just as first French and then American forces in Indochina had been afflicted with drug habits, so were many Soviet soldiers taking their drug habits home with them and spreading them through civil society.

Although the Taliban, during the final year of their rule in Afghanistan, tardily suppressed the export of opium, morphine base, heroin and hashish, they apparently did little or nothing to seize or destroy opium poppy crops or existing stockpiles of drugs. According to United Nations and other experts, these are now being actively traded over the old routes, through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, the Caucasus and Turkey. If the residual bin Laden or al Qaeda movements, perhaps cooperating with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or other such Central Asian Islamist groups put their minds to it, they might try to provide their new American guests with dreamwork materials, just as the CIA provided the Soviets before them. :