Is It Time to Get Out of Afghanistan?

[jmm99]

Marc-André Lagrange, who disagrees with me as much as he agrees with me (although we are friends - colonialement and TdM go a long way; and recognize variant opinions).

I think both of us are pretty much on the same page as to neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism. In any event, Marc has some innovative ideas about how to approach local (village and district) problems - which can only be addressed by a practitioner. So, if one wants an EU practitioner who knows the Islamic World, I give you the guy from Barsoom.

I think that answers the EU component suggested by Steve (Dayuhan) - I love that bony guitar player.

But, go to Easy Pool Tutor (the Best Pool Site in the World; Dayuhan's World, in part; and also My World, in part). So, Steve, if you're a pool player, we can also talk (two by two, as in Noah's Ark).

Regards

Mikle

[Ken White]

I'd likely burn the Hot Dogs anyway...

Woolridge got a bum rap to a slight extent -- he and others were really guilty of tolerating flaky and illegal operations for good Clubs, a common thing from WWI (the birth of the Club system) until 1968-69 -- incidentally, those were NCO Clubs and not Service Clubs, a totally different creature. Unfortunately, his minor cupidity and major stupidity effectively emasculated the position of Sergeant Major of the Army AND started the Club system on a road to ruin from which they never recovered once the GAO inspired auditing processes were implemented. I was not and am not sympathetic due to the damage he wrought. Not that impressed by some of his successors either...

As you know, I would never lend myself to any impropriety -- unless it involved Rebecca Romjin or maybe Amy Adams or... -- but certainly not for mere Shekels. Très gauche ...

[jmm99]

but I'm going to say this here because it is what I believe and feel.

You (in a virtual role at SWC) have been a replacement "dad". Not exactly to him (but check the look"):



which was a WWII face on him (more tender faces could be supplied, I'll admit).

You were probably a better shooter (I was); but probably not a better fisher, hunter or trapper than my dad. I've said all this privately to you.

Regards

Mike

[Ray]

The baseline should be common sense. Before citing or quoting data or opinions, they have to be run through a basic screen: there's a lot of lunacy on the net and a lot of outright errors. In this case, anyone even vaguely familiar with oil markets would know instantly that the claim cited was baseless. It's baseless no matter how often it's repeated.

The first requirement for making sense out of material gleaned from online browsing is to engage the BS meter and assure that it's fully functional.

Agreed that the baseline should be common sense.

However, to assume that one is ‘the last word’ would be fallacious, if not haughty.

Personal opinions on the net could be lunacy.

Yet, to assume that /public figures / authors / commentators would publish/ proclaim, in the public domain, articles that would put at stake their personal reputation by citing falsehoods is totally bogus.

Of course, there would be exceptions – like Saddam has WMD and so let’s go to war!!!

And interestingly, to such lunacy, there would be the multitude who would consider contrary opinions as lunacy and full of errors!

Further, opinion and credibility of links depends on the composition of the nationalities and even national agendas. To the Chinese, every comment or a link, contrary to their established view, is ‘American propaganda’.

With such a mindset, there can be hardly any discussion that does not conform to the ‘official’ or the nationally perceived line!!

In Pakistan, a vast majority feel OBL is not dead and it is a US hoax! There is also a view that Osama was killed elsewhere and the dead body brought to Abbotabad, Pakistan to give Pakistan a bad name! Try convincing them!

To echo David, I'd point out the following:

The currently planned route of TAPI is as I stated above.

The Pakistanis have proposed an alternate route, which looks like it would conveniently cut out India.

There have been discussions of a Chinese-funded port at Gwadar and pipeline to China.

Proposals and discussions are words. Please don't talk about these things as if they exist, because they don't.

If TAPI is a currently planned route it is means it is a proposal.

Therefore, why scoff at the other proposals that link TAPI to Gwadar? Is it because, it does not fit your line of debate?

Are we to understand the the govt official who had discussions on TAPI in Delhi (link given) are irresponsible people who know not what they are doing? Highly condescending on your part!!

So, as per you, Gwadar port is a mere discussions of a Chinese-funded port?

Events seem to prove otherwise.

QUETTA, Dec 21: The Gwadar port became fully functional on Sunday after a ship carrying fertiliser from Qatar anchored at the port…..

Another ship from Qatar, also carrying fertiliser, will anchor at the port on Monday. Over the next four months over 21 more ships are expected to anchor at the country’s third port after Karachi and Port Qasim.
http://www.balochrise.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2747
http://www.dawn. com/2008/ 12/22/top2. htm

Gwadar is a two phase construction project. It is functional and improving its infrastructure. It is Chinese funded and China Harbour Engineering Company Limited is involved in the construction.

Proposal and discussions are words, but they also fructify. They are not always hot air. The Gwadar China rail link has been given to a German company and the feasibility study for the pipeline is on, as is learnt. One has to see the terrain to realise that the study will require time because errors can be very costly in the high altitude. The Himalayas are mainly young folded mountains. And they are not stable.

The again, if the KKH is functional, why can't a pipeline be feasible? In Siachen, pipelines are used to pump KOil and the construction is a marvel since the K Oil does not freeze!! Isn’t there a saying - "The impossible we do immediately, miracles take a little longer"?

These proposals were clearly not the reason why the US entered Afghanistan, because they didn't exist when the US entered Afghanistan.

This is all words dancing on the head of a pin, though, because if you take it back to the question of why the US is in Afghanistan, none of it makes any difference. Even in the remote event that TAPI was running at 33bcm/year and every bit was going to China, that would not be anything remotely close to a cause for war in Afghanistan. There is no way on this sad earth that the US would go to war to prevent 33 bcm/yr of gas from getting to China, or to get that gas to go somewhere else. It's just not enough to be worth it. There's not even the vaguest shred of economic logic there.

That's not saying oil and gas aren't important. They are. This particular case, though just doesn't involve enough gas to justify the enormous expense and liability of war. Not even close. We're not talking about the Straits or Hormuz here, or Iraq.

With due regards to you, how do you state with so much of authority These proposals were clearly not the reason why the US entered Afghanistan, because they didn't exist when the US entered Afghanistan.?

Events prove that this statement reinforces the point that people generally have a ‘blind faith’ in the morality of their country’s action.

All Americans believed Bush that Saddam still had WMD and supported unreservedly the gung ho into Iraq. The hype was such that it became unpatriotic not to wear the lapel pin or not support the war!

Likewise, is the belief that Afghanistan is all about OBL and AQ.

Have you ever paused to think as to why Karzai was made the President of Afghanistan when the Americans set up the govt?

Let’s look at a non US view:

The goal is "bringing Afghanistan into the fold", said a Brookings Institution analyst. But Karzai was brought into the US fold long ago. In the 1980s, as the Afghan mujahideen were fighting Soviet occupiers, the smart-dressing, Quetta, Pakistan-based "Gucci guerrilla", as American correspondents referred to Karzai's likes at the time, helped organize "logistical support" (facilitating US weapons shipments). But much of his time then and later was also spent in the US......

The man who spotted Karzai's leadership potential and recruited him to "the fold" was then RAND (the think tank, mostly conducting contract research for the Pentagon) program director, now US National Security Council member and special Bush envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad. Like Karzai, Khalilzad is an ethnic Pashtun (born Mazar-i-Sharif, PhD University of Chicago). He headed Bush's defense department transition team, and served under present US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in the Reagan State and Bush I Defense Departments. Also like Karzai (whom Mullah Omar once asked to represent the Taliban at the UN), Khalilzad early on supported and urged engagement of the Taliban regime, only to drop such notions when the true nature of the regime became patently obvious by 1998. And one further thing both men have in common is that in 1996/97 they advised American oil company Unocal on the US$2 billion project of a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline. In 2000, Khalilzad invited Karzai to address a RAND seminar on Afghanistan; the same year, Karzai also testified before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and met periodically with Christina Rocca, then a Senate aide (to Kansas Republican Sen Sam Brownback), now the assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs. "To us, he is still Hamid, a man we've dealt with for some time," said a state department official.
http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/DA29Ag02.html

The Asiatimes view has been taken by standing back and looking at the issue based on facts and not fiction.

While you have given your points of view on a personal note, I have given each point with a link to backup what I have stated.

I am not repeating myself and if indeed I have done so, it is to indicate that you are missing the wood for the trees.

That it is Oil is a major part of the US policy and they will fight to ensure that it is controlled by them is established. I am sure the US Presidents would know more about policy than you. Or are they prized chumps?

It is a figment of fertile and overheated imagination that the US goes to war on such abstract issues like Freedom and Democracy or wiping out the AQ!

By that token of abstract being the raison d’être, the Islamic world would be right that the War on Terror is a War Against Islam and a plot for Christianity to take over the world!

I find both the ideas most juvenile and laughable!

Even on the issue of WMD, if any country fitted GW Bush’s concept of Axis of Evil, then it should have been Pakistan since they had known WMD, they had no democracy since a military dictator who came to power in a coup toppling a democratic govt, and also had delivery means of the WMD! So, that much for professed raison d’être for pursuing a line of action.

Hence, it is difficult to suppose that Afghanistan was merely to send OBL and the AQ to Kingdom Come! Or even the idea that the US went into Afghanistan for ‘revenge’ or to use that quaint Americanism = kick A$$!

On the issue of oil, if you notice world events, the US has always intervened for many reasons including 'humanitarian'. However, mostly, only in regions having OIL!!

Libya, for instance. Angola, Iraq, TAPI (like it or not) or backing Japan in the South China Sea spat.

How is it that the missed out on the actual genocide in Rwanda or the atrocities in Zimbabwe, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain?

Yes, and why does the US have a huge Base in Bahrain?

[Ray]

Dayuhan

I could have answered each of your posts, but then I find the UNEF has intervened and so I give way.

[Bob's World]

Ray,

You discount a essential element of how Americans think, feel and react. Certainly we appreciate the need for oil. Most people around the world understand that about us as it is quite rational.

What is so often discounted is our ability to be completely irrational when it comes to seeking and exacting revenge. As a nation we remain an impetuous youth, instilled with a high sense of honor (and sensitive to slights of that self-perception). Less appreciated by most is that and due to the nature of the type of person gleaned from nations around the world who are willing to risk leaving everything stable and known behind to come to a land of opportunity, unknowns, and risk; we suffer from a bit of a national attention deficit disorder that makes us creative, optimistic, tolerant to a fault of small slights; but hair-triggered to dive in with both fists when we perceive a large slight. Often in a completely irrational manner.

Were there some national leaders with rational motives who played upon the American propensity to dive into a good fight? Perhaps, but I strongly doubt we would have gone to the backwater of Afghanistan if that were the case, particularly when the vast majority who attacked us were Saudis. If we were rational we would have seized upon this excuse to occupy that country, not Afghanistan. No, this was a pure case of Americans being Americans. Tell us we can't do something, and we try twice as hard. Try to warn us off, and we redouble our efforts in response. For a short history, the examples are endless.

But that should have been a strategic raid, followed by an immediate withdrawal, with greater surveillance and attention left behind. But we needed bases to pursue AQ from, so we lingered. As the Afghan insurgency began to broil up around us, we instinctively upped our own efforts to help our partner contain the problem, and down the slippery slope we slid.

We did not appreciate how our very presence enabled Karzai and the Northern Alliance to create a government designed to systematically exclude the banished Taliban from ever having a legal chance at political or economic opportunity in their own land. With such a government created, revolution was inevitable. As we piled in more effort and money from foreign lands to curb the Revolution, we fueled the Resistance by our very efforts, and it grew as well.


At this point, the best advice is that of Lord General Roberts on a very similar debate in London back in 1880.

"We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan,
and the best thing to do is to leave it as
much as possible to itself. It may not be very
flattering to our 'amour propre', but I feel
sure I am right when I say that the less the
Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us.

Should Russia in future years attempt to
conquer Afghanistan, or invade India
through it, we should have a better chance
of attaching the Afghans to our interest if
we avoid all interference with them in the
meantime."
Lord Frederick “Bobs” Roberts of Kandahar, 1880

[JMA]

Ray,

You discount a essential element of how Americans think, feel and react. Certainly we appreciate the need for oil. Most people around the world understand that about us as it is quite rational.

What is so often discounted is our ability to be completely irrational when it comes to seeking and exacting revenge.

Bob, Ray is expressing a view from the sub-continent and nobody here is trying very hard to attempt to understand where he is coming from. His view and no doubt also of many others from the region is how they see the US actions. If you don't believe him to be interpreting these actions correctly surely you understand that it is the US that has a PR problem which needs to be addressed?

[Bob's World]

Bob, Ray is expressing a view from the sub-continent and nobody here is trying very hard to attempt to understand where he is coming from. His view and no doubt also of many others from the region is how they see the US actions. If you don't believe him to be interpreting these actions correctly surely you understand that it is the US that has a PR problem which needs to be addressed?

I wrote my response because of where he says he is writing from. Americans have a bad habit of thinking that everyone thinks like we do. They don't. Obviously living in America is very different than most of the world. What I added is a perspective I had read before regarding natural selection and the general make up of the American populace. I realize I do not, and cannot think like an Indian (which in of itself is a gross generalizatoin given the size and complextiy of that populace), so I am trying to appreciate the understanding behind his inputs as well.

An American of Japanese, English, Indian, and Russian ethnicities, may well have more in common with each other than with their average countryman back in the motherland. Obviously this is a gross generality; but other than African Americans and the large numbers of convicts sent her by England prior to the revolution, very few immigrants to America did not assume a tremendous personal risk to go into the unknown to seek some better future. Most people do not take that kind of risk. So, while we draw people from many backgrounds and blend them together, which is fairly unique; we also naturally selected for a higher propensity for risk taking and instability than the general populace as well.

I don't think this means the US needs to have a warning label applied to it, but I would advise in general terms for others not to be lulled by America's seeming focus on rational economic ends and complacency to small slights (to us, perhaps large and baffling in why we ignore them to others) into believing that we will not dedicate our entire considerable energy to the pursuit of some aim that is completely irrational to others. That is just who we are.

Often we send the wrong signal, and others are emboldened by our indifference to a series of small acts; only to be hammered once that one act too many or of the wrong sort is committed. We tend to be idealistic; and this also blinds us to the more realist agendas of our partners on these little adventures as well.

[Ray]

JMA,

Thanks.

Bob,

Tell us we can't do something, and we try twice as hard.

OK I am saying you can't hang around Afghanistan!

No offence meant.

Just ribbing!

[Ray]

What is so often discounted is our ability to be completely irrational when it comes to seeking and exacting revenge.

Interesting thought.

However, if this is true that this spurs US strategy and strategic thinking and nothing else, then it is surprising that this was not realised by those who advises their govts. For if they did, then their govt would suitably modify their outlook in their interaction with the US. I presume all would like to have stable friends and not quixotic ones.

I will say this that in my interaction with Americans in India and abroad and with the US officers I taught or did courses with, I somehow did not find this streak of wanting revenge inbuilt in their psyche.

In fact, I found them very rational and that does not mean that they did not stand their ground.

One such officer who was doing a course with me was Walter Doran, who I believe became an Admiral. One of the finest gentleman and very polished too I would say.

[Bob's World]

Names like "Lexington"; "Ft Sumpter"; "Alamo"; "The Maine"; "The Lusitania"; "Pearl Harbor"; "Gulf of Tonkin"; and "World Trade Center" all have special meaning and a symbolic linkage in the history of American warfare.

I did not say Americans were not rational; just said they were different, and when we or others, forget that it leads to miscaluations. And certain types of events tend to generate tremendous popular support across party lines, with vengence for some violent injustice being the prime motivator.

You are very right about one thing though; we have a tremendous conflict of interest on the Arabian Peninsula that tears at us much like the conflict of interest we have created for Pakistan tears at them.

We have made allies of governments who would work with us to keep Soviet influence out of the Gulf and keep oil flowing and sea lanes open. We have turned a blind eye to the growing impunity of those governments and to the growing social unrest that bin Laden and his AQ organization have leveraged so effectively these past 15 years or so.

Now as the mementum of popular action is overcoming the inertia of govenmental suppression we find ourselves caught between our own principles we profess so loudly and our fears as to how well our interests will be met if these dodgy allies collapse. That is a mess of our own making, and we will need to rely on some of that aforementioned American risk taking to get out of it. Much of this can be resolved by these governments engaging their populaces and embracing true, reasonable, and substantive evolution of governance. Most, being autocrats, will cling to their position though and be forced from office. Too bad, as that is very avoidable. This could throw the global economy for a loop if this goes very bad, and it could very easily do just that.

[Dayuhan]

I don't think I'm getting across here, and the extent to which I'm willing to try is running down... but one more effort.

Agreed that the baseline should be common sense

Common sense means refraining from citing information that is clearly wrong, such as suggestions that China will consume 40% of global oil output by 2015, or that the Straits of Hormuz carry 60% of the world's oil. These are simple, verifiable factual inaccuracies that are instantly recognizable as such by anyone even vaguely familiar with world oil markets.

Common sense means refraining from linking to material that is from ideological fringe or other clearly biased sites. We all know there's a world of lunacy out there, no need to link to it.

Common sense means only linking to material that is directly relevant to the discussion, and refraining from drawing conclusions that are not in fact supported by the material cited (example below).

If TAPI is a currently planned route it is means it is a proposal.

Therefore, why scoff at the other proposals that link TAPI to Gwadar? Is it because, it does not fit your line of debate?

The currently planned route has been studied and surveyed. There is an actual plan, which has been agreed upon by the 4 nations involved and the ADB, the poor sods currently in line to finance the mess, as no private company seems interested (a good sign that the viability is very questionable).

A proposal is made by one country, and may or may not be accepted by the other parties. There may be a serious attempt to execute the proposal, or it may just be a ploy, a chip to be bargained away in return for some other concession.

Personally I think India would be well advised to dump the whole project and let Pakistan and China deal with it. The probability of completion - or even a start - in the medium term future is remote, the security vulnerabilities would be immense, and given the state of relations between India and Pakistan any supply transiting through Pakistan would be inherently unreliable. Just my opinion, of course.

With due regards to you, how do you state with so much of authority These proposals were clearly not the reason why the US entered Afghanistan, because they didn't exist when the US entered Afghanistan.?

Events prove that this statement reinforces the point that people generally have a ‘blind faith’ in the morality of their country’s action.

Nothing to do with morality at all. It's impossible to act on the basis of a proposal that hasn't yet been made, unless you can see into the future, which Americans obviously cannot do. The effect cannot precede the cause.

All Americans believed Bush that Saddam still had WMD and supported unreservedly the gung ho into Iraq. The hype was such that it became unpatriotic not to wear the lapel pin or not support the war!

All Americans didn't believe it. I certainly didn't, and I'm American. It was fairly obvious from the start that WMD were a pretext designed to nominally satisfy the "imminent threat" criterion, and that the actual purpose was a great deal broader. Of course the actual purpose - which was by no means hidden to anyone paying attention - went far beyond "getting Iraq's oil", Getting Iraqi oil back onto the market was of course important to the US (and China, and all other consumers) but there was much more to the Neocon delusion than that.

Likewise, is the belief that Afghanistan is all about OBL and AQ.

Have you ever paused to think as to why Karzai was made the President of Afghanistan when the Americans set up the govt?

Let’s look at a non US view:

The Asiatimes view has been taken by standing back and looking at the issue based on facts and not fiction.

This is an example of a citation that does not support the argument. There is nothing at all here to suggest that gas was the motive for the US entry into Afghanistan, or that Karzai was selected because of his previous connection to the TAPI project. Correlation is not causation, unless of course you're Michael Moore, or Rush Limbaugh.

Karzai was the guy Americans went to when they wanted to get something done in Afghanistan. He didn't have much competition in that place. That doesn't mean anyone who went to him wanted to get the same thing done, far from it.

That it is Oil is a major part of the US policy and they will fight to ensure that it is controlled by them is established. I am sure the US Presidents would know more about policy than you. Or are they prized chumps?

It is a figment of fertile and overheated imagination that the US goes to war on such abstract issues like Freedom and Democracy or wiping out the AQ!

Wiping out someone who attacked two of your cities and killed thousands of your people is not abstract at all. It's practically a necessity: post 9/11 any US government would have had to attack somebody or seem a wimp; domestic politics demanded it.

Nobody is saying that oil is not important, or that the US wouldn't fight over oil. Of course the US would fight over oil if the oil issue in question posed a threat to US interests, or a potential gain to US interests, significant enough to warrant war. Similarly the US will go to war in response to a terrorist act if the act and the threat of future acts are severe enough to warrant war.

It's a question of scale, and this is what you simply aren't confronting.

Look at the terrorist side. The US will not embark on full scale war in Yemen to hunt down AQAP because they tried to send bombs on cargo planes. It's a terrorist act, and there's a threat of further acts, but the severity - the scale - is not sufficient to justify war. In the case of 9/11, both the severity and the perceived threat of future attacks were orders of magnitude larger, large enough - in the perception of that time at least - to justify war.

Now look at oil and gas. Certainly the US would fight to keep the Straits of Hormuz open. The impact on US interests is sufficient and obvious. But look at the scale of TAPI. What impact on US interests would accrue from bringing 27bcm/yr of gas to Pakistan and Afghanistan? Realistically, none. What would the impact be on US interests if that gas were diverted to China? Realistically, none. It's just not enough to make a difference, or to justify the cost and risk of fighting. It's not that oil and gas aren't a cause for fighting... the scale of this project is just nowhere near enough to justify the cost and risk of war.

It's not that oil is worth fighting for and terrorism isn't, or the other way around. Either is sufficient, if the scale and the impact on US interests make it sufficient.

To support a claim that the US went to war over TAPI you'd have to demonstrate that this particular project - not oil and gas generically, but this specific project - poses sufficient threat or sufficient potential gain to the US to justify war. This has not been done. Any effort to do that would only be credible if it demonstrated specific gains and risks... vague implications of "controlling Caspian oil supplies" are insufficient, because TAPI would not in any event offer control of those supplies.

As mentioned before, the US would not control TAPI output or destination under any proposed scenario.

On the issue of oil, if you notice world events, the US has always intervened for many reasons including 'humanitarian'. However, mostly, only in regions having OIL!!

Libya, for instance. Angola, Iraq, TAPI (like it or not) or backing Japan in the South China Sea spat.

How is it that the missed out on the actual genocide in Rwanda or the atrocities in Zimbabwe, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain?

Yes, and why does the US have a huge Base in Bahrain?

As I said, the US will certainly fight over oil, if the specific oil issue being contested has sufficient impact on the US to justify fighting. TAPI, as pointed out above, does not. The Arabian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz do, hence a base in Bahrain. Again, scale. The US would go to war over an ocean of oil. They would not go to war over a barrel. Somewhere in between is a demarcation, and I see no credible evidence that TAPI would fall above that line. It's just not big enough and the potential impact on US interests is not significant enough.

As far as the other examples go, you will note that American engagement in Libya has been severely restrained despite the presence of oil, with great effort going into avoiding any situation that could lead to US responsibility or control. One might also note that the US hasn't intervened in Angola since the Cold War, at which time Angola was not a significant oil producer: that was simply about trying to "counter Soviet influence", which the US did almost everywhere it could, with or without oil in the picture.

The US isn't "backing Japan in the South China Sea spat" because Japan isn't involved in a South China Sea spat. The only spat going on in the South China Sea is the enduring game of claim and counter-claim over various islands and seabed areas among China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, etc. The US has not been much engaged in that, beyond statements that a peaceful settlement is preferred.

You might want to explain, concisely, what specific threat or prospect of gain you think TAPI poses for the US that would justify war. It's either about fear of harm or hope of gain, no? Given the scale of the project, what specific harm could be done to the US, or what specifically could the US gain, that would justify the cost and risk of war?

[Ray]

Dayuhan,

Thanks for the interaction.

It was educative.

It is obvious that we have different perspectives and that is natural.

I appreciate your views, even if I don't subscribe to them since I am seeing it from a South Asia and an Asia Pacific perspective.

Thanks.

[Dayuhan]

Having lived just about my entire adult life in SE Asia I'm not really sure what my perspective is... but all perspective has to be based on something, and it is by finding and evaluating the bases that we make sense of perspectives.

[Ray]

Dayuhan and Bob's World,


What to you make of this:

Pakistan has now taken centre stage in Russia's efforts to play a more active role in Central and South Asia as Moscow braces for the drawdown of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

At a summit in Sochi last August, Russia institutionalised a quadripartite forum with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan to counter the spread of drugs, terrorism and instability via Central Asia towards Russian borders. The four countries agreed to undertake joint economic projects in power generation, transport infrastructure and mining. At a follow-up meeting of economic Ministers in Moscow last October, the four discussed in greater detail plans to rebuild a trade Silk Route from former Soviet Central Asia via Afghanistan to Pakistan and export electricity from Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia confirmed its readiness to invest in the oil, gas and hydropower sectors of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Two months later Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Dushanbe that Russia was willing to help fund and build the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, to which Moscow was earlier opposed.

In the past few months Moscow and Islamabad have prepared the ground for energising their flagging economic ties. The Inter-governmental Commission on Trade and Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation met for the first time in Moscow last September. Two months later Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Dushanbe that Russia was willing to help fund and build the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, to which Moscow was earlier opposed. During Mr. Zardari's visit the sides are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for the modernisation and expansion of the Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi, which the Soviet Union built in the 1970s, as well as five other MoUs for the supply of Russian rail tracks, cooperation in the oil and gas sector, power generation, coal mining and agriculture.

The Pakistani President is arriving in Russia ten days after U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan where he had enjoyed safe haven for years. However, Moscow made it clear this fact will not affect relations with Islamabad.

http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/11/stor...1154151300.htm


and

In another breakthrough for Pakistan, Mr. Medvedev in Sochi gave the green signal for an inaugural meeting of the Russian-Pakistani Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade and Economic and Scientific-Technological Cooperation in Islamabad this month. The two countries agreed to set up the joint commission 10 years ago but Moscow has, till now, blocked its launch.

Two main conclusions can be drawn from the Medvedev-Zardari meeting: the Russian-Pakistani dialogue has, for the first time, been promoted to the level of Presidents; and Moscow has overcome its reluctance to develop full-fledged relations with Islamabad. The only taboo for Russia still is sale of weapons to Pakistan but its defence technologies have been trickling into Pakistan, mostly through third countries. Ukrainian main battle tanks, T-80, supplied to Pakistan in the 1990s, had Russian-built key systems and components. Following a “private” visit to Russia by Gen. Musharraf and an official visit by army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani last summer, Russia lifted its objections to the supply to Pakistan of Chinese JF-17 fighter planes powered by Russian RD-93 engines. Many years ago, Russia had sold Pakistan over 40 MI-171 transport helicopters of a non-military version.

What has made the Moscow turnaround is the realisation that seeing Islamabad as part of the region's problems does not help to advance the Russian goal of playing a bigger role in the region. The Kremlin finally decided that Pakistan must be part of the solution. The format of four-way cooperation with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan should help Moscow prepare for the eventual pullback of the U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan: engage Pakistan, return to Afghanistan and tighten Russian hold over the former Soviet Central Asia.

In Sochi, the new forum, which Mr. Medvedev described as “a working regional format,” was institutionalised as a permanent arrangement, independent of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a defence bloc of former Soviet states focussed on Central Asia. The quartet announced that its next summit would take place in Dushanbe and that the foreign and economic ministers of the four countries would hold regular meetings as well.

A joint statement adopted in Sochi highlighted the problems of terrorism and drug-trafficking, which are a source of profound concern for Russia. However, it is joint economic projects that dominated the summit agenda. Russia agreed to join two long-planned regional infrastructure projects that would create energy and transport corridors from Central Asia to Pakistan across Afghanistan.

Note the Russian attempt to oust Chinese influence in CAR

[davidbfpo]

I am sure Russia has its strategic reasons, but these developments strike me as more of 'The Great Game' and a certain element of "playing" the USA by both Pakistan and Russia. One wonders how Russia will handle the relationship, given the issues others have had - including PRC China.

As for:

..the four discussed in greater detail plans to rebuild a trade Silk Route from former Soviet Central Asia via Afghanistan to Pakistan and export electricity from Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia confirmed its readiness to invest in the oil, gas and hydropower sectors of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

My understanding is that electrical supply over long distances is fraught with problems over power loss, assuming the pylons don't fall down and Pakistan currently has enough power generation capability, but grossly mismanages its system. Finally Afghanistan's oil and gas has been exhausted - by export north. That leaves rebuilding the 'Silk Route', good luck.

[Dayuhan]

Sounds like a great deal of talk without any evidence of action. I think David's right, Russia showing the flag around to twit the Americans a wee bit, Pakistan trying to cozy up to someone else to try and get the other suitors jealous. Can't see much coming of it, and I doubt the US will pay much attention.

I don't see any effort to "oust Chinese influence in CAR". To balance Chinese influence, maybe. Both the Russians and the Chinese have influence, and will continue to have influence. Geography decrees it. They will push and shove each other a bit, and the CAR states will play one off against the other while trying to remain on good terms with both.

The area is relatively peripheral to US interests but quite central to Chinese and Russian interests... it's far more likely (not in any way imminent, but down the line) to serve as a Russia/China flashpoint than to spark conflict involving the US.

The CAR states don't trust or like the Russians (they know something of Russians and Russia) but they fear them and they still need them: even if all of the pipelines now planned were built, they would still need access to the Russian export grid. So they make deals, and play nice, and develop as many other alternatives as they can.

Got a good laugh out of this one:

the four discussed in greater detail plans to rebuild a trade Silk Route from former Soviet Central Asia via Afghanistan to Pakistan and export electricity from Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia confirmed its readiness to invest in the oil, gas and hydropower sectors of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Sounds wonderful to the uninformed, but anyone paying attention to the region knows that Tajikistan isn't going to be exporting electricity to anyone any time soon. Their electrical sector is a disaster, can't even meet domestic demand. Tajikistan is an importer of oil and gas: domestic gas reserves are insufficient to meet local demand and oil reserves are minimal.

Tajikistan does have hydropower, but it's seasonal and highly variable. Sometimes they have a surplus. Other times they ration power domestically. I suppose the Russians could offer to build more plants, light up Tajikistan, and export surplus, but they won't change the variations in river flows that govern when hydro plants work and when they don't. Whether more dams would make them popular in Tajikistan is another question: dams have been known to bring issues. Would have to be a BOT deal I guess, Tajikistan ain't exactly cash-rich.

"The oil, gas and hydropower sectors of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan" amount to just about a hill of beans at the moment, and potential is a long way from overwhelming. More words here than substance, I'd say.

The "New Silk Road" phrase is invoked whenever someone has a proposal involving regional trade. Mush used, much hyped... again, not a lot of practical substance to it. Some level of regional trade is certainly possible, but the scale will not be dramatic and it's not going to have any significant impact on global markets or strategies.

[Ray]

"We would be ... grateful to the Chinese government if a naval base is ... constructed at the site of Gwadar for Pakistan," Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said is a statement, referring to a deep-water port in Pakistan's southwest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...74K27T20110521

[omarali50]

My understanding is that the Chinese have told the Pakistani delegation that we are the best friends in the world, we love you, our affection is taller than the Himalayas, the Pulitburo prays daily for Pakistan, but as far as budget support is concerned, it might be a good idea to apply to the IMF and Uncle Sam.
My reading of the Pakistani press (e.g. "deep state" representative Maleeha Lodhi at http://www.columnspk.com/promise-and...maleeha-lodhi/)
is that the people at the top know they have to change some policies and neither China nor Saudi Arabia is interested (or even capable) of saving their bacon if they dont make some changes....but they are having a hard time with figuring out how the narrative is to be turned around. Their own psyops people seem confused and some may have wandered off the reservation by now. Its going to be tough and I am sure if the US withdraws pressure, they would love to go back to status quo ante, but US policymakers seem (for a change) to know a bit of what they want.
Its going to be interesting to watch.

[Ray]

What exactly would it mean in real terms?

I believe the US is on the way to drawdown.