PEACEW RKS

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE 

PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY 

IN AFGHANISTAN

Sunil Dasgupta

[ [
Cover photos above left, Department of 

Defense; above right, Rick Gershon; below 

left, Peter Macdiarmid; below right, 

Department of Labor

The views expressed in this report are those 

of the author alone. They do not 

necessarily reflect the views of the United 

States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Peaceworks No. 86. First published 2013.

eISBN: 978-1-60127-176-1

© 2013 by the United States Institute of Peace

ABOUT THE REPORT

The United States is planning its withdrawal from 

Afghanistan as the country faces three interrelated 

challenges: a weak national state, rising Islamic radicalism 

based in Pakistan’s tribal belt, and zero-sum regional 

politics. The stage is set for a balance-of-power contest 

between India and Pakistan played out in Afghanistan 

that could fuel another civil war in the country. This 

report details the nature of the tension between India 

and Pakistan over Afghanistan and outlines steps that 

the U.S. government can take to avoid another conflict 

there. The author would like to thank Stephen P. Cohen, 

Moeed Yusuf, and three anonymous reviewers for their 

comments on earlier drafts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sunil Dasgupta is director of the University of Maryland 

Baltimore County’s political science program at the 

Universities at Shady Grove and a nonresident senior 

fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He 

teaches political science, international affairs, and security 

studies and writes on military strategy, organization, and 

operations. He is coauthor of Arming without Aiming: 

India’s Military Modernization and is presently working 

on a project investigating Chinese and Indian grand 

strategic approaches. 
Peaceworks • MAY 2013 • no. 86

CONTENTS

Introduction ... 5

Regional Approaches to the Afghanistan War ... 6

Scenario 1: A Balance-of-Power Contest in Afghanistan ... 10

Scenario 2: A Regional Peace Plan ... 15

Scenario 3: Could India Stay Out of Afghanistan? ... 17

Conclusion ... 18

[If the United States continues its drawdown in Afghanistan 

without addressing the structural challenges stemming 

from the India-Pakistan balance-of-power contest, a new 

civil war is all too likely.]

USIP.ORG 3

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

Summary

■ As the United States plans its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the country faces three 

interrelated challenges: a weak national state, rising Islamic radicalism based in Pakistan’s 

tribal belt, and zero-sum regional politics. Th e stage is set for a balance-of-power contest 

between India and Pakistan played out in Afghanistan that could fuel another civil war in 

the country.

■ India has been off ering economic and technical assistance to Afghanistan, as it sees trade 

and investment as primary drivers of international relations. As India grows as a regional 

power, a consensus has emerged among policymakers and elites that Afghanistan is of 

strategic importance and India should not cede infl uence to Pakistan. However, India is 

reticent to use military force and likely cannot create a political coalition within Afghanistan 

that could maintain stability there.

■ Pakistan has a deep connection to Afghanistan stemming from its contiguity, shared ethnic groups, and long-standing support of the Taliban. Islamabad has shown great willingness to pursue military options to achieve its security interests. Expectations that Pakistan 

will not be able to sustain a military campaign in Afghanistan are incorrect. Growing 

Indian presence in Afghanistan is likely to reduce the diff erences between radical groups 

and the Pakistan Army and give them a common cause to reenergize their alliance.

■ Th e U.S. and Afghan governments would prefer to see India and Pakistan work together. 

India-Pakistan cooperation can be minimal, where India limits its presence to the north 

while Pakistan has greater infl uence in the south. But even this minimal cooperation 

requires sizeable U.S. presence to verify and monitor the activities of the two South Asian 

rivals in Afghanistan. Maintaining signifi cant U.S. presence in Afghanistan could dampen 

the India-Pakistan competition in Afghanistan and allow the Kabul government to 

consolidate.

■ If the United States does not maintain a meaningful presence in Afghanistan to enable 

India-Pakistan cooperation, the next best alternative would be for the Obama administration to seek unilateral disengagement with the Indian and Pakistani governments. To this 

end, Washington could resume its former policy of “de-hyphenation,” whereby the United 

States and India could pursue long-term bilateral objectives, such as technology transfer, 

while Pakistan feels more secure with diminished Indian presence in Afghanistan. Unless 

the conditions underlying the contest between India and Pakistan over Afghanistan change, 

a new civil war in Afghanistan is all too likely.

USIP.ORG 5

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

Introduction

As the United States plans its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the country faces three interrelated challenges: a weak national state, rising Islamic radicalism based in Pakistan’s tribal 

belt, and zero-sum regional politics that could fuel another civil war in the country. Th e fi rst 

two issues have received considerable political and scholarly attention, but the problems of 

regional politics remain less explored, in part because of the diffi culties involved in drawing 

the region’s governments into a broad grand bargain.

Afghanistan’s political problems have always been rooted in regional politics. British 

and Russian campaigns in the past had to deal with tensions between domestic Afghan and 

regional politics; regional politics have also shaped the U.S. strategy from the start of its 

Afghan campaign. U.S. offi cials’ confrontation of the Pakistani government after the attacks 

of September 11, 2001, carried the implicit threat that the United States could join forces 

with India against Pakistan. In December 2001, India accused Pakistani groups of planning a 

terrorist attack on its parliament and threatened military reprisal. Pakistan’s army responded 

in the east, diverting its attention from apprehending Taliban and al-Qaeda fi ghters escaping 

from Afghanistan into Pakistan.1

Over the past decade, both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations have 

sought to rally the region’s other governments to help stabilize Afghanistan, but these eff orts 

have come up short. With the United States planning to draw down its troop presence by 

2014, the search for a regional settlement has intensifi ed. As the chances of a broadly inclusive political settlement with the Taliban are diminishing, the worsening security situation in 

Afghanistan risks another civil war that could allow al-Qaeda and other extremists to return 

and regroup amid the chaos. Most signifi cantly, India and Pakistan would likely take opposing 

sides in such a confl ict, raising the possibility of the civil war metastasizing into a “dirty little 

cold war,”2 with consequences reminiscent of the 1990s.

All the state actors involved—Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and the United States—have 

acknowledged that another civil war would be disastrous, but none of them appears able to 

mitigate the structural conditions in place. Th e expectation in Pakistan is that the successor to 

the government of President Hamid Karzai will not survive the challenges of the international 

drawdown in military and fi nancial assistance. Th e heavily Tajik and Uzbek composition of 

the Afghan National Army is likely to exacerbate ethnic tensions and compel Pakistan to support Pashtun groups, including the Taliban. Recognizing Pakistan’s inevitable involvement in 

Afghanistan, India has been cementing its relations with the Karzai government and the Tajik 

and Uzbek groups with whom it shares a common distrust of Pakistan. Th is makes for a starkly 

drawn prisoner’s dilemma, with Afghanistan’s and the region’s future hanging in the balance.

Th is report investigates the unfolding power contest between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan as regional actors prepare for reduced U.S. presence after 2014. Th e Central Asian 

states, Iran, China, and Russia all have important interests in Afghanistan, but the India-Pakistan rivalry is the central tension that any regional solution must address.3

 Th is report explores 

three scenarios. Th e fi rst makes a straight-line prediction from extant structural conditions of 

a balance-of-power contest after 2014. Th e second and third scenarios explore the possibilities 

for altering these structural conditions to change the nature of the contest. Th e second scenario 

examines the requirements for India-Pakistan cooperation in Afghanistan, and the third scenario explores the prospect of relieving the regional tensions through unilateral disengagement.

It may turn out to be impossible to prevent another civil war in Afghanistan. But not trying 

to mitigate the balance-of-power contest in the country would be misguided. Th e consequences 

The worsening security 

situation in Afghanistan 

risks another civil war that 

could allow al-Qaeda and 

other extremists to return 

and regroup amid the 

chaos.
6 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

6

of intensifi ed rivalry between India and Pakistan would be dramatic, diminishing the prospect 

of peace in Afghanistan and disrupting broader regional stability.

Regional Approaches to the Afghan War

When General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former president, spoke to his people on September 20, 2001, about his decision to abandon the Taliban and work with the United States in 

fi ghting terrorism, he had been worried about the possibility of a U.S.-India alliance aimed at 

Pakistan.4 Less than two months later, as India mobilized its armed forces in response to the 

December 13 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, Pakistan redeployed large numbers 

of troops from the Afghan border to the Indian border, undercutting the objective of cutting 

off al-Qaeda’s escape from Afghanistan into Pakistan.5 Th e Pakistan Army’s inability to cut 

off their fl ight was one of the greatest failures of the Afghan war.6 Th e Taliban regrouped in 

the mountains straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan and have since turned the confl ict into 

America’s longest war.

To mitigate the consequences of the zero-sum nature of regional politics, the Bush administration pursued a policy of “de-hyphenation,” so called because the United States saw 

the region mainly through the lens of the India-Pakistan rivalry and was seeking to put its 

bilateral ties with each country on separate tracks to minimize the eff ects of their mutual 

animosity toward U.S. foreign policy.7 Th us President Bush extended military and economic 

assistance to Pakistan and designated that country a major non-NATO ally. At the same time, 

he boosted India as a rising power in Asia, calling it a natural ally of the United States. Th e 

U.S. ambassador in New Delhi openly referred to India as a potential balance to China.8 India 

took the opportunity to escape its longstanding strategic parity with Pakistan, welcomed the 

notion of equivalence with China, and secured a civilian nuclear deal that legitimized India 

as a nuclear power. Meanwhile, though the Pakistan government under Musharraf acquiesced 

to the United States after September 11, supporting the U.S. war eff ort with transit access, 

logistics, and intelligence cooperation, there has been a continuous defi cit of trust ever since—

in part because Washington has implicitly threatened to ally more closely with New Delhi if 

Pakistan does not cooperate.

Nonetheless, de-hyphenation encouraged India-Pakistan détente. Under U.S. (and Western) pressure to show itself as credible partner in countering Islamic terrorism, Islamabad reduced its support for the Kashmir insurgency and redirected its military resources to fi ghting growing radicalism at home as a new movement of indigenous Taliban was emerging to 

threaten the state. Competition between India and Pakistan to sway U.S. support was reduced 

as the United States set its relations with each country on separate tracks. For a number of 

years thereafter, India-Pakistan relations improved, and the two sides almost reached a peace 

deal ending the Kashmir dispute in 2007.9

Th e de-hyphenation policy also overcame key U.S. diff erences with India and Pakistan. Th e 

United States saw—or hoped to see—reform-minded Pakistanis as willing and able to carry 

the fi ght to radical Islamists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the aftermath of the September 

11 attacks, the United States depended on the Pakistan Army (President Musharraf was also 

its chief) to support the Afghan war and perhaps transform Pakistan itself. When Musharraf 

proved unable to win over the radicals and alienated Pakistan’s general populace, Washington 

placed similar hope in Benazir Bhutto. After her assassination, the new government under her 

husband, Asif Ali Zardari, agreed to do what she had promised, and Washington kept in place 

a foreign aid package designed to strengthen Zardari and his allies. 
USIP.ORG 7

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

In the Indian view, however, the Pakistan Army and the country’s elite more generally were 

responsible for the region’s problems with Islamic radicalism. When Pakistan was able to install 

an aligned regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s, that country became the epicenter of international terrorism. Th e Pakistan-backed Taliban allowed terrorist groups—not only al-Qaeda 

but also anti-Indian outfi ts such as Lashkar-e-Taiba—to openly expand training camps in the 

country. Indian armed forces saw a rise in the number of Afghan-trained terrorists in Kashmir. 

In 1999, terrorists hijacked an Indian Airlines fl ight with 178 passengers to Kandahar. Taliban 

protection for the hijackers precluded an Indian special forces rescue, and New Delhi was forced 

to free three jailed terrorists—including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was later accused of 

killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan—to secure the release of the aircraft 

and its passengers. To Indians, preventing Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist state once 

again meant preventing Pakistan from dominating Afghan politics. Most of India’s strategic 

community still sees no diff erence between the two objectives. 

Pakistan has remained ambivalent in its support for U.S. goals in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) given its concerns about the long-term prospects of ties with the United States. Most 

Pakistanis believe that the United States will walk away from Pakistan once the Afghan war is 

over, just as it did in 1965, 1971, and 1990. All three times, the United States left Pakistan in 

the lurch—in 1965 and 1971, in the middle of wars with India, and in 1990, holding the bag 

on Afghanistan. In the past decade, Pakistanis have generally viewed the U.S. de-hyphenation 

policy, and especially the U.S.-India nuclear deal, as evidence of Washington’s real preferences 

in South Asia, where Pakistan is an ally of convenience in the war against al-Qaeda and expendable thereafter, while India is the true friend of the future. In response, Pakistan reportedly 

has expanded its fi ssile material production, seeking a nuclear off set against India’s conventional superiority.10 Pakistan’s security establishment also has held the view that radical groups, 

such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, are eff ective instruments to coerce India and any unfriendly Afghan 

government.11 Steve Coll, the author of Ghost Wars, has argued that the Pakistani security services 

began to turn away from radical groups after the Lal Masjid siege in 2007 but concludes that 

there is still “no one view” about their utility.12 Pakistan’s security establishment has distinguished 

between “good” and “bad” Islamists by targeting, for example, the Pakistani Taliban but not the 

Taliban groups fi ghting in Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba remains unfettered even after it was 

implicated in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack and is now known to be sending fi ghters to the 

Taliban’s aid in Afghanistan.13

De-hyphenation was the fi rst serious regional approach to the Afghan problem during 

the U.S. epoch in the country. Th e policy allowed the United States to fi ght the Afghan war 

with reasonable cooperation from Pakistan by seeking to alter the nature of the India-Pakistan 

relationship. India was conspicuously absent in formal political negotiations, such as the Bonn 

Conference, despite its strong interest in preventing Pakistan from installing another allied 

regime in Afghanistan. In choosing to work quietly, New Delhi was being mindful of Pakistani 

sensitivities and the complications it could cause for the United States. Th e de-hyphenation 

policy fi nally ran aground after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. Where 

the policy had sought to keep the two countries separate and allow détente to emerge, the 

attacks brought the two countries right back to distrust and hostility. Th e Pakistani government even admitted the involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba in the attacks.14 India captured one 

of the attackers and was able to track down telephone conversations between the attackers 

in Mumbai and their handlers in Pakistan. Th e United States later arrested a U.S. citizen of 

Pakistani origin who had scouted the attack locations. Th e Pakistani state had long tolerated 
8 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

Lashkar-e-Taiba. Th e only question then was the degree to which Pakistani intelligence agents 

were actively involved in the attacks.

By the time Obama became president in January 2009, the situation in Afghanistan had 

deteriorated considerably. Th e Taliban had been making a comeback in Afghanistan since 

2005. Th e Karzai government, signifi cantly dependent on the cooperation of regional warlords, 

seemed unable to prevent—or, many argue, was complicit in—the country slipping into corruption and violence. Meanwhile, the Taliban enjoyed safe havens among Pashtun tribes on the 

Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan. Starting in 2004, following a punitive foray into 

the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in 2003 and assassination attempts against 

President Musharraf, the Pakistan Army made several peace deals with Pashtun tribes that 

allowed Afghan Taliban to fi nd shelter in the FATA population. Th ese deals distinguished between the local Taliban and “foreign fi ghters,” the mostly al-Qaeda militants from outside the 

region. Redirecting state priorities away from confl ict with the Taliban eff ectively meant that 

those who were ideologically predisposed had some leeway to support the Taliban once again. 

Since the 2007 Lal Masjid siege in Islamabad, the Pakistan Army has further distinguished 

between the Afghan Taliban, who have been left undisturbed, and the Pakistani Taliban and 

other radical groups that have broken away from the state, who it continues to target.15 Th is 

distinction has increasingly infuriated U.S. offi cials and led to the concerted campaign of drone 

strikes inside Pakistan that began in 2007, which has further soured U.S.-Pakistan relations.

President Obama’s fi rst move in the region was to refocus U.S. attention on the Afghan 

war. He saw Pakistan as central to the war in Afghanistan, creating the moniker “Af-Pak” to 

capture the inseparability of the Taliban across the Durand Line, the formally disputed border 

between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Th e president’s designated new special representative, the 

late Richard Holbrooke, took this logic further when he argued that a political settlement from 

Pakistan’s perspective required Indian concessions in Kashmir.16

India rejected this out of hand, leaving Holbrooke with no option but to narrow the regional approach to Pakistan alone. In 2009, Obama decided to send thirty thousand more troops to 

Afghanistan and pushed Karzai to reform his administration, root out corruption, and deliver 

services. Most important, he announced that the United States would begin the process of 

withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011, though he kept open the possibility of continued 

U.S. military presence in the country if necessary and at the request of the Afghan government. 

With Pakistan, Obama has emphasized counterterrorism while backing strategic dialogue 

and supporting the Kerry-Lugar-Berman foreign aid package. He vastly expanded the drone 

program inside Pakistan, and his eff orts to fi nd Osama bin Laden fi nally bore fruit in May 

2011. But U.S.-Pakistan relations, already under pressure from the drone strikes and intelligence-gathering eff orts, have plummeted since the Abbottabad raid. Following a November 

2011 border incident in which twenty-four Pakistani troops died in U.S. fi re, Pakistan suspended NATO resupply convoys from the port city of Karachi going to Afghanistan. Th e supply routes were reopened after a great deal of bargaining, but U.S. offi cials now openly accuse 

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of helping the Haqqani Network, a Taliban army 

operating out of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. Recently, U.S. counterterrorism experts have 

been calling for the containment of Pakistan, with Indian help if necessary.17

Rather than turning Pakistanis against radicalism, the Obama strategy has increasingly 

put many Pakistanis on edge. According to cross-national polling by Pew and others, Pakistan 

remains one of the countries most hostile towards the United States. Th e rank and fi le of the 

Pakistan Army appears to be more enraged at the United States—and failures of its own politi-
USIP.ORG 9

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

cal and military leaders—over the Abbottabad attack than they are about bin Laden’s presence 

in their country and the possibility that parts of the Pakistani state may have been complicit. 

Th e doctor who assisted the United States in fi nding bin Laden is being tried for treason 

against Pakistan, as if he had done anything but follow the explicit statements of his country’s 

leaders to fi ght against terrorists. 

Although a negotiated end to the Afghan war may be possible, publicly available reporting 

on the political process is pessimistic about the chances of bringing to power a reconciliation 

government in Kabul at this point. Although the Obama administration has attempted to establish a negotiating channel with the Taliban, Ryan C. Crocker, who as the U.S. ambassador to 

Afghanistan was one of the offi cials tasked with pushing for talks, has spoken against inviting 

the Taliban back into power. “[If the] Taliban get back, stand by for al-Qaeda,” he told an audience at a Washington think tank in September 2012 after he returned home from his post.18

Th e strongest of the Afghan factions—among the Taliban as well as Tajik, Uzbek, and 

Hazara groups—have not been willing to compromise. To the Taliban, Karzai and his allies are 

corrupt and incompetent collaborators of the West who can be swept away quickly once foreign troops depart. Karzai himself is term-limited to 2014, and the political contest over who 

will become part of the new government could destabilize the ruling coalition itself, though it 

also presents an opportunity to accommodate the warring parties. 

In a September 2012 Carnegie report, Gilles Dorronsoro predicted that the Taliban will 

launch a full-scale off ensive in the Kabul region and to the east of the country as early as 

spring 2013.19 In November 2012, Ismail Khan, a Herati warlord, broke publicly from the 

ranks of the ruling coalition supporting Karzai by asking his followers to rearm for another 

war.20 “If the Afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, then call upon the mujahedeen,” First Vice President Mohammed Fahim, himself a powerful Tajik warlord, is reported 

to have said.21 Th e U.S. Department of Defense reported in December 2012 that the number 

of insurgent attacks did not fall in 2012, after an appreciable decline in 2011. Instead, a rise in 

so-called “green-on-blue” attacks, in which Afghan security forces have opened fi re on their 

international trainers, has become a concern, in some cases forcing the U.S. military to reduce 

training activities for the Afghan forces.

Pakistan has taken limited steps to support U.S. eff orts to engage the Taliban, recently 

releasing Taliban prisoners so they can participate in settlement talks. Th ough many Taliban 

leaders live in Pakistan, holding talks in the country has proven impossible. According to some 

reports, Taliban leaders in Pakistan willing to talk to U.S. offi cials have been detained and, in 

some cases, killed. Th e United States itself has not met one of the Taliban’s key demands regarding the release of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay facility.

Th e pressure of the 2014 pullout has prompted renewed eff orts toward a regional solution. Th ere have been growing calls for increased Indian involvement in Afghanistan.22

Larry Hanauer and Peter Chalk of RAND have argued that the United States should encourage India to develop even closer ties with Afghanistan, as India’s goals of denying safe 

havens to terrorists, projecting power in South and Central Asia, and securing access to new 

trade and energy resources in Afghanistan are consistent with Washington’s objectives and 

superior to Pakistan’s narrow security-related goals.23 On a visit to New Delhi in June 2012, 

former defense secretary Leon Panetta urged “India’s leaders to continue with additional 

support to Afghanistan through trade and investment, reconstruction and help for Afghan 

security forces.”24

According to some 

reports, Taliban leaders 

in Pakistan willing to talk 

to U.S. offi cials have been 

detained and, in some 

cases, killed.
10 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

Scenario 1: A Balance-of-Power Contest in Afghanistan

India and Pakistan are both poised for a balance-of-power competition in Afghanistan. Indians 

have responded to calls for greater participation in Afghanistan with enthusiasm.25 Even as 

India stayed away from the post-Taliban political process in Afghanistan, it quietly off ered 

economic and technical assistance almost as soon as Karzai assumed leadership of the country 

in 2001. Karzai had ties in India; he attended university there. Key members of his government 

were Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara leaders who had been part of the Northern Alliance,26 which 

India supported during the 1990s civil war that brought the Taliban to power. Th e new Afghan 

government was suspicious of Pakistan for its support to the Taliban, and India had an interest 

in checking the return of Islamabad’s infl uence in Kabul. 

Th e Indian government has persisted in Afghanistan despite being targeted by the Taliban. 

In 2005, the Taliban kidnapped and killed an Indian offi cial, which led New Delhi to send 

two hundred armed police to provide perimeter security to Indian missions in Afghanistan. In 

2007, one police offi cer died in a grenade attack in Jalalabad. In July 2008, a suicide car bomber 

struck the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing fi fty-fi ve people, including senior Indian offi cials, 

though most of the casualties were Afghan. Indian, Afghan, and U.S. offi cials have said that 

the ISI was complicit in these attacks, but Islamabad has denied involvement.

Indian diplomacy intensifi ed further following Obama’s announcement of a defi nitive 

U.S. drawdown. In October 2011, New Delhi signed a strategic partnership agreement with 

the Karzai government, opening the door for security cooperation between the two countries. 

By 2012 India had spent $1.5 billion, pledged another $500 million, and sent nearly three 

thousand people to Afghanistan to help build roads, railways, power lines, schools, and hospitals. In the summer of 2012, an Indian consortium of private and state-owned companies 

bid $6 billion for mining rights in Afghanistan. New Delhi has expressed interest in reviving 

the natural gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan to India and sponsored Afghanistan for 

membership in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). India also 

has proposed an alternate trade route to Afghanistan through Iran, causing consternation in 

Pakistan and the United States.

The New Delhi Consensus

Th e general thrust of Indian policy toward Afghanistan has remained unchanged since the 

U.S. war in Afghanistan began in 2001. Th is policy continuity is the outcome of an Indian 

consensus, which Shekhar Gupta, the editor of the Indian Express, has described below: 

Today, everybody seems to be accepting the idea that Afghanistan is of great strategic 

significance to India, and we can neither cede it to Pakistan, nor leave them to fill the 

power vacuum that the Americans will leave behind. Similarly, that this is the Great 

Game country, and we are back to the Great Game, somehow inheriting the mantle of 

the British power in the 19th century, except that we might have to deal with an additional distraction called Pakistan. Further, that Afghanistan is a resource (mineral)-rich 

land where we have future commercial stakes, and is a gateway to Central Asia, making 

transit rights of such paramount importance for us.27

Gupta rejects the consensus, but it is worth exploring the breadth and scope of Indian agreement on Afghanistan policy. First, Indian desire for a more assertive foreign policy in Afghanistan is surprising, as it breaks from the doctrine of strategic restraint that has driven the 

country’s foreign policy since its independence in 1947.28 Th e nuclear tests, a new strategic 

By 2012 India had spent 

$1.5 billion, pledged 

another $500 million, and 

sent nearly three thousand 

people to Afghanistan to 

help build roads, railways, 

power lines, schools, and 

hospitals.
USIP.ORG 11

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

partnership with the United States, and rapid economic growth raised the prospect of New 

Delhi moving toward a more assertive foreign policy, but India’s leaders have held off from 

becoming too ambitious in the region. Indian thinking on Pakistan, the country’s most urgent 

security concern, is highly divided, ranging from unilateral accommodation to the destruction 

of Pakistan, with deterrence as the median policy position in the strategic community.29

Second, the military strategic reasons for India’s foreign policy activism in Afghanistan 

seem self-evident. India does not want to see Afghanistan return to the 1990s, when the Pakistan-backed Taliban regime turned the country into a haven for anti-India terrorist groups—

quite apart from al-Qaeda. To the extent that Pakistan seeks to push its infl uence in Afghanistan, India has incentive to preclude Pakistan’s ability to sway outcomes in Kabul. Further, if 

Indian presence in and assistance to Afghanistan keeps Pakistan focused on the west, including 

keeping a large number of its forces on the Afghan border, then Islamabad will have fewer 

troops to use on the Indian border. 

Th ird, the most ambitious Indian analysts see in Afghanistan an opportunity for New 

Delhi to begin behaving like a great power—that is, breaking out of its decades-long strategic 

parity with Pakistan and projecting power in the region, eventually to counter growing 

Chinese infl uence there.30 Th ey argue that India must advocate its own doctrine of regional 

hegemony, similar to the Monroe Doctrine that the United States espoused in the nineteenth century. Afghanistan’s abundance of natural resources and the longstanding promise 

of an oil and gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India—called the TAPI—are reasons to 

hold Indian interest, especially since China is also interested in Afghan mining treasures 

and Central Asian energy.

Lastly, the consensus goes beyond the realist case; the power behind the consensus has come 

from Indian liberals who have been in power for a decade. Indian liberals, especially in the upper 

echelons of the Congress Party, remain fundamentally Nehruvian in character: Th ey are liberals 

with strong beliefs in national sovereignty.31 Th ey see trade, investment, energy, and access not only 

as primary drivers of international relations but also as activities that countries have the right to 

pursue without opposition from third countries. Th ey fi nd off ensive and illegitimate the Pakistani 

view that Indian economic and technical assistance to Afghanistan is of itself threatening, and 

they attribute it not to the Pakistani public but to a self-serving security establishment in Pakistan 

wanting to preserve its position of privilege using the bogey of an Indian threat.

Indian liberals would have no problem including Pakistan as part of Indian projects in 

Afghanistan. In addition to the TAPI, which would run through Pakistan, another Indian 

project proposes that India build a railroad network connecting Pakistan and Afghanistan.32

Since these projects would help Pakistan as well, Indian liberals cannot understand or accept 

Pakistani objections to India-Afghanistan relations. Mani Shankar Aiyar, an outspokenly liberal Indian member of parliament and onetime minister of petroleum, has forcefully argued 

that the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to India would bring about regional peace.33

Th e New Delhi consensus suggests that India will not cede Afghanistan to Pakistan without a fi ght, especially when Kabul is reciprocating. Th e Karzai government clearly sees India 

as a friend and Pakistan as a threat. Karzai has already made a concerted eff ort to secure 

Indian support to off set Pakistan pressure. Recently, Shaida Mohammed Abdali, a former 

national security offi cial and one of Karzai’s closest advisers, became ambassador in New 

Delhi. Following up from the 2011 strategic partnership agreement, Karzai himself visited 

New Delhi to sign agreements on military training and mining rights in November 2012. 
12 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

Th e New Delhi consensus may be broad, but it is also shallow. Hanauer and Chalk 

have argued that India’s larger goals in Afghanistan—embedding the nation in the regional 

economy, consolidating the state in Afghanistan, and marginalizing the Taliban—are superior to Pakistan’s narrow security objectives,34 but the disparity also implies that Islamabad 

is more motivated than New Delhi to prevail. India’s liberals have supported a forward 

policy in Afghanistan but are also the strongest advocates of the country’s strategic restraint, the great Indian hesitation to use force in pursuit of political goals.35 Indian leaders 

have avoided loose talk about the possibility of using military force in Afghanistan. Not 

even the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the right-wing nationalist political party, has suggested that an Indian military campaign in Afghanistan is feasible. Th e Indian armed forces 

do not appear to be reorganizing for a mission outside the national borders. Th e military 

and police training programs in the India-Afghanistan strategic partnership agreement 

envision training in India, not in Afghanistan. Whatever training India might do will be 

limited to relatively small numbers, not comparable to the scope of the current U.S. eff ort 

to stand up an army in Afghanistan. India is sending a clear signal regarding its hesitation 

to use military force.

By limiting its options in Afghanistan to the use of soft power, India can only hope to 

infl uence Afghan domestic politics marginally.36 Although India has close ties with the Tajiks 

in the north and good relations with a few Pashtun groups as well—especially the Karzai faction—New Delhi does not have the means to build a larger political coalition that can hold 

power in Kabul. India may be able to put together a military coalition led by Tajik militias, but 

the Tajiks do not operate in southern and eastern Afghanistan, which means realistically that 

India must limit its Afghan involvement to the safe areas of the north and the west, provoking 

the Pashtuns and their Pakistani backers. In reality, for India to realize the strategic value in 

Afghanistan, the Indian government would have to send troops to “the graveyard of empires,” 

as Afghanistan has been called so often; and afterward, New Delhi would fi nd it hard to limit 

the ensuing confl ict to its own terms. 

New Delhi may still choose to expand its presence in Afghanistan, knowing that its options 

are limited but hoping that it is better to try stanching or drawing out Pakistan than giving up 

now. Th is argument is a recipe for civil war because there is an implicit belief that India’s growing soft power can match Pakistan’s demonstrated ability to defend its interests in Afghanistan 

militarily. It generates false hope in India’s ability to infl uence outcomes in Afghanistan, when 

in fact this approach is viable only if Pakistan does not put up a fi ght.

Pakistan Is Not a Failing State

Th e strongest argument for a greater role for India in Afghanistan is predicated on a declining 

Pakistan not being able to sustain another round of competition after 2014. To think about 

what might happen in Afghanistan, therefore, we need to examine the health of the Pakistani 

state and society.

Ahmed Rashid writes that the twin embarrassments of Osama bin Laden living secretly 

in a garrison town and U.S. special forces breaching national defenses—heaped on the accumulation of misgovernance, illegitimacy, defensiveness, extremism, violence, ethnic separatism, 

external interference, and war in Pakistan—have brought the country to the very edge.37 Th e 

long-term trends appear tragic: Pakistan has a rapidly expanding population with little means 

of supporting this growth. Th e country is running out of water, food, and land. Only 57 percent 

By limiting its options 

in Afghanistan to the 

use of soft power, 

India can only hope to 

infl uence Afghan domestic 

politics marginally.
USIP.ORG 13

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

of the population can read and write, and half of its children do not go to school, in a country 

where 37 percent of the population is below the age of fi fteen.38

Th e Afghan war has generated some real setbacks for Pakistan. Th e rise of the Pakistani 

Taliban has spread the extremist challenge to well beyond the Pashtun parts of the country and 

into the Punjabi heartland, becoming the most serious threat to the polity since the 1971 civil 

war that ended in the secession of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace predicts that “every foreseeable ending to the Afghan war 

today—continued confl ict with the Taliban, restoration of Taliban control in the southern and 

eastern provinces, or a nationwide civil war—portends nothing but serious perils for Islamabad.”39

Most external predictions about Pakistan, including those from India, do not see the full 

picture of an extraordinarily diverse and variegated society. Th ose who visit Pakistan consistently report that on most days it is a normal functioning society. Karachi is a diffi cult city 

to live in, with political violence a recurrent threat, but in most respects it is not unlike other 

developing-country megacities. Th e war against terrorism is often distant, confi ned to FATA, 

Balochistan, and sometimes Peshawar. Th e state has pushed back energetically against terrorism, especially since the 2007 Lal Masjid siege in the middle of offi cial Islamabad. Terrorism 

pierces the humdrum but narrowly targets symbols of Western power and local collaboration. 

Even the picture of the formal state teetering from one crisis to another is not quite true. Pakistan’s formal institutions of governance have performed poorly in many areas but have done well in 

others. Th e current national assembly has passed more laws than in past sessions, in particular those 

protecting women and human rights. It also has passed constitutional amendments devolving 

power to the provinces, a longstanding demand. An independent election commission eff ectively 

vets electoral rolls in many parts of the country. Th e State Bank of Pakistan, the country’s central 

bank, functions with independence in setting monetary policy. Th e Motorway Police in Pakistan is 

widely seen as a model police force in the developing world. Certainly, the Pakistani press has been 

a robust check on the malfunctioning of government: Th e victory of the lawyers’ group protesting 

Musharraf’s suspension of Judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in 2007 would not have been 

possible without an oppositional media. Perhaps most important, Pakistan’s economy grew at 7 

percent a year between 2003 and 2007, suggesting that the economic downturn since 2008 has 

more to do with the decline in the international economy rather than any endogenous weakness. 

British journalist Anatol Lieven correctly argues that Pakistan looks very much like its 

counterpoint, India: “If Pakistan was an Indian state, then in terms of development, order, 

and per capita income it would fi nd itself somewhere in the middle, considerably below 

Karnataka but considerably above Bihar.”40 Pakistan’s literacy rate has been rising roughly 

at the same pace as India’s for a few decades (though India’s literacy rate is higher at 74 

percent).41 Similarly, the youth bulge in Pakistan is not a recent phenomenon. 

More generally, Pakistan’s ability to support the Taliban and provide drinking water might 

be associated but are not directly correlated. Scholars of Pakistani civil-military relations have 

argued that the country’s many domestic failures stem from the diversion of resources from 

development to defense.42 If that is the case, then Pakistan’s domestic failures have allowed the 

country to enjoy external success, especially in defending its strategic parity with India for more 

than six decades. Both Rashid and Lieven report that the Pakistan Army’s counterinsurgency 

operations in Swat were reasons for hope.

Whether Pakistanis should feel threatened by India is beside the point. Pakistan’s military 

says it feels insecure and has reacted in ways that are entirely consistent with the predictions 

of the predominant school of international relations thinking. Realist theory places greater 
14 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

salience on security imperatives than on less urgent drivers, including economic development 

and institution building. Th e theory also prioritizes immediate over long-term security threats. 

By that measure, Pakistan has responded as expected and with relative eff ectiveness. In this 

view, Pakistan’s narrow and security-related interests in Afghanistan should overmatch India’s 

broad and diff use interests. Pakistan may be a weak state by some measures, but it is not about 

to fail and will remain capable of mounting a military campaign. 

Th e real problem in Pakistan is not state failure but the balance in the relationship between 

the state and civil society. Since Max Weber, the state has been defi ned by its ability to impose 

itself on society, but the modern state has had to combat pluralism, which decries the grand 

autonomy of the state in exercising its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Pluralism 

demands that this monopoly be earned and remain contingent on the state providing public 

goods. In Pakistan, the state is pluralistic—or at least oligopolistic—and decisions about public 

goods are made outside the Weberian hierarchy of the state, both in society and the factions 

within the state apparatus. 

Th e clearest example is Pakistan’s informal economy, which has continued to grow even 

as the offi cial economy has hit the skids. Th e informal economy has been estimated to be as 

large as 50 percent of the offi cial GDP, employing three times as many workers as the formal 

sector. In 2011, while the offi cial economy grew at a sluggish 2.4 percent, demand for cars, 

cement, and other goods sharply increased, indicating sources of demand outside the documented economy.43 Meanwhile, Pakistan’s tax collections languish at less than 9 percent of its 

GDP, and no more than one million people pay income taxes.

Th e Pakistan Army has been called the state within the state,44 but it is not so much a hidden government as it is a part of a fragmented and variegated structure of power and authority 

that spans the country’s political system. Civil society groups and government agencies can 

make and pursue their own policies, leaving the formal hierarchy of the state to follow, justify, 

and sometimes recant their actions. While outsiders despair at the country’s dismal civil-military relations record, Pakistanis see the army as another political party, somewhat more honest 

than the civilian parties but also heavy-handed. When the military has failed, Pakistanis have 

protested that failure in the same way that they have protested the failures of the Pakistan 

Muslim League and the People’s Party of Pakistan. 

No regime in Pakistan, not even its military, has been able to impose broad state control 

over society. Unlike the South American military dictatorships, Pakistan’s episodic military rulers have never been able to slip into totalitarianism, capable of shutting down all dissent. Th e 

chilling quietness of Pinochet’s Santiago that Gabriel García Márquez describes in Clandestine 

in Chile is impossible to fi nd in Pakistan.45 Th e Pakistani media’s extraordinary position can 

only be understood in the context of a robust civil society that the state has not been able to 

repress. Th e fi nal triumph of illiberalism occurs when opposition becomes quiescent without 

the government needing to shed blood. Saleem Shehzad, a Pakistani journalist whose reporting had cut too close to heart of the ISI’s relationship with radicals, was murdered because he 

could not be silenced.46 Shehzad’s murder resulted in even greater protests and the pursuit of 

the causes of his death, not the fi rming up of lines journalists could not cross.47

When cohesion does not come from the state, it comes from society. Lieven writes of 

Pakistan’s weak government but strong civil society. Th e imbalance in state-society relations 

in Pakistan has meant that the state cannot consolidate, but the prospect of state failure is 

less signifi cant in a country where the government is less central to the health and functioning of the society. Th e country may be unable to achieve goals that only states can—legitiWhile outsiders despair at 

the country’s dismal civilmilitary relations record, 

Pakistanis see the army 

as another political party, 

somewhat more honest 

than the civilian parties 

but also heavy-handed.
USIP.ORG 15

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

mate the leviathan, for example—but the absence of the state has allowed Pakistani society 

to develop privately.

Th e fragmented political system, rooted in the state-society imbalance, allows contradictory policies to coexist in parallel even on national security issues. It is not surprising that Pakistan fi ghts terrorism and supports radical groups at the same time. Th e country can react with 

outrage at the attack on Malala Yousafzai but also allow the structure of extremism to continue 

to exist and believe that it exists mainly to fi ght against external threats. Th e simultaneous occurrence of the Lahore Declaration and Kargil War preparations are a case in point.48 Today, 

there are those who have pushed for open trade with India, a major step in India-Pakistan 

rapprochement, but there are others who fear active Indian presence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is neither about to collapse nor is it likely to be amenable to the kind of containment strategy being proposed against it. Pakistan’s foreign policy masters have demonstrated 

great ability to outmaneuver external pressure—unlike the leaders of North Korea and Iran, 

who have had greater diffi culty in managing foreign demands. As a country, Pakistan is integrated in the international system in a way North Korea never has been. Millions of Pakistanis 

live outside the country, especially in the Persian Gulf, and unlike most expatriate Iranians 

or Iraqis from Saddam Hussein’s regime before 2003, most Pakistanis on foreign soil are not 

disaff ected exiles with minimal ties back home but strong nationalists with continuing ties 

inside Pakistan.49

In the mid-1990s, the United States backed Pakistani assistance for the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan, and Pakistan had the support of the moneyed Saudi government.50

Th is time Pakistan is more isolated. Th is loss of external support is at the bottom of the direst 

predictions of state collapse in Pakistan. But even as the United States, Saudi Arabia, and 

others stand apart from Pakistan, they are unlikely to abandon the country entirely or be in a 

position to restrain reenergized anti-India radicalism. Th e lessons of abandonment from the 

1990s are still vivid. Pakistan today has nuclear weapons, which must be secured above all 

else, and there is no serious expectation that Pakistan can be changed from outside. It also is 

unrealistic to expect that Pakistan’s army will surrender what it thinks are its national interests 

by accommodating India’s objectives in Afghanistan. Pakistan has a clear military advantage 

in Afghanistan through its relationship with the Taliban. It could strike Indian interests there 

almost at will. If these attacks occur, India will not have any real means to defend its interests, 

especially with U.S. capacity to provide security diminishing after 2014. 

In eff ect, India can only hope to stretch Pakistan’s commitment in Afghanistan, perhaps 

pulling Islamabad further into Afghanistan. Th e New Delhi consensus and the continued viability of Pakistan’s security apparatus suggest a balance-of-power contest between the two 

countries and carry the risk of igniting the civil war in Afghanistan that all parties want to 

avoid. As Shekhar Gupta writes, contesting Afghanistan will put India “permanently and, 

inevitably, violently at odds with the Pakistanis.”51 With Afghanistan as the new point of acute 

India-Pakistan competition, the proxy war might widen. Th e Pakistan Army could decide to 

respond by renewing support to Kashmir separatists. Th e result could be increased cross-border 

shelling and perhaps another nuclear crisis. An Indian threat could also bring the radicals and 

the Pakistan Army back together after some years of a frayed relationship.

Scenario 2: A Regional Peace Plan

Th ough current developments point toward an India-Pakistan balance-of-power contest, the 

resulting proxy war is not desirable for any of the players. From the perspectives of Washington 

It also is unrealistic to 

expect that Pakistan’s 

army will surrender 

what it thinks are its 

national interests by 

accommodating India’s 

objectives in Afghanistan.
16 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

and the Afghan government, the most preferred outcome is for India and Pakistan to cooperate in Afghanistan. 

Potentially, India-Pakistan cooperation could range from the maximalist—the two states 

working together to bring peace and development—to the minimalist—a limited agreement 

not to foment another proxy war directly. At the maximalist end stands a project like TAPI. At 

the minimalist end, India could consult with Pakistan on its economic and technical assistance 

programs in Afghanistan, and Pakistan might agree to refrain from planning and assisting in 

attacks on Indian facilities in Afghanistan. In between are a number of cooperation opportunities: joint training of Afghan military and police, India limiting its Afghan engagement 

to the Northern Tajik and Uzbek areas, nonsecurity assistance, or transparent cash assistance 

programs, while Pakistan provides verifi able assurances on security.

Th e trouble with India-Pakistan cooperation, however, is that the minimalist opportunities 

are no more likely than the maximalist ones. Without some form of verifi able security assurances from Pakistan, the Indian government is unlikely to want to limit its current level of 

engagement, especially since the Afghan and U.S. governments have been encouraging greater 

Indian involvement in Afghanistan. On the Pakistani side, accepting increased Indian presence 

in Afghanistan without a compensating improvement in its long-term security and political 

concerns is tantamount to surrender. Even if a Pakistani government were willing to accept 

this loss, key factions in the society and the state might not be willing to do so, especially if it 

hurts their parochial interests.

Th e history of India-Pakistan peace eff orts shows that incremental steps to build trust, such 

as bus and train transport links or Pakistan according most-favored nation status to India, have 

not accumulated. Th e few instances of progress have come from breakthroughs at the top—no 

one else seems to have the authority to conclude meaningful agreements—but these highprofi le initiatives have been vulnerable to violence on both sides of the border. Th e Kargil War 

and the Mumbai attacks were dramatic examples of how India-Pakistan peace processes could 

be derailed. In Pakistan, the continued problems in Kashmir and Gujarat have fed beliefs about 

India as an anti-Muslim Hindu state that must be fought. 

India and Pakistan could agree on a degree of cooperation only if the United States decided 

to remain in Afghanistan with numbers of troops large enough to mitigate the stark prisoner’s 

dilemma game unfolding in the region. Signifi cant numbers of U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan well into the future would tamp down regional competition in Afghanistan, give the 

Afghan government time to consolidate, and allow India and Pakistan to restart their peace 

process. Th e U.S.-Afghanistan strategic agreement holds open the possibility of continued U.S. 

military presence, but the United States is war weary. Anything more than a token presence 

after 2014 will be hard to justify absent a major reversal. 

Obama and Karzai met in Washington in January 2013 to discuss a residual U.S. troop 

presence, but no announcement has been forthcoming. Politically, the 2012 presidential 

campaigns showed bipartisan support for bringing the troops back home by 2014, although 

some professional foreign policy and military circles appear to favor staying on.52 Kimberly 

Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan argue that the United States should keep as many as thirty 

thousand troops in Afghanistan.53 General John Allen, the departing Afghanistan theater 

commander, proposed three scenarios with a maximum of twenty thousand troops.54 General 

David Barno (a former U.S. commander in Afghanistan) and Matthew Irvine have written 

that the United States could protect its interests with ten thousand troops or less.55 In his 

2013 State of the Union address, Obama said that another thirty-four thousand troops will 

Signifi cant numbers of 

U.S. troops remaining in 

Afghanistan well into the 

future would tamp down 

regional competition in 

Afghanistan, give the 

Afghan government time 

to consolidate, 

and allow India and 

Pakistan to restart their 

peace process.
USIP.ORG 17

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

leave Afghanistan in February 2013 but made no mention of how many troops are likely to 

remain behind. Th e New York Times and Th e Washington Post have reported independently 

that the Pentagon is now considering eight thousand troops, but the White House is thinking of numbers as low as three thousand, dropping to one thousand by 2017.56

Continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan is probably the best outcome for India and, 

arguably, for Pakistan as well. U.S. presence would provide the security umbrella under 

which New Delhi could continue to pursue its relations with Kabul without having to 

worry about confronting Pakistan directly. India’s return to Afghanistan in 2002, and the 

subsequent expansion of Indian diplomacy in Afghanistan, occurred under the protection 

of U.S. military presence. Pakistan would favor continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan 

if it could get Washington to curtail the drone strikes to the targets it wants and the recriminations about ISI support for the Haqqani Network. Ideally, for Pakistan, continued 

U.S. presence in Afghanistan would spare it the security burden of fi ghting radicalism. In a 

post-U.S. Afghanistan, if the Taliban consolidated itself, Pakistan would be the next target 

for radicalism. Perhaps the Afghan government itself would see the most benefi ts from 

continued U.S. presence; whether or not this might change Karzai’s willingness to accommodate challengers, it would certainly mean a smoother succession in Kabul, reducing the 

likelihood of Karzai following Najibullah to the end.

Scenario 3: Could India Stay Out of Afghanistan?

If the United States does not stay on, the prospect of a balance-of-power contest and 

possibly a proxy war similar to that of the 1990s rises.57 Th e only option left under these 

conditions might be to ask India to stay out of Afghanistan in an eff ort to assuage Pakistan’s security concerns and bring it into a peace process that allows a modicum of peaceful 

withdrawal for the United States while altering the nature of the India-Pakistan rivalry. 

New Delhi wants to be involved in Afghanistan precisely to undermine Pakistani infl uence and thereby break out of its rivalry with Pakistan. Pakistan impedes India’s access to 

Central Asian energy sources, since any pipeline must pass through that country, and the 

only other route for the gas—through Iran and then shipped in container ships to India—is 

subject to U.S. sanctions on foreign investment in Iran. Th at India has benign goals in Afghanistan, therefore, should hardly matter to Pakistan. If the consequence of India’s policy 

in Afghanistan is to mitigate Pakistani infl uence in that country, no matter what the intent, 

why should Islamabad support the eff ort?

Gupta argues that Afghanistan is strategically more important for Pakistan than for India. Pakistan has a long and troubled border with Afghanistan. Th e movement of refugees 

and goods as well as drugs and guns makes the region restless where the Pakistan Army is 

fi ghting a full-on counterinsurgency campaign. In contrast, he writes, Afghanistan is not an 

important trade partner of India. Afghanistan has never sent terrorists to India. No Afghan 

ethnic group has mounted an attack on India, nor has the Pashtun belt in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan been used to plan any attack on India.58

As the United States withdraws, and in the absence of any regional understanding, 

India’s aid projects in Afghanistan will become vulnerable to attack by Pakistan-backed 

Taliban. New Delhi has deployed small numbers of paramilitary forces purely for perimeter defense of a few key installations in Afghanistan, but there are no indications that the 

Indian government will send more troops to the country.

In a post-U.S. Afghanistan, 

if the Taliban consolidated 

itself, Pakistan would be the 

next target for radicalism.
18 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

India’s withdrawal from Afghanistan would not be without risk. It would embolden the 

Taliban and, more important to India, embolden Pakistan, potentially encouraging Pakistan to pursue aggressive gains. Th e greatest danger for the United States is the return of the 

Taliban, bringing al-Qaeda in its wake; for India, the Taliban’s return to power, with or without 

al-Qaeda, is cause for concern given the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s reported ties with the Taliban.59

Inside Afghanistan, Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara political leaders are likely to object violently to 

the return of the Taliban on Pakistan’s back, potentially resulting in the civil war that, again, all 

actors want to avoid.

Some of the risks are unavoidable or no worse than what the current trajectory suggests, 

but India withdrawing from the situation in Afghanistan could alter a key structural condition in Afghanistan. If Pakistan’s Afghan policy is refracted through its India lens, then Islamabad should welcome removing the prism. Th e Pakistan Army then may not want the Taliban 

to take power in Afghanistan, fearing the emboldening eff ect it might have on the Pakistani 

Taliban.60 Conversely, growing Indian presence in a post-U.S. Afghanistan would off er the 

Pakistan Army and radical groups another cause to energize their alliance.

Pakistan’s direct interest, relations, and leverage in Afghanistan surpass that of every 

other country except the United States. With U.S. troops withdrawing, Pakistan is poised 

to be the most powerful external actor in Afghanistan. Pakistan has now won three victories against the former Soviet Union, the Iran-Russia-India combination backing the 

Northern Alliance, and now, the United States. Th ese victories have come at a tremendous 

cost. Pakistan itself has become more violent and less stable, though not to the point of 

failure. Pakistan’s rivalry with India has remained largely in place as past peace eff orts have 

failed. Th ese structural imperatives are unlikely to change soon, but as Afghanistan slides 

into another civil war and India-Pakistan relations worsen as a result of their competition 

there, the possibility of an Indian withdrawal should be considered as one way of defusing 

the rising tensions.

As New Delhi is likely to resist a policy of surrender to Pakistan, the United States should 

return to its de-hyphenation policy from the mid-2000s that emphasized Indian acquisition 

of U.S. technology. Th e U.S. Defense Department has been working with the Indian government to develop closer ties, but the initiative requires presidential and congressional guidance, 

especially on export controls, about which India is particularly sensitive. An emphasis on 

codevelopment of new weapons systems could reduce the eff ects of the technology export 

controls. A signifi cant part of the problem lies in India, where broken military research and 

development and procurement systems stymie progress.

For their part, the Afghans are likely to resist being left to Pakistan. Karzai has assiduously 

cultivated a relationship with India, and New Delhi has close ties to Tajik leaders, who are unlikely to see intervention against India’s engagement in benign terms. However, if Pakistan can 

be convinced of an Indian withdrawal or even limited disengagement, it could be the best hope 

that the Taliban will not receive direct ISI assistance should it launch off ensives northward. 

Th e diff erent groups within Afghanistan might be more well balanced in that case, and with 

the benefi t of continued Western fi nancial assistance, the Afghan government can have some 

hope of outmatching the resources available to the spoilers.

Conclusion

If the United States continues its drawdown in Afghanistan without addressing the structural 

challenges stemming from the India-Pakistan balance-of-power contest, a new civil war is 

If Pakistan can be 

convinced of an Indian 

withdrawal, it could be the 

best hope that the Taliban 

will not receive direct ISI 

assistance should it launch 

offensives northward. 
USIP.ORG 19

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

all too likely. Th ere are generally two ways to alter this structural reality: Pakistan could agree 

to expanded Indian presence in Afghanistan as part of a regional peace plan, or India could 

withdraw from Afghanistan to assuage Pakistan’s security concerns. Th ere are other variations 

on these two themes, but any real eff ort to resolve the problem must embrace the logic of one 

of the two choices.

Th e possibility of a regional peace plan currently looks slight but potentially promising in 

the context of the debate over how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after 2014. If 

Washington and Kabul agree on a relatively larger troop presence, India and Pakistan would 

have more time to build on their own bilateral peace process, which could include an arrangement on Afghanistan. One possibility is that India could restrict itself to the Northern nonPashtun areas, leaving southern and eastern Pashtun regions as a Pakistani sphere of infl uence. 

In this scheme, Kabul, secured by an international force, could serve as a buff er. If Washington 

and Kabul agree on keeping only a small contingent of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, we should 

expect minimal cooperation. 

Th e problem is that the chances of the United States agreeing to have its troops stay 

on in signifi cant numbers are diminishing. Th ough there is growing belief among professional foreign policy and military experts that the United States may have to remain 

longer in Afghanistan, Obama seems politically and personally committed to bringing 

home all but a handful of troops. Public opinion polling on the subject widely backs 

withdrawal. Th e polling numbers may change if U.S. leaders make the case that the situation has changed and a longer stay is warranted, but such appeals have been rare. Th e 

dissolution of the “Af-Pak” offi ce will present additional bureaucratic challenges as the 

State Department absorbs its functions. With responsibility for India and Pakistan in the 

Defense Department separated into the Pacifi c and Central Commands, policy coordination will be diffi cult to maintain.

A reduced U.S. presence and lack of India-Pakistan agreement will require a signifi cant 

shift in thinking in Washington and New Delhi. An attempt to balance India’s and Pakistan’s 

engagement in Afghanistan is not likely to lead to peace, because there is no balance: India 

has superiority in soft power, and Pakistan has clear military advantage. A direct confrontation between soft and hard power results in only one outcome—military victory—which is 

why advocates of soft power see it as working in the background, as an embedded rather than 

instrumental capacity.61

Th e Indian consensus on Afghanistan is limited; there is no mainstream support for Indian military intervention in the country. Without military force—in the absence of U.S.-

provided security—the Indian presence in Afghanistan remains vulnerable to Pakistanbacked Taliban attacks. India’s Afghan allies might be able to provide some security, and 

New Delhi may boost these eff orts by supplying weapons, but this leads to the civil war no 

one wants. Th e United States taking the lead in developing a new Afghan policy, however, is 

tantamount to a U.S. return, which the American public does not want. Without continued 

American support, though, the Indian position in Afghanistan is tenuous. 

A clearer vision in Washington could change the situation. Th e problem in Afghanistan 

has changed. Al-Qaeda, as an organization, has transformed from a centrally controlled unit 

to a networked enterprise with diff erent groups aligning themselves to it from time to time. 

Its members no longer seek to congregate in Afghanistan; al-Qaeda has a center of gravity— -

it is in Pakistan.62
20 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

Th e United States is shifting its focus from Afghanistan to Pakistan, but without resolving the structural conditions in Afghanistan, it is likely to have to return. Today, the 

situation in Pakistan is the most diffi cult foreign policy challenge a U.S. president has 

faced since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis because external actors—the United States, the 

United Nations, Europe, Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, and certainly India—have very little 

leverage in the country. Outsiders can get Pakistan to deliver on short-term objectives, 

such as allowing NATO convoys to transit, but only Pakistanis can bring about long-term 

change in the nature of the state and national identity—and Pakistanis, for their own and 

sometimes understandable reasons, do not want to do it yet.
USIP.ORG 21

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

Notes

1. There are other reasons for Osama bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora into Pakistan. U.S. military 

commanders have been criticized for using Afghan militias in the battle of Tora Bora, as the militias 

have been accused of incompetence and corruption. See “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get 

Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today: A Report to Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

United States Senate,” 111th Congress, November 30, 2009, available at www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/

media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

2. The term is from Shekhar Gupta, “Get Out, Leave Af to Pak,” Indian Express, November 21, 2011, available 

at www.indianexpress.com/news/get-out-leave-af-to-pak/877841/0 (accessed March 10, 2013).

3. Other regional approaches include the Istanbul Process led by Turkey, the New Silk Road Initiative 

launched by the United States under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and a proposed Six 

Power Dialogue, which would include Pakistan, India, Iran, China, Russia, and the United States. Lakhdar 

Brahimi, the UN secretary-general’s special representative to Afghanistan and one of the key architects of 

the Bonn Conference in December 2001 that chose Hamid Karzai as the new leader of Afghanistan, has 

emphasized repeatedly the importance of regional approaches to stabilizing Afghanistan.

4. Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), 203. See also Associated Press, 

“Musharraf’s Book Says Pakistan Faced U.S. ‘Onslaught’ If It Didn’t Back Terror War,” USA Today, September 

26, 2006, available at http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09-25-pakistan-memoir_x.htm 

(accessed March 10, 2013).

5. Polly Nayak, “Reducing Collateral Damage to Indo-Pakistani Relations from the War on Terrorism,” Policy 

Brief no. 107, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, September 2002, available at www.brookings.

edu/research/papers/2002/09/southasia-nayak (accessed March 10, 2013).

6. See “Tora Bora Revisted.”

7. See Ashley J. Tellis, “The Merits of Dehyphenation: Explaining U.S. Success in Engaging India and 

Pakistan,” Washington Quarterly, vol. 31, no. 4 (2008), 21–42, available at http://csis.org/files/publication/

twq08autumntellis.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013). President Clinton initially began the process of 

decoupling U.S. relations with India and Pakistan in 1998; see Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, 

Democracy, and the Bomb (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004). 

8. Robert D. Blackwill, “Why is India America’s Natural Ally?” The National Interest, December 3, 2004, 

http://nationalinterest.org/article/why-is-india-americas-natural-ally-2764 (accessed March 10, 2013).

9. The chronology here is collapsed for the purposes of this report, but the India-Pakistan rapprochement 

occurred between 2004 and 2007, and it was only after the Lal Masjid siege in July 2007 that the Pakistan 

government finally became serious about fighting radicalism at home. However, the planners of the Mumbai 

attacks in November 2008 did not stop. On India-Pakistan rapprochement and its failure, see Steve Coll, 

“The Back Channel,” The New Yorker, March 2, 2009. On Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, see John 

Schmidt, The Unraveling: Pakistan in the Age of Jihad (New York: Picador, 2012).

10. Shakil Sheikh, “Pakistan Vows to Maintain Credible N-Deterrence,” The News, April 13, 2006.

11. See Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba (New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2011), chapter 3.

12. See interview with Steve Coll by Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7’s Walk the 

Talk, May 17, 2012, available at www.indianexpress.com/olympics/news/-india-s-security-problems-aregraver-than-america-s-in-relation-to-jehadi-terrorism-/573089/1 (accessed March 10, 2013).

13. Tankel, Storming the World Stage, chapters 8 and 9.

14. The Pakistani government has charged seven persons, including the Lashkar operations commander, 

Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi, for the Mumbai attacks, but the judicial process remains stalled.

15. Coll interview, May 17, 2012.

16. Holbrooke’s logic is evident in Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid’s argument that Pakistan’s Afghan and 

Kashmir border problems had to be tackled together. See Rubin and Rashid, “From Great Game to 

Grand Bargain,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2008), available at www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/64604/barnett-r-rubin-and-ahmed-rashid/from-great-game-to-grand-bargain?page=show 

(accessed March 10, 2013). 

17. Bruce Riedel, “A New Pakistan Policy: Containment,” New York Times, October 14, 2011, available at www.

nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/a-new-pakistan-policy-containment.html (accessed March 10, 2013).

18. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker’s speech on Afghanistan at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 

Washington, DC, September 17, 2012, available at www.carnegieendowment.org/files/091712_transcript_crocker1.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).
22 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 86

19. See Gilles Dorronsoro, Waiting for the Taliban in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace, September 2012), available at www.carnegieendowment.org/files/waiting_for_

taliban2.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

20. Graham Bowley, “Afghan Warlord’s Call to Arms Rattles Officials,” New York Times, November 12, 2012, 

available at www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/world/asia/ismail-khan-powerful-afghan-stokes-concern-inkabul.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed March 10, 2013).

21. Graham Bowley and Jawad Sukhanyar, “Bomber Strikes Near NATO Office in Afghanistan,” New York 

Times, September 8, 2012, available at www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/world/asia/in-kabul-suicide-bomberstrikes-near-nato-headquarters.html (accessed March 10, 2013).

22. See Richard Fontaine, “We Need an Indian Civilian Surge,” Foreign Policy, November 4, 2010, available at 

www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/04/we_need_an_indian_civilian_surge?page=0,0 (accessed March 

10, 2013). 

23. Larry Hanauer and Peter Chalk, “India’s and Pakistan’s Strategies in Afghanistan: Implications for the 

United States and the Region,” Occasional Paper, RAND Corporation, Center for Asia Pacific Policy, Santa 

Monica, CA, 2012, available at www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2012/RAND_

OP387.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

24. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, “The U.S. and India: Partners in the 21st Century,” speech at 

the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, India, June 6, 2012, available at www.defense.

gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1682 (accessed March 10, 2013).

25. Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, “Remarks by Foreign Secretary at a Round Table 

during a Regional Conference on ‘Peace and Stabilization in Afghanistan: What Can Neighbours 

Contribute?’ Organised by Delhi Policy Group,” July 19, 2012, available at http://202.131.117.199/

MEAFinal/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/20250/Remarks+by+Foreign+Secretary+at+a+Round+Table+

during+a+regional+conference+on+Peace+and+Stabilization+in+Afghanistan+What+can+neighbours+cont

ribute+organised+by+Delhi+Policy+Group (accessed March 10, 2013).

26. For a good description of the Northern Alliance, see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and 

Fundamentalism in Central Asia, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

27. Gupta, “Get Out.”

28. Stephen P. Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming: India’s Military Modernization (Washington, 

DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010).

29. Stephen P. Cohen, Shooting for a Century, forthcoming manuscript, Chapter 3.

30. Harsh V. Pant, “India’s Changing Role: The Afghanistan Conflict,” Middle East Quarterly (Spring 2011), 

39, available at www.meforum.org/meq/pdfs/2895.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

31. For an update of Nehruvian foreign policy, see Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Lt. Gen. 

(Retd.) Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran, and Siddharth Varadarajan, 

“Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-First Century,” Center for 

Policy Research, New Delhi, available at www.cprindia.org/sites/default/files/NonAlignment%202.0_1.

pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

32. Heather Timmons, “Can India ‘Fix’ Afghanistan?” India Ink, NYTimes.com, June 7, 2012, available at 

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/can-india-fix-afghanistan/ (accessed March 10, 2013).

33. F.S. Aijazuddin, “The Uninterruptible Spokesman,” Dawn, May 31, 2012, available at http://dawn.

com/2012/05/31/the-uninterruptible-spokesman/ (accessed March 10, 2013).

34. Hanauer and Chalk, Strategies in Afghanistan, xi.

35. Cohen and Dasgupta, Arming Without Aiming. See also Sunil Dasgupta, “The Fate of India’s Strategic 

Restraint,” Current History, April 2012, available at www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/articles/

2012/4/india%20dasgupta/04_india_dasgupta (accessed March 10, 2013).

36. Pant, “India’s Changing Role,” 33–36.

37. Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (New York: Viking, 

2012), chapters 1 and 2.

38. Ibid, 13.

39. Ashley J. Tellis, “Pakistan’s Impending Defeat in Afghanistan,” Commentary, Carnegie Endowment for 

International Peace, June 22, 2012, available at http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/06/22/pakistan-simpending-defeat-in-afghanistan/c6sn (accessed March 10, 2013).

40. Anatol Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country (London: Allen Lane, 2011), 21.

41. Munir Ahmed Choudhry, “Pakistan: Where and Who Are the World’s Illiterates?” background paper 

prepared for Literacy for Life, UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006, 2006/

ED/EFA/MRT/PI/22, available at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001459/145959e.pdf 

(accessed March 10, 2013). On Indian literacy, see Census India 2011, “State of Literacy,” available at 

www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/india/Final_PPT_2011_chapter6.pdf 

(accessed March 10, 2013).
USIP.ORG 23

REGIONAL POLITICS AND THE PROSPECTS FOR STABILITY IN AFGHANISTAN

42. Ali Cheema, Presentation at the Fifteenth Sustainable Development Conference, Panel on Civil-Military 

Imbalance and Its Policy Implications. Islamabad, Pakistan, December 11, 2012.

43. Naween Mangi, “The Secret Strength of Pakistan’s Economy,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 5, 2012, available at www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-05/the-secret-strength-of-pakistans-economy#r=auth-s 

(accessed March 10, 2013). There are other estimates of the informal economy as well: The Asian 

Development Bank estimates it to be larger than a third of the country’s official GDP, which is also reported 

in the Mangi story. Economists at the State Bank of Pakistan estimate the informal economy has been 

shrinking from a high point in the 1990s and is today less than 30 percent of the official economy. 

Muhammad Farooq Arby, Muhammad Jahanzeb Malik, and Muhammad Nadim Hanif, “The Size of 

Informal Economy in Pakistan,” Working Papers no. 33, State Bank of Pakistan, May 2010.

44. The term is widely used in academic literature. See Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military 

Economy (London: Pluto Press, 2007). Former Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani used the term 

in a December 2011 speech. See “Pakistan: PM Gilani Denies He Is to Sack Army Chief,” BBC News, 

December 26, 2011, available at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16334437 (accessed March 11, 2013).

45. Gabriel García Márquez, Clandestine in Chile: The Adventures of Miguel Littin (New York: New York Review 

Books Classics, 2010).

46. Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt, “Pakistan’s Spies Tied to Slaying of a Journalist,” New York Times, July 4, 2011, 

available at www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/world/asia/05pakistan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (accessed 

March 10, 2013). Although the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that Pakistan was one of the ten 

deadliest countries for journalists in 2012, there does not seem to have been a let-up in the journalistic vigor 

in spite of the dangers. See Committee to Protect Journalists, “Pakistan,” available at www.cpj.org/asia/

pakistan/ (accessed March 12, 2013).

47. Media protests forced Prime Minister Gilani to set up a judicial commission to investigate Shehzad’s death.

48. On concurrence, see Jyoti Malhotra, “Atal to Nawaz—Why Kargil after Lahore?” Indian Express, August 27, 

1999, available at www.expressindia.com/news/ie/daily/19990827/ige27001.html (accessed March 10, 2013).

49. Udo Kock and Yan Sun, “Remittances in Pakistan—Why Have They Gone Up, and Why Aren’t They 

Coming Down?” Working Paper WP/11/200, International Monetary Fund, August 2011, www.imf.org/

external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11200.pdf (accessed March 10, 2013).

50. Rashid, Taliban.

51. Gupta, “Get Out.”

52. President Obama campaigned on bringing the troops back home by 2014, and Mitt Romney agreed with 

the timetable, despite some of his foreign policy advisers having advocated against an early pullout. For the 

views of professional diplomats, see Crocker’s speech, September 17, 2012.

53. Kimberly Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan, “Why U.S. Troops Must Stay in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, 

November 23, 2012, available at http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-23/opinions/35511014_1_

eastern-afghanistan-predator-drones-special-mission-units (accessed March 10, 2013).

54. Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt, “Afghan War Commander Gives Options for After ’14,” New York 

Times, January 2, 2013, available at www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/world/middleeast/afghan-warcommander-gives-options-for-after-2014.html (accessed March 10, 2013).

55. David Barno and Matthew Irvine, “How to Fight in Afghanistan with Fewer U.S. Troops,” Washington Post, 

November 30, 2012, available at http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-30/opinions/35585449_1_

afghan-troops-afghan-force-afghanistan (accessed March 10, 2013).

56. Michael R. Gordon and Mark Landler, “Decision on Afghan Troop Levels Calculates Political and 

Military Interests,” New York Times, February 12, 2013, available at www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/us/

politics/obama-to-announce-troops-return.html?_r=2& (accessed March 10, 2013); Rajiv Chandrasekaran, 

“Obama Wants to Cut Troop Level in Afghanistan in Half over Next Year,” Washington Post, February 

12, 2013, available at www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/official-obama-to-cut-trooplevel-in-afghanistan-in-half-by-next-year/2013/02/12/63a044c8-7536-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_story.

html (accessed March 10, 2013).

57. For a discussion of the consequences of the United States leaving Afghanistan early, see Frederick W. Kagan, 

“A Case for Staying the Course,” in Hy Rothstein and John Arquilla, eds., Afghan Endgames (Washington, 

DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012), 97–100.

58. Gupta, “Get Out.”

59. As Ambassador Crocker points out, the real danger is the Taliban and al-Qaeda returning together. See his 

speech, September 17, 2012.

60. Bruce Riedel, “A New Pakistan Policy: Containment,” New York Times, October 14, 2011, available at www.

nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/a-new-pakistan-policy-containment.html (accessed March 10, 2013).

61. See Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Soft Power,” Foreign Policy, no. 80 (Autumn 1990), 153–171, available at www.jstor.

org/stable/1148580 (accessed March 10, 2013).

62. Yemen and Mali are other countries in which the United States believes al-Qaeda members are 

congregating.

 5

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan 

institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to 

help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict 

peacebuilding, and increase conflict management tools, capacity, and 

intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering 

others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, D.C. • 

George E. Moose (Vice Chair), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The George 

Washington University, Washington, D.C. • Judy Ansley, Former Assistant 

to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under George W. 

Bush, Washington, D.C. • Eric Edelman, Hertog Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C. • Joseph Eldridge, University Chaplain 

and Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of International Service, 

American University • Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy 

Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. Khan, 

President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC, Las Vegas, Nev. • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, Stanford 

University, Palo Alto, Calif. • John A. Lancaster, Former Executive Director, International Council on Independent Living, Potsdam, N.Y. • Jeremy 

A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, Va. • Judy 

Van Rest, Executive Vice President, International Republican Institute, 

Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership 

Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

MEMBERS EX OFFICIO

John Kerry, Secretary of State • Kathleen Hicks, Principal Deputy Under 

Secretary of Defense for Policy • Gregg F. Martin, Major General, U.S. 

Army; President, National Defense University • Jim Marshall, President, 

United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
2 Looking for Justice UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE • 2301 CONSTITUTION AVE. NW • WASHINGTON, DC 20037 • USIP.ORG 

As the United States plans its withdrawal from Afghanistan, 

the stage is set for a balance-of-power contest between 

India and Pakistan that could fuel another civil war in the 

country. This report details the nature of the tension 

between India and Pakistan over Afghanistan and outlines 

steps that the U.S. government can take to avoid another 

conflict there. 

Related Links 

■ Pakistan and the Narratives of Extremism by Amil Khan (Special Report, 

March 2013)

■ Fixing Pakistan’s Civil-Military Imbalance: A Dangerous Temptation by 

Moeed Yusuf (Peace Brief, May 2012)

■ Myths and Misconceptions in the Afghan Transition by Shahmahmood 

Miakhel and Noah Coburn (Peace Brief, April 2012)

■ The Politics of Dispute Resolution and Continued Instability in Afghanistan by 

Noah Coburn (Special Report, August 2011)

■ Optimism and Obstacles in India-Pakistan Peace Talks by Stephanie 

Flamenbaum and Megan Neville (Peace Brief, August 2011)

■ Pakistan, the United States and the End Game in Afghanistan: Perceptions of 

Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Elite by Moeed Yusuf, Huma Yusuf, and Salman 

Zaidi (Peace Brief, July 2011)

■ The Quest for Nuclear Disarmament in South Asia: A Reality Check by Moeed 

Yusuf and Ashley Pandya (Peace Brief, August 2010)

PEACEWORKS • MAY 2013 • NO. 86