America’s Af woes far from over, lessons for India

With the US intelligence community making a clear assessment of the capability of the al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Afghanistan to launch an attack on the US in the not-so-distant future, the clock can quickly turn back to the times when the 9/11 attacks shook the world. It also comes as no surprise that General Mark Milley, the senior-most US General, has conceded that the US had suffered a crushing defeat in the 20-year-long Afghan war. In the events that led to the ignominious US withdrawal, there were visible signs of the debilitating handling of the war by both the political and defence establishments. The military, on its part, conveniently overlooked the gradual stifling of its ability to operate and conduct professional training for the handover of security responsibility to the Afghan National Army (ANA).

The role of the military leadership in any security scenario, both in a counter-terror or conventional operations, is to be able to ensure that political and bureaucratic decision-makers are given clear and unambiguous professional opinion. In the case of the US war in Afghanistan, apparently there were multiple failures by the leadership either under pressure from political compulsions or self-serving ticket-punching by senior Generals. The similarities between the US military’s steady road downhill and the security situation in India are too stark to ignore.

Inaccurate reporting by the military leaders of the US-led coalition led to the impression being given that the military efforts in counter-insurgency (COIN) were achieving their objectives, whereas the Afghan psyche was either misread or deliberately ignored. They misread the Afghan reality of the foreign soldier being a master and the Afghans being ruled by US diktats — the peace deal and release of Taliban prisoners only exacerbated this reality. The rise of the Taliban happened as the leadership stayed in the denial mode. The US military brass did little to protest or stop the largely political interference in its duties. Accountability has not been affixed for the US withdrawal fiasco so far.

Unbridled military procurements by the US military, especially for the war on terror, led to a distinct economic opportunity for the infamous military-industrial complex to obtain a free run, ably abetted by US politicians and bureaucrats of the US Department of Defence. US logistics was handled by private contractors and along with procurements ran on an economic model fashioned by the Washington DC’s ‘Beltway bandits’ — a term used to describe the de facto heads and decision-makers of the military-industrial complex that the US defence industry is based on. A model riddled with nuanced corruption starting from the topmost rungs.

Training of the ANA by the US forces led to the infusion of large-scale funds which, however, did not translate into the ANA achieving a capability to operate independently, despite kitting out and equipping the ANA. Afghans are known to openly buy and sell weapons and the huge stockpile of US equipment and weapons, including aircraft and helicopters, were bound to be a cash cow to the average ANA soldier/commander once the coalition withdrew.

In the Indian context, the security top brass, though fully aware of the Chinese tactics of ‘two steps forward and one step back’, has been unable to break the deadlock despite numerous rounds of corps commander-level meetings. The ‘sectionised’ handling of the LAC imbroglio, rather than retaining hard-won positions of inter se dominance of the Kailash range by the military, led to loss of leverage as the comprehensive situation is still tilted in China’s favour. The Chinese have deployed large force levels along the LAC and the deployments seem to be permanent. This ground reality has forced mirror deployments by the Indian forces. The replication of the LoC (Line of Control with Pakistan)-like deployment along the LAC with China which has been alluded to by military commentators, is now a reality and will impose huge economic and manpower costs.

The slew of rapid procurements and heavy spending on developing logistic infrastructure for the forces in Ladakh has resulted in rapid procurement and checks and balances could have been bypassed in many cases.

Long-term force structuring has been given short shrift — a case in point being the jettisoning of the raising of a Mountain Strike Corps (MSC). The LAC flare-up has prompted the reassignment of one of the conventional strike corps to be restructured as MSC. The rapid induction of forces into Ladakh in April-May 2020 which was necessitated by the Chinese threat and the pandemic have adversely affected long-term training and force structuring. The recent spurt of killings and incidents in Jammu and the Valley have brought into focus the looming threat of the rejuvenation of terrorism now that the Taliban have taken over Afghanistan.

The signing of the MoU between Bhutan and China on the “three-step roadmap” for expediting the boundary negotiations and the passage of the new Chinese law to legitimise border actions pose another new challenge to the security establishment which basked in the glory of ‘India’s strong stance’ that made the Chinese blink after a 73-day stand-off between the Indian Army and the PLA at Doklam in 2017. The Indian Army has a long-term investment in Bhutan to ensure safety, which is necessitated for the security of the Siliguri corridor and links to the North-Eastern states.

The military leadership now faces a major challenge of realignment of forces on the northern borders as well as the pressure to reorganise forces into theatre commands simultaneously. A step-by-step approach by stabilising the LAC and only then attempting theaterisation after due deliberation is imperative for effective change management. This stand has to be taken by the top military leadership. It is now more than ever incumbent on India’s military not to go the US way.