BACK IN THE USSR?
The NATO summit in Lisbon on 20th November could see the Alliance and Russia deepening cooperation on Afghanistan. Moscow and Brussels are apparently close to finalizing a deal which will include the contribution of Russian Mi-17 helicopters and crews to train Afghan pilots, increased Russian assistance in training Afghan national police, cooperation on counter-narcotics and improved transit routes through Russia for NATO forces. Some Western media have already proclaimed the deal as Russia’s return to the country after being forced to quit twenty-one years ago.
One thing should be made clear: it’s not about the Russian military’s return to Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already said that the country’s soldiers would “under no circumstances” go back there. For many Russian the war in Afghanistan is best forgotten – the country lost about 15000 soldiers there (an official figure, which many experts cast doubt). Thousands of veterans who returned home in 1989 formed a ‘lost generation’ – many of them ended up in criminal gangs after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The majority of the Russian people consider that war to be unnecessary, gloats over NATO’s misfortunes in Afghanistan and are strongly against any Russian involvement in the operation. With presidential elections due in 2012 no Russian leader, be it Vladimir Putin or Dmitry Medvedev, will dare to send Russian troops to Afghanistan. Another reason is that the Russian budget will not sustain the burdens of adventurism – a good example is the June situation in Kyrgyzstan, when even after the Osh massacre Russia refused to send troops to a country it considers to be part of its sphere of influence.
Having Russian assistance but not troops in Afghanistan could be beneficial to NATO in terms of publicity – foreign soldiers don’t generally have a good reputation in any country, but the entry of a former occupier could be particularly damaging for the tarnished image of the coalition in the eyes of Pashtuns. My personal conversations in Kabul with some former mujahedeen working now for Karzai government reveal that these people sometimes feel nostalgic for the times of the Soviet occupation, but it’s more nostalgia for their youth, not a real sympathy for shuravi.
The Kremlin’s motivations for dealing with NATO on Afghanistan are manifold. First of all, for Moscow it’s a matter of money. Selling about twenty Mi-17 helicopters and accepting the transit fees will help Moscow to patch up the holes in the budget and help its decrepit military industry. Secondly, Russia is concerned about the flow of heroin from Afghanistan’s poppy fields to its cities and wants to solve the problem with NATO’s hands. But most important is Moscow’s desire to use Afghanistan as a rapprochement platform with NATO and US to negotiate issues of vital concern with missile defense architecture in Europe to top them all.
Even this limited and very pragmatic participation may help NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. Russian-made helicopters are better adapted to Afghan conditions than their Western equivalents and more familiar to the local pilots, making the Afghan National Army more sustainable. This is crucial for the transition to Afghan control over security as part of NATO’s exit strategy. But whether this will be enough to help NATO win the war remains to be seen. Judging from British and Russian experience, no foreign power can achieve its goals by sending troops to this country. An alien military presence will always be fought in spite of the ideological package – be it either the goals of creating socialism in Afghanistan or introducing democracy.
Alexander Gabuev is a foreign policy observer at Kommersant and a tutor of Chinese politics at Moscow State University