The Future of Australian Defence

Recently Hugh White spoke at an event hosted by the University of Sydney Union’s Public Issues Convenors and the University of Sydney Politics Society on the topic of: ‘The Future of Australian Defence Policy, What to Expect from the 2009 White Paper’. A summary of his presentation can be found, below. 

 

Defending the Air-Sea Gap

Are Australian interests in Afghanistan significant?

 

 

 

 

“If Western forces leave, the chances that the Taliban will  recover surely grows. Now, a new Taliban regime in Kabul  may not impact Australia’s interests very much, but it is  surely a good enough moral argument for staying.”

   Sam Roggeveen

 

 

 

In this post on The Interpreter, Sam correctly indicated the moral argument for preventing a neo-fundamentalist government from regaining control of Afghanistan. However, I think realpolitik assessments are significant for Australia as well. 

First, the permeable Afghan-Pakistani border and the mixed allegiances of many influential ulama and members of Pakistan’s civil service, intelligence service and military indicates the role a Taliban ruled Afghanistan could play as a staging post and strategic reserve for forces who, drawing inspiration from a new Taliban regime in Afghanistan, may seek to  destabilise Pakistan, introduce a staunchly revivalist legal code and agitate for sectarian violence within the country. Indeed, the disputed identity of the Pakistani state was highlighted in this recent blog by David Knoll. A change in this direction, or even an increase in tensions in Kashmir (fueled, in a large part, by voluntary militias who often originate from the Afghan-Pakistani border regions and ideologically aligned madrasas across Pakistan), or increase in tensions between an Afghan government and Shi’a Iran would destabilise the West Asian region.  This would have direct consequences for Australia’s national interests: it would agitate tensions between the South Asian powers, increase the belligerency of an increasingly threatened Iran (one need only remember the treatment of Shi’a militias allied with Iran during the Taliban’s last period in power) and divert American and other great power attention away from Asia-Pacific issues we would rather them be focussed upon. Further, it would strengthen those forces within Pakistan (a significant state, even without its nuclear weapons) who agitate for an international position estranged from that of America and its allies. 

Second, while Afghanistan and some areas within Pakistan are still being used as staging posts for global Islamist movements these operations have undoubtedly been constrained by  the current coalition-led war and development of the Karzai government’s own coercive force. Further, one could plausibly assume that those militants who are being trained are increasingly directed at in-theatre operations, rather than agitation in Western China, across the Caucasus, India or South East Asia. Bin Laden did not have a deep desire to be based in remote, non-Arabic Afghanistan before September of 2001 – the marriage between his Islamist movement and the Taliban was very much one of convenience, strengthened by the discursive position of Afghanistan within the canon of global jihads.  Few other geographies were available for Al Qeada to use in the same manner which it could use Afghanistan. It is better that Al Qeada is forced to operate in a contained state, under strong Western surveillance and lethal pressures, than in an environment qualitatively closer to that of late August, 2001. 

The real question is,  (as Hugh White argued), whether the West can stop a resurgence of the Taliban after its commitment to the war weakens, be it in a year or ten. This question is highly contingent: can the West and its allies within Pakistan secure the Afghan-Pakistani border regions, precluding the Taliban from using this area as a strategic reserve and recruiting/training ground for its core militants? Presently the answer appears to be a resounding no. Recent changes in the Pakistani leadership will probably worsen the situation, as the Pakistani state’s legitimacy and capacity declines. Further, the largely unavoidable, counterproductive effects of having Western military personnel deployed and fighting in an arena within which discourses of Jihad and resistance, never mind blood fueds, have a particularly strong resonance cannot be forgotten. Finally, one needs to remember that the Taliban were not a movement indigenous to Afghanistan. Rather, they were Afghan refugees nurtured by specific religious and political leaders in Pakistan,  whose ideological and political commitment to the Taliban’s puritanical interpretation of Islam was strong and who were grounded within rural-tribal settings similar  to those of the South-Eastern Afghani Pashtun peasants, in ethnic, cultural and socio-economic terms. That this is still probably the case is indicated by the sustained sectarian violence in Pakistan, the continued strength of neo-fundamentalist Sunni madrasas and the resilience of the Taliban in the face of significant Western military pressure and campaigns to win collective hearts and minds. 

There might be another way in which Australia’s commitment to Afghanistan turns out to be in its national interest. If Obama wins the American Presidential Election, winds down Iraq and winds up Afghanistan, he is going to be searching for allies. As the Brooking Institute’s recent Afghanistan Index makes clear, Australia has thus far been a good ally. Pressure will be placed upon us to maintain this role. This will obviously come from America, however, it may also come from within Australia and our near-abroad as the Rudd government strives to maintain relative prominence in America’s halls of power so that it can focus America’s attention and guide America’s actions in fashions amenable to our interests. Despite the Rudd government’s present signals that it will not increase Australia’s Afghan commitment, the experience of the Howard government suggests these might not be definitive. Pressures, motivations and political cycles change. 

Will Clegg is Editor-in-Chief of the Rapporteur.