Tillerson’s Trip & the new Great Game (FB Ali)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hasn’t travelled the world anywhere as much as his predecessor, Hilary Clinton; she covered almost a million miles! That is why his recent trip to South Asia excited some attention. It also brought into focus the new Great Game being played in South and Central Asia. In this new version, the United States has replaced Great Britain while, in addition to Russia, China has also become a player on the board.

Secretary Tillerson’s trip began at Al Udeid, the US base in Qatar. He and his staff donned helmets and flak jackets, and boarded a military C-17 plane. Flying in less than first-class comfort, they stoically endured the ride, including the standard deep dive onto Bagram airbase. From the plane they were quickly rushed (driving through high concrete blast walls) to the US HQ in a former prison on the base, while helicopters patrolled the perimeter and two security blimps equipped with long-range cameras hovered above.

Unable to risk the short trip into Kabul, Tillerson met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and others, including chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, in a windowless room on the base, while US troops stood guard outside. The communiqués issued by the US and Afghan governments after this meeting included the obligatory picture of the two leaders in their meeting. Unfortunately, these pictures resulted in more attention being paid afterwards to the mystery of the vanishing clock on the wall, than to any substantive results from the meeting.

The picture issued by the US shows a standard US military clock on the wall behind the two men, from which it can be inferred that the meeting took place at the Bagram Airbase. In the one issued by the Afghan presidential office, the clock has mysteriously vanished. It seems Mr Ghani didn’t want it widely known that the Americans didn’t consider it worthwhile for Secretary Tillerson to travel outside the safety of the US base in Bagram.

Finally, duty done (and pictures taken), Secretary Tillerson safely left Afghanistan after a total visit of all of two hours. As the New York Times commented on the visit: That top American officials must sneak into this country after 16 years of war, thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars spent was testimony to the stalemate confronting the United States because of a stubborn and effective Taliban foe that is increasingly ascendant.

Afghanistan is usually referred to as a country, whereas it is, in fact, just a land of tribal groups. The two main ones are the Pashtuns (concentrated in the South and overflowing into Northern Pakistan) and what may be called the Northerners (mainly Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek tribes). The Taliban draw their strength from the Pashtuns, while the Northerners formed the bulk of the force that, with US assistance, ousted the Taliban from power during the US-led invasion of 2001.

What is now being painted (especially in the Western media) as a Taliban insurgency against the legal government of Afghanistan is in fact a civil war between the Northerners and the Pashtuns. The US and NATO are supporting one side in this civil war, while the Pashtuns of Pakistan (unofficially aided by their government) are supporting their brethren in Afghanistan. President Ashraf Ghani is a Pashtun heading a puppet government in which the real power lies with the Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, a Northerner. The vast majority of the Afghan Special Forces, who are leading the fight against the Taliban, are Northerners. It is these Special Forces that the US is supporting with its SF troops and air power.

Pakistan’s rivalry with, and fear of, India also determine its policy on Afghanistan. Pakistan has no love for the Taliban as such; in fact, it fought and eradicated the movement (with the same name and the same ideology) that spread among the Pashtuns of Pakistan in 2007. But, it knows that the Northerners have the support of India, and their victory in the ongoing Afghan civil war would create the hostile encirclement it fears. Hence it is supporting the Afghan Taliban in their war against the Northerners (even though it does not officially acknowledge this).

After his short Afghanistan visit, Secretary Tillerson stopped for a few hours in Pakistan on his way to India. In meetings with Pakistani political and military officials, he hammered home the need for Pakistan to change its regional policies. According to former Indian ambassador Bhadrakumar, the US wants Pakistan “to leverage its influence with the Taliban to show flexibility” in their demand for US troops to leave Afghanistan, because the US needs to maintain “an open-ended military presence in the hugely strategic region for the pursuit of its containment strategy against China, Russia and Iran”.

The Pakistanis politely heard out these admonitions, but merely reiterated their standard stance of being against all terrorists, and having no links with, or influence upon, the Taliban. Both sides were well aware of the underlying reality, namely, that nearly all of the supplies for US troops in Afghanistan are transported by air or land through Pakistani territory, making the US dependent on Pakistan, rather than the other way around.

Pakistan has for long been an on-again, off-again US ally. But as the US has grown closer to India, it has moved away, and has now become an ally of China. This new relationship has been cemented with the planned China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an important  part of China’s Belt and Road plans.

 After meeting Tillerson, Afghan President Ghani travelled to New Delhi the very next day, where he met PM Modi, under whom India has been providing both economic and military aid (training and equipment) to Afghanistan. Since Pakistan won’t allow India access to Afghanistan, it had to resort initially to an air corridor until it established a sea-land route through the Iranian port of Chabahar, which it has been upgrading since 2016.  A few days after Ghani’s visit, India shipped, through Chabahar, the first of six consignments of a gift of 1.1 million metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan.

The new US strategy for Asia, which has the goal of preventing China and Russia from dominating the Eurasian continent, calls for India to play a key role in these plans. This strategy has become feasible ever since Indian PM Narendra Modi (aka Modi the Hugger) switched India from being an ally of Russia to becoming an ally of the US (even though Modi was banned earlier for almost 10 years from entering the United States because of the large-scale massacre of Muslims in Bombay during his governance of the state). 

Ghani was followed in New Delhi by Secretary Tillerson, who reiterated the importance that the US attaches to its alliance with India and its role in Asia. Indian access to Central Asia (where the US already has links) through Iran is critical to US plans. The prize there is the former Soviet republics, especially Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan: securing influence with them and obtaining oil and gas from them.

India’s switch, under PM Modi, to its present alliance with the United States creates problems for those who were comfortable with it as a leading neutral country. Especially Russia, which has long had a close relationship with India, being one of its main military weapons and equipment suppliers. While PM Modi has been at pains to reassure Russia, there is bound to be some rethinking going on in the Kremlin. Already, problems are arising.

Another country reassessing its relations with India is Iran. It has slowed down the paperwork needed for India to develop the port of Chabahar, and has not so far drawn the soft loan that the Indians had agreed to provide it as part of the deal. It is quite possible that Iran may hinder Indian access to the port if the latter starts to adhere too closely to the US agenda in the region. (That was probably why Secretary Tillerson was at pains in New Delhi to try and soften the US’s anti-Iran stance).

Of course, the principal target of the USA in the new Great Game developing in Central and South Asia is China, and its plans for the Eurasian continent. Early on, China began to express alarm, and sound warnings, at the development of close relations between India and the US. To neutralize India, China has chosen Pakistan as its ally in South Asia. It has accorded only a minimal role to India in its Belt and Road plan, while India has made clear that it will not participate, with PM Modi refusing to attend the Peking Belt-and-Road Summit in May 2017, even though 29 other heads of state or government attended.

In Central Asia, the main playing field for this Great Game, all three major powers are seeking trade, influence and alliances with these countries, especially the biggest, Kazakhstan. Not only due to their strategic location, but also because of their natural resources. Russia has an inside edge, having taken the place of the defunct Soviet Union, of which these ‘stans were a part. However, China is now rapidly developing relations, especially economic, with them (its Belt route passes through them). As discussed above, the US is urging and assisting India, as a proxy, to also move into this area, while the purpose of its military efforts and diplomatic presence in Afghanistan is mainly to ensure a role for itself in Central Asia.     

So, this new Great Game goes on, with wily Vladimir Putin, tweeting Donald Trump, smiling Xi Jinpeng and creepy Narendra Modi all trying to outwit each other, and rope in the other minor players to their side. However it plays out, I very much doubt it will be as delightfully chronicled as the old one was in the Flashman Papers.

Comments

[The Twisted Genius]

Brigadier Ali,

Thanks for this informative and eye opening essay. I'm now even more convinced that we Americans are fools for staying there.

[Dabbler]

Thank you, general Ali, for your thoughtful and objective summation. An uneducated guess is that the key to the long term outcome is One Belt One Road. If China can appear to be succeeding in the project and can avoid major military conflicts, it will be offering the region peace, prosperity, and a measure of unity, albeit centered on Beijing, while the other powers offer the prospect of something larger coming from outside to feed at the region’s troughs. Of course, Xi Jenping has to thread the needle.

[Castellio]

Rare to have such informed straight talk about that area... many thanks. Using India as a proxy (or a spoiler) seems to me a self-defeating program.

[aka]

sir,
and trust me. These games are only fun when you look at them from afar.

It looks like US has given a blank check to India to impose the Indian soft and hard power to the India's perceived "sphere of influence". And the Indians has been busy doing it.

But these neighbors (and the populations) are quite unhappy having to bow down to what can be described as a regional power.

Also China's policy is simple. Easy credit and soft loans through government control banks and companies. India's is lagging behind its private sector and the bureaucratic red tape.

[Peter AU]

Thanks FB Ali.
Modi hugs. Several time I have run image searches. With most leaders, Modi lays his head on their chest, like a lover, and the tarrget looks ill at ease and embarrassed. Putin, perhaps because they are they same height, not so, simply returned the hug the same. Putin and Modi look very much at ease with each other in videos. Mutual respect.
In looking up several Hinduvta websites some time back, they hate communism with a passion, idolise the US as a beacon of freedom, and believe they are destined to rule the world. Modi may be more pragmatic as to ruling the world and the US. I get the impression he would fit into the multipolar world.

Taliban and Russia. I do not know enough about taliban and their motives, how pragmatic they are and so forth, but from what I have seen of current Russian leadership and their ability to work with many cultures, perhaps the possibility that the taliban will be removed from Russia's terrorist list?

[Leonardo]

Thanks for posting this really interesting analysis of the developing competition in Central Asia.

My question is: what could India actually offer to the "'Stans" or to Iran that China cannot? Do the Indians have a better offer?
I mean, China promises to integrate most of central Asia into a comprhensive project with the Belt and Road Initiative, with (apparently) very little political strings attached (the Chinese usually do not ask for democracy or political reforma as far as I know).
Can India offer a comparable deal, especially to countries like Iran that seems to be bent on embracing a multipolar world?

[JohnB]

I concur with TTG an excellent essay!

The world has not been a more dangerous state since the Cuban Missile crisis. All this occurring as we have arguably an administration inn the US which is the worst and least qualified in decades to deal with the problems it faces. Trumps hostility to intellectualism means you have policy made by intellectual pygmies. Symbolic of It’s ineptness at diplomacy is that an Ambassador to South Korea has still to be appointed

Does anyone really think that Trump would have done a better job than Kennedy in dealing with Cuban Missile Crisis?

We are indeed heading into very dangerous waters.

[Lars]

A very good description of the current state of affairs in Asia. I agree that the US should get out while they can and let the local powers decide how they want to deal with all the actors. Owning the oceans will be more important that having to maintain a road, which I suspect will be more arduous than the builders are considering. Cutting off roads is rather easy.

It is good to have such an inside view of what is an important part of the world. Please keep it up.

[turcopolier]

John B
This is FB Ali's piece. pl

[Account Deleted]

An excellent summary. It is fascinating to get an informed overview of the chessboard, thanks Brigadier Ali.

"Indian access to Central Asia.. ..through Iran is critical to US plans". This would seem at odds with US Iran policy, to say the least. Allowing Pakistan to fall into China's orbit (ref. CPEC) appears to be a huge strategic error on the part of the US. Afghanistan my be key to the 'stans, but with the CPEC China would seem to be able to extend it's mighty economic influence on through Iran and further westward, with or without Afghanistan 'on side'. I read just yesterday that this process is already beginning in Syria in fact.

Crass "you are either with us or against us" US policy is forcing nations who would not otherwise be natural allies together; Pakistan and Iran spring to mind, in the context of this piece. At best, it seems to me, the US may be able to slow China's inevitable domination of Eurasia. At worst (and on current trends) it will greatly accelerate the process by the gross geopolitical ineptitude of this administration, or more accurately; "the only one who matters".

The US comes to the Game with conflicting and confused strategy & threats for non-compliance with it's will. China offers economic incentives and partnership in a well thought out, joined up strategy. At least the British were good players of the Great Game, the US seems barely able to grasp how the pawns move.

[Babak Makkinejad]

FB Ali:

My understanding was that India has dragged her feet in doing anything at Chabahr.

Iran and India cannot have strategic understanding and cooperation, that possibility was destroyed back in 2006 by a Congress government. So I do not think Pakistan needs to be too concerned about what India is doing in Afghanistan - she would be doing nothing of substance.

In regards to Central Asia, we need to be prepared for state decay and failure as the structures created by USSR (another version of the White-Man's Burden) decay or atrophy. That game is not worth the candle.

In Afghanistan, then US and Russia and Iran are on the same side, supporting the Seljuk remnant against the non-Seljuk. For that unfortunate land, perhaps that would be the most positive thing that could be done - a new country that is no longer dominated by the pernicious and harmful effect of the Pashtun Culture.

[LeaNder]

Great contribution, not least since we lost track of Obama's Pivot Asia due to our US/ME focus.

Thus thanks, Brigadier Ali, for opening up our horizon.

The closest I ever got to the peculiar Pakistan-Afghanistan-India triangle was via the peculiar biography of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheik:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Omar_Saeed_Sheikh
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=saeed_sheikh

To not delve into the larger "disputed territories" context between the mentioned power players. I find it a bit hard to wrap my head around. As non-historian, and non-expert on Asia.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I agree, India has nothing to offer.

700 million people subsist on less than a dollar a day and they think they can balance China?

They are themselves contained South of Himalayas. And in Australia, one of the 4 presumed members of their "alliance" against China, Indians are despised quite openly.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Iran and Pakistan are not natural allies since the Seljuk Boundary divides them. Iran and Turkey are natural allies.

[Harper]

The Great Game was a game of empires, pure and simple. There are more complex dimensions to the current situation, some of which were alluded to in the essay. Modi is still adhering to India's long standing policy of avoiding binding alliances. Modi is still hoping that Chinese investments into his "Build India" program will happen. He does not wish to create a conflict with China. He still maintains ties to Russia. The US is not in a position to invest heavily in India, outside of joint production agreements on military hardware with US companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Modi is more hopeful for Japanese and South Korean investments. The US has told India to butt out of the Arabian Sea region, trying to get the Indian navy to focus on the South China Sea. In a speech at CSIS before his India visit, Tillerson invoked Shinzo Abe's "diamond" security alliance of four Asia-Pacific democracies: the US, Japan, India and Australia. India is not likely to bite.

Iran may be getting paranoid about Chabahar due to the American courtship of India, but I hear from India friends in the military establishment as well as from Americans that India is not about to abandon the Iran ties, given what Col. Ali noted about the importance of the Chabahar route to Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Is there a prospect of India being drawn into the CPEC? This is another piece of the regional picture that I have heard recently from some people in India in the Modi circles. That would be a very smart play for China and Pakistan, given that the CPEC passes through the turbulent Baluchistan region.

Interested in thoughts on these added complexities and nuances.

[LeaNder]

India's is lagging behind its private sector and the bureaucratic red tape.

From my as always limited grasp of world matters, there may not be enough bureaucratic red tape concerning the seemingly high percentange of outsourced production of antibiotics for the "Western market" both for the benefit of people living close to the respective plants and long term for the average citizens in the West too. You feel I got into the trap of silly ideologues in this context?

But now that i babbled, straight from the top of my head, what in your opinon are the worst "bureaucratic red tapes" in India?

[blue peacock]

FB Ali,

The consensus, at least in macro analytical circles, mirrors your opinion of China and the role that OBOR will play in creating the new Chinese orbit. Most political and geo-strategic analysis also stress the ascendancy of China as the next global hegemon.

I am a contrarian on China. In my analysis, China will be a source of great global instability prospectively. Politically, Xi continues to consolidate his authoritarian power by eliminating his rivals in purges and shadow trials. This removes any chance for a more inclusive political environment in China. While this may seem to provide political stability under the cult of Xi, IMO, it breeds instability as those factions in the CCP cut out from the benefits of patronage wait for signs of weakness. Couple this with the greatest expansion of credit in history which has exploded Chinese banking system assets as well as Shadow Banking assets. That last time an emerging great Asian power did this was Japan in the 1980s. Many don't realize that the Japanese banks were the largest by assets in that period. We have seen what happened there when the credit cycle reversed. Chinese expansion of credit over the last 2 decades has been on steroids relative to Japan in the 80s. Chinese banking assets are gargantuan even relative to western banking assets. US banks are so much better capitalized today. While the financial reality of much of their banking and shadow banking is opaque there is sufficient information for intrepid analysts to note that NPLs are much higher than reported and leverage in shadow banking is much higher than claimed. Additionally, much of Chinese external financing in emerging markets for infrastructure development and consequent political influence is in default. Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria are all renegotiating debt service with China. Venezuela is a good example of how this is being handled. They are prioritizing payments of their USD debt service while being delinquent on their Chinese debt. The fact that capital controls are steadily increasing in China shows that the propensity for capital flight is higher than many analysts believe. There's no way that the Chinese Yuan can supplant the US Dollar as a global trading currency, in circumstances where the probability that capital gets stranded is rising. There is a lot of chatter on internet websites on the "petroyuan" supplanting the "petrodollar" and how that will crash US financial hegemony. This is not the opinion of those who understand how trade finance, forex markets and oil markets actually work. Oil and other primary commodities as well as the major currencies of which the Yuan is not, are fungible.

While it is popular analysis today that China & OBOR represent the Chinese ascendancy as global hegemon, my contrarian analysis says not so fast and it certainly is not a done deal in the intermediate term. But even more important, IMO, both financial and political instability is rising in China beneath the facade of strength.

[blue peacock]

All,

While I certainly have no expertise on military matters and the politics in South Asia and the Middle East, it is my "ordinary citizen" opinion that the US should withdraw completely from those regions. Those regions offer nothing of value to the US.

I would say let the Chinese and Russians meddle there and let the Saudis & Israelis and the Iranians and all the tribes and sects play their ancient games.

While this policy may dent the egos of many in DC who must feel "indispensable" it would free the US from its costly and unrewarding involvement in a region that provides no value to it and only costs. Yes, the oilies will be screaming but the oil, the oil! Oil intensity of the US economy has been declining for sometime and there's plenty of oil & gas available in the world.

[kooshy]

Mr. Ali, thank you for a true expert analysis of this new on going geostrategic grate game in south and Central Asia which IMO is now related and includes the entire northern hemisphere. With regard to Iran’ relation with India and Pakistan, three recent related items worth mentioning. One is, Iran is holding off contracting India with much needed Farzad gas field even wiehen India agreed to go ahead on Chahbhar port. Two Pakistan’ military CoS just visited Tehran in high level talks and third Iran’ SL Ayatollah Khamenie has once agin backed Kashmiris revolt against India competing it to Yemen and Bahrain. My hope is, China could be able to pull away Pakistan from Saudi’ influence and finance. And unfortunately Like Babak I think India is digging for trouble siding with Israel against his own large Muslim population.

[Account Deleted]

LeaNder

You and I find it hard. Yet despite this we try to further our understanding, as we consider this a worthwhile pursuit. Others do not.

[jld]

re Chinese unstability

Dunno if you are familiar with Chinese history and culture but AFAIK Chinese politics had been ruthless for over 3000 years and with very few exceptions Chinese dynasties were quite stable despite the internal strife and cutthroat competition of elites.
I think the current Communist China has more to do the Imperial Bureaucracy of yore than with Marxism and therefore may exhibit much more resilience to contrary events than you expect.
Contrary to the US they will not overplay the "Global Hegemon" card and will be content to reign inside their borders notwithstanding any predatory practices they deem necessary.

[blue peacock]

China's political authoritarianism under Xi may turn out to be resilient. But, maybe not. Analysis is a balance of probabilities.

To paraphrase Warren Buffet - only when the tide recedes does one know who is swimming naked.

Only when the Chinese credit expansion recedes will we know how stable their financial and political structures really are. Will Chinese credit quintuple in the next decade?

[@Madderhatter67]

Great piece. Minor correction. Modi was Chief Minister (Provincial, State.) of the State of Gujarat.

Bombay, was renamed to Mumbai in 1995. Mumbia is the Capital city of the State of Maharashtra.

Modi's crimes were in Gujarat against Muslims.

[blue peacock]

"...they will not overplay the "Global Hegemon" card and will be content to reign inside their borders.."

How do you know that? That is a statement of certitude.

[Pacifica Advocate]

>>>My question is: what could India actually offer to the "'Stans" or to Iran that China cannot?

Historically--going back 3000 years or so--India has been a consistent victim of the "'Stans", which are called "Aryans" in India, and yes, thos're the same "Aryans" (though with a different pronunciation--"Are-yans", vs "Arians") that the Nazis appropriated for their own pseudoscientific ends.

Nevertheless, the largely vegetarian and agriculturally-based Tamils, which *apparently* once developed--likely in cooperation with other, foreign groups--a vast civilization at Mohenjo-Daro, have been repeatedly invaded and subjugated by waves of Turkic, Persian, Greek, and Mongolic (among other) tribes.

So effectively, over the last two millenia there are three areas above what we today call "India" that have been in what cynical "Political Science" types would call "play."

A) Tibet. China locked that one down in the 1950s. This was a relatively independent area that exerted vast influence over Nepal, parts of Afghanistan, the current province of Xinjiang, and Mongolia.

B) Bactria/Afghanistan+: This area has always been the most volatile region, and the most susceptible to revolutionary change.

C) Central Asia: This area has, for most of the last two millenia, been mostly patrolled either by Persia/Iran, or--when powerful tribes have arisen--by the most dominant/desperate steppe tribes of the moment. Sometimes, certain tribes have been forced (like the Huns) to move out of their native habitats of power by either China, or other tribes; at other times, certain tribes have simply become so powerful that they have been able to conquer (like the Mongols, or Timurlane) vast swaths of territory.

My point is this: it is not so much what "India can offer."

It is very much more what India fears.