In a topsy-turvy world, yesterday’s enemy can be today’s friend. The US has played this game (Germany, Japan, Italy, Vietnam and so forth). For another remarkable reversal of enmity and alliance, let’s drop in on the Kremlin.
In 1989, the Soviet Union limped out of Afghanistan, defeated by ragtag mujahedeen fighters determined to turn back Moscow’s bid to commandeer their homeland. Those mujahedeen forces evolved into the Afghan Taliban, ousted from power by America’s post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan and now a dogged insurgent group bent on unseating the country’s democratically elected, US-backed government.
After more than 15 years of fighting US, NATO and Afghan forces, the Afghan Taliban have not gone away. Instead, they remain a daunting threat to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s troubled administration, and to the 8,400 US forces still in the country training Afghan security forces and hunting down militant commanders.
The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, army Gen. John Nicholson, all but confirmed last week that Russia is supplying to the Afghan Taliban machine guns and antiaircraft weapons -- armaments that the militant group is using to keep a tight grip on southern Afghanistan, and to kill Afghan and American troops.
The Trump administration ought to tackle this problem -- fast. Russia’s arming of the Taliban won’t turn the tide of the war, but it will perpetuate combat and make it that much more lethal.
The foreign policy think tank Stratfor suggests one motive for the Kremlin’s actions might be its desire to become an influential counterpoint to the US presence in South and Central Asia, much the same way Russia’s intervention in Syria disrupts America’s Middle East policy.
As long as Afghanistan is at war, it destabilizes Central Asia -- a region at Russia’s doorstep -- and keeps intact a potential breeding ground for Islamic militants, including the Islamic State group. To that group, Russia is as much an enemy as is the US.
The Trump team’s message to Moscow should be firm and blunt: Cease and desist. Russia is violating international law by arming the Taliban. It’s already coping with sanctions imposed because of its invasion of Ukraine -- is it willing to weather more punishment? If Russia really wants to get involved, it should work toward what is the only bridge to peace in Afghanistan: negotiations that culminate in the laying down of arms and the integration of the Taliban into Afghan politics and society.
