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Mr. Snow,
I hope I can provide some reasonable sources with which to begin this search. I have been studying it for years.
There is the technical issue behind the Afghan Pakistani border dispute - where many Loy Afghanistan advocates of an educated class view the border dispute in a similar vein to how China viewed Hong Kong relative to British agreements. The central argument behind this thesis rests on how multiple monarchs made agreements with the invading super power of the time out of duress (laughably, are there any other agreements when land is exchanged????).
If we are to approach this from a weak vantage point ala the Israeli Palestinian discussions (one that I am not really inclined toward) where technicalities and lawyerly language dominates discussions then the reality of the situation along the border is as follows:
1) Peshawar and its subsidiary villages was not actually given over once, but given over twice by Afghan monarchs and associated renegade brethren. The ancestor of the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Khan was a man named Sultan Mohammad Telai. He was called Telai Bibi by his kingly brother Dost Muhammad for his combination of duplicity and love of golden robes. Here is a source validating when Telai, once again Zahir Khan's direct ascendent, gave over Peshawar to the Sikhs:
Mohammed Nadir Shah
Note that Hari Singh installed the corrupt Telai as his governer and representative in the Sikh empire then.
2) This paper provides from Yale is the latest orientalist word on the subject and is a nice history of the relationships historically between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Once again, the school of thought from the Loy Afghanistan camp makes logical discussion nearly a nonstarter because the argument runs like this:
"We dont believe in Pakistan and therefore any discussion of who started this decades long back and forth tussle is obsolete."
Such an argument attempts to make it so that reality is suspended and the notion is that Pakistan, a state currently in existence, ought to simply sit back, chat, and accept whatever this camp would prefer.
Unfortunately, that is not how life works in Israel nor is it how life works in this particular dispute. The Palestinians can say, with as much vigor as they like, that Israel has no right to exist and hope that Israelis pack up, leave, and just walk off the reservation. The reality is far different and most realize the only pertinent discussion is might makes right.
A) So now let us explore this relationship as if we were independent parties from Timbuktu or from your vantage point. What instigated the formulation of strategic depth as a policy and why is it that the Pakistan intellgentsia views it as paramount?
The answer is that the first punch was thrown by the Afghan government upon the creation of Pakistan:
Gernstein Ross and Vessefi write:
"Immediately after Pakistan emerged, Afghanistan put forward a demand for the creation of an independent “Pashtunistan,” meaning “land of the Pashtuns.” The idea was that Pakistan should allow the Pashtuns in the northwestern part of their country to—if they so chose—secede and become an independent state. Though the size of the envisioned Pashtunistan differed over time, Afghanistan’s proposals frequently encompassed about half of West Pakistan, including areas dominated by Baluch majorities...Though these demands were framed as supportive of Pashtun national independence, they were in fact irredentist. If Pashtunistan came to exist, it probably wouldn’t remain independent for long, as it would be a fragile and essentially
defenseless state. The historical linkage between the Pashtuns
and Afghanistan would likely dictate a merger of Pashtunistan
into Afghanistan. And even if Pakistan never acceded to the
Pashtunistan demand, Afghanistan had essentially staked
its claim to that area if the Pakistani state were to fail."
B) The diplomatic and actual military punches Afghanistan would throw would follow subsequently:
PUNCH 2:
"At the outset, Afghanistan was the only country to vote
against Pakistan’s admission into the United Nations,
justifying this vote with the argument that Pakistan’s
northwest frontier “should not be recognized as a part of
Pakistan until the Pashtuns of that area had been given the opportunity to opt out for independence.”12 Pakistan was admitted despite Afghanistan’s objections. But thereafter [U]Kabul launched a series of low-level attacks against Pakistan, maintaining some degree of plausible deniability[/U] throughout (as Pakistan would later do when non-state actors that it sponsored struck at India, Afghanistan, US forces, and others)."
PUNCH 3:
George Montagno, who served as a visiting professor of American history at the University of Karachi, has noted that for years after Pakistan’s creation, Afghan agents operated within the Pashtun areas, “distributing large amounts of money, ammunition and even transistor radios in an effort to sway loyalties from Pakistan to Afghanistan.”13 Another of their obvious goals was to build support for an independent Pashtunistan. At the same time that Afghanistan worked to build support within Pakistan’s Pashtun
areas, it also escalated its attacks into Pakistan proper.
PUNCH 4 (one of the most important punches):
The Yale team even takes on a DISPUTED case and confirms the high likelihood of the earliest Afghan military incursion into FATA:
"Pakistan claimed that on September 30, 1950, its northern border was attacked by Afghan tribesmen, as well as regular Afghan troops, who crossed into Pakistan 30 miles northeast of Chaman in Baluchistan.14 It didn’t take long for Pakistan to repel this low-scale invasion, and its government announced that it had “driven invaders from Afghanistan back across the border after six days of fighting.”15 For its own part, Afghanistan claimed that it had no involvement in this attack, which it said was comprised exclusively of Pashtun tribesmen agitating for an independent Pashtunistan.
But given Afghanistan’s later use of irregular forces dressed as tribesmen, Pakistan’s claims that the aggression had emanated from Afghanistan’s government seem credible.
So when Afghan Millety party folks like Ahady talk about irregular forces and Pashtuns being used as cannon fodder by Pakistan, history generally reveals that the originator of this tactic was the Afghan government that utilized irregular forces for this exact same purpose. In essence, Pakistan basically took the Afghan governmental tactic and utilized it par excellance during the Soviet War and afterwards
PUNCH 5:
"The next crisis in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations came in 1960-
61. Khurshid Hasan, at the time a member of the department of
international relations at the University of Karachi, recounts, “In
1960, fresh border clashes took place. Afghan irregulars and Army
troops dressed as tribesmen were reported to have penetrated the
Pakistan side of the Durand Line with the sanction of the Afghan
Government. Two other raids took place in May and fall of 1961.”17"
Lest the Milletee party members try to scuttle the intellectual boat and claim that Hasan's affiliations make him suspect, the Yale authors independently provide veracity to his account:
"News reports from that period corroborate Hasan’s account. In late September 1960, an Afghan lashkar (irregular forces) crossed into Pakistan’s Bajaur area. Pakistan’s government announced
that the lashkar “clashed with loyal tribesmen and fled after suffering heavy casualties.”18 But Pakistan alleged that conventional
Afghan military resources, including tanks, had also massed on
the Afghan side of the border near Bajaur.19 What Afghanistan’s
official news agency described as “a major battle” eventually broke out between the two sides.20 Pakistan bombarded Afghan forces using its airpower; rather than escalating the conflict, this quelled hostilities, at least for the time being."
PUNCH 6:
The May 1961 clashes occurred in the area of the Khyber Pass. Pakistani president Muhammad Ayub Khan announced that regular Afghan forces had attacked Pakistani posts at the border. The Pakistani air force strafed Afghan positions in response.21 On May 22, Pakistani warplanes struck again, attempting to wipe out a base of raiding Afghan troops in Baganandail.22 With this aerial strafing, alongside police patrols, roadblocks, and even bombs going off, the New York Times noted in late May that “relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan appear to have reached a new low, and
no relief is in sight.”23 Indeed, after the next skirmishes broke out in the fall of 1961, Afghanistan and Pakistan formally severed diplomatic relations.24\
PUNCH 7 (The punch that would lead to the collapse of detente and the formulation by Bhutto of strategic depth):
The article discusses the Daud governmental incursions and escalations including arms for separatists and violent reprisals:
"This escalation came at a time when Pakistan had already lost nearly a third of its territory, as East Pakistan seceded in 1971 and became Bangladesh. Rizwan Hussain, a research scholar at The Australian National University, writes that Afghanistan’s actions “posed the greatest threat to Pakistan’s integrity since the secession of East Pakistan.”26 Obviously, this called for a response."
And ominously:
"Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto—a secular reformist whose rule included
several questionable decisions that unwittingly empowered Islamist factions27—fashioned a two-part responsive strategy. One part was to suppress nationalist uprisings in Pakistan’s Frontier. A second part was a “forward policy” that supported violent Islamist factions inside Afghanistan. This was symmetrical with the manner in which Afghanistan had supported violent nationalist groups inside Pakistan."
So Matthew, in summary, be wary of thinking that history started at time point 0 ala 2001. Pakistan certainly has done its share of aggression and ensured Indian Mohajir supremacy at the expense of its other native populations. The conflict over the border however is not one of an innocent doe eyed lamb Afghanistan sitting aside and minding its own business. Its one where a nation state headed by a corrupt plutocracy that was far disconnected from the aspirations of its people (Zahir Khan and Daud's regimes and those that followed) decided to throw a series of punches that would reverberate and result in devastation.
The ethical complaints of the Mellet party falls on deaf ears when it tries the "arming of irregulars" card in that it was an art initiated by Zahir Khan and perpetuated by Daud Khan.
The run around argument of: Well the agreements were null and void from the get go also once again are foolish arguments in that it expects detachments from reality in which the aforementioned "punches" were somehow to go ignored by an adversary as if the inevitable action and reaction events would somehow bow to lawyerly language. Even then, the Yale authors make sure to note that subsequent governments also stupidly confirmed these agreements:
"From a legal perspective, Afghanistan’s claim about the illegitimacy of its border with Pakistan was rather weak. Though Afghanistan claimed that the border had been drawn under duress, it had in fact confirmed the demarcation of this international frontier on multiple occasions, including in agreements concluded in 1905, 1919, 1921, and 1930.10"
So in summary Matthew, to understand the complex back and forth between the two nation states, one has to go back to the 1800s and then start examining history from then forward.
After a thorough reading it becomes clear that it does not suit the national security paradigms of the US or other nations to get involved in this spat. They can resolve it between themselves.
I hope I can provide some reasonable sources with which to begin this search. I have been studying it for years.
There is the technical issue behind the Afghan Pakistani border dispute - where many Loy Afghanistan advocates of an educated class view the border dispute in a similar vein to how China viewed Hong Kong relative to British agreements. The central argument behind this thesis rests on how multiple monarchs made agreements with the invading super power of the time out of duress (laughably, are there any other agreements when land is exchanged????).
If we are to approach this from a weak vantage point ala the Israeli Palestinian discussions (one that I am not really inclined toward) where technicalities and lawyerly language dominates discussions then the reality of the situation along the border is as follows:
1) Peshawar and its subsidiary villages was not actually given over once, but given over twice by Afghan monarchs and associated renegade brethren. The ancestor of the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Khan was a man named Sultan Mohammad Telai. He was called Telai Bibi by his kingly brother Dost Muhammad for his combination of duplicity and love of golden robes. Here is a source validating when Telai, once again Zahir Khan's direct ascendent, gave over Peshawar to the Sikhs:
Mohammed Nadir Shah
Note that Hari Singh installed the corrupt Telai as his governer and representative in the Sikh empire then.
2) This paper provides from Yale is the latest orientalist word on the subject and is a nice history of the relationships historically between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Once again, the school of thought from the Loy Afghanistan camp makes logical discussion nearly a nonstarter because the argument runs like this:
"We dont believe in Pakistan and therefore any discussion of who started this decades long back and forth tussle is obsolete."
Such an argument attempts to make it so that reality is suspended and the notion is that Pakistan, a state currently in existence, ought to simply sit back, chat, and accept whatever this camp would prefer.
Unfortunately, that is not how life works in Israel nor is it how life works in this particular dispute. The Palestinians can say, with as much vigor as they like, that Israel has no right to exist and hope that Israelis pack up, leave, and just walk off the reservation. The reality is far different and most realize the only pertinent discussion is might makes right.
A) So now let us explore this relationship as if we were independent parties from Timbuktu or from your vantage point. What instigated the formulation of strategic depth as a policy and why is it that the Pakistan intellgentsia views it as paramount?
The answer is that the first punch was thrown by the Afghan government upon the creation of Pakistan:
Gernstein Ross and Vessefi write:
"Immediately after Pakistan emerged, Afghanistan put forward a demand for the creation of an independent “Pashtunistan,” meaning “land of the Pashtuns.” The idea was that Pakistan should allow the Pashtuns in the northwestern part of their country to—if they so chose—secede and become an independent state. Though the size of the envisioned Pashtunistan differed over time, Afghanistan’s proposals frequently encompassed about half of West Pakistan, including areas dominated by Baluch majorities...Though these demands were framed as supportive of Pashtun national independence, they were in fact irredentist. If Pashtunistan came to exist, it probably wouldn’t remain independent for long, as it would be a fragile and essentially
defenseless state. The historical linkage between the Pashtuns
and Afghanistan would likely dictate a merger of Pashtunistan
into Afghanistan. And even if Pakistan never acceded to the
Pashtunistan demand, Afghanistan had essentially staked
its claim to that area if the Pakistani state were to fail."
B) The diplomatic and actual military punches Afghanistan would throw would follow subsequently:
PUNCH 2:
"At the outset, Afghanistan was the only country to vote
against Pakistan’s admission into the United Nations,
justifying this vote with the argument that Pakistan’s
northwest frontier “should not be recognized as a part of
Pakistan until the Pashtuns of that area had been given the opportunity to opt out for independence.”12 Pakistan was admitted despite Afghanistan’s objections. But thereafter [U]Kabul launched a series of low-level attacks against Pakistan, maintaining some degree of plausible deniability[/U] throughout (as Pakistan would later do when non-state actors that it sponsored struck at India, Afghanistan, US forces, and others)."
PUNCH 3:
George Montagno, who served as a visiting professor of American history at the University of Karachi, has noted that for years after Pakistan’s creation, Afghan agents operated within the Pashtun areas, “distributing large amounts of money, ammunition and even transistor radios in an effort to sway loyalties from Pakistan to Afghanistan.”13 Another of their obvious goals was to build support for an independent Pashtunistan. At the same time that Afghanistan worked to build support within Pakistan’s Pashtun
areas, it also escalated its attacks into Pakistan proper.
PUNCH 4 (one of the most important punches):
The Yale team even takes on a DISPUTED case and confirms the high likelihood of the earliest Afghan military incursion into FATA:
"Pakistan claimed that on September 30, 1950, its northern border was attacked by Afghan tribesmen, as well as regular Afghan troops, who crossed into Pakistan 30 miles northeast of Chaman in Baluchistan.14 It didn’t take long for Pakistan to repel this low-scale invasion, and its government announced that it had “driven invaders from Afghanistan back across the border after six days of fighting.”15 For its own part, Afghanistan claimed that it had no involvement in this attack, which it said was comprised exclusively of Pashtun tribesmen agitating for an independent Pashtunistan.
But given Afghanistan’s later use of irregular forces dressed as tribesmen, Pakistan’s claims that the aggression had emanated from Afghanistan’s government seem credible.
So when Afghan Millety party folks like Ahady talk about irregular forces and Pashtuns being used as cannon fodder by Pakistan, history generally reveals that the originator of this tactic was the Afghan government that utilized irregular forces for this exact same purpose. In essence, Pakistan basically took the Afghan governmental tactic and utilized it par excellance during the Soviet War and afterwards
PUNCH 5:
"The next crisis in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations came in 1960-
61. Khurshid Hasan, at the time a member of the department of
international relations at the University of Karachi, recounts, “In
1960, fresh border clashes took place. Afghan irregulars and Army
troops dressed as tribesmen were reported to have penetrated the
Pakistan side of the Durand Line with the sanction of the Afghan
Government. Two other raids took place in May and fall of 1961.”17"
Lest the Milletee party members try to scuttle the intellectual boat and claim that Hasan's affiliations make him suspect, the Yale authors independently provide veracity to his account:
"News reports from that period corroborate Hasan’s account. In late September 1960, an Afghan lashkar (irregular forces) crossed into Pakistan’s Bajaur area. Pakistan’s government announced
that the lashkar “clashed with loyal tribesmen and fled after suffering heavy casualties.”18 But Pakistan alleged that conventional
Afghan military resources, including tanks, had also massed on
the Afghan side of the border near Bajaur.19 What Afghanistan’s
official news agency described as “a major battle” eventually broke out between the two sides.20 Pakistan bombarded Afghan forces using its airpower; rather than escalating the conflict, this quelled hostilities, at least for the time being."
PUNCH 6:
The May 1961 clashes occurred in the area of the Khyber Pass. Pakistani president Muhammad Ayub Khan announced that regular Afghan forces had attacked Pakistani posts at the border. The Pakistani air force strafed Afghan positions in response.21 On May 22, Pakistani warplanes struck again, attempting to wipe out a base of raiding Afghan troops in Baganandail.22 With this aerial strafing, alongside police patrols, roadblocks, and even bombs going off, the New York Times noted in late May that “relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan appear to have reached a new low, and
no relief is in sight.”23 Indeed, after the next skirmishes broke out in the fall of 1961, Afghanistan and Pakistan formally severed diplomatic relations.24\
PUNCH 7 (The punch that would lead to the collapse of detente and the formulation by Bhutto of strategic depth):
The article discusses the Daud governmental incursions and escalations including arms for separatists and violent reprisals:
"This escalation came at a time when Pakistan had already lost nearly a third of its territory, as East Pakistan seceded in 1971 and became Bangladesh. Rizwan Hussain, a research scholar at The Australian National University, writes that Afghanistan’s actions “posed the greatest threat to Pakistan’s integrity since the secession of East Pakistan.”26 Obviously, this called for a response."
And ominously:
"Pakistani president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto—a secular reformist whose rule included
several questionable decisions that unwittingly empowered Islamist factions27—fashioned a two-part responsive strategy. One part was to suppress nationalist uprisings in Pakistan’s Frontier. A second part was a “forward policy” that supported violent Islamist factions inside Afghanistan. This was symmetrical with the manner in which Afghanistan had supported violent nationalist groups inside Pakistan."
So Matthew, in summary, be wary of thinking that history started at time point 0 ala 2001. Pakistan certainly has done its share of aggression and ensured Indian Mohajir supremacy at the expense of its other native populations. The conflict over the border however is not one of an innocent doe eyed lamb Afghanistan sitting aside and minding its own business. Its one where a nation state headed by a corrupt plutocracy that was far disconnected from the aspirations of its people (Zahir Khan and Daud's regimes and those that followed) decided to throw a series of punches that would reverberate and result in devastation.
The ethical complaints of the Mellet party falls on deaf ears when it tries the "arming of irregulars" card in that it was an art initiated by Zahir Khan and perpetuated by Daud Khan.
The run around argument of: Well the agreements were null and void from the get go also once again are foolish arguments in that it expects detachments from reality in which the aforementioned "punches" were somehow to go ignored by an adversary as if the inevitable action and reaction events would somehow bow to lawyerly language. Even then, the Yale authors make sure to note that subsequent governments also stupidly confirmed these agreements:
"From a legal perspective, Afghanistan’s claim about the illegitimacy of its border with Pakistan was rather weak. Though Afghanistan claimed that the border had been drawn under duress, it had in fact confirmed the demarcation of this international frontier on multiple occasions, including in agreements concluded in 1905, 1919, 1921, and 1930.10"
So in summary Matthew, to understand the complex back and forth between the two nation states, one has to go back to the 1800s and then start examining history from then forward.
After a thorough reading it becomes clear that it does not suit the national security paradigms of the US or other nations to get involved in this spat. They can resolve it between themselves.
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