FaujHistorian
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2011
- Messages
- 12,272
- Reaction score
- 43
- Country
- Location
Bhai jaanPakistan needs a strong leader ( preferably Pashtun ) like Presiden Ayub Khan to sort this mess out. After US leaves which will be soon Pakistan needs to up the support for Afghan Taliban. It then needs to learn from Isreal. One scratch and ten dead on the other side. One dead on our side and hundred dead on the other side.
This policy of proactive protection needs to be refined. It must not ever target any Pashtun groups in Afghanistan. The targets should be ANA who in fact are just NA wearing ANA uniforms with token Pashtun's and even the given ethnic stats are questionable. The ANA operating in Pashtun heartlands is regarded as operating 'on foreign soil'.
What we need to do is to put it bluntly undo what American's have built in the last 14 years. How Musharaf allowed them to do this is another story. I am fairly confident this will happen but Pakistan must be steadfast and launch masds airstrikes by using the slightest excuse. Who exactly is going to stop us? Iran? India? I don't think so. In time Afghan Taliban will get back in power although I hope they learn their lesson from the previous phase and go easy on the religious edicts.
Anyway read this article how President Ayub handled this probably when Pakistan was far, far weaker then it is today. If he could do it in 1960s then why can't we do this now. Man up General Raheel and if you can't find somebody like Field Marshal Ayub Khan. You need guts.
Relations between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in the 1953-63 period began on a high note with a Soviet development loan equivalent to US$3.5 million in January 1954. Mohammad Daud Khan's desire for improved bilateral relations became a necessity when the Pakistani-Afghan border was closed for five months in 1955. When the Iranian and American governments declared that they were unable to create an alternate Afghan trade access route of nearly 5,800 kilometers to the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea, the Afghans had no choice but to request a renewal of the 1950 transit agreement. The renewal was ratified in June 1955 and followed by a new bilateral barter agreement: Soviet petroleum, building materials, and metals in exchange for Afghan raw materials. After a December 1955 visit to Kabul by Soviet leaders Nikolay Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union announced a US$100 million development loan for projects to be mutually agreed upon. Before the end of the year the Afghans also announced a 10-year extension of the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Neutrality and Non-Aggression, originally signed in 1931 by Nadir Shah. Afghan-Soviet ties grew throughout this period, as did Afghan links with the Soviet Union's East European allies, especially Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Despite these strengthened ties to the Soviet Union, the Mohammad Daud Khan regime sought to maintain good relations with the United States, which began to be more interested in Afghanistan as a result of the efforts by Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration to solidify an alliance in the "Northern Tier" (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). Adhering to its nonaligned stance, the Afghan government refused to join the American-sponsored Baghdad Pact, although Eisenhower's personal representative was courteously welcomed when he came to discuss regional issues in 1957. These rebuffs did not deter the United States from continuing its relatively low-level aid program in Afghanistan. Its other projects in the 1953-63 period included the Qandahar International Airport (which became obsolete with the advent of jet aircraft), assistance to Ariana Afghan Airlines, and continuation of the Helmand Valley Project.
The United States was reluctant to provide Afghanistan with military aid, and the Mohammad Daud Khan government successfully sought it from the Soviet Union and its allies. These nations agreed to provide Afghanistan with the equivalent of US$25 million worth of military materiel in 1955 and also undertook the construction of military airfields in Mazar-a Sharif, Shindand, and Bagrami. Although the United States did provide military training for Afghan officers, it made no attempt to match Soviet arms transfers. Dupree points out that eventually the United States and Soviet aid programs were bound to overlap, and when they did there developed a quiet, de facto cooperation between the two powers.
All other foreign policy issues faded in importance, given Mohammad Daud Khan's virtual obsession with the Pashtunistan issue. His policy disrupted Kabul's important relationship with Pakistan and-because Pakistan was landlocked Afghanistan's main trade route-the dispute virtually cut off development aid, except from the Soviet Union, and sharply diminished Afghanistan's external trade for several years.
In 1953 and 1954 Mohammad Daud Khan simply applied more of the same techniques used in the past to press the Pashtunistan issue, i.e., hostile propaganda and payments to tribesmen (on both sides of the border) to subvert the Pakistani government. In 1955, however, the situation became more critical from Mohammad Daud Khan's point of view. Pakistan, for reasons of internal politics, abolished the four provincial governments of West Pakistan and formed one provincial unit (like East Pakistan). The Afghan government protested the abolition of the NWFP (excluding the Tribal Agencies), and in March 1955 a mob in Kabul attacked the Pakistani embassy and consulate and tore down their flags. Retaliatory mobs attacked the Afghan consulate in Peshawar, and soon both nations recalled their officials from the neighboring state. Despite the failure of mediation by a group of Islamic states, tempers eventually cooled, and flags were rehoisted above the diplomatic establishments in both countries. This incident left great bitterness in Afghanistan, however, where interest in the Pashtunistan issue remained high, and the closure of the border during the spring and fall of 1955 again underlined to the Kabul government the need for good relations with the Soviets to provide assured transit routes for Afghan trade.
Although the Afghan side was not resigned to accepting the status quo on the Pashtunistan issue, the conflict remained dormant for several years, during which relations improved slightly between the two nations. Nor did the 1958 coup that brought General Mohammad Ayub Khan to power in Pakistan bring on any immediate change in the situation. In 1960, however, Mohammad Daud Khan sent Afghan troops across the border into Bajaur in an unsuccessful and foolhardy attempt to manipulate events in that area and to press the Pashtunistan issue. The Afghan forces were routed by the Pakistan military, but military skirmishes along the border continued at a low level in 1961, often between Pakistani Pashtun (armed by the Afghans) and Pakistani regular and paramilitary forces. The propaganda war, carried out by radio, was more vicious than ever during this period.
Finally, in August 1961 Pakistan used another weapon on Afghanistan: It informed the Afghan government that its subversion made normal diplomatic relations impossible and that Pakistan was closing its consulates in Afghanistan, requesting that Afghanistan follow suit. The Afghan government, its pride severely stung, responded that the Pakistanis had one week to rescind this policy, or Afghanistan would cut diplomatic relations. When the Pakistanis failed to respond to this, Afghanistan severed relations on September 6, 1961. Traffic between the two countries came to a halt, just as two of Afghanistan's major export crops were ready to be shipped to India. The grape and pomegranate crops, grown in traditionally rebellious areas, were bought by the government to avoid trouble. The Soviet Union stepped in, offering to buy the crops and airlift them from Afghanistan. What the Soviets did not ship, Ariana Afghan Airlines airlifted to India, so that in both 1961 and 1962 the fruit crop was exported successfully. Dupree notes that although the loss of this crop would not have been as disastrous to the average Afghan as observers generally suggest, the situation did provide the opportunity for a fine public relations gesture by the Soviets. At the same time, although the United States attempted to mediate the dispute, it was clearly linked closely to Pakistan.
More than the fruit crop was jeopardized by the closure of Afghanistan's main trade route. Much of the equipment and material provided by foreign aid programs and needed for development projects was held up in Pakistan. Another outgrowth of the dispute was Pakistan's decision to close the border to nomads (members of the Ghilzai, variously known as Powindahs or Suleiman Khel), who had been spending winters in Pakistan and India and summers in Afghanistan as long as anyone could remember. Although the Pakistani government denied that the decision was owing to the impasse with Afghanistan, this claim appeared disingenuous, and the issue added weight to the growing conflict between the two countries. Afghanistan's economic situation continued to deteriorate. The nation was heavily dependent upon customs revenues, which fell dramatically; trade suffered, and foreign exchange reserves were seriously depleted.
It became clear by 1963 that the two stubborn leaders, Mohammad Daud Khan of Afghanistan and Ayub Khan of Pakistan, would not yield and that one of them would have to be removed from power to resolve the issue. Despite growing criticism of Ayub among some Pakistanis, his position was strong internally, and it was Afghanistan's economy that was suffering most. In March 1963 King Zahir Shah, with the backing of the royal family, asked Mohammad Daud Khan for his resignation on the basis that the country's economy was deteriorating because of Mohammad Daud Khan's Pashtunistan policy
I usually agree with you but not on this.
Gen Raheel aka Punjabi will do just fine as a military leader.
For Afghanistan, we must keep things into perspective. This country is same population and 1/1000 resources (human capital) compared to Karachi.
when the situation is so lopsided in our favor, we need to be calm and deliberate.
Israel is not a good example here.
Afghanistan was a nuisance only during Communist era.
That era is long gone, and Russia today rather side with Pakistan instead of Afghanistan due to various reasons. So the history of Afghanistan must be considered in proper context.
peace
You just won a free trip 2 Kabul.
