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This chapter examines the Central Asia Security Complex, and the involvement of its five states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – in Afghanistan. Rivalry between strong and weaker Central Asian states, fear of loss of sovereignty, and the need to balance the interests of global powers undermine regional integration. These factors also preclude a unified regional position towards Afghanistan, and – despite the ambitious “Heart of Asia” designs pursued by the US and its allies in the wake of the 2001 intervention – effectively limit their engagement there. While the five Central Asian states share concern about threats to their regime stability and national security, such as terrorism, extremism and criminality, they prefer bilateral over multilateral approaches to cooperation. The asymmetric rivalry of the five Central Asian countries, with their need to balance the interests of external actors, has resulted in a strategy of insulation towards Afghanistan. Afghanistan represents both a threat and an opportunity. While the potential spillover of instability is a concern for CA states, this is peripheral to, and not at the core of, the dynamic of the Central Asian Regional Security Complex.

This chapter lays out the historical and political background for Afghanistan’s fraught relationships to states in its neighborhood. It introduces the analytical framework developed by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver in their book Regions and Powers (2003), and contrasts that to mainstream analysis, which sees Afghanistan as the center of a wider region. The authors argue that the bilateral relations between Afghanistan and neighboring states is a projection of dynamics elsewhere – within South Asia, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf – and therefore peripheral to more important regional security relations. The failure, in the aftermath of the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan, to foster a regional security cooperation that would contribute to peace and stability in that country reflects the shortcomings of the mainstream analysis. The chapter provides the foundation for an alternative approach, in which a more constructive engagement in Afghanistan by states of its neighborhood relies less on each neighbor’s relationship with Afghanistan than it does on cooperation within each of the three regions that surround it.

This chapter examines the security dynamic within the Persian Gulf, and the involvement of its constituent states – particularly Iran and Saudi Arabia – in Afghanistan. Following the 2003 US intervention in Iraq, the security dynamic within this complex effectively became bipolar, characterized by the antagonistic relations between Iran, a rising power with hegemonic regional ambitions which is using the conflict over nuclear capability to its advantage, and a more insecure Saudi Arabia, which is forced to rely on the security guarantees of external powers against both regional and domestic threats. Global powers, in turn, are used by Iran and Saudi Arabia for the purposes of pursuing their own rivalry. Afghanistan becomes a terrain over which Iran and Saudi Arabia project their ideological and economic ambitions and seek security safeguards. Each competes to shape Afghan domestic politics and future governance, in large part by attempting to curb the influence of the other. They use their connections with various ethnic and religious groups, propagating their distinct religious doctrines, increasing economic ties and attempting to influence insurgent groups. At the same time, both seek legitimacy and relevance by maneuvering to become part of the solution to the Afghan security problem.

This chapter examines dynamics within the South Asian regional security complex, how the two regional rivals, India and Pakistan, draw in global powers, and how their relationship is projected in Afghanistan. The conflict between India and Pakistan is attributed to historical legacies over territory, including the Kashmir conflict, as well as irreconcilable differences over national identity. The chapter examines how the security dynamics within the South Asian region have in turn been influenced by the rivalries of global powers. These rivalries, argues the chapter, get projected onto the Afghan terrain. In Afghanistan, the main rationale for both Pakistan and India is to check the influence of the other, furthering their regional proxy war, albeit indirectly and with unconventional tactics. For Pakistan, influence over Afghanistan is seen as essential to security, primarily for maintaining strategic depth against India, but also to maintain the current border (the disputed Durand Line), to quash aspirations for a united Pashtunistan, and to foster cooperation with the US. For India, engagement in Afghanistan is largely about constraining Pakistan’s influence, turning public opinion against its main rival, while insulating itself from the dangers of the narcotics trade and fundamentalist Islam. India also seeks international recognition as a major donor.

India’s unease about the Rajapakse regime as it came to power in 2005 began with his insistence on retaining the country’s unitary constitution. However, New Delhi backed the President’s war effort on the basis of promises that he would implement the Thirteenth Amendment and devolve powers to the Tamils. Instead, Rajapakse resorted to playing the China card to contain India’s capacity to influence policy in Sri Lanka. It was no surprise to New Delhi that after LTTE’s defeat, the President backed out on commitments to address the Tamil demands. Next, India redefined its policy goals and shifted focus to its regional and maritime security concerns. Signing a trilateral maritime agreement was part of the same initiative. With changes in government both in India (2014) and Sri Lanka (2015), the two countries see the changes as an opportunity to redefine bilateral relations in more realistic terms.

This chapter examines the hypothesis that the main drivers behind the involvement of the states in the wider neighborhood surrounding Afghanistan are to be found in the dynamic within three distinctive regional security complexes – Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and South Asia – rather than in the bilateral relations each state has to Afghanistan. The chapter takes a critical look at the basic proposition – which has informed most post-2001 policy initiatives – that Afghanistan serves as a connector for the countries of the wider neighborhood, examining this proposition from an identity perspective, an economic perspective, as well as a security perspective. The chapter also scrutinizes unfolding processes of change within each of the three regions surrounding Afghanistan, taking the vantage point of Kabul in asking what possible changes this could bring about in the relationship with each neighboring country and the regions of which they form a part, as well as whether we may see a full transformation of the very regional architecture of the neighborhood.