Afghanistan seeking closer ties with U.S.

[seruriermarshal]

Afghanistan seeking closer ties with U.S.

April 15, 2005 Afghanistan seeking closer ties with U.S.


by Kathleen T. Rhem American Forces Press Service


Afghanistan is "aggressively seeking" a closer economic and strategic security relationship with the United States, the country's first democratically elected leader said in Kabul Wednesday.


Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the people of his country want a long-term relationship with the United States "that would enable Afghanistan to defend itself [and] to continue to prosper." He added that he plans to "formally and officially request" such an agreement from President Bush.


Karzai's remarks came during a joint press conference with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the heavily guarded presidential palace. Rumsfeld was on his ninth visit to Afghanistan since U.S.-led military action began here in October 2001. His last visit to the capital city was for Karzai's inauguration in December 2004.


When asked for a response to Karzai's announcement, Rumsfeld said such diplomatic issues are for the president and secretary of state to decide on and announce. He also declined to speculate whether the United States plans to build permanent military bases here, though he downplayed the possibility.


"What we generally do when we work with another country is what we have been doing, we find ways that we can be helpful," the secretary said. "It may be training; it may be equipping; it may be various types of assistance, such as is the case here.


"But we think more in terms of what we're doing rather than the question of military bases," he added.


In explaining the request for longer-term U.S. assistance, Karzai said his country has learned many lessons during "years of extreme difficulty and violence and economic deprivation."


Today, the Afghan president said, the country has a growing economy and a reconstruction boom in large part due to international assistance.


"Primarily, on the whole, that assistance is from the United States in the economic area, reconstruction, and in the security services, including the training of the Afghan army and police, and the strengthening of Afghan ad-ministration," Karzai said.
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From (http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/10_15/national_news/34463-1.html)

[Jedburgh]

A Greater Central Asia Partnership for Afghanistan and Its Neighbors (http://www.silkroadstudies.org/CACI/Strategy.pdf)

...the fact remains that the absence of systematic region-wide coordination prevents all countries in the region from reaping the full benefits of existing U.S. programs. The U.S.’ cross-border initiatives are few and not notably effective. Poor coordination between military and civilian initiatives outside of Afghanistan, as well as poor inter-state cooperation, deny both local recipients and the U.S. itself the full benefits that should be expected from them.

Inadequate coordination and integration of U.S. programs invites regional leaders to play upon perceived inconsistencies in U.S. policy to gain unilateral advantages over their neighbors. It tacitly allows free rein to narrowly nationalist currents within all of the regional states, without creating any regional counterweight to them. Above all, it leaves regional leaders less inclined and less able to engage in the balancing actions between major players (Russia, China, India, the U.S.) that is in their own interest.

All this is rendered more serious because few living links tie Afghanistan and its northern neighbors. Members of the new Afghan leadership know Pakistan but not the former Soviet states to the North, while few of the elite of the five former Soviet republics have more than a superficial knowledge of Afghanistan. Unless bridges are built, the mutual isolation that existed for a century will continue, and kill prospects for further development.

Stated simply, the U.S. is doing solid work throughout the region, but the absence of a region-wide strategy and administrative architecture prevents it from identifying and building upon the natural complementarities that exist there. Equally important, it leaves governments in the region with the impression that the U.S.’s approach to Afghanistan and Central Asia as a whole is episodic rather than systematic, ad hoc rather than strategic.

[pathfinder82]

Closer ties?