Russia is poised to strategically partner with the Taliban upon the impending removal of its domestic terrorist designation, which will in turn revolutionize bilateral relations with Afghanistan. Readers can learn more about each complementary aspect of this policy here and here. The present piece presupposes at least passing knowledge of what Russia aims to achieve and why, particularly the interconnected security and economic drivers behind these latest developments.
In brief, Russia envisages building up the Taliban’s capabilities so that they then more adequately contain and hopefully defeat those ISIS-K terrorists that have established themselves in Afghanistan. Once the security situation is stabilized, transnational connective infrastructure projects from Russia to South Asia via Afghanistan can then finally begin to take shape. These include a gas pipeline, an overland oil export route facilitated by a planned Afghan hub, and a railway, the latter two of which can go hand-in-hand.
These ambitious goals are expected to accelerate multipolarity processes upon their completion through the fulfillment of Russia’s related Ummah Pivot and Greater Eurasian Partnership concepts, the last two pieces of which are Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. Comprehensively expanding strategic ties with Afghanistan will in turn enable the symmetrical expansion of those with Pakistan if Islamabad has the political will, which remains to be seen though considering the expansion of US influence there.
The way in which Russian-Pakistani relations evolve might also inadvertently stoke suspicions in India if they move too fast, some of whose experts and policymakers fear that Russia is increasingly beginning to fall under Chinese influence, which readers can learn more about here and here. The tangible consequences of exacerbating this perception could abruptly disrupt multipolarity processes if they empower India’s pro-US faction in the event that newly troubled ties with the US improve.
The most effective way to preemptively counteract this scenario is for Russia to pioneer an Afghan development quartet between those two, India, Iran, and Uzbekistan aimed at fully incorporating that war-torn country into the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC). This would build upon November 2022’s Russian-Indian-Iranian Troika on Afghanistan in the new conditions of Moscow recognizing the Taliban as that country’s official leaders and Russia turning Uzbekistan into a regional logistics hub.
President Putin’s recent offer to help Uzbekistan reach more markets for growing its economy could take the form of incorporating it into this proposed quartet for optimizing all parties’ multilateral cooperation along the NSTC. While it appears inevitable that Afghanistan will one day facilitate Russian-Pakistani trade, even if it still takes some time for Islamabad to patch up its problems with Kabul and clinch associated pacts with Moscow, this could reassure India that its influence won’t be lost in that event.
India worries that a Russian-brokered improvement in Taliban-Pakistani ties incentivized by the earlier mentioned connectivity projects could lead to a surge of regional Chinese influence upon the northern expansion of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) into Central Asia via Afghanistan. The only way to calm these concerns is for India to beat China to the chase by having the NSTC become the bedrock of Afghanistan’s reconstruction and future economic development before CPEC does.
Considering the way in which Afghan society is organized, those trade opportunities that are opened up by the NSTC could lead to the informal creation of local patronage networks that would help India maintain its influence there amidst the possible surge of CPEC-driven Sino-Pak influence in the future. Getting ahead of the curve by cultivating loyal elites through sustainable economic means would go a long way towards assuaging India’s fears that the latest Russian-led processes are to China’s advantage.
The enormous rupee stockpile that Russia accumulated in India over the past two years largely as a result of their unprecedented energy cooperation brought about by generous oil discounts, which spiked bilateral trade to a record $65 billion last year, could also be relied upon in pursuit of this end. These rupees could be invested in coordination with India into pioneering an Uzbek-Afghan-Iranian trade corridor that could incorporate the planned oil hub in Herat for further ramping up Russian-Indian trade.
Streamlining this branch of the NSTC could unlock innumerably profitable opportunities for all stakeholders, especially Russia and India, not to mention accelerating the pace at which the suggested Afghan patronage networks could be created for preemptively counteracting Sino-Pak influence there. Through these means, India would be less likely to perceive the improvement of Russian-Afghan and eventually -Pakistani ties as benefiting their Chinese rival, thus discrediting that country’s pro-US faction.
