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Is Baluchistan more strategically significant than Afghanistan?
Baluchistan, Pakistan’s biggest province, rarely gets much attention from the international media, and what little it does is dwarfed by that showered on Afghanistan. So it is with a certain amount of deliberate provocation that I
ask the question posed in the headline: Is Baluchistan more strategically
significant than Afghanistan?
Before everyone answers with a resounding “no”, do pause to consider that
China – renowned for its long-term planning – has invested heavily in
Baluchistan, including building a deep water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea
to give it access to Gulf oil supplies. The region is rich in gas and
minerals; attracting strong international interest in spite of a low-level
insurgency by Baluch separatists.
Bordering both Iran and Afghanistan, it lies along the sectarian and
geopolitical fault lines that have fissured the region since the 1979 Islamic
Revolution in Iran and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year. Its
capital, Quetta, is often cited by Washington as a haven for the Afghan Taliban
in the so-called Quetta Shura, who operates independently of the more secular
Baluch separatists.
The province is also a source of friction with India, with Pakistan accusing
it of using its presence in Afghanistan to fund the Baluch separatists, a
charge Delhi denies. Whatever the rights and wrongs of that argument, you can
be fairly sure that anywhere lying on the intersection of Indian, Chinese and
Pakistani interests will be strategically far more important than it might
appear on the surface.
In that context, Forbes Magazine has a must-read take-out on China’s drive
to develop its presence in Baluchistan.
“In the Pakistani province of Balochistan, South Asia and central Asia bleed
into the Middle East. Bordered by Afghanistan, Iran and the Persian Gulf, and
well endowed with oil, gas, copper, gold and coal reserves, Balochistan is a
rich prize that should have foreign investors battering at the gates,” it
says. “But for a half-century it has been the exclusive playground of the
Pakistani government and its state-owned Chinese partners. China would prefer
it to stay that way.”
For an entirely different view, Informed Comment has a guest contribution up
by Berkeley academic Kiren Aziz Chaudhry. The arguments can be a bit
distracting if you don’t buy into conspiracy theories about the reasons for the
U.S. presence in Afghanistan. But do persevere until you get to the point where
the writer identifies Baluchistan as the main centre of interest for the many
rivalries across Afghanistan and Pakistan: “The fulcrum is the province of
Balochistan. And within Balochistan, the pivot is the dusty, obscure coastal
town of Gwadar. Gwadar has a spanking new deep water port. Wheels within
wheels. Devices within devices.” It’s worth reading through to the end, if
nothing else but because this little known part of the world deserves as many
different voices as possible.
At the very least, both articles should leave you with a doubt in your mind
about the original question as to whether Baluchistan is strategically more
important than Afghanistan.
And then revisit another question I asked a year ago. Who will win the peace
in Afghanistan?
Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2010/05/01/is-baluchistan-more-strategically-significant-than-afghanistan/
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