Russia’s grand geo-economic plan a step closer in Afghanistan

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu’s visit to Afghanistan this week aimed to advance Moscow’s “Greater Eurasian Partnership” (GEP), a grand strategic vision to forge new trade routes and institutional partnerships in Asia.

Considered by some as Russia’s version of the US’s “pivot to Asia” policy, Russia has given priority to GRP since the US and wider West imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia in 2022 after it invaded Ukraine.

Since then, Russia has revived the previously stalled International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) between itself and India via Iran, with branch corridors through Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea and Central Asia.

It’s also sought a larger regional role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic and, security and defense organization established by Russia and China in 2001.

These are relevant to Afghanistan as an SCO observer and through its trade with India via the INSTC. Afghanistan is also strategically located at the crossroads of Central, South and West Asia.

Shoigu’s immediate priority is to expand military-technical cooperation with the ruling Taliban so that it can more effectively combat ISIS-K, which has a presence in Afghanistan and an offshoot of which has attacked Russia in the past.

To that end, Shoigu has vowed that Russia will remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations, a redesignation that will enable the two sides to better coordinate policies to contain regional security threats like ISIS-K.

In parallel, Russia is expected to encourage the SCO to coordinate more closely with Afghanistan, including possibly through more intelligence-sharing and future anti-terrorist exercises.

At the same time, Afghanistan is strategically located to facilitate Russian trade and energy exports to South Asia. For that route to be viable, the Taliban must stabilize domestic security, improve ties with Pakistan and hope in turn Pakistan and India improve their often tense relations.

Russian-Pakistani ties have improved tremendously in recent years, with significant progress made in recent months. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk paid a two-day visit to Pakistan in late September, while Moscow hosted the first-ever Russian-Pakistani Trade and Investment Forum in early October.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Tashkent in September 2022 “The objective is to deliver pipeline gas from Russia to Pakistan. This is possible as well, in view of the fact that some infrastructure is already in place in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.”

If Indian-Pakistani ties also improve in parallel with Afghan-Pakistani relations, then this prospective Russian pipeline could hypothetically extend to India as well.

Even without progress on Putin’s proposed pipeline, Russia could potentially turn Afghanistan into a regional oil hub, as the Taliban envisages, according to a Reuters report.

The report built upon what acting Afghan Minister of Industry and Trade Nooruddin Azizi told Sputnik in August 2022 about Kabul’s desire to barter its rich trove of minerals in exchange for oil.

(In 2010, the US assessed that Afghanistan has nearly US$1 trillion worth of untapped minerals, including lithium.)

The pieces are thus arguably falling into place for Russia to swap oil for minerals from Afghanistan, turn the nation into a regional oil hub, and then help mediate a resolution of Afghan-Pakistan disputes to facilitate its oil exports to Pakistan and lay the political basis for building a pipeline.

On the trade front, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to create a transport corridor between Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan was signed in August 2023.

The MoU signed between Pakistan and Russia during Overchuk’s visit in late September referenced this corridor, which can tentatively be described either as the Central Eurasian Corridor (CEC) or the SCO Corridor due to its geographic location and institutional association.

These legal grounds can expedite plans to build a Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan (PAKAFUZ) railway. The CEC/SCO Corridor, with PAKAFUZ as its core, can also eventually expand to India contingent on improved ties with Pakistan.

Shoigu visited Afghanistan primarily to explore closer military-technical cooperation in tackling ISIS-K upon Russia’s impending lifting of the Taliban’s designation as a terrorist group.

That cooperation is crucial to Russia’s ambitious plans for turning Afghanistan into an integral part of its GEP through the construction of a transregional transport corridor with complementary energy infrastructure.

This new corridor could potentially incentivize Pakistan and India to resolve their long-running dispute over Kashmir, which Russia could help mediate if requested to do so.

Pakistan could then profit from facilitating Russian, Central Asian and Afghan trade with India, while India can reduce the time and costs of trade with all three via Pakistan.

If any or all of this comes to pass, then it will help Russia avoid becoming overly dependent on China by bolstering the role that South Asia, particularly Pakistan and India, plays in its balancing act.

From the incoming Trump administration’s perspective, this would advance the returning president’s stated goal of “un-uniting” Russia and China, though some US officials might seek to obstruct this gambit.

With these possibilities in mind, Shoigu’s trip to Kabul can, therefore, be seen as part of a major power play designed to further Russia’s grand strategic goal of becoming a leading Asian nation.

Of course, these plans could be impeded if ISIS-K isn’t readily defeated and it will still take considerable time even if that happens. But improved Russian-Afghan ties could shift the region’s geopolitical and geo-economic balance if even just part of Moscow’s plans come to fruition.