Mineral deposits that could turn Afghanistan into the Saudi Arabia of precious metals have been discovered – but they're in the worst possible location, writes TOM CLONAN,Security Analyst
AS PRESIDENT OBAMA continues his military and civilian surge in Afghanistan, where almost 100,000 US troops – more, for the first time, than the number stationed in Iraq – are facing Taliban resistance that has been far fiercer than anticipated, a new, and sensational, factor has entered the equation. The New York Times has reported on newly revealed Pentagon papers that claim Afghanistan holds priceless deposits of precious metals, such as copper, cobalt, gold and lithium.
These essential components of the global information, communications and technology industries are vital for the manufacture of iPhones, laptops and other electronic devices. If exploited by multinational mining companies, they could generate annual exports worth hundreds of billions of dollars for the Afghan economy – a transformation for a country that currently has a gross domestic product of just $12 billion (€10 billion) or so a year.
In 2004 a team of American geologists apparently discovered charts in a vault in the library of Kabul’s Afghan Geological Survey that show vast mineral deposits throughout Afghanistan. Based on these charts, which are said to have been drawn up by Russian geologists during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a US team conducted an aerial survey of Afghanistan between 2004 and 2008, to pinpoint the deposits.
The teams were reportedly astounded by their findings, concluding that Afghanistan could become the Saudi Arabia of precious-metal resources. Their report observed that such new-found wealth could divert young Afghan men away from Islamist extremism and the desire to wage jihad on the western-backed government of Hamid Karzai.
So far, so good. On closer inspection, however, it became clear that many of the deposits were along the border with Pakistan, from Helmand Province through Kandahar and northeast through the tribal areas to Paktia Province, areas thoroughly infiltrated by the Taliban, where US offensives against the insurgency are proving costly and inconclusive. Those in Marja and Shah Wali Kot, in Kandahar, have been described by the Nato commander of Isaf, the US general Stanley McChrystal, as a bleeding ulcer for coalition troops.
Afghanistan’s coalition Interim Security Assistance Force (Isaf) currently has about 150,000 troops, including logistics, engineering and air support – and a number of Irish soldiers who are working with the Isaf to counter the Taliban’s use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against coalition troops.
Despite Obama’s surge, the numbers of US and coalition troops killed in combat in Afghanistan have increased dramatically over the past 18 months. As the Taliban regrouped and responded to the US pattern of deployment, the casualty rate doubled in 2009, with 317 US troops killed there last year. In the first six months of this year the Taliban counter-offensive has claimed the lives of more than 200 US and British troops.
Complicating matters further is the nature of the insurgency. The Taliban are using classic guerrilla tactics, punctuating a war of attrition with sporadic hit-and-run firefights and – more ominously – the increased use of IEDs to kill and maim Isaf troops and Afghan civilians.
So far this year 137 US and British troops have been killed by IEDs in areas identified by the US geologists as suitable for mining infrastructure. If the development of such an industry is to become part of Obama’s exit strategy for the US in Afghanistan, the challenges are formidable. In the 1980s the Soviet Union failed to quell the mujahideen insurgency despite a campaign that was so expensive it almost bankrupted the Kremlin and contributed in no small measure to the ultimate collapse of the centrally controlled communist economy.
At a cost to the US taxpayer of more than $20 billion (€16 billion) a month, Obama’s Afghanistan surge cannot continue indefinitely. It is difficult to see how the industrial and mining infrastructure could be put in place to exploit Afghanistan’s new-found wealth.
If other superpowers – China, for example – were to provide covert support for the Taliban, the insurgency would begin to represent a proxy war for natural resources in Asia, a conflict for which the US would be unequipped, militarily or financially, to win.
Even without the support of a third party, the Taliban, recruiting from the millions of young Afghan men exiled to the tribal areas and border provinces of Pakistan, could easily tie down US forces for decades. Then the industrial potential identified by US geologists might well remain firmly in the realm of wishful thinking.
Dr Tom Clonan, the Security Analyst of The Irish Times,lectures at Dublin Institute of Technology's school of media
