Key Recommendations: Military institutions and stakeholders in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran should:

• Establish forums of interaction between security forces at tactical, operational, and strategic levels.

• Establish military exchange programs in order to promote military interaction in connection with common security challenges.

• Establish centers of excellence in areas of common military operational fields, aiming at providing security in the region.

NOVEMBER 2019

This policy brief provides an overview of findings and recommendations presented at the fourth joint conference organized by the Royal Danish Defence College and Pakistan’s National Defence University on “Exploring Opportunities for Regional Security Cooperation”, held in Islamabad on October 22-23, 2019. The conference engaged officials, academics, and practitioners in a constructive dialogue to explore options for promoting regional security cooperation.

IntroductionIt has been stated and re-stated on several occasions that there are good intentions to initiate regional security cooperation in the region, but in order to accomplish this, there needs to be focus on some specific steps. A major challenge is the inadequate Afghan security system, and it is important to consider initiatives that can improve the capability and capacity of the Afghan military institutions in a steady

Exploring Opportunities for Regional Security CooperationBy Christian Høj Hansen and Khadija Younus

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and sustainable manner. A viable step in this direction is security cooperation and focus on improvement of interaction and cooperation with other regional military institutions. Such initiatives should focus on aspects related to effective management of borders, reducing civilian casualties during operations, improving the capacity of military institutions, and promoting regional reconciliation measures/initiatives.

One of the initial steps that holds the potential of combining these initiatives is security cooperation through exchange programs for mid-level officers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. The militaries in all three countries play a vital role in developing security policy within and towards the region, and an increased cooperation between military institutions from Afghanistan-Pakistan and Afghanistan-Iran will contribute to regional stability as a platform for future regionally grown initiatives and solutions for stability. However, in order to build this platform for stabilization initiatives, it is necessary to take some of the main obstacles that are hindering regional security cooperation into consideration. Characteristic for all countries in the region is the existence of internal policy objectives that – to a certain degree – determine the foreign policy. This may be difficult to combine with common regional interests.

Challenges for Regional Military Cooperation The instability in Afghanistan, its spill-over into neighboring countries, and the political dynamics between Afghanistan and the region make it difficult to establish security cooperation. The general lack of trust, the regional support for potentially conflicting parties in Afghanistan, and the dislike of foreign military presence, especially in relation to civilian casualties, are among the key challenges when it comes to advancing regional cooperation.

Afghanistan’s present political structures and power system in general established by the international community bear a significant responsibility for the present challenges. To a certain extent, the international led NATO mission in Afghanistan can be characterized by a patron-client relationship, which has encouraged Afghan development of security policies to prioritize Western interest and give less priority to regional interests, thus impeding Afghanistan’s

ability to engage fully in sustainable regional security cooperation. A regional willingness to cooperate does exist, but the path towards achieving a functioning cooperative relationship varies from country to country. Hence, the international community should to a higher degree encourage regional decision-making and interaction by slowly decreasing the Afghan system’s dependency on the West. The consequences of the present instability are severe. Currently, transnational terrorist movements, insurgency groups, and criminal networks are the greatest benefactors from the instability in Afghanistan.

Another challenge that is preventing progress is the lack of intelligence sharing and military-to-military cooperation, causing difficulties for security forces. This problem is especially visible in border areas, where civilians may live in complex security environments. One example is military air operations carried out in Afghanistan, where there has been an increasing number of civilian causalities in recent years. This situation highlights the need to improve military cooperation between regional states as improved intelligence sharing would make it easier for legal advisors, red card holders, and intelligence specialists to detect legal military targets and thereby reduce civilian casualties. These perspectives underline how the mechanisms for improved regional security cooperation could be translated into practical terms for the soldier on the ground as well as the civilian population. At present, the security situation is such that both soldiers and civilians deal with the consequences of a lack of a proper information sharing process.

Adopting Pragmatic Approaches to Increased Military CooperationAll regional countries have a tendency to give trilateral relationships secondary status, and it is therefore important to instigate improved bilateral cooperation to kick-start the prospect for trilateral security cooperation at some point in the future. In order for initial bilateral initiatives to take place, it will be necessary to include foreign assistance and support that can facilitate and mediate the contact among the regional military institutions.

Establishing institutional relationships takes time, and consequently, the focus of these engagements must have a long-term perspective and simultaneously

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include top-down and bottom-up approaches. An initiative that can combine these aspects are joint investments in education systems based on bilateral (and in the longer term trilateral) Memorandums of Understanding between regional security institutions. These bilateral or trilateral agreements could initially focus on measures such as counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and -extremism, joint immigration policy initiatives, cyber-crime, regular cross-border military visits and meetings, joint military courses, and regular sharing of conceptual understanding of the security threats.

Furthermore, allowing the institutions to cooperate relatively independently from the whims of everyday politics could develop into a bulwark against day-to-day political bureaucracy that hinders cooperation, thereby encouraging bottom-up initiatives. At the same time, a top-down approach through military cooperation should be based on e.g. exchange of visits between the senior leadership of the involved militaries. A possible first step forward entails the creation of student exchange programs between the security institutions in all three countries. These exchange programs should focus on regular meetings and interaction among officers, contact between military commanders at least annually, and workshops, seminars, and conferences for the top brass and/or relevant middle-rank officers.

Following the first step, more expansive cooperation mechanisms could be launched, e.g. the establishment of centers of excellence to impart training in the requisite fields concerning regional security systems. This could lead to improved communication between institutions through daily interaction between the staff posted at the centers. Such initiatives could

later materialize into joint military education centers, where joint counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and border management could be prioritized.

Further down the path, joint border patrols and joint military exercises could further increase interoperability. As a future outcome of military cooperation, the safety of civilians in the region would no doubt see a noticeable improvement which might lead to increased development, government outreach, infrastructure, economic development, and so forth. It is safe to say that military-to-military cooperation through interaction at workshops and conferences holds great potential as they could serve as the basis for establishment of both strategic forums for information sharing at the operational level and forums at the tactical level for field commanders.

ConclusionIn conclusion, dialogue and cooperation between education institutions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran – military as well as civilian – offer opportunities for the building of a platform for increased regional security cooperation. For such an approach to be successful in the long term, the non-regional actors would have to recognize that peace cannot be built from the outside, but has to be indigenous and developed in the region. Nevertheless, pre-steps, such as meetings and workshops between military institutions from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran are required before direct exchange programs can take place. Finally, continued security cooperation and future military cooperation on education and knowledge exchange among key institutions is likely the most promising step in building a stable regional security system.

Editor in Chief: David Vestenskov, Chief Consultant, Centre of Stabilisation, Royal Danish Defence College.Internal review: Troels Burchall Henningsen, PhD., Institute for Strategy, Royal Danish Defence College.Authors:Christian Høj Hansen is a Consultant at the Royal Danish Defence College. His work comprises the development, planning, and execution of several projects within the framework of the Danish Peace and Stabilisation Fund’s projects in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. He holds an MA in History from the University of Copenhagen, where he specialized in how nations are built and how this affects the subsequent historical development of the nation. His area of research has mainly focused on history and security dynamics in South Asia and the Middle East with specific focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.Khadija Younus is a Research Associate at the Institute for Strategic Studies, Research and Analysis, National Defence University, Pakistan. She is a PhD scholar in the field of American Studies and has recently completed authoring a book titled “Pakistan in the 21st Century – The Correct Perception” with Andrew Korybko, a Russia-based Political Analyst. Her area of research focuses on American foreign policies around the globe with special emphasis on Pakistan-centric policies and initiatives. She regularly contributes to various national journals of international repute.ISBN: 978-87-7147-277-6