Afghanistan and Pakistan are neighbors with a common border of 2,560 kilometers. The former president of Afghanistan once described the relationship as "twin brothers": both countries are Sunni Countries of Islam, and both have English in their official languages. The Pashtuns, who make up more than 40 percent of Afghanistan's more than 30 million people, are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Pashtuns, the third-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan, make up only 11 percent of the population, but the sheer number exceeds 20 million. This is a huge force that cannot be ignored.
A significant portion of Pakistan's territory today was historically part of Afghanistan. The Durand Agreement between Britain and Afghanistan in 1893 redrawn the border between Afghanistan and British India by more than 2,400 kilometers. This border adjustment has deprived Afghanistan of ownership of Bajar, Swat, Chitral and, more importantly, afghanistan has lost all its coastline and become a landlocked mountainous country. In 1947, the British divided the former British Indian colony into two parts: India, which was predominantly Hindu, and Pakistan, which had a predominantly Muslim population.
The part of the territory that Britain had transferred from Afghanistan to British India was transferred to Pakistan during the partition of India and Pakistan. This laid the foundation for the future territorial dispute between Pakistan and Afghanistan. For years Afghanistan has demanded that Pakistan and itself redraw their territory along the pre-1893 border lines. However, if Afghanistan is divided according to the method, Pakistan will lose 400,000 square kilometers of territory. This will account for half of Pakistan's current total land area. Naturally, Pakistan is not willing to lose half of its territory in such a vain way.
The demarcation of the border in 1893 set the stage for the territorial dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan today, but also created a national component of both sides, you have me, I have you. In the novel "The Kite Chaser" by the Afghan-American writer Khaled Al-Husseini, the protagonist is a rich young master in Afghanistan. After the civil unrest in Afghanistan, many wealthy Afghans came to Pakistan by car and then transferred from Pakistan to the United States. Balochistan, which occupies nearly half of Pakistan's territory, is dominated by the Pashtuns, Pakistan's third largest ethnic group.
The Pashtuns of Pakistan and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan share the same ancestry and language – with high similarities in language, religion and customs. It can be seen that there is indeed a certain geographical relationship and historical origin between Afghanistan and Pakistan. What if Afghanistan and Pakistan, which once had similarities in ethnicity, language, religion, etc., were merged into one congress? I have to say that this is a brain-opening problem. At first glance, a merger is indeed a shortcut to the rise of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At present, Afghanistan and Pakistan are actually not developing very well. Afghanistan is almost the poorest country in the world economically and a politically volatile and war-torn country. Pakistan, as a nuclear power with a population of hundreds of millions, can be regarded as a great power militarily, but Pakistan's domestic political situation is equally turbulent and its economic level is equally backward. Although Pakistan is not at war like Afghanistan, the occasional terrorist attack proves that the country is not safe. About half of Pakistan's current per capita experience varying degrees of malnutrition.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are strategically located at an important crossroads connecting West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and East Asia. The two countries are almost all bordered by relatively powerful countries or alliances of states: China to the east, Iran to the west, India to the south, and the five Central Asian countries and Russia to the north. If Afghanistan and Pakistan were merged into one country, the country's territory would reach more than 1.5 million square kilometers. This will rank 19th among more than 200 countries and regions in the world.
At the same time, the population of this country will reach about 240 million, making it the world's fifth most populous country after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. The country will have long borders with Iran to the west and Central Asian countries to the north. It is entirely possible for a landlocked Central Asian country to use its coastline for world trade. The country formed by the merger of Afghanistan and Pakistan could well become a world-wide transport and trading nation. A merger would not only bring economic benefits to both countries, but would also improve the security situation of both countries.
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have long been threatened by extremist forces such as terrorism, and the border areas, which are not widely managed on both sides, have always been areas where various terrorist extremist forces are active. Once the two countries merge, there will be no hiding place for these terrorist extremist forces that used to hide in the border areas. At that time, not only will the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan be improved, but also the overall regional security situation in Central asia and South Asia will be improved. The merger seems to be doing a lot of benefits for both countries.
But merger does not mean that merger is merged, otherwise the direct union of more than two hundred countries and regions in the world would not save countless wars and conflicts in the world? Consolidation requires a certain foundation. We started by talking about the similarities between Afghanistan and Pakistan in terms of language, religion, customs, etc., but note that this is only a relatively similar rather than an exact same. Afghanistan and Pakistan are inhabited by a large number of Pashtuns with the same language, religion and customs, but afghanistan and Pakistan are multi-ethnic countries.
It would be rather unrealistic to want to unite the two countries by relying solely on the Pashtuns as a link. The Pashtuns are only the third largest ethnic group in Pakistan, which accounts for 11% of the total population. This means that the majority of Pakistan's population is non-Pashtun, so which of the dominant ethnic groups will dominate after the merger of the two countries? If the Pashtuns of Afghanistan hold the reins of the combined state, then perhaps the Pashtuns in Pakistan will be acceptable, but will other ethnic groups, which account for nearly 90% of Pakistan's total population, acceptable?
Conversely, if the dominant ethnic group in Pakistan holds the dominance of the merged state, will the Pashtuns, whose strength has increased with the merger, acceptable? Moreover, the Pashtuns do not have an absolute superiority in Afghanistan. Although the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, they make up only about 40 per cent of the country's total population. Today, there are also Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen and other ethnic groups living in Afghanistan. Although these ethnic groups are not as numerous as Pashtuns, they together account for about 60 per cent of Afghanistan's population.
After the merger, with the accession of the various ethnic groups in Pakistan, it is bound to make the merged country more complex in terms of ethnic structure, so it is very likely that the merger will cause the intensification of ethnic and sectarian contradictions. It can be seen that although the two countries have certain similarities in the ethnic structure, the differences between the two countries seem to be more. It is this difference that makes the merger of the two countries lack a basis. In fact, there has been hostility between Pakistan and Afghanistan for quite some time in the past.
Afghanistan has always regarded the area set out in the Durand Accords as its own inherent territory and has been trying to recover it by various means. As a result, Afghanistan has clashed more than once with Pakistan. On October 29, 2019, there was a serious conflict in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan: offensive weapons, including a large number of heavy artillery, were used by both sides, causing several civilian and soldier casualties. The growing hostility between the two sides in this protracted border conflict makes it unlikely that they will sit down and talk about a merger.
Although Afghanistan and Pakistan are not developing well at present, in general, Pakistan is relatively stronger than Afghanistan in terms of land area, population size, economic level, and military strength. So the biggest possibility for the two countries to merge is for the more powerful Pakistan to merge with Afghanistan. At that time, Pakistan, which is relatively dominant in the economic level, will need subsidies to help Afghanistan. Isn't this the equivalent of poverty alleviation in disguise for Pakistanis? Not to mention that Pakistan's own economic level is not much better.
Pakistan itself is still facing strategic pressure from India every day, and at the same time facing the threat of extreme forces such as terrorism in the country, which has the leisure to play the role of a child who scatters wealth. The merger of Afghanistan is a heavy burden on Pakistan. I am busy dealing with the strategic pressure brought by India now, and I am busy enough to find a burden for myself. If the merger of Afghanistan and Pakistan is not done well, it is likely that there will be a weak and weak alliance in the economy.
Finally, the external situation does not allow Afghanistan and Pakistan to merge. Since ancient times, Afghanistan has been an "imperial graveyard" for geopolitical power competitions. Once Pakistan and Afghanistan merge to form a country spanning West Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia, then this country is bound to become a target coveted by the United States, Russia, India and other world powers because of its sensitive geographical location. If the two countries merge, not only will they have little potential for development, but they will intensify the internal ethnic and sectarian contradictions and will also become the object of contention among world powers.