The draft of the strategic agreement with the United States has been finalized after 18 months of heated discussions and a political tug of war that involved many issues and aspects of the two countries' relations. The strategic agreement will set the tune and contours of the relations between the two countries for at least until 2024. What have been markedly interesting were the internal skirmishes that characterized the process of consensus-building inside the government of Afghanistan in the lead-up to the finalization of the process.

These skirmishes overflowed to the surface and found its way to the Afghan and foreign media after the clash of president's chief of staff and deputy minister of foreign affairs over the strategic agreement in particular and the broader U.S.-Afghan relations in general.

The strategic agreement is expected to be signed by the two countries' presidents before the May Chicago summit of NATO in which the security alliance will chalk out its future course for the next decade. The initial objective sought by the two governments, from the outset, was to get the agreement finalized and signed before the summit. Now the U.S. government can have a sigh of relief as the finalized draft lands on the desk of the country's chief executive.

The process of finalization of the strategic agreement was a rigorous political duel between the two governments. The government of Afghanistan and President Karzai in particular did their utmost in extracting the most favorable terms as far as possible while being cognizant of the agreement's crucial importance for the very survival of the current political and military dispensation in Afghanistan.

As far as the U.S. is concerned, there has been one overarching goal that the military as well as the civilian administration sought to accomplish all through the negotiations: securing the permission to have long-term military presence in Afghanistan well beyond 2014. Along other goals and objectives sought by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, this has a central importance that goes hand in hand with its other military objectives such as pacifying Afghanistan and keeping the Taliban at bay.

The strategic agreement between the two countries was a crucial missing link without which the course of future relation between Afghanistan and the U.S. would have remained ambiguous. The post-2014 scenario, the presence and continuation of American military engagement in Afghanistan and, in turn, the viability and the sustainability of maintaining the Afghan National Security Forces are among the most prominent issues that are closely tied with the strategic agreement.

The viability and sustainability of the Afghan National Security Forces are closely linked to the future partnership between the two countries and governments. It goes without saying that without active American involvement (and thus European as a result of that), no future can be conceivable for these forces. Although these security forces were able to demonstrate a relatively high level of readiness and professionalism during the recent Taliban coordinated attacks on Kabul, it is highly unlikely that the security forces most notably the Afghan National Army can withstand political and security turmoil that would set in if the political, military and financial support of the U.S. is minimized.

The government of President Karzai has been counting on this agreement to gain a more favorable treatment from the American government. The finalization of the deal has been made possible as a result of a significant degree of political give and take between the president and his American allies including demands by the president that the U.S. government shores up support for the president in the face of mounting challenges from both inside and outside Afghanistan.

The Funding of Afghan National Security Forces
The annual funding required for the Afghan National Security Forces is estimated to be as high as $ 5 billion although the tentative figure of $ 4.1 billion would come in the later stages when the forces would be significantly downsized.

The U.S. has announced that it will shoulder a significant part of the funding. Contributions from its European partners will follow as European countries have already pledged support. Interestingly enough, the two-day NATO conference of foreign and defense ministers in Brussels called on Russia and China to make financial contributions to the Afghan National Security Forces. This appeal is largely intended to counter and negate demands by Russia that it will be further included in NATO planning in Afghanistan. Russia has been consistently demanding a far greater role in American and NATO's planning in Afghanistan – a demand carefully sidestepped by the U.S. and its NATO allies.

The NATO's appeal to China to make financial contributions to ANSF will likely meet a lukewarm response of China. China, clearly, is not interested in involving itself in a western military campaign in Afghanistan that is approaching its final years and months. China's view of developments in Afghanistan is largely influenced by a perception that the western war efforts in Afghanistan are largely floundering. It is increasingly common to hear and read Chinese commentators and even important government think tankers and advisors to warn about the situation in Afghanistan reaching critical levels. This is reflected even in the personal views of Chinese embassy officials in Kabul who are, by and large, pessimistic about the medium term conditions in Afghanistan.

The diverging approaches of the Russian and Chinese governments to the issue of Afghanistan are interesting. Russian foreign policy has incorporated the Afghanistan issue into the larger set-up of its "re-set" of relations with the United States. The Chinese approach has been shaped largely by the internal developing situation in Afghanistan and the fact that China is eying significant mineral extraction opportunities in Afghanistan as part of an agenda of expanding business and commerce relations in the central Asian region on its peripheries.

It is also interesting to see how China is gradually scaling up its engagement with various political and social groups inside Afghanistan – a major change and different from the traditional Chinese ambivalence concerning Afghanistan's internal dynamics. In the years ahead, nonetheless, we are going to witness heightened Chinese engagement in Afghanistan – one that will transcend only political and commerce relations and one that will also encompass greater social, cultural and people-to-people engagement.