THE
AFGHAN CONUNDRUM
Since
the signing of the peace deal between USA special Representative Zalmay
Khalilzad and the Afghan Taliban the instability in the afghan is looming, which had drawn the attention of most of the countries especially its neighbors
who are paying key attention as they have huge security implications
If
we go in the history the entire problem was started by the then USSR in 1979
which had displaced the ruling community and had placed the Northern alliance
who are a minority in afghan as their rulers and used them to ensure Afghanistan
acts as a buffer state in case of outbreak of war and during the peace times
the KGB would deploy its entire intelligence might to ensure no other countries
like the USA, Pakistan would use the land route to attack the USSR. The USA
countered the northern alliance by proxy methods such as arming the displaced
rulers with advanced weapons to fight against the Northern Alliance but fall
out of the USSR and subsequent withdrawal of Russia from Afghanistan has
created a terrible mess for the world and the USA especially in 9/11 attacks
Post
the 9/11 attacks the then president George Bush reversed the decision of the
Clinton and launched the Global war on terror by sending the troops to Afghanistan
with the intention of eliminating the Taliban. Over the span of 18 years close to 3,550 NATO coalition soldiers died in
Afghanistan, nearly 2,400 have been Americans, in the past 5 years more
than 50000 Afghan soldiers died the 2 trillion dollars of American money hardly
produced any results. During the election campaign of Trump one of the key
promises was to get out of Afghanistan. Subsequently, he had two choices one is
to approach Pakistan or seek the help of Indian army, The alliance of Pakistan
with China whom the USA considers as a key opponent in Indo pacific was obviously
not the first choice so James Mattis defense secretary approached his counterpart
Nirmala Sitharaman for sending the Indian armed forces to replace them with
NATO soldier (that was the time when Modi was using every international platform
to criticize Terrorism).
The Indian Foreign policy towards the Afghan is
more of Neoliberal and Neo Realistic India
entered into a strategic
partnership agreement with Afghanistan in October 2011.
Assistance to help rebuild Afghanistan's infrastructure and
institutions, education and technical assistance to re-build indigenous Afghan
capacity in different areas, encouraging investment in Afghanistan's natural
resources, providing duty-free access to the Indian market for Afghanistan's exports,
support for an Afghan-led,
Afghan-owned, broad-based and inclusive process of
peace and reconciliation and advocating the need for a sustained and long-term
commitment to Afghanistan by the
international community.
• Security - expansive bilateral military cooperation,
including the transfer of military equipment
India has provided over USD 2 billion of development
assistance to Afghanistan since 2001:
•
Newly built Afghan Parliament
•
Salma irrigation and electricity
project (aka India-Afghanistan Friendship Dam)
•
Stor palace
•
Zaranj-Delaram highway to Iran
•
Afghan diplomats, administrators and soldiers are sent to India for
professional training
•
Kabul’s biggest children’s hospital and medical missions in their major cities
•
Kabul’s most prestigious high school,
•
Transmission lines that light up Kabul and the buses that ferry commuters in
the capital
But
on security cooperation India was very week, India should have accepted to take the burden of NATO soldiers. In return, we should have demanded deployment of aircraft
carrier at the Arabian sea and one at the Indian Ocean to act as a power
projection to prevent china from interfering Indian taking over of the POK and
would have entered the Afghan via POK with sparkling guns of American soldiers
which would send a message that we are among those who walk the talk on the
issue of terror in the long run the peace in afghan would be impossible without
cooperation of Iran which is a better enemy of the USA, to ensure the IRAN
cooperation the purchasing of the oil should be restored immediately which
would boost the Iran failing economy.
The terrible Finance minister was terrible at
the defense too, but it went unnoticed as she was seen as the first women
defense minister, In a press conference she rejected the offer of Americans and
stated no boots on the ground which is
absolutely dangerous for our country as the Taliban would come at our doorstep boarding
the Kashmir, in any case, the war/fight is inevitable the only choice is the
location of the fight i.e whether we fight at Kashmir or in their home pitch Afghanistan
.
