India is ideally suited to provide the military trainers that NATO needs in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan needs more military trainers — NATO has been able to provide only 541 out of 1278 trainers needed for the growing Afghan Army and Police forces — and they aren’t getting them from anywhere. Pakistan has been rather keen to provide [...]
Only one reason — ensure the security and well-being of its citizens, thereby providing them with a better life.
Amidst all the hype over Indian involvement in Afghanistan and lamentations over declining India influence in that country, here is a quick check of the possible reasons that drive India’s continued interest in Afghanistan.
Let us start with [...]
Some gaps in the understanding are filled, but more questions emerge.
Too many trees have been felled and much ether used to debate the Indian offer to recommence peace talks with Pakistan. Most of the sensible debate — not the jingoistic bit of how we have been shamed by Pakistan cocking a snook at us — [...]
Anecdotal understanding of the Afghan attitude is misleading.
Tom Ricks, in an interview with Fareed Zakaria:
Even when I lived there, it seemed to me that guerrilla warfare was the Afghan national sport.
One of my favorite books on this region is by John Masters. It’s called “Bugles and a Tiger.” It’s a memoir of being a British [...]
British have made the mistake of paying the enemy earlier and still not learned their lessons.
From the At War blog of the New York Times:
There is talk of paying Afghan tribes to give up violence and stop fighting the American-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
This brings to mind a poem by Rudyard Kipling about [...]
The next army chief says Indian Army is designed for defence of India within the sub-continental domain.
Here is an excerpt from an interview in Salute with Lieutenant General VK Singh, who — in all likelihood — will be the next army chief in a few months time.
Warfare [...]
Pratap Bhanu Mehta makes a valid case for engaging Pakistan, but there have to be other prongs in the strategy.
In today’s Indian Express, India’s foremost columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta makes a case against Indian military involvement in Afghanistan. He instead asks India to make bold attempts to engage larger Pakistani public opinion to meet Indian [...]
Differing outcomes to similar importance of Russia and India to US interests in Afghanistan.
Well, Holbrooke might not have been welcome in India for some months now but he and his team have been in Beijing and Moscow in buildup to the Obama announcement. Russia’s importance to the US efforts in Afghanistan is not limited to [...]
[Guest blogger, BeeCee weighs in with his observations on the Indian options in Afghanistan.]
Till Obama’s Nobel Prize, Af-Pak strategy of US was definitely the flavour of the season. The theatrics over the Kerry-Lugar bill is merely part strategy and part consequence of the strategy. The trouble with strategic analysis and analysts is that it is [...]
Sending troops to Afghanistan is a valid strategic option for India.
There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot. ~Steven Wright
In two separate op-ed pieces today, former army chief General Shankar Roychowdhury and defence analyst Ajai Shukla try to find ways for India to influence the events in Afghanistan. Roychowdhury [...]
Why US should stay the course in Afghanistan?
Steve Coll of the New Yorker, at his blog Think Tank, makes a fist of a very difficult job: to explain that besides exterminating al Qaeda, South Asia — and India in particular — is the reason for the US to stay committed in Afghanistan.
The United States has [...]
McChrystal’s report warns of Pakistani retaliation to Indian influence in Afghanistan.
From the much-reported COMISAF initial assessment of the war in Afghanistan submitted by General Stanley A. McChrystal to Obama administration:
Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment. In addition, the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad [...]
US should warm up to implications of its South Asia policy.
Why do you say that India wants to help strengthen Pakistan?
India understands that it is not in its interest to try to destabilise or undermine Pakistan’s security at this very sensitive time.[Dawn]
This is Robert Blake, the new US Assistant Secretary of State for South [...]
China is worried about the Pakistan connection of Uighurs.
As far as the trouble in Xinjiang province goes, here is what the Communist regime in China expects from its neighbours.
China expected cooperation from neighbouring countries to safeguard peace and stability in the region, Qin said replying to a question on whether Beijing has asked neighbours [...]
Kayani explains what’s in a name.
If some one still had any doubts, Pakistan army chief explains that the rationale for the army’s operations against the jehadis lies in its code name — Rah-e-Rast. General Kayani said that the military operation “is launched to bring the astray people on the right track (Rah-e-Rast).”
“We are conducting this [...]
From the Afghan ambassador’s memo.
Cribbing to Kabul about inadequate funding for hiring lobbyists in Washington to further Afghan interests in the US Congress and administration, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the US, Said Tayeb Jawad gives out the details of his competitors, embassies of Pakistan and India. Here is the list of India’s lobbyists in Washington from [...]
Smart idea from Washington. Will it succeed?
Other than the US, there are three other countries that Pakistan considers its foremost allies: China, Saudi Arabia and Iran. While the US is directing all its energies on to Pakistan, it is also looking at these countries for asking Pakistan to do more in its fight against the [...]
A recipe for disaster.
The Pakistan armed forces have launched a ferocious assault on the jehadi positions in Swat and surrounding areas. Reports suggest that heavy artillery, fighter air crafts and helicopter gunships have been used against the jehadi positions. Any one familiar with this kind of weaponry would be aware of the kind of collateral [...]
The Japanese story.
At a National Review Online symposium on What to do about Pakistan?, all the participants — Victor Davis Hanson, Jonathan Foreman, Sumit Ganguly, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Walid Phares, James S. Robbins and Bill Roggio — agree that there are no good answers with the US to the vexed question. An excerpt from Bill Roggio’s [...]
India must avail of this opportunity.
This blogger’s take on India not striving hard enough to find common ground with Iran and the US, and facilitate a rapprochement between the two countries, has got a boost from an unlikely source. Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri has posted a video to mark the sixth anniversary of [...]
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