The Indian role in Afghanistan (new title)

[Dayuhan]

It is obvious.

One of the factions of the Taliban is the Haqqani faction. It's origins are with the Hizbe Islami Gulbuddin. As all are aware, Haqani maintains a wide and diverse relationship with terrorists, to include AQ, Uzbej, Chechen and Kashmiris.

The AQ and Taliban influence in fomenting terrorism in India is well known.

Pakistan based Taliban terrorists would migrate to Afghanistan if the situation improved, more so, if there was a government under the Talibans. It would also open up non traditional routes for them to India.

I'm sorry, but that's less than obvious to me. The Taliban and the other jihadis already have bases and protection in Pakistan, right on India's border. How would they become more dangerous to India by moving to Afghanistan? They'd still have to go through Pakistan to get to India. What "non-traditional routes to India" exist from Afghanistan, a landlocked nation not bordering India and possessing very limited links to other countries?

I'm sure one could come up with a scenario, but again the question is one of scale. Is that threat severe and imminent enough to justify the enormous risks and costs of going to war in Afghanistan? Isn't there a real possibility that Pakistan-based jihadis would step up attacks on India to try and break India's will to persist in Afghanistan?

Again, such a proposition would, one hopes, be accompanied by a clear assessment of costs and benefits. What, exactly and specifically, is the threat to be averted? How sever is it? Is it severe enough to justify the costs and risks of war, which is an expensive and risky enterprise?

Is that calculation being discussed in public, anywhere? I figure if anyone would have a link, it would be you

We have faced many insurgencies and some are still on going. They are not boiling over to cause a serious security concern. We do have some experience in the matter, and our actions have been in the realm of low tech and they work.

Managing your own insurgencies and managing someone else's are very different kettles of fisdh.

I wonder if India wants to install anything or anybody. Karzai is fine for India. In fact, it is for the Afghans to decide.

Karzai may be fine for India, but what if he isn't so fine for Afghanistan? And what if the Afghans decide something that isn't so fine for India, as is quite likely to be the case?

What is functioning Afghan state?

Is Pakistan a functioning State? A country where everyone is a Kalifa. Where there are three different centres of power - The Govt, the Army and the ISI and a hardcore spoiler - the TTP! A country that survive on US Aid, financial and mililtary and cannot even pay the interest on the borrowing from the IMF and WB! A country which sends a Minister to Saudi Arabia requesting for monies to shore up the Pakistan Nation Budget! A country that asks the US Drone attacks and cannot face up to its population to state that it is they who want the Drones and instead blames the US!! A country that breeds and harbours terrorists so as to destabilise other countries since they themselves are in the dumps and wants others to be in the same slot!

Therefore, the word 'functioning' and 'moderate' are merely subjective, meaningless and mere rhetoric!

Absolutely. From the US perspective a "functioning state" in Afghanistan would be a state that does not require US occupation and does not pose any threat to the US. The rest of it doesn't matter. It sounds like India's perspective is much the same.

They are not bribes, if you ask me.

If imaginatively applied, they swing the popular support to the country that is giving such aid.

Do they really? Have they ever, except among a few individuals? If so, where?

If the US companies themselves undertook the projects and their work observed by the locals, it would give a totally different meaning as compared to giving the money to Afghans to do as they like. It leads to corruption and the projects don't have the desired end result. The blame goes to the US. Of course, some top chaps in such projects and also some unskilled workers should be Afghans so that they learn the American way of working as also it would build a correct US Afghan relationship.

US companies undertaking the projects themselves is an excellent way for the US government to give US tax money to US companies. It was done that way for a long time, but it didn't work very well. The point of the exercise, remember, is not to get Afghans to like the US, it's to try to get them to like a government that the US can live with.

Aid is a two-edged sword, it can help and harm. It is no panacea, and its use as a counterinsurgency tool, despite a long history of effort, is spotty at best. Has India discovered some magic bullet that will change all that?

The spread of Islamic fundamentalist is a core issue with all countries except the Muslim countries. Even China is worried as reported in their newspaper, The Global Times.

Because you live in SE Asia, you would not understand it in the same way as those who live in the neighbourhood. A fundamentalist Islamic regime in Afghanistan would be worrisome to the CAR (even though they are Muslim), Russia, India and Iran.

.Southeast Asia has Muslims too, remember?

Yes, lots of people would be worried. Again, though, these powers would be assessing costs and benefits themselves. Is a Taliban Afghanistan a great enough threat to them to make them want to stick their faces into the graveyard of empires? I suspect you'd get much encouragement and little help.

Therefore, one should not let it fructify.

Certainly not. The question is whether fructification can be prevented by engagement in Afghanistan, which is arguably as likely to encourage another 9/11 as to avert one. Let's not forget that the whole point of 9/11 was to force the US to invade and occupy Muslim lands, a situation that AQ is ready and able to exploit.