New Delhi needs a well-crafted strategic development agenda and needs to work with the US to counter China-Pakistan and Taliban threat to regional security and peace.
Afghanistan is in the news again and as usual, is adding to strategic uncertainties. If analysts were flummoxed by former US President Trump’s policy to pull out all American soldiers from Afghanistan by 15 January this year, they are now equally bemused by current President Joe Biden’s plan to pull out by 11 September this year. Seen in the light of the peace negotiations and agreement in Doha, which promised a return of Taliban in some form or the other in the new scheme of things post US withdrawal, Biden’s decision looks ill-thought at best. At least, that’s what the US media is painting about the troops withdrawal. An op-ed by columnist Max Boot in The Washington Post has called President Biden’s decision to exit from Afghanistan as “very Trumpy”. Boot wrote, “President Biden is being lauded as anti-Trump. But in his first major foreign policy decision as president— the pullout from Afghanistan—he acted in a very Trumpy fashion, which is to say, he (Biden) made an impetuous, ideological decision without adequate planning or preparation. The more we know, the worse it looks.” Read More…
