Indian Role in Afghanistan

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Passing out parade at Officer training academy..:emot112:

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Special thanks to vor033 of Mp.net for most of the Pics.. :emot112:

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

Nice pics Kunal bhai.:emot112:

Please comment on my posts the next time you vist my profile.:happy_8:

 

[ejazr]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/afghan-army-chief-at-nda/701635/

General Sher Muhammad Karimi, Chief of General Staff of the Afghan National Army, along with a delegation of three senior military officers visited the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakwasla, on Saturday.

The General is on an official visit to India andwill visi various important military establishments ,said a press release issued by NDA.

General Karimi interacted with the 34 Afghan National Army Cadets undergoing training at the NDA. He said the standard of training imparted to the Afghan cadets at the NDA would also help to increase mutual confidence amongst the military leadership of both countries and would pave the way for strengthening military ties between India and Afghanistan. The General was briefed by Vice Admiral Satish Soni, Commandant, National Defence Academy about the training curriculum at the NDA.

 

[Tshering22]

^ I think that if at all Afghanistan seriously chooses a path towards development, we can have a friend across a hostile neighbour once again as we had during the 70-80s time. But this time this hostile immediate neighbour is on the verge of collapse only protected by India's traitor intellectuals and US Liberalist leftists.

 

[ejazr]

ACtually we have had excellent ties with Afghanistan from the very beginning. In 1950 India and Afghanistan signed their first Friendship treaty pact.

 

[Ray]

India trains cadets from many countries both at the NDA and the IMA and their heads of States do visit NDA/IMA.

NDA is special since it is unique for it trains cadets for all services at a single institution, which promotes a better equation for jointmanship at a later stage.

 

[ajtr]

After bluff and bluster US capitulates​

Oped by B. Raman


After bluff and bluster, US capitulates
October 27, 2010 2:55:46 AM

B Raman

The Pakistani Army has literally arm-twisted the US Administration into giving in to its demands. The new aid for Pakistan comes without any strings attached and the Americans have demonstrated they are paper tigers

The third US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue for 2010 concluded in Washington, DC on October 22. The two sides fielded high-power delegations for the dialogue as they had done for the first two rounds held earlier this year in Washington and Islamabad. The US delegation was headed by Ms Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, and included, among others, Mr Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary. The Pakistani delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and included among others Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff.

Apart from the formal talks at the delegation level, where hype pushed the cruel ground realities under the carpet, there were other opportunities for frank interactions which the Americans utilised to tell the Pakistanis what they really thought and expected of them.

To quote from the Dawn of Karachi (October 22): "Pakistan's Ambassador Husain Haqqani later told the Pakistani media that President Obama's decision to 'drop in' during a meeting of the 'core group' of Pakistani officials with the incoming US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was 'not pre-announced but it was pre-planned'." He described it as "the best ever" meeting between a US President and a Pakistani delegation during which President Obama conveyed his "unequivocal support to Pakistan and its democracy". President Obama, he said, regretted the mistakes the US had made in the past while dealing with Pakistan and assured the Pakistani delegation that Washington would not repeat those mistakes. The US media, however, gave a different version of this meeting. :mrgreen: Foreign Policy, a prestigious online magazine for global issues, reported that President Obama "personally delivered the tough love message that other top administration officials have been communicating since the Pakistani delegation arrived". Earlier, Ms Clinton dropped in unannounced at another meeting between Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and Gen Kayani. She delivered "the message that Washington's patience is wearing thin with Pakistan's ongoing reluctance to take a more aggressive stance against militant groups operating from Pakistan over the Afghan border", the report said. "A similar message was delivered to Gen Kayani in another high-level side meeting on Wednesday morning at the Pentagon, hosted by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm Michael Mullen," the magazine said. "The message being delivered to Pakistan throughout the week by the Obama team is that its effort to convince Pakistan to more aggressively combat groups like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba will now consist of both carrots and sticks," the report added. "But this means that the US Administration must find a way to incentivise both the Pakistani civilian and military leadership, which have differing agendas and capabilities," the report added. "The Obama side is calculating that Pakistan's military can deliver on subjects important to the US but doesn't want to, while the civilian leadership in Pakistan wants to, but isn't able," said one high-level participant who spoke with the magazine in between sessions.

It is apparent from the reports on the dialogue that came out of Washington, DC that the US has not been able to find a way of making Pakistan act to destroy the General Headquarters of Al Qaeda led and inspired terrorism located in the Pakistani territory. One is increasingly confused as to where this GHQ is located. Previously, one thought it was located in North Waziristan. The fierceness of the retaliatory action by the Pakistan Army in response to a recent strike by a Nato helicopter in the Kurram area has created suspicions that at least part of the GHQ may be located in the Kurram Agency. There have been other reports speculating about the possibility of its location in the Khyber Pakhtunkwa Province.

Wherever it may be located, one thing seems certain — the Pakistan Army knows where it is and is not prepared to act against it. The Pakistan Army uses the Punjabi Taliban against India in an attempt to force a change in the status quo in Jammu & Kashmir. It has been using Al Qaeda, the Pashtun Taliban and their global jihadi allies for extracting money out of the US by dangling the threat of another 9/11 over the US head if it does not pay protection money to the Pakistan Army. :?:

Despite the blunt words reportedly used by Mr Obama, Ms Clinton and Mr Gates in more restricted interactions, more protection money was forthcoming in the form of a five-year commitment (2012-16) of $2.29 billion in military aid euphemistically called counter-terrorism assistance. This will be in continuation of the allocation of $1.5 billion provided by the George Bush Administration in 2005 and of the civilian aid of $7.5 billion over a five-year period already being provided by the Obama Administration since last year under the Kerry Lugar Act.

According to the Dawn, Pakistan also receives hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the so-called Coalition Support Fund, which reimburse Pakistan for its military operations against militants. The US reimbursed Pakistan $1.3 billion between January and May for Pakistani operations conducted in 2008 and 2009, but has not yet paid for operations in 2010. Announcing the military aid package, Ms Clinton said that the US had full confidence in Pakistan's commitment to the anti-terrorist fight.

The ambivalence in the US policy marked by blunt speaking in restricted sessions and the failure to follow it up with punitive action to make the Pakistan Army act as it frequently promises to has convinced the Pakistan Army over the years that US leaders may warn privately regarding its transgressions but will not act against it. So long as this conviction does not change, Al Qaeda and its associates will remain where they are and will continue to plot and act against US nationals and interests.

More money was not the only carrot that Pakistan got during the dialogue. It made other gains in the form of the US commitment to uphold Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan, the promise of a separate visit to Pakistan by President Obama next year and an invitation to President Asif Ali Zardari to visit the US. With the carrots continuing to flow from the US in spite of its inaction against Al Qaeda and co, why should it act against the terrorists?

Unless and until the US picks up the courage to tell Pakistan "thus far and no further. Either you act or we act", things are not going to change. The pathetic apologies from the US for a recent raid by a Nato helicopter into Pakistani territory to neutralise terrorists who had attacked Nato positions in Afghanistan have shown to the Pakistan Army the Achilles Heel of the US — its dependence on Pakistan for logistic supplies to the Nato troops fighting in Afghanistan.

The confidence of the Taliban that the US would not act against it for sheltering Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders in Afghan territory contributed to the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US. The present confidence of the Pakistan Army that the US will not act against it for its inaction against Al Qaeda and its allies now sheltered in Pakistani territory will encourage more acts of terrorism against the US and other Nato countries in their respective homelands.

The Pakistan Army literally blackmailed the US before the Strategic Dialogue by stopping the logistic supplies to Afghanistan. Instead of teaching it a lesson for its blackmailing tactics, the US not only apologised, but followed it up with more favours for Pakistan. This is not the way the US is going to prevail over Al Qaeda, the Talibans and their allies.
-- The writer, a former senior officer of R&AW, is a strategic affairs commentator.

 

[ajtr]

US-Pakistan embrace a fillip for peace​

The big news over the weekend is that the United States and Pakistan have kissed and made up. What was played up in the recent weeks as a nasty showdown between the two partners, with each side growling dangerously and scratching the other almost to bleeding, turned out to be deceptive feline foreplay.

The outcome of the three-day foreign minister-level US-Pakistan strategic dialogue that concluded on Friday once again confirms the reputation of the two sides as consummate partners: one moment snarling viciously, to the alarm of onlookers; and the next, locked in a perplexing embrace.....

The balance sheet of strategic dialogue has now visibly tilted in Pakistan's favor. What the Pakistani military has offered Uncle Sam in return remains for the present a nuptial secret, but it will become known. Most certainly, it has got to do with the Afghan endgame. Considering US accommodation of some of the big-ticket items on Pakistan's wish-list, it can be surmised that Pakistan has offered meaningful accommodation of the US game plan in Afghanistan.

United States President Barack Obama's White House meeting with the visiting Pakistani delegation (which included powerful army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani) has come as a political bonanza for Islamabad. ....

What is even more important is that Obama agreed with the Pakistani delegation on the "need for regional stability and specifically on the importance of cooperating toward a peaceful and stable outcome in Afghanistan".

.... In short, the US would appear to have recognized that the Afghan problem and Pakistan-India tensions are interlinked and need to be tackled simultaneously.

Equally, Obama made an open commitment that he would make a "stand-alone" visit to Islamabad in 2011 and also host President Asif Ali Zardari in Washington. The fact that he made the announcement on the eve of his visit to India ..... shows the high US dependence on Pakistani goodwill and cooperation over Afghanistan.

Conversely, Obama's proposed visit to Pakistan is also expected to "incentivise" the Pakistanis to "perform" convincingly in stabilizing the Afghan situation in the critical months ahead.

.....The US has openly, and ostentatiously, buried the hatchet, which was dramatized in large measure by US media reports, based on briefings by administration officials, over an alleged Pakistani double game in the Afghan war.

From Pakistan's point of view, the US also made an "enduring commitment to help Pakistan plan for its defense needs" and in this connection, Clinton announced that the Obama administration would ask the US Congress for additional military assistance for Pakistan of a whopping US$2 billion, spread over the 2011-2016 period.

Significantly, a charade that the US military assistance is to beef up Pakistan's capability to undertake counter-insurgency operations in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan has been set aside. The latest formulation is that the additional assistance is for planning Pakistan's "defense needs", which are indeed principally and paramountly vis-a-vis India. In short, the US stands committed to help Pakistan maintain reasonable parity with India in conventional military strength.

The US is making this commitment in disregard of strong Indian protestations ... that the US has been handing over to Pakistan weapon systems, .... that have absolutely nothing to do with hunting down Osama bin Laden or exterminating the remnants of al-Qaeda from the region.

In response to the Indian demarche, all that the US officials are maintaining is that the overall Pakistan-India military balance will not be upset. Clearly, the Obama administration has underscored the US's commitment to remain responsive to the Pakistani military's needs with regard to India even after an Afghan settlement has been worked out.

Clinton revealed that the Obama administration had taken on board Pakistan's request for concluding a civil nuclear cooperation agreement on par with what the US signed with India in 2008. .....

This also means that Pakistan has crossed the hump, finally, on the issue. Also, the US has decided to virtually acquiesce with China's move to set up two more nuclear reactors in Pakistan. So far, the US has been taking the position that given Pakistan's questionable track record in nuclear proliferation, Washington would have a problem in reaching a nuclear deal with Islamabad on par with its agreements with New Delhi.

The joint statement issued after the strategic dialogue underlines the US's determination to develop with Pakistan a "strategic, comprehensive and long-term partnership ... based on shared values, mutual respect and mutual interests".

It is an almost-identical formulation that the Indians, who considered themselves as "natural allies" of the US, would probably get. The two sides have also resolved to "promoting peace, stability and transparency throughout the region". In sum, the US has acknowledged that as a quid pro quo for the help and cooperation from Pakistan in settling the Afghan problem, the US will ensure that the latter's legitimate interests in Kabul are safeguarded and will remain mindful of the Pakistani concerns over India.

What emerges is a finely, intricately-balanced matrix of compromise whereby Pakistan will not torpedo the sort of Afghan settlement that the US is keenly seeking - ensuring the Taliban's acceptance of the US's and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's long-term military presence in Afghanistan - and in return the US will accommodate Pakistan's interest in having a friendly regime in Kabul and will remain deeply engaged with Pakistan on a long-term footing politically, militarily and economically. It is a signal success for Pakistani diplomacy that it has brought overall "regional stability" into the centerpiece of US-Pakistan strategic ties.

How this complex matrix of understanding translates on the ground is another matter. Several imponderables remain. What happens to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, whom the US reportedly wants to keep out of the Afghan settlement? Will the Haqqani network be brought in under credible Pakistani guarantees? Will there be a stepping up of the hunt for bin Laden, who senior US officials have pinpointed recently as being sheltered in relative comfort inside Pakistan by its security agencies? Will Pakistan settle for Afghan President Hamid Karzai's blueprint of a broad-based settlement that accommodates various non-Pashtun groups? How does the US ensure that the Indian influence in Kabul is kept below a threshold acceptable to Pakistan?

Karzai and the erstwhile Northern Alliance groups, too, will be watching how Pakistan goes about implementing the understanding reached in Washington. .... But the big issue is Karzai's own political future.

Of late, the US has made up with Karzai and placed itself manifestly behind his reconciliation plan with the Taliban. But his unhappy experience has also been that he comes under pressure the moment Washington revives its dalliance with the Pakistani military. The outcome of the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue in Washington is of existential importance to Karzai.

Similarly, the erstwhile Northern Alliance groups will be wary of the US-Pakistan framework of cooperation, which they might suspect will lead to a return of Pashtun dominance in the Afghan power structure. The political reality is that there is a deep trust deficit between these groups and the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence. The non-Pashtun perception will be that the Pakistani military will ultimately take the Americans for a ride as the pressure of time begins to work on the Obama administration to show "results" in the war in terms of the exigencies of US domestic politics.

What we may expect is that the Afghan peace talks could now accelerate and even gain traction. Obama may then be able to face the US's NATO allies at their summit in Lisbon next month with far greater composure. He may even find himself in a position to present a somewhat plausible Afghan peace plan that enables Western countries to heave a sigh of relief that there is light at the end of the long tunnel that has been their bloody "combat mission" in the Hindu Kush.

.......

 

[ajtr]

Christine Fair is more pakistani then pakistanis themselves i.e. the blatant liar.:emot15:

India in Afghanistan, part I: strategic interests, regional concerns​

BY CHRISTINE FAIR, OCTOBER 26, 2010 Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 10:48 AM Share

India's profile in Afghanistan has been a quiet but looming concern for New Delhi, Washington, Brussels and of course Islamabad with all wondering what is the optimal role for India in Afghanistan's reconstruction in light of the enduring security competition between India and Pakistan. On the one hand are those who want to expand India's presence in Afghanistan through increased Indian training of Afghan civilian and military personnel, development projects, and expanded economic ties. These observers are aware of India's long-standing and robust ties with Kabul and Afghans' generally positive public opinion towards Indians and India. Notably, in late August 2010, Afghanistan's National Security Adviser Rangin Spanta told an Indian journalist, "We would like to expand cooperation with India in order to strengthen Kabul's ability to secure itself."

On the other hand are those that caution against such involvement. This view was articulated forcefully by then-top NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his August 2009 "COMISAF's Initial Assessment." McChrystal opined:

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 to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India.

Other analysts see Indian and Pakistani competition in Afghanistan as a new "Great Game" and argue that Afghanistan can be pacified only through a regional solution that resolves once and for all the intractable Indo-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir.

Despite the seeming importance of India's interests in Afghanistan and the regional impacts of the same, there have been few recent studies of these issues. I recently authored a report that analyzes India's current interests in Afghanistan, how it has sought to achieve its aims, and the consequences of its actions for India, Pakistan, and the international efforts to stabilize Pakistan and Afghanistan.

India rising

India's interests in Afghanistan are not only Pakistan-specific but equally, if not more importantly, tied to India's desire to be and to be seen as an extra-regional power moving toward great power status. India has long bristled at the tendency among international analysts to hitch India to Pakistan. India is keen to throw off any comparison to Pakistan -- a state it views as its diminutive and less consequential neighbor. Thus while India's presence in Afghanistan has Pakistan-specific utility it is also about India's emergent ability to influence its extended strategic neighborhood.

American officials are often unaware of how Indians conceive of their neighborhood. Indian policy analysts claim that India's strategic environment stretches to the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf in the west (some will even claim the eastern coast of Africa as the western-most border of this strategic space); to the east, it includes the Strait of Malacca and extends up to the South China Sea; to the north, it is comprised of Central Asia; and to the south, it reaches out to Antarctica.

Raja Mohan, a doyen of Indian security analysis, explains in compa rable terms that India's grand strategy:

Divides the world into three concentric circles. In the first, which encom passes the immediate neighborhood, India has sought primacy and a veto over the actions of outside powers. In the second, which encom passes the so-called extended neighborhood stretching across Asia and the Indian Ocean littoral, India has sought to balance the influence of other powers and prevent them from undercutting its interests. In the third, which includes the entire global stage, India has tried to take its place as one of the great powers, a key player in international peace and security.

Thus, in many regards, India's interests in Afghanistan can be seen as merely one element within India's larger desire to be able to project its interests well beyond South Asia.

Why India cares about Afghanistan


There are at least three principle reasons why India has direct interests in Afghanistan.

First, India has had to contend with many significant security chal lenges that stem from the Taliban's regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Pakistan has raised and supported several militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen/Harkat-ul-Ansar, and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami among others, which operate in India. However, all of these groups have trained in Afghanistan, with varying proximity to the Taliban and by extension al-Qaeda. Thus India is absolutely adamant that Afghanistan should not again become a terrorist safe haven.

Second, India is interested in retaining Afghanistan as a friendly state from which it has the capacity to monitor Pakistan and even, where possible, cultivate assets to influence activities in Pakistan. While India is keenly inter ested in cultivating a significant partnership with Afghanistan, Pakistan busies itself trying to deny India these very opportunities.

Third, devel opments in Afghanistan and Pakistan have important and usually deleterious effects upon India's domestic social fabric as well as its internal security apart from the well-known problems in and over Kashmir. Indian interlocutors have explained to me that Islamist militancy coexists with a burgeoning Hindu nationalist movement that seeks to re-craft India as a Hindu state. Hindu nation alists and their militant counterparts live in a violent symbiosis with Islamist militant groups operating in and around India. Islamist terrorism in India and the region provides grist for the mill of Hindu nationalism and its violent offshoots.

How India can achieve these aims


India has sought to establish its presence in Afghanistan from the early days of its independence from Britain in 1947. In 1950, Afghanistan and India signed a "Friendship Treaty." India had robust ties with Afghan King Zahir Shah's regime. Prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979, New Delhi continued to formalized agreements and protocols with various pro-Soviet regimes in Kabul.

While India's role in Afghanistan was constrained during the anti-Soviet jihad, between 1979 and 1989 India reportedly expanded its development activities in Afghanistan, focusing upon industrial, irrigation, and hydroelectric projects. That India was able to sustain this presence attests to the importance that India attached to this relationship and India's willingness to persevere.

After the Taliban consolidated their hold on Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, India struggled to maintain its presence and to support anti-Taliban forces. However, Indian objectives in Afghanistan remained necessarily modest given the constrained environment. India aimed to undermine, as best it could, the ability of the Taliban to consolidate its power over Afghanistan, principally by supporting the Northern Alliance in tandem with other regional actors.

Working with Iran, Russia, and Tajikistan, India provided important (but not fully detailed) resources to the Northern Alliance, the only meaningful challenge to the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to journalist Rahul Bedi, India also ran a twenty-five-bed hospital at Farkhor (Ayni), Tajikistan, for more than a year. The Northern Alliance military commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, died in that hospital after he was attacked by al-Qaeda suicide bombers on September 9, 2001. Through Tajikistan, India supplied the Northern Alliance with high altitude warfare equipment worth around $8 million. India also based several "defense advisers," including an officer of a brigadier rank, in Tajikistan to advise the Northern Alliance in their operations against the Taliban.

Since 2001, India has relied upon development projects and other forms of humanitarian assistance. To facilitate these projects and to collect intelligence (as all embassies and consulates do), India also now has consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, in addition to its embassy in Kabul. There also are a number of smaller-scale activities throughout Afghanistan. According to U.S., British, and Afghan officials I interviewed over the last several years, India's activities are not isolated to the north, where it has had traditional ties, but also include efforts in the southern provinces and in the northeast, abutting the Pakistani border.

Christine Fair is an assistant professor at Georgetown University and the author of Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States. In part two of this post, she will explore the future of Indian interests in Afghanistan.