Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakistan

[AVERAGE INDIAN]

The hostility between India and Pakistan, ongoing for more than 60 years, lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan. Most observers in the west view the conflict as a battle between Nato on one hand, and al-Qaida and the Taliban on the other. In reality this has long since ceased to be the case – we think this is about us, but it's not. Instead our troops are now caught up in a complex war shaped by two pre-existing conflicts: one internal, the other regional.

Within Afghanistan the war i s viewed primarily as a Pashtun rebellion against President Hamid Karzai's regime, which has empowered three other ethnic groups – the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras – to a degree that Pashtuns resent. Although Karzai himself is a Pashtun, many view him as window dressing for a US-devised realignment of long-established power relations, dating back to 2001 when the US toppled the overwhelmingly Pashtun Taliban. By aligning with the Tajiks of the northern provinces against the Pashtuns of the south, the US was unwittingly taking sides in a civil war that's been going on since the 1970s.

Today the Tajiks, who constitute 27% of the Afghan population, make up 70% of the officers in the Afghan army. Because of this many Pashtuns – who make up 40% of the population – support or at least feel residual sympathies for the Taliban.

Beyond this indigenous conflict looms the much more dangerous hostility between the two nuclear-armed regional powers, India and Pakistan. In reality the US, the UK and Nato are playing little more than a bit part – and, unlike the Indians and Pakistanis, are heading for the exit. The simple truth is that the Taliban are doing as well as they are in Afghanistan because they are being supported by Pakistan. And they are being supported by Pakistan because the Pakistani generals fear being squeezed in an Indian nutcracker, faced with not only a massive Indian presence to their south but a pro-Indian regime to the north in Afghanistan. Since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, India and Pakistan have fought three wars – the most recent in 1971 – and they seemed on the verge of going nuclear against each other during the Kargil crisis in 1999.

After the Taliban were ousted by the US, a major strategic shift occurred: the government of Afghanistan became an ally of India, thus fulfilling the Pakistanis' worst fears. Karzai hated Pakistan with a passion, in part because he believed that the ISI – Pakistan's intelligence service – had helped to have his father assassinated in 1999. At the same time he felt a strong emotional bond with India, where he had gone to university. When I interviewed Karzai in early March, he spoke warmly of his days in Simla as some of the happiest of his life. With Karzai in office, India seized the opportunity to increase its political and economic influence in Afghanistan, re–opening its embassy in Kabul, opening four regional consulates, and providing reconstruction assistance totalling $1.5bn.

Pakistani generals have long viewed jihadis as a cost-effective and easily deniable means of controlling events in Afghanistan as well as Kashmir. It is unclear how many still endorse this strategy and how many are having second thoughts. There are clearly those in the army and the ISI who are now alarmed at the amount of sectarian and political violence the jihadis have brought to Pakistan. But that view is contested by others who continue to believe the jihadis are a more practical defence against Indian hegemony than even nuclear weapons. For them, support for carefully chosen jihadis in Afghanistan is a vital survival strategy worth the risk. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the commander-in-chief of the Pakistan army, was once in this camp. How far he has changed his position remains a matter of debate.

Pakistan-watchers are, however, unanimous that while Kayani is mindful of the Taliban threat in his own country, his burning obsession is still India's presence in Afghanistan. As I was told by a senior British diplomat in Islamabad: "At the moment, Afghanistan is all [Kayani] thinks about and all he wants to talk about. It's all he gets briefed about and it's his primary focus of attention. There is an Indo-Pak proxy war, and it's going on right now."

Much will depend on what India decides. It is unclear if its government will choose to play an enhanced role in Afghanistan after the departure of American troops. Some Indian hawks argue that by taking on a more robust military role in Afghanistan, India could fill the security vacuum left by the US withdrawal, advance its regional interests, compete with its Chinese rival for influence in the country, and thwart its Pakistani enemy at the same time.

The efforts of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's prime minister, to reach out to India may strengthen the hand of the moderates in Delhi. What is certain though is that the future will be brighter for all three countries caught in a deadly triangle of mutual mistrust and competition if Pakistan and India can come to see the instability of Afghanistan as a common challenge to be jointly managed rather than a battlefield on which to escalate their long, bitter feud.

Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakistan | William Dalrymple | Comment is free | The Guardian

 

[Virendra]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

India is unfortunately perceived as a distraction in the path of deals about the future of the Afghan State.
Not only the US, but UK, Russia and China have been willing to work in triangulation with Pak-Afghan, even if it means cornering India to sooth the Pakistani nerves.
India has been practically kept out of the dialogue, except the US sometimes mincing some sweet words about civil and humanitarian role played by India.
That being said, the ground work by India has only strengthened our position in the common afghan civilians. Governments often have to partner with those whom their people partner with.
In the current scheme of things, Indian cannot elbow Pakistan and have an exclusive role in the future of Afghanistan. But it can still try to make some room of its own, though there are only limited opportunities now.

Karzai hated Pakistan with a passion, in part because he believed that the ISI – Pakistan's intelligence service – had helped to have his father assassinated in 1999. At the same time he felt a strong emotional bond with India, where he had gone to university.

Old fault lines. Most of the pro-Pak taliban or jehadis are Ghilzai, the favorite of PA-ISI, and the likes of Karzai are Durranis.
It would certainly help India if Karzai showed a more stubborn side to the Pakistanis after US withdrawal. But its plausibility is an open question.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[TrueSpirit]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

India is unfortunately perceived as a distraction in the path of deals about the future of the Afghan State.
Not only the US, but UK, Russia and China have been willing to work in triangulation with Pak-Afghan, even if it means cornering India to sooth the Pakistani nerves.
India has been practically kept out of the dialogue, except the US sometimes mincing some sweet words about civil and humanitarian role played by India.
That being said, the ground work by India has only strengthened our position in the common afghan civilians. Governments often have to partner with those whom their people partner with.
In the current scheme of things, Indian cannot elbow Pakistan and have an exclusive role in the future of Afghanistan. But it can still try to make some room of its own, though there are only limited opportunities now.


Old fault lines. Most of the pro-Pak taliban or jehadis are Ghilzai, the favorite of PA-ISI, and the likes of Karzai are Durranis.
It would certainly help India if Karzai showed a more stubborn side to the Pakistanis after US withdrawal. But its plausibility is an open question.

Regards,
Virendra

India has always been a bit player in Af-stan. And with the ascendance of Taliban, expect Pak influence to return to pre-1999 levels. It is not too hard to see the ground reality.

US-NATO lost the war. Saudi-Pak-Taliban won it. But the real losers are Af-stan citizens in Af-stan & all over the world, who would see most of the gains achieved in last 12 years being squandered & blown away by these Wahabi zealots.

The desertion & fragging in ANA/ANP does not inspire much confidence in their ability to confront Taliban for a sustained duration.

Despite the rosy picture being painted by few reporters about how big is the budget & size of ANA/ANP, how the Af-stan population would not support Taliban (who brought some semblance of order in that quagmire) anymore like they did in 1993 onwards or how Taliban's offensive could be controlled by drones forever, the fact is:

Af-stan govt's writ runs in only 29 of the 120-something strategic districts. Rest are either under different warlords, regional strongmen's or Taliban's sway. That is, when US/NATO had full presence in there. It is not hard to imagine how things are going to shape up in their absence.

Also, the intent, resolve & capability of the West to sustain Af-stan's nation-building & footing the security bill in long-term is highly suspect. Karzai in his paranoia had already axed, some of his closet associates who were excellent intelligence-security advisers, in order to reconcile with Pak & Taliban. But, even that had failed.

I have always held this notion: As long as there is oil in Arab wells, Hashish-takers in West & US ground forces in Af-stan soil, there is no stopping the Taliban.

So, the only saving grace is that US has now freed itself from Paki blackmail of cutting NATO supply lines across the Khyber agency. US can continue drone strikes & special forces ops with renewed zeal & vigour & total impunity. Having to see lesser white men among ANA patrols would also help the Af-stan Govt. to win local Pakhtoon populace's trust.

If the West can continue to foot the bill for Af-stan & not loose all interest like they did after 1989, Af-stan still does have a fighting chance. Because India, Iran & Russia would continue to forward their interests in Af-stan & there is no way that any re-conciliation can ever materialize in practice between Taliban and these 3 nation-states.

Anyway, even though one cannot predict the Af-stan's future with accuracy, as of yet, but seeing the Obama-Kerry's overtures & fig-leaf towards Taliban, it does not portend well for India at all. US is looking for quick exit & in its hurry to do so, it might undo a lot of gains accumulated over the last 12 years.

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

Lets not forget Iran. Iran is a very important player in Afghanistan.

Its actually somewhat Iran vs Pakistan vs India.
India wants a stable, strong, moderate, united pro-India Afghanistan to contain Pakistan and give stability.
Iran wants to extend its influence and call the shots over non-Pashtun lands
Pakistan wants a pro-Pak govt in Afghanistan.

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

India is unfortunately perceived as a distraction in the path of deals about the future of the Afghan State.
Not only the US, but UK, Russia and China have been willing to work in triangulation with Pak-Afghan, even if it means cornering India to sooth the Pakistani nerves.
India has been practically kept out of the dialogue, except the US sometimes mincing some sweet words about civil and humanitarian role played by India.
That being said, the ground work by India has only strengthened our position in the common afghan civilians. Governments often have to partner with those whom their people partner with.
In the current scheme of things, Indian cannot elbow Pakistan and have an exclusive role in the future of Afghanistan. But it can still try to make some room of its own, though there are only limited opportunities now.

Our position is strong as long as Afghanistan is united, because that's our aim.

Old fault lines. Most of the pro-Pak taliban or jehadis are Ghilzai, the favorite of PA-ISI, and the likes of Karzai are Durranis.
It would certainly help India if Karzai showed a more stubborn side to the Pakistanis after US withdrawal. But its plausibility is an open question.

Regards,
Virendra

I was not aware of this.

Hamid Karzai is the Sardar of Karzai tribe. He hates Pak because they murdered his father and because they are a threat to his Presidency.
Karzais relatives deal with Taliban, though.

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

This was rubbished and William got a lot of flak for his stupid analysis devoid of any understanding of history. I too did my bit on twitter

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

Will produce two of the better articles written rubbishing the travel writer cum historians article.

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

William Dalrymple's triangulation error.

Earlier this week, Brookings published a slickly produced essay on Afghanistan by British author William Dalrymple on its website. The sophisticated aesthetic of the online publication makes you sit up in your chair. Mr Dalrymple's arguments do more than that—they make you fall off it.

The gist of Mr Dalrymple's endeavour in geopolitical literature is that Afghanistan, Pakistan and India form deadly triangle and that "hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan". Therefore, he concludes, "(the) continuation of clashes between India and Pakistan in—and over—Afghanistan after the US withdrawal is dangerous for all countries in the region and for the world."

The metaphorical blind men were supposed to be from Hindoostan. In this case, it is Mr Dalrymple who mistakes one part of the elephant for the whole.



Consider the conflict in Afghanistan over the last four decades. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan began supporting Afghan Islamists in the early 1970s—much before the Soviets invaded—out of its concerns over Kabul's non-recognition of the Durand Line and support for the insurgency in Balochistan. Pakistan did this to assuage its own insecurities vis-a-vis Afghanistan. It had little to do with rivalry with India.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan partly because they feared Islamic extremism would destabilise their Central Asian republics. India was not in the picture. In fact, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi "tightly (rapped) the Soviet leadership on their knuckles" for their action. The United States then entered the fray to fight its Cold War adversary and outsourced the irregular war to the Pakistani military dictatorship next door. The Saudis financed the anti-Soviet jihad for their own geopolitical reasons, not least to go one up over Ayatollah Khomeini's Shia Islamic republic in Iran.

In the 1990s, the Pakistanis stepped in to satisfy their military establishment's expansionist dreams. This was neatly packaged for domestic and international consumption as the need for "strategic depth against India", but was primarily an exercise in opportunistically extending hegemony over a weak neighbour. The Taliban then hosted Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda which had its own agenda against the United States and the West. After 9/11, the United States and its NATO allies attacked Afghanistan to punish the penetrators of that terrorist attack.

Neither India nor India-Pakistan rivalry figures significantly in any of this. The Pakistani military establishment, of course, cites the India bogey as an explanation for all its actions. There is also, no doubt, hostility between Pakistan and India. However, to ascribe the conflict in Afghanistan as part of this rivalry would be to nearly totally ignore historical facts.

The conflict in Afghanistan is due to overlapping involvement of outside powers—Pakistan, the Soviet Union, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran and al-Qaeda—in the pursuit of their own geopolitical interests. For almost three decades, India's role has largely been to shield itself from the consequences of external meddling into Afghanistan's affairs. This is an entirely different story from Mr Dalrymple's contention that India-Pakistan relations are central to the conflict in Afghanistan.

Mr Dalrymple's profound misreading of the situation could have been ignored as just another piece of writing in the now voluminous literature on Afghanistan and Pakistan, had it not been for the context. Barack Obama's subjugation of military strategy to the tyranny of a hard date for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan means that Washington will be looking for a narrative to cover its less than dignified exit. Both the political strategists of the Democratic Party and the US foreign policy establishment need a storyline to obfuscate matters so that both President Obama and the United States do not appear to have washed their hands of their responsibility towards the Afghan people. Narratives like Mr Dalrymple's come in handy for the purpose. The corollary of Mr Dalrymple's thesis is that all the United States needs to do to stabilise Afghanistan is to engage in the familiar, relatively easy and generally useless task of encouraging India and Pakistan to improve their relations.

That's exactly what James Dobbins, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in New Delhi this week. "Any improvement in (India-Pakistan) ties", he contended, "will almost automatically improve the Afghanistan situation." Surely Mr Dobbins can't believe that Mullah Omar will halt attacks on the Kabul government merely because India-Pakistan relations improve? The Pakistani military establishment didn't surrender its Taliban option in the face intense, decade-long pressure from the United States. Only the credulous will believe that it will do so because India-Pakistan relations improve.

The narrative emerging from Mr Dalrymple and Mr Dobbins misses the fundamental point: the conflict in Afghanistan is caused, fuelled and perpetuated mostly by Pakistan's insecurities and sometimes by its ambitions. As Pragati has argued, Islamabad and Rawalpindi see a strong, independent Afghanistan as an existential threat to Pakistan. If the United States and the international community wish to stabilise Afghanistan they would do well to acknowledge, understand and address Pakistan's deep insecurities arising from the Durand Line.

President Obama's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is understandable. So is the United States' need for a fig leaf to cover its exit. What is unacceptable is that this should come at India's expense.

Photo: United Nations Photo

Nitin Pai is director of The Takshashila Institution.

Tags: Af-Pak Afghanistan Featured geopolitics history India Pakistan proxy war Taliban United States





http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2013/06/a-deadly-line/

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

This one was hard hitting and well written

Washington: Sometimes it is better to write about history that is long gone and archived for easy or privileged access.

But with his latest essay on Afghanistan, William Dalrymple has crossed into the wilds of contemporary geo-politics and proved the axiom that history can also be someone's pet interpretation. Or more dangerously, a convenient narrative set to convenience some.

Dalrymple's A Deadly Triangle: Afghanistan, Pakistan, & India is being promoted among the powerful in Washington almost as THE version of what happened over the past three decades in Afghanistan. He wrote the essay for The Brookings Institute, a major DC think tank, and with it his entry into the American wonk club is assured.

The story is told in Dalrymple's typically engaging style with enough "live feeds" to keep up reader interest. But his thesis is deeply problematic and ultimately wrong. To sum it up in his words: "The hostility between India and Pakistan lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan."

The theory fits right into Washington's most popular narrative about South Asia - India-Pakistan rivalry is the root of all evil. It is regularly promoted by US analysts and officials. It ends with the fond hope that if only India would resolve the Kashmir problem as the Pakistanis fervently want, things would settle down. A version of it came recently from Bruce Riedel in his latest book, "Avoiding Armageddon: America, India and Pakistan."

Dalrymple's "proxy war" reasoning implies - even though he may not have intended it -- that Pakistan's use of jihadi militants is somehow justified to counter Indian influence. And whatever emanates from the bunch of jihadis is indirectly India's fault. It creates a troubling moral equivalence between India and Pakistan, between building roads and hospitals and bombing embassies.

By his own accounting, Indian actions in Afghanistan today are positive and India's presence small. So why blame India?

Dalrymple ignores the fact that Pakistan's support of Afghan jihadis is an old policy, uncomfortably old and has nothing to do with India. It was spawned to fight Afghanistan's support of Pashtun and Baloch nationalism and predates the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Two citations should suffice: an article by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi in the Yale Journaland a book by Pakistani scholar, Rizwan Hussain, "Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan." Kabul was largely responsible for an ambitious overreach to try to build support for the idea of an independent Pashtunistan, with chunks from Pakistan's Pashtun areas. Tensions were high in 1955 and again between 1960-61. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto then crafted a response with a "forward policy" of supporting Islamist leaders inside Afghanistan. This policy grew and ultimately got married to the US Cold War objectives under Zia ul-Haq.

As many South Asian analysts have pointed out since Dalrymple's essay came online on June 24, it is not because of India that Pakistani-trained jihadis and Al-Qaeda operatives are surfacing from Bosnia to Chechnya or that terrorists "decided to fly planes into the twin towers." But his reasoning implies that vile actions by proxies of the Pakistan army can be laid at India's doorstep.

Nitin Pai, a strategic analyst and director of Takshashila institution, tweeted: "US finances the war. NATO mucks up. Gulf kingdoms exert influence. Yet ?@DalrympleWill sees Afghanistan as an India-Pakistan thing."

Sorry, India can't accept this special delivery. Dalrymple's narrative will be contested hard. India has little to do in creating the terrorist forces now unleashed on the world. His casual causation is incorrect - to put it politely.

It has been reported that he was recently invited to meet President Obama at the White House to present his latest book "Return of a King" about the 1839-42 British invasion of Afghanistan. He also gave a series of talks around Washington where everyone is eager to hear reasons to end US involvement and bring the troops home.

When Dalrymple writes that the Afghan war is no longer a war between US/NATO troops on the one hand and the Taliban and al-Qaeda on the other, Americans nod in approval. "Instead our troops are now caught up in a complex war shaped by two pre-existing and overlapping conflicts: one local and internal, the other regional."

Framing the issue in the language of "our troops" and those people out there itself is loaded with politics. Even the most pro-US government writers and academics use neutral language. But Dalrymple's words help ease the qualms of departure without a proper exit strategy. He is essentially saying this is now an India-Pakistan issue, best left to them. We have done our bit or at least tried. Accept the fact that it became a graveyard for another empire.

On that last point it is important to cite a piece by Dhruva Jaishankar and Javid Ahmad where they demolish the myth of Afghanistan being the "graveyard of empires" and the western-centric reading of Afghanistan's history.

Dalrymple's analysis of the Afghan situation suffers from another major drawback - he cites a selective sequence of events from which the Americans and British are largely absent or make only cameo appearances. It would have been far more honest to write about "the deadly rectangle" with one arm representing US, British and Saudi subversions and meddling in the Afghanistan of 1980s and 90s.

But he dismisses this important aspect in one line: "the recruitment (of Afghan mujahedin) was always controlled by the ISI, but was originally also funded by the Saudis and the CIA." He makes it sound like the CIA gave just some pocket change to the jihadis, not the bank. With that he ignores numerous accounts in as many books documenting the extent and amount of American involvement and money that went into Afghanistan.

George Crile's "Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary History of the Largest Covert Operation in History" published in 2003 gives a full accounting of American enthusiasm for CIA's Operation Cyclone, which pumped at least $3 billion through the ISI into the hands of extremists lovingly referred to by US officials as the "muj" in those days. The role of Britain's MI6/SAS and Saudi cheque book diplomacy was equally important.

Surely, these factors changed the climate some.

But neither Washington nor London wants a history lesson at this time. Or ever for that matter. President Obama wants out of Afghanistan by whatever means necessary. The British, with their latest five-phase "peace plan" to open talks with the Taliban, are making it happen. Dalrymple's narrative helps the process of rationalizing the exit.

Is it "Bollywood history" as Sunil Khilnani once said of his work?

http://m.firstpost.com/world/why-us...ples-readingafghan-history-906085.html?page=5

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

Lets not forget such stories also suggest that the West/Nato want to involve India in Afghanistan. India's reticence to put boots on the ground, or actively counter Pakistan, whilst being an interested party isn't going down well with anybody.

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

Lets not forget such stories also suggest that the West/Nato want to involve India in Afghanistan. India's reticence to put boots on the ground, or actively counter Pakistan, whilst being an interested party isn't going down well with anybody.

No it has less to do with getting a india land boots on the ground but more to lay the blame elsewhere. This guy probably has been hired to create a narrative that allows the US to sell its story to its people and pull out saying now its somebody else's war and not ours.

What I fear more is that this may be used to create more instruments to pressure India on Kashmir which will come in handy if India does not play ball with the US in its pivot towards Asia.

 

[parijataka]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

US is in a hurry to get out of Afghanistan and this is again Pakistan-ISI spin that Westerners have swallowed hook, line and sinker about India being the big bad guy in Afghanistan.

Off topic, @Singh, @Yusuf, @Virendra -

on William Dalrymple's Tweetlist (@DalrympleWill) he is saying in conversation with one Shashank Joshi, @shashj, that Pakistan is developing nuclear land mines.

Is this even possible ?

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

No it has less to do with getting a india land boots on the ground but more to lay the blame elsewhere. This guy probably has been hired to create a narrative that allows the US to sell its story to its people and pull out saying now its somebody else's war and not ours.

What I fear more is that this may be used to create more instruments to pressure India on Kashmir which will come in handy if India does not play ball with the US in its pivot towards Asia.

How would this pressurise India on Kashmir ?

In any case, if its India vs Pak. Then Nato is in India's corner or vice versa.

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

How would this pressurise India on Kashmir ?

In any case, if its India vs Pak. Then Nato is in India's corner or vice versa.

Coz the narrative is that Astan is a result of India and Pak proxy war. One that Pak seeks strategic depth that India will deny and all this is because of the issue of Kashmir in the end.

Its complete misreading of the history. India Pak enmity has nothing to do with Kashmir but more with ideology. Even if Kashmir is handed on a platter to Pak, nothing will change. Its the basic fact that has to be understood by these idiotic think tanks.

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

US is in a hurry to get out of Afghanistan and this is again Pakistan-ISI spin that Westerners have swallowed hook, line and sinker about India being the big bad guy in Afghanistan.

Off topic, @Singh, @Yusuf, @Virendra -

on William Dalrymple's Tweetlist (@DalrympleWill) he is saying in conversation with one Shashank Joshi, @shashj, that Pakistan is developing nuclear land mines.

Is this even possible ?

What we know is that Pakistan has been sufficiently spooked by CSD. Their response doctrine is to use tactical battlefield warheads (perhaps) in their own territory against Indian invasion
From open source and independent research we can confirm that Pakistan is following this doctrine, as its producing miniaturized warheads.

But if Pakistan does decide to engineer nuclear land mines then Indian response to it would be a massive and decisive counter strike. @Yusuf can chime in here perhaps. Afaik our Nuclear Policy has changed to accommodate this (tactical nuclear explosions, it may include nuclear landmines).

Blue Peacock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

US is in a hurry to get out of Afghanistan and this is again Pakistan-ISI spin that Westerners have swallowed hook, line and sinker about India being the big bad guy in Afghanistan.

Off topic, @Singh, @Yusuf, @Virendra -

on William Dalrymple's Tweetlist (@DalrympleWill) he is saying in conversation with one Shashank Joshi, @shashj, that Pakistan is developing nuclear land mines.

Is this even possible ?

Yes nuclear land mines were made and deployed by the US.

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

What we know is that Pakistan has been sufficiently spooked by CSD. Their response doctrine is to use tactical battlefield warheads (perhaps) in their own territory against Indian invasion
From open source and independent research we can confirm that Pakistan is following this doctrine, as its producing miniaturized warheads.

But if Pakistan does decide to engineer nuclear land mines then Indian response to it would be a massive and decisive counter strike. @Yusuf can chime in here perhaps. Afaik our Nuclear Policy has changed to accommodate this (tactical nuclear explosions, it may include nuclear landmines).

Blue Peacock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Any nuke attack on our forces will lead to a counter strike. Doesn't matter how it was delivered. Since its said that Pak has developed Tac nukes, land mines are also tactical nukes.

The move is dangerous though. Security of these mines? And how many will they deploy? Not a practical idea. Losses outweigh the gains

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

@Yusuf

The narrative is clear. US is abandoning Afghanistan, and they want India to step up and help fill the vacuum. We are not going to do that.

India has said clearly and emphatically we are not going to negotiate with Taliban, the folks who sheltered AQ and OBL.

 

[Singh]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

Any nuke attack on our forces will lead to a counter strike. Doesn't matter how it was delivered. Since its said that Pak has developed Tac nukes, land mines are also tactical nukes.

The move is dangerous though. Security of these mines? And how many will they deploy? Not a practical idea. Losses outweigh the gains

Saturated attacks by MBRL and Arty will show us how secure those mines are

 

[Yusuf]

Re: Forget Nato v the Taliban. The real Afghan fight is India v Pakist

@Yusuf

The narrative is clear. US is abandoning Afghanistan, and they want India to step up and help fill the vacuum. We are not going to do that.

India has said clearly and emphatically we are not going to negotiate with Taliban, the folks who sheltered AQ and OBL.

No Sir, Wills point is not about India stepping into Astan now. But more like resolve Ind-Pak problem and Astan problem will go away. For the west Ind-Pak problem means Kashmir.