The seats around the Afghan round table

The seats around the Afghan round table

Important Facts:

Issue:

United States is likely to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after pulling troops from Syria.  Such probable future step demands reform in India’s Afghanistan Policy

Analysis of US Afghanistan Policy:

• Currently US spends $45billion/year on Afghan security and economic development
• In last 18 years, US lost 2400 troops and paid cost of $800bn on US forces and $105bn on Afghanistan rebuilding efforts with no effective output
• US Afghanistan 2017 policy mandated 5000 US troops, boosting afghan forces capabilities and holding Pakistan accountable for US aid
• After a year, state of affairs have not changed as Taliban holds ground strongly in Afghanistan
• US has lost its goodwill among Afghan people and stationing troops looks liability for US

Status of Afghanistan Security forces:

• Afghanistan forces are facing high attrition with about 3,000 casualties since 2017 when they took over combat operation from US against Taliban
• Such status is mainly due to lack of effective training and equipments
• Currently, Afghanistan forces strength is more than 10% lower than sanctioned strength
• Special forces have been raised with strong capabilities but their numbers are limited and are depended on US airlift and intelligent imagery

Status of Afghanistan Governance System:

• In 2004, Afghanistan adopted US style strong Presidential system but institutions of legislature, judiciary and civil societies for check and balance are missing
• Parliamentary election result held in October 2018 has still not been announced on reason of election rigging and Presidential election has been postponed to July 2019
• Possible planning Loya Jirga (tribal assembly) to draw future course of actions related to US and Taliban

Status of Taliban:

• Taliban has been growing strong as can observed various fora had been instituted for negotiation with it like Quad, Moscow regional conference
• Poppy production increased four times since 2002 financing Taliban insurgency operations

India’s Afghanistan policy:

• India advocate any peace negotiation should be afghan-led, afghan-owned and afghan-controlled
• India has earned strong goodwill among all Afghanistan ethnic groups mainly due to creation of social infrastructure projects including assistance for parliamentary building

India’s Future Action:

• As per this Article, India need strong and active diplomacy engagement with Afghanistan both officially and non- officially and should be strong partner in any peace negotiations and in developmental process