{"id":31768,"date":"2018-10-29T11:09:13","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T05:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=31768"},"modified":"2018-10-29T11:09:13","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T05:39:13","slug":"afghanistan-on-a-slow-fuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/afghanistan-on-a-slow-fuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan, on a slow fuse\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/afghanistan-on-a-slow-fuse\/article22515400.ece\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Afghanistan, on a slow fuse<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The attack by the Taliban gunmen at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul depicts the deteriorating security environment in Afghanistan.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The siege at the hotel lasted more than 12 hours and claimed 22 victims, including 14 foreigners, before the gunmen were neutralised.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the present day scenario of Afghanistan?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Afghanistan is <\/span><b>under siege<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with 21 international terrorist groups operating in this country and factories producing suicide bombers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without U.S. support, the Afghan national army <\/span><b>would not last more than six months and the government would collapse<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the last 16 years, <\/span><b>civilian casualties<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have mounted to 31,000, increasing progressively to over 4,000 a year.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Afghan <\/span><b>security forces are losing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> nearly 7,000 men a year.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Assistance provided to Afghanistan:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The U.S. has <\/span><b>contributed significant blood and treasure<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, spending over a trillion dollar and losing more than 2,400 lives in pursuing the longest war in its history.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of this amount, about $120 billion has been spent on <\/span><b>reconstruction and development.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India is also a significant partner, having spent over $2 billion on <\/span><b>humanitarian assistance, infrastructure building and human resource development<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with an additional billion dollars committed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. President Donald Trump is determined to bring about a <\/span><b>change in American policy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and while authorising a limited increase in U.S. troop presence by 4,000 soldiers, has also been critical of Pakistan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why is the biggest looming threat?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, there was an <\/span><b>international consensus on rebuilding Afghanistan<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was ensured that it should not become a <\/span><b>source of regional and global instability<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That consensus has <\/span><b>eroded over the last 16 years<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Further, the Afghans who had returned in large numbers determined to reclaim their country and rebuild it are <\/span><b>frustrated at the steady decline in both security and governance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The newly created Afghan institutions are <\/span><b>unable to address the challenges without significant international support, both financial and material<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, with a breakdown in the international consensus, it may not be long before the slow fuse reaches ignition point and 2019 may well become the critical year.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Afghanistan, on a slow fuse\u00a0 Context: The attack by the Taliban gunmen at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul depicts the deteriorating security environment in Afghanistan. The siege at the hotel lasted more than 12 hours and claimed 22 victims, including 14 foreigners, before the gunmen were neutralised. What is the present day scenario of Afghanistan?&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/afghanistan-on-a-slow-fuse\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Afghanistan, on a slow fuse\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704664566},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}