{"id":36096,"date":"2018-11-01T13:32:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T08:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=36096"},"modified":"2018-11-01T13:32:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T08:02:02","slug":"spaces-not-embraces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/spaces-not-embraces\/","title":{"rendered":"Spaces, not embraces:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/todays-paper\/tp-opinion\/spaces-not-embraces\/article19298971.ece\">Spaces, not embraces<\/a><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>(Microscopic view on the countries\u2019 friendship)<\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The impact of a closer friendship with the U.S. can be better judged by the challenges that the superpower\u2019s retreating global role presents<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Background<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In early 1987, U.S. President, Ronald Reagan had difficult choices to make on the future of Afghanistan. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the Soviet Union planned its pull-out, the U.S. government, more notably the Central Investigation Agency, had been arming <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mujahideen <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">fighters trained by Pakistan\u2019s Inter-Services Intelligence to hasten the process by pushing out the Soviet army.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was, given his close ties with the Soviet leadership and a growing friendship with Reagan, trying to advocate a path of conciliation that clashed with Pakistan\u2019s plans to control Kabul: a government of national unity supporting the newly appointed President Najibullah.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After months of considering the Indian case for a \u201cnon-aligned\u201d Afghanistan, however, Reagan and the U.S. Congress chose the other course, transferring funds, arms and responsibility for the outcome to Pakistan.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2001, after the 9\/11 attacks, U.S. President George W.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>Bush had a similarly complex decision to make on the future of Afghanistan.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The attacks had brought a rare moment of global unity, one which saw Russia, India, China, Pakistan and Iran pledge support to the U.S.\u2019s plan to defeat the Taliban and its al-Qaeda guests.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Within months, however, the bonhomie was banished with three words, as Mr. Bush pronounced Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as the \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d, choosing Pakistan as its ally to continue its war in Afghanistan.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Current Scenario \u2013 US\u2019s Role<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2017, President Donald Trump is in the same place as his administration finalises its Af-Pak policy review to be announced in July, and New Delhi once again has its hopes up that the U.S. will take a stern view of Pakistan\u2019s support to the Taliban and its use of terror groups that target both Afghan and Indian interests.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The present U.S President\u2019s first foreign visit was to Saudi Arabia, where he presided over a grand show of Arab-Islamic unity.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His wholehearted support to Saudi Arabia, his call for a unity of the Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) and his open call to isolate Iran, however, came unstuck within days.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The U.S President plans for troop levels in Afghanistan seem modest at best.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He would like the numbers of American troops to add to the current 8,400 capped at 3,900.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Given that President Barack Obama\u2019s 2009 surge of troops to 100,000 had little impact on the war in Afghanistan; this implies that the U.S. will simply cede more space to Russian-led efforts.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India thus risks becoming partner to a player whose military role in Afghanistan is in decline over a more nascent alliance.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Concern\u2019s of India<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saudi Arabia and several other nations decided to blockade Qatar, calling for it to cut ties with Iran, ban the Muslim Brotherhood and shut down the Al Jazeera media network which they said targets the rest of the Gulf\u2019s leadership.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But Indian External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj, dismissed fears of any impact on India from the move.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><\/li>\n<li>But the government must go beyond the obvious to assess its impact.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US President plans for troop levels in Afghanistan seem modest at best.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He would like the numbers of American troops to add to the current 8,400 capped at 3,900.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Given that President Barack Obama\u2019s 2009 surge of troops to 100,000 had little impact on the war in Afghanistan, this implies that the U.S. will simply cede more space to Russian-led efforts.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India thus risks becoming partner to a player whose military role in Afghanistan is in decline over a more nascent alliance.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Conclusion:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S President\u2019s decision on Afghanistan must be closely watched, but without unrealistic expectations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For India, the impact of U.S President\u2019s world view and international policies are better judged not by the closeness of his embraces with India\u2019s Prime Minister, but the spaces that he is ceding across the globe.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spaces, not embraces:\u00a0 (Microscopic view on the countries\u2019 friendship) Context: The impact of a closer friendship with the U.S. can be better judged by the challenges that the superpower\u2019s retreating global role presents Background In early 1987, U.S. President, Ronald Reagan had difficult choices to make on the future of Afghanistan. As the Soviet Union&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/spaces-not-embraces\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Spaces, not embraces:\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-36096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704949789},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36096","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=36096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}