PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · Recent Developments in Foreign Policy — Part 2
Do you think that India’s capacity building role in Afghanistan has shrunk the strategic space for Pakistan there? Discuss.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
PRI strategic depth = Pakistan’s doctrine of a pliant Kabul as leverage vs India — India replied with capacity building, not arms — space narrowed but conditional RZ can soft/development power deny a rival strategic space? — yes, partly, but bounded by hard power
Body flow
$3 bn footprint (Parliament, Salma Dam, 433 HICDP/34 provinces, ICCR students) — Pant: investment ties India to Afghan stability, goodwill Pakistan can’t match — connectivity (Chabahar, Delaram- Zaranj, air corridors) bypasses Pakistan, cuts transit chokehold — Sikri’s Kautilyan Mandal logic (friend of neighbour's neighbour) = structural check — [counter enters] — post-2021 reset resolves it: Pakistan’s depth never arrived — Taliban reject Durand Line / shelter TTP / lean Iran-China — Islamabad fears encirclement, Kabul drifts to India — India’s capacity-building capital — Muttaqi Oct-2025 visit + Kabul embassy upgrade — Pant: pragmatism not endorsement
Counter-view
soft/development power vs hard power — can goodwill deny strategic space when the rival holds ISI-Taliban links, the Haqqani nexus and geography? (Jacob: no Plan B; the 2021 fall shrank India’s own space too)
Conclusion routes
R1 capacity building did shrink Pakistan’s space, by denying it a monopoly and building goodwill that outlived regime change — not by displacing proxies the decisive collapse of “strategic depth” came from the Taliban’s own nationalism; India’s development legacy is what let it profit
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
