Afghanistan: A Firewall is Better than Partition

With the West increasingly looking at disengagement from Afghanistan, it is time regional stakeholders think about the long term ramifications of such a withdrawal. This issue brief advocates that in the event of such a situation arising in the future, it would be prudent to firewall the AfPak region from all sides with only a minimal foreign military presence inside Afghanistan. Such an approach would not only free the United States from aimlessly paying for Pakistan’s follies and haemorrhaging its own economy and military, but also drive its rival China to act more responsibly in the global fight against terrorism. India has been fairly successful in firewalling the radical blowback emanating from Pakistan in the past and need not be overly worried about the impending US withdrawal.

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