Af-Pak strategy

This is a good time for India to review its Afghan strategy taking into account increasing war weariness of the Western forces and President Karzai’s policy of reintegrating the ‘good Taliban’.

• Arvind Gupta
• February 01, 2010
• IDSA Comments

Getting the hard core Taliban to concede the fight without loss of face is preferable to destroying them. The latter course is rendered risky by the linkages between the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and Punjabi Taliban and their penetration of the Pakistani state and society.

• Ali Ahmed
• December 23, 2009
• Issue Brief

Ideally, ISAF and NATO should concentrate on urban population centres along with the ANA, and the ANA should also deploy outside the towns and cities to dominate the hinterland and crack down on Taliban controlled areas.

• Harinder Singh
• December 11, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The United States is facing serious economic problems, and Obama seems to have drawn the lesson that national security is not just about military strength but that it is equally about the economy, partnerships and diplomacy.

• Arvind Gupta
• December 08, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The US may have satiated its desire for vengeance but risks losing sight of its objectives due to liberal atavism, inconstancy, pusillanimity and operational ineptitude.

• Kartik Bommakanti
• November 03, 2009
• IDSA Comments

On the eve of the formation of the new government it is expected that Germany would mainly devote its energy at home as the mandate is for continuity in the time of economic recession. No spectacular point-of-departure in foreign policy can hence be expected from Berlin.

• Alok Rashmi Mukhopadhyay
• October 31, 2009
• IDSA Comments

America’s new strategy in Afghanistan needs to be based on the concept of `connect–hold–build’, where the ground troops surely and silently `connect’ with the local population.

• Harinder Singh
• October 22, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Stability in Afghanistan is vital and the stakes for India are high, but the time is over for sitting on the fence. India requires a larger strategic vision, not a blueprint for town and country planning.

• P. Stobdan
• October 19, 2009
• IDSA Comments

If Karzai were to become President again in the election seen as marked by fraud, his lack of legitimacy will only feed into the insurgent propaganda.

• Shanthie Mariet D'Souza
• September 29, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Diplomatic and political naivety, coupled with enormous pressure from a clueless America helplessly flailing its superpower muscle in the Af-Pak region, and of course that old disease that all Indian Prime Ministers’ suffer from – a sense of manifest destiny to normalise relations with Pakistan – have led to a Joint Statement by the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in Sharm-el-Sheikh which is full of concessions, compromises and climb-downs by India.

• Sushant Sareen
• July 20, 2009
• IDSA Comments