{"id":67755,"date":"2021-10-08T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=67755"},"modified":"2021-10-08T10:20:46","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T23:20:46","slug":"indias-taliban-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indias-taliban-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s Taliban problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In the weeks since the Taliban\u2019s theocratic terrorists returned to power in Kabul, the people of Afghanistan, particularly its women and girls, have been subjected to unimaginable suffering as the world\u2019s attention turns to other issues. But many other countries, and especially India, have reason to worry.<\/p>\n

The Taliban\u2019s victory, following 20 years of unsuccessful American-led \u2018nation-building\u2019 efforts, will not only greatly embolden their fellow jihadists, but will also shake up the region\u2019s geopolitics. For evidence of the destabilising impact of Kabul\u2019s fall, just look at the reactions of Afghanistan\u2019s neighbours.<\/p>\n

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan<\/a>\u2019s response\u2014notably his statement<\/a> that the Taliban\u2019s return to power was akin to throwing off \u2018the shackles of slavery\u2019\u2014highlights what was already known: Taliban-run Afghanistan will be a creature of Pakistan. When the Taliban ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, their \u2018Islamic emirate\u2019 functioned as a wholly owned subsidiary of Pakistan\u2019s Inter-Services Intelligence agency. This time, Pakistan\u2019s control is supposedly a little less absolute, but that did not prevent ISI chief Faiz Hameed from traveling to Kabul soon after its fall to preside triumphantly over the formation of the new Taliban government.<\/p>\n

Less overtly but arguably more importantly, China has been working to make the best of a delicate situation. The Chinese have invested<\/a> US$62 billion in the China\u2013Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the single largest project of its transnational Belt and Road Initiative, and are anxious that Taliban extremists do not jeopardise it. Significantly, Foreign Minister Wang Yi formally received<\/a> a Taliban delegation in July.<\/p>\n

With economic and strategic gains ripe for the taking, China has announced that it will do business with the Taliban. It is seeking to tap Afghanistan\u2019s considerable underexploited mineral resources, especially rare earths, and reopen<\/a> the Mes Aynak copper mine. There is even talk of extending the CPEC to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The warm overtures appear to be mutual, with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Afghanistan\u2019s new first deputy prime minister, calling China a \u2018trustworthy friend<\/a>\u2019, despite its systematic persecution of its own minority Muslim population. China\u2019s priority vis-\u00e0-vis Afghanistan is to ensure that the Taliban offer neither support nor refuge to Uyghur dissidents from Xinjiang and do nothing to disturb the functioning of the CPEC. With the Taliban government desperately in need of patronage\u201480% of the previous Afghan government\u2019s US$5.5 billion budget was financed by external assistance<\/a>\u2014China seems ideally suited to fill the breach.<\/p>\n

These regional dynamics, with Pakistan and China becoming increasingly close, should be of enormous concern to Indian policymakers. Pakistan is a long-term adversary that has actively funded and fomented armed militancy against India, hosting (among others) the organisers of the deadly 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. China, meanwhile, is a systemic rival to India and poses economic, military, and strategic threats. Any Afghanistan\u2013Pakistan\u2013China axis involving policy coordination<\/a> is a major risk for India.<\/p>\n

The Taliban\u2019s takeover of Afghanistan gives Pakistan not only the \u2018strategic depth\u2019 its military has long sought against India, but also a useful recruiting ground for more militants and terrorists, should the ISI seek to deploy them again. The last time the Taliban were in power, India made common cause with Russia and Iran in actively supporting the Panjshir Valley insurgency of the Northern Alliance under the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. This time, however, an increasingly pro-Chinese Russia has taken a neutral stance on Afghanistan\u2019s issues with India.<\/p>\n

Iran, under its recently elected hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, seems willing to accept the new Islamic emirate as long as the Taliban refrain from the anti-Shia persecution that characterised their previous reign. If Afghanistan\u2019s Shia Hazaras and culturally Persian-influenced<\/a> Tajiks and Uzbeks are saved the worst of what the Taliban inflicted upon them a quarter of a century ago, Iran may stay neutral. Both Iran and Russia are, in any case, pleased that the United States has received its comeuppance in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

India could try to reach out to the new government in Kabul, despite recently denying<\/a> that its foreign minister met with Taliban representatives in Doha in June. Other Indian diplomats certainly were in touch with Taliban officials, two of whom\u2014Baradar and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the deputy foreign minister\u2014are in the new Afghan government.<\/p>\n

Baradar spent eight years in Pakistani detention and may be presumed to have no great love for his jailers. But while some Taliban officials have spoken soothingly of wanting good relations with India, others have stated that their Islamic emirate will stand up for India\u2019s Muslims, especially in Kashmir.<\/p>\n

As I have argued<\/a> previously, Pakistan cannot afford to be complacent about the Taliban\u2019s victory. The emergence of the Pakistani Taliban, which seeks to overthrow the country\u2019s government for being insufficiently Islamist, and the Islamic State\u2013Khorasan, which bombed Kabul airport in August, should be triggering anxiety in Islamabad. Moreover, the end of the US troop presence in Afghanistan reduces America\u2019s logistical dependence on the Pakistani security establishment, depriving the ISI of support and resources.<\/p>\n

India has invested US$3 billion in Afghanistan\u2014in dams, highways, electricity grids, hospitals, schools and even the parliament building. With all this now in Taliban hands, Indian policymakers may be forgiven for feeling despondent. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government has done itself no favours with its consistently anti-Muslim rhetoric and domestic policies, which are likely to stoke resentment across the Islamic world.<\/p>\n

The Quad partnership\u2014comprising India, the US, Japan and Australia\u2014strengthens India\u2019s maritime presence in the Indian Ocean. But the main security threats to the country are on its land borders with China and Pakistan, where the Quad is unlikely to be of much use.<\/p>\n

India now has a Taliban regime to its northwest, a nuclear-armed, terrorism-supporting state to its west and a hostile superpower to its northeast, and it faces ongoing threats to its territorial integrity. In this environment, maintaining national security and regional stability will pose an unprecedented challenge for Indian diplomacy in the months and years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the weeks since the Taliban\u2019s theocratic terrorists returned to power in Kabul, the people of Afghanistan, particularly its women and girls, have been subjected to unimaginable suffering as the world\u2019s attention turns to other …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1170,"featured_media":67759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,69,251,1088],"class_list":["post-67755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-afghanistan","tag-india","tag-pakistan","tag-taliban"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIndia\u2019s Taliban problem | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indias-taliban-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"India\u2019s Taliban problem | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the weeks since the Taliban\u2019s theocratic terrorists returned to power in Kabul, the people of Afghanistan, particularly its women and girls, have been subjected to unimaginable suffering as the world\u2019s attention turns to other ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indias-taliban-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ASPI.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-08T00:00:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-07T23:20:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/GettyImages-1234933878.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shashi Tharoor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ASPI_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shashi Tharoor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/\",\"name\":\"The Strategist\",\"description\":\"ASPI's analysis and commentary site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indias-taliban-problem\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/GettyImages-1234933878.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/GettyImages-1234933878.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":683,\"caption\":\"TOPSHOT - Taliban fighters patrol a street in Kabul on August 29, 2021, as suicide bomb threats hung over the final phase of the US military's airlift operation from Kabul, with President Joe Biden warning another attack was highly likely before the evacuations end. 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