America’s Af Woes Far From Over, Lessons For India

Context: The retraction of US from Afghanistan has several impacts and marks failure of US. Lessons that India should learn from the exercise.

Complexities aftermath of US withdrawal from Afghan

• US has suffered crushing defeat in Afghan after the 20 years of Afghan war.
• Multiple failure of leaderships either under pressure from political compulsions or self-serving ticket punching by senior generals.
• Inaccurate reporting and misreading of Afghan public psychology: Wrong impression of counterinsurgency achieving objectives.
• Procurements by US defence handled by Afghan contractors (Beltway bandits) and failure of Afghanistan National Army training with these machines that US left.

Lessons to India

• China threat - Military stand-off at LAC: Deployment of military at LAC to counter PLA will impose huge economic and manpower costs.
• Develop critical infrastructure – Rapid procurement and heavy spending: on developing logistics infrastructure at Ladakh are without checks and balances.
• Military modernization – Reassignment and restructuring leading to adverse effect on long term training and force structuring.
• New rising challenges: Looming threats in Kashmir valley due to rise of Taliban in Afghan and new Chinese law to legitimise border actions.

Way Forward

• Realign and reorganize forces at Northern frontiers.
• Step-by-step approach of stabilize LAC.