North By Northwest

Context: With India is staring at a worsening security situation on its western Himalayan frontier, it India needs to build consensus against a new China-Pakistan axis.

Challenges to India with the rapidly changing geopolitical environment in the Himalayas

• The Return of the Taliban:
• The Recent release of Taliban prisoners has accelerated the schedule for Afghan peace talks 
• It will enable the US President to announce the withdrawal of a big chunk of US troops.
• It gives the Pakistani ‘deep state’ not just leverage in Afghanistan but also allows it to refocus and revitalise its India-specific terror apparatus.
• The tensed situation in Kashmir: with rising radicalisation.
• Pakistan will seek to take advantage with China on its side, and diplomatically block India on matters related to Kashmir in the UN- Security Council.
• Help China make a strategic entry into a theatre where it has little presence.
• The emergence of China:
• Support to Pakistan: China has waded into Afghan politics; invited Taliban leaders to China for talks with Pakistan’s help.
• China has ‘embraced’ Kashmir as a matter of strategy to both targets and isolate India.
• China has been muscle flexing and has undergone an organisational and philosophical rejig.
• India-US not on the same page: The Trump administration is unwilling to make the apparent China-Pakistan linkage pertaining to terrorism in the western Himalayas:
• Unlike in the Indo-Pacific, where Washington is pushing for a more substantive Quad arrangement to counter China.
• The nature of US intervention is changing: The US wants more nuanced military cooperation preferring to restrict itself at the backstage and supporting other partners.

Conclusion: In dealing with the consequences of a retrenching US and a rising China, India must be clear with its interlocutors in the US that the fight in the Indo-Pacific cannot be won at the cost of the war against terror.