Managing the AfPak Challenge in US-India Relations - The Diplomat, 9 August 2019

In my column for The Diplomat last week, I wrote on the AfPak challenge in US-India relations and both sides need to carefully manage this issue to avoid damaging the wider relationship, especially as it has other longer term strategic challenges to confront in the broader Asian strategic context.

Indo-U.S. relations have been running into rough weather recently. Trade problems, India’s decision to buy S-400 missiles from Russia, and differences over Iran have all taken a toll. Both sides are gamely working to ensure that these don’t do lasting damage, but a new issue – disagreements over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and its consequences – now threatens to overload the agenda and potentially do serious damage, especially to their common interests in the Indo-Pacific.

It is not clear that their differences over AfPak can be entirely resolved but both sides can take efforts to limit the fallout from these disagreements before it is too late. This does require though that both New Delhi and Washington understand each other’s compulsions in AfPak and recognize that their common interests in the Indo-Pacific are more important.

For the full essay, click here.



After almost two decades of fighting to keep the Taliban out, Washington is understandably exhausted. There is little hope that that the United States can win the war and even lesser hope that it can strengthen Afghan government forces sufficiently that they can contain the Taliban without American assistance. So, the choice the United States faces is to stay on for the foreseeable future or try and cut a deal with the Taliban to withdraw with a modicum of grace.

Added to this is President Trump’s domestic compulsion. Americans are weary of the war, and have been for some time. Barack Obama promised to get the United States out of Afghanistan but was unable to do so. President Trump, who came to power complaining of the costs of the United States’ over-commitments abroad is even more motivated. With the election campaign beginning, and the election itself fifteen months away, he appears intent on succeeding where his predecessor failed.

The key problem is that it is unlikely that the United States can withdraw from Afghanistan without Pakistan’s support and cooperation. Though the Taliban in Afghanistan is a diverse and a somewhat less than unified force, it does appear clear that Pakistan has sufficient control over them to ensure that no negotiations can take place without the good offices of Islamabad. Trump has been critical of Pakistani behavior in the past, and Washington in general, is well aware of the history of Pakistani duplicity.

Moreover, the Taliban’s commitments that they will not allow Afghanistan to be used for terrorist activities against the United States and the West is a laughable proposition. Once the United States withdraws, there is little that Washington can do to ensure that a Taliban government will live up to the promises they make. Nevertheless, these commitments are a useful fiction that provides cover for Washington to blame that they have withdrawn honorably.

If the United States’ imperative is understandable, so is India’s. If the Taliban come back to power in Afghanistan, there is little doubt that Islamabad will be able to use Afghan territory to, once again, base anti-India terrorists there. With India demonstrating that it now has the political willingness to strike terror camps in Pakistan, Pakistan’s incentive for exploiting Afghan territory is even greater.

Though India’s interests in preventing a Taliban takeover is clear, its options are limited. India appears to have done little to build up any specific source of support of proxies within Afghanistan, to give India any voice in the negotiations for the U.S. withdrawal. What this means is that while the Taliban might give at least some paper guarantee to the United States about non-use of its territory for international terrorism purposes, India cannot even expect that. New Delhi would prefer that the U.S. forces stay on in Afghanistan but that is not likely. And nobody gives much heed to India’s mantras like “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” process.

A key question is how the disagreement between the United States and India on Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role in it can be managed. Washington and President Trump personally are not likely to look at any Indian efforts to slow down or sabotage the U.S. withdrawal very kindly. Equally, New Delhi is likely to be more than a bit peeved if the United States facilitates Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, especially with Pakistan’s assistance. Thus, there is little doubt that when it comes to the AfPak, the Indian and American interests are directly contradictory.

What is worrying is the possibility that these disagreements will bleed into other areas and affect cooperation in critical areas, especially the Indo-Pacific. Though there are disagreements between India and the United States on how to balance China in the Indo-Pacific, these are relatively minor. But unhappiness over AfPak can raise issues of dependability about the other in both capitals. There are already increasing concerns in Washington about whether the United States was wise to bet on India; and in New Delhi, concerns about American dependability have never been far from the surface. It remains to be seen whether there is sufficient maturity on both sides to continue cooperating on one area while they have significant differences in another.

What Does Trump’s Kashmir Storm Mean for US-India Relations?, The Diplomat, 26 July 2019

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I wrote on Trump's statements on Jammu and Kashmir and see if this would have any significant lasting impact on U.S.-India relations. I argue that while the controversy risked being added to the list of issues both sides are having, thus far the fallout has been managed relatively well.

While attention ahead of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Washington focused on a list of expected discussion points and deliverables, ultimately the trip was dominated by the fallout from an unexpected controversy that emerged during his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. While responding to Khan’s request for U.S. assistance to resolve the issue of Kashmir, Trump said that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also asked Trump to mediate the Kashmir dispute.
For the full post, click here.



The Pakistani government was understandably gleeful. In India, meanwhile, there was consternation, with opposition parties raising the issue in the Parliament and demanding that Modi clarify whether he had indeed asked Trump to mediate. Nonetheless, overall, India has thus far managed the issue quite well and prevented another challenge from being added to the list New Delhi and Washington both face.

India’s long-standing position has been that Kashmir is a bilateral issue that needs to be negotiated directly between India and Pakistan. India had always refused overt third-party involvement in the Kashmir dispute especially in terms of any mediation between India and Pakistan. India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar reiterated that position and stated that India had not indeed asked for any mediation. India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also put out a statement rebutting Trump’s assertion that Modi had asked him to mediate.

This unexpected kerfuffle briefly threatened to put a dent in U.S.-India relations, which is already facing a number of other difficulties. For instance, India’s decision to buy the S-400 air defense missile from Russia puts India afoul of the U.S. Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), even though India felt that the capabilities that it was acquiring with the missile were too important for it to give in to the U.S. objections about buying the missile.

Similarly, the worsening tensions between the United States and Iran and Washington’s demands that India comply with the U.S. sanctions on Tehran have not gone down well in New Delhi because India sees Iran as strategically important to flank Pakistan. Finally, the U.S. efforts to find a way out of Afghanistan led Washington to once again seek Pakistan’s help, much to India’s discomfort. India has been left out of the discussions on the future of Afghanistan and it feels abandoned by the United States. In addition, Trump’s withdrawal of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) on India and the tariff war between the two countries are not helping either.

Indian unhappiness with Washington is only one part of the problem. In Washington itself, there is are still doubts about the balance of obligations and whether the American strategic bet on India is worthwhile. Though these are as yet murmurs, the fact that even some of the strongest supporters of closer U.S.-India relations are now expressing doubt about India’s commitment should be worrisome to New Delhi.

Coming on top of these growing mutual doubts, Trump’s gaffe could potentially have proved to be quite damaging. But New Delhi has reacted with surprising maturity. That suggests that this will not lead to any lasting negative fallout.

Though the Indian foreign minister was firm in rejecting Trump’s assertion that he was asked to mediate, the response was also quite measured. While India’s opposition parties raised a ruckus in the Parliament on the issue, the Indian government did not panic.

The government could have taken a much stronger stance in the Parliament in order to pacify the domestic opinion in India, but it may have felt it did not need to given political dynamics. Despite the noise, the Indian opposition is in a considerably weak state. They are yet to recover from the drubbing they received in the recent general elections. The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, is grappling with internal problems and is currently leader-less and direction-less. Despite a lot of pre-election chatter about regional parties coming together to form a national alternative to the BJP, nothing has come of it and many regional parties suffered serious setbacks in the elections. The comfortable domestic political situation might be one reason why the government felt little need to go overboard in criticizing the Trump statement.

Another factor is the general state of U.S.-India relations itself. With a number of issues already rocking the relationship, New Delhi probably did not want to fuel any further controversy in the relationship. Though India is trying to maintain some level of stable relationships with all the major powers, including Russia and China, there is probably a recognition that India also has to maintain its closeness to the United States.

Finally, there is also probably acceptance that Trump will be Trump and that India should discount some of Trump’s antics in the interest of the relationship. It helped that within hours of Trump’s statement, the U.S. State Department discounted Trump’s statement about India seeking mediation. Other U.S. leaders such as the Congressman Brad Sherman also publicly castigated Trump for the statement. The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs too came out with a statement supporting the Indian point of view. Not only that, Representative Eliot L Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, “reaffirmed that in order for dialogue to be meaningful, Pakistan must first take concrete and irreversible steps to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure on Pakistan’s soil.”

Since all of these statements, coming from various sources beyond just the president himself, clarified that Trump’s statement was not U.S. policy, New Delhi probably felt confident that it need not worry that Trump’s statement had presaged any change in the U.S. policy on Kashmir.

U.S.-India relations do face some challenges. But the mature handling in New Delhi of this unexpected controversy during Khan’s visit to Washington has ensured that another item was not added to the list of grievances on both sides.