Context:

• With the Taliban entering the outlying districts of Kabul and issuing a formal declaration that they want smooth transfer of Power.

Current Situation in Afghanistan

• It is facing the challenge of massive humanitarian crisis on account of the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced who have left other war zones and taken shelter on pavements and parks in Kabul.
• Panic and rush for passports and visas for those who fear for their lives from the Taliban or their sponsors.
• The biggest losers in the transition will be Afghan women and youth who had tasted political, civic, economic and human rights and opportunities, and media freedoms.

What accounted for the near-total capitulation of the Kabul?

• Undermining of the September 2019 elections by the Zalmay Khalilzad-led US peace process while trying to force a ‘transitional government’ as part of the US-Taliban ‘deal’.
• The contested elections and dysfunctional government that came out of it and an increasingly discredited Ghani government.
• Mismanagement of appointments in key security ministries, especially the Ministry of Defence.
• Despite clear intimations and notices of withdrawal of US support to President Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan Army was unprepared and caught by surprise by the Taliban offensive.
• A lack of military strategy, poor supplies and logistics, indefensible and thinly manned posts, unpaid salaries, phantom rolls, and a sense of betrayal, abandonment and demoralisation, all played a role in this.

Responsibility with US

• US decision to pull out its troops unconditionally without waiting for a negotiated political deal is also responsible for his chaos.
• To fit the US definition of the war on terror, and also for reasons of cost of developing such an army to NATO standards, the Afghan National Army was never really trained and equipped with artillery, armour, engineering, logistics, intelligence, air support etc for rugged terrain.
• Most of the effort went into grooming Special Forces units meant to recover targets of urban terrorist attacks, but not offensive operations.
• They invested just enough for the war on terror, but not the defence of Afghanistan although it was perfectly aware of the connection between the two in the Pakistani role in nurturing the Taliban.
• Pakistan also leveraged US dependence on ground lines of communication through Pakistan to ensure that the ANA remained stunted.
• Pakistani masterminds exploited this weakness since the Taliban regrouped in Pakistan and used it once the US was clearly on the way out.
• It is effectively a Pakistani invasion with an Afghan face and foreign fighters, most of all from Pakistan.
• After the end of the Soviet intervention and the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has never really considered Afghanistan of strategic importance.
• For all its $1 trillion investment in Afghanistan and its awareness of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, the US never really invested in the Afghan economy or attempt to integrate it to its economic sphere of influence (including India) as it did after its interventions after World War II in Europe, East Asia and later in the oil economies of the Gulf.
• Neither did it invest in Afghan democracy as an antidote to the kind of Taliban religious fundamentalism that is intrinsically linked to religious extremism and terrorism.
• It is possible that the primary motivation behind its decision to withdraw from Afghanistan to destabilise the region to keep China, Russia, Iran, and possibly even Pakistan off balance with Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics and India as collateral damage.

What next for India?

• India should be a first responder in the current crisis for humanitarian and longer-term political reasons.
• India should facilitate emergency visas and evacuation of those close to India who will be under threat.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-what-kabul-means-in-delhi-7455479/

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