The US Afghan Quandry-Blank Cheques to be Cashed

The sudden withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan and the ensuing Afghan refugee crisis has resulted in chaos and confusion in the international community. Add to this a wary China and a confused Pakistan and the picture gets murkier. The US has lost a lot of face and goodwill on account of its hasty departure though personally, I believe that a totally different game is being played on the Afghan front which I mentioned in my article “The Great Afghan Drama” https://chanakyaforum.com/the-great-afghan-drama/ Nevertheless, this loss of face for the US gives India an excellent opportunity to exploit the current US situation to make some advantageous gains.

Years ago, I had a flourishing Wholesale/Retail business in northern Namibia. During those days, and sadly even today, core business areas in Namibia were/are controlled by cartels of white owned business houses and trading companies like mine had very little bargaining powers vis-à-vis these big companies. On one particular day, fortunately for me, I was in a very bad mood because, earlier that day, I had to forcibly evict a trouble making labour union leader from my business premises and I had also gone to the police station to meet the police commissioner to tell him exactly what I thought of him and his force!! As I sat in my office, trying to cool down, a couple of big, white senior business executives from one of those big companies came over to sign up a new contract with my company.

We had been doing business with that company for quite some time and they were the domineering sort of people who often modified the terms and conditions of the contract as per their whims and fancies and traders like me, despite giving them substantial business, had to accept it because their products were widely popular and it helped me stay competitive in the market. However, that day, when these two senior executives approached me with a modified contract which, obviously, put my business at a slight disadvantage, I flipped my lid and tore up the contract and threw it at them and told them to get out and also that I was no longer going to do any business with their company regardless of the detriment to my company. I was shocked and surprised when, instead of the usual domineering threats and warnings, these two guys were groveling and apologizing and doing their best to pacify me.

This sudden transmogrification from Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll in a matter of minutes definitely left me stunned but anyway, after an hour or so of apologizing and after plenty of calls to their head office in Windhoek, they left after signing another contract that was extremely beneficial to me. That was when I realized that your opponent, regardless of how powerful or aggressive he is, also has to account for his actions to his management or partners or to somebody else. The modern day Goliath has plenty of Achilles heels and it’s just a matter of David calling his bluff and exploiting these weaknesses to his advantage.

Coming back to the US situation, post its Afghan withdrawal, the Biden administration is receiving a lot of flak both domestically and internationally. The Trump led Republican army is going all out in its aggressive war against the Biden administration and the surfeit of videos on social and other media displaying the painful plight of the Afghan people has certainly got a lot of Democrats worried over their prospects in the upcoming Senate elections. The situation is ideal for a country like Taiwan to shoot down a few Chinese fighter planes or create some trouble in the Taiwan strait. In order to redeem itself, the US will have to come all out in support of Taiwan. However the Taiwanese government seems to be spineless and prefers to play the victim card and then bask in the flow of international commiseration. Other countries like the Philippines, Malaysia etc. are too defensive and placid in their approach. Therefore, unfortunately, the only country in the region that has the guts to stand up to the Chinese is India.

Under a strong leader like PM Modi, India has taken an aggressive stance on a lot of issues therefore I don’t see why we can’t stealthily take over a few Chinese held peaks. We can always continue negotiations with China because China has made it clear that border conflicts should not be made a part of any such negotiations. So, I don’t see anything wrong in doing to China what they did to us!! Alternatively, we can start making inroads into POK as the Pakistani army is busy dealing with the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa etc. China has already been depicted as an international villain and Pakistan has been heavily vilified on account of its support to the barbarous Taliban so the US and the west, in order to redeem themselves, will be forced to fully support India in any such endeavour.

I admit that, despite what they tried against us in 1971, currently, the US is our ally and it doesn’t seem right to take advantage of its precarious predicament but the US does it to us all the time and we have regularly submitted to its demands so I see nothing wrong in India taking advantage of the Biden administration’s quandary to make some personal gains. I mean, c’mon, the Pakistanis have been bleeding them for decades by playing the Afghan card and China took maximum advantage of them by playing the USSR/Russia card so, why can’t we do the same?? Opportunities like these are blank cheques signed by the US and the west and they don’t come too often and it would be foolish on our part to squander such a chance.