The future is uncertain - Afghanistan poses the next challenge for Indian foreign policy

Interesting read by KP Nayar here, excerpts below

When Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister two years ago, he probably did not expect that in foreign policy his government would be confronted by challenges at every turn. The next big challenge, which is looming out of the unpredictable for the National Democratic Alliance government, is Afghanistan.

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Unlike most other foreign-policy challenges for Modi since May 2014, what makes the oncoming, starkly different, challenge from Kabul is that there is little that the NDA government can do about it. The depth and intensity of the looming crisis in Afghanistan will be decided elsewhere, with New Delhi left to pick up the pieces as a passive spectator.

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Eleven years of relative stability in Afghanistan - even if it was artificial and window-dressed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces - when Hamid Karzai took over as elected president on December 7, 2004, are ending. The Indian taxpayer shelled out huge amounts of money by way of development assistance to fund such stability. Now no one knows what lies ahead.

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Somewhat ironically for the NDA's brains trust which came to power promising muscular engagement of Pakistan, its best bet for Afghanistan is the inability of the army general headquarters in Rawalpindi to decide how far its long arm should reach within Afghanistan or the extent to which it should use the Taliban as its proxy for maintaining coveted strategic depth across the Durand Line.

Afghans are idiots, they showed animosity towards Pakistan from day one and aligned themselves with India and that was their biggest mistake, but the bigger irony is they are not learning and instead of mending it they are intensifying this animosity.

The best way to get Afghanistan to fall in line. is to make it almost completely reliant on Pakistan's economy. It can easily be done, and the Afghan government could do little to stop it, even if want it to.

There is really no need to even engage India on this matter, or anyone else for that matter. Invest at the local level and sign deals (bribe if you have to) for economic cooperation and trade with Afghanistan's government, and ACTUALLY implement them (The Nawaz government has been lax in this regard). Give more access to Afghan traders to Pakistani markets, and increase trade over all. If anyone understands anything, it's money.

Path-Finder said:

Let them intensify their hatred to Pak for their Hindu lords it will only act as cow dropping being smeared on their faces later on. Not to mention vast majority of them will settle in Pak to escape threats against their lives.

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If they do settle in Pakistan, Pakistan must remember them. They have done this in the past. During the Soviet war many Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and took Pakistani succor in fighting the soviets; however post NATO intervention they became anti-Pakistan. Remember this!!

TMA said:

If they do settle in Pakistan, Pakistan must remember them. They have done this in the past. During the Soviet war many Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and took Pakistani succor in fighting the soviets; however post NATO intervention they became anti-Pakistan. Remember this!!

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Yes that is how it should be. name, tag barometrically and so on forth. However I have recently changed my stance about Afghans who come and settle in Pak. Truth is we cannot stop Human migration sure we can place barriers to reduce it somehow but not possible to stop it. I was staunchly against afghans settling in Pak but it needs to be handled with due care on our side.