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By Neena Gopal, Special to Gulf News
A Nato summit this coming Tuesday in the Latvian capital Riga is expected to focus on the two conflicts that have stretched the resources of the United States to the outside limit - Iraq and Afghanistan.
Will it also raise high the roof beams on an idea that is being whispered anew in the Indian capital Delhi - sending Indian soldiers to a foreign field?
Is Nato seeking to anoint this key South Asian nation, with whom the US has conducted several joint exercises, in the role of peace-keeper for Washington? Will this be the grand Indian outreach, on the lines of an ill-starred expeditionary force that the British called on to fight their battles in Imperial India under the Crown?
A repeat of the Second World War, except that instead of Iraq, India is being asked whether its induction into the Nato hall of fame can envisage a greater role in that graveyard of empires - Afghanistan.
Except this time it will be a volunteer force, not commandeered against its will. The previous ultra-nationalist Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration, egged on by a national security adviser taken with the idea of warming ties with Washington, was extremely keen in 2002-2003 to deploy Indian forces in the northern Iraqi Kurdish town of Kirkuk.
A public outcry, calibrated by outraged diplomats and historians who cited the graveyards in city after Iraqi city where the names of hundreds of dead Indian soldiers are chiselled on stony plaques, and a constitutional proviso that prevents the repeat of such an eventuality, ensured that no Indian soldier was sent to Iraq to fight somebody else's war.
The political party sitting on the opposition benches then was the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress. Now in government, under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, there is intense debate on its Middle East policy.
In a region riddled with conspiracy theories, complicated this week by the assassination of Lebanese politician Pierre Gemayel, that raised the prospect of a quid pro quo - a greater role for Syria and Iran in Lebanon in return for securing a dismembered, ethnically divided Iraq's western and eastern flanks - Indian troops are already deployed as blue berets in southern Lebanon.
India cannot do more. Singh must refuse to be drawn into the Afghanistan pottage, where Nato is facing its first challenge in a Central Asian nation.
Arriving to get rid of the bases where the Al Qaida were headquartered with the help of the Taliban, US forces have lingered too long, overstaying their welcome.
With its unhappy knack of turning everything it touches to dust, Afghanistan is sucking in more soldiers than the seemingly overwhelming forces with their superior firepower had originally envisaged.
Greater role
During a recent visit to India by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Delhi was approached to play a greater role. But it must keep a distance for various reasons. Far more unstable after American intervention, a new and deadlier strain of the Taliban has emerged from the dusty hinterland to challenge it.
A Taliban that Afghan government officials have repeatedly said has its genesis across the border in the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta, where the ethnic Pashtuns share a common gene pool as well as an implacable hostility to all things outside their conservative ken.
The perception of India as a Hindu nation - despite its 150 million Muslim population - will only make Indian soldiers fair game.
A second and far more dangerous perception may well be what brought the Taliban back into play. Indian consulates that opened in western Mazar-e-Sharif, and the eastern towns of Kandahar and Jalalabad raised hackles in Islamabad over the US opening the way to a greater Indian role in Afghanistan, long seen by Pakistan's strategic planners as their putative client state.
India's presence in the two eastern Afghan towns - even if it was only one lonely counsellor - has added to Islamabad's fears of a move by Delhi to outmanoeuvre it in its own backyard, perhaps by covertly backing the Baloch insurgency.
India has strenuously denied any such role but its old links with the former Northern Alliance now add up to two red rags to the Pakistani bull.
Since late September as they deploy outside the Afghan capital Kabul for the first time, Nato countries like Britain, in particular, are getting a taste of Afghan battlefields where there is no distinguishing between enemy and friend.
Despite a great fascination for India's film icons even in these remote villages, an Indian expeditionary force will find the hostile terrain and populace equally daunting.
Two Indians, one an engineer, the other a driver have already lost their lives at the hands of the Taliban, anxious as India's goodwill hunting seemed to be paying off as it built roads, schools and hospitals in the interior.
But with every Indian gang of construction labourers needing security, even troops to protect Indian interests will open it to harm's way.
Delhi must decide whether it wants to play cat's paw to US interests in a nation fast emerging as the point where the interests of "three empires" are again set to collide or use soft power as smarter neighbour China does to secure its strategic interests.
Neena Gopal is an analyst on Asia.
A Nato summit this coming Tuesday in the Latvian capital Riga is expected to focus on the two conflicts that have stretched the resources of the United States to the outside limit - Iraq and Afghanistan.
Will it also raise high the roof beams on an idea that is being whispered anew in the Indian capital Delhi - sending Indian soldiers to a foreign field?
Is Nato seeking to anoint this key South Asian nation, with whom the US has conducted several joint exercises, in the role of peace-keeper for Washington? Will this be the grand Indian outreach, on the lines of an ill-starred expeditionary force that the British called on to fight their battles in Imperial India under the Crown?
A repeat of the Second World War, except that instead of Iraq, India is being asked whether its induction into the Nato hall of fame can envisage a greater role in that graveyard of empires - Afghanistan.
Except this time it will be a volunteer force, not commandeered against its will. The previous ultra-nationalist Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration, egged on by a national security adviser taken with the idea of warming ties with Washington, was extremely keen in 2002-2003 to deploy Indian forces in the northern Iraqi Kurdish town of Kirkuk.
A public outcry, calibrated by outraged diplomats and historians who cited the graveyards in city after Iraqi city where the names of hundreds of dead Indian soldiers are chiselled on stony plaques, and a constitutional proviso that prevents the repeat of such an eventuality, ensured that no Indian soldier was sent to Iraq to fight somebody else's war.
The political party sitting on the opposition benches then was the Sonia Gandhi-led Congress. Now in government, under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, there is intense debate on its Middle East policy.
In a region riddled with conspiracy theories, complicated this week by the assassination of Lebanese politician Pierre Gemayel, that raised the prospect of a quid pro quo - a greater role for Syria and Iran in Lebanon in return for securing a dismembered, ethnically divided Iraq's western and eastern flanks - Indian troops are already deployed as blue berets in southern Lebanon.
India cannot do more. Singh must refuse to be drawn into the Afghanistan pottage, where Nato is facing its first challenge in a Central Asian nation.
Arriving to get rid of the bases where the Al Qaida were headquartered with the help of the Taliban, US forces have lingered too long, overstaying their welcome.
With its unhappy knack of turning everything it touches to dust, Afghanistan is sucking in more soldiers than the seemingly overwhelming forces with their superior firepower had originally envisaged.
Greater role
During a recent visit to India by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Delhi was approached to play a greater role. But it must keep a distance for various reasons. Far more unstable after American intervention, a new and deadlier strain of the Taliban has emerged from the dusty hinterland to challenge it.
A Taliban that Afghan government officials have repeatedly said has its genesis across the border in the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta, where the ethnic Pashtuns share a common gene pool as well as an implacable hostility to all things outside their conservative ken.
The perception of India as a Hindu nation - despite its 150 million Muslim population - will only make Indian soldiers fair game.
A second and far more dangerous perception may well be what brought the Taliban back into play. Indian consulates that opened in western Mazar-e-Sharif, and the eastern towns of Kandahar and Jalalabad raised hackles in Islamabad over the US opening the way to a greater Indian role in Afghanistan, long seen by Pakistan's strategic planners as their putative client state.
India's presence in the two eastern Afghan towns - even if it was only one lonely counsellor - has added to Islamabad's fears of a move by Delhi to outmanoeuvre it in its own backyard, perhaps by covertly backing the Baloch insurgency.
India has strenuously denied any such role but its old links with the former Northern Alliance now add up to two red rags to the Pakistani bull.
Since late September as they deploy outside the Afghan capital Kabul for the first time, Nato countries like Britain, in particular, are getting a taste of Afghan battlefields where there is no distinguishing between enemy and friend.
Despite a great fascination for India's film icons even in these remote villages, an Indian expeditionary force will find the hostile terrain and populace equally daunting.
Two Indians, one an engineer, the other a driver have already lost their lives at the hands of the Taliban, anxious as India's goodwill hunting seemed to be paying off as it built roads, schools and hospitals in the interior.
But with every Indian gang of construction labourers needing security, even troops to protect Indian interests will open it to harm's way.
Delhi must decide whether it wants to play cat's paw to US interests in a nation fast emerging as the point where the interests of "three empires" are again set to collide or use soft power as smarter neighbour China does to secure its strategic interests.
Neena Gopal is an analyst on Asia.
