By Kabir Taneja
India may enlist Russia to provide Afghan government forces with needed weapons.
Debate over the security of Afghanistan after NATO forces pull out later this year is gathering momentum in New Delhi. During one of his trips to India last year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai provided the government with a military wish list, posing a challenge for the Indian leadership as to how to address the request.
One of the many strategies that New Delhi seems to be working on to make sure Afghanistan does not fall back into the hands of Islamists is to provide its government with military aid via Moscow. Even though the Afghan police and other security institutions have received training from their Indian counterparts, New Delhi has been apprehensive about directly providing Kabul with lethal military equipment because it fears they may end up in the wrong hands, which could damage its local reputation as predominantly a provider of developmental aid.
However, India is thinking of fulfilling at least some of Kabul’s wishes in order to maintain its strategic upper hand in Afghanistan, by providing military aid routed through Russia. Under the plan being considered, Moscow will provide Kabul with equipment such as helicopters, mobile bridges, trucks and possibly ammunition and certain artillery, while India foots the bill. This would not be the first suggestion that Moscow send its own military hardware to Afghanistan on behalf of a third party. Last year the U.S. was set to pay $1 billion for new Russian Mi-17 helicopters to be delivered to Afghanistan. However, the deal fell through after pressure on Washington mounted following allegations that the Russian firm manufacturing the aircraft, Rosoboronexport, was also providing weapons to Syria. The collapse of this deal was seen as a major setback for Afghan government forces.
Read the full story at The Diplomat