Obama Cuts his Losses

MK Bhadrakumar's latest is a good snapshot of the Af-Pak situation. Indian strategists will be unhappy.

For Obama and the US -- kick the can down the road and get out of Dodge (at least as a tale to tell the children, err, the American voters. ----- There will be a garrison remaining for multiple purposes, but securing Kabul and building the Afghan state will not be one of them)

For the Indians --- there is no substitute for standing on your own two feet.

The US is probably telling India behind the scenes, "keep growing at 9%+ annually, and all else will follow". The key question to me is whether resource constraints emerge to throttle Indian growth before they can achieve strategic parity with China. Kinda hard to be an ambitious would-be imperial power without an educated and well-fed population.

or oil.....


or water.....