We are stepping very nervously into 2019. There are rumblings of trouble in all corners of the world. In the US President Donald Trump has shut down the government and will now have to face an intransigent, Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. Britain is still trying to work out of the terms of its messy divorce in 85 days from the European Union. Closer home, we are watching anxiously to see if the notoriously unpredictable Trump pulls US troops out of Afghanistan, before the next US presidential election season begins. The Americans pulling out wouldn't be good news for India, because once again there would be the temptation to send underemployed jihadis into Kashmir. The last few months have gone badly in Afghanistan for the anti-Taliban forces. The Taliban has been expanding its area of control. In a display of astonishing reach, it even assassinated a top pro-government leader in plain sight of a top US general.

When Trump announced that the US would pull out of Syria, everyone assumed it was only a matter of time before it upped stakes in Afghanistan. But now there appears to be a strong pushback coming from the Pentagon and even the Syria withdrawal may be slower than Trump’s announcement had made it seem. Also, in Afghanistan, negotiations between the Taliban and the Americans aren’t going entirely according to schedule. A high-level Afghan government delegation travelled to Qatar and was expected to join talks already taking place between the Americans and the Taliban. But the talks wound up one day early and in its aftermath, President Ashraf Ghani brought two hardline, highly respected former intelligence chiefs Amarullah Saleh and Asadullah Khalid into the government as interior minister and defence minister, respectively. Soon afterwards, US is said to have urged Pakistan to nudge the Taliban back to the negotiating table. Will the US pull out of Afghanistan and leave much of Asia totally to the Chinese? India must put together many plans of action that can be put into motion whichever way the Afghan cookie crumbles.

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