India Stepping Up to the Plate in Afghanistan --- In a recent deal with Moscow, India has agreed to pay for military equipment sourced from Russia to Afghanistan. -- The equipment will include artillery, helicopters, tanks, and armored vehicles. India will also pay to repair old Soviet hardware left behind after the Russian withdrawal in 1989. The scale and exact composition of the deal have yet to be announced, but it is known that the first order has already been placed. India had so far hesitated to provide lethal weapons to Afghanistan for fear of antagonizing Pakistan. However, the deal suggests a rethink in the halls of South Block on India’s role in the region after the ISAF withdrawal. -- The reason behind that rethink is fairly simple: the winds of change that are blowing this year in Afghanistan. The ISAF is winding down its presence and a new president is about to be elected in the country’s first democratic transfer of power. These transitions have prompted Afghanistan’s neighbors to accelerate their thinking about the future of the region. India has frequently expressed a desire to see the emergence of a strong, stable and independent Afghanistan. With foreign forces no longer taking the lead role, the only way to ensure stability in Afghanistan – and by extension in the region – is to help increase the capabilities of its young army. Other interests are also at stake. Any economic assistance provided by India to Afghanistan would be stripped of meaning if the latter was not strong enough to defend the products of the assistance. Moreover, India needs Afghanistan to be able to defend the former’s business investments, stalled for nearly three years. -- Considering these mounting pressures and the limited time available to respond, it is not surprising that India changed its mind on supplying arms to Afghanistan. The decision comes as a follow up to the promise made in the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the two countries in 2011, in which India agreed to assist in “training, equipping, and capacity building programmes” to strengthen the Afghan National Security Forces. -- India has, however, played its cards close to its chest. Earlier in February, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, visiting Kandahar to inaugurate an agricultural university built with Indian aid, said that India would be providing helicopters and transport aircraft as per Afghanistan’s wishes. This was “consistent with [India’s] approach – building capacity, providing training,” he said. But he also pointed out that India was “not in the game of giving people large scale equipment which is lethal.” - More, Niharika Betkerur, The Diplomat - http://thediplomat.com/2014/05/india-stepping-up-to-the-plate-in-afghanistan/