Another $ 450 million dollars added to the initial $ 750 million in aid to Afghanistan, India needs to ask a few billion dollar questions. Taliban was ousted from power in 2002. New government tinder Hamid Karzai was put in place in 2003. What has been achieved since in defeating al Qaeda and its religious radical brethren?

The most significant lesson from Afghanistan is the importance of encouraging legitimate and effective indigenous governments and other forces. The two key words in that sentence are legitimate and "indigenous." Clearly, the US and allied forces in Afghanistan are neither. It recommends dramatic improvement in eight key areas which are police, border security, ground combat, air strike and air mobility, intelligence, command and control, information operations, civil-military activities. Of these eight, the counterinsurgency (COIN) study suggests indigenous actors to take lead role in seven of them with the US military and civilian agencies taking support roles. The only aspect left to the US to take the lead is air strikes and air mobility.
The study acknowledges that Afghanistan's devastated state institutions do not yet have the capacity for effective policing.

There is currently a plethora of U.S. Government agencies involved in police training and equipping. However, they are plagued by a paucity of funding and civilian police. This forces the United States to either rely on contractors, such as Dyn Corp, or other states or organizations, such as NATO countries or UN civilian police. Obviously, however much Bush would like to depend on his cronies in the private sector contracting business like DynCorp, the RAND experts have little faith in their abilities.

Cross border support sustains insurgency and terrorism. The al Qaeda and the Taliban take the permeability of the Durand Line to their fullest advantage. In Afghanistan, the United States and other coalition partners failed to alter the will or capacity of the Pakistan government to decrease cross-border activity. This has resulted in these groups being able to run their training camps in their sanctuaries and recruit at leisure. The U.S. military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim countries, where its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment. This restrained attempt at policy-talk: does not hide the fact about how the US forces are viewed in large parts of the world. It suggests, ending war on terrorism and replacing it with such concepts as counterterrorism. The notion of a war on terrorism suggests to Muslims abroad that the United States is fighting a war on Muslims. And the response has to be jihad, or holy war. War convinces people to do jihad. But these are voices of sanity which rarely breaches the cerebral cortices of the players in Bush administration. Indeed if one accounts for the strands, of logic followed by the US, presidential candidates during their campaign pronouncements, one could not be greatly enthused about the future. It is a matter of grave concern for India.