Mr Singh writes with a directness unusual among the region's practising politicians. His military training and service may have contributed to this welcome measure of candour. That said, his comment that "trillions of dollars have been wasted," so far stands unsubstantiated. Even if Mr Singh uses the term trillion in the US configuration (in which a trillion is an order of magnitude smaller than the British trillion), he will have to contend with numerous US and other Western studies which demonstrate that while costs of the US-led war in Afghanistan have been very substantial, especially for the Afghans themselves, they were relatively modest when compared to the costs incurred in Iraq, for instance, and that the former did not reach "trillions" of dollars for the US.



Apart from that actuarial issue rather marginal to the core of the present discourse, Mr Singh does point out the futility of draping a military withdrawal in more "honourable" phraseology. While US-led forces have not suffered a crushing defeat in a single substantial frontline battle with their Afghan detractors, such clear-cut pitched battles are not the hallmark of insurgencies, guerrilla warfare, and counter-insurgency operations. In fact, US-led forces could easily inflict irrecoverable damage on their Afghan adversaries had the two sides faced each other off in such conventional combat. But that is not what the Afghan resistance to foreign invasion is about. In this regard, Mr Singh's reminder of America's Vietnamese experience is apposite.



As with the Soviet forces in the 1980s, the American-led NATO/ISAF forces have lost much of the original political will, moral authority and a sustainable sense of national (or perhaps multinational) purpose in pursuing bloody violence against local adversaries. Mr Singh hints at this erosion in a sophisticated fashion. Not many friends of the USA have actually done so in public for a long time, and so, his commentary has to be welcomed.



One suspects that although for practical political reasons, the Obama Administration cannot formally acknowledge the validity of Mr Singh's postulates - after all, the USA is still, and desires to remain indefinitely, the global power exercising near-primacy in shaping the contours of the international security landscape - senior advisors to the President appreciate the basic thrust of Mr Singh's argument and, have indeed, fashioned their withdrawal policy precisely because of a recognition of the campaign's practical unsustainability and its ultimate futility.



That said, the commentary is less precise and candid with regard to India's national security interests in Afghanistan which, the author insists, Delhi must defend "at all costs." Such an overwhelming necessity warrants greater clarity on what these interests are, and how precisely they are to be defended. Without being uncharitable, it is perhaps reasonable to note that unlike, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and China, India does not share borders with Afghanistan. To that extent, its national security interests in Afghanistan are likely to be somewhat more circumscribed and less directly apparent than those perceived by states and societies directly abutting on Afghan territory and populace. That basic difference in the degree of intensity is a reasonable starting point in assessing the most critical regional dynamics in post-Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan. As a seasoned former soldier with both strategic and tactical perspectives shaping perceptions, Mr Singh must be aware of this.