Sirs, The essays on Afghanistan in the February-March issue of Survival (vol. 51, no. 1) are timely and reflect the belief of all strategic analysts, whether in Europe or Asia, that this is a conflict the United States and NATO cannot afford to lose. There is, however, a deal of difference in the intensity with which this belief is held. In Europe and NATO it is more a question of finishing something the great democracies set out to do in 2001. In India, on the other hand, a US defeat in Afghanistan could mean the Talibanisation of Pakistan and the massing of fundamentalists along the India-Pakistan border with the aim of exploiting the huge religious fault lines of the biggest democracy in the world. So although sensible commentators in multi-ethnic parts of the world have criticised Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilisations', the Taliban on India's border would lead to just such a clash.
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