India’s Strategic Positioning in a ‘Tricentric’ World - Gautam Mukhopadhaya - Eyes on Middle Powers Eps. 3

Based on your experience, Ambassador, being in the three countries, Syria, Afghanistan, and Myanmar, although some are in a good time at that time, but what lesson learned can you identify when it comes to these conflicts, although they have their own circumstances and different story and different issue.

But what can you take as the lesson learned for global conflicts and peace in Qatar?

Two things.

I think one is a domestic environment that resolves potential conflicts as they come.

So that means actually repressing governments just bottle up conflicts and in fact create a much stronger environment for conflict and even violence.

And the second is external interference.

I think in many cases, external interference and external interventions and even external help at times have been faulty or have aggravated situations.

Let me give you an example.

I think there's no question that the US intervention post 9-11 in Afghanistan was liberating for Afghanistan.

But the management of that by the US-led Western coalition, left a lot to be designed.

They pushed in a lot of money, but that money didn't really go down to the ground and it didn't help build the economy upwards.

Afghanistan is also known as a resource-rich country.

It's been known since the Soviet intervention times and even during the US period.

But frankly, no investment was made into the mineral sector by the West.

And had they invested in the mineral sector, they would have generated revenues that would have sustained the Afghan state rather than being permanently dependent on the Western coalition.

That was one.

And the second sector that they could have invested is the livelihood sector.

You know, basically the agri sector.

Again, Afghan dry fruits and, you know, agricultural products were... well-known and had a big market traditionally in India.

And India was their biggest market, but it could have been anywhere else.

They didn't develop adequate connectivity, including connectivity to India and the soft connectivity through train measures and all that as well.

So they missed many opportunities.

And in cases like Syria, you know, that was the period of the neocons.

And when the Arab Spring happened, they thought this was a great moment to destabilize Bashar Assad.

Because for geopolitical reasons, because he had a relationship with the Iranians and for other reasons and so on.