THE visit of US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and US defence secretary Mark Esper for the 2+2 Dialogue with their Indian counterparts, in the middle of the second surge in Covid-19 pandemic and merely a week prior to US presidential polls, is being projected as the coming of age of a long-cherished military relationship.

THE US has been fighting Taliban for the last 19-years at a cost of more than $2 trillion. However, President Donald Trump believes that the Taliban might be America’s newfound ally in South Asia in bringing back peace to war-torn Afghanistan.However, Trump’s hopes were dashed when a faction of Taliban fired roughly a dozen rockets at Camp Dwyer, a large American military base and a joint US-Afghan airfield in southern Afghanistan towards the end of August.

JOHN Bolton, former national security adviser (NSA), in the Trump administration, in his controversial book The Room Where It Happened, has alleged the US President Donald Trump demanded that Japan pay $8 billion per year for costs associated with hosting American troops in Okinawa – or risk their withdrawal.Bolton’s memoir suggests that he met with his Japanese counterpart Shotaro Yachi, in July 2019 to explain “why Trump wanted $8 billion annually,” starting from next year, “compared to the roughly $2.5 billion Japan now paid.” Bolton’s figures may not be accurate because in 2019 Japan pa

AFGHANISTAN’s seven-day “reduction in violence” plan negotiated by the US and the Taliban commenced on February 21. Subsequently, the two erstwhile warring parties signed a deal on February 28, to bring peace to Afghanistan. America promised phased withdrawal of its military forces from Afghanistan. It is hoped that this will mark the beginning of end of the American involvement in nearly two-decade-old Afghan war which began after the September 11 attacks.The ambiguous US-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, was negotiated for more than a year.

AFGHANISTAN’S seven-day “reduction in violence” plan negotiated by the US and the Taliban commenced on February 21. Subsequently, the two erstwhile warring parties signed a deal to bring peace to Afghanistan on February 28. America promised phased withdrawal of its military forces from Afghanistan. It is hoped that this will mark the beginning of end of the American involvement in nearly two-decade-old Afghan war which began after the September 11 attacks.The ambiguous US-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, was negotiated for more than one year.