US Congressman Urges Deployment of 'Quick Reaction Force' in India to Counter 'Worst' of Taliban

While US State Secretary Antony Blinken pledged to “expand the multilateral security partnership” between Washington and Delhi in Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific region during his visit to India last month, the idea of hosting foreign troops hasn’t been well-received in the Asian nation to date.

Republican representative Mark E.Green has called upon the Joe Biden administration to deploy a "Quick Reaction Force (QRF)" in northwestern India to counter the “worst of the Taliban rule” in Afghanistan.

Green, a US Army veteran and a member of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, said the force should be equipped with ground-based sensors and stealth drones.

He argued that it could also "deter Pakistan" from openly supporting the Taliban.

He made the remarks during an interview with US news channel NewsNation TV, while the Republican echoed these sentiments in a column published in The Hill on 17 August, arguing that a QRF would also help deepen the US-India defence partnership.

The Congressman from Tennessee says that an American military presence in India would also serve to address the “outsized influence” of Chinese-Pakistani influence in the region and prevent an “intelligence blackout” in Afghanistan.

Green, who has been critical of the Biden administration over what he describes as a “botched” troop pullout from Afghanistan, reckons that the US could prevent some of the worst effects of the withdrawal by closely collaborating with India.

On Wednesday, Green also blasted Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin for stating at a Pentagon press conference that the US military “doesn't have the capacity at this point to extend security forces beyond the perimeter of the Kabul Airport” to evacuate more civilians out of Afghanistan.

Leave no American behind. @SecDef —figure it out. Now. Period. pic.twitter.com/LcxXXIwxng

— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) August 19, 2021

​“I was just appalled… The notion that so flippantly Secretary Austin could say that we don’t have the resources to go get the Americans not inside the Kabul perimeter… That blows me away,” he said.

“We live by the code that leave no man behind… Let’s get every single American out of there,” Green said.

Meanwhile, US President Biden said in an interview with ABC that he may order the US troops in Afghanistan to stay beyond 31 August if any Americans remain in the insurgency-ravaged nation. It was his first TV interview since the Taliban took control of Kabul.