Looks like Tajikistan is becoming the outsourcing capital for military bases. They have now granted a base for Russia, which will be Russia’s largest base on foreign soil.
India too has a military base in Tajikistan and will be operational by the end of this year.
Although Indian officials are not willing to discuss the importance of the Farkhor military base, foreign analysts have noted that the acquisition of the military base in Tajikistan would certainly give the Indian armed forces a longer strategic reach.
Defence sources describe it as a “modern” military base where 95 per cent of the infrastructure is in place. The runway, the blast pans and the control tower are ready. The Army is also into this exercise, having operated a military hospital there, basically to nurse the Northern Alliance soldiers who fought the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan between 1997 and 2001.
It was to this hospital that Ahmed Shah Massoud, the last of the anti-Taliban resistance leader, was brought dead after Al-Qaida’s emissaries, posing as TV journalists, killed him in an explosion three years ago.
The base is the outcome of considerable behind-the-scene work by the MEA, clinched after the US, which marked a big military presence in Central Asia in the wake of 9/11, preferred not to establish a base.
Now with Indians active in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the policy of encircling Pakistan is going on.
Tajikistan has invited US,India and now Russia to set up military bases. That must be its speciality, akin to software and India.
Encircling Pakistan might be the objective but can the base be used in a war against pakistan?
Is INDIA installing all the modern infrastructrue to combat pak if there is attack