India’s strained ties with Dhaka create a potential ‘three-front encirclement’. US official explains how

However, with the growing distance between New Delhi and Dhaka, Petermann writes that India’s focus could “invert”, focusing on China in the North, Pakistan to the West and Bangladesh to the East, reducing any potential pressure Beijing would face from its Western flank in any future crisis in Taiwan. The US military official points out that Bangladesh has increasingly sought defence deals with Pakistan, making an order worth 40,000 rounds of artillery ammunition from Islamabad last year. Visits by Bangladeshi military officials to India’s Western neighbour highlight a growing sense of an institutionalisation of ties between the two countries. “In…