Like Afghanistan, Bangladesh is a poor country that sits on important real estate. From Andrew Korybko at korybko.substack.com:
Here’s how everything unfolded from the start of this summer’s initially peaceful student-led protests against the judiciary’s reimposition of a contentious government job quota system to the spree of urban terrorism that ultimately forced the country’s long-serving leader to flee for her life to India.
Casual news consumers don’t know much about Bangladesh apart from it being a South Asian country that just experienced a regime change, but it’s also the eighth-most-populous country with one of the world’s largest textile industries and a highly geostrategic position. Bangladesh borders India’s Northeast States that are connected to the “mainland” by the “Chicken’s Neck”, which is only 12-14 miles wide at its narrowest, and some of these same states have been troubled by ethno-separatist unrest for years.
Former long-serving Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was a de facto Indian ally despite cultivating close ties with China and the US. She shared Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of regional development and thus allowed his country transit rights across hers for facilitating trade with its Northeast States. Moreover, Hasina prevented her country from being used by related militant groups that are designated by Delhi as terrorists, and she also cracked down on religious radicals too.
