U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus traveled to Central Asia this week for talks with regional leaders on matters relating to the war in Afghanistan.

Stratfor reports that U.S. military leaders are currently working on devising a new strategy to fight the war in Afghanistan, “where an insurgency led by Taliban and al Qaeda forces is intensifying and spreading deeper into neighboring Pakistan” (January 14).

Afghanistan—and by extension, Pakistan—is becoming a greater and greater problem for the United States. The security situation in northwest Pakistan is fast deteriorating as terrorist activity increases. Stratfor reports that “the Taliban’s eastward march has created fears in the country that Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province (nwfp), could be lost to the Pashtun jihadists within a few months” (ibid.).

As a result, America’s supply route through Pakistan to Afghanistan is becoming increasingly unreliable—as is Pakistan as an ally. This is prompting the U.S. to possibly change tactics.

As part of a new strategy, the U.S. is looking to establish alternative supply routes to decrease its reliance on Pakistan. General Petraeus’s trip to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan this week is almost certainly about alternative logistical arrangements that would require these countries’ cooperation, according to Stratfor.

The problem is, any feasible alternative supply routes would also require the cooperation of Russia. “[T]he linchpin,” says Stratfor, “is working out an agreement to use Russian territory. This presents an even more profound challenge than Russia’s real (but not unlimited) capacity to meddle in its periphery” (ibid.). Stratfor continues:

While there are a number of outstanding questions—where exactly U.S. supply ships might dock to offload supplies, whether a transfer of cargo from the Western to Russian rail gauge might be necessary, whether the route would transit Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan or both, etc.—these are minor details in comparison to the Russian problem. If there is an understanding with Moscow, the rest is possible. But that understanding must entail enough reliability that Russia cannot treat U.S. and nato military supplies like natural gas for Europe and Ukraine. …The problem is that while the Kremlin has been reasonably cooperative up to this point when it comes to U.S. and nato efforts in Afghanistan, such an understanding may not be possible completely independent of the clash of wills between Russia and the West. There is too much at stake, and the window of opportunity is too narrow for Moscow to simply play nice with the new American administration without a much broader strategic agreement and very real concessions.

Russia has already shown it is not afraid of the U.S. Certainly its war in Georgia demonstrated that. Now, as the U.S. finds itself in a bind in Afghanistan, Russia is gaining enormous leverage to use against an American superpower that is rapidly losing power and influence in the world.

Any sort of agreement whereby the U.S. became reliant on Russia to get supplies into Afghanistan would limit America’s ability to curtail Russian ambitions elsewhere.

This scenario is symptomatic of the great global power transfer that is underway as America loses its power in accordance with Bible prophecy.