Direction (Qs.1 to 10): Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. There are some blanks given in the passage based on which some questions are framed, and some words are highlighted as well to help you answer some of the questions.

If one looks for an overarching theme that defined global politics in 2019, one might settle for protests. Angry crowds, especially the youth, _____ (A) against the establishment in several parts of the world — from Santiago to Hong Kong, Beirut and New Delhi. (B) But the year also saw some assertiveness (a) trends in geopolitics as well such as China’s dangerously (b) defining (c) both in trade and foreign policy, Iran’s growing (d) aggressive, yet calculated, behaviour, and the rise of Turkey as a new power pole in West Asia. The most important of them all, however, was the relative decline in America’s power, which was manifested through a number of crises during the year.

The U.S. is the world’s mightiest military power and arguably the centre of the post-Soviet world order. In the 1990s, the U.S.’s dominance was at its peak with international and multilateral organisations getting overshadowed by its pre-eminence. In 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, it got international support for its war in Afghanistan. (C) In 2003, the U.S. went ahead with the plan /to bomb Iraq despite the UN opposition, /reminding the world of imperial invasions /and the global situation is different, and more complex today. Changes under way over the past decade picked up pace in 2019, showing cracks in the post-Soviet order. At least three developments in 2019 suggested that the U.S.’s ability to shape global politics is clearly _____ (D). The U.S. went to Afghanistan in October 2001, with a vow to destroy al-Qaeda and topple the Taliban regime. (E) Seventeen years later, the U.S., desperate (a) to get out of a stalemated (b) conflict, started direct negotiations (c) to (d) the Taliban. The talks almost led to a settlement last year, with both sides agreeing to a draft agreement under which the U.S. would pull out most of its troops from Afghanistan in return for assurances from the Taliban that it would not allow Afghan soil to be used by transnational terrorists. (F) The agreement, however, _____ after an American soldier was killed in a Taliban attack. A few weeks later, Mr. Trump resumed the talks. The whole Afghan experience shows how the U.S. botched up the war. The U.S. has a superior hand in conventional warfare. (G) But winning a war stabilizing (a) is not just about toppling (b) a hostile regime, but also about abroad (c) the country after the regime is toppled (d). The U.S., history shows, is good at the former but fares poorly in the latter. It is now left with no other option but to reach an agreement with the Taliban for a face-saving exit. (H) That would leave Kabul’s fragile, /faction-ridden government exposed to /the Taliban insurgency, just like the Mohammed Najibullah government was left /to the Afghan Mujahideen in 1989 after the Soviet withdrawal. The Soviet Union disintegrated in two years, and Najibullah’s government collapsed after a few months.

(I) The latest spell in the U.S.-Iran tensions was _____ of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018. Mr. Trump’s plan was to put “maximum pressure” on Iran through sanctions and force Tehran to renegotiate the nuclear deal. But Iran countered it through “maximum resistance”, instead of giving in.

The year 2019 saw Iran repeatedly provoking the U.S. and its allies. (J) It shot down an American drone over the Gulf in June, captured (a) a British tanker in July and is believed (b) to have either carried out or connects (c) multiple attacks on oil tankers that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that orchestrated (d) the oil-rich Gulf with the Arabian Sea through the Gulf of Oman. In September, two Saudi oil facilities came under attack, which temporarily cut the kingdom’s oil output by half. Iran was blamed for the attacks. The attacks on Saudi facilities challenged the post-war partnership between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that guaranteed American protection to the kingdom. Still, the only counter-measure the U.S. took in response to Iran’s growing provocations was imposing more sanctions. One can argue that the U.S.’s subdued response doesn’t have anything to do with a decline in its power but is rather due to the reluctance of the sitting President to launch new wars. Even if one buys this argument, the question remains: why is Mr. Trump reluctant to launch new wars? The answer, perhaps, is the wars the U.S. launched in the new century, be it Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya, were not won. Sections in Washington don’t want the U.S. to get stuck in another long-drawn conflict in West Asia. Here, the U.S.’s inability to shape outcomes of the wars it launches is acting as a deterrent against its own war machines.