阿富汗专题

阿富汗专题
Reluctant or Pragmatic? The GCC’s Policy towards

Taliban-Led Afghanistan
B Poornima aminroopb@gmail.comView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221130654
ContentsPDF / ePub
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Abstract
The Taliban’s capture of Kabul in 2021 has presented the
neighbourhood and beyond with layers of challenges to deal with,
particularly for the Persian Gulf. On the one hand, the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) members are concerned about the
repercussions of the change of guard in Kabul vis-à-vis terrorism and
refugee-related instability. On the other, the withdrawal of US forces
has questioned their policy priorities, leading them to consider
variegating their international partners for their security imperatives.
The developing situation in Afghanistan can alter the geopolitical

equations in the Persian Gulf. The growing importance that Qatar has
received from the US and the Taliban due to its status as a mediator
and Turkey’s entry using the Doha card are among the main
influencing factors. The GCC governments neither praised nor
criticised the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Their responses so
far, though cautious and limited, have been pragmatic, putting their
national interest first. However, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar will
continue to be relevant in Afghan affairs either directly or indirectly
through diplomatic and economic overtures as they realise that a
stable Afghanistan is in the best interest of the GCC. Such moves are
crucial to ensure the crisis does not spill over to the Gulf. Through its
diplomatic, economic and religious clout, the GCC can catalyse the
international community to devise a multi-pronged approach to bring
peace and stability to Afghanistan.
Introduction
The Taliban gained control over Kabul on 15 August 2021, just 2
weeks before the complete withdrawal of US troops to end a two-
decade war that shed much blood and money. The Taliban’s victory
took the world by surprise. The Afghan provinces fell into the
Taliban’s hands like a house of cards during a swift offensive led by
the fundamentalist group. An event of this magnitude has led states,
particularly in the neighbourhood, to recalibrate their foreign policies
towards Afghanistan. The transition has also resulted in the major
actors in the Middle East and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
members, such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar reassessing their
engagement with Kabul. The presence of the Taliban government in
Afghanistan could allow terrorist groups to use the state as a
launchpad to execute terrorist activities. The withdrawal of the US
could further boost the confidence of extremist factions in the Middle
East to advance their agenda. The early reactions of the GCC states to
the rapidly unfolding events in Afghanistan had a neutral tone—
neither praising nor rejecting the Taliban (Mukhtar, 2021). Are their
responses pragmatic, informed by their security imperatives and the
existing geopolitical reality? The foreign policy orientations of the
GCC states towards the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan could potentially
determine the prospects of stability in the war-torn state. At the same
time, these orientations can affect the current patterns of amity and
enmity in the Persian Gulf. This is especially true in the case of the
three Gulf monarchies, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar, who play a
prominent role in regional geopolitics and have been influential actors
in matters relating to the Taliban and Afghanistan.
Therefore, while discussing the GCC policy towards the Taliban and
Afghanistan, this article has focused more on the approaches of Saudi
Arabia, UAE and Qatar and their implications for Afghanistan’s
security. The article has attempted to answer the central question: Will
the positions taken by these states and their policy orientations bring
stability to the Taliban-led Afghanistan or further deepen the political
cleavages in the region? UAE and the Qatar–Turkey duo have already
been eyeing access to the Kabul airport, with the latter seemingly
enjoying the Taliban’s trust and, thus, having the upper hand. The
article concludes that although the developments in Afghanistan might
influence the competition between the regional rivals, they might not
cause tension or rifts among the GCC members. With their political,
diplomatic, economic and religious weight, these Gulf-Arab states can
muster resources and international support to resolve the Afghanistan
crisis and secure their interests.

GCC Responses to the Taliban’s Takeover of
Afghanistan
The immediate responses of the GCC states appeared to have been
carefully crafted, neither praising nor condemning the Taliban’s
behaviour. Being the current chair, Bahrain stressed that the GCC
discuss the situation brewing in Afghanistan, whereas the Kuwaiti
government warned against the bloodshed that was endangering the
security of the people (Lucente, 2021). In contrast, there was no
official statement from Oman, barring the Grand Mufti’s praise of the
Taliban for pushing out ‘invaders’ from the state (Middle East Eye,
2021). The Omani government seemed to have maintained its
neutrality, a stand it has extended to other events and situations
affecting the region, such as the Iran–Saudi Arabia rivalry and the
GCC–Qatar rift. It is important to note that Saudi Arabia and UAE
were the last GCC states to respond to the development. Saudi
Arabia’s foreign ministry stated that the state supports the choice
made by the people of Afghanistan without external influence and
calls for the Taliban and Afghan parties to cooperate to achieve peace
and stability in Afghanistan. The Kingdom’s response was heedful of

the transitioning geopolitics in the region with the downsizing of the
US presence and its concerns about Iran’s influence on entities that
work against the Kingdom’s interests.
Meanwhile, the UAE seemed to take an optimistic stand, pointing at
reforms announced by the Taliban as encouraging and hoping the
Afghan parties embrace peace and stability. Saudi Arabia and the
UAE had also temporarily closed their embassies in Kabul to assess
the brewing security situation. Qatar, donning the role of a mediator
that it has been for negotiations with the Taliban, merely pointed at
the need for a peaceful political resolution.
The reactions of the GCC states were limited, considering the history
and the impact of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan on the pre-
existing faultlines in the Middle East, especially in the Persian Gulf.
The meeting between the GCC envoys and the Taliban in February
2022 did not succeed in assuring these Gulf-Arab states that the new
Taliban government would sincerely undertake progressive reforms.
The Taliban representatives had promised to implement reforms to
improve the status of women in the Afghan society, one of the many
recommendations put forth by the GCC states during the meeting. The
Taliban’s failure to abide by their promise to allow all female students
access to education has attracted further resentment. The GCC states,
including Qatar, which enjoys the most political clout in Afghanistan,
had expressed disappointment in the Taliban’s last-moment reversal of
its decision to open schools for male and female students. The Gulf-
Arab states reiterated that women could enjoy the right to education
and work even in a society that follows sharia law (Latifi, 2022). To
improve their public image as progressing economies and attract
businesses, states, such as Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia have
introduced reforms that enhance women’s rights (The Arab Weekly,
2020). Despite some setbacks, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, UAE
and Saudi Arabia have been seeing a positive trend in women’s health
care, education attainment and employment over the years (World
Economic Forum, 2021). While the GCC’s response could be for
optics, the Taliban’s regressive policies on women might not augur
well for the group’s pursuit to garner international support for
releasing frozen funds to improve the situation in Afghanistan. Being
in the good books of the GCC states could serve the Taliban well in
this aspect. The Western powers, including the European Union, have
put the precondition of bettering the human rights condition in
Afghanistan in order to receive international humanitarian assistance
and aid (Al Jazeera, 2022a). The Taliban does not seem to be moving
in that direction, while approximately 9 million Afghans are exposed
to a harsh environment compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and
famine (Al-Ghwell, 2022).
Concomitantly, alleviating the humanitarian crisis and creating a
relatively stable Afghanistan will benefit the GCC states. The refugee
crisis caused by the toppling of the Afghan government seems to have
put the Gulf states in peril. The worsening crisis in the war-torn state
could exacerbate the refugee crisis, threatening the GCC states’
security. Saudi Arabia and UAE have been hesitant to take in the
refugee flux from Afghanistan. After requests from the US, Abu
Dhabi had consented to allow at the most 5,000 refugees to use the
Emirati territory as a transit conduit on their way to another state for
settlement within 10 days. However, the government welcomed
President Ashraf Ghani and some other officials from his
administration to take refuge in the Emirates on humanitarian grounds.
Such a gesture from Abu Dhabi is not new, as it has hosted several
high-value personalities to gain political leverage, particularly with
the US. Bahrain also offered Afghan refugees to use its ‘transit
facilities’ like UAE (Chaubey, 2021b; The Arab Weekly, 2021b).
Qatar bore most of the brunt of the refugee crisis, facilitating the Al
Udeid base to fly out almost 60,000 Afghans.
The GCC states have carefully curated their responses to project
themselves as responsible actors concerned about the situation in
Afghanistan, although keeping their own security interests as a
priority. Other Islamic states outside the Persian Gulf, including
Turkey and Pakistan, which embraced Afghan refugees in the past,
have also been sceptical this time due to domestic political, economic
and security reasons. The symbolic resistance from the Gulf-Arab
states indicates the concerns that the Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover
has caused right in their extended neighbourhood. It is essential to
note that the GCC states’ responses to the humanitarian atrocities
committed by the Taliban lack conviction and have been notably
fainter than their take on other matters of international security.
Nonetheless, the security concerns arising from a Taliban-controlled

Afghanistan will factor in their calculations while formulating their
foreign policy towards the war-torn state.
GCC’s Position on Afghanistan

One aspect that all six members of the GCC seem to agree on is that a
stable Afghanistan serves the best regional security. The discussion of
the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan gained prominence at the GCC–
UK foreign ministers’ meeting in December 2021. The GCC states
have been advocating national reconciliation in Afghanistan and the
formation of an inclusive government that can tend to the state’s
welfare. They concur with the proposition that humanitarian
assistance can help the betterment of the situation in Afghanistan and
bring stability to the state (GCC, 2021). The states’ concern revolves
around refugees, internally displaced people and the terrorism threat
posed by the Taliban-led Afghanistan. Destabilising issues such as
breeding terrorist groups and trafficking of arms, substances and other
illegal items in the neighbourhood are among the primary worries for
the Gulf states.
The threat of political Islam has also raised suspicion among states
such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE that want to do away with it,
especially after the Arab Spring. Islamists can be broadly graded by
their adopted approach based on cost-benefit analyses. The purists do
not get involved in politics and merely stick to preaching their way of
Islam. The politicos engage in non-violent political action to mobilise
their ideology. The Taliban fall into the last category, the jihadis, who
uphold violence to push their agenda, the kind the Gulf-Arab states
would want to keep in good books (Sharifi, 2016). The Taliban’s
victory in Afghanistan is highly likely to encourage Islamist extremist
groups in the Gulf.
Afghanistan has been hosting several extremist outfits like Al-Qaeda
and the Islamic State, which even challenge the Taliban. Apart from
that, illegal activities have constantly plagued Afghanistan. The
Taliban has long sustained its operations with the help of revenue
from drug smuggling and other transnational crimes. As per
UNODC’s report, Afghanistan has received around US$1.8 billion–
US$2.7 billion in revenue from opiates in 2021, and it is estimated
that a much more significant amount is earned through illicit drug
supply chains (UNODC, 2021). Non-state actors can potentially use
these sources to keep their operations running. The GCC members

have publicly expressed their position against such activities in their
backyard. They have persuaded the new government in Afghanistan to
tackle these security issues and have offered to cooperate in
combating terrorism. The states have also been insisting that the
Taliban take the help of the international community, specifically
international organisations, to provide advice to revive Afghanistan’s
economy and political system and alleviate the crisis plaguing the
society (Aluwaisheg, 2022).
To the state’s benefit, the new Taliban regime also seems to have
prioritised winning international recognition and is willing to reach
out to powers such as China, Russia, India and the Gulf states, among
others, through diplomatic overtures. If the Taliban continues to be
keen on this, the GCC states can identify a number of areas to jointly
work with the Taliban to bring stability to Afghanistan and the wider
region.
GCC’s Afghanistan Policy

Relations between Afghanistan and some of the Gulf-Arab states have
been significant. Particularly that of Saudi, Emirati and Qatari
monarchies. However, the nature of the ties has been different. The
three GCC states have varied interests in Afghanistan, and their
policies are aligned with those interests. Saudi Arabia’s role in Afghan
politics dates back to the nineteenth century. Afghanistan was the first
Islamic state to recognise the second Saudi state (Miles, 2021). In
contemporary times, Riyadh’s realisation that its relations with
Islamabad and Tehran would be affected by the developments in
Afghanistan has directed its policy pronunciations. The importance of
Pakistan for the Kingdom’s interests and the threat Iran poses to its
legitimacy in the Persian Gulf have shaped Saudi Arabia’s foreign
policy toward Afghanistan (Steinberg & Woermer, 2013, p. 2).
For the UAE, a stable Afghanistan is crucial to sustain its interests and
maintain good ties with other regional powers in the Middle East. The
Gulf state joined Saudi Arabia to provide proactive support to the
Mujahideen who were training to fight the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan. Both states continued to influence Afghan politics
through religion and money after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Wahhabism was a binding factor for the Taliban and Saudi religious
circle in the 1990s. The UAE did not have an independent policy
toward the Taliban; it followed Saudi Arabia and the US’ footsteps to
secure its interests. Riyadh and UAE were among the first states to
recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the Taliban in
1996. However, the Taliban’s ties with Saudi Arabia and UAE began
to go down the slope in 1998 as the former declined the latter’s
demand to turn in Osama bin Laden. Following the 9/11 terror
incident, Saudi Arabia and UAE cut relations with the Taliban and
subtly helped the Afghan government through development aid and
training its security forces (Partrick, 2018, p. 318).
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have strategically distanced themselves
from the Afghanistan crisis since the 2018 Doha talks (Taneja, 2021).
The Gulf states seem cynical about solely relying on the US for their
security, as the US has slowly reduced its presence in the region.
Attempts at diversifying their relations with other powers such as
Russia, China and Israel have notably been made since discussions on
the US withdrawal from the region were made initially. The
administrations of Barak Obama and Donald Trump repeatedly
viewed the Gulf states as ‘free riders’ and tried to eliminate the
reliance of these states on the US (Melhem, 2021). The Abraham
Accords signed by Gulf states such as UAE and Bahrain with Israel
can be seen as one such effort, buttressed by the US, to make these
states cater to their security needs without waiting for the US. Saudi
Arabia and UAE have also been bolstering their cooperation with
Russia and China in various domains, such as defence and nuclear
energy. Saudi and Russian officials met in August 2021 to agree on
the procurement of defence equipment. The US’ final retreat from
Afghanistan and removing missile defence systems from the Kingdom
could have led Riyadh to push the pedal to boost defence ties with
Moscow (Mezher, 2021). The oil giants, UAE and Saudi Arabia, also
rejected international calls led by the US amid the Ukraine crisis to
dismiss Russia from the OPEC+ alliance, calling Russia a significant
member (Faucon & Said, 2022). Besides, China has been working
with these states to develop their nuclear reactors. Such decisions
indicate US’ Gulf-allies’ willingness to branch out their partnership,
especially in the security realm, considering the geopolitical changes
in the neighbourhood. Despite that, their willingness to be in US’
goodwill and reliance on Washington for strategic interests is unlikely
to fade away.
Saudi Arabia: Containing the Rival

Since Mohammed bin Salman became the Crown Prince, Saudi
Arabia has been gradually undergoing modernisation efforts.
Conservatives, including a substantial part of the Kingdom’s youth
population, have frowned upon the cultural departure. Overt embrace
of an Islamist extremist entity would not align with the social and
political reforms of the Crown Prince. Even the Saudi Arabian
Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
condemned the Taliban’s offensive in Afghanistan as the ‘genocide of
Muslims’ (The New Indian Express, 2021). This posturing clarifies
that the option of resurrecting the 1990s’ close ties enjoyed by Saudi
Arabia and the Taliban might not be brought into the discussion
(Schaer, 2021).
Saudi Arabia has to ensure that its territory is not used to host
terrorists or to fund their cause if Mohammed bin Salman’s vision for
the Kingdom is to fructify. In spite of that, Riyadh would be interested
in providing financial aid in line with humanitarian assistance to keep
its formal influence on Kabul and check on Iran’s activities in
Afghanistan (The Arab Weekly, 2021a). Saudi Arabia has witnessed
Tehran taking advantage of unstable conflict zones in states including

Yemen, Syria and Iraq and would not want the same in Afghanistan.
Iran has been subtly maintaining a cordial relationship with the
Taliban, a drift noticed since Saudi Arabia’s formal ties with the
Islamist group were severed. Reportedly, Iran has been supplying
arms to some Taliban commanders (Rubin, 2020). It has also hosted
top Taliban leaders. Notably, under the IRGC’s direction, Iran chose
to play the silent audience in the 2021 Taliban offensive without
putting up resistance to stall the Taliban’s occupation of western
Afghanistan (Karim, 2021). This is partly because locking horns with
the Taliban would lead to breaches and threats in the west of Iran.
Both parties shared a hostile relationship in the 1990s; hence, their ties
have been volatile. Iran has been extending its diplomatic gestures to
the Taliban since its takeover. Iran has even offered to train the
Taliban forces in an attempt to build constructive relations
(Amwaj.media, 2022). The GCC states will be eager to follow this
development as they would not prefer to see Iran extend its sphere of
influence further. At the same time, Iran has to walk a bed of thorns to
influence Afghan politics, as Shiites continue to be persecuted in
Afghanistan (Human Rights Watch, 2021). A reconfiguration in

Riyadh’s approach towards the Taliban affected by Iran’s dynamics
with the extremist group is improbable. The ideological differences
will take precedence in sustaining the strategic distance between these
parties.
Shortly after the takeover, the Taliban administration officially wrote
off Wahhabism (The Week, 2021). This move by the Taliban was
surprising as it took inspiration from the Sunni Muslim ideology
during its reign in the 1990s. However, shortly after making tall
promises, the Taliban’s behaviour contradicted its claims, suggesting
the publicity stunt that was pulled off to gain international traction.
The administration has been reneging on its promises regarding
women’s rights and human rights, as they continue denying education
for all women and coming down on protests, among other human
rights violations. Despite this putting them in a bad light, the GCC
states’ responses have only gone so far.
Abu Dhabi: Opportunity and Image-building

UAE’s approach toward the Taliban has been flexible since the
beginning. From being among the first states to recognise the Taliban
to cutting ties after the 9/11 incident, following US’ sentiments

towards the Taliban to again engaging, the UAE has made sure to
keep in line with the changing circumstances. The government’s grant
of refuge to certain Afghan officials also shows its desire to hold on to
a role in Afghanistan. The regime has always been sceptical about the
rise of political Islam in the region; therefore, the UAE will be careful
about the Taliban’s activities and relationship with Qatar.
Nonetheless, the government has signalled that it will encourage a
moderate, non-extreme policy for Afghanistan’s stability. The
humanitarian assistance and the evacuation help it offered was an
opportunity to project its intention to contribute to post-conflict
Afghanistan and boost its international credentials. The UAE has been
knitting closer ties with Turkey, working on various aspects, including
regional cooperation, in which Afghanistan will be a critical area of
interest (Fenton-Harvey, 2021). UAE’s policy towards the current
administration in Afghanistan seems to be and will be fluid. It will
depend on the Taliban’s behaviour and, based on the evolving
geopolitical situation in the region, either way, an approach that
benefits its strategic interests. Its pragmatic outlook seems to have

won it a deal to operate airports in Kabul, Kandahar and Herat,
trumping Qatar and Turkey (Business Standard, 2022).
Qatar: The Messiah

In contrast to its two Arab neighbours, Qatar did not recognise the
Taliban regime in the 1990s, even though it enjoyed working relations
with Afghanistan. Qatar’s adeptness at balancing relations and its
influence on Islamist groups helped it become the mediator capable of
pulling the US and the Taliban to the negotiating table. Saudi Arabia
and UAE failed to achieve that status during different periods (Karam,
2017; Salami, 2021). Saudi Arabia and UAE’s close association with
the US and the conditions that came along with it, such as denouncing
Al Qaeda and adherence to the Afghan constitution, did not sync well
with the Taliban. Qatar was the Taliban’s best bet for hosting the
Taliban office due to its subtle embracement and support of Islamist
endeavours (BBC, 2013). The Gulf state did not oppose political Islam
like its neighbours. Qatar’s prominent role in this aspect brought
scepticism in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, with both states, along with
Egypt and Bahrain, eventually severing relations with Doha in 2017
for supporting terrorist groups. However, Qatar can emerge as a

prominent investor in Afghanistan, with the US out of the picture. The
Taliban could expect investments and aid from Doha to sustain the
state and their regime. Qatar will also be keen on holding the leash on
Afghan politics as long as the West’s sanctions do not impact its
dealings with the Taliban.
Qatar takes centre stage among the Gulf states in the Afghan crisis—
as a mediator and providing a neutral location for talks. Qatar will
continue to maintain its importance for the Taliban as well as for the
US. President Donald Trump had to take back his support for the
blockade on Qatar, citing the tiny Gulf state’s role in the Afghanistan
mediation, much to the dismay of the Arab states that spearheaded the
blockade. Qatar is likely to use its status as leverage it can exercise for
its advantage. The Taliban, in turn, would like to bask in the warmth
of the international recognition it can garner through its Qatari
connections. Moreover, it can use all the financial aid and investment
Doha can offer to recover from the economic meltdown Afghanistan
has been facing due to the state’s assets being frozen by the United
States (Chaubey, 2021a).

Unlike the 1990s, the Taliban has been starving for international
support, and they see an opportunity in Qatar. Nevertheless, the
Taliban has to make serious modifications to its image, from being a
radical Islamist group to a moderate administration that buys it
international legitimacy. With the confidence that Qatar has been
privy to with the US and the Taliban, the state can be very
instrumental in negotiations between the two parties. The Al-Udeid
base will continue to possess relevance for the US to monitor Afghan
affairs (The Economist, 2021). The US designating Qatar as a major
non-NATO ally affirms its intention to upgrade the relationship that
will serve US interests in the Gulf (Al Jazeera, 2022b).
Turkey: Playing the Doha Card

Outside the Gulf, Turkey has been looking for substantial participation
in Afghanistan. In its quest for relevance in Afghanistan, Turkey
sought to gain control of the Kabul airport in the face of the US’
withdrawal. Ankara and Doha came together in December 2021 to
coordinate and operate not just the Kabul airport but the ones in other
regions such as Herat, Khost, Kandahar and Balkh (ANI, 2022). The
functioning of these airports with the blessing of the Taliban will

boost Qatar and Turkey’s economic aspirations, given Afghanistan’s
central location. Irrespective of their relative advantage, the airports’
bid was handed over to Abu Dhabi. Rigidity in rules concerning
money matters and a doubtful state of the Turkish economy seemed to
have affected Doha and Ankara’s joint pursuit. The initial talks were
for the two states to initially invest about US$100 million each for the
operation costs of the airports (Soylu, 2022). Delay in a negotiated
settlement tilted the balance towards UAE’s favour.
Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey will continuously try
to secure an important and direct role in Afghanistan by helping
reconstruct the war-torn state in whichever capacity it can afford.
Stability in Afghanistan will prevent refugee inflow into Turkey, and
Ankara’s contribution to regaining stability through developmental
programmes could aid that cause. Afghanistan can be a viable
platform for Turkey to challenge Saudi Arabia’s position as the leader
of the Islamic world. Ankara sees such prospects as a win-win
scenario for Turkey.
Implications for the GCC

The new political landscape in Afghanistan has substantial
implications for the GCC members. First, Saudi Arabia and UAE will
be mindful of the role of Turkey and Qatar in Afghanistan, both
sympathetic to political Islam and working closely with Islamists. The
rivals’ existing competition might expand if the Taliban eventually
embraces Ankara and Doha’s contribution and presence in
Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia is likely to avoid going down the path of
isolating Qatar for its activities, as the previous attempt did not bode
well for the Kingdom and its regional allies. Given Qatar’s enlarging
political influence and closeness to the US, any efforts to reprimand
Doha might not be entertained.
Second, Biden’s US seems to have lost the trust of both the American
and Afghan people and that of the Taliban. It worsened when the
American President announced that half of the Da Afghanistan Bank’s
(Afghan Central Bank) reserve would be used to pay the families of
9/11 victims as a consolation (Senzai, 2022). The Afghans will be
subjected to facing the brunt of the US’ unwarranted pressure. The
GCC states will have an important role to fulfil in this context.
Although by no means financial aid from the Gulf powers will

compensate for the dwindling economy in Afghanistan, the GCC can
play a crucial role in mobilising diplomatic resources and persuading
the international community to contribute to alleviating the
humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. The GCC will also benefit from
this cause as worsening living standards will only push the Afghans to
indulge in illegal activities such as drug abuse and smuggling or
participate in extremist agendas.
A trend feared by neighbouring states and the Taliban itself is the
growing activities of the Islamic State and its affiliates (Islamic State-
Khorasan) in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s inability to resist the
extremist group is seen in the jump in the number of attacks from 60
in 2020 to 334 in November 2021 (UNAMA, 2021). The Gulf-Arab
powers will find the need to combat terrorism in Afghanistan as it can
influence Islamists in their neighbouring states to attack the existing
regimes similarly. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have threatened
Saudi Arabia and its regional allies in the face of liberal reforms
brought in by discarding conservative laws. UAE and Saudi Arabia
have worn the spirit of social and economic progress and have relaxed
several restrictions that were part of their Kingdoms for decades. The
GCC states must ensure their territories are safe from terrorist attacks
launched from Afghanistan in response to their reforms (Yaakoubi et
al., 2021).
Another primary security concern for these Gulf states is the impact of
the Taliban’s activities on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
The Houthi rebels in Yemen celebrated the Taliban’s recent success.
Many high-ranking Houthi officials also drew a parallel between the
Afghan and Yemeni situation, with some commenting that aggressor
states like Saudi Arabia should either exit Yemen on their own like the
US from Afghanistan or through force, referring to the case of
Vietnam. Many believe that what happened in Afghanistan will
accelerate the end of the Yemen war (Shaker, 2021). On the other end
of the Middle East, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad praised the Taliban and warned Israel of similar consequences as
the US. From the reactions of these groups, it is evident that the
Taliban’s recent success has boosted their morale and will continue to
inspire them and their activities in the region. Since most of these
groups act as proxies to further Iran’s agendas, it will present a severe
concern for the Gulf states, particularly for Saudi Arabia and UAE and
their partner in the Levant, Israel (Michael & Guzansky, 2021). Such
indirect repercussions of the Taliban’s massive presence in
Afghanistan are challenges these Gulf states must tackle.
Qatar has already struck the right chord with the Taliban to ensure
their national security by hosting the Taliban office in Doha and
taking over the role of mediator. Policymakers in Saudi Arabia and
UAE also seem to realise the imperative for a pragmatic foreign
policy toward the Taliban-led Afghanistan to preserve their goals.
Saudi Arabia and UAE aim to propel their economies to become
international trade hubs. Abu Dhabi has been introducing a roster of
reforms that have indeed been paying the desired dividend to the Gulf
state. Saudi Arabia encounters a bigger challenge; it has to go the
extra mile from its current status to bring about economic and political
reforms to boost its image as a conducive foreign investment
destination. Riyadh can learn from the UAE model for its economic
diversification while still protecting its Islamic values and retaining its
status as the guardian of the holy sites of Islam. The crisis in
Afghanistan could overflow into the Gulf region if there is a lack of
adept Afghan policy and diplomacy that can keep the threats hailing
from Afghanistan, like the export of extremism, at bay. Attacks on
their soil, instigated by groups inspired by the Taliban, could repel the
prospects of investors, thus defeating their efforts to diversify their
economy. Such an event, when it unfolds, could add domestic
pressure on the governments of the two states, which they will
actively try to avoid. To see the success of their economic
development plans, these states have to ensure stability and security in
their respective states. Therefore, a concordant Afghan policy and a
relatively stable Afghanistan will benefit the larger region.
Implications for Afghanistan

From the current orientations taken by the GCC as an organisation and
the members individually, it can be inferred that these states are not
ready to recognise the Taliban. However, they have expressed the
intent to support efforts that improve the condition in Afghanistan
through political and economic means. Qatar’s role will be the most
significant as the Taliban will expect it to help reconstruct
Afghanistan, given the cordial relationship they enjoy. Qatar is also
the only Gulf state with the capacity and capability to bring the
Afghan parties together for a negotiated settlement, which is a

government involving representations from various sections of
society. Although the Taliban has not signalled any intention to build
bridges with Saudi Arabia, UAE, or any other GCC state, it will be
unlikely for it to deny any assistance hailing from these states. Saudi
Arabia’s religious authority could still be a feasible instrument to
engage the Taliban, but the extent to which it will be effective is not
clear. The Taliban’s scepticism about Saudi Arabia and UAE could
limit the participation of these states in Afghan affairs to being just aid
donors. Broadly looking, the GCC is capable of taking the mantle to
create an avenue that helps bring peace and stability in Afghanistan,
provided the Taliban does not endanger their security and interests in
the region.
Conclusion
Responses from the GCC states after the Taliban’s takeover of
Afghanistan have been limited and cautious, and they seem to have
approached the situation pragmatically. The governments neither
welcomed nor decried the formation of the Taliban administration in
Afghanistan. Though hesitant to take in refugees fleeing the Taliban,
the states donned an influential role in the transit and airlift missions.
The help extended by Qatar was crucial for the US and European
powers to provide safe passage for those leaving Afghanistan amid the
crisis. The moves made by some of these states showed their intention
to have a piece of the Afghan pie. However, only Saudi Arabia, UAE
and Qatar will likely continue to be relevant actors for the Taliban and
Afghanistan, even though none of them intend to recognise the
administration. The humanitarian assistance extended by these states
has augmented their international image. They can use this image as
currency to play a part in Afghanistan—help in the reconstruction
process and, in turn, benefit from what Kabul can offer. The UAE and
Qatar have already been competing for the contract for airport
operations, most prominently the Kabul airport, which can benefit
their economy and ensure their presence in Afghanistan. On the one
hand, the growing involvement of Turkey and its partnership with
Qatar will be under the scanner as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi would want
to be careful about Ankara and Doha’s endorsement of political Islam.
On the other, Iran’s activities will also be monitored, given Tehran’s
attempt to expand its sphere of influence.

Additionally, the withdrawal of the US has caused states, particularly
Saudi Arabia and UAE, to rework their foreign policies. These states
have already begun to look up to Russia and China for their defence
requirements. They will keep an eye on the developments in
Afghanistan to ensure the security of their interests. Threats from Al
Qaeda, IS-K and drug trafficking hailing from Afghanistan are central
concerns for the GCC. The encouragement perceived by extremists in
other conflict zones in the region, such as Iraq, Yemen and Syria, after
the Taliban’s victory will also be a cause of worry for the Gulf-Arab
states. With Qatar’s importance in this aspect growing, both from the
Taliban and the US perspective, Saudi Arabia and UAE might
accelerate their economic and diplomatic diversification to challenge
Qatar in the region.
Effective diplomatic means and, if needed, the use of religious
authority will be helpful while engaging with the Taliban and other
Afghan parties to negotiate and reach a resolution for the Afghan
crisis. The GCC states can come together to contribute to this cause
actively. Qatar’s diplomatic leverage, UAE’s economic power and
Saudi Arabia’s religious weight can be practical tools that can be

utilised to formulate a multi-pronged approach, with the support of
other regional and extra-regional powers that bring important
stakeholders in Afghanistan to chart out the state’s fate. Using
incentives like reconstruction assistance and public relations as
carrots, the GCC can help bring moderation to the Taliban’s way of
governing Afghanistan. Such an endeavour can win them the best of
both worlds—stability in Afghanistan and security of the GCC’s
interests.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their
review of the article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship
and/or publication of this article.
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Afghanistan in Anarchy: America’s Withdrawal,

Taliban Rule and Regional Implications for Central
Asia
Charles J. Sullivan charlesjsullivan2@yahoo.comView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221129908
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
This article analyses the geopolitical repercussions of America’s
military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban’s
seizure of power in 2021. Since the Afghan Taliban continue to
disregard the principal terms of the 2020 Doha Agreement brokered
by the United States, Afghanistan is descending into chaos. The
Afghan Taliban is unable to provide ordinary Afghans with basic
living necessities, lacks international recognition and must contend
against other violent extremist organizations operating within the
country. Thus far, the Central Asian republics (Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) have exhibited varying responses to the
Afghan Taliban’s takeover. While the ‘Stans’ are all anxious about the
potential spread of radical Islam and a looming humanitarian crisis,
the greater threat to Ashgabat, Tashkent and Dushanbe, as well as
Bishkek and Nur-Sultan, lies with the United States pivoting away
from Central Asia and the Russian Federation acquiring greater
leverage over regional security issues.
Introduction
Afghanistan is descending into anarchy. The Afghan Taliban seized
power in the wake of America’s haphazard military withdrawal and

the concurrent collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, but
the radical Islamic organization has proved incapable of exerting its
political authority across the entirety of the country. Specifically,
Afghanistan’s latest (entirely male and predominantly Pashtun)
(Gannon, 2021) government is facing severe financial constraints on
account of being locked out of the global economy (which is causing
massive food shortages and a spike in malnutrition among children)
(Shah, 2022), as well as challenges to its rule from other violent
extremist groups such as Islamic State–Khorasan (ISIS-K) (Mir,
2021). Meanwhile, Afghans are growing increasingly desperate, with
many taking drastic measures to survive as they are forced to readjust
to the Afghan Taliban’s harsh brand of rule (UN News, 2021). Yet
how will America’s exodus from Afghanistan and the restoration of
the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan impact the wider region?
Can the Afghan Taliban stabilize Afghanistan, and how does all this
affect the Central Asian republics?
This article initially posits that the primary reason for Afghanistan’s
current troubles relates to the way in which the Afghan Taliban
returned to power. Considering the organizations’ disregard for the

principal terms of the 2020 Doha Agreement with the United States
and its violent overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the
Afghan Taliban has yet to be recognized by any member of the
international community and remains wholly isolated from the global
financial system. Second, this article maintains that, although all the
‘Stans’ are concerned about the threat that violent extremist groups
with expansionary aims pose to the region, some of the Central Asian
republics have put forth contrasting foreign policies vis-à-vis the
Afghan Taliban. While Turkmenistan seeks cordial ties with the
Afghan Taliban, Uzbekistan is exercising prudence. Tajikistan, by
contrast, has assumed a hostile stance towards Afghanistan’s new
rulers because Dushanbe fears a potential spillover of troubles.
Finally, this article posits that America’s military withdrawal from
Afghanistan and concomitant shifting of priorities away from the
greater Middle East will greatly influence Washington’s relationships
with the Central Asian republics. The West in general, and the United
States in particular, maintains sparse interests in Central Asia
nowadays, for none of the governments in the region appear to be
interested in liberalizing their political systems while few seek to

implement any meaningful economic reforms. Consequently, this has
set the stage for the Russian Federation to assume greater leverage
over addressing all regional security issues. As such, the concept of
sovereignty1 will likely become increasingly fluid across Central Asia
as Russia moves to assert greater hegemony over the ‘Stans’, even if
few wish to recognize this development at this juncture.
Comedy of Errors
America’s abrupt military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August
2021 was conducted in a disorganized and disgraceful manner.
Although the Trump administration, arguably sets the tone for
America’s departure with the signing of the 2020 Doha Agreement
(Associated Press, 2021a, 2021b), the Biden administration bears the
brunt of the blame for this fiasco. The images of hundreds of Afghan
civilians running on the tarmac at Kabul’s (formerly known as) Hamid
Karzai International Airport alongside overcrowded planes preparing
to take-off will forever serve as a testament that America’s 20-year
military adventure in Afghanistan ended in total disaster.
Except for a brief period in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11
attacks and the opening stages of Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–

2014), the so-called War in Afghanistan was never the top priority of
any U.S. presidential administration. Under President George W.
Bush, the United States’ decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and oust
Saddam Hussein’s regime triggered a state collapse, followed by the
onset of a full-fledged insurgency owing to a series of flawed the U.S.
policies.2 This series of events forced Bush to concentrate his
administration’s efforts on trying to stabilize Iraq, while the Afghan
Taliban regrouped into a formidable insurgency equipped with a
seemingly endless stream of fighters and an organized and dedicated
leadership apparatus residing in Pakistan.3 President Barack Obama
sought to capitalize on the military gains realized during the latter
years of the Bush administration in Iraq by implementing a similar
military strategy in Afghanistan (which consisted of surging U.S. and
NATO troops—albeit for a brief timeframe). Unfortunately, though,
Obama’s ordering of a full U.S. military withdrawal in Iraq in 2011
set the stage for internecine elite fighting in Baghdad, the resurrection
of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (which would go on to transform into the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL), and the terrorist group’s capture
of multiple population centres in Iraq and Syria. Consequently,

although Obama reduced U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan after the
Afghan surge (which failed for a variety of reasons) (Eikenberry,
2013), the War against ISIL (Operation Inherent Resolve)
overshadowed Operations Enduring Freedom, NATO’s Resolute
Support, and Freedom’s Sentinel during the latter years of his
administration. The Trump administration signed the Doha
Agreement4 with the Afghan Taliban in early 2020 and cut the number
of U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan to 2,500 (Burns & Baldor,
2021). Yet it was President Joe Biden, who oversaw a full U.S.
military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. Amid a poorly
planned and hurried military evacuation, nearly all of Afghanistan fell
under the control of the Afghan Taliban, and President Ashraf Ghani
and several aides fled the country—supposedly to spare Kabul from
armed conflict—by helicopter (Hassan, 2021). To make matters
worse, waves of Afghans trying to escape the country overwhelmed
U.S. military forces at Hamid Karzai International Airport, and in the
midst of this milieu a lone bomber believed to be affiliated with ISIS-
K killed more than a dozen U.S. soldiers and scores of Afghan
civilians in a terrorist attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate (Schmitt &

Cooper, 2022). Aptly stated, America’s much anticipated military
departure from Afghanistan quickly devolved into a debacle of epic
proportions as the Ghani government imploded.
In addition to poor planning by previous policymakers over the course
of two decades, part of the reason as to why the U.S. military’s exit
from Afghanistan devolved into a fiasco was due to bad
communication between Biden and Ghani. Specifically, the Biden
administration seems to have thought that Ghani’s government could
somehow develop a new military strategy in short order, fend off an
onslaught by the Afghan Taliban (as all remaining U.S. and NATO
forces departed from the country), and retain administrative control
over urban centres (at least for a time). This sentiment can be
observed in some of Biden’s statements to Ghani in a telephone
conversation (prior to the U.S. military’s withdrawal and the abrupt
disintegration of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) (Reuters,
2021a). Hamdullah Mohib (Ghani’s National Security Advisor)
contends that Biden ultimately made the decision in April 2021 to
concentrate on ending all the U.S. military involvement (and ignoring
the conditions of the Doha Agreement), even at the expense of the

Afghan government, and this choice served as the ‘tipping point’ for
the ensuing downfall of the Islamic Republic (O’Donnell, 2022).
Bearing this in mind, the Biden administration is also deserving of
criticism for not evacuating all the U.S. citizens and indigenous
personnel who assisted U.S. and NATO forces for many years in
Afghanistan.
Many have been quick to condemn the Biden administration for
leaving behind a vast amount of the U.S. armoured vehicles,
weaponry and military equipment. However, after 20 years of war,
transporting the bulk of all materiel out of Afghanistan would have
delayed America’s departure indefinitely. Planning for the
transportation and relocation of the U.S. armoured vehicles, weaponry
and military equipment would have amounted to a Herculean
logistical challenge for the Pentagon, considering the limited number
of Afghanistan’s exit routes, fuel costs, the country’s rugged terrain,
and Afghanistan’s geographical distance from the United States. That
said, even if the United States had been willing to renew its fight
against the Afghan Taliban as the Pentagon developed a plan to
extract the bulk of its materiel, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

still would have likely collapsed sooner or later, and more coalition
blood and treasure would have been wasted. In essence, there really
was no good way for the United States to extract all remaining
military forces, U.S. citizens, supportive indigenous personnel, and
materiel from Afghanistan, for the Afghan Taliban had not been
vanquished or forced to engage in negotiations from a position of
weakness. This point is crucial, since academic scholarship indicates
that embattled regimes like the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan can
only survive and broker a settlement if they continuously receive
political-military aid from a foreign power and adversarial forces are
denied such support from other states (Sullivan, 2020). Recent U.S.
military history also illustrates this point. By 2011, the United States
was able to withdraw its military forces from Iraq under more
favourable circumstances because the U.S. and Iraqi militaries had
suppressed the Al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgency.5 Hence, America and
NATO’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan devolved into a
catastrophe because of poor planning by policymakers, bad
communication between Biden and Ghani, and a lack of enthusiasm
on behalf of the Biden administration to delay the U.S. military’s

departure until conditions were more favourable. In the Biden
administration’s defence, in order to create conditions conducive to
reaching a lasting settlement, the White House would have needed to
design new war plans with its allied partners, spearhead a robust
military campaign against a well-resourced Afghan Taliban, make
Afghanistan the centrepiece of its foreign policy agenda, expand the
war into Pakistan to destroy enemy safe havens and explain the
worthiness of continuing this expensive multi-decade nation-building
enterprise to the American public. In summary, Biden assessed that
the costs outweighed the benefits of continuing the Afghan nation-
building effort, and he let the chips fall where they may. After all,
9/11 occurred two decades ago, most of the Al-Qaeda leadership
(including Usama bin Laden) have since been killed or captured, and
the United States now focuses on more pressing issues. Tragically
though, the Afghan government revealed its artificial nature as it
imploded before Washington could evict all its residual personnel.
Despite that the Biden administration seemingly exercised sound
judgment in concluding America’s 20-year military adventure in
Afghanistan, the ensuing political fallout from this foreign policy

decision has been disastrous and the full repercussions of the war
remain unknown. But America’s penchant for leading prolonged
nation-building missions and waging counterinsurgency campaigns
has ended. So, how are Afghanistan’s neighbouring states reacting to
these events?
Friend or Foe?
The Central Asian republics (such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan) have responded differently to the Afghan Taliban’s
takeover. Ashgabat aspires to establish working relations with Kabul’s
new rulers, while Tashkent continues to exercise caution. Dushanbe,
by contrast, is most alarmed by the Afghan Taliban’s return. Yet how
can we account for such variation in foreign policies? The reason why
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have formulated different
foreign policies vis-à-vis the Afghan Taliban seemingly relates to the
way these governments recall how the Afghan Taliban ruled
Afghanistan (during the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s earlier stint
in power) approximately a generation ago.
The Afghan Taliban governed brutally during the mid-to-late 1990s.
Aside from maltreating ethnic and religious minorities, denying

women basic rights and persecuting Afghans who ran afoul of the
group’s strict Sharia law, the Afghan Taliban welcomed international
terrorists like bin Laden to Afghanistan where his Al-Qaeda
organization could train, plan and carry out attacks. In the immediate
aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Afghan Taliban’s refusal to
hand over bin Laden and other senior Al-Qaeda figures set the stage
for the group’s ouster in late 2001, for U.S., coalition, and indigenous
forces fighting under the banner of the National Front for the
Salvation of Afghanistan (i.e. Northern Alliance) swiftly liberated the
country with the aid of superior U.S. airpower and Special Forces. The
Afghan Taliban leadership recuperated in Pakistan in the early 2000s.
Thereafter, the group went on to wage a campaign of violence up to
the time of the collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021.
The Afghan Taliban utilized the illicit opium trade to further its war
aims and targeted Afghan Army units, coalition forces and innocent
Afghan civilians with scores of lethal terrorist attacks. Afghan Taliban
fighters also summarily slaughtered Afghan Army commandos who
had laid down their weapons and surrendered (which amounts to a war
crime—though the Afghan Taliban denies responsibility for this act

and claims that videos portraying the executions are hoaxes), as the
group began conquering territory in the summer of 2021 (Coren et al.,
2021). In essence, since the days of the group’s initial reign, the
Afghan Taliban has been known for its brutality and savagery. It is
thus reasonable to suppose that Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan would see the group’s return as a threat. Yet these states
have so far exhibited different responses to the Afghan Taliban.
Afghanistan is currently facing a humanitarian crisis of epic
proportions, namely because the country has been frozen out of global
markets since the Afghan Taliban seized power (Ferguson, 2022). The
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (in addition to
international aid groups) halted the scheduled disbursements of funds
slated for Afghanistan after the Afghan Taliban ousted Ghani’s
government, and the Afghan Taliban are now unable to access billions
of dollars in Afghanistan’s central bank reserves (which is located in
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) (Putz, 2021). Biden intends
to use some of these funds to provide family members of 9/11 victims
—who have sued Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban—with the chance
to seek legal redress in court, and another portion for humanitarian aid
to Afghan civilians (BBC, 2022; Savage, 2022). Although the World
Bank has rerouted some of its funds to UNICEF and the World Food
Program, Afghanistan is still in dire straits and United Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called upon the international
community to release funds to address this ‘emergency situation’
(France 24, 2022). This situation has raised concerns in neighbouring
countries about the prospects of Afghan refugees, and although
Tajikistan hosts several thousand asylum seekers, none of the Central
Asian republics are interested in hosting Afghan civilians
(Hashimova, 2021).
That said, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have all tailored
unique foreign policies vis-à-vis the Afghan Taliban, and these
different relationships appear to be largely grounded in the past. In
other words, Ashgabat, Tashkent and Dushanbe seem to be structuring
their respective relationships with today’s Afghan Taliban based on
the group’s actions when it came to power a generation ago. All the
Central Asian republics (including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan) are
concerned about the potential spread of radical Islamic beliefs and the
terrorist threat posed by violent extremist groups with expansionary

aims. This concern is somewhat valid. After all, although (former)
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan initially supported the Afghan
Taliban’s return to power, Islamabad is now struggling to contain
radical Islamic groups within its borders (Parkin & Bokhari, 2022).
But a closer look at the nature of Ashgabat, Tashkent, and Dushanbe’s
relationships with the Afghan Taliban reveals that some neighbouring
states are receptive to Kabul’s new rulers, while others worry that
Afghanistan could devolve into a rogue state and terrorist safe haven
like it did during the 1990s.
Turkmenistan is interested in maintaining cordial relations with the
Afghan Taliban because Ashgabat hopes to diversify its natural gas
export routes. Since the mid-1990s, when the Afghan Taliban arose as
a religious social movement seeking to cleanse Afghanistan of the
chaos that engulfed the country in the wake of the Soviet–Afghan War
(Rashid, 2001, pp. 17–80), Turkmenistan has sought to strike a deal
with a major international company to build a gas pipeline through
Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Turkmenistan’s President for Life
Saparmurat Niyazov signed agreements with Argentine company
Bridas as well as (now defunct) U.S.-based Unocal and Saudi-based

Delta Oil Company to build pipelines (Rashid, 2001, pp. 157–160).
Yet the prospects of constructing such pipelines through Afghanistan
ultimately withered as the United States began perceiving Afghanistan
under the Taliban as a menace owing to the group’s maltreatment of
women and ties to Usama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda (Rashid, 2001, pp.
174–177, 180–182). Recently, however, representatives from
Turkmenistan and the Afghan Taliban have engaged in talks to discuss
revitalizing the project (as well as cooperating on a series of other
efforts) (Akhal-Teke: A Turkmenistan Bulletin, 2022). Ashgabat
hopes that the Afghan Taliban will be able to construct and secure a
portion of the proposed Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistani–India
(TAPI) pipeline with (based upon the statement of a representative in
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry) a loan from Turkmenistan (Akhal-
Teke: A Turkmenistan Bulletin, 2022). Of course, the chances that
this unfinished pipeline ever materializes remain low because no state
within the international community formally recognizes the Afghan
Taliban and Afghanistan is plagued by violence. But Turkmenistan’s
new young leader Serdar Berdymukhamedov knows that the country’s
state-owned economy is in trouble, and since the elites do not wish to

diversify away from non-renewable resources, they remain fixated on
a decades-old multinational infrastructure project. Thus, Ashgabat’s
relationship with the Afghan Taliban is embedded within a dream that
the TAPI pipeline could one day become a reality.
Uzbekistan has formulated a cautious foreign policy towards the
Afghan Taliban. During the 1990s, Uzbekistan’s iron-fisted leader,
President Islam Karimov, sought to establish a highly restrictive
authoritarian system. By suppressing all forms of civil society,
Karimov’s government arguably transformed some civil society
activists into Islamic militants (McGlinchey, 2005). One such group,
known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, sought to overthrow
Karimov’s regime. Karimov’s resort to brute force tactics, however,
pushed the IMU into neighbouring Afghanistan where the Afghan
Taliban and Al-Qaeda welcomed them (Coll, 2004, pp. 458–459).
Karimov established clandestine working relations with the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency in the late 1990s, in furtherance of
countering terrorist threats emanating from within Afghanistan (Coll,
2004, pp. 458–459, 531). After the United States intervened in
Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military killed

the IMU’s principal leaders. Throughout the past several years, IMU
remnants have ‘aligned’ or ‘merged with’ Al-Qaeda or ISIS-K (Weitz,
2021), and Uzbekistan’s new leader, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev
(who became the country’s head of state after Karimov’s death in
2016) (MacFarquhar, 2016) is concerned about the threat of radical
Islamic terrorism. It thus seems logical for Tashkent to be wary of the
Afghan Taliban. Uzbekistan does not want to live next to a failed state
which could potentially begin exporting narcotics and terrorism. As a
case in point, in July 2022, five missiles were fired by (as of now)
undesignated assailants from northern Afghanistan into Uzbekistan
(RFE/RL Uzbek Service, 2022). Tashkent is also not interested in
taking in more Afghan refugees and granting them political asylum
(Eurasianet, 2021c). That said, Mirziyoyev strives to revitalize
Uzbekistan’s formerly close relationship with Washington (which
foundered in the aftermath of Karimov’s massacring of innocent
civilians in Andijan in May 2005—under the pretext that terrorists had
sought to sow chaos and overthrow the government) (Khalid, 2007;
Sullivan, 2019b), and Tashkent will continue hedging its bets and
looking for possibilities to ‘engage’6 with the Afghan Taliban (namely

by ‘exploring opportunities for economic cooperation with Kabul
without alienating the United States and other Western powers’
(Imamova, 2022)). One such option, however, entails Uzbekistan
producing its own unmanned aerial and light-armoured vehicles and
other weapons for defensive purposes (Eurasianet, 2022b). Thus,
Uzbekistan’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the Afghan Taliban is being
guided by past concerns, present fears regarding the type of threat
Afghanistan could pose if the group remains isolated and financially
strapped, and the strong prospect of Tashkent rekindling an amicable
and long-lasting relationship with Washington.
Of all the Central Asian republics, Tajikistan has exhibited the most
hostile stance towards the Afghan Taliban. Both sides began trading
‘verbal barbs’ once the Afghan Taliban seized control of Afghanistan
(Eurasianet, 2021a). President Emomali Rahmon has called upon the
group to form a more ethnically inclusive government to help stabilize
the country’s political system and expressed concern about the
expansion of ISIS-K (RFE/RL Tajik Service, 2021). Rahmon is
worried that Afghanistan under the Afghan Taliban may be ‘on the
verge of becoming a hotbed of international terrorism again’ (RFE/RL

Tajik Service, 2021). News reports indicate that Rahmon has also
taken the bold step of hosting some high-ranking officials of the
defunct Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (like Ahmad Massoud and
Amrullah Saleh—who now supposedly lead an Afghan government in
exile) in Dushanbe (Wheeldon, 2021), perhaps because he wants to be
ready—should the opportunity arise—to assist any future coalition
which aspires to oust the Afghan Taliban from and replace its so-
called Islamic Emirate with some moderate Afghan leaders from the
former regime. But the main reason why Rahmon is nervous about
Afghanistan’s new rulers relates to his domestic political situation.
Tajikistan is the only country in Central Asia that has yet to undergo a
maiden political transition from one autocratic leader to another.
Rahmon has taken extensive measures to stabilize Tajikistan’s fragile
political system since the conclusion of the civil war in 1997, namely
by systematically neutralizing rivals who he once brought into the
political fold (Sullivan, 2020, p. 370). Rahmon has also been
grooming his son, Rustam (who currently serves as the mayor of
Dushanbe) (Sullivan, 2020, p. 370; RFE/RL Tajik Service, 2017), to
succeed him. Presumably, Tajikistan will conduct a smooth dynastic

transition in the coming years, but it is important to note that Rahmon
has always encountered stiff resistance to his rule in the country’s
mountainous east,7 and the drug trafficking industry (which originates
in Afghanistan and traverses through Tajikistan) could be used as a
source of rent by violent extremist groups which seek to mount a
challenge to Rahmon’s rule. In the past, Afghanistan served as a type
of safe haven for members of the United Tajik Opposition (which
fought against Rahmon during Tajikistan’s civil war), but the amount
of aid that such groups received from Afghan warlords was limited
(Gleason, 2001; Kevlihan, 2016; Sullivan, 2020, p. 369). Nowadays,
the relationship between Dushanbe and the Afghan Taliban is
antagonistic, for reports have surfaced which indicate that the group
has formed a ‘battalion of suicide bombers’ and ‘provided weapons to
Tajik insurgents operating in Badakhshan along the Tajik-Afghan
border’ (Kaura, 2021). In early January 2022, Rahmon (at a meeting
of the Collective Security Treaty Organization) reminded attendees
that the Afghan Taliban released thousands of Islamic militants from
prison upon seizing power, and he stated that there are dozens of
terrorist training camps now in northeastern Afghanistan (Pannier,

2022). The Afghan Taliban has also provided the U.S. weapons and
vehicles (which were left behind by the Afghan Army) to Jamaat
Ansarullah (i.e. the ‘Tajik Taliban’), a violent extremist group
dedicated to overthrowing Rahmon (Najibullah & Ahmadi, 2021). To
further complicate matters, Tajikistan has been ravaged by the novel
coronavirus pandemic, forcing many citizens to reduce their level of
food consumption (Najibullah, 2021). Still, perhaps Rahmon is
overreacting. After all, the United States is building several outposts
along the border to buttress Tajikistan’s defences (Reuters, 2021d),
Russia maintains a military presence in the country (Reuters, 2021d),
and China has recently established a military installation in the
vicinity of the Wakhan corridor (RFE/RL Tajik Service and Reid
Standish, 2021). But Rahmon’s alarmist tone indicates that he is not
taking any chances, for if he lets the situation along the border spiral
(and the international community turns away), then such a series of
events might trigger a replay of the 1990s in his own country.
Rahmon’s legitimacy rests upon the notion that Tajikistan needs an
autocratic leader to ensure its stability. Rahmon convincingly won

Tajikistan’s civil war in the 1990s, but he does not want to have to
fight it again and at his advanced age.
In early 2022, the Afghan Taliban demanded that Uzbekistan and
Tajikistan ‘return air force planes and helicopters flying to the
neighbouring countries by fleeing pilots’ as the Afghan government
imploded last year (Gul, 2022). Uzbekistan has also reportedly
‘deported hundreds of Afghan pilots and their families for illegally
flying into the country aboard military aircraft’ by sending them to the
United Arab Emirates to a U.S. military installation as per an
arrangement between Tashkent and Washington (Gul, 2022). Once the
Afghan Taliban issued its demands, northern Afghanistan experienced
a brief power outage as ‘electricity supplies stopped flowing from
Uzbekistan’, supposedly because of a ‘glitch’ (Eurasianet, 2022a).
Afghan Taliban units also recently clashed with Turkmenistan’s
border guards, though no casualties were incurred by either side
(RFE/RL, 2022). Finally, the Afghan Taliban is insisting that the
Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe (which is currently headed by Zahir
Aghbar, a ‘vocal opponent’ of his country’s new rulers and a
supporter of the underdeveloped and seemingly aimless ‘National

Resistance Front of Afghanistan’ or ‘Ahmed Shah Massoud
Foundation’) return a sum of as much as US$800,000 that was
mistakenly wired to the embassy (Ibragimova, 2021). Aghbar has
refused to honour the Afghan Taliban’s request, but Dushanbe is not
interested in further aggravating an already tense situation by opening
its border for refugees hoping to flee Afghanistan (Ibragimova, 2021).
Overall, it should be expected that disputes will arise between the
Afghan Taliban, Afghanistan’s embassies abroad where staff
appointees of the defunct Ghani administration remain in place, and
the governments of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. But it
is important to emphasize that the Afghan Taliban is primarily
interested in convincing the international community (or at the very
least a portion of states) to formally recognize the group as sovereign.
Unlike ISIL, the Afghan Taliban seemingly does not harbour
expansionist aims or seek to destabilize neighbouring countries by
carrying out terrorist attacks. Rather, the Afghan Taliban wishes to
discard its pariah status and be welcomed as a religious social
movement that has fought and won a very long war against a
superpower and liberated Afghanistan from foreign occupiers. Still,

the memories of Taliban rule from the mid-1990s linger across Central
Asia and the rest of the world. Thus, so long as Afghanistan’s new
rulers are unable and/or unwilling to pacify the country and effectively
deny other violent extremist groups such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
(also known as the Pakistani Taliban) (Gannon, 2022), the Haqqani
Network (Skorka, 2022), and Al-Qaeda (Rafiq, 2022) safe haven it
will be nearly impossible for the Afghan Taliban to rebrand its
notorious reputation.
Moscow Rules
In the lead-up to America’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the
issue of whether the United States might try to lease an airbase within
one or more of the Central Asian republics briefly surfaced as a topic
of discussion (Umarov, 2021). Although the ‘Stans’ have exhibited
contrasting foreign policies towards the Afghan Taliban (and
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan previously hosted U.S. soldiers at Karshi-
Khanabad airbase from 2001 to 2005 and the Manas Transit Centre
from 2001 to 2014, respectively) (Sullivan, 2021), none of them
seems willing to officially host a contingent of the U.S. troops, namely
because Russia wants America out of Central Asia (Sullivan, 2021). In

October 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressly
stated, ‘We…call on Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries not to
allow a military presence of the U.S. and NATO forces which plan to
move there after leaving Afghan territory’ via video link at a
conference in Tehran (Reuters, 2021c). The Central Asian republics
harbour stronger ties to Russia in comparison to the United States and
other Western countries (Sullivan, 2019a), while relations between
Washington and Moscow have considerably worsened over the past
several years (Sullivan, 2021). Yet recent developments in Central
Asia indicate that Russia seeks to assert more authority over regional
security concerns, while America and the West revise their
geopolitical priorities.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s recent public comments concerning
his unwillingness to entertain the idea of once again hosting a U.S.
military presence in his country (by equating it to Bishkek playing ‘cat
and mouse’ with Moscow and Washington) illustrate the extent to
which Central Asia’s leaders are acutely aware of (and willing to
abide by) Russia’s wishes (RFE/RL Kyrgyz Service, 2021).
Unverified reports also allude to the notion that Russia has been
aiding Turkmenistan (which is not a member state of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization on account of the government’s UN-
recognized neutrality status) in protecting its southeastern border from
threats arising from within Afghanistan (Pannier, 2020). Additionally,
Russia has recently sent ‘armoured vehicles and an array of military
equipment’ to Tajikistan, in furtherance of bolstering Rahmon’s
government against any threat posed by Islamic militants (Reuters,
2021b). But most interestingly, Russia’s rapid deployment of military
forces under the banner of the CSTO in January 2022 to Kazakhstan
demonstrates that Moscow stands as the preeminent power in Central
Asia.
Although the exact details of what happened in Kazakhstan in January
2022 remain murky, it appears that an elite faction within the
government mounted a violent challenge against the head of state
(Kassym-Jomart Tokayev) during mass popular protests in response to
an increase in the price of liquified petroleum gas. After rioters and
so-called ‘terrorists’ seized Almaty International Airport and set
government buildings ablaze, President Tokayev requested that the
Russian-led CSTO deploy forces from its member states to restore

order (Sullivan, 2022). CSTO troops quickly began departing
Kazakhstan several days after pacifying Almaty (RFE/RL Kazakh
Service, 2022). This event is historic because it represents the first
time that the CSTO has been utilized in such a way, for Russia has
demonstrated that it can military intervene in a nearby country on
short notice and stabilize a fragile autocracy. The chaos which
wracked Kazakhstan in January 2022 thus awarded Russia the chance
to assert its hegemonic status unquestionably. Overall, the full
significance of the CSTO military intervention is still unclear, but it
appears that Moscow could make use of this opportunity to solidify
the CSTO as a regional organization that can manage a host of internal
challenges to its member states.
Conclusion
Recently, the Afghan Taliban scrapped Afghanistan’s electoral
commission (an institution created by the defunct Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan) (Al Jazeera, 2021) and announced that all women in the
country who seek to travel long distances must be accompanied by a
male family member (France 24, 2021). Reports also indicate that the
Afghan Taliban has banned women from receiving secondary

education (or supposedly at least until a new education curriculum is
authorized) (Loh, 2021), and the group is forcefully evicting ethnic
minorities from their homes and handing over confiscated properties
to Afghan Taliban members as payment for services (Gibbons-Neff &
Akbary, 2021). It is clear that the Afghan Taliban intentionally sought
to deceive the United States, the former Afghan government, and the
Afghan people by projecting a sense of sincerity in regard to
tempering its ideological aspirations and modifying its strict
interpretation of Sharia law during negotiations in Doha (Trofimov &
Donati, 2011). That said, the Afghan Taliban is currently facing a
crisis of legitimacy, for the country’s new rulers are ‘devoid of
international recognition and cut-off from the global financial system’
as well as ‘struggling to restart an economy that has shrunk by more
than 40% since the American withdrawal…’ (Trofimov, 2021).
According to the United Nations World Food Program (as reported in
The New York Times), ‘an estimated 22.8 million people—more than
half the population—are expected to face potentially life-threatening
levels of food insecurity’ and ‘of those, 8.7 million are nearing
famine’ in Afghanistan (Goldbaum, 2021). Moreover, aid

organizations estimated that a million children could die from
starvation during the 2021–2022 winter due to drought, increasing
food prices, and the disappearance of foreign assistance (Goldbaum,
2021). Some Afghan families are even being forced to sell their
children to buy food (Voice of America, 2021). Drug addiction also
poses a problem for the Afghan Taliban, as rehabilitation centres
grapple with overcrowding (Al Jazeera, 2022), and the country’s
healthcare system may suffer a collapse (Zucchino & Padshah, 2022).
No state has officially recognized the Afghan Taliban leadership as
the country’s de jure rulers, and some ambassadors and staffers in
Afghanistan’s embassies remain loyal to the Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan (though funds for their salaries are running low)
(Siddique, 2022). The Afghan Taliban is hoping that China will
officially recognize the group shortly (Najafizada, 2022), but the
United States and its NATO allies will likely never (or, at least, not
anytime soon) formally recognize the Afghan Taliban, namely due to
the group’s maltreatment of ethnic minorities, lack of respect for
women’s rights, and ties to violent extremist groups. The country may
also splinter along ethnic lines—reminiscent of the 1990s—due to

financial constraints and bad governance. Ethnic Uzbeks affiliated
with the Afghan Taliban in northern Afghanistan have begun waging a
rebellion against the group (Amiri & Shah, 2022). This should serve
as a telling lesson to other violent extremist organizations, for how
such groups play their cards in terms of negotiating with foreign
powers, establishing an interim government, and ruling over the local
population matters. Thus far, the Afghan Taliban has squandered an
opportunity to demonstrate that the group has learned from its past
mistakes and seeks to play a constructive role in pacifying
Afghanistan and countering terrorism. Instead, Afghanistan under the
Afghan Taliban embodies an abject pariah state that is unable to
ensure security, provide basic living necessities to the population, and
even manage the country’s international airports (Gul, 2021). Sadly,
the only winners in Afghanistan are the contractors who reaped vast
profits from the war over the past 20 years (Nissenbaum et al., 2021).
In summary, the Afghan Taliban desperately needs to overhaul its
image and change its ways, but the group’s past and present ruling
practices and ideological predisposition ostensibly render this an
impossibility.
As for the Central Asian republics, the main danger facing Ashgabat,
Tashkent and Dushanbe, as well as Bishkek and Nur-Sultan, lies not
so much with the potential spread of radical Islamic beliefs or a
looming humanitarian crisis, but an emboldened (and seemingly
irredentist) Russia exerting greater leverage overall regional security
matters in the wake of America’s withdrawal and disengagement from
the wider region. In the future, the ‘Stans’ will struggle to preserve
their sovereignty as an increasingly isolated and aggressive Russia
strives to maintain its zone of influence over nearby countries.
Afghanistan thus represents neither an opportunity nor necessarily a
threat to the Central Asian republics, but rather serves as a means for
Moscow (which appears to be growing increasingly desperate as the
Russo-Ukraine war bogs down) to retain its Great Power status.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Aigerim Zholdas and Zulfiya Umarova,
undergraduate students in the School of Sciences and Humanities at
Nazarbayev University in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, for locating online
sources included within this article.

Funding
Footnotes
1.For a definition of “internal sovereignty,” see Makinda (1996).
2.On this issue, see Ricks (2006).
3.On the Afghan Taliban’s ability to regroup and carry out an
insurgency against U.S., coalition, and Afghan government forces, see
Mashal (2020).
4.See Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan (2020).
5.For an overview of how the United States military initiated a change
in strategy during the Iraq War, see Ricks (2010).
6.See Eurasianet (2021b).
7.For example, see McGlinchey (2013).
Notes
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My Enemy’s Enemy: Iran’s Approach to the Re-

emergence of the Taliban
Parisa Abbasian https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1521-8312
Parisa.Abbasian@murdoch.edu.auView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221130144
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
Over the years, Iran’s approach to the Taliban has had ups and downs.
Iran welcomed the United States’ 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and
worked with the American forces to overthrow the Taliban.
Nevertheless, it was not long before Iran adopted an utterly opposite
policy by compromising with the Taliban and supplying it with
political and military support. This article examines domestic and
regional factors contributing to this dramatic change in Iran’s
behaviour toward the Taliban. It provides an assessment of how
Tehran’s threat perception of the US military presence across its
borders, the rise of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, the
increasing Afghan drug trafficking, and the influx of refugees from
Afghanistan to Iranian territory have prompted Tehran to pursue a
different approach toward the Taliban. It also explains how Iran’s
intention to sustain water supply from Afghanistan’s rivers to the
eastern provinces of Iran and resume profitable trade with Afghanistan
has acted as a catalyst in expanding Iran–Taliban relations. This
article argues that Iran sees the Taliban as an agent to weaken the
United States, prevent the spread of ISIS in Khorasan, and strengthen
Iran’s influence in Central Asia. The article concludes that although

the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan poses challenges for Iran,
the benefits it brings are such that it prevents Tehran from
relinquishing ties with the Taliban.
Introduction
When President Joe Biden announced his intention to withdraw all US
troops from Afghanistan by August 2021, Iran stepped up contacts
with the Taliban to fill the diplomatic vacuum that was about to open
in its eastern neighbour. In July 2021, the former Iranian foreign
minister, Javad Zarif, met with the Taliban delegation to discuss their
intention toward Afghanistan. Later in January 2022, the new Iranian
foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdullahian, held talks with a high-
ranking Taliban delegation in Tehran to address Afghan issues
(Tehran Times, 2022; Wintour, 2021). Tehran’s acknowledgement
that it wanted to establish cordial ties with the Taliban did not come as
a surprise; after all, Iran was known to have covertly provided the
Taliban with weapons and military training and Tehran had even
allowed the Taliban to open liaison offices in Iran’s eastern provinces
of Zahedan and Mashhad. However, Tehran’s outreach towards the

Taliban 2.0 regime in Afghanistan broke with its past policy towards
the Taliban 1.0 regime.
When the Taliban was formed in 1994 and came to power in 1996,
Tehran considered this a hostile development and the group an enemy
of Iran. Iranian leaders saw the emergence of a Sunni fundamentalist
group across its eastern border as a severe threat to Iranian national
security and sought to confront the Taliban 1.0 regime. Accordingly,
the Islamic Republic began supporting the anti-Taliban groups,
including the Northern Alliance, and working with the United States
to overthrow the new Afghan government. While Iran had such a
hostile attitude towards the first Taliban regime, the question arises as
to what factors have changed the Islamic Republic’s relationship with
the Taliban now from confrontation to cooperation.
In addressing this question, the author draws upon Maoz and Mor’s
previous studies (1996; 2002) of the circumstances under which states
decide to support Non-State Armed Groups (NSAGs). In essence,
Maoz and Mor have theorized that states begin supporting NSAGs
when they are dissatisfied with the status quo but unable to confront
their rivals directly. This inability or unwillingness to engage in direct

conflict leads states to support NSAGs to weaken their rivals and
achieve their strategic objectives. Applying this logic to Iran’s
conciliatory approach to Taliban 2.0, this study argues that the
rapprochement between Tehran and Taliban 2.0 stems from the
Islamic Republic’s intention to eliminate imposed threats against
Iran’s security and maintain its interests in the Middle East and
Central Asia. Iranian leaders were particularly eager to see an end to
the US military presence in Afghanistan and calculated that the
Taliban could serve Iran by undermining the US/NATO military effort
in Afghanistan. Iran could also confront the Islamic State Khorasan
Province (ISKP) forces in Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban. The
Taliban could also contribute to stabilizing Iran’s eastern border by
reducing drug trafficking and preventing Afghan refugees from
flooding into Iran. Finally, the Taliban could advance the interests of
the Islamic Republic by allowing the water of the Helmand and
Harirud rivers to flow to Iran’s eastern provinces and resuming
economic cooperation with Tehran. The significance of these
considerations is so great that Tehran has continued to strengthen its

relations with the Taliban, despite the challenges it has faced since the
Taliban took control in Afghanistan (Moaz & Mor, 1996, 2002).
This article unpacks this argument in six sections. The first Section
will provide a historical background of Iran’s early hostility toward
the Taliban. The second Section will focus on the main factors that
encouraged Iran to maintain ties with the Taliban. The third and fourth
Sections will overview the challenges that the re-emergence of the
Taliban would pose to the Islamic Republic. The fifth Section will
explain Iran’s efforts to maintain stability and security in the region
following the rise of the Taliban. Finally, this article will conclude
with an overview of the significance of the Iran–Taliban relationship
and its consequences on regional stability.
Iran’s Early Opposition to the Taliban

Afghanistan has always been so important to Iran’s national security
that even the change of the Iranian regime in 1979 did not affect its
position in Tehran’s foreign policy. Before the Islamic Revolution, the
Shah, who aimed to roll back Moscow’s influence in the neighbouring
states and expand Iran’s presence in Central Asia, sought to draw
Afghanistan to Tehran’s security and economic sphere of influence by

providing Kabul with military and financial assistance. After the
overthrow of the Shah’s regime in 1979, the Islamic Republic pursued
a similar policy toward Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Nevertheless,
the new regime’s greater emphasis on the role of ideology set its
Afghanistan policy apart from the Shah’s approach. The Islamic
Republic, whose foreign policy priority was to spread the Islamic
Revolution throughout the Middle East, sought to establish an
ideological sphere of influence in Afghanistan by liaising with the
Afghan ulema and supporting the Hazara Shiite community (Harrison,
1995, pp. 15–16; Kousary, 2015, pp. 78–79).
However, despite its opposition to the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan, Iran did not play an active role in the anti-Soviet
Mujahedeen resistance backed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the
United States. This was mainly due to the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq
war (1980–1988) and Tehran’s growing confrontation with the United
States in the wake of the hostage crisis (when American diplomats
based at the US embassy in Tehran were taken hostage by Islamists in
1979). The Islamic Republic was very cautious to not allow its Afghan
policy to open a hostile front with Moscow, whose support was crucial
in countering the US economic and political pressure. Additionally,
since the protracted war with Iraq had inflicted heavy losses on Iran,
Tehran intended to gain a concession from Moscow to limit Soviet
arms supplies to Iraq by not actively supporting the Mujahedeen
resistance (Nader et al., 2014, pp. 8–9; Tarock, 1999, pp. 805–806).
Although these considerations limited Iranian involvement in Soviet-
occupied Afghanistan, the end of the Iran–Iraq war in 1988 and the
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 set the groundwork for
Iran to pursue its interest in its neighbouring country. By engaging in
Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic pursued two main goals: ensuring
its national security by maintaining stability on its eastern borders and
expanding its Shiite influence in Central Asia by thwarting Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia’s inroads into Afghanistan. Iran’s primary strategy
for achieving these goals was uniting Afghan minorities through the
practical tools of the Dari language, the Afghan dialect derived from
the Persian or Farsi language, and the Shiite religion, which is
common between Iranians and some Afghan ethnic groups (such as
the Hazaras). Iran, therefore, supported the merger of nine Shiite
groups that embraced Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamism into the Hizb-e

Wahdat-e Islami (Islamic Unity Party) in 1990. The Islamic Republic
also extended support to the Dari-speaking, non-Pashtun groups such
as Jamat-e-Islami (Islamic Society) of Burhanuddin Rabbani and
Ahmad Shah Masood, and Junbish-e-Melli (National Movement) of
Abdul Rashid Dostum (Emadi, 1995, pp. 10–11; Khalilzad, 1996, p.
194; Koepke, 2013, pp. 4–5; Malik, 1999, pp. 140–141).
With the outbreak of the 1992 Afghan civil war following the
appointment of the Iran-backed Burhannudin Rabbani government in
Afghanistan, the Islamic Republic supported the Mujahedeen groups
hailing from the Hazara Shiite community. Iran’s growing influence in
Afghanistan raised concerns in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two Sunni
Muslim countries that saw post-Soviet Afghanistan as a springboard
to neutralize Iran’s revolutionary message and expand their influence
in Central Asia. After the Taliban was created in 1994, the Pakistani
spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), tried
to facilitate support for the group from Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates to counter Iran’s Shiite influence in the Middle East
and Central Asia (Milani, 2006, pp. 240–242; Riedel, 2008, pp. 32–
34).
The rise of the Taliban posed serious ideological and geopolitical
challenges to the Islamic Republic’s interests in Central Asia. Iranian
leaders feared that the Taliban’s domination over Afghanistan, with
funding coming from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, could undermine
Shiite Iran’s position in Central Asia and expand Wahhabi and
Deobandi ideological influence in the region. Tehran was also worried
that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan could also destabilize Iran’s
eastern border by encouraging drugs and Afghan refugees to flood
into Iran. The Taliban’s harsh treatment of the Shiite Hazaras in
Afghanistan further angered and deeply concerned Tehran. Hence,
following the overthrow of the Rabbani government in 1996, Tehran
began to confront the new Taliban 1.0 regime by supporting the
Northern Alliance, which was the backbone of the anti-Taliban
resistance composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Shiite fighters. Iran further
refused to recognize the Taliban government and sought the return of
President Rabbani to power (Halliday, 2001, p. 45; Saikal, 2019, pp.
156–157).
The Taliban’s closure of the Iranian embassy in Kabul in 1997
brought Iranian–Afghanistan relations to a new low. The situation was

further aggravated in August 1998 when many Afghan Hazaras were
massacred, and 10 Iranian diplomats were assassinated in the city of
Mazar-e-Sharif. Tehran mobilized around 200,000 troops on its
eastern borders, and it looked as if Iran was preparing to invade
Afghanistan. The growing tensions between Tehran and Kabul,
however, did not dampen the Taliban’s belligerent and provocative
behaviour. The Taliban raided Iran’s cultural centre in Mazar-e-Sharif
and set fire to its library. The Taliban regime also closed the sluices of
the Kajaki Dam on the Helmand River to cut the flow of water to
Iran’s eastern provinces (Carter, 2010, pp. 979–981; Magnus, 1998, p.
109; Milani, 2010, pp. 156–157; Yousaf, 2011, pp. 26–27).
The 9/11 attacks in the United States followed by President Bush’s
War on Terror military campaign created a new arena for the Islamic
Republic to counter the Taliban. Upon learning of the US plan to
destroy al-Qaeda’s safe base in Afghanistan by ousting the Taliban
regime, Iran pledged its support to the United States. Accordingly,
during operation enduring freedom (OEF) in 2001, the Islamic
Republic supplied the US military with battlefield intelligence.
Moreover, Tehran offered to perform search and rescue missions for

American service members stranded near its borders in Afghanistan
and allowed the United States to transfer food and goods to
Afghanistan through Iranian territory. The Islamic Republic further
participated in the UN-brokered and US-sponsored Bonn Conference
in December 2001 and supported the formation of an interim
government in Afghanistan headed by Hamid Karzai (Afrasiabi &
Maleki, 2006, pp. 258–259; Gohel, 2010, pp. 14–15; Milani, 2009, pp.
56–57).
The Driving Factors in Iran–Taliban

Cooperation
Despite Iran’s cooperation with the United States during the
overthrow of the Taliban regime, President Bush’s 2002 State of the
Union address, in which he labelled Iran along with North Korea and
Iraq as the ‘Axis of Evil’, led to a significant change in Iran’s policy
toward the Taliban. The Islamic Republic, concerned about the rising
tensions with the US and the presence of US and NATO forces on
Iran’s eastern borders, sought to mend its ties with the Taliban. The
emergence of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in 2015
further incentivized cooperation between Tehran and the Taliban.

When President Trump abruptly withdrew from the Us-Iran nuclear
deal in 2018, Iranian leaders became convinced about America’s
hostile intentions and therefore they reached out to the Taliban in a
more concerted way to try and force the United States to militarily
withdraw from Afghanistan.
Resisting the US Military Presence in Afghanistan

A key factor that prompted Iran to cooperate with the Taliban was to
counter the US military presence in Afghanistan. Iran welcomed the
US military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001 to overthrow the
Taliban government and capture al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden
and Ayman al-Zawahiri. However, in 2002, when President Bush
included Iran in the ‘Axis of Evil’ and stated his intention to follow a
regime-change foreign policy to spread liberal democracy around the
world, Iranian leaders became alarmed by the presence of US forces in
Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic’s perception of US support for the
Pakistani Baloch separatists was the first factor that alarmed Tehran
about the long-term presence of US forces in the vicinity of Iran’s
Baloch-populated areas. Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province
bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan are home to armed Sunni

insurgent groups opposed to the Islamic Republic, including Jundallah
(God’s Brigade) and Jaish al Adl (Army of Justice). Over the years,
Jundallah and the Jaish al-Adl have carried out numerous attacks on
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, security forces, and Shiite civilians,
causing insecurity and instability in Iran’s border areas. Since Iran
saw the increase in Baloch violence as a result of US support, it feared
an escalation of unrest in Iran’s Baluchistan region following the
prolongation of the US presence in Afghanistan (Branett, 2020; Nader
& Laha, 2011, pp. 11–13; Rehman, 2014, pp. 3–5).
Additionally, rising tensions between Iran and the United States over
Iran’s nuclear program increased concerns in Tehran about
Washington’s use of Afghan territory for espionage and air assaults on
Iran’s nuclear facilities. The revelation of the US covert surveillance
efforts following the 2011 crash of a US Predator drone in Iran further
highlighted the threat of the US military presence against Iran’s
national security. As a result, the Iranians vigorously opposed the
American military presence on its eastern border and sought to
counter the US in Afghanistan by working with the Taliban. From
Tehran’s perspective, cooperating with the Afghan insurgents could

allow the Islamic Republic to demonstrate its destructive capacity to
the United States in the face of threats to Iran’s national security.
Hence, the Islamic Republic began providing the Taliban with military
training and weapons, reportedly including surface-to-air missiles
(SAMs), mortars, and explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) to fight
the American forces in Afghanistan (Akbarzadeh, 2014, pp. 70–71;
Barzegar, 2014, pp. 124–125; Shane & Sanger, 2011).
Following the US–Taliban peace deal reached in February 2020 to
withdraw US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban
severing ties with terrorist groups, Iran opposed the agreement
although, within the corridors of power in Tehran, the Islamic
Republic was pleased that the US and NATO forces will finally depart
Afghanistan after two decades of occupation. In the eyes of the Iranian
leaders, the removal of American troops from Afghanistan would
make the region safer for Iran, allowing it to expand its influence.
Thus, despite opposing the Doha agreement, Tehran welcomed the
departure of American forces from Afghanistan, calling it an
opportunity to establish lasting peace and security in the neighbouring
country (Hafezi, 2021; Ziabari, 2020).

Combatting the Islamic State-Khorasan Province
Another significant factor that helped to improve Iran–Taliban
relations was the gradual rise of the Islamic State Khorasan Province
(ISKP), a local affiliate of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in
Afghanistan from around 2015 onwards. The rise of ISIS in 2014
posed a serious challenge to Iran and its Shiite allies in the Middle
East. Tehran saw the anti-Shiite ISIS as Iran’s prime enemy and
sought to fight this group in other countries before confronting it on
the Iranian borders. Towards this end, Tehran deployed troops and
provided weapons to the countries involved in the war against ISIS;
Iran also used Shiite proxy groups, such as the Fatemiyoun Brigade
consisting of thousands of Afghan Hazara fighters, to fight ISIS in
Syria and Iraq. The Fatemiyoun Brigade was initially formed in the
early years after the Islamic Revolution to counter various external
threats facing Iran, including the 1980 Iraqi invasion of Iran’s western
border and the fallout from the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad in the 1980s.
With the ending of the Iran–Iraq war and Soviet withdrawal from
Afghanistan, the Fatemiyoun Brigade had been dismantled. But with
the rise of the ISIS and the onset of the Caliphate war in Iraq and
Syria in 2014, the Islamic Republic reconstituted the Fatemiyoun
Brigade to fight against ISIS alongside Tehran’s other proxy forces,
the Lebanese Hezbollah and Pakistani Zeinabiyoun (Heiat, 2021;
Rezaei, 2019, pp. 190–191; Verma, 2021).
When the ISKP was formed in Afghanistan in 2015, Iran considered
re-employing the Fatemiyoun Brigade to fight Sunni extremism in
Afghanistan. However, the emergence of fierce rivalry between the
Taliban and the ISKP due to divergence in political objectives and
ideology left Iran with the better option of countering the ISKP by
supporting the Taliban. For both Tehran and the Taliban, the rise and
growing power of the ISIS and the ISKP posed a significant threat.
From Tehran’s perspective, the rise of Salafi-Jihadist groups like the
ISIS and the ISKP, whose ideology was centred on hatred for Shiites
and the creation of a Caliphate that would encompass the eastern parts
of Iran, posed a serious threat to the country’s security and territorial
integrity. To the Taliban leaders, the ISKP’s claim over Afghanistan
as a fundamental part of the Islamic Caliphate posed a direct challenge
to the Taliban’s control over Afghanistan. Moreover, the ISKP’s anti-
nationalist and sectarian mantra clashed with the Taliban’s nationalist

goals focused on establishing an Islamic Emirate within the borders of
Afghanistan and clearing the country of foreign troops and influence
(Akbarzadeh & Ebrahimi, 2019, pp. 7–8; Jones, 2020, pp. 1–2;
Tabatabai, 2019; Willis et al., 2018, pp. 23–25).
Tehran, therefore, seized the opportunity to confront the ISKP by
allying with the Taliban. Towards that end, Iran expanded military ties
with the Taliban and started providing the group with financial
assistance, weapons and military training. However, since the Taliban
is a fundamentalist Sunni group at odds with Shiite Iran, Tehran’s
military support for the Taliban was far less compared to what it
provided to other proxy groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah or the
Yemeni Ansarullah (Ganesan, 2021, p. 27; Nader et al., 2014, pp. 14–
15; Schogol, 2019).
In addition to military cooperation, Iran expanded diplomatic relations
with the Taliban. In 2016, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) facilitated Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad
Mansour’s visit to Iran for talks with the Iranian government.
Although understandably Tehran kept the details of such a visit a
secret, in 2018 the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Council, Ali

Shamkhani, acknowledged publicly that Iran had hosted Taliban
envoys for bilateral talks keeping in mind the threat posed by the
ISKP to Iranian, Afghan and regional security (Abdi, 2021; Nada,
2021).
Sustaining the Supply of Water to Iran’s Eastern

Provinces
Another factor that led the Islamic Republic to take an accommodative
stance toward the Taliban was the urgent need to resolve the lingering
dispute between Tehran and Kabul over Helmand and Harirud water
supplies to Iran’s eastern provinces (Sistan and Baluchistan and
Khorasan-e Razavi). Iran and Afghanistan, both drought-stricken
countries, have been at loggerheads over water since the nineteenth
century. In 1973, the two countries signed an agreement over the
apportionment of the lower Helmand River waters. Under the
agreement, Iran was entitled to receive 26 cubic meters of Helmand’s
water per second or 850 million cubic meters per annum. However,
despite Tehran and Kabul’s efforts to resolve the dispute, the political
developments in the two countries, including the 1979 Islamic
Revolution in Iran, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the same

year, the Afghan Civil War and the coming to power of the Taliban in
Afghanistan in 1996 prevented the full implementation of the Iranian–
Afghan water agreement (Aman & Slavin, 2013, pp. 3–4; Dil, 1977, p.
473; Rubinstein, 1982, pp. 176–177).
Conflicts between Tehran and Kabul over water sharing continued to
affect ties in the post-Taliban era. The Islamic Republic, which had
suffered severe environmental damage due to the deprivation of
Helmand water under Taliban 1.0 rule, accused the Afghan
government of not supplying Iran with adequate water as was agreed
upon in the 1973 treaty. Tehran particularly regarded the construction
of the Kamal Khan Dam on the Helmand River in the Nimroz
province as a violation of its water rights. Iranian officials argued that
the Kamal Khan Dam would restrict water flow to Iran’s Sistan and
Baluchistan province and lead to the further drying up of the Hamoun
wetlands, the primary source of food and shelter for the people of that
region (Rynning, 2017, pp. 200–201; Thomson, 2018).
Similar tensions developed over the Harirud River, on which more
than 3.4 million Iranians in the Khorasan-e Razavi province relied for
water. In 2004, Iran and Turkmenistan built the Doosti Dam on the
Harirud River without Afghanistan’s involvement to supply drinking
water and irrigation to the surrounding areas and generate
hydroelectric power. However, when Tehran and Ashgabat learned of
Kabul’s intention to build the Salma Dam with Indian cooperation on
the Harirud, they considered it a serious threat to Iran and
Turkmenistan’s security. From Tehran’s perspective, Afghanistan’s
construction of the Salma dam on the Harirud River capable of
generating hydroelectric power would eliminate Kabul’s need for
Iranian energy and further reduce the amount of water that flows into
northeastern Iran. Hence, the Islamic Republic sought to halt the
dam’s construction and pressured the Karzai Afghan government to
conclude a new agreement on water rights surrounding the Harirud
river water sharing and the Salma Dam project. The Karzai
government however rejected Tehran’s offer and accused the Islamic
Republic of supporting the Taliban (Aman, 2016, pp. 5–6; Nagheeby
& Warner, 2018, pp. 846–847; Ramachandran, 2017).
The return to power of the Taliban in August 2021 raised Tehran’s
hopes that it could reach a new understanding with Kabul on sharing
water from the Helmand and Harrirud rivers. The senior Taliban
officials acknowledged the importance of the 1973 Helmand treaty
and stressed fair access to shared water resources between Iran and
Afghanistan as two neighbouring Muslim countries. The Taliban
government also authorized the opening of the gates of Kamal Khan
Dam on the Helmand River, allowing water to flow into Iran’s
parched Sistan and Balochistan province. The Taliban 2.0
government’s conciliatory approach has boosted Iran’s optimism that
a new water-sharing agreement could be worked out with the new
rulers in Kabul (Hashemi, 2021; Kumar Jha, 2021; Ranjan, 2021).
Controlling the Illicit Drug Trade

Controlling the inflow of drugs from Afghanistan is another major
factor that has persuaded Iran to cooperate with the Taliban 2.0
government. As the largest producer of opium globally, Afghanistan
has always played a key role in Iran’s drug problem. The export of
more than 89% of Afghan opium and 39% of its morphine and heroin
across the border to Iran has caused a significant increase in the
addiction rate in the Islamic Republic. According to the Iranian Drug
Control Headquarters (DCHQ), out of Iran’s 81 million population, 2–
3 million are serious drug users with more than 300,000 injecting
heroin addicts. As a result, the rates of HIV/AIDS infection and drug-
related deaths have significantly increased in Iran (Carter, 2010;
Cornell, 2005, pp. 24–26; Nissarmanesh et al., 2005, p. 3; United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, 2010, p. 39).
Although Iranian officials have made serious efforts to combat drug
trafficking, they have not been able to fully prevent the flow of drugs
from Afghanistan. The Islamic Republic spends more than US$800
million annually digging deep trenches and building concrete barriers
along Iran’s eastern borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan to counter
the Afghan illicit drug trade. Iran has also positioned thousands of law
enforcement officers along its eastern borders; more than 4,000 of
these officers have been killed in counter-narcotics operations over the
last four decades (Christensen, 2011, pp. 27–29; Tasnim News
Agency, 2019; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, 2018).
The Islamic Republic has been a part of global and regional
mechanisms created to try and curb drug smuggling from Afghanistan.
Since 2008, Tehran has housed the Joint Planning Cell of the Triangle
initiative, facilitated by the United Nations to improve cooperation
between Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fight against drug

trafficking from Afghanistan. However, despite Iran and
Afghanistan’s cooperation under such initiatives, Tehran did not
always see eye to eye with Kabul over countering the illicit drug trade.
Iran has often blamed the Afghan government for allowing drug
trafficking to continue into Iranian territory; Iranian leaders have
argued that the Karzai and Ghani government’s unwillingness to
address the issue of drug trafficking was the main reason why Afghan
drugs have continued to flow into Iran (Tehran Times, 2021b; United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes, 2011).
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 has provided
Tehran with the opportunity to align the new Afghan regime with Iran
in the fight against drug trafficking. Tehran’s optimistic approach
towards the Taliban 2.0 regime stems from the Taliban’s earlier policy
(during Taliban 1.0) to ban the cultivation of poppy. When the Taliban
banned poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2000, it led to a sharp
decline in Iran’s opium, heroin, and morphine seizures. The Taliban
regime had acted this way mainly to end the Islamic Emirate’s
international isolation and to gain legitimacy with regional powers
including Iran and Russia (Ayoob, 2021a; Felbab-Brown, 2021;

Coyne et al., 2016, pp. 98–99). Tehran is therefore optimistic that
similar motivations will induce the Taliban 2.0 regime to crack down
on the drug trade in Afghanistan.
The Taliban 2.0’s decision to take a counter-narcotics stance in the
early days of its rule made Tehran optimistic about the possibility of
cooperation between Iran and the new Afghan government in the fight
against the Afghan illicit drug trade. From the Iranian officials’
perspective, the Taliban’s anti-narcotics rhetoric and its policy of
suppressing opium production in Afghanistan could increase Iran’s
border security against drug trafficking and significantly reduce drug
seizures in Iran. Therefore, despite the significant ideological and
political differences between the Islamic Republic and Islamic
Emirate, Tehran considers cooperation with the Taliban government
important to prevent the transit and trafficking of Afghan narcotics
(Barati Sadeh, 2021; Homaei, 2021; Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Agency, 2021).
Preventing the Future Flows of Afghan Refugees to Iran

Since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iran has absorbed
millions of Afghan refugees. A 921-km shared border and cultural and

historical commonalities have made Iran the preferred destination for
Afghans fleeing their country. In the immediate aftermath of the
Islamic Revolution, Iranian leaders wanted to project Iran as a
champion of and safe haven for oppressed Muslims; hence they
pursued an open-door policy toward Afghan refugees fleeing the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The Iranian government granted the
Afghan refugees the status of involuntary migrants (Mohajerin),
which allowed them certain privileges including work permits, health
care, and primary education for their children (Aman, 2021; Human
Rights Watch, 2013).
Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, however, led to changes in Iran’s
political outlook and subsequently Iran’s attitude toward Afghan
refugees. In the post-Khomeini years, pragmatism came to dominate
policymaking in Iran over ideology. The Iranian government,
therefore, began to see Afghan refugees more as an economic and
social burden rather than as oppressed co-religionists. This perception
was strengthened due to pressures on the Iranian economy caused by
the Iran–Iraq war and American sanctions, but also due to growing
socio-economic problems related to the refugees. The engagement of

Afghan refugees in labour-intensive occupations increased the
unemployment rate in Iran and led to fierce competition between
disgruntled Iranians and Afghan refugees in a strained labour market.
The influx of Afghan refugees into the Iranian economy further posed
a serious threat to Iran’s social security framework. Consequently, in
the post-Khomeini years, Iranian leaders began to take a stricter line
on Afghan refugees (Adelkhah & Olszewska, 2007, pp. 141–142;
Bhatnagar, 2012; Wencheng, 2021).
Despite the Iranian authorities’ best efforts to deport and repatriate
Afghan refugees after the collapse of the Taliban 1.0 regime in
Afghanistan in October 2001, there are still 3 million Afghan refugees
in Iran, of which more than 2 million are undocumented. Caring for
this large Afghan refugee population seriously strained Iran’s
resources and Tehran would therefore gladly welcome the return of
these refugees to Afghanistan. The return of the Taliban to power in
Afghanistan in August 2021 has once again created an obstacle to the
repatriation of the Afghan refugees in Iran and thrown open the
possibility of more Afghan refugees moving into Iran to escape
Taliban persecution. Iranian leaders fully realize that a sharp rise in

the number of Afghan refugees would intensify economic pressure on
Iran, which is already reeling from US economic sanctions imposed to
halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the outbreak of Covid-19
that has confronted the country with serious economic and public
health challenges. Tehran is also worried that the arrival of more
Afghan refugees may generate local unrest, especially in the restive
Iranian Baluchistan region that serves as a base for armed Sunni
insurgent groups. To counter the national security threats that a
continuing and growing refugee burden would pose, Tehran has tried
to build a cordial relationship with the Taliban 2.0 regime in
Afghanistan to mitigate Afghan refugee flows across its eastern
frontier (Brumberg, 2021; Esfandiary, 2021; Feldman, 2021).
Resumption of Iran’s Trade Relations with Afghanistan

The potential benefits of cross-border trade have also convinced
Iranian leaders to try and establish cordial ties with the Taliban 2.0
regime in Afghanistan. Since 2018, Tehran has been Kabul’s biggest
trade partner, exporting nearly US$4 billion of goods annually to its
eastern neighbour. Tehran is keen to expand its trade with Afghanistan
for two good reasons. One, Iran needs to find regional markets after
being cut off from global trade by US sanctions. And two, the
devaluation of the Iranian currency has made Iranian goods and
products very affordable in Afghanistan, which may allow Tehran to
dominate the domestic market in Afghanistan. Therefore, given the
Afghanistan economy’s importance to Iran as a source of hard
currency, the expansion of economic cooperation and cross-border
trade with the Taliban 2.0 regime would allow Tehran to have access
to US dollars that are needed to pay for the import essential goods
(Bolourchi, 2021; Faucon & Talley, 2021).
The Taliban 2.0 regime would also benefit from economic cooperation
and expanded cross border trade with Iran. Iran’s exports to
Afghanistan, including electricity, fuels and food, are vital to keeping
the country going in the face of deep economic turmoil and
international reluctance to formally recognize the Taliban 2.0 regime.
Without formal international recognition and the establishment of
diplomatic ties, the Taliban 2.0 regime is cut off from Afghan
government funds held in foreign banks, international aid, and
international trade and commerce in goods and services. Iran,
therefore, is an economic lifeline for Afghanistan. Without Iranian

goods and services, it would be difficult for the Taliban 2.0 regime to
keep the Afghan economy afloat (Batmanghelidj, 2021; Khajehpour,
2021).
Challenges Facing Iran in the Taliban-Ruled

Afghanistan
Although the Islamic Republic sees the establishment of constructive
relations with the Taliban as an opportunity to protect its economy
from non-regional actors, it is concerned about the challenges that the
group’s takeover in Afghanistan could pose to Iran’s interests. The
first factor that alarms Iran about the re-emergence of the Taliban is its
approach to Afghanistan’s Shiite population. The Talib leaders’ anti-
Shiite ideology had led to the ethnic cleansing of the Hazara Shiite
minority during the Taliban 1.0 regime in Afghanistan. Iranian leaders
fear that the group’s resurgence would once again expose the Shiite
locals to Taliban violence. So far, the Taliban 2.0 regime has adopted
a softer approach towards the Shiite Hazara minority by allowing
them to hold the Ashura morning ritual. However, this softer approach
has failed to reassure Tehran that the Taliban would continue to be

lenient with Shiites after consolidating its rule in Afghanistan (Elias,
2021; Fathollah-Nejad & Azizi, 2021).
The Taliban’s ethnocentric approach to power is another factor that
concerns the Islamic Republic about the future of Afghanistan. Iran
hoped for an ethnically and demographically inclusive government
formation in Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. But the
Taliban’s decision to form a government with mostly ethnic Pashtuns
and figures close to al-Qaeda and Pakistan provoked Tehran’s
dissatisfaction. From Tehran’s perspective, the ascendance of the
leaders of the Haqqani network, a branch of the Taliban with close ties
to al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, to the critical
ministerial positions could threaten Iran’s security by providing a
permissive environment for the terrorists to operate within
Afghanistan. Additionally, Islamabad’s excessive influence alongside
the absence of the pro-Iranian Shiite Hazara community in the Taliban
government could marginalize Iran in post-US Afghanistan and
prevent it from playing a central role in shaping Afghan politics.
Finally, the expansion of Pakistan’s presence in Afghanistan could
impede the advancement of Iran’s regional interests, including the

Chabahar port project, which is the rival of the Pakistani port of
Gwadar, in connecting the regional states to Central Asia (Ayoob,
2021b; ILNA, 2021; Khan, 2021; Smith, 2021).
In addition to Pakistan, Turkey’s willingness to play an active role in
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan may threaten Iran’s interests in the region.
Ankara, which sees the expansion of Iranian influence as an obstacle
to the restoration of the Ottoman grandeur, has tried to confront the
Islamic Republic by supporting anti-Iranian forces in the Middle East
and Central Asia. While expanding diplomatic and economic ties with
Iran’s immediate neighbours is crucial in Turkey’s strategy for
containing Iran, it has found the rise of the Taliban 2.0 in Afghanistan
as an opportunity to strengthen the encirclement of the Islamic
Republic. Gaining a pivotal role in controlling Kabul International
Airport after the US withdrawal created for Ankara an opportunity to
spread its influence in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. In addition to
further isolating Iran, Turkey’s presence in Afghanistan could create
more problems for the Islamic Republic by influencing the flow of
Afghan refugees to the Iranian territory (Macgillivry, 2021;
Movahedian, 2021; Ozkizilcik, 2021).

Finally, the Taliban’s inability to maintain stability and security in
Afghanistan and deter the transnational Jihadist groups, including the
Islamic State Khorasan Province and al-Qaeda, may pose a severe
challenge to Iran’s security. The surge in terror attacks against the
Shiite Hazara minority in mosques, hospitals and sports centres has
raised alarm bells in Tehran about the growing threat of Sunni
extremism in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. From the Iranians’
viewpoint, the Taliban’s failure to maintain stability could help the
ISKH and other Jihadist groups gain a foothold within Afghanistan
territory. Meanwhile, Tehran is skeptical that the Taliban have severed
ties with al-Qaeda’s global terror network; Tehran’s skepticism was
vindicated after an American drone strike killed the fugitive al-Qaeda
leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the heart of Kabul in August 2021.
Although the US–Taliban peace agreement barred the Islamic Emirate
from collaborating with terrorist groups, the appointment of
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network, as the interior
minister of Afghanistan has further fuelled Tehran’s apprehension
about close ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As a Shiite-
majority country, Iran sees the revival and reconfiguration of Sunni

extremist groups in Afghanistan as a serious threat that could spark
violence and insecurity across its eastern frontier (Bokhari, 2022;
Choksy & Choksy, 2021; De Luce et al., 2021).
Iran’s Efforts to Maintain Stability in

Afghanistan
Iran sees diplomacy as the best way to reduce tensions in Afghanistan
and Tehran has worked with the neighbouring states to find a solution
to the Afghan crisis. A day after the Taliban announced the formation
of an interim government in Afghanistan on 8 September 2021, the
Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdullahian, along with the
foreign ministers of China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,
attended a virtual conference hosted by Pakistan to exchange views on
the latest developments in Afghanistan. Iran also attended the Moscow
formal talks with the Taliban delegation and Afghanistan’s
neighbouring states on 20 October 2021, to address the Afghan
political and military situation (Tass Russian News Agency, 2021;
Tehran Times, 2021a).
On 27 October 2021, Iran hosted a meeting attended by Afghanistan’s
neighbouring states plus Russia to prepare a road map for enhancing

peace and security within war-torn Afghanistan. At the meeting, Iran
called for the formation of an inclusive government with all Afghan
ethnic groups; Tehran also demanded that the Taliban be held
responsible for the security of Afghan citizens and Afghanistan’s
borders with neighbouring countries. On 10 November 2021, the
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Council, Ali Shamkhani,
participated in the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan,
which brought the national security advisers of Russia, Iran, India and
the five Central Asian states to discuss ways to ensure stability across
Afghanistan’s borders. Iran further expressed its support for the
Afghan people by attending an Organization of Islamic Cooperation
(OIC)-led international meeting on Afghanistan, called at the behest of
Pakistan to avert a simmering humanitarian and economic crisis in
Afghanistan. At this meeting, Iran reiterated the need for an inclusive
government to deal with the challenges in Afghanistan (Chaulia, 2021;
Gul, 2021; Tasnim News Agency, 2021; The Iran Primer, 2021).
Another Iranian move to deal with the crisis in Afghanistan was to
facilitate negotiations between the Afghan opposition groups and the
Taliban. The Islamic Republic, which had a history of mediating

between the former Afghan government and the Taliban in the intra-
Afghan talks, hosted negotiations between a high-ranking Taliban
delegation and leaders of two prominent Afghan opposition groups in
January 2022 to reduce Afghanistan’s internal tensions. In the
meeting, Ismail Khan, the former leader of the Northern Alliance of
Afghanistan, and Ahmad Masood, the leader of the National
Resistance Front of Afghanistan, stressed the need to form an
inclusive government of all ethnic and political groups in Kabul. The
Iranian officials also held talks with the Taliban delegation led by
Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to discuss
political, economic, transit and refugee issues. Although the Taliban’s
primary intention of meeting with the Iran-backed opposition figures
was to gain legitimacy from the Islamic Republic, Tehran made the
recognition of the Taliban government conditional on the formation of
an ethnically inclusive government in Afghanistan (ISNA, 2022;
Mehdi, 2022; Reuters, 2021).
Conclusion
Iran’s policy toward the Taliban has undergone significant changes
over time. During the Taliban 1.0 government, the Islamic Republic,
as a beneficiary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, supported US
efforts to overthrow the Taliban. However, in the new millennium, the
intensified conflicts between Tehran and Washington following
President George W. Bush’s inclusion of Iran in the Axis of Evil led
to a significant shift in Iran’s approach toward the Taliban. Tehran,
which until then had considered the Taliban its enemy, began
supporting the group by providing them with military training and
weapons. The growing animosity between Iran and the United States
following President Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear
Deal and the emergence of ISKP in Afghanistan further strengthened
ties between Iran and the Taliban. In the eyes of the Iranian leaders,
the Taliban could serve the Islamic Republic by countering the US
military presence in Afghanistan and acting as a bulwark against the
spread of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province. Tehran further saw
expanding relations with the Taliban as a way of sustaining water flow
to Iran’s eastern provinces, resuming trade cooperation with
Afghanistan, and reducing drug trafficking and the influx of Afghan
refugees into Iran. While the rise of the Taliban created opportunities
for Iran, it also confronted the Islamic Republic with certain

challenges. The Taliban’s ethnocentric approach to power could
weaken Iran’s position in Afghanistan by setting the groundwork for
Iran’s rivals, including Pakistan, to dominate the new Afghan
government. Additionally, the Taliban’s inability to maintain stability
and security could turn Afghanistan into a safe haven for various
insurgent groups thereby imposing a significant threat to the security
of Iran’s borders. Although the importance of these threats has not
been so great as to prevent Iran from cooperating with the Taliban,
Tehran has worked with the regional states to maintain stability and
form an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

Funding
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Mulling the Contours of India’s Taliban Policy:
Past, Present and Future Prospects
Gitika Commuri gcommuri@csub.eduView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221129907
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
India is faced with a conundrum—how to engage with an Afghanistan
that is once again led by the Taliban. The question is less about
whether to engage and more about how to engage. To understand this
turn of events that is both surprising and yet seemingly inevitable, this
article examines India’s policies vis-à-vis the Taliban since its early
rise to power in 1990. It examines this relationship in four phases
which correlate with the fortunes of the Taliban as an opposition and a
governing regime, contending that these phases are characterised; by a
potential discourse of engagement that does not translate into policy

outcomes; distancing and opposition; gradual indirect acquiesce to its
growing presence; and finally, détente of sorts without formal
recognition. These policy transitions are a consequence of regional
and global power play as well as domestic preoccupations of India.
They span India’s secular and Hindutva-driven domestic narratives of
self. The significance of this article lies in casting a broad overview of
the existing literature and identifying patterns of engagement.
Introduction
Taliban’s unsurprising resurgence in 2021 and its capacity to
withstand all odds and return to the helm of power in Afghanistan
requires strategic rethinking on the part of regional and global states in
the international system. This rethinking is necessitated in part
because many states have spent more than two decades trying to crush
the Taliban by supporting other seemingly more moderate regimes,
engaging in full-scale war against the Taliban pushing it to the brink
of extinction and eventually making cautious accommodations with it.
Recent actions (agreements and discussions) indicate that the
Taliban’s presence has come to be accepted as inevitable, even if there
is a formal lack of recognition of it as the legitimate representative of

Afghanistan. Its legitimacy, while challenged, has not prevented it
from negotiating with powers, such as the United States, China,
Russia, European Union, Iran and India, as well as other regional
states. Taliban is here to stay; how long, how stably, that only the
oracles can tell. Its existence as a political regime may be in question,
though its capacity to survive on the fringes and beyond is remarkable.
This is the reality. For now, an Afghanistan led by the Taliban, and
surrounding regional and global powers are in the unenviable situation
of having to negotiate and contend with each other to re-establish the
boundaries of engagement. And negotiate they must for reasons that
may be specific to the states or the region, though these will include
security, balancing, terrorism, narcotics trade, humanitarian crisis,
discontents of civil war and commercial engagement (D’Souza, 2013).
It is in this context that this article seeks to understand India’s
engagement or lack of with the Taliban. Some editorial commentary
suggests that India’s current strategy of cautious engagement with the
Taliban as exemplified by diplomatic interactions in Doha and
Moscow is a ‘game changer’ (Kapur, 2021). Such claims are
inevitably reflective of comparison with previous Indian stance and

policy on the Taliban when it was the governing regime during 1996–
2001 and as a formidable opposition group. Two questions arise;
whether Indian diplomatic manoeuvring is indeed a ‘game-changer’
and whether it is best explained by the savviness of the governing
political elite, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or is it a consequence of the
changing international, regional and domestic environment. The
purpose of this article then is to lay out the pattern of interaction
between India and a Jihadi movement/governing regime Taliban and
to understand its nature. The article’s focus is not so much Indo-
Afghan relations, rather it is the relationship, or its absence, between a
state and non-state/governing regime actor that occupies the nebulous
space of being the state (in so far as political elites are representatives
of the state) and existing as a violent challenger to it. This becomes
the key to understanding current Indo-Afghan relations. What we are
dealing with here is the interaction between the Indian state and a
quasi-governing and insurgent entity, the Taliban.
Afghanistan is a quagmire of nightmarish proportions. Its fate in the
last several decades has been one of incessant war compelling one to
wonder how Afghans survive on an everyday basis. This never-ending

conflict is not only the consequence of internal warring factions with
religious/tribal/ethnic linkages and divisions but great power
interventions (SU/Russia, US, EU via NATO), as well as meddling by
quasi-failed states like Pakistan. On the fringes are states, such as Iran,
Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar that have long stoked the religious
embers of various mujahideen groups or have been involved in the
politics of the region in one form or the other. Peering into these
complex interactions are other neighbours like China and India, global
and regional powers with their own concerns and aspirations. For a
state that has been in disarray for more than half a century,
Afghanistan has certainly drawn a lot of attention in international
politics—perhaps states in disarray do invite meddling. This is more
likely the case because of its own fragility and weakness, the
misfortune of becoming the locale for great power rivalry, strategic
location and possession of undeveloped mineral and energy assets.
Afghanistan’s story is further complicated by the presence of an array
of internal actors that have on occasion worked together but have also
engaged in brutal violence against each other. It is in this setting that
Indo-Taliban relations are of interest, leading us to a better

understanding of Indo-Afghan relations. The question arises as to why
the Taliban has come to garner such attention. It is not simply a
question of its capacity to show resilience and gain power, but also the
nature of the regime—as in its Islamist core and the potential it
presents in harbouring fundamentalist terrorist organisations, such as
the al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba, its entanglement with Islamic
State, governance of Afghanistan and the domestic and international
ramifications thereof. For India, Taliban and other Islamist
mujahideen groups with their Jihadi orientation constitute a domestic
threat through their support of terrorist organisations and
internationally pose a diplomatic conundrum vis-à-vis Pakistan and
increasingly China.
In the sections that follow, the article will briefly consider the historic
relationship between India and Afghanistan. It will then elaborate on
the distinct phases of interaction and the absence of interactions,
between the Taliban and India from 1990 to 2022, identifying a
pattern of rhetorical tolerance (as in policy discourses without leading
to specific actions), undermining the Taliban by disengagement and
support of opposition groups, acquiescence to their presence after

2010 and finally a cautious engagement. These phases follow the
fortunes of the Taliban as a governing and opposition regime. While
the purpose of the article is to explain India’s current actions and
suggest policy directions in the context of a re-emergence of the
Taliban as the governing regime in 2021, it is important to look back
and examine India’s stance towards the Taliban in the previous years,
to better grasp how India perceives the Taliban and hence viable
foreign policy actions considering shifting international environment.
Review of Indo-Afghan Relations

India’s relations with Afghanistan are long-standing, weaving historic
civilisational relations with more modern political, economic and
cultural interactions in the aftermath of the Second World War and
decolonisation. Soon after India gained independence it signed a
Treaty of Friendship with Afghanistan in 1950, formalising its
relations with King Zahir’s regime. While disagreements arose with
regard to Afghanistan’s stance on Kashmir and Indo-Pak relations,
relations were agreeable between the two non-aligned states (Paliwal,
2015).
Afghanistan’s fate changed with Soviet intervention in 1979 and
American counter covert/proxy operations in conjunction with
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. So did relations between India and
Afghanistan. While India’s response to these interventions was muted,
it did raise objections to the militarisation of the region with
increasing insecurity and violation of sovereignty (D’Souza, 2013).
Nonetheless, relations between the two states continued till they were
disrupted by events from 1990s onwards. Roiled by civil war,
resistance to external forces, a crippled economy, reliance on external
funding and opium trade, Afghanistan had swung from Western
appointed, liberal regimes to the more hardline fundamentalist
Taliban. Whether Afghanistan is governed by moderate and quasi-
democratic regimes, or by a fundamentalist religious regime is key to
how it and other states interpret and interact with each other.
Currently, the global consensus regarding withholding legitimacy to
the Taliban seems a rare moment of agreement among international
players. India is no exception. In the sections that follow, the focus of
the article shifts to understanding India’s dealings with the Taliban as
a governing regime as well as a violent insurgency force that has

shown an incredible capacity of surviving the worst odds. Its
resilience makes it an actor to reckon with in terms of Indo-Afghan
relations. Arguably, India’s interactions with the Taliban can be
disaggregated into four different phases.
Four Phases of Interaction between India and

Taliban
Taliban was born out of resistance to Soviet intervention—an
organisation that cobbled together various mujahideen groups which
were ethnically Pashtun and propounded a radical version of Islam.
Their local origin was extensively supported by the United States
which at the time was engaged in cold war rivalry with the Soviets.
After the Soviet departure, Taliban emerged as the power holder
following a brutal civil war and eventually earned the ire of the US for
supporting al-Qaeda which was responsible for the attacks on the US
in 2001. These events led to full-scale overt American intervention in
Afghanistan. While it appears as if it is a monolithic organisation, the
Taliban is fragmented along ethnic and moderate/extremist lines. This
is evident currently between the moderate elements that understand
the need for engagement with the international community and for
moderation in its tactics (those aligned with Abdul Ghani Baradar
Abdul Ahmad Turk) and hardliners close to Sher Mohammad Abbas
Stanekzai. According to Security Council reports, the fissures are
many; tension between the political elite and the rank-and-file
members of the Taliban, potential split between pro and anti-al-Qaeda
camps within the Taliban, disgruntlement and separation by senior
Taliban members that have broken off in opposition to the US-Taliban
negotiations and formed the Hizb-i-Vilayet Islami, and the fact that
Taliban’s political and military commissions reflect older rivalries
between the Alizai and Nurzai tribes (UN, 2020). And yet, the
Taliban, for all its internal messiness and contending rivalries with
other moderate and hardline groups, remains in power.
To understand India-Taliban relations, it is important to consider the
history of their engagement or lack of. One way of understanding their
relations is to examine them through four distinct phases: 1990–1996,
1996–2001, 2001–2021, August 2021—present. These phases or time
frames correlate with; the outbreak of civil war among various
mujahideen groups and the gradual coalescing of power around the
Taliban; its governance; its relegation to the margins of Afghan

politics and gradual resurgence and finally occupation of Kabul
signalling a return to power. While it would be interesting to examine
India’s response to the grooming of Islamist mujahideen by the
triumvirate of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as
Iran, to have a better sense of India’s evolving stance on emerging
Jihadist organisations, this falls outside the purview of this article
now. For now, the article focuses on the following questions: What
was the nature of the interaction between India and pro-Pakistan
mujahideen/Taliban during these phases? How do we explain this
interaction?
Phase 1: 1990–1996
Soviet and American (proxy) departure left behind the debris of
factional infighting among various mujahideen groups which quickly
devolved into a civil war. The surviving government of Najibullah,
did not last long under the advances made by various groups.
Eventually, the Peshawar Accords, crafted by Pakistan placed
Burhanuddin Rabbani of Jamiat-e-Islami in power in 1992. This did
not necessarily quell the ongoing conflicts between various
mujahideen groups and Rabbani was forced to flee in 1996 with the
arrival of the Taliban in Kabul. Of note here is the role Pakistan
played in the rise to power of both regimes. Not only had it been
deeply engaged in fuelling the war in Afghanistan serving as a conduit
for American action but remained embedded as a strong influencer.
During these years, Delhi, it appears was not necessarily averse to
engaging with the pro-Pakistan mujahideen. Both Bhadrakumar
(2011) and Paliwal (2015), make the case that while there appears to
be a general presumption that India was anti-engagement, it was in
fact open to dialogue. Bhadrakumar referencing the Rao (Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao 1991–1996) doctrine elaborates on some of
its core policy guidelines. First,
… we should deal with all mujahideen groups

without fear or favor and contact should be
established with anyone and everyone willing
to meet us despite the militancy of their
Islamism. Two, we would deal with
whosoever was in power in Kabul and focus
would be on cultivating a friendly government
that was sensitive to India’s vital interests and
core concerns. Three, dealings would strictly
be with the government in Kabul, no matter its
proximity with Pakistan or its security
agencies. Four, we would neither arm any
Afghan group nor ostracize any—not even the
Wahhabi group of Ittehad headed by Rasul
Sayyaf to which Jalaluddin Haqqani owed
allegiance at that time. Five, we would focus
on the people-to-people relationship, tap into
the reservoir of goodwill toward India and
meaningfully contribute to Afghanistan’s
economic welfare within our capabilities and
resource… (Bhadrakumar, 2011).
Similarly, Paliwal (2015) building on Bhadrakumar’s observations
persuasively argues that foreign policy circles in New Delhi were torn
between a preference for engagement grounded in some of Rao’s
guidelines and an understanding of the mujahideen as ethno-national
entities, and those that formed the anti-engagement coalition, stressing
security threats and focusing on the nature of the mujahideen,

especially Taliban, as religious fundamentalists. Paliwal argues that
the policy discourse circled around engagement and anti-engagement,
understanding engagement as ‘… as a process whereby two political
entities are involved in non-coercive diplomacy and have existing
channels of interaction, either covert or overt.’ (p. 5) It does not imply
diplomatic recognition or granting legitimacy to the other party,
though it does imply refusal to use military means. Anti-engagement
on the other hand, ‘… implies partisan political support to one group
over the other.’ (p. 5) It allows for use of coercive force and ending
diplomatic contact. While there is little evidence to suggest that
engagement principles were actively applied during this phase, India
did retain its diplomatic presence in Kabul and hosted Rabbani and
other mujahideen commanders, those avowedly against India, en route
to Indonesia for the Non-Aligned conference in September of 1996.
This, after India had pulled its mission out of Kabul after attacks on it
and severed all connection with Afghanistan. Ostensibly, this visit was
a refuelling halt requested by the Rabbani government (Bhadrakumar,
2011). While there is a hint here of dialogue, we are not made aware
of the discussions, though shortly thereafter, India did support

Rabbani’s government in exile and its opposition to the Taliban. Thus,
as India grappled with the unfolding events, differences in perceptions
of the nature of adversaries and the appropriate means of dealing with
them, tipped in favour of anti-engagement, which began to emerge
more forcefully with the resurgence of the Taliban by the end of 1996
and in the years that followed. Even then, notes Paliwal, the tension
between these two policy frameworks never quite withered.
Irrespective of the policy debates, India’s presence during this phase
of Afghan politics is minimal at best. Having withdrawn missions
from the country and severed contact, it left the ground open for
Pakistan to continue extending its already considerable hold on
mujahideen groups and on Afghan politics.
India’s policy preferences could potentially be explained by the dire
economic situation in India, the lessons of intervention in Sri Lanka,
the pragmatic, cautious nature of Rao as the Prime Minister of India,
and the fact that India had only seriously begun to grapple with the
nature of Jihadi organisations and their potential ramifications by the
end of the phase when we do see the shift (Paliwal, 2015). At the
international level, there was a vacuum of sorts—both the Soviets and

Americans had retreated, one had collapsed and the other had
accomplished its mission of dislodging the Soviets, albeit leaving the
field ripe for a civil war. Despite the vibrant policy contestations noted
by Paliwal (2015) the fact remains that India’s policy was distracted
and only began to take shape after 1996.
Phase 2: 1996—2001
By late1996 Taliban had managed to ensconce itself in Kabul and
came to constitute the governing regime, no matter how contested.
While other mujahideen groups also coalesced around religious
beliefs, the Taliban evoked stronger reactions from India and other
states as it was seen to be a more aggressive fundamentalist
organisation. From India’s standpoint, the Taliban was seen as the
creation of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and ambient
relations between the regime and Pakistan meant that the strategic
depth that Pakistan so aspired for vis-à-vis its relations with India, was
within reach. Further, a deeply Islamic regime is suspect in the eyes of
New Delhi, as it has the potential to stoke anti-India sentiments and
action in Indian Jammu and Kashmir as elsewhere. Taliban’s support
for anti-India terrorist organisations such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)

and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in terms of safe havens did not make
relations easy (Mishra, 2021). It did not help that Mullah Omar made
a statement supporting Jihad in Kashmir (Willington, 2001).
Domestically, the government in India had now come to be dominated
by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was more assertive of its Hindu
roots and Kashmir policy, resulting in increased support of the anti-
engagement coalition. That, Russia, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkey, Central
Asian states and the US similarly considered the Taliban with concern
only made the Indian policy option more appropriate (Paliwal, 2015,
pp. 28–29).
Thus, in India, the policy discourse shifted distinctly and firmly in the
direction of anti-engagement. India joined Russia and Iran to curtail
the growing power of the Taliban by militarily (covert) supporting
groups inimical to it, specifically the Northern Alliance (or the United
Front) led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. Paliwal (2015, p. 21) hints that
at least initially such intervention was made by India’s Research and
Analysis Wing (RAW) and did not have political clearance. The
policy crystallised in September 1995 with the capture of Herat by the
Taliban—interestingly these states were at the forefront of opposing

the Taliban when other states were hardly paying any attention.
India’s support to the Northern Alliance took the form of airlifting
non-military supplies to Massoud’s troops via Iran, supplying money
(amount unknown), spares for the air force and ground radar. As early
as the beginning of 1996, ‘around 30 Indian technicians were
reportedly maintaining Massoud’s MiG and Sukhoi fighter aircraft…
and transport helicopters, while military advisers assisted alliance
forces by providing tactical advice on operations against the Taliban.
Massoud also reportedly benefited from Indian high-altitude warfare
equipment’, as well as a field hospital at a base in Farkhar operated by
25 Indian army doctors and nurses (Withington, 2001). Not only was
India supportive of groups opposing the Taliban internally, it
maintained diplomatic contact with Burhanuddin Rabbani of the
Jamaat-e-Islami, who had established a government in exile (Paliwal,
2015, p. 10). As expected, India severed all contact with the ruling
regime in Kabul (though (Paliwal, 2015, p. 13) notes that between
1992 and 1996 there had been four such closures), supported UN
resolution 1076 condemning the Taliban’s human rights record,
particularly its treatment of women and denied it legitimacy.

And yet, the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC814 and its forced
landing in Kandahar by Pakistan-based militants forced the Indian
government to engage with the Taliban that functioned as mediators.
After 8 days of negotiations, the hostages were released. India’s
attempts at armed intervention were prevented by the Taliban militia
which surrounded the plane, though the Taliban also refused the plane
to take off elsewhere. Paliwal argues that this was a diplomatic
opportunity that was lost on both sides—in his reading the Taliban
saw itself as a neutral broker between the two parties and while the
Indian spokesperson acknowledged the Taliban’s assistance, nothing
came of it. That said, the missed moment of potential dialogue was not
emblematic of India’s actions vis-à-vis Taliban—rather the second
and third (partially) phases bridged an aggressive anti-Taliban
strategy.
Phase 3: 2001–2021
Political fortunes of various Afghan parties shifted again by 2001,
when the Taliban was effectively evicted from Kabul, though it could
never be completely marginalised. This situation was the consequence
of American and NATO military intervention in Afghanistan, a

reaction to the terrorist attacks in the US in 2001 and the presence of
al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and its close linkages with the Taliban. India
was supportive of the US/NATO-led intervention and even though it
was a marginal player at the Bonn Conference in 2001, its support of
the non-Pashtuns of United Front was active (Paliwal, 2015, p. 30).
Eventually, Western-backed regimes of Hamid Karzai (2001–2014)
and Ashraf Ghani (2014–2021) established quasi-democratic
governments in Afghanistan, though they could never demolish
Taliban as an insurgent force, which had already begun creeping
alarmingly back by 2006. Both leaders made overtures to the Taliban
and sought to reconcile and integrate them into governing institutions,
incentivising them to return to the political mainstream, especially
with the Taliban’s strong resurgence. This necessary shift in Afghan
politics was internationally legitimised at the London conference in
2010.
India, engaged most extensively with Afghanistan during this phase,
keen to shore up its relations with political factions that were cautious
of Pakistan and wary of its close relations with the Taliban. It is
reputed to have been the largest regional donor and the fifth largest in
the world, contributing US$3 billion toward various mega and minor
projects. It strengthened diplomatic engagement and security
cooperation (training Afghan intelligence and security personnel) and
focused its attention on infrastructure development and capacity
building: engaging in the construction of symbolic institutions such as
the parliament, but also key trade infrastructure such as the highway to
Chabahar port in Iran, Salma dam, roads and highways, electrical
infrastructure, schools and hospitals. During Manmohan Singh’s visit
to Kabul in 2005, India showed its inclination to provide more
meaningful support to minor projects that would have more of an
impact on the lives of ordinary citizens in the sectors of health,
education and women’s empowerment (D’Souza, 2013). According to
D’Souza, Indian assistance was unique in that the Indian government
worked with the governmental institutions in Afghanistan and sought
to strengthen their capabilities, rather than through a parallel network
of international organisations structure that was the dominant mode of
assistance by Western states. India’s strategy involved a focus on
development, economic stability and provision of basic needs in
support of the more moderate political regimes in power, though

D’Souza also comments that India’s capacity-building projects ended
up being capacity substituting as infrastructure projects lacked long-
term sustainability (Souza, 2021). This was also intended to erode the
base for the Taliban, though as Paliwal (2016, p. 477) observes, ‘New
Delhi was closely watching Taliban movements and searching for
ways to build political constituencies in the Pashtun hinterlands along
the border with Pakistan’. Paliwal (2015, p. 32), also informs us that
India covertly engaged with certain Taliban and pro-Pakistan factions
including Hekmatyar, the Quetta and Peshawar Shura between 2005
and 2006, though in the end, it had no network on the ground.
During this period, India could not have been unaware of the gradual
rise in power of the Taliban and the efforts of the Afghan government
backed by international agreements, to reintegrate Taliban leaders and
foot soldiers into the government, through institutions such as the
Afghan High Peace Council established in 2010. It is telling that India
went on to sign a strategic partnership with Afghanistan shortly
thereafter in October 2011 and its commitment only increased with
time. This can be seen as a sign of acquiescence on India’s part, a
pragmatic recognition that the existing regime’s survival depended on

the integration of the Taliban and the hope that such integration would
make the Taliban more mainstream and moderate. This anyway was
the consensus in Afghanistan and outside. India appears to have
rationalised these changes by stating that the resolution of
Afghanistan’s problems was to be led and determined by them as they
sought best.
However, despite the best of intentions, things fell apart.
Afghanistan’s problematic governance was rife with corruption under
the Karzai and Ghani regimes, flagging Western interest, increased
violence and drone attacks by US and NATO forces, and acceptance
of the re-emergence of Taliban as a political entity requiring
negotiated agreements (US–Taliban agreement in Doha in 2020 that
excluded the Afghan government being the exemplar), the imminent
departure of Western presence all lead to the collapse of the Ghani
regime and Taliban’s return to Kabul. India was back to its old
conundrum of having to deal with a fundamentalist regime.
Phase 4: August 2021–2022

In August 2021, the Taliban rolled into Kabul. This was both a
surprise and yet seemingly inevitable. Over the years there had been a
gradual recognition that the Taliban had been far from vanquished.
This recognition was evident in the various attempts to engage the
Taliban by the Afghan government, reports of formal peace talks
between the US and Taliban in 2013 (Graham-Harrison, 2013), the
US-Taliban agreement to refrain from attacking each other’s forces,
and finally the diplomatic engagement between the US and the
Taliban in Doha. While the agreement was allegedly to ensure a more
diverse government and an avoidance of conflict, the American
decision to retreat from Afghanistan under the Trump and Biden
administration, enacted in the latter, certainly unleashed a chain of
events, wherein the Taliban moved swiftly and currently dominates
the political scene. But the ease with which it grabbed power has not
been reflected in its governance experience. Taliban is in a desperate
financial condition given that public expenditure was primarily
dependent (75%) on international funding which was blocked, given
that Western nations froze close to US$9.5 billion of the Afghan
Central Bank funds. In the months since its take-over, Afghanistan is
teetering from one crisis to another—a severe winter, extensive food
and medicine shortage, earthquake and unstable law and order

situation. These events have not dislodged the Taliban from the helm
at Kabul.
While the initial impulse may be to leave Afghanistan to its fate, given
the disastrous intervention in the last several decades, this decision has
some grave consequences. Consequences not just for the people of
Afghanistan who are not only at the mercy of a brutal political regime
and barely able to survive, but also the potential for civil war, refugee
crisis the situation may generate in neighbouring countries, fear of
increased political radicalism seeing that Islamic State (Khorasan) has
found a foothold in Afghanistan and opium trade. For India, the
situation is even more delicate, to put it mildly, because of the
potential influence this situation grants to Pakistan and increasingly
China. The growing nexus between the two states and their capacity to
influence Taliban certainly enhances India’s security threat
perceptions. While Pakistan has been a strong presence in
Afghanistan, China’s engagement is new and concerning. Taliban has
been on India’s mind whether in power or out. While there are strong
reasons for India’s wariness, it cannot ignore the Taliban nor go
against it, engagement seems unavoidable but of what sort? India’s

current actions can be split into several dimensions of interaction;
direct dealings with the Taliban, regional dialogue, humanitarian
assistance to the Afghan people and India’s position at international
forums like the UN as it deals with the unfolding events.
As things stand, no state has granted Taliban diplomatic recognition
though some states have engaged in diplomatic conversations or have
facilitated diplomacy between the Taliban and other states. Here Qatar
and Pakistan certainly come to mind, though China too has invited
Taliban delegates, as well as Russia and Norway. While India has not
invited the Taliban, it has covertly engaged with the Taliban in Doha
on 31 August 2021 (Haider, 2021), where the Indian Ambassador to
Qatar, Deepak Mittal, met with the senior Taliban leader Sher
Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai. Indian diplomats led by J. P. Singh, the
Special Representative of India for Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan,
were rumoured to have met the Taliban delegation led by
Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister Maulvi Abdul Salam Hanafi
during the Moscow gathering in October the same year, though India
did not confirm these talks (Joshua, 2021). While India has shrouded
these meetings in official ambiguity, the fact is that India has been
present at the Intra-Afghan dialogue or the Afghan–Taliban talks that
began in September 2020. India’s external minister S. Jaishankar
attended the inaugural event, as did a delegation from the Ministry of
External Affairs led by J. P. Singh (Haider, 2021). India also would
not have been unaware of the talks between the US and the Taliban
that had been underway and had concluded in an agreement on 29
February 2020. The shift in power balance could not have come as a
surprise to the Indian government. In this regard, it is difficult to
understand India’s refusal to acknowledge its dialogue with the
Taliban in which it clearly was engaged. What is noteworthy, is that
India did not support the Panjshir resistance (Ahlawat, 2021)—a clear
sign that its opposition to the Taliban would not take the form of
covert support for resistance movements. This may well have been the
case because unlike the last time around, there was not only
acquiescence to the Taliban’s power as seen through various
agreements, but also India’s erstwhile partners Russia and Iran were
now in the process of negotiations. Having supported opposition
groups for several years, India’s inaction appears a pragmatic
recognition of the ineffectualness of this strategy under the current

circumstances, more so given the lack of international resistance.
Taliban’s inevitability requires a different tack. More recently the pace
of interaction between India and Afghanistan seems to have picked
up. On June 2, senior Indian officials travelled to Kabul and by the 23,
India had reopened its diplomatic mission (Mir, 2022). Afghanistan’s
foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi expressed gratitude and urged the
resumption of projects and diplomatic engagement. Not only is the
humanitarian aid coordinated with the Taliban, but India is also
working with other UN agencies such as WHO, WFP and UNICEF
(Chaudhury, 2022). It is believed that this direct engagement on
India’s part was facilitated by the Taliban’s willingness to pursue
Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and al-Qaeda and to prevent
anti-India activity. An interesting turn of events for sure, given that
these organisations have been allies of the Taliban and backed by
Pakistan. Whether the Taliban can withdraw support or be able to
control these organisations, is another matter—prospects appear
difficult (though not impossible) given the presence of other hard-core
organisations (al-Qaeda and ISK) and their capacity to draw the
faithful.
India has not only engaged in diplomatic interactions, secretive and
otherwise, it has also sought dialogue and consensus at the regional
level. In November 2021, India held the Third Regional Security
dialogue thus seeking to display its interest in Afghanistan, build
consensus among participating members and address the emerging
humanitarian crisis. The Delhi Declaration signed by eight attending
states expressed its concerns regarding terrorism, financing
radicalisation and urged the establishment of an inclusive government
in Kabul that would replace the interim Taliban rule, promoting
national reconciliation. Several points of note emerge. First, Pakistan
and China declined the dialogue. Pakistan was hosting its own
‘Troika-plus’ meeting with the US, China and Russia, to which the
foreign minister of Afghanistan had been invited. The snub and the
timing of the meeting are telling. Second, while India still is mulling
its relationship with the Taliban, other countries have been more
proactive. Turkmenistan for instance sent a ministerial delegation to
meet with the Taliban and Uzbekistan accorded the visiting deputy
prime minister the full protocol while engaging in dialogue about
trade, transit and railways. Russia and Iran still have their embassies
and have not shaken off their diplomatic presence—in fact, their
diplomatic engagements have only increased (The Hindu, 2021).
Third, it is interesting that there is a reference to the Taliban as an
interim government in the declaration, suggesting that the Indian
government prefers to consider its presence as a temporary
arrangement. Given India’s not-so-secret unofficial meetings with the
Taliban, this seems an interesting position for India to assert. It is not
yet clear how the Delhi declaration allows India to exert influence in
the region, though it is certainly a space for coordination among the
attending members, irrespective of the proactive approach of other
nations. India continues to engage in regional forums with Russia,
Iran, Central Asian states and China as evident in the fourth regional
security dialogue in May 2022 at Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where India
asserted historic ties and its humanitarian assistance and issued a call
for counter-terrorism and respect for women. No longer was there a
reference to the Taliban as the interim regime (Financial Express,
2022).
In international forums, particularly the United Nations, India has
been actively involved in crafting responses in the United Nations

Security Council as it currently holds the non-permanent seat for a 2-
year term and is chairing important committees of the Council; the
Taliban Sanctions Committee, Libyan Sanctions Committee and UN
Counter-Terrorism Committee. On 22 December 2021, the Security
Council voted unanimously to adopt Resolution 2,615, providing for a
humanitarian exemption to the sanctions established in 2011 and
2015, the latter concerning individuals and entities associated with the
Taliban. While the resolution clarified that providers must make
reasonable efforts to ensure that no benefits accrued to individuals or
entities specified in the sanctions list in resolution 1988 (2011), it was
supportive of payment of funds and provision of goods and services.
The resolution also required a review after a year and a 6-monthly
report by the Emergency Relief Coordinator. India’s representative, T.
S. Murti, noted that the humanitarian assistance must be based on
‘neutrality, impartiality and independence disbursed to all regardless
of ethnicity, religion or political belief; and reach the most vulnerable
first, including women, children and minorities’ (United Nations,
2021). India had supported 2,593 (August 2021), that while attentive
to the humanitarian crisis and the critical events at the Karzai

International Airport, had also urged the necessity of upholding
human rights, especially of women, children and minorities, and
encouraged an ‘inclusive, negotiated political settlement’. It had also
stated the need to ensure that Afghan territory would not be used to
launch attacks or provide safe havens to terrorists (UN, Adopting
Resolution 2593 (2021), Security Council Condemns Deadly Attacks
in Afghanistan, Calls for Combating Terrorism, Upholding Human
Rights, 2021). For India, it was important that the resolution
referenced entities that were under the sanctions, specifically Lashkar-
e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed (Bhattacherjee, 2021). India, it
appears was not very pleased with the resolution in December and its
representative asserted the need to be guided by the provisions of
resolution 2,593 (Subramanian, 2022). Besides, while India did vote
for resolution 2,615, it along with some other nations had sought a
clearer delineation of humanitarian aid to ensure that it did not end in
the hands of the Taliban and wanted a 6-month extension for skirting
sanctions and a review at the end of it. However, the final resolution
did not place any time limit and did not include any provisions for
preventing the misuse of funds. The final resolution had the support of
China and Russia which had argued against placing any time
restrictions and had abstained from resolution 2,593 (Subramanian,
2022). It is reported that India, as a non-permanent member of the
Security Council, along with France had some sharp differences over
the proposal though eventually the proposal was passed unanimously.
The issue of humanitarian aid is also tied up with the question of
US$9.5 billion of financial assets of the Afghan Central Bank
Reserves primarily held by the United States, which were frozen after
the Taliban took control in August 2021. While the initial request for
their release came from the Taliban, China, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan,
and others also have called for their release. Most recently the
Secretary-General of the UN, made a plea, arguing that ‘freezing
temperatures and frozen assets are a lethal combination for the people
of Afghanistan’ and stating that funding should be allowed to pay for
the salaries of public sector workers and to help ‘Afghan institutions
deliver healthcare, education and other vital services’ (UN, 2022). The
US government has finally weighed in on the matter and on 11
February 2022, released US$3.5 billion to be used for aid while
reserving another US$3.5 billion for claims made by victims of 9/11,

against the Taliban regime. While there are concerns about the
Taliban’s appropriation of funds, the Biden administration intends to
funnel the money through international aid organisations (Kelemen,
2022). While these decisions by the United States are problematic for
many reasons, what is interesting is India’s silence on this issue. That
said, India has been active in providing humanitarian support, evident
in its shipments of wheat, basic medicines and COVID-19
vaccinations in 2021 and 2022 (The Hindustan Times, 2022). Some of
these shipments required transportation through Pakistan—a problem
since India-Afghan trade is restricted to one-way transit through
Pakistan. It appears that Pakistan which had earlier refused the transit
of goods from India, did so at the Taliban’s behest upon a request
made by the interim foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (Jamal,
2021).
To understand India’s responses to the Taliban, one must understand
the Taliban’s actions as well. Currently, the Taliban is interested in
presenting itself as an acceptable regime, seeking to meet some of the
expectations of the international community of states. Taliban is also a
fragmented entity, rife with factional struggles between the moderates

and hardliners. It is also not the same entity it was so many years ago
—its survival instincts have led to potential reaching out to opposition
leaders such as Ahmad Massoud (son of the Panjshir leader Ahmad
Shah Massoud), Ismail Khan (governor of Herat) and perhaps even
ex-vice president Amrullah Saleh (Malhotra, 2022). In keeping with
the international focus on human rights violations, especially of
women and children, the Taliban have recently announced that girls
will be allowed an education, though these announcements tend to
vary. And yet, there is no certainty that these promises will be adhered
to, certainly after the Taliban gains a firmer foothold as a governing
regime. As for India, the Taliban appears not to be dismissive of India.
Irrespective of previous misgivings and lack of Indian invitations, it
has been willing to engage in third party states. It has also invited
India to continue investment in Afghanistan (Mishra, 2021). Sher
Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, a senior Taliban leader recently said
that India is ‘very important for this subcontinent’ and that the Taliban
would like to continue Afghanistan’s ‘cultural’, ‘economic’, ‘political’
and ‘trade ties’ with India ‘like in the past’ (Jamal, 2021). Taliban is
well aware of the support India has offered and continues to offer in
terms of the provision of humanitarian aid. But this budding
relationship, if it can be called that, is inevitably coloured by the
presence of Pakistan.
While much has been written on the Pakistan-Taliban nexus, this
nexus is not that simple. Paliwal (2016) examining the foreign policy
behaviour of weak states in a turbulent geopolitical environment,
argues that we can best understand Afghanistan’s policy as being
Pakistan friendly or Pakistan averse and that despite the weakness of
the state, its elites including the Afghan Taliban, understand the
importance of balancing India and Pakistan. He notes that the shifting
ethnic and religious alliances between groups in Afghanistan and
these states show that there is no necessary alignment and reflect its
independent agency. Irrespective of the regimes governing
Afghanistan, it has not budged on accepting the legitimacy of the
Durand Line separating Pakistan and Afghanistan. The recent brief
spat on the border reinforces this position. Taliban have strongly
objected to the fencing that Pakistan has undertaken of the 2,670 km
international border and in December tore down the fences in the
south-eastern Nimroz province, while also clashing along the

Nangarhar province (The Hindu, 2022). More recently, Deputy Prime
Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi, was reputed to have informed
Pakistan’s National Security Advisor Moeed Yusuf that Afghanistan
will not allow its territory to be used for activities against other
countries and further that it would like to hasten the completion of the
Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) pipeline as well as
the Central Asia–South Asia Electricity and Trade project (Malhotra,
2022). According to the International Crisis Group, ‘Taliban, in fact,
at least initially appeared in some ways to be dictating Pakistan’s
policy choices—forcing Islamabad to concede to at least some
demands on cross border movement and pressuring it to reach it to
reach a negotiated settlement with the Pakistani Taliban’
(International Crisis Group, 2022). The capacity of the latter group,
also referred to as the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), to wreck considerable
violence in Pakistan is very much a matter of grave concern for
Pakistan (Ahlawat, 2021).
As for Pakistan, it is telling that Pakistan has not formally recognised
the legitimacy of the regime, a contrast to its previous behaviour in
1996 when it was one of the three countries to recognise the Islamic
Emirate and the last to sever its connection. It is however advocating
for the Taliban through policy announcements, participation in
bilateral talks and multilateral forums seeking the international
community to engage with the Taliban, lift economic sanctions and
provide humanitarian aid (International Crisis Group, 2022). As the
ICG group notes, it is in the interests of Pakistan to exercise any
influence it has, to moderate the actions of the regime, to shore up its
own legitimacy and that of the regime as well, thus allowing both
access to Western political and economic institutions and support of
other states. While Pakistan has an advantage in having a regime
friendly to it, such an ally may prove problematic if it continues to
defy international expectations and there is regime collapse unleashing
a cascade effect of refugee outflow, narcotics trade and increased
radicalism. While India will certainly feel the effects of any such
eventuality, so will Pakistan. Ahmed and Ahlawat note that while
India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads in Afghanistan, they have
much in common. Just as India is concerned about the influence of the
Haqqani network that has been strongly anti-India, so also Pakistan
has much to worry about Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Both states

have security concerns that emerge from the spread of al-Qaeda in
Asia and the Islamic State of Khorasan, which have expansionist plans
and do not consider state borders as legitimate. Both countries face
common concerns related to refugees, with Pakistan having three
million and India 11,000. The drug trade is alarming. It is concerning
that India seized a shipment of 2.7 billion worth of heroin coming
from Afghanistan in September of 2021.
At the other end, China’s actions are worth paying attention to—while
China has not granted formal recognition, it did host a Taliban
delegation as early as July 2021, has continued diplomatic
engagement and has actively pushed for humanitarian support
(providing aid to the tune of US$31 million) and removal of sanctions
in multilateral institutions like the UN. In many regards, China has
been more proactive than India. It is also keen to ensure that the
Taliban do not become a source of support for the Uighur dissidents,
specifically the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), and that its
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is not threatened after
having invested US$62 billion and finally is able to step into the
vacuum left behind by the departure of the US and its allies. Given
Afghanistan’s possession of vast reserves of rare earth minerals,
China’s move is prescient, though its investment in the Mes Aynak
copper mine in Wardak province remains stalled since 2008
(Murtazashvili, 2022).
While the Pakistan-China nexus regarding Afghanistan, is concerning,
it is also worth ruminating on the more recent (June 2022) overtures
between India and Taliban. Pakistan does not seem to have the same
leverage it has historically had and is itself in dire straits given the
political and economic turmoil it routinely faces. China does not enjoy
the kind of historic relationship that India has had and India’s efforts
in the last several decades in terms of capacity building from law and
order to necessities certainly give it a stronger basis for building
bridges. China’s engagement appears to have focused on capital-
intensive projects, like the Belt and Road initiative and these may not
have the same resonance in a war-torn country as the availability of
necessities. Alarms about Chinese lending practices and their
consequences, with the latest case being Sri Lanka also present a
cautionary tale for Afghanistan. India should also capitalise on the fact
that the Afghan population has a favourable opinion of India. While

regimes governing Afghanistan have tilted in India’s direction and
away and they matter, India has a unique advantage, vis-à-vis other
states in terms of society-state relations. Even though one can hardly
call this a sweet spot for India, the fact that two religious-based
governing regimes, one Hindu (and internally anti-Muslim) and the
other hard-core Islamist, have moved beyond secretive meetings to
public diplomatic engagement is indicative of the pragmatism at both
ends. While identities matter as constructivists have so persuasively
argued, they may not be all-encompassing. India’s confident
engagement may also stem from its control of Indian Jammu and
Kashmir, which lost its special status and was integrated as two union
territories under heavy troop presence in 2019. These policy
transitions are in part reflective of global exhaustion, regional
interstate dynamics (especially between India, Pakistan and China)
and pragmatic recognition of the enduring presence of the Taliban by
all parties concerned.
Conclusion
Taliban has been on India’s mind whether in or out of power.
However, India’s policy discussion and action show how interaction

with the Taliban has varied; a potential discourse of engagement that
does not translate into policy outcomes; distancing and opposition;
gradual indirect acquiesce to its growing presence; and finally, détente
of sorts without formal recognition. India is not simply anti-Taliban,
since the 1990s—its policy has evolved and juxtaposes opposition
with accommodation, even a working relationship. Currently, in a
period barely spanning a year, we see India move from secretive,
cautious discussions to more public engagement, continuing its
humanitarian aid. Disengagement with or opposition to the Taliban is
not a valid option—neither serves India’s interests. Afghanistan is in a
tenuous state of existence and its implosion will have resounding
consequences regionally and globally as well. Furthermore, the fear
that the Taliban will foment trouble in India through the support of
Jihadist movements, while a valid fear, should not drive India into an
irrational policy move. Taliban seems open to curbing such actions in
its more recent interactions with India—whether this is a genuine
policy move with implementation capacity remains to be seen. India’s
move to provide technical and humanitarian aid continues its erstwhile
engagement. While there is some reference to the ‘failure of India’s

policy in Afghanistan’ with the seizure of some assets facilitated by
India (Mishra, 2021), these really cannot be seen as ‘losses’ or
‘failures’, rather they are the inevitable consequences of a dynamic
environment. India could hardly have avoided engaging the way it did
prior to the resurgence of the Taliban and in fact, it was lauded for its
commitment and the nature of its engagement. This is a long game, a
consequence of India’s domestic politics and concerns as well as
regional and global power configurations. Whether in this long game,
India should continue a policy of engagement ignoring Taliban’s strict
code of conduct for women and the oppressive conditions of their
marginal existence (Amnesty International, 2022), is a serious
question requiring considerable deliberation and perhaps another
discussion.

Funding

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Taliban 2.0 and Afghanistan–Pakistan Relations

Ejaz Hussain https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3117-1649 ejaz_hussain@outlook.comView all
authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221130546
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
Afghanistan remained at the centre stage of regional and global
politics owing to its unique geopolitical location in the Cold War
period. Afghan jihad of the 1980s impacted not only Afghanistan but
also its neighbours particularly Pakistan. In the post-Cold War period,
civil war engulfed the war-ravaged and poverty-stricken country
which was controlled by the Taliban in 1996. Pakistan recognised the
Taliban rule which was ended by the American military might in the
wake of 9/11. In the post-Taliban period, the USA-led NATO alliance

experimented a Western-style political and economic order in
tradition-bound Afghanistan. Paradoxically, after 20 years, different
political personalities and presidential terms failed to stabilise the
country. Since the Obama years the USA seemed more interested in
Indo-Pacific than West Asia. Hence, it opted to withdraw from
Afghanistan while doing a deal with the Taliban in Doha in February
2020. The withdrawal policy was operationalised by the Biden
Administration. Since 15 August 2021 Afghanistan has been under the
Taliban control for the second time, hence, it is termed Taliban 2.0 by
this study. Compared to their first regime, the Taliban 2.0 has not been
formally recognised by any country so far. Will the Taliban gain
regional, if not, international recognition in the foreseeable future?
Will Pakistan aid the Taliban in this respect? To what extent intra-
Taliban friction impacts bilateral relations? How does Pakistan view
Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and vice versa? And, above all,
how will Afghanistan and Pakistan treat each other in the coming
months? These are some crucial questions that this study attempts to
address underpinned by primary and secondary sources.
Introduction
Afghanistan remained the epicentre of global politics and policy
owing to the Afghan jihad which ended with the Soviet collapse that
also ended the Cold War. Subsequently, civil war engulfed
Afghanistan in which the Taliban emerged as a strong actor by the
mid-1990s. The United States of America (USA) held the Taliban
regime responsible for not only hosting the top Al-Qaeda leadership
but also refusing to hand Bin Laden over to the former in the wake of
9/11 (Rashid, 2010; Sergeev, 2013). Consequently, the USA-led
NATO forces toppled the first Taliban regime (1996–2001) which was
supported by Pakistan diplomatically and strategically. In the post-
Taliban period, despite resort to electoral politics—in which, first,
Hamid Karzai served as president for two terms (2001–2014) and,
later, Ashraf Ghani ruled in power-sharing formula with Abdullah
Abdullah (2014–2021)—Afghanistan could not realise an effective
governance mechanism and a stable politico-economic system
(Murtazashvili, 2022).
Issues of poor governance and security provided a contextual
justification to the US-led military alliance to prolong its stay in the
country in order to neutralise militant organisations which were

deemed to be not only anti-Kabul but also antithetical to the American
interests in West Asia (Malkasian, 2021). Nevertheless, owing to
domestic political factors along with a shifting strategic interest from
South Asia to the Indo-Pacific, the US opted to withdraw from
Afghanistan in August 2021 after doing a deal with the Taliban a year
earlier (Congress, 2018; State Department, 2020).
The deposed president, Ashraf Ghani, had to secretly flee the country
to save his skin (Mohamed & Allahoum, 2021). The Taliban led by
their supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, had
operationally staged their comeback—which is termed Taliban 2.0 in
this study for analytical purposes—to Afghan politics, polity and
economy after a lapse of some 20 years. The US, which had remained
in this war-ravaged country for two decades, opted to conduct a large-
scale rescue operation to evacuate its nationals. Noticeably, the
Taliban, while manifesting military restraint, logistically enabled the
US to complete its withdrawal. However, other militant organisations
such as Islamic State-Khorasan Province (aka ISIS-K) targeted
civilian and security forces during and after the American pullout
(Gardner, 2021). Administratively, the Taliban have controlled

Afghanistan for more than a year. Socioeconomically, however, the
country has been facing a severe humanitarian crisis. Legally, the
Taliban rule lacks de jure recognition from the major powers such as
the US or China. The latter along with Russia and Pakistan have,
however, accorded a de facto approval to the Taliban regime (Cafiero,
2022).
In view of the foregoing, this study tends to address the following
questions. Will the Taliban gain regional, if not, international
legitimacy/recognition? Will Pakistan aid the Taliban in this respect?
To what extent intra-Taliban friction impacts bilateral relations? How
does Pakistan view Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and vice versa?
And, above all, how will Afghanistan and Pakistan treat each other in
the foreseeable future? These are some crucial questions that this
study attempts to address underpinned by primary data, that is, elite
interviews and secondary sources, that is, books.
Taliban 2.0: Politics and Policy

Having assumed administrative control of Kabul on 15 August 2021,
the Taliban claimed victory over rest of the country in political terms.
Though Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front

of Afghanistan—and son of former anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban
Afghan military commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud—put up
resistance against the Taliban forces in Panjshir valley, the latter
thwarted it with the threat of force to the effect that Ahmad left for
Iran where he held talks with the Taliban over power-sharing in
January 2022 (Mehdi, 2022). Another warlord commander from
Herat, Ismail Khan, also resisted initially but later preferred talks to
use of force for political purposes. In the remaining parts of the
country, the Taliban had already established administrative and
military control for the past couple of years. Nonetheless, the way the
USA-led Western forces withdrew under the framework of the 2020
Doha deal further exposed the political and security weaknesses of the
Ghani-Abdullah government which, with the arrival of the Taliban on
15 August, fell like a house of cards. Ghani fled not only the
presidential palace but also the country in a dubious manner. Other
members of the government including Vice President, Amrullah
Saleh, dispersed hurriedly, literally placing the country in the hands of
the Taliban who, while taking full advantage of the power vacuum,
filled it with its manpower and ideology (Basu, 2021).

Post-takeover, Taliban’s politics and policy in this second tenure
received regional and international attention of various stakeholders
such as governments and humanitarian agencies. The latter compared
Taliban 2.0 with the Taliban 1.0 (1996–2001) when they captured
Kabul brutally. Moreover, they run the country in a primordial fashion
by implementing a version of puritan Islam in terms of governance
and jurisprudence. Operationally, thus, gender segregation, tribal
economy, primitive punishments and medieval diplomacy became the
hallmark of the Taliban rule during the said period (Amnesty
International, 2022). As already argued, only Pakistan and a couple of
Gulf Arab countries recognised their rule while rest of the world
including USA, China, Russia and the European Union (EU) carried
reservations, for example, on the issue of women education. However,
the Taliban’s hosting of Osama bin Laden and later their refusal to
hand him over to Washington in the wake of 9/11 caused not only the
quick fall of the Taliban but also the collapse of the rudimentary
governmental and state structures—which were re-established along a
Western-style democratic model post-Bonn Agreement signed in
December 2001. Paradoxically, however, despite the USA-led

Western supervision of democratic order in Afghanistan in the past 20
years through various presidential elections and political personalities
the likes of Karzai and Ghani, Afghanistan practically regressed to the
start of the millennium: political primordialism and ideological
obscurantism couched by none else but the Taliban (Rashid, 2009).
Comparatively, the Taliban 2.0 carries some interesting political and
policy similarities with their first regime. To begin with, while
capturing Kabul on 15 August, the Taliban commanders announced
public mercy; however, they yet manifested their military power
through an effective use of social media. Moreover, as per media
reports they captured and killed around 100 of their top opponents in
different parts of the country (Al Jazeera, 2022b). Second, in order to
look moderate and sound soft to the Western capitals in this second
attempt to govern Afghanistan, the Taliban announced little
restrictions on women mobility and, importantly, education. However,
on the ground though women were seen going to schools and colleges
in, for example, capital Kabul yet they faced stringent restrictions in
other parts of the county (Graham-Harrison, 2022). Moreover, as they
did in the 1990s, this time around there are reports of local bans on
music in, for example, Zabul (Wertheimer, 2021). Third, compared
with their first rule, the Taliban have struggled in the past 1 year in so
far as urban governance is concerned. Hundreds of innocent people
especially from the minorities have been killed in terrorist attacks
launched by ISIS-K since August 2021. Moreover, due to lack of
policy vision and financial resources, little has been done with respect
to, for example, infrastructural development. As far as economy is
concerned, the country is having subsistence agriculture where opium
production has been intensified under the Taliban control. There is
little focus on industry and services. Indeed, the banking sector
seemed to have collapsed post-Taliban takeover (Weitz, 2022).
Moreover, bilateral trade has been informally done, and that too at low
scale, with Pakistan and Iran since the Taliban are yet not formally
recognised by any country in the world.
Last but not the least, owing to increasing food insecurity coupled
with substandard housing particularly in the rural areas, millions of
Afghans are witnessing a humanitarian crisis which has been
aggravated by the Biden Administration freezing Afghanistan’s
financial assets. Had financial resources poured into the country in

time, chronic hunger and abject poverty could have been dealt with
effectively (Hussain, 2022). The Americans seemed to have developed
some serious policy differences with the Taliban, the one the USA did
a deal with and, later, accomplished a hasty withdrawal as discussed
already. Finally, compared to Taliban 1.0 where they were recognised
by at least three countries from the broader region, this time around
their control of the country since 15 August 2021 has not yet been
accepted by any country around the world including Pakistan. The
latter has walked cautiously in a changed geopolitical context where
the USA and the EU seem tough on the regime. Pakistani authorities,
being dependent on the Western financial support, opted not to offend
the USA-led European stakeholders by recognising Afghanistan. This
shall be explained later in the article. However, Islamabad accorded de
facto approval to the Taliban rule. The next section of the article
analyses the legitimacy crisis the Taliban are facing since takeover.
Moreover, the political effects of this lingering crisis on Afghanistan’s
relations with Pakistan are discussed with reference to intra-Taliban
power tussle as well as regional geopolitics.
Lingering Crisis of Legitimacy

Having established their administrative and military control over
Afghanistan, the Taliban might have expected immediate political and
legal recognition from regional and global powers such as the USA
with whom they negotiated the deal that paved the way for Western
withdrawal in August 2021. The fact that both the parties did the said
deal—and the Taliban did not disturb the conduct of American and its
allies’ pull-out after the takeover—political analysts and legal experts
expected a timely recognition of the Taliban by regional and
international powers and institutions such as the Unites Nations.
Ironically, however, the Taliban’s efforts did not pay off. They have
not been formally recognised by any country of the world despite their
diplomatic dynamism of the past 1 year. Pakistan, however, has
accorded a de facto political recognition to the Taliban rule which has
enabled the latter to resume ambassadorial work in Islamabad (Khan,
2021). However, Pakistan has maintained a cautious diplomatic stance
on the recognition issue. In the past, Pakistan was the key player
which not only recognised the Taliban rule but also convinced Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to grant recognition to

the Taliban. Islamabad has adopted a different option this time around
due to certain reasons:
Pakistan became the first country to formally

recognize the Taliban after they defeated their
rivals militarily in 1996. Pakistani [military]
authorities always tried to counter India within
the region and beyond. With Taliban in power
in next-door Afghanistan, Pakistani
policymakers were contended with the fact
that India had little room to maneuver in
Afghanistan in any manner…Other powers
such as Unites States [of America] were in
touch with the top Taliban leadership to
develop trade linkages. Chinese and Russian
would have done the same…However, 9/11
changed all that. Taliban were no match to
American military power… The US[A]
blamed Pakistan for recognizing the Taliban…
It [USA] pressured Pakistani authorities to
reverse their approach on Afghanistan.
(R. Naveed, personal communication, 12
March 2022).
As the above reflects, Pakistan had tense ties with the USA post-9/11.
Given American pressure, though Pakistani military leadership opted
to work with Washington vis-à-vis War on Terror, yet the former did
not completely abandon its traditional stance on neighbouring
Afghanistan:
If realism is true, Pakistan never wished the

American [policy makers] or India to establish
its foothold in that country. To counter India,
Pakistan provided strategic support to [a
section of the] Taliban which it trusted…
Similarly, India and Iran would have
supported their factions since the Taliban were
not a monolithic entity…Now [the] Taliban
are in power once again, Pakistan is not
recognizing them on its own in order to avoid
being labelled as pro-Taliban…it recognized
Taliban last time and faced lot of criticism
from the Western world in the wake of 9/11.
Now, Pakistan wants to recognize Afghanistan
along with other key regional and international
powers so that if the Taliban acts against the
West, Pakistan is not blamed by the latter. (S.
Mustafa, personal communication, 9 April
2022).
What can be deduced from the foregoing is that Pakistan seemed to
have learned from the past. It has been urging the regional and global
powers such as the USA to formally recognise the Taliban rule—and
provide economic assistance to it since it is facing a humanitarian
crisis—yet it has not formally accepted the latter singly in order to
avoid global repercussions particularly on the part of Washington
whose behaviour with the Taliban has remained very aggressive and
non-cooperative post-withdrawal. Moreover, Pakistani civil-military
elite has, in line with the Western and other players such as China,
Russia and Iran, emphasised on an ‘inclusive’ political setup which

contains representatives from other ethnicities, too (Dawn, 2021).
Diplomatically, an inclusivity-oriented stance would, arguably, make
Pakistan’s position not only pluralist and egalitarian but also reflect
non-reliance on any one Afghan stakeholder given intra-Taliban
power tussle, for example, between the Baradar faction and the
Haqqanis—the latter are generally considered close to Pakistan’s
security establishment (Latifi, 2021).
Nonetheless, despite regional and global demand for having an
inclusive political dispensation for realising a stable Afghanistan, the
Taliban leadership so far has not showed any signs of having taken the
regional and international input meaningfully. Regionally, the Taliban
representatives held talks with their counterparts from China, Russia
and the USA (Al Jazeera, 2021). Reportedly, each of the said
stakeholder stressed on having an inclusive government.
Internationally, the Biden Administration has repeatedly urged the
Taliban to fulfil their commitments that they agreed in the deal with
the USA in February 2020. For example, the Taliban were supposed
to treat women and minorities in equitable terms; they were to ensure
effective law and order; they were not supposed to let a non-state actor
such as ISIS plan terror attacks on unarmed and innocent civilians,
both local and foreign. The Taliban have fumbled at achieving the
stated goals in the past 1 year (Al Jazeera, 2022).
Consequently, the USA led by President Joe Biden has not only
hardened its diplomatic stance in terms of non-recognition of the
Taliban, but it has also encouraged its key allies not to establish
diplomatic ties with the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Little
wonder, the Western governments have criticised the Taliban for their
failure to ensure good governance and a stable economy. To add insult
to injury, the Biden Administration allocated half of the frozen
financial assets of Afghanistan to the victims of 9/11 (TRT World,
2022). ‘This is a clear signal to the Taliban regime that the USA views
it as collaborator of Al-Qaeda that planned and executed the terrorist
attacks on the United States twenty years ago.’ (A. Mahmood,
personal communication, 18 April 2022). Indeed, the very presence
and killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s top leader, on
Afghanistan’s soil corroborated the USA’s concerns (Debusmann,
2022). Besides, the remaining half of the frozen funds would

reportedly be put in the so-called Afghan fund which is proposed to
provide economic relief to people facing humanitarian crisis.
Nonetheless, despite the American and the EU’s hard stance on the
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on account of the stated factors,
Pakistan has been busy in the past 1 year, pursuing regional and
international powers and other stakeholders such as global civil
society associations to take a holistic view of Afghanistan, which has
witnessed (civil) wars, faced armed conflicts, observed extreme
poverty and chronic diseases in the past 40 years. Pakistan has urged
the world to rescue Afghanistan at this critical juncture. If the Taliban
and other local contenders for political power do not find a way out in
political terms, Afghanistan may again face a deadly phase of civil
war which would be detrimental for Pakistan, which has already
witnessed refugee influx, drugs and weapons due to Afghan jihad of
the 1980s (Hussain & Jahanzaib, 2015).
Put differently, Pakistan finds itself in a perplexing situation. It
seemingly desires to formally recognise the Taliban as a legitimate
government in Afghanistan yet owing to international implications
such as a tougher diplomatic and economic stance by the USA

through, for example, Financial Action Task Force (FATA),
Islamabad is walking in tandem with both regional and global
stakeholders. Regionally, though the former has strived, in the recent
past, to build a China–Russia–Pakistan bloc to help the Taliban get, at
least, regional recognition. However, it seems both Beijing and Russia
are not yet unanimous in their support owing to their respective
calculations. Arguably, the Chinese would watch what the USA does
in the coming months since a purely China-led initiative regarding
Taliban-recognition would carry geopolitical and commercial
challenges for the former vis-à-vis Washington and its key European
allies. Similarly, Russia would safeguard its own regional interests. It
still maintains close strategic and commercial ties with India.
Moreover, Russia has strategic stakes in Central Asian States (CAS)
which, interestingly, are deeply engaged with New Delhi. Importantly,
when Pakistan hosted an ‘extraordinary’ OIC summit on Afghanistan
in December 2021, the foreign ministers of all the CAS attended an
India-led session on Afghanistan (Hussain, 2021). This reflects
divergence of interests and strategies not only between India and
Pakistan but also among Pakistan and the CAS. Whether Pakistan
would continue to support the Taliban gain regional, if not
international, recognition in formal terms and whether an inclusive
government is formed in the foreseeable future—and how this impacts
Afghanistan–Pakistan bilateral relations—are discussed in the
following section.
At a Crossroads
Afghanistan–Pakistan relations are at a crossroads. Since the Taliban’s
takeover of the country on 15 August 2021, Pakistan has not only
accorded de facto recognition to the Taliban rule but also urged its
regional allies such as China to manoeuver (extra-) regional support
for the Taliban with respect to formal recognition, that in Islamabad’s
calculation, would help find ways to establish an inclusive political
setup there. This, however, has not materialised in the past 1 year due
to factors and forces highlighted in the previous pages. Since the
political, socioeconomic and security situation is currently murky in
Afghanistan—and it is hard to predict on the future course of direction
due to lack of first-hand data—the following is a predictive attempt
based on certain scenarios. This may deductively provide some
insights into the foreseeable future of Afghanistan, on the one hand,

and Afghanistan–Pakistan relations, on the other. To begin with, the
legitimacy crisis is the key challenge for the Taliban regime which it
is struggling with since the takeover in August 2021. This legitimacy
crisis with respect to formal recognition may be managed in the
following three scenarios, each carrying its pitfalls, too.
First scenario: The Taliban-controlled Afghanistan’s legitimacy crisis
can be resolved amicably if the USA led by President Biden opts to
accord (in)formal recognition to the former. In that case, the Taliban
would be able to get not only their frozen funds back but also get
much-needed economic aid along with access to the American and
European markets. This would gradually put the country on the track
of political and socioeconomic stability. Nevertheless, given the
current mistrust between the USA and the Taliban, the likelihood of
such cooperation and consequent recognition is very low. In order to
win the American confidence, the Taliban would need to treat women
and minorities equitably, clear its soil of non-state actors such as Al-
Qaeda and refrain from hurting the USA’s interests in the region.
Pakistan, being in strategic cahoots with the Taliban, would also need
to reset its ties with Washington in a manner that assuages the latter’s
past grievances. Whether Kabul and Islamabad are willing to act as
per American desire is to be seen. The other side of this scenario is
that if the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and the military-dominated
Pakistan opt to either ignore or harm American interests in South Asia
and beyond, both Afghanistan and Pakistan are very likely to face
tough measures such as economic sanctions. It would be even hard for
Pakistan to accrue funds from the IMF. In addition, the country may
also struggle to get clearance from the Financial Action Task Force
(FATF, 2022).
Second, if the Taliban regime is not bothered about the USA, it would
try to seek regional recognition from major powers such as China and
Russia. Here, one can build a sub-scenario: Due to global geopolitics
between China and the USA, the former is least likely to accord a
formal recognition to the Taliban despite Pakistan’s urgings in a
singular fashion because Beijing’s topmost priority seemingly is to
avoid confrontation with Washington in South Asia and safeguard its
interest in the Taiwan strait. Similarly, Russia, owing to its own
regional calculations, is not likely to formally approve of the Taliban
rule in the coming days. Moscow’s topmost priority currently is to

handle the Ukraine crisis in its favour (The Indian Express, 2022).
Importantly, however, both China and Russia have engaged the
Taliban leadership diplomatically. Moreover, India has engaged
Russia and the Central Asian States on Afghanistan with a desire to
open a communication channel with the Taliban in order to realise its
regional objectives, that is, countering Pakistan (The Hindu, 2021). If
this materialises, such a move would jeopardise Afghanistan–Pakistan
relations. Reportedly, India is already in touch with the Taliban
leadership through back-channel diplomacy (Al Jazeera, 2022a).
Faced with economic hardships, the regime’s top priority is to get
economic assistance from all possible sources including New Delhi.
Being India’s archrival, Pakistan, is likely to counter India’s presence
in Afghanistan. However, Pakistan may face challenges in this
respect:
The Afghan Taliban and Tehreek-i-Taliban

[TTP] share close ethnic and ideological ties
which have been strengthened immensely after
the regime change in Afghanistan. To that
extent Pakistan’s calculus was misplaced as
the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have taken
a well thought out decision to protect the TTP
and act as arbiters in the negotiations. TTP’s
attacks inside Pakistan during the past year
only support [this] logic. Pakistan’s options
are limited due to factors of geopolitics and
perhaps realpolitik. Military action seems to be
the very last and distant recourse…Pakistan’s
control over the TTP was greatly exaggerated
at the best of times and is perhaps only
marginal now. It does not seem likely that our
relations will be restored to the extent that it
existed in the heydays of the Jihad…
I am not too sure of the factors which led to
the group [TTP] taking roots in this region.
But obviously the cadres are local extremists
and breakaway factions.
(S. Saeed, personal communication, 15 August
2022).
The above highlights frictions between Afghanistan and Pakistan in
the past 1 year. The Taliban regime has instrumentalised the TTP very
smartly vis-à-vis Pakistan particularly its military which is a key
player in so far as relations with Kabul are concerned. Indeed, the TTP
has attacked the state institutions in Pakistan in the past 1 year (Gilani,
2022). Currently, Pakistan’s civil-military leadership is engaging TTP
diplomatically than militarily. However, if Afghanistan and India get
closer at the expense of Pakistan in the foreseeable future, the TTP is
likely to get emboldened to carry out more terrorist activities in
Pakistan, thus, ruining Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, on the one
hand, and endangering regional peace and stability, on the other.
Second scenario: In the second scenario, it is likely that China and
Russia may formally recognise the Taliban rule in strategic
understanding with Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian States. If this
happens, it would, in the short run, strengthen the Taliban politically
and commercially since Afghanistan, being land-locked, is linked with
regional markets of the said countries. Hence, there would be enough
room for bilateral and multilateral trade and economic cooperation.
However, in the long run, India and the USA, whose bilateral strategic
cooperation is on the rise, are very likely to undo such a bloc through
various measures such as economic sanctions and using anti-Taliban
proxies in terms of guerrilla warfare. In other words, durable peace
and socioeconomic security in Afghanistan would remain a distant
dream.
Third scenario: Another plausible but challenging scenario revolves
around a collective effort to find consensual solution to the
Afghanistan problem. For this to materialise, USA, China and Russia
need to play a pivotal role in terms of urging regional stakeholders
such as India, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian States to avail, for
example, the UN forum in order to reach a consensus on the nature
and character of the future Afghan government along with defining
ways and means to support such a setup politically and economically.
In other words, the much-hyped inclusive government can only be
established if all stakeholders agree on the said scenario. Divergences
in this respect will lead to different paths and perspectives, thus,
adding to Afghanistan’s troubles.
Conclusion
Afghanistan has remained in the grip of (civil) wars in its recent, if not
remote, history. In the wake of 9/11, Taliban’s first stint in power was
ended by the USA and its allies. However, despite the latter’s desires
and designs, political and socioeconomic stability and security could
not be realised in the last 20 years. The USA, due largely to its
shifting strategic interests from West Asia to Indo-Pacific, preferred to
withdraw from Afghanistan. In the post-withdrawal period, the
Taliban have controlled Afghanistan politically and militarily.
Ironically, however, the Taliban rule has not been formally recognised
by any county including Pakistan that strategically supported the
Taliban in the past 1 year. However, Pakistan has accorded a de facto
recognition to the Taliban.
The study deductively built three scenarios under which the Taliban
may possibly get (in)formal recognition from the USA, China, Russia
and other regional stakeholders such as Iran, India and Central Asian
States. However, each scenario has its pitfalls, too. For example, if the
American interests are harmed by the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan,
the latter would face consequences such as economic sanctions.
Similarly, if Russia and China along with Iran, Central Asian States
and Pakistan choose to formally recognise the Taliban rule, this would
antagonise not only anti-Taliban factions within Afghanistan but also
expose regional geopolitical fault lines between USA and China and
their allies such India and Pakistan, respectively. India seems in touch
with the Taliban through backdoor diplomacy. In case India–
Afghanistan ties improve at the expense of Pakistan in the coming
months, this would impact Afghanistan–Pakistan relations negatively.
In such a scenario, anti-Pakistan elements such as TTP’s
instrumentality would serve as a means for the Afghan Taliban to deal
with Islamabad antagonistically. Here, it is pertinent to mention that
the Taliban did not recognise the Durand Line as international border
between the two countries in their first tenure, and they have
maintained a similar stance in the current context too.
The best scenario for the Taliban and Afghanistan could be the one
where regional and international stakeholders, namely, USA, China,
Russia, Pakistan, India, Iran and Central Asian States reach a
consensus on an inclusive political dispensation that is representative
of all Afghan interests. If this is achieved, Afghanistan would realise a
meaningful stability and security. However, this is easier said than

done. Due to divergence of interests and choices of the said
stakeholders, such a scenario seems less probable. The worst scenario
could be where the Taliban’s legitimacy crisis lingers on beyond
2022, where no regional and international player is willing to accord a
formal recognition to the former. In that case, the Taliban will find
little economic base to feed its population which is already facing a
humanitarian crisis. Moreover, internal in-fighting over power-sharing
within the Taliban ranks cannot be ruled out. Such schism invites
elements such as ISIS-K to establish its footholds in the country. In
addition, (extra-) regional players such as India and USA may try to
win over various warring Taliban factions in order to use them as
proxies against Pakistan, China and Iran. In other words, civil war
seems likely in this worst-case scenario.
Currently, however, the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is
approaching all major players such as China, Russia and the USA in a
bid to end its legitimacy crisis. Pakistan is playing a lead role in this
respect due to its own strategic and commercial interests. Indeed,
Pakistan and China have urged other regional stakeholders to provide
economic support to the Afghan people under China–Pakistan

Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is a part of China’s Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI). The latter may get disturbed in South Asia, at least, if
Afghanistan witnesses more turmoil in the days ahead. Similarly,
Pakistan’s economic and governance problems will be doubled if
there is political and socioeconomic unrest in Afghanistan. The latter’s
future is as much dependent on domestic power machinations as it is
on (extra-) regional political economy. A reconciliation between the
two variables, on the one hand, can provide with a viable course of
action that can incrementally ensure durable peace and socioeconomic
stability in Afghanistan and, on the other hand, consolidate
Afghanistan–Pakistan relations under the Taliban 2.0.

Funding
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The Pragmatic Neighbour: China’s Afghanistan

Policy 2001–2021
Stephen P. Westcott stephen.westcott@manipal.eduView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221129909
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
China has remained detached from the events in Afghanistan,
generally playing a passive role during the US-led war in its
neighbour and refusing to actively support any parties in the conflict.
However, Beijing was prompt to embrace Taliban 2.0 as the new
power in Kabul as Ashraf Ghani’s regime collapsed in the wake of the
US withdrawal in August 2021. At first glance, this appears to be a
shift in policy from China’s previous apathetic stance to actively
taking the Taliban’s side. Yet, a closer look at China’s actions reveal
that it has maintained a consistently narrow and pragmatic policy
towards its neighbour since 2002. This article unpacks China’s
remarkably consistent Afghanistan policy, identifying its basis in two
primary interests: ensuring stability in its Xinjiang province and trade
with Central Asia. As long as Beijing is able to secure the willing
cooperation from the main parties within Afghanistan to securing
these interests, it is indifferent as to who the authority in Kabul is.
Introduction
As the United States increasingly edged towards withdrawing from
Afghanistan in the late-2010s, a common line of argument within the
commentariat was that China would seek to fill the power vacuum in
Afghanistan (Campbell, 2021; Wong & Feng, 2021; Zhou, 2021). At
first glance, the logic of this position is sound. China is the
penultimate power in the international system, Afghanistan’s
neighbour by virtue of the Wakhan Corridor and has been actively
pursuing its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which has seen it invest
heavily in countries throughout Central Asia. Furthermore, since the
2014 NATO drawdown, China shed its passive approach and moved
to play a more active mediator role within Afghanistan. When the US
completed its final chaotic withdrawal in August 2021, allowing the
Taliban to sweep into power as the Ashraf Ghani regime collapsed,
the Chinese were quick to acknowledge the changed situation. Indeed,
the Chinese Foreign Minister welcomed a Taliban delegation to
Tianjin in July 2021, three weeks before they captured Kabul, to
effectively establish the ground rules for China’s engagement with a
future Taliban regime (MFA, 2021).
Most commentators were quick to stress that Beijing’s engagement
with the Taliban was tentative and highly conditional (Fischer &
Stanzel, 2021; Tiezzi, 2021). Nonetheless, China quickly adapted to
the new normal in Afghanistan, with its embassy remaining open and
unmolested during the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s collapse.
Although China did not formally acknowledge the Taliban regime, it
did pledge to provide Afghanistan food aid and equipment, and has
called for the unfreezing of Afghani financial assets in international
financial institutions (Calabrese, 2021). Furthermore, Beijing engaged
diplomatically with the Taliban regime, most notably promoting the
‘Pine Nuts Air Corridor’ which saw China promote Afghan produced
pine nuts as a symbolic gesture of assistance towards the Afghanistan
agriculture sector (MFA, 2022a). Yet one question has remained
largely unexamined: how different have these actions been for China’s
previous Afghanistan policy?
This article argues that, rather than being driven by any sense of
opportunistic realpolitik or broader geopolitical considerations,
China’s Afghanistan policy was and remains purely pragmatic and
parochial, driven by two specific policy objectives. First, Beijing
wants to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven and
springboard for insurgent groups seeking to destabilise Xinjiang.
More precisely, China wants to ensure that the East Turkistan Islamic
Movement (ETIM),1 which Beijing blames for most of the Uyghur

unrest in Xinjiang, and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP),
which actively claims western China as part of an Islamic Caliphate
under its jurisdiction, have no safe spaces in Afghanistan. Second,
China wants to cultivate deeper economic ties and investments within
Afghanistan and the broader Central Asian region. Although Chinese
investment within Afghanistan has been relatively miniscule owing to
years of insurgency and civil war, Beijing has shown great interest in
exploiting natural resources in the region and expanding some of its
existing Belt and Road Initiative programs through Afghanistan.
Additionally, China wants to ensure that disturbances in Afghanistan
will not affect the rest of Central Asia where its investments are more
comprehensive.
This article advances this argument in four sections. The first provides
an overview of China’s engagements with Afghanistan prior to the
US-led invasion of 2001, exploring how China’s relations with
Afghanistan have evolved in the contemporary era and the nature of
Beijing’s initial engagements with the Taliban. The second section
then elaborates on the two core interests that has been driving China’s
Afghanistan policy for the past 20 years. The third section covers
China’s Afghanistan policy during the 20-year US occupation of the
country from 2001 to 2021, with a particular focus on the post-2014
period leading up to the collapse of the Afghanistan Islamic Republic
in August 2021. The final section briefly examines how China’s
pragmatic Afghanistan policy has continued under the Taliban 2.0
regime and the various opportunities and challenges Beijing is likely
to face in the future.
China-Afghan Relations Prior to the US-led

War on Terror
Historically, Afghanistan has always been on the periphery of Chinese
strategic thinking, being far removed from the major population
centres of the Han heartlands located closer to the western Pacific
coast. The territory of present-day Afghanistan was historically a
notable land corridor of the famous Silk Road trade network that
linked China with the Mediterranean world during the Classical and
Middle Ages. Additionally, the Pamir mountains, where China,
Afghanistan and present-day Tajikistan intersect, was a major theatre
for the Great Game between imperial Britain and Russia (Segal,
1981). In the modern era, Sino-Afghanistan relations were formally

established in 1955, 6 years after the establishment of the People’s
Republic of China. Yet, the two neighbours’ diplomatic interactions
after formal ties had been established remained perfunctory at best,
with few interactions of note. Arguably, the most significant
development in Sino-Afghan relations during this initial phase was the
negotiated resolution of their ambiguous border. Initially the
legitimacy of Afghanistan’s sovereignty over the thin Wakhan
Corridor was unclear, with the borders having been drawn by Imperial
Britain and Russia who were more interested in creating a buffer
between their two empires than securing an agreement from Beijing
and Kabul. Nonetheless, following some preliminary discussions in
1962, the two sides quickly reached an agreement in June 1963. Under
this agreement, China recognised the 76 km border that was
established by the 1895 Russo-British Agreement and formally
accepted Afghanistan’s sovereignty over the Wakhan Corridor
(Fravel, 2008, pp. 118–119).
The Soviet Union’s military invasion and occupation of Afghanistan
in December 1979 prompted China to pay closer attention to its
western neighbour. Beijing viewed the invasion as a potential threat to

its national security, since it believed that the Soviet move, apart from
causing regional instability, was designed to strategically encircle
China (Segal, 1981, pp. 1166–1168). In response, China became a key
participant in Pakistan’s and the United States’ covert efforts to foster
and assist the Afghan mujahideen resistance to the Soviet occupation.
More specifically, China started providing weapons to the Afghan
mujahideen through Pakistan and collaborated with the US to
establish electronic intelligence centres in Xinjiang to monitor Soviet
activity (Small, 2015, pp. 122–126; Umarov, 2017, pp. 385–286).
Following the Soviet Union’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989,
China’s interest in Afghanistan subsided considerably.
However, China’s concerns over Afghanistan were quickly rekindled
in 1992 as the collapse of the communist Najibullah regime saw the
country descend into civil war with different warlords carving out
fiefdoms and jostling for power. The escalating violence and
deteriorating security situation prompted China to close its embassy in
Afghanistan in February 1993; meaning that for the next 9 years,
Beijing had no formal presence in the country. Throughout the 1990s,
China maintained a strict non-interference policy towards Afghanistan

as Beijing wanted to avoid getting drawn into the ‘graveyard of
empires’ (Chaziza, 2018, p. 145). Instead, China concentrated on
strengthening its western borders to prevent Islamist militants and
drug smugglers that proliferated in the region from entering Xinjiang.
The establishment of the ‘Taliban 1.0’ regime in Afghanistan in 1996
did not change the equation significantly. At Pakistan’s request, China
did engage in some preliminary trade negotiations with the Taliban
1.0 regime. Beijing also considered recognising the Taliban 1.0
regime but eventually did not do so. Overall, these interactions
produced little of real substance prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and
the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan (Sharma, 2019, pp. 552–
553; Small, 2015, pp. 126–130).
Beijing’s Twofold Interests in Afghanistan

Domestic and international developments in the late-1990s gradually
compelled China to pay closer attention to Afghanistan and the region.
First and foremost, the growing anarchy in Afghanistan and increasing
restiveness among the population in Xinjiang made China increasingly
nervous that Islamist insurgency could break out within its borders
and threaten national stability, development and territorial integrity.

Beijing therefore actively sought to secure its western border against
any infiltration by Islamist forces based in Afghanistan. The Chinese
leadership further recognised that Afghanistan had become the leading
source of the ‘Islamic threat’ in the region.
A second reason why Beijing began to take Afghanistan and Central
Asia more seriously from the late-1990s was economic in nature. The
Chinese economy was witnessing rapid growth during this time and
Beijing began casting around for more economic opportunities and
ways through which to avoid the chokepoints of the Malacca and
Sunda straits. Hence, Beijing began to view Afghanistan and Central
Asia’s energy and mineral resources with a covetous eye. Initially,
China developed a number of joint projects with Central Asia and
Afghanistan in an ad hoc manner. However, in 2013, President Xi
Jinping gave form and direction to China’s regional investment with
his declaration of the Belt and Road Initiative. Afghanistan’s strategic
position at the crossroads of Asia thus ensured its growing
significance for China, which was now more open to investing in
projects within the country and ensuring that it does not disrupt
commerce.
Suppressing Dissent in Xinjiang
Over the past two decades, the fear that Islamist Uyghur groups would
gain a safe haven and base of operations in Afghanistan has driven
Beijing’s policy towards the country. Chinese leaders have been
particularly worried that as the Uyghur unrest gathers steam in
Xinjiang, separatist Uyghur groups abroad could inspire, assist and
actively conduct attacks against Chinese authorities in Xinjiang from
bases located in the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. However, most
observers outside of China have expressed scepticism as to the
seriousness of the secessionist and Islamist movements within
Xinjiang, with several accusing Beijing of playing up the threat to
justify its repressive actions in the province (Roberts, 2020;
Tschantret, 2018). These charges notwithstanding, there have been
several notable instances of Muslim Uyghurs fighting either in
Afghanistan or for al Qaeda aligned Islamist groups elsewhere while
others have been inspired to wage a jihad against China. Furthermore,
Xinjiang has remained a restive province, with mass protests, ethnic
riots and attempted insurrections occurring intermittently over the past
30 years (Dillon, 2019).

According to the Chinese government narrative, there are two related
but distinct strains of ‘extremist forces’ present in Xinjiang. These are
the ‘pan-Turkism’ and ‘pan-Islamism’ forces, which were originally
encouraged by ‘colonialists’ and took root in sections of the
population. Supporters of these ideologies have made several
unsuccessful attempts to stoke ethnic nationalism and religious
extremism in order to establish an independent East Turkistan
Republic (Xinhua, 2019). While there have been several different
movements in Xinjiang that have sought to create a separate East
Turkistan state during the twentieth century, the origins of the recent
violence lie in the anti-Soviet Afghanistan war in the 1980s. This
period coincided with relatively relaxed control within Xinjiang,
which allowed many Uyghurs to travel to Pakistan to join the Afghan
jihad. In Pakistan, these Uyghurs received religious education in the
country’s network of madrassas, which prepared them for joining with
the Afghan mujahedeen in the fight against the Soviet military in
Afghanistan (Small, 2015, pp. 72–73).
The first signs that the conflict in Afghanistan could spill over into
China occurred in 1990 when a series of protests erupted throughout

Xinjiang. Initially these demonstrations were in reaction to increasing
economic inequality and a number of culturally insensitive laws that
had generated widespread resentment at the way Beijing was treating
the Uyghur people. However, Islam quickly became a rallying point
for many of these protests as it was viewed as a distinguishing feature
of Uyghur culture and some protestors clearly expressed separatist
sentiments and aspirations. These sentiments were further stirred up
by a group that called itself the East Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP).
The ETIP was reported to comprise of a mixture of local Salafists and
returned mujahideen fighters from Afghanistan (Dillon, 2019, pp. 50–
51; Roberts, 2020, pp. 52–53). It is unclear how many members or
followers this group had or how coordinated its operations were, but it
was reportedly behind a series of bus bombings and assassinations of
Uyghurs perceived to be collaborating with Beijing throughout the
early to mid-1990s (Li, 2019, pp. 316–317; Steele & Kuo, 2007, pp.
7–8). The most notable of the ETIP’s efforts was the 1990 ‘Baren
incident’ in which they attempted to formulate an armed insurrection
in a small town south of Kashgar, killing several local communist

party cadres and policemen before being suppressed by the military
(Dillon, 2019, pp. 50–52; Small, 2015, p. 74).2
China responded to this initial wave of Islamist and separatist inspired
violence with heavy handed police action, culminating in the first
‘Strike Hard, Maximum Pressure’ campaign in 1996. Under this
policy, the police cracked down on protests with considerable force
and arrested anybody suspected of being associated with separatist
groups or harbouring nationalist or Islamist sentiments. The Chinese
authorities also made a concerted effort to forcibly secularise the
region and suppress the use of Uyghur language and the religious
elements of Uyghur culture (Steele & Kuo, 2007, p. 6; Tschantret,
2018, p. 577). This police crackdown, although widely viewed as a
disproportionate response to Uyghur separatism and violent political
agitation, was successful in suppressing the ETIP. It also prompted
many Uyghur nationalists and Islamists to flee the country. One of the
most notable of these exiles was Hasan Makhsum,3 who fled to
Afghanistan in 1998 where he founded the East Turkistan Islamic
Movement (ETIM). This group was accused by China of developing
close relations with al Qaeda and the Taliban and plotting several
terrorist attacks during the 2000s and 2010s (Roberts, 2020, pp. 100–
116). There is, however, no clear evidence that the ETIM was able to
successfully plan, organise and execute any terror attacks inside China
during the late-1990s and 2000s.
The presence of Uyghur Islamists in Afghanistan also prompted China
to begin coordinating with its Central Asian neighbours to combat the
‘three evils’ of terrorism, separatism and religious fundamentalism.
These evils were identified as regional threats in the 1998 Tashkent
Summit, and an initiative to suppress them was adopted by the
Shanghai Cooperation Organisation when it was formed in July 2001
(SCO, 2001). This articulation of the ‘three evils’ allowed China to
update its lexicon and reframe the ETIM’s activities as ‘terrorist
attacks’ rather than ‘counter revolutionary rebellions’ in an effort to
gain more international sympathy (Rodriguez-Merino, 2019). It also
prompted China to work more actively with it its Central Asian
neighbours to suppress Uyghur political movements and agitations. It
further allowed Beijing to take advantage of the Global War on Terror
to gain international support for its position that the ETIM was a
terrorist organisation that posed a significant threat to China’s internal

security as well as the internal security of neighbouring Central Asian
states (Roberts, 2020, pp. 67–81).
However, simmering Uyghur resentment at China’s oppressive
policies eventually overflowed into violence in 2008. In early-2008,
the ETIM (having rebranded itself as the Turkistan Islamic Party and
operating in the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan)
released a series of videos calling for an attack on the Beijing
Olympics in response to China’s oppression of the Uyghur Muslims.
While China’s security remained tight at the Beijing Olympics, there
were several terror attacks in Xinjiang, with terrorists targeting police
posts wielding knives and improvised explosive devices (Small, 2015,
pp. 84–85; Tschantret, 2018, pp. 579–580).4 The pace and scale of
terrorist attacks in Xinjiang increased in the early-2010s despite
China’s best efforts to suppress them. More concerningly for Beijing,
terrorist attacks began to occur outside of Xinjiang. For instance, in
October 2013, an attack in Tiananmen Square by alleged ETIM
terrorists killed five people, including the three attackers when their
car caught fire and exploded. Then in March 2014, eight Uyghur
terrorists wielding knives went on a rampage in Kunming Train

Station in Yunnan province, killing 33 people and injuring about 150
more before the attackers were killed by the police (Krishnan &
Johny, 2022, pp. 162–163; Roberts, 2020, pp. 161–171).
The ETIM claimed responsibility for most of the terrorist incidents
within China between 2008 and 2014, declaring that its members
either trained the terrorists, supplied the materials and/or authorised
the attacks. Owing to the amateurish nature of many of the attacks and
deep-seated ethnic grievances in Xinjiang, many Western analysts
have expressed doubt over whether ETIM, or any other external
Islamist movement, provided any significant assistance to the
attackers (Dillon, 2019, pp. 150–151; Small, 2015, pp. 86–88).
Nonetheless, these attacks prompted Beijing to tighten security in
Xinjiang and declare a ‘people’s war on terror’. In essence, this
involved a heavy police presence to impose a number of restrictions
on movement, association and religious activity, eventually
culminating in the establishment of ‘re-education camps’ in 2017 as
part of an effort to purge any trace of Islamism from the region
(Roberts, 2020, pp. 176–182). Simultaneously, China sought regional
cooperation to deny the ETIM, and other Uyghur groups, any safe
havens or space of operations in the region. Given that the ETIM was
known to be primarily operating in the Afghan–Pakistan borderlands,
China put pressure on both governments to crack down on ETIM
activities. Beijing also sought assistance from SCO states in
monitoring and suppressing Uyghur groups in their countries.
In the mid-2010s, a potentially more virulent threat emerged within
Afghanistan when the Islamic State dispatched operatives to establish
the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) as its representative in
the region. When the formation of the ISKP was announced in January
2015, the Islamic State explicitly included China within its remit in
the hope of attracting Uyghur recruits. While the ETIM has remained
loyal to al Qaeda, there have been reports that some ETIM members
and previously unaffiliated Uyghurs have joined or pledged allegiance
to the ISKP (Giustozzi, 2018; Pantucci, 2021). To date, the ISKP’s
activities have remained largely confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan
and there has been no evidence that ISKP members have actively
attempted an attack inside China. The ISKP’s proclamations however
frequently include references to Xinjiang and China’s treatment of the
Muslim Uyghur population there. Furthermore, the ISKP’s attacks on

border posts in Tajikistan has raised Beijing’s concerns that it would
be a matter of time before the group makes a serious effort to launch
an attack on Chinese soil (Fischer & Stanzel, 2021, pp. 2–3;
Nourzhanov & Saikal, 2021, pp. 138–139).
Advancing the Belt and Road

The second core reason for China’s renewed interest in Afghanistan
stemmed from economic and commercial interests. Since the early-
2000s, Beijing has kept a keen eye on Afghanistan’s potential as an
investment opportunity. China has gradually built linkages and
invested in infrastructure in Central Asian countries in order to open
up the region for Chinese trade. Initially this was part of the informal
‘March Westward’, which was driven by two key problems that
Beijing had identified around the turn of the millennium. First was the
uneven economic development within China favouring the eastern
coastal cities. Chinese leaders understood that this would likely cause
resentment which could destabilise the country and the Communist
Party’s monopoly rule. To address this problem, China launched the
Great Western Development program, which saw a concerted effort to
expand infrastructure and promote economic growth in its central and

western provinces, including Xinjiang (Dillon, 2019, pp. 75–80).
Second, Chinese strategists were concerned about trade bottlenecks,
especially around the Strait of Malacca, which could leave China
vulnerable to a naval blockade by the US navy acting in concert with
allies. With room to manoeuvre in East Asia and the Pacific curtailed
by an established US and its allies military presence, China sought to
deepen its economic relations with Central Asian states, Russia and
Pakistan and invest in a verity of projects (Zhao, 2016, p. 896).
The ‘March Westwards’ was more a theme than a deliberately
designed policy strategy, which ensured that China’s investment and
projects in Central Asia progress in an ad hoc manner. By 2013,
however, the Chinese leaders realised that a more coordinated and
ambitious effort was needed in order to deepen China’s economic and
commercial ties in the region. Chinese leaders were also aware that
China’s rise in the twenty-first century has generated strong
nationalist sentiments at home, which the Communist Party had to
harness constructively or risk losing its legitimacy and grip on power
(Ali, 2020, pp. 94–96; Ferdinand, 2016). Hence, in September 2013,
during a state visit to Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping

announced China’s plans to create a ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ of
interlinked economic hubs and infrastructure projects that would
stretch across the Eurasian continent. One month later in Indonesia, Xi
declared China’s intent to establish the ‘21st Century Maritime Silk
Road’ of major ports throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans. These
policies were then officially combined at the November 2013 Third
Party Plenary session of the eighteenth Party Congress to become the
One Belt One Road Strategy, later renamed the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) (Xinhua, 2015).5 While there has been some debate as
to the effectiveness of China’s efforts to roll out a project of this scope
and magnitude, it is undeniable that the BRI has become central to
Chinese foreign policy efforts over the past decade (Ali, 2020;
Rolland, 2017).
The Chinese leadership recognised Afghanistan’s potential importance
for this grand project, with the country’s central location offering the
shortest overland route to West Asia and the Persian Gulf region.
During the late-2000s, the Afghan government also started marketing
itself as the ‘heart of Asia’, in part to attract Chinese investment into
its resource and infrastructure sectors (Safi & Alizada, 2018; Zhao,
2013). However, China remained wary of investing in Afghanistan,
only signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Afghanistan in
2016 to connect the country with the BRI. On the basis of this
Memorandum of Understanding, plans were announced to develop
Afghanistan’s infrastructure and connect the country with the wider
BRI network. Of note, projects such as the ‘Sino-Afghan railway’ or
the ‘Five Nations Highway’ were revealed, which would link
Afghanistan with Iran and Central Asian states. It was also suggested
that Afghanistan could be connected with the China–Pakistan
Economic Corridor (CPEC) through the extension of oil pipelines and
rail and road hubs. There were also proposals to develop and open the
Tegermansu Pass on the Chinese–Afghan border for trade (Safi &
Alizada, 2018, pp. 20–39).
Arguably of more interest to China is Afghanistan’s significant
mineral deposits that hold the potential for exploitation, with estimates
of untapped mineral wealth ranging between US$1 trillion and US$3
trillion (Ali, 2020, pp. 6–7; Umarov, 2017, p. 401). The most notable
Chinese direct investment in this sector was connected with the
unsuccessful efforts to construct a mine in Mes Aynak, reported to

hold one of the world’s largest unexploited deposits of copper.
Despite a Chinese business consortium signing a contract in 2008 for
the rights to extract and refine the copper from the Mes Aynak mine,
little progress was made in further developing the mine. Another
Chinese company signed a deal to prospect for oil in the Amu Darya
basin in 2011; but extraction efforts could not begin until 2018, and
even then the actual production was limited (Marty, 2018; Small,
2015, pp. 140–142). In an effort to overcome some of these issues and
stimulate trade, in 2015 China and Afghanistan signed a bilateral
agreement to remove taxes on several products. Although bilateral
trade increased nearly fivefold by 2021, most of the trade was in niche
agricultural products such as pine nuts (Krishnan & Johny, 2022, pp.
106–107).
Despite Afghanistan’s strategic importance to the BRI and China’s
growing interest in cultivating projects within the country, during the
2010s the ongoing Taliban insurgency, political instability and poor
infrastructure dissuaded Chinese companies from investing heavily in
Afghanistan. The economic and infrastructure projects that were
funded were deeply plagued by corruption and suffered losses due to

poor infrastructure and difficulties in procuring quality materials and
labour. Consequently, most Chinese companies doing business in
Afghanistan found it difficult to earn a profit or generate a significant
return on their investments (Small, 2015, pp. 135–138; Zhu, 2018, pp.
288–289). Due to these problems, most of China’s current
infrastructure initiatives have deftly avoided Afghanistan, passing
through Central Asia and Pakistan instead, with no evidence that any
of the planned BRI projects within Afghanistan will materialise soon.
Chinese Engagement with Afghanistan: 2001–

2021
The quest to deny Uyghur separatists/Islamists any safe haven outside
of Xinjiang and the desire to cultivate economic investments within
Central Asia have driven China’s Afghanistan policy. To achieve
these dual policy objectives, China’s Afghanistan policy over the past
20 years has been driven by pragmatic opportunism, with Beijing
refusing to actively support any one actor and work with all parties.
Hence, China decided to keep a relatively low profile in Afghanistan
between 2001 and 2011. Officially, Beijing supported the US invasion
following the 9/11 terrorist attacks but in practice it contributed little

other than sharing some intelligence and reopening its embassy in
Kabul in February 2002, 9 years after the embassy had been closed
(Scobell, 2015, p. 328; Zhao, 2013, p. 5).
Nonetheless, China did engage in some investment and diplomatic
overtures within Afghanistan during this period. Most notably, Beijing
also sought to contribute to the international aid effort. Beijing
initially pledged US$4.5 million in financial aid for the Karzai
government, although this amount was subsequently raised to US$150
million when it became apparent that the original sum was
insufficient. Between 2002 and 2013, China contributed
approximately US$240 million in aid to the Afghan government
(Umarov, 2017, p. 388; Zhu, 2018, p. 282). China’s contribution,
however, paled in comparison to the estimated US$38 billion of non-
military aid provided to Afghanistan by the US over the same time
period. Chinese aid, however, was considered significant by the
Afghan authorities as it was not tied to any human rights or
democracy promotion goals. Additionally, during this period, Chinese
firms started to make some inroads into Afghanistan, including the

signing of agreements to develop copper mines within the country
(Ramachandran, 2018).
There was a noticeable shift in the scale, not the scope, of China’s
Afghanistan policy in response to the planned drawdown of NATO
and allied forces and the transfer of operations to the Afghan National
Army (Scobell, 2015; Zhu, 2018, pp. 285–287). Although the USA
did not completely withdraw in 2014, leaving roughly 10,000 soldiers6
to support the Afghanistan National Army, Beijing clearly felt that it
needed to enhance its engagement in Afghanistan to ensure its two
goals in the country remained fulfilled. This saw China upgrade its
formal relationship with Afghanistan to a strategic partnership, agree
to train at least 3,000 military officials and step up its aid contribution,
providing US$330 million between 2014 and 2016 (Chaziza, 2018, p.
148; Zhao, 2016, p. 904). More notably, China also began stepping up
its diplomatic efforts by actively positioning itself as a neutral
mediator in Afghanistan. Prior to 2014, Chinese diplomatic
engagement typically just saw Chinese officials appearing at
conferences, making pro forma statements but rarely participating in
any of the subsequent discussions (Small, 2015, p. 158).

China’s attempts to play a more active role in the Afghanistan
reconciliation process led Beijing to try and facilitate reconciliation
meetings between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a neighbouring country
that had seriously strained relations with Kabul. Although little
tangible benefits came from these China facilitated meetings, Beijing
was ostensibly successful in reducing tensions between the Kabul and
Islamabad. China also began to more actively participate with the
Afghan government in multilateral groups, including the UN+1
Dialogue and the Quadrilateral Coordination Group which consisted
of Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the USA (Ali, 2020, pp. 13–14;
Chaziza, 2018, pp. 148–149). At the same time, China also made
overtures towards the Taliban, seeking to establish cordial ties with
the group and encouraging them to participate in peace negotiations.
The extent to which Beijing succeeded in convincing the Taliban to
participate in the Doha peace talks is questionable. Nevertheless, it
was reported that China played a key role in facilitating ceasefire
agreements between the Afghan government and the Taliban by the
late 2010s (Ramachandran, 2018).

Despite separate Chinese and US efforts to foster reconciliation
between the Afghan government and the Taliban, the political and
security situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate in the late 2010s.
The unstable power-sharing agreement between President Ashraf
Ghani and his rival Dr Abdullah was renewed in 2019 but continued
to hamstring Kabul’s ability to organise government programs (Ali,
2020, pp. 16–17). During this period the ISKP also stepped up attacks
throughout Afghanistan, further destabilising the country (Krishnan &
Johny, 2022, pp. 88–90). In response to the deteriorating security
situation in Afghanistan, China stepped up its collaboration with
Tajikistan and began to actively patrol and monitor the Wakhan
Corridor (van der Kley, 2019, pp. 78–79). The security situation
deteriorated further in 2020 when the US and the Taliban signed a
peace agreement under which the US government agreed to withdraw
all its troops from Afghanistan within a year (Krishnan & Johny,
2022, pp. 66–67).
As the United States began withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan
in earnest from May 2021, the Taliban began to taking over the
country, typically facing minimal opposition. Faced with the Taliban

onslaught, the Afghan National Army and other security forces either
surrendered, defected or deserted in droves rather than fight. During
this time, the Chinese government welcomed a Taliban delegation in
Tianjin in July 2021, effectively recognising the Taliban as the de
facto Afghan government. However, Beijing was keen to stress that
they expected the Taliban to cut any ties with ETIM and other any
Islamist or Uyghur groups targeting China (MFA, 2021). Beijing was
also keen to avoid taking any sides, thus continuing to maintain
contact with the Ghani government and urging for an ‘Afghan led and
Afghan owned’ political dialogue until Kabul fell to the Taliban
(Krishnan & Johny, 2022, pp. 113–114).
A Shift in Rhetoric, not Policy

In August 2021, Kabul, which had been expected to hold out for at
least a few months, was overrun in a day by the Taliban with barely
any resistance. The Taliban promptly started settling in, declaring
victory on 16 August 2021, and announcing a ‘caretaker government’
in early September. By the winter of 2021, the Taliban’s ‘Islamic
Emirate’ was in functional control of the entire country with only a
few pockets of resistance to the new regime holding out (Krishnan &
Johny, 2022, pp. 81–87; O’Donnell, 2022). Yet China has avoided
officially recognising the Taliban government, despite maintaining its
embassy and even engaging in some low-level diplomatic initiatives
and trade with them. Although several voices in Beijing welcomed the
hasty and chaotic withdrawal as damaging to the USA’s prestige and
further evidence of the West’s decline (Zhou, 2021), this has not
translated into any significant change in China’s Afghanistan policy.
In March 2022, China’s Foreign Minister, State Councillor Wang Yi,
became the highest profile Chinese dignitary to visit Kabul since the
Taliban’s take over. During Wang’s visit he sought to define China’s
Afghanistan policy as being based around the ‘three respects’ and the
‘three nevers’. The ‘three respects’ referred to the following three
positive promises: that China would always respect Afghanistan’s
sovereignty, the ‘choices made by the Afghan people’, and the
country’s national customs. The ‘three nevers’ referred to the
following three negative promises: that China will never seek to
interfere in Afghan affairs, pursue narrow self-interests or create a
sphere of interest in the country (MFA, 2022b). Yet, despite being a
new slogan for China–Afghan relations, it is evident that this

represents not a shift in policy but a reframing of how China seeks to
engage Afghanistan. During his visit, Wang reiterated that China
considered the ETIM to be a terrorist organisation and that it expected
Afghanistan authorities to suppress the group. Wang further declared
that China was ‘ready to carry out mutually beneficial cooperation …
so as to help Afghanistan translate its rich resources into development
opportunities’ (MFA, 2022c). The Taliban regime for its part assured
Wang and the Chinese government that it formed a ‘responsible
government’ which would not allow any activities by any terrorist
groups inside Afghanistan. The Taliban also indicated its readiness ‘to
capitalise on its unique geographic advantage to participate more in
the Belt and Road cooperation and serve as bridge in regional
connectivity’ (MFA, 2022c).
Conclusion
It seems that at least for the immediate future, Beijing is content to
continue as the pragmatic neighbour, pursuing its narrow interests
within Afghanistan and avoiding becoming too engaged. While China
has been gradually playing a more active role in Afghanistan, the
influx of big investments and direct engagements that were expected

in some quarters has yet to materialise. In large part this is because
China has not had any interest in directly or indirectly stepping in to
fill the void left by the US or otherwise taking a leading role in
Afghan affairs. Instead, China has preferred to focus on ensuring its
own narrow self-interests are met and to avoid any entanglements.
However, while this pragmatic approach has ensured that China has
made few enemies in Afghanistan, it has also not allowed Beijing to
make new friends. As Nourzhanov and Saikal note, ‘Beijing’s solid
credentials of non-interference have spared it accusations of
supporting a faction or running a proxy inside Afghanistan. However,
… nobody is completely sure what China’s strategic position is
beyond tactical manoeuvring and transactional politics to ensure
Xinjiang’s stability’ (2021, p. 138).
It remains to be seen how tenable this policy will be in the long term.
While both China and the Taliban are currently willing to engage in
the hopes of a mutually beneficial arrangement, frustrations are likely
to mount if one or both sides believe that the other is not holding up
their end of the bargain. For the time being, the Taliban appears
satisfied with Chinese de facto recognition, maintenance of a studied

silence over its more controversial policies and moderate humanitarian
assistance. However, Afghanistan’s new masters are likely to request
formal recognition and deeper investments in the future and it is
uncertain how far Beijing will be willing to go down this path while
the Taliban remains an international pariah. China for its part appears
sceptical about the Taliban’s commitment and ability to suppress
fellow Islamists groups beyond the ISKP. Beijing’s scepticism has
been exacerbated by the frequent targeting of Chinese workers and
officials inside Pakistan by the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA)
and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), two insurgent groups that
are believed to have received shelter and protection from the Taliban
regime in Afghanistan (Lo, 2021; Pantucci, 2021).
It is, however, very unlikely that the Chinese would willingly become
further involved in Afghanistan beyond deepening economic ties.
Beijing is clearly wary of becoming yet another victim drawn into the
graveyard of empires. While there is always the possibility that China
could get gradually drawn in to protect its assets or in response to a
major attack, the current Xi Jinping administration has been wielding
the policy of non-intervention like a shield to avoid further costly

engagements. This does not mean however that China will feel
compelled to return to its Afghan policies of the 1990s, of cutting ties
with the government and ignoring the security situation within the
country. Beijing’s economic and security interests within Afghanistan
and the surrounding countries are now too extensive to make
disengagement a viable strategy. China therefore is likely to stick to a
middle path in the foreseeable future: indifferent as to who forms the
government in Kabul as long as the Afghan government allows
Chinese investments and assists in suppressing any threat to
Xinjiang’s stability.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Rajat Ganguly, Amrita Jash and Anand
V. for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.

Funding

Footnotes
1.There is some uncertainty as to whether any specific Uyghur group
has ever referred to itself as the ETIM. Some scholars (Roberts, 2020)
have argued that it was a term invented by the Chinese Communist
Party as a scape goat for any resistance it faces in Xinjiang while
others (Dillon, 2019) claim that it did exist and has it has since
renamed itself to the Turkistan Islamic Party. ETIM has also been
used as an umbrella term by several commentators for all radical
Islamist Uyghur movements, including the ‘Turkistan Brigade’
fighting for al Qaeda aligned groups in Syria. For the sake of clarity, I
have used the name ETIM as this is how China and the general
commentariat refer to the group.
2.There have been several conflicting narratives as to what has
occurred in Baren. The official Chinese narrative is that a well-
orchestrated insurrection was being planned and led by Zeydin Yusuf
but it was detected by the police. This prompted the rebels to attempt
the uprising early by stirring up a riot and killing the officials. Yusuf
and his immediate followers were killed in the subsequent crackdown
and with several thousand supporters arrested over the next few years
(Dillon, 2019, pp. 50–52). The counter narrative is that the events in
Baren were the result of a spontaneous protest against religious
restrictions that turned violent when Chinese officials attempted to use
violence to disperse the crowds (Rodriguez-Merino, 2019, pp. 33–35).
The truth, as Sean Roberts has argued, ‘may lay somewhere in-
between’ (2020, p. 53).
3.Hasan Makhsum was a long-term member of an underground
Islamic school and reportedly joined the ETIP when it was founded in
1989. Although he was not present at Baren, he was arrested and
eventually released by Chinese authorities in 1996. He promptly left
China initially for Turkey and then to Afghanistan in 1998 where he
founded the ETIM with some followers and other exiled families.
During this period, Makhsum attempted to establish training camps
and recruit Uyghurs within China to wage a jihad, although there are
conflicting reports as to his success. Makhsum and his followers fled
to Pakistan following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, where he
was killed in a counterterrorism raid in September 2003. ETIM
literature, however, continues to frequently reprint his ideas or
reference them when discussing current events.

4.Beijing also has blamed ethnic tensions that flared in Xinjiang
during the late 2000s, including incidents such as the June 2009
Urumqi riots, on ‘East Turkistan’ forces (Xinhua, 2019). However,
there is no evidence that the ETIM or other Islamist/separatist
provocateurs were directly involved in or incited mass violence. The
general consensus among (non-Chinese) scholars is that the violence
was more likely the result of pent up dissatisfaction caused by the
suppression of Uyghur cultural practices, increasing Han Chinese
migration into Xinjiang and perceived government favouritism of the
other from both sides (Dillon, 2019; Roberts, 2020; Small, 2015).
5.Beijing officially changed its title of its policy to the BRI in March
2015, reportedly to avoid any potential negative connotations being
associated with their policy as well as altering a clumsy phrase in
English. However, the phrase ‘One Belt One Road Strategy’ is far
more poetical in Mandarin (yidai yilu; 一带一路 ) and is still
the preferred terminology in most Chinese language media (Rolland,
2017).
6.Initially the US stationed 9,800 soldiers as part of its post-NATO
assistance force that would be gradually be drawn down as

responsibilities were transferred to the Afghan National Army.
However, US troop numbers were expanded by 1,000 within a year in
order to meet operational requirements. By 2020, when the US agreed
to finally withdraw all forces, the number had risen to 13,000.
Notes
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Taliban 2.0 and US National Security Policy in

Afghanistan
Joshua Snider https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7102-2405 Joshua.Snider@ndc.ac.aeView all
authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221129905
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
This article examines from the point of view of the US national
security policy, the causes and contexts for the US exit from
Afghanistan and the factors that will influence the US policy in
Afghanistan in the coming decade. It reviews the logic behind post-
9/11 US ‘grand strategy’ and the evolution of the US national security
policy in this period, which included the invasion and occupation of
Afghanistan. It examines the evolution of the US deployment and

factors which complicated the US strategic objectives in Afghanistan,
including the persistent tension in the US national security objectives
between counter-terrorism and nation-building objectives. It argues
that the US faces limited palatable options regarding its post-
withdrawal Afghanistan policy and that moving forward, policy will
be constrained by a mix of situational and structural variables. These
include US domestic politics, the Taliban regime itself (and its
relationship with ISIS-K) and the region’s geopolitical winds, notably
the strategic positions of Iran, Pakistan, China and to a lesser extent
Russia.
Introduction
The sudden collapse of the Western-backed government in
Afghanistan on 15 August 2021 and the ensuing rapid departure of
remaining US troops brought to an end the longest military
deployment in the US history (7 October 2001–15 August 2021).
Efforts to achieve a decisive victory against the Taliban by three
successive US Administrations, including President Obama’s 2009
troop surge which saw an additional 30,000 forces deployed into
Afghanistan, were all ultimately unable to prevent the eventual

collapse of the state. By any objective standard, the US state-building
and counter-insurgency efforts could not stave off the return of the
Taliban regime and its brand of Pashto religio-tribal rule. For its part,
the Taliban has proven remarkably agile. Despite being a decidedly
foreign movement, it has successfully linked its ideology to Pashto
tribal nationalism and garnered consistent local support. The moniker
‘Taliban 2.0’ is used to denote the current government, which is
essentially the movement’s second iteration and second time in
government. The first was in place between 1996 and 2002. Taliban
2.0 includes the insurgency movement that challenged the Afghan, the
US and NATO coalition between 2002 and 2020 and culminated in
the capture of the Afghan State in August 2021. This iteration of the
Taliban represents a mix of factions and presents a myriad of
challenges for the US and Afghanistan’s neighbours.
This article examines from the point of view of the US national
security policy, the causes and contexts for the US exit from
Afghanistan and the factors that will influence the US policy in
Afghanistan in the coming decade. It argues that the US faces limited
palatable options regarding its post-withdrawal Afghanistan policy,

and that moving forward this policy will be constrained by a mix of
situational and structural variables. These include the US domestic
politics, the Taliban regime itself (and its relationship with ISIS-K)
and the region’s geopolitical winds, notably the strategic positions of
Iran, India, Pakistan and to a lesser degree China and Russia.
Amid the myriad of contexts through which the US effort in
Afghanistan can be assessed, the lessons learned by the US national
security community are particularly stark. From a US perspective, the
overarching relevance of Afghanistan to its immediate national
security interests and thus the overall logic of the intervention has and
will continue to be debated for decades to come. At a strategic level,
the policy failure in Afghanistan exemplifies a non-partisan crisis in
the US strategic culture resulting from a failure to deliver a
compelling and consistent ‘grand strategy’ to domestic and foreign
audiences (Biscop, 2021). The complexities of the US
counterinsurgency and nation-building efforts in Afghanistan amplify
long-standing debates over how and under what circumstances the US
should use its massive military capabilities. While there is broad
agreement that force should be used to deal with existential threats,

this term is decidedly ambiguous. The US public appears increasingly
unwilling to support long-term counterinsurgency as nation-building
missions have become ever more common in the post-9/11 era
(Phillips, 2021; Telhami & Kopchick, 2021). At tactical and
operational levels, the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the
limits of the US hegemonic bargaining power, particularly
Washington’s limited capacity to influence intra-state disputes and
effect change over non-state actors. Despite the politicking around
redefinitions of success and failure, the mission in Afghanistan was
expensive, costing over US$2.313 trillion and thousands of dead
American service personnel and contractors, and hundreds of
thousands of dead Afghans (Amiri, 2021; Costs of War Project, 2022)
(see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Human Cost of the War: October 2001 to August 2021.

Source: Costs of War Project (2022).
The field of scholarship on Afghanistan in the post-9/11 era is vast.
Scholarship addressing the US context is inter-disciplinary and has
coalesced around several areas, which include the debates over the
efficacy of the US strategy (Goodson, 2015; Hasnat, 2009; Hayworth,
2018; Miller, 2013; Roberts, 2009; Waldman, 2013),
counterinsurgency (Cutler, 2017; Suhrke, 2015), state-building
(Dodge, 2021; Swenson, 2017) and the efficacy of resource usage
(Bilmes, 2014). Given the scale of the US presence, the US mission
and the US policy in Afghanistan have been examined in various
works. Some of the best of these on the US involvement in
Afghanistan and sources of empirical data have been by investigative
journalists and include the well-known ‘In the Graveyard of Empires:
America’s War in Afghanistan’ (Jones, 2010), ‘Afghanistan Papers’
(Whitlock, 2022), ‘Vulcan’s Tale’ (Zakheim, 2013), ‘Directorate S’
(Coll, 2020) and the ‘Trillion Dollar War’ (Amiri, 2021), which all
document various aspects of the war in Afghanistan and policy
failures that contributed to a loss of public support for the US mission.
Given the recent regime transition and the speedy nature of the US
exit, there is a need for systematic scholarship examining ‘next steps’

and possible outcomes for the US national security policy. In
particular, there is a scholarly gap addressing how some of the core
weaknesses in the US national security policy development and
integration contribute to the lack of viable options for the US policy in
Afghanistan.
Despite strategising by current or future US Administrations that
might be undertaken to ‘solve’ the Afghanistan quagmire, structural
and situational variables (such as killing of Ayman Zawahiri) will co-
mingle to shape the future of the US national security strategy in
Afghanistan. To address this theme, the article examines several areas
of analysis. The first section explores the underlying logic behind the
US policy and the evolution of the US national security policy in
Afghanistan vis-à-vis the six post 9/11 US national security strategy
documents. The second section examines the trajectory of the US
deployment to Afghanistan and the final section investigates future
options for the US national security strategy.
Given space and time constraints, this article cannot thread every
analytic needle related to the US engagement in Afghanistan.
Consequently, it is important to highlight several limitations. First, it

does not examine the intricacies of the Taliban movement itself or
analyse the Taliban’s relationship with external state and/or non-state
actors. Second, it does not engage substantively with the complex
tribal and ethno-cultural dynamics in Afghanistan and/or the failure of
the western backed Afghan government and its inability to thwart the
Taliban. Finally, it does not address the fraught US–Pakistan bilateral
relationship which was complicated in this period by diverging
strategic interests following the US intervention in Afghanistan. While
all these points have a context for the US policy and are relevant in a
broad sense, this article focuses specifically on the US national
security as it relates to military deployment in Afghanistan and
possible scenarios for the future.
Understanding America’s ‘Forever War’

The US intervention in Afghanistan was a direct response to al Qaeda
(AQ) perpetrated attacks on New York, Washington DC and
Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001 and marked the beginning of the
decades long US-led ‘Global War on Terrorism’ (GWoT). And from
the US perspective, the attack was not only an act of terror but had
quasi-state sponsorship and posed an existential threat to the US

homeland security (Booth & Dunne, 2012; Kepel, 2002). Moreover,
the decision to attribute the causality of the attacks not only to an
organisation but also a broader religio-political ideology framed the
trajectory of the American response and impacted on the US foreign
policy for a generation (United States Government Printing Office,
2004). Where most terror attacks, including those perpetrated by AQ
throughout the 1990s, were labelled as national security threats and
responded to using a mix of law enforcement and intelligence
capability, the decision to exceptionalise the threat posed by AQ as
‘state-like’ (on account of its leadership structure, financing and
global reach) raised the stakes of the response. While the GWoT
started following the 9/11 attacks, the US activities had increased
steadily throughout the 1990s following a crescendo in AQ’s rhetoric
and violent activism. From this perspective, the exceptional nature of
the threat posed by AQ, its ideology and state sponsorship, all
necessitated a robust response including regime change in both
Afghanistan and Iraq. The collective response to the 9/11 attacks in
the form of unilateral interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were in
essence functions of the ‘Bush Doctrine’; ostensibly, the US would

use unorthodox tactics to pursue its national interests against trans-
national terror networks with state-like capacity (Bush, 2002;
Steinberg, 2005). As Popescu (2017) notes, the doctrine contained
four essential features:
1 Take 2. Make 3. Confr 4.
. the no ont
fight to distin threat
the ction s
enemy; betwe befor
en e they
terror fully
ists emerg
and e; and
the
natio
ns
that
harbo
ur
them;
Advance freedom.Based on these principles, the Bush Administration
offered two primary justifications for its intervention in Afghanistan
(Bush, 2002). The first centred on the need for a strategic manhunt to
kill or capture Osama Bin Laden and elements of the AQ network
responsible for the 9/11 attacks who were located in Afghanistan,
living under Taliban protection. The second was to ensure that
Afghanistan itself would never again become a location from which
an international terrorist group might launch attacks against the US or
its allies. The mission’s nascent migration from counterterrorism (CT)
to counter-insurgency (COIN) and nation-building can be attributed
equally to the aforementioned two-pronged response, and also the
preponderance of narratives that, given the depth and scale of the
threat posed by AQ, a limited CT approach was not enough. For our
purposes CT efforts can be understood as the (comparatively limited)
project to capture and kill AQ operatives and dismantle their
operational capacity in Afghanistan. Conversely, COIN is best

understood as a larger-scale endeavour to stymie post-2002 Taliban
resistance to the US/NATO-backed Afghan government and to
proactively create the conditions (through the use of force) which
would allow a stable and liberal Afghan State. To fully overcome the
AQ threat and thereby secure the American homeland, a robust and
comprehensive strategy was needed which included ‘standing up’
Afghanistan as a peaceful and moderate state. It should be noted that
in October/November 2001 a hybrid deterrence-based model was also
suggested. In this model, having defeated AQ, the US could have left
the Taliban alone but only if they agreed to disengage from AQ
altogether. Thus, any reengagement between AQ and the Taliban
would have meant another intervention. The Bush Administration
therefore opted to eject the Taliban and occupy Afghanistan.
At the strategic level, the Bush Administration’s early vision and
policies in Afghanistan advanced seemingly irreconcilable agendas
(Steinberg, 2005). On the one hand, the Administration communicated
an agenda that went beyond counterterrorism; that is, to see a secure
Afghanistan and to set-up a viable state. To the extent that the Bush
Doctrine advanced the idea of pre-emption to defend the US national

interests, the Administration’s post-9/11 foreign policy zeitgeist was
rooted in neo-conservative ideology which advocated a quasi-
normative agenda in which democracy was the preferable governance
model that might make the world safer and prevent the spread of
extremism.
This view was reflected in President Bush’s address to cadets at West
Point, in which he advanced a ‘Marshal Plan for Afghanistan’ and
spoke of addressing the appeal of extremism through good governance
and ‘draining the swamp’ via democratisation (Bush, 2002). At the
same time, the policy on the ground in Afghanistan, reflected the view
of the US Secretary of the Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. As articulated
above; he was not only ambivalent about liberal peacebuilding but
also assumed that CT activities could be accomplished with a light
footprint (Dodge, 2021). In practice, the Bush Administration’s
‘Afghan model’ was built on two core concepts—a ‘light footprint’
while at the same time building an ‘inclusivity’. In this context
‘inclusivity’ meant involving a diverse range of actors in post-Taliban
governance, most notably elements characterised as war lords. In
essence, both guiding principles led many to argue that there was a
lack of coherence in the US strategy, and perhaps a lack of honesty in
the Bush Administration’s agenda.
Whereas long standing the US defence planning orthodoxy
emphasised the principles contained in doctrines developed by former
US Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin
Powell and former Secretary of State Caspar Weinberger which both
emphasised elements such as clearly defined interests and exit
strategies, the ‘Afghan model’ offered more open-ended options
(Preble, 2021). Senior leaders, including Rumsfeld, were worried that
a large US troop presence would yield a backlash and thus a ‘light
footprint’ approach was preferable (US Senate, 2009). There was also
concern that signalling timeframes for disengagement might lead the
Taliban and/or AQ to question the resolve or longevity of the US
presence. Other aspects of a flawed strategic vision were echoed by
some senior officials within the administration. For example, the
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage saw the Afghanistan
mission as analogous to the US deployment to Panama in 1988 (Jones,
2010). He compared the Taliban regime to Panama’s Noriega regime
and thought that like Noriega, the Taliban would fall quickly. And,
following the democratic transition, the Afghan government would
manage law and order and reconstruction activities, thereby leaving a
small US presence to focus on CT activities (Jones, 2010). In essence,
the cost and risk neutrality of the ‘Afghan model’ presupposed two
essential things. First, that the Taliban would not evolve into an
insurgency movement and second, that the post-Taliban Afghan state
would become a reliable and effective security and development
partner. Both assumptions proved to be incorrect and to the extent that
the ‘Afghan model’ worked to unseat the Taliban, it became
problematic as the mission evolved into one centred on nation-
building and/or counterinsurgency.
The logic of the Bush Administration’s response to the 9/11 attacks
via the Bush Doctrine and Afghan Model, cannot be seen in isolation
without also examining the context of the US national security policy
and changes in the US strategic culture which were then reflected in
both national policy and strategy documents. As Katzenstein (1996)
notes, national security policy and strategic culture are shaped not
only by material and rational factors but also ideational and cultural
factors. In this sense, the massive reaction to the terror attacks on 9/11
which included the invasion of two countries (Iraq and Afghanistan)
that did not pose an ontological (existential) threat to the US
homeland signalled a cultural turn in the US national security. The US
public demanded a muscular ‘gloves-off’ response that matched the
material capabilities of the US military might and gave successive
administrations leeway to execute a war on terror.
In the US context, national security policy making (and strategy
documents that underpin it) occur at multiple levels. Given the size of
the US national security policy community and the number of issues
and agencies that fall within its remit, it stands to reason that the US
national security strategy (broadly defined) is communicated via a
myriad of documents. The master document, and one that guides all
other strategy documents, is the US National Security Strategy (US
NSS) (Doyle, 2007). In this sense, it represents the highest-level
national security strategy document in the United States and thereby
establishes a strategic vision or grand strategic direction for an
incoming administration (Stolberg, 2012). The NSS documents do not
offer guidance about how the objective should be achieved or the
funding levels needed to accomplish the stated aims. The Goldwater-

Nichols Act of 1986 mandates that incoming US administrations
proffer a NSS within 150 days of assuming office. Finally, the NSS
documents are public and serve a variety of constituencies both at
home and abroad.
From the point of view of national security policy and strategy
development, the 9/11 attacks and the response to them were the
singular cataclysmic guiding event which has shaped both the US
strategic context and culture over the past two decades. In this sense,
the five core post-9/11 US NSS documents (2002, 2006, 2010, 2016,
2021) produced by the Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden
administrations have all ostensibly been centred around various
aspects of the response to 9/11 and the two major wars executed in its
name. Beyond the disjuncture in the NSS documents themselves, the
20-year deployment in Afghanistan also indicated a dearth of
consistent and systematic military strategy development.
The NSS of 2002 was the first post-9/11 NSS document and contained
somewhat juxtaposed tendencies. It both formalised the Bush Doctrine
as it related to pre-emptive war and disambiguation between terrorist
organisations and the states who sponsor them (United States and
George W. Bush, 2002). At the same time the document worried about
the security impact of failing states and focused on the propagation of
‘freedom’ and called for increased aid and development assistance for
states transitioning to western democracy (Rice, 2003; United States
and George W. Bush, 2002). Conceptually, the document recast and
expanded the notion of national security threats away from states to
include non-state actors with state-like capabilities. The document
also called for defence transformation driven by Secretary of Defense,
Donald Rumsfeld, which by most accounts complicated civil–military
relations and ostensibly distanced defence policy staff appointed by
the Bush Administration from the senior military and bureaucracy
(Brooks, 2022).
The second Bush NSS in 2006 was essentially a continuation of the
first one. While the document was written primarily in reference to the
war in Iraq, many of its goals were relevant to the Afghanistan
context. In particular, the authors were concerned with countering
asymmetric threats and the deployment of all elements of national
power to counter threats posed by non-state actors (United States and
George W. Bush, 2006). Force would be used to defeat Jihadist

movements, while elements such as economic development and
democracy promotion would be used as preventive strategies to curtail
the propagation and appeal of the ideology (United States and George
W. Bush, 2006).
The NSS of 2010 was the first of the Obama Administration and
codified aspects of the Obama doctrine which evolved in scope over
his presidency. The timing and context of this document are important
in respect of the unpopularity of the Bush Administration’s handling
of Iraq and Afghanistan and the state of the US economy in 2008–
2009. The enjoined failures of the Bush Doctrine and the Afghan
model necessitated a course correction that presented some viable
pathway to ‘victory’ or an honourable exit from Afghanistan. As it
related to Afghanistan, the document articulated a clear counter-
insurgency vision and called for better engagement with the Muslim
world with a focus on economic development (United States
Government and Barak Obama, 2009). This vision was backed by a
massive increase in resources to Afghanistan, which marked the 7-
year commitment to COIN operations in both Afghanistan and
Pakistan. The document also contained semantic differences such as

dropping the use of ‘Islamic extremism’ and ‘GWoT’ from the
national vocabulary.
Trump’s 2016 NSS contained language and agendas that reflected his
world view, albeit with little direct reference to Afghanistan. As will
be highlighted in the next section on Trump’s Afghanistan position,
his NSS document focused on state-based threats, eliminated climate
change from the threat lexicon and removed references to an
‘international community’, reflecting the view that the US had
interests not allies (United States and Donald Trump, 2017). As
discussed in the next section, his views on Afghanistan changed
considerably, from mirroring the Obama Administration’s position to
hastening the US exit via direct negotiation with the Taliban.
And President Biden’s interim-NSS, released in 2021, essentially re-
centred the US foreign policy around legacy issues such as alliance
relationships and democracy promotion. It did not contain significant
discussion on Afghanistan and what the ongoing position might be.
Defence planners and national security bureaucrats often see military
strategy development as the product of a ‘ends = ways + means’
calculation whereby ‘strategy’ is the sum of an ends = ways + means

calculation. Seen this way, ‘ends’ are the overall objective, ‘ways’ are
actions needed to achieve the ends and ‘means’ are the tools or
resources employed to execute the ends (Deibel, 2014; Eikmeier,
2007). In this case, the various post-9/11 NSS documents
communicated very broad ends (secure America, fight terror) and
offered little guidance on the ways and means. While the Bush
Doctrine and the 2002 NSS communicated a broad vision to ‘fight
terror’ and leaned heavily on aggressive language and the willingness
to use outside the box tactics, they did not articulate clear and specific
strategic ends (Stauss, 2012). Thus, in the content of Afghanistan, it
was unclear if the ‘ends’ (objective) in the overall military strategy
were: (a) a peaceful, autonomous and stable Afghanistan; (b) engaging
in a strategic manhunt to apprehend the perpetrators of 9/11; and/or
(c) to defeat AQ. Many have argued that the lack of clarity and
strategic ambiguity contributed to a policy drift which impacted on the
efficacy of the military deployment and purpose of the mission (Al-
Tamimi, 2012; Armitage et al., 2010).
Phases of the Deployment

Given the length of the US deployment in Afghanistan it is helpful to
understand the US mission in the context of several distinct periods.
The first lasted from late 2001 to 2006 and was marked by the
collapse of the Taliban regime and reformulation of the Taliban as an
insurgency movement. The second lasted from 2007 to 2014 and is
referred to as the surge period during which the US increased capacity
and was also the height of the NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force mission (ISAF). The third phase lasted from 2014 to
2020 and is referred to as the ‘drawdown’ period when there was a
transition in counter-insurgency activities from the US and NATO to
the Afghan State. This section provides an overview of the US
intervention in Afghanistan, highlighting the US strategic goals, the
evolution of the deployment and some of the miscalculations which
greatly impacted on the mission’s success. The Bush Administration
sought new strategic partnerships with non-EU member states in
Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Kagan, 2003). And
within the US national security establishment, there were concerns
that the intervention was driven by anger and a desire to punish, and
lacked coherence and an exit strategy (REF) (Amiri, 2021). As the

Figure 2 shows, over the course of the 20-year deployment, the US
troop levels varied from an initial 1,000–2,000 in the year 2001 to a
maximum of 110,325 in the year 2011.

Figure 2. U.S. Troop Levels.
Source: US National Security Archive (2021).
The recalcitrance of the Taliban regime and its unwillingness to detain
and/or extradite Osama bin Laden posed a major challenge for the US
and its allies (Sageman, 2011). As previously noted, given the scale of
the attacks and the relationship and patronage between the AQ and the
Taliban, from the point of view of the US national security interests it
was unthinkable that the US would simply accept the Taliban’s non-
cooperation (Kepel, 2002). While there was broad support both in the
US and its allies for a CT-based intervention, expanding the mission’s
parameters became a source of contention. Disagreements were
evident both within the US national security policy establishment and
among its allies. This included objections from some European states
that the US invoked Article 5 of the NATO Charter (which
necessitated a collective response to the attack) for an attack
perpetrated by a non-state actor. The emergence of a ‘trans-Atlantic
rift’ centred on the diverging view of how best to frame and respond
to Islamist inspired terror. This rift impacted on trans-Atlantic
relations for the better part of the decade and led to a deteriorating
relationship between the Bush Administrations and several western
European states.
The first phase of the US deployment to Afghanistan lasted from the 7
October 2001 until the first year of the Obama Administration in
2007. In its initial stages the US deployment was essentially a
paramilitary mission and was undertaken by a contingent of
approximately 1000 special operators and CIA personnel (Katzman &
Thomas, 2017). Rather than frequent sustained engagements with the
Taliban or AQ, the US forces provided air support and tactical
assistance to anti-Taliban factions, most notably 15,000 Northern
Alliance fighters (O’Hanlon, 2002).
Notwithstanding the speed with which the US and the Northern
Alliance were able to unseat the Taliban, the task of administrating or
governing Afghanistan would prove more challenging than unseating
the regime. Despite the initial success in routing the Taliban, this
generated the parallel but related questions associated with the
character of Afghanistan’s post-Taliban political administration, as
well as the efficacy of the US strategy. The assumption under the
‘Afghan model’ that Afghanistan could be secured via the use of

small, highly mobile teams of special operations troops and CIA
paramilitary operatives working with the Afghan opposition began to
show cracks.
The dynamics that unfolded during the remainder of the first phase
(2002–2006) reflected the practical limits of the light footprint
approach as well as many of the deeper existential questions related to
the mandate itself; that is, the efficacy of the US mission. While the
US succeeded in unseating the Taliban and standing up to a nominally
viable interim government, it was unable to defeat Taliban leadership.
And thanks to its ‘light footprint’ strategy the US did not maintain the
human capabilities on the ground necessary to deliver security
outcomes for the Afghan people. The synergistic effects of these two
dynamics gave rise to a reformulated Taliban insurgency, which grew
steadily between 2002 and 2006. Moreover, its capacity to respond to
the growing insurgency was hampered not only by the existing ‘light
footprint’ strategy but also the strategic overreach of the Bush
Administration’s GWoT. The invasion of Iraq and the under-
resourcing of that conflict strained the US resources to the extent that
funding and capacity were shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq. Starting

in 2003, the Administration transferred some of the most effective and
practiced fighting units from Afghanistan to Iraq (United States
Department of Defense, 2009). As Kilcullen (2009) argued, by 2008
the US had devoted 20% of troop levels and 27% of funding levels to
Afghanistan compared with Iraq.
The synergistic effects of these developments had a significant impact
at both the tactical and operational levels. Such dynamics also
highlighted the cruel paradox that for a COIN-based mission to
succeed, the US needed to build trust with Afghan people. To do this
it had to deliver security which could not be achieved with limited
deployment and the weak and ineffective Afghan state. Thus, for the
Afghan state to stand up and achieve its mission, despite the
preference for a light footprint CT-based mission, the unseating of the
Taliban and the weakness of the nascent Afghan state created an
insurgency, and in a sense, COIN became the main thrust of the US
effort. This trend highlighted issues associated with the problematic
structure of the force deployed to Afghanistan. As previously noted,
the light footprint approach’s strategic reliance on special forces and
paramilitary units to do most of the heavy lifting assumed a CT

mission and a functional Afghan state and military. Neither of these
foundational assumptions proved correct and as the mission evolved
from CT into COIN, it became clear that relying on the capacity of
Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) would not serve the
nascent nation-building objectives. The fallacy of this approach was
evident as the Taliban became more assertive. By most accounts, 2005
was a pivotal year and marked the acceleration in the potency of the
insurgency (Jones, 2010). Although measures were undertaken to
address the incapacity of the Afghan state to project itself, the limited
size of the US footprint on the ground resulted in a dramatic escalation
in Taliban attacks and a breakdown of whatever sense of law and
order that had existed. While the size of the deployment grew from
1,000–2,000 in 2001 to 20,000 in 2006, it was still woefully under-
resourced, given the scale and apparent changing nature of the mission
(Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR],
2021).
In light of the changing strategic environment, the US tried several
initiatives. Starting in 2004, the DoD devised the Provincial
reconstruction team (PRT) model to achieve better inter-agency

coordination in addressing complex security and development needs.
The teams were comprised of ‘tenants’ including military personnel,
state department officials, development experts and local government
representatives. As Long (2006) argued, these teams were tasked with
the dual mission of security and development/reconstruction vital to
successful COIN efforts. While functional in theory, in practice the
PRT model blurred the lines between fighting and
development/reconstruction and in many cases eroded trust between
Afghan communities and the development/humanitarian workers. In
addition, this model exposed diplomats and development personnel to
heightened risk as Afghan officials and civilians began to see
development officials as connected to the military mission. While the
US was spending more on reconstruction which rose steadily between
2003–2005 (from US$1 billion to US$5 billion), these gains were
nullified by increased Taliban attacks on the US funded projects and
by 2006 funding decreased back to 2002 levels (SIGAR, 2021). And
as Figure 3 shows, the reconstruction budget still paled in comparison
to amounts spent on war-fighting efforts.

Figure 3. Cost of War Report.
Source: SIGAR (2021).
The Bush Administration’s light footprint strategy also highlighted
another trend related to the neo-liberalisation of warfighting and
development assistance. Seen this way, neoliberal ideas associated
with economic rationalism and small government are applied to the
development and security sectors, whereby the private sector offers
the best model (Essex, 2013). Therefore, questions of war and
reconstruction go through a rationalist lens whereby non-state actors
should perform state-like activities. While neoliberalism doesn’t fully
explain the ‘Afghan model’, it demonstrates the logic of senior
planners and their assumption that the Bush Administration might
succeed in Afghanistan using contractors to fulfil significant parts of
the mission (McFate, 2016).

At the end of the Bush era, there was growing consensus within
sections of the US national security establishment that the nature of
the deployment had changed. Thus, whether or not the Bush
Administration wanted to acknowledge it, the Afghan model had
failed and the core CT phase of the mission had ended, at least to the
extent that AQ ceased to be a significant presence in Afghanistan. By
the mid-2000s the core of the mission transitioned from CT to COIN
and stabilisation. This was clear in 2006 with the expanded role for
the NATO-led ISAF mission. Starting in 2004, the ISAF mission
enacted a four-stage plan which culminated in the 2006 transfer of
major responsibilities in stabilisation and reconstruction from the US
to NATO command. Between 2004 and 2007 the size of the ISAF
deployment grew in both size and operational mandate.
Another and perhaps under-explored factor limiting the success of the
Afghan model (light footprint CT missions) was Pakistan’s role in
aiding the transition of the Taliban to a well-protected and well-
supplied insurgency. In this sense, the synergistic effects of a trans-
national Taliban movement (into Pakistan) combined with Pakistan’s
own complex relationship with both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban
(TTP) movements increased the potency of the Afghan Taliban and its
resistance to the NATO/US-led coalition. Notwithstanding Pakistan’s
own war on terror in which the State waged a bloody
counterinsurgency against the TTP in its Northwest Frontier Province
or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), many argue that it also
instrumentalised the resurgence of the Taliban (Riedel, 2008). Here,
various analysts and scholars have traced aspects of Pakistan’s
supposed ‘double-game’ and the role of the State (its Army and
intelligence apparatus) in protecting Taliban leadership and providing
assistance to help the movement (at least on the Afghan side of
border) re-group, organise, recruit, arm and fund its insurgency
activities (Bacon, 2018; Gregory, 2007; Jones, 2010). Pakistan for its
part rejects this narrative and argues that a) Afghan and Pakistan
Taliban are distinct entities; b) that its recognition of the Afghan
Taliban has been based in pragmatism; and c) that it has been a
steadfast and consistent ally in the US-led GWoT (Hasnat, 2009).
The second phase of the US deployment in Afghanistan lasted from
2007 to 2014 and can be examined in two distinct periods, from 2007
to 2012 and then from 2012 to 2014, which coincided with major
changes in both the US and Afghanistan. The 2007–2012 period was
marked by several dynamics, the most significant of which was the
end of the Bush era and election of Barak Obama. Obama’s
Afghanistan policy was developed in response to several
uncomfortable truths. The first was that the CT-phase of the mission
was over—that Afghanistan had morphed into a COIN and
stabilisation mission. The second was that the Afghan government
was weak and corrupt, and its existence depended almost entirely on
western and particularly the US assistance. The third was that the
conflict was increasingly unpopular at home and thus President
Obama had to devise a strategy that addressed the weakness of the
Bush era policies while maintaining broad post-9/11 era the US
national security objectives (fighting terror) which remained popular
(Phillips, 2021). Notwithstanding the semantic changes within policy,
which is not referring to a ‘GWoT’, Obama’s policy on Afghanistan
represented a continuation of the Bush era agenda.
The Administration’s policies between 2007 and 2010 included an
immediate surge of 30,000 troops and a gradual escalation of the total
deployment from 23,700 in 2007 to a high of 110,325 in 2011

(Stewart, 2016). It also included a dramatic increase in funding, which
peaked at US$111 billion in the 2011–2012 financial year for both
war and reconstruction efforts (SIGAR, 2021). The overall objective
of the Obama policy was to build capacity among the Afghan military
so that eventually they would take the lead in both COIN missions and
general provision of security (Polk, 2010). To the extent that Obama’s
strategy focused on capacity building, the tactics used to execute the
COIN mission fed the Taliban’s narrative. Moreover, the weakness
and lack of trust in the Afghan state was matched by ongoing
apprehension between Afghans and the ISAF, but particularly the US
forces, which all contributed to deep structural difficulties (Roberts,
2009). In this sense, the penetration of the Taliban in Pashto
communities created a shadow enemy scenario where the US and
coalition forces were tasked with simultaneously protecting and
fighting against people who were ostensibly part of the same
communities.
As Obama’s Afghanistan strategy unfolded it became apparent that
the Obama Doctrine, like the Bush Doctrine before it, advanced
strategic ‘ways’ and ‘means’ to engage the COIN part of the mission
that were not easily reconcilable with the ‘end’ of establishing a stable
and independent Afghan government that had the confidence of
citizens (Cutler, 2017). In this sense, strategies underpinning the
Obama Doctrine, such as aggressive COIN tactics including
controversial dawn/night raids in villages and the increased use of
drone strikes, created an ever-deepening culture of mistrust between
Afghans and the US/coalition troops and complicated the task of
winning Afghan hearts and minds via nation-building (Jones, 2010).
Frustration and mistrust were manifested on both sides. Among
Afghans there was an uptick in ‘green-on-blue’ attacks where persons
in Afghan National Army uniforms attacked the US and ISAF forces.
Their scale and frequency increased rapidly in the second phase of the
deployment, starting in 2008 and reaching a climax in 2012–2013. At
their peak in 2012, these attacks accounted for 15% of coalition deaths
(Roggio & Lindquist, 2017). In some instances, there was Taliban
infiltration of Afghan army units while in others, rank and file Afghan
soldiers simply turned on their US/coalition patrol partners.
From 2011 onwards there was a rhetorical and strategic shift in the US
position, which reflected strategic realities in Afghanistan and

growing unpopularity of the conflict in the US. Thus, the inability to
defeat the Taliban combined with the weakness of the Afghan state
and lack of willingness among the states in the region to deny the
Taliban sanctuary, all conspired to create a sense of urgency that the
US had to draw a proverbial line under the mission, declare victory
and move on (Shams & Saifullah, 2017). Between 2011–2012 and
2015 there was a gradual but very substantial reduction in troop and
funding levels. Troop numbers decreased from 110,325 in 2011 to
8,500 in 2015 (Kurtzleben, 2016) and the total Afghanistan budget
went from US$111 billion in 2011–2012 to US$53 billion in 2014
(SIGAR, 2021).
The third and final phase of the US deployment (between 2014 and
the collapse of the Afghan government in 2021), was marked by
changes in both Afghanistan’s strategic environment and the broader
southwest Asia and MENA regions. Within Afghanistan the
drawdown of US/ISAF forces resulted in a transfer of security
functions to the Afghan police and military. And at a regional level,
issues associated with the post-Arab Spring and the rise of ISIS
impacted on security across southwest Asia. This resulted in a slow

but steady fragmentation of the right-flank of the Taliban in
Afghanistan, including the creation of ISIS-Khorasan Province (ISIS-
K) (Goodson, 2015).
The unlikely victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential
election resulted in a reorientation of the US national security policy.
Trump campaigned on a platform of ending expensive US conflicts
and bringing troops home. He also campaigned as a businessman
willing to negotiate with anyone to secure the best deal for the
American people without a fixed ideological position. Trump’s
outsider status and mistrust for bureaucracy and policy elites resulted
in a personality-based foreign policy, ostensibly around himself. As
previously mentioned, his 2016 NSS reflected these values to the
extent that it argued the US had interests not allies and affirmed state-
based threats, deemphasising post-9/11 era NSS document threats
from non-state actors. The Administration’s Afghanistan policy
represented a mix of continuity and change. In the first instance,
despite his populist campaign promises of ending expensive wars, he
maintained the broad tenor of the Obama era policy, doubling the US
troop presence with a mini surge in 2017–2019 which saw troop levels
rise from 8,000 to 15,000 (Gopalaswamy, 2018; New York Times,
2017). This mini surge had little impact and was unable to change the
overall trajectory of the conflict, which was tilting in favour of the
Taliban.
Between 2017and 2019 the conflict devolved into a two-way
stalemate between the Taliban and the Afghan state acting with the
US assistance; Afghanistan’s military did not have the capacity to
defeat the Taliban, nor could the Taliban topple the government. And
to this end, the period between 2018 and the summer of 2021 yielded
parallel sets of peace talks, with intra-Afghan talks between the
Afghan state and the Taliban, and the US–Taliban talks. The US–
Taliban Peace agreement was concluded on 29 February 2020. The
deal included the US recognition of the Taliban in exchange for the
latter cutting ties with AQ and affiliated movements and in exchange
the US would withdraw all remaining forces no later than September
2021 (Tierney, 2019). While the US–Taliban peace agreement
resulted in fewer attacks against remaining the US forces, the Taliban
was escalating its campaign against the state.

The newly elected Biden Administration could have changed or even
withdrawn from the agreement policy, but instead decided to speed up
the US withdrawal process, which in turn hastened the number and
ferocity of Taliban attacks against the state. Beginning in the summer
of 2021, the Afghan military started to desert in large numbers and the
Taliban began making territorial gains. In the final analysis, the
Afghan government was not able to sustain itself without significant
US assistance. The Taliban that seized power in August of 2021
claimed to have evolved into a new movement that was more modern,
interested in greater engagement with the outside world and would
govern in a more inclusive manner.
Possible Scenarios
The US intervention in Afghanistan and the failure of the US nation-
building mission will be the subject of ongoing scholarly and policy
discussion for decades to come. Some might disagree that Afghanistan
was not a strategic failure for US policy and while it did not achieve
the wider goal of a more liberal Afghanistan, the US did attain its core
CT mission of dismantling AQ’s operational capacity in Afghanistan
and killing Bin Laden. In this sense, it might be argued that rather than
suffering a ‘strategic defeat’, Washington made a ‘strategic retreat,’
whereby the US did not lose militarily to the Taliban but was unable
to succeed in its nation-building efforts. Nevertheless, the long
evolution of the US deployment in Afghanistan and eventual collapse
of the western-backed Afghan state indicates several issues. First, it
reveals gaps in US national security strategy development. As
mentioned earlier, the 20-year deployment in Afghanistan showed a
lack of consistent and systematic military strategy development. The
strategic ‘ends’ in Afghanistan were never defined and the ways and
means were at cross-purposes with nation-building, one of the core
principals articulated in successive post-9/11 US NSS documents
(Graff, 2021). Moreover, the US policy elites thought they could
‘strategise on the go’ and do so on the cheap via under-resourced
deployment that leaned heavily on contractors. In essence, beyond a
core and very limited CT-based mission, the US did not have a project
for Afghanistan, nor did it have the will or capacity to make good on
President Bush’s plan for an Afghanistan Marshal Plan (Graff, 2021).
Second, there was a failure to understand the complex relationship
between the Taliban (and its various iterations) and its constituency.
Although it is easy to cast the movement as ‘foreign’, and to some
degree it is, the Taliban (a) have evolved and (b) forged deep and
enduring ties with the country’s Pashto majority. While they might not
be popular with liberal and urban dwelling Afghans and/or ethnic
minority populations, there is a sense among the majority that they are
not corrupt and can deliver stability and order.
Third, successive Administrations grossly underestimated the viability
of a stabilisation and nation-building mission in a regional security
complex comprised of unreliable partners and semi-hostile states. In
the final instance, none of Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours were
invested in the long-term success of an US/western-backed Afghan
state.
The future of US national security policy in Afghanistan presents
numerous complexities in the short and medium term. To the extent
that the US had options related to its Afghanistan policy, these will be
interpreted through the lens of the failures described above and the
general context of a 21-year war that ended with the ‘bad guys’ back
in power. That being the case, it is very unlikely the US would
undertake any course of action that would further destabilise

Afghanistan; that is, arming the perennially aggrieved ethnic Uzbek
Northern Alliance. Another civil war in Afghanistan is not
unthinkable but at this stage the question remains, who would support
the other side. In the short term, two over-arching concerns will
dominate the US interests in Afghanistan—the regime’s support for
trans-national terrorist organisations and the humanitarian situation.
For the foreseeable future, terrorism is likely to be the driving national
security issue that shapes the US policy in Afghanistan. Despite the
Taliban’s stated commitment to shed ties to international terrorism,
there are a number of discouraging signs. These include, the inclusion
of members of the Haqqani network in the current government and the
killing of AQ’s titular head Ayman Zawahiri in August of 2022. The
fact that Zawahiri was living in central Kabul in a residence
purportedly owned by Sirajuddin Haqqani is a troubling development
(France24, 2022). If true, this story brings into question the Taliban
government’s intention to abide by its commitments vis-à-vis counter-
terrorism or at the very least exposes the complex fissures within the
Afghan Taliban movement with respect to support for international
terrorism. To the extent that the Taliban does not currently pose a
direct threat to the US interests outside the region, if the regime
deepens ties with trans-national actors, such as ISIS-K or AQ, this
would warrant a response, including direct intervention. For example,
ISIS-K training camps would no doubt be a red line for any
administration. In that case, President Biden could use over-the-
horizon CT capability using a mix of special UAVs, traditional air
power and special forces, if needed. This was demonstrated with the
Biden Administration’s willingness to use drone capability to liquidate
Zawahiri on Afghan soil. While over-the-horizon CT works in some
contexts, the long-term viability of this option will depend on the
frequency of use and the willingness or unwillingness of states in the
region to allow the use of their territory as a staging area for such
activity that cannot be staged from aircraft carriers in the Gulf. If the
US needed to re-engage in a more active way with a medium sized
footprint, it remains to be seen how this could be achieved without
support from neighbouring states.
Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation is dire and all states, including
the US, must decide what constitutes an appropriate level of
engagement with the Taliban government in areas related to the

provision of humanitarian assistance (Crowley & Erlanger, 2021).
While the US is more constrained than other states, there are several
possibilities. It could opt to limit its engagement, offer no recognition
and act through intermediaries. It could offer limited recognition,
engaging with the Taliban directly in the humanitarian sphere while at
the same incentivising ‘good behaviour’. It could also offer full
recognition. The first two options seem more likely, although the US
domestic opinion complicates any formal recognition in the short to
medium term.
In the longer term, assuming the Taliban stays in power and continues
to remain in the good grace of its immediate neighbours, and
assuming it distances itself from trans-national terror organisations,
the US will need to consider the geopolitical implications of non-
engagement or recognition. Assuming the Taliban stays in power and
the economy slowly rebounds, it is very likely that China will emerge
as a key player in Afghanistan’s economic future. As is well-known,
China wants harmonious trade relations and stability and is not
concerned with regime composition or questions associated with
individual or group rights. To the extent that the US is a minor

economic player in this part of the world it is unlikely that
Washington would be comfortable with completely ceding this space
to Russia or China.
Given the nature of the US political system and the increased role of
public opinion in national security, issues associated with Afghanistan
will continue to be interpreted through the lens of public opinion
among various constituencies in the US. If the Taliban continues to
break promises in relation to the treatment of girls/women and if
elements of the Taliban regime continue to maintain close ties to the
Haqqani network, AQ and/or ISIS-K, the Biden or future
administrations will have little room to manoeuvre. However, if the
Taliban can show a better face, keep to its word and distance itself
from violent actors, there is no reason why rapprochement between
the US and Taliban is not possible in the coming decades.
Conclusion
This article has provided some insight into the logic for the US
deployment in Afghanistan, the events leading up to the collapse of
the Afghan government in August 2021 and possible scenarios for the
future of the US national security policy in Afghanistan. Throughout

this article, I have argued that the US national security policy in
Afghanistan was planned haphazardly, based on false assumptions
that the war could be done ‘on the cheap’ and would not devolve into
an insurgency.
In the first section I examined the logic for the US intervention in
Afghanistan and the trajectory of the US national security policy
documents in the post-9/11 era. I situated the Afghanistan war as a
two-fold agenda to engage a strategic manhunt for the perpetrators of
the 9/11 attacks (who were being hosted in Afghanistan by the
Taliban) and to remove the Taliban from power thereby ensuring
Afghanistan would not be used as a staging area for trans-national
terrorism. I also highlighted the evolution of the US national security
documents which followed and some of their core problems. In the
second section I highlighted the main phases of the US deployment in
Afghanistan. Here I established that despite key ideological
differences across the four US administrations, the thrust of
Afghanistan policy remained similar and was grounded in a post-9/11
view about the need to defend the US from non-state-based threats.
The draw-down in 2014, while well-intentioned, limited the ability of

the US to provide the sort of assistance necessary to respond to an
increasingly assertive Taliban. The last section highlighted some of
the problems facing the US policy in Afghanistan and offered likely
scenarios.
Moving forward, the direction of the US national security policy in
Afghanistan will depend on a range of factors, including the US
domestic politics, changes in the US strategic culture and the
relationship between the Taliban and its state patrons in the region. If
questions about the ongoing humanitarian crisis win the day, then the
US will seek out pragmatic if limited engagement with the Taliban
regime. If terrorism remains the focus of the US strategic interest in
Afghanistan and if elements within the Taliban continue to engage
with the Haqqani network and ISIS-K, engagement will be more
difficult. In this case, current and future Administrations will be
challenged to deliver a viable ‘over-the-horizon’ CT policy. While
there are many strategic lessons to be learned from America’s long
war in Afghanistan, it remains to be seen how these will be interpreted
or integrated into national security policy. As Boys (2021) argued,
rather than reflecting high-minded deliberation about the national

interest, the US national security policy (and strategy documents
therein) have become a staging post for larger ideological conflicts.
This being the case, it is likely that the US will continue to frame its
national security policy without clearly articulated strategic ends.

Funding
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The Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan and Security

Paradox
Nilofar Sakhi nilofars@email.gwu.eduView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221130882
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
After years of prolonged armed conflict and fighting with the United
States and NATO, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on 15
August 2021, by overthrowing a 20-year-old republic system and
declaring it an Islamic Emirate. Without a process that legitimised the
Taliban’s power and ideological assertions, Afghanistan is now
controlled by a militant group that operates out of a totalitarian
ideology. A new version of security threats and concerns has been
introduced. The question is, what kind of security issues will emerge
under such circumstances, and how will these issues impact
Afghanistan? This article provides an assessment of Afghanistan’s
political and security situation under the current Taliban regime.
While the recent Taliban takeover in Afghanistan means different
things to different people—and depends mainly on their social class
within Afghan society or where they are from—the months since the
Taliban took power have provided us with evidence of how they are
operationalising their belief systems to run the country. It has also
demonstrated how this has and will impact the safety and security of
individuals, groups and Afghanistan as a whole. This article aims to
explain how the Taliban’s fundamental ideology, networks,

governance composition and nature will exacerbate the security crisis
in Afghanistan and beyond. The article explores the theoretical
framework of a totalitarian system to help understand the context of
the Taliban’s political system. It then looks specifically at the
resistance movement and the growing gender apartheid that the
Taliban is reinstating. Finally, it dives into the meaning of security, its
complexity, how it’s changing, and the implications it will have for
Afghanistan and its people. The evidence for this analysis is based on
events that had taken place through March 2022. It is important to
emphasise that today’s circumstances and context will likely change
and impact analysis for tomorrow. However, one thing has remained
constant—the Taliban’s undergirding totalitarian framework and their
ability to be tactical and strategic in how they present themselves.
Background
A New Republic
In September 2001, the US overthrew the Taliban regime that had
been in power in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. The response by the
US and NATO forces to the 9/11 attacks on US soil was meant to
combat terrorism which also caused a new phase of armed conflict

between the US and the Taliban. The Taliban, who was vital in
providing the Al-Qaeda with a sanctuary that allowed them to
continue their operations, was a student militia group raised and
trained in Pakistan in 1994, believed to be supported by the country’s
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a claim that Pakistan vehemently
rejected. The Taliban started organising their constituencies and
established a stronghold in the southern and eastern regions of
Afghanistan to fight the newly established Afghan government, which
they believed to be a US-installed system.
In 2001, the Taliban, at that point a loosely connected group, began a
new phase to reorganise as a decentralised network of fighters. They
received their orders from the leadership at their bases, mostly in
Quetta and Peshawar, Pakistan. In 2003, with coordinated action, the
Taliban expanded their territorial influence in the north and targeted
populations in the eastern regions of Afghanistan. They began to
recruit local resources, set up informal governance systems to manage
and govern communities, gain more support networks, and utilised
social and political issues to weaken the Kabul administration.

Meanwhile, in Kabul, a new administration was in formation, along
with a new constitution, government structures, parliament and
judicial system. The new administration’s focus was on building the
government administration both in Kabul and at the provincial levels,
with sizeable reconstruction programmes focusing on five key
provinces—Mazar, Herat, Qandahar, Jalalabad and Kabul. The overall
security condition was partially better until 2009, when the Taliban’s
surge of violence began, and insecurity spread throughout the country
through violent attacks and suicide attacks targeting public places.
That coincided with the failure of the centralised system of the central
government in Afghanistan to protect the population and extend its
services throughout the country. In addition, people in far and remote
provinces were not part of the political process, which resulted in the
deprivation of basic needs, creating a major gap and significant
mistrust between the government and the people.
Four major issues caused the collapse of the Afghan republic. The first
issue came into view when the new Afghan government was
inaugurated and the new administration was forming. During this
period, they underestimated the Taliban’s comprehensive organisation

and continued threat of insurgency. The Taliban’s movement on the
battlefield and the way they organised around social and political
issues were also dismissed. The second issue was the government’s
incapability to provide protection to the entire population, including
the countryside. This misuse of resources and power failed to address
the ongoing corruption and ethnic tensions, resulting in kleptocracy
forms and further political factions and divisions within the country.
The third issue that factored into the government’s collapse was the
Afghan leadership’s inaccurate assumption that the US would
maintain an unlimited presence in Afghanistan. It was assumed that
the regional strategic interests of the US would keep them there
indefinitely. The fourth was the government’s dependency on foreign
funding and the inability to create sustainable local sources of revenue
and security plans if the US would withdraw or international funding
was reduced.
The Taliban’s Strategy

Meanwhile, from 2002 to 2021, the Taliban conducted two
simultaneous fights to delegitimise the new Afghan government. The
first was on the battlefield against US forces, the Afghan National

Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) and NATO. The second was a
war of attrition which helped to strengthen their grip on Afghanistan’s
rural areas—their initial strongholds. A combination of factors was in
the Taliban’s favour. The Taliban grew stronger by continuing to
receive weaponry and strategic support from their sponsoring
countries and utilising their strategy of targeting rural populations for
recruitment and alliance building. The Afghan government,
meanwhile, was unable to protect the population from deadly attacks
conducted by the Taliban and other armed groups and failed to
address the people’s grievances.
As the Republic struggled to provide enough resources and services to
people, maintain security and ensure control throughout the country,
the Taliban took advantage of the government’s lack of capacity to
protect citizens across the country. The Taliban used these failures to
delegitimise the Republic and gain support, power and influence by
building on people’s growing dissatisfaction with the government.
This was especially true in some remote areas where the government
had less control, and the Taliban worked with elders and tribal leaders
to undermine the government. The Taliban also utilised religious

institutions to spread messages against the US and NATO forces by
calling them occupier/occupied forces. In some provinces, the Taliban
exerted their influence and utilised and strengthened their informal
systems to deliver services to their constituencies in the countryside.
This eventually allowed them to expand their control to the western
and northern areas of the country and garner fighters from non-
Pashtun ethnic groups.
It is important to underscore that the Taliban had different structures,
leadership and social bases throughout this period. Various factions of
the Taliban held different views about the war and its timing and
expansion. Despite these differences, the Taliban maintained strong
cohesion among themselves. Overall, the Taliban’s strategy of
instrumentalising religion, spreading anti-foreigner and anti-
government sentiments to dominate people’s perception and stepping
in to provide resources and leadership where there were voids was
incredibly effective and resulted in the successful building of their
constituency and expansion of their operations nationwide.
Changing Conditions
Despite growing discontent among Afghans, there were positive
developments, particularly in the social and political sectors. Starting
in 2003, tremendous investment was made in the sectors of education,
health, telecommunication, media and infrastructure, causing changes
in the attitudes and behaviours of people. Institutional developments
and social transformation led to significant improvements in freedom
of speech, civil rights, political participation and women’s access to
and participation in the economy and politics. The development of
civilian government institutions, civil society and above all, the rise in
educational institutions across the country opened space for discourse
on issues fundamental to transforming society. The work that
happened in these areas changed millions of lives and enabled
conditions for the growth of human capital. The people of Afghanistan
welcomed the progress made in their lives and began to invest and
contribute to economic growth and social change agendas.
However, there were many barriers to success. Though new and
substantive at that time, these changes were mostly confined to large
urban areas and didn’t extend to the remote parts of the country.
Without mega-investments in the economy, the economy stalled, and

little revenue was generated. Development and reconstruction
programmes were aided by international donors, most prominently by
the US. There was a lack of vision and planning to produce an
economy that could sufficiently sustain the country’s public
administration. The institutions became economically and politically
dependent, with the political elite ensuring their loyalty to countries
that funded and sustained their operations. Widespread corruption in
the system prevented the allocation of resources and effective long-
term investments. Ethnic tensions within the administration and
election fraud further diminished the population’s trust in the
government. This culminated in 2019, the last election of the
Republic, when out of 9.8 million registered voters, only 1.8 million
people participated (Ruttiq, 2020) by voting in elections. Security
conditions also remained a major obstacle; the people wanted security
assurances, but the government could not address the deteriorating
security conditions. Eventually, the government’s inability to ensure
security became one of the major impediments to guaranteeing these
overarching transformational investments and changes.

Changing Course: Negotiating with the Taliban, 2018–
2021
There was a drastic shift in Afghanistan’s politics when the US began
negotiating with the Taliban in 2018 to agree on withdrawing US
troops and establishing a political settlement between the Taliban and
the Republic. From a peace-making point of view, the Doha process
of negotiations sought to end the conflicts between the warring
parties. The overall process started in October 2018 and ended in
August 2021 with the Doha Agreement, also referred to as a
withdrawal agreement, signed on 29 February 2020, between the US
and the Taliban. This agreement outlined the US troop’s withdrawal
and guaranteed the Taliban to abstain from using Afghanistan as a
sanctuary for terrorist groups to target the US and its allies. The
process proposed and envisioned a political settlement among Afghan
parties in conflict through intra-Afghan negotiations. This ultimately
did not succeed.
However, the process had significant flaws, one of which was granting
more power to one party of the conflict, the Taliban. In this regard, the
Doha Agreement1 emboldened the Taliban and provided them with the
opportunity to demonstrate their power and position themselves as
legitimate powerholders. Officials from Russia, China and Iran began
meeting with Taliban representatives and considered them the next
leaders of Afghanistan. The Taliban took this opportunity to increase
their offensive surge and captured the three provinces of Herat,
Qandahar and Mazar within a short period. By mid-August 2021, the
Taliban entered Kabul, President Ghani fled the country, and the
Taliban declared that Afghanistan was an Islamic Emirate on 16
August 2021. They proceeded to seize control of the government, oust
previously elected leadership, end the 20-year existence of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan and usher in a totalitarian system.
Theoretical Framework
Understanding Totalitarian Systems
In a totalitarian system, those in power enforce law and order however
they deem necessary, and the totality of power and control becomes
the central objective of the State and its institutions. Ideology plays a
significant role in exerting control and power. A well-defined
ideology enables totalitarians to create social values and norms and
impose these on society without any allowance for reform or

consideration of the current needs of society. Most governments use
power to enforce law and order, but when violence becomes the only
form of enforcing a particular belief system upon society—through
terrorising and intimidating the population to maintain a particular
form of order—that makes a system cruel and totalitarian in nature.
If it takes root in a country, a totalitarian system produces politically
indifferent masses and is a setback for the political life of a nation.
According to Hannah Arendt, “totalitarian movements aim at
organizing masses, not classes,”
The term masses applies only where we deal

with people who either because of sheer
numbers, or indifference, or a combination of
both, cannot be integrated into any
organization based on common interest, into
political parties or municipal governments or
professional organizations or trade unions.
Potentially they exist in every country and
form the majority of those large numbers of
neutral, politically indifferent people who
never join a party and hardly ever go to the
polls. (Baehr 2007, p.12)
The indifferent nature of the masses is what makes them a legitimiser
of a totalitarian system. If these masses grow, they become the
defenders of totalitarianism against the existing classes in society.
Masses who are the product of economic and political chaos or state
collapse often hold grudges and grievances, making it possible for
totalitarian rulers to manipulate them and convert them into indifferent
members of society. Totalitarianism is a complete form of domination
of the masses which controls human freedom and autonomy. As
defined here,
Totalitarianism means knowing no limits, not

allowing for any breathing spell, conquest with
absolute domination, the complete
extermination of the chosen foe. Regarding
this meaning of fascist ‘dynamism,’ any clear-
cut program would function as a limitation, a
kind of guarantee even to the adversary. It is
essential to totalitarian rule that nothing shall
be guaranteed; no limit is set to ruthless
arbitrariness. (Adorno, 1997, p. 400)
The Role of Terror
In a totalitarian system, the rulers believe in the power of control and
controlling freedom, either through direct terror or demonstrations of
terror. Terror is a significant element and core of totalitarianism.
Totalitarian regimes aim to institute total power and control over all
social domains of action and reshape society and individuals through
open terror. In Arendt’s view, ‘an “anti-state” transcends state
institutions and borders and is driven by ideology, terror, and global
ambitions.’ (Arendt, 1973) Totalitarians use terror not only to take
over but to consolidate power—in fact, terror often increases during
the consolidation phase and is a tactic to suppress opponents and
mobilise society. In such a system, conflict and instability is
inevitable.
A system that limits freedom and devalues human life and the
existential meaning of life is a threat to its long-term existence
through the forces of power—classes of the oppressed and victims. It
is also a threat to those beyond its borders that challenge its existence
and ‘thus pose a global problem and a challenge for humanity both as
an idea and an empirical reality.’ (Rensmann, 2011) These forms of
deterrence that allow them to sustain their power make terror and
totalitarianism closely related. Totalitarian goals focus on
expansionism, have both global reach and ambitions, and thus pose a
global problem and challenge for humanity.
Totalitarianism directly or indirectly realises the monopolistic control
of social order and communication. Through monopolistic control of
social communication, the totalitarians control the people’s agency to
critically assess the system and beliefs imposed on them, which leads
to the normativity of totalitarian politics. A totalitarian system
dissolves groups representing particular agendas, political views and
ideologies by limiting accessibility and flow of information and
suppressing the progressives and change-makers. The sources of
information that could cause social transformation are monopolised,
and terror is used to spread fear and limit people’s social and political
participation.
The Taliban and Totalitarianism

All of this should clarify that the influence and ideology of
totalitarianism have been an underlying framework for the Taliban
policies concerning all their public and political decisions. The
Taliban’s ideology and political ideas, which are based on
totalitarianism, have been instrumental in enabling them to maintain
high levels of structural violence despite having increased political
power. The core of the Taliban’s ideology is based on extremist
interpretation of religion, limiting tolerance for creating a new social
order. The social order the Taliban defends centres around their
interpretation of customs and religion, and they dissolve organisations
that provide differing interpretations. They also prevent the emergence
of individuals and organised groups who challenge their ideology and
influence of power. Hannah Arendt discusses that totalitarianism is the
product of ‘supranationalism triumphant,’ which is about dissolving
limited constitutions formed into an amorphous bonding of people,
such as a religiously defined army of devout followers. (Young-
Bruehl, 2002) In fact, ‘state education, sciences, Western languages,
and ideas were rejected altogether in favour of “traditionalist” Islam.’
(Giustozzi, 2010, p. 5) In understanding how the Taliban is structured

and how the national and transnational jihadist groups are motivated
by an ideology that fuels supranationalism and is totalitarian by
nature, we can better understand how this allowed them to expand
their influence and outreach beyond their borders of influence.
It is also important to understand the relationship between and among
different Taliban factions and be acquainted with the ideologies that
drive the Taliban’s inclusion of individuals from other ethnicities,
religious sects and political ideologies. This knowledge provides us
with different views within the Taliban about governance,
inclusiveness and dealing with international actors, resistance forces
and other armed oppositions. Clearly, the Taliban will not abandon the
ideology that has sustained their movement for the last 20 years.
Instead, they stand to strengthen the social forces in Afghan society to
exercise and normalise the conservative practices through media
campaigns, education and religious institutions.
The Taliban’s Political Order

To understand how totalitarianism connects with the current Taliban
governance, it is helpful to provide some basic information about its
structure. The word Taliban is the plural of Talib, which means

‘student.’ Taliban are predominantly from the Pashtun ethnic group
whose understanding of Islam is shaped and developed in Madrassas
—Islamic religious schools based in Pakistan and supported by Saudi
Arabia. The ethos of obedience comes from the ideological belief that
authority rests in their leader (known as Amir), whom they are
expected to follow with unquestioning obedience. The Taliban is an
Islamic fundamentalist movement (Maizland, 2021) with a
conservative worldview of society that is more militant than political
in its organisation. The Taliban movement has retained a narrow
social base, and most of its power is concentrated in the hands of
Mullahs (Islamic religious teachers).
Since their takeover in August of 2021, the Taliban’s composition is
becoming complex, especially compared to their emergence in 1994.
In the 1990s, as the Taliban expanded (Giustozzi, 2010) throughout
the country, they recruited Uzbek, Turkmen and Tajik to expand their
territorial control and influence. They established an Islamic Emirate
as a de facto administration across most of Afghanistan, and from
1996 to 2001 they fought the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban
Coalition, a national resistance force. From 2003, the Taliban changed

to a more organised militancy that engaged in a direct armed
confrontation with US and NATO forces, whom they called ‘occupied
forces,’ and the Kabul government, whom they called a ‘puppet
regime.’ The Taliban proclaimed their Jihad and asked Afghans to
join them if they believed in Islam. From 2002 to 2006 the Taliban
remained in their southern and eastern strongholds, where they had
forms of informal governance. Still, from 2006 onwards, they began
to expand their areas of influence geographically to seize territory in
all five building blocks of the country.2 In 2006–2007 (Giustozzi,
2010), they expanded their presence in Farah province and broadly to
the western region. Similarly, they expanded to Nuristan and
Badakhshan, which, some reports say, allowed them to recruit from
non-Pashtun areas. Following 2007, the Taliban extended offers of
cash and weapons to local strongmen of the mountainous parts of
Faryab, Jawjan, Sari-Pul (Giustozzi, 2010) and Herat in exchange for
their cooperation.
Afghanistan De Facto Government Structure

The current structure of Afghanistan’s de facto government,
consisting of a supreme leader and the council, is similar to the system

the Taliban instituted during the 5 years of rule between 1996 and
2001. At that time, Mullah Omar was the supreme leader and, despite
remaining in the shadows, oversaw the daily management of the
country. Today, the composition of the de facto government has arisen
from two main factions, the Kandahar and Paktia factions, and largely
excludes women and several ethnic groups from its leadership. Of the
33 males appointed to leadership positions, all but three are ethnic
Pashtuns, all are from the Hanafi Sunni sect of Islam, and all are
Taliban hardliners and loyalists. Some had prominent positions in the
first Taliban government from 1996 to 2001. Several other groups of
people have also been given positions in this de facto administration
including local strongmen who helped expand the Taliban’s
movements across the provinces, and their top commanders from
1990s.
Today, the supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, is the Taliban
movement’s leader and has three deputies (Gopalakrishnan, 2022) in
prominent government positions. Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, son of
Mullah Omar and former head of the Taliban’s military commission,
leads the Ministry of Defence. Yaqoob is believed to have close ties

with the Middle East. Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the Ministry of
Interior, is the son of the Jalaluddin Haqqani (died in 2018), who
founded the robust militant Haqqani network, an Afghan and Pakistani
insurgent group (Rassler & Brown, 2011) that rose to prominence in
the 1980s. In the 1990s, Haqqani allied with the Taliban, had strong
ties with Arab and Pakistani jihadist groups and was instrumental in
radicalising the region and advocating for global jihad. Abdul Ghani
Baradar, acting as first deputy prime minister, is a founding member
who headed the Taliban’s political office in Doha. Mullah Mohammad
Hassan Akhund, another key leader, serves as the new government’s
acting Prime Minister (Al Jazeera, 2021). It is believed that the
candidature of Mullah Akhund, another founding member of the
Taliban movement and well-respected by Mullah Omar, resolved the
factional dispute3 between the Kandahar faction and the Haqqani
network. These appointments highlight that the Taliban’s military
wings are strong, both in terms of their connection with jihadist
groups through the Haqqani network and with the Middle Eastern
countries through Mohammad Yaqoob. This also points to potential

financial sources that, though small, could further support the
Taliban’s regime.
Complexities within the Taliban Governance

Structure
Though some analysis suggests that the political camps of the Taliban
involved in negotiations in Doha are moderate with some level of
flexibility in civil liberties and governance, the last few months of
their regime have proven otherwise. The moderation within the
Taliban’s faction is a tactical and temporary move to gain
international recognition, mainly because they don’t want to be
without outside financial assistance or isolated from the international
community as they were from 1996 to 2001. The Taliban has been
demanding recognition since they announced the establishment of
their ‘caretaker government’ with the expectation that Muslim
countries would take the lead in recognising their regime since they
believe their common religion brings them under one umbrella. For
the Taliban to gain the recognition they desire, they will have to
compromise on some issues temporarily. Still, it by no means

demonstrates a permanent change in their attitude or behaviour in
governing the system nor in creating and maintaining social order.
Positioning Itself with the Haqqani Network

One complexity could appear with the Haqqani network—one of the
most brutal insurgent, hardliner factions of the Taliban—who are
playing a leading role in the de facto government. The Haqqani
network was primarily based in Pakistan’s Northern Waziristan 4 and
has conducted cross-border operations into eastern Afghanistan. In
addition to their relationship with the Taliban, they have close ties to
Al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The Haqqani
network has forged relationships with ideologically and politically
like-minded jihadist groups and, as mentioned earlier, has had
significant roles in the development and sustainment of Al-Qaeda
(Rassler & Brown, 2011) and global jihad. The Haqqani network has
also functioned as a conduit for many Pakistani Taliban (Rassler &
Brown, 2011), known as Tehrek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Whenever
Pakistan and TTP had important issues to discuss, Haqqani played a
significant role in providing diplomatic intervention. The extended
relationships of the Haqqani network suggest that their loyalty is less

to Afghanistan’s cause and more to a broader network of jihadists and
their goals. The Haqqani network has increasingly become a potent
force whose relationship within the group and with other jihadist
groups and Pakistan will determine the nature of politics in
Afghanistan and the kind of country it becomes.
Afghanistan’s Centralised Political System

Afghanistan has an incredibly centralised political system and has
historically been that way. Even though each province in Afghanistan
has its own nature of socio-economic issues and security concerns, the
centralised institutions’ lack of efficient administration and organised
infrastructure meant they were unable to provide each province with
the resources they required and failed to maintain and protect the
security of people in most of the countryside. The centralised systems
in Afghanistan have also made representation a decisive issue. Local
provincial administrators were appointed from Kabul, and public
policies have been entirely based on Kabul’s bureaucracy and
strategies to strengthen the centralised system. This centralised system
has caused an identity crisis—a situation that occurs when an
individual does not see him or herself represented in the political

system—among many of those who live in Afghanistan’s remote
areas.
Fault Lines within the Taliban Structure

These complexities point to fault lines in the Taliban’s structure.
Ethnic divisions and tensions are an integral part of Afghanistan’s
socio-political reality. Unfortunately, the Taliban has not indicated
that they will try to remedy that. Instead, they continue to exhibit their
ethnonationalism motives through exclusion of non-Pashtuns from
positions of power and the belief that they are the only ruling class in
Afghanistan. Their ethnocentric approach to various political issues is
evident by neglecting to recognise or include the diversity of Afghan
society. They have demonstrated no efforts to change that
composition. They may consider this composition a strength.
However, there are differences within different factions of the
Taliban, and there have been rifts between the Taliban leadership from
the south and leadership from the east on issues of inclusion, girls’
education, relationship with foreign countries, particularly the west
and also their ties with Al-Qaeda that will risk the sustainability of
their regime.
The cohesion within the Taliban has been one of its major strengths
over the last 20 years. However, there is a growing faction within the
Taliban due to conflicting views between its military and political
wings. These differences can potentially impact Taliban’s use of
resources, their distribution of humanitarian assistance, the
implementation of restricted rules on the population and their
relationship with the international community. Despite the rifts among
them, the Taliban’s primary focus is to keep their different factions
together and present themselves as a united front, particularly as they
struggle for international recognition. The Taliban need to build
relationships within the regional and international communities to
govern and consolidate power. But they also need to maintain their
ideological stance. Keeping this balance may prove difficult with the
existing composition and factions within their ranks.
In principle, the Taliban has no political will to have representatives
from other ethnic groups in leadership positions. They find it difficult
to tolerate other ethnic groups in powerful positions because they need
loyalty where tribe and ethnic affiliations may guarantee loyalty.
Strategically this also allows them to keep themselves in power. The

Taliban’s inclusion of three non-Pashtuns into leadership positions is a
political tactic that allows them to expand territorial influence and by
no means indicates their actual acceptance or trust in other ethnic
groups. Non-Pashtuns, even when included in leadership, were always
in the middle ranks. Therefore, the fight for power between Pashtun
and non-Pashtun Taliban could cause defections within the Taliban
ranks. The risk for the Taliban is that the non-Pashtun Taliban could
become a threat and cause internal fragmentation, as was observed
recently when there was a fight between the Pashtun and Uzbek
Taliban groups’ (Amiri & Shah, 2022) ethnic minority fighters ranks.
More than anything, such reports indicate that the fragility of
relationships within the Taliban is based on ethnicity and power. In
addition, the differences in governance and public restrictions in
different provinces demonstrate the fact that there are also differences
in views among the Taliban on issues of governance, the inclusion of
other ethnicities in the power structure, relationships with foreigners,
women’s right to education, work and politics, and freedom of
movement and expression.

Desertion of any of the Taliban’s factions could enable conditions for
rivals to step in. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) is one
example of this possibility. ISKP, which was organised and officially
formed in 2015 in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and the tribal regions of
Pakistan, is a jihadist group affiliated with ISIS. (Mir, 2021) Its
motivation for expansionism was establishing an Islamic caliphate in
South and Central Asia. In many ways, ISKP and the Taliban have the
same ideologies. However, the Taliban ideological foundation is
driven by the Deobandi-Hanafi sect of Islam and ISKP’s ideological
foundation is primarily driven by Salafi. The tension and fighting
between them, based on jihadi Salafism, ‘often justifies violence
against other Muslims, including non-combatants, by recourse to
takfir, or the ex-communication of fellow Muslims’ (Hamid & Dar,
2016). ISKP is expanding its presence in the northern part of the
country and has demonstrated its potential to rival the Taliban.
ISKP poses several security challenges to Afghanistan’s citizens and
the Taliban. The Taliban have failed to protect civilians from the
numerous attacks ISKP has conducted since the Taliban takeover.
ISKP has increased its attacks on Shia and Hazara communities,

health workers and activists. They have also targeted schools, showing
that they intend to spread terror and cause maximum suffering. The
attacks against Shia communities can potentially cause Shia-Sunni
conflicts, particularly if the sectarian conflict spills over Iran’s border
and disturbs the Taliban’s improved relationship with Iran. Another
possible schism with ISKP could arise from their accusations against
the Taliban for deceiving Islam by siding with Shia (Ricardo, 2022)
and practicing their religion incorrectly. Overall, ISKP has made
continuous attempts to degrade the Taliban’s regime.
Representation, Gender Discrimination,

Dissatisfaction and Resistance Movements
Freedom and dignity are the basis of people’s motivation to stay in
their country and work toward economic growth and development.
However, when a state cannot protect citizens from fear of threats
related to their lives, identity, dignity and freedom, the consequence
will be either mass resistance or mass migration. When an individual
does not see themselves represented in the political system, it can
cause an identity crisis. And when structural discrimination against a
group is institutionalised, resistance emerges. Widespread,

unorganised resistance caused by people’s grievances could morph
into violent actions or inspire them to fight for power, leading to intra-
state conflict or large-scale refugee movements, posing severe threats
to human and societal security.
Lack of Representation
Under the authoritarian Taliban system in Afghanistan—which lacks
ethnic, ideological, and gender representation—people lose their sense
of participation because they do not see themselves represented in the
ruling structure. Harsh rules placed on youth, public executions,
discriminatory behaviour against minorities and the lack of
representation in government have discouraged people from
participating and re-engaging in societal affairs. The lack of effective
participation of such a large percentage of the population in building
the economy and developing the political arena poses an enormous
threat to communal and economic security, including individual
economic, political and civil participation. The harsh rules and social
restrictions limiting individuals’ freedom and rights can also restrict
their growth and development, resulting in a lack of effective
contribution to developing their environment. Under the current

circumstances—with the strict and authoritarian government in place
and people’s fundamental social and political rights at stake—the
Taliban governance appears to be enabling conditions of fear and
threat.
Gender Apartheid
The Taliban’s ideology clearly defines women’s roles in society. The
strict implementation of these interpretations means there is
significantly less tolerance for including women in politics, public
places and the workforce. The Taliban are also the most resistant to
the progressive movement of women who undermine the patriarchal
authority of the society they govern. Soon after taking over, “the
Taliban banned women and girls from secondary and higher education
and altered curricula to focus more on religious studies. They dictate
what women must wear, how they should travel, workplace
segregation by sex and even what kind of cell phones women should
have. They enforce these rules through intimidation and inspections”
(Human Rights Watch, 2022). During the first 6 months of Taliban
governance, schools and universities were closed to girls, and women
protesters were abducted. Strict rules, such as restrictions on

movement (when women are not allowed to travel without a mahram
or a male escort), intimidation and the suppression of women’s voices
have caused fear. Now, though universities have been reopened for
girls, the new rules (Bar, 2022) for girls could further restrict them and
limit their confidence, freedom and agency.
Under the Taliban regime, women will not have agency of power—
the regime has made this clear since they returned to power. Women
cannot resume political or government positions, they cannot be in the
judiciary system, and the Taliban has even imposed restrictions on
female development practitioners by halting field-level work in most
of the provinces. The Taliban’s understanding of women’s roles is
medieval and inflexible to change or reform. This condition has
injected fear and frustration among women and has further confined
them to the boundaries of their homes. Under such conditions, where
the governing bodies fail to provide safety and security for women,
families without protection systems prefer to marry their daughters off
at a very young age, with the justification that they are preserving
their honour and protecting them from kidnapping, assault and
insecurity.
The women’s movement in Afghanistan, which historically is said to
have begun in 1920, has reflected the fluctuating status of women’s
position in society. Despite the struggles, Afghan women have proved
to be bright, resourceful and courageous enough to play a crucial part
in social transformation if given space and opportunities. There is no
doubt that some communities in Afghanistan willingly adhere to the
Taliban’s radical approach toward women’s rights by enforcing strict
and conservative rules and being reluctant to promote girls’ education
and women’s work outside of the home. But Taliban enforced policies
could further radicalise and close the society and impede social
transformation. The repressive regime will most likely silence the
bright and progressive women of society, spread fear and make people
even more cautious about sending the female members of their
families to educational institutions and work due to the risks of being
abducted, tortured or abused.
Armed and Unarmed Resistance

Afghanistan has experienced resistance movements throughout its
history. Large-scale oppositions have resisted the political system due
to collective grievances or the deprivation of basic needs. Youth

movements have resisted the ruling class due to dissatisfaction with
their political ideology. Religious groups across the country have
resisted the progressive policies of the sitting government. While
some resistance movements have remained non-violent, others have
turned into violent armed conflict.
Armed resistance has been utilised by loosely organised groups that
initially used non-violent means to protect their collective identity and
promote their interests. Lack of consensus about a unified political
system and the distribution of resources has also resulted in armed
conflict. Ethnic differences, which the Taliban have further
exacerbated, have been and continue to be a significant factor in
armed resistance.
Afghanistan is multiethnic and multilingual, with cultural and social
differences among ethnic communities. There has always been a fight
for power and resources among ethnic representatives and leaders,
leading to divisions among ethnic groups. The Taliban, a
predominantly Pashtun ethnic group, further strengthened the ethnic
divide by excluding other ethnic representatives from the power
structure. The Taliban’s mode of operation has been to suppress the

population through force and violence and to marginalise the
minorities from positions of power. Different ethnic groups have their
grievances related to the Taliban in power. For instance, the Hazara
ethnic group has harsh memories of the atrocities against them. First,
this happened during the civil war and then through the Taliban’s
persecution of them in the 1990s, ultimately forcing them to leave
Afghanistan. (Baloch, 2021) This traumatic history, compounded with
the recent killing of Hazara (Amnesty International, 2021) by the
Taliban, has frightened and propelled a large segment of their
population to flee the country. Similarly, Tajiks in Panjshir, the
Andarab district of Baghlan Province, and other Northern areas have
been arbitrarily arrested, tortured and killed by the Taliban since the
takeover. Tajiks from the Panjshir and Northern areas staged a
resistance or took up arms to protect themselves and their
communities. Their resistance is also against the power structure of
the Taliban. They want to be represented in the structure but believe
that there are organised efforts to keep them away from power and
resources. They also believe that, as a ruling Pashtun group, the
Taliban have different views of politics, society and culture that are
highly incompatible with their own. Taliban rule will not allow them
to take on equal positions in politics or society and will undermine
their freedom.
Other social and educated classes have experienced pronounced
dissatisfaction. The political elites are one example of people who
differ in their beliefs about social order, political ideology and
religious ideology, both among themselves and with other radical
movements, making consensus nearly impossible. The central
governing system in Afghanistan never succeeded in meeting the vast
societal and economic needs that exist for people across the country.
This has included differences in provincial social and economic
development needs and cultural norms and values that each
community practices. This conflict of view—which has historically
existed over vast periods of time—has impeded the development of
any standard form of social order. Now there is added confusion about
how to establish social order because the majority of the population
opposes Taliban’s ideology. People want to live in a society where
they can exercise some level of freedom within the limits of Islamic
practice, but not with the strict interpretation that the Taliban insists
on imposing on the population. This is also true for women who no
longer see themselves represented in decision-making systems, are
excluded from political processes and have fewer opportunities and
more limits on their agency.
Security Complexities: Expanding the

Definition of Security
The Traditional View of Security
In accordance with a traditional model of security, threats were
identified and measured based on their impact on political structures,
territorial boundaries, and national interest. (Jolly & Deepayan, 2007)
Therefore, borders and their protection, diplomatic relationships
between states and demonstration of military power were the main
components of national security agendas and state strategies.
The trends of intrastate wars since 1960 have led to a major shift
requiring new security measures to address human suffering
worldwide. In many circumstances, the concept of military-based
security has been unable to provide people with social and economic
security. It has failed to protect people’s physical security and basic
material needs. Cognisant of this, member states of the United Nations

initiated a dialogue around a people-centred approach to security.
They conceptualized a notion of security that moved beyond a narrow
military approach that had fostered an understanding of states as the
only responsible actor and national political interests as paramount.
(Sakhi, 2018)
A New Understanding of Security

There needs to be a shift in this traditional approach when considering
the security needs and protection of societies and people. Security
threats continue to evolve across the world, and discussions no longer
take place behind closed doors in war, intelligence and military rooms.
Now security captures a wide range of social and economic aspects of
life, comprehensive human dignity and freedom encompassing states’
economy, politics and ideology. This has caused policymakers to
rethink their engagement strategies in conflict and post-conflict
contexts. The evolving security threats in Afghanistan and the
emergence of new security concerns such as abductions, detention,
targeted killings, suppression and discrimination, restrictions on
people’s freedom and lack of access to resources give rise to a new
understanding of security. The meaning people give to security varies

depending on the political regime and social and economic status in
which they live. In many conflict-affected zones, survival is not just
about escaping bullets. It is also—and sometimes more—about access
to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education and jobs. (Beebe &
Kaldor, 2010)
The causes of individuals’ insecurities, therefore, can be assessed by
examining the social, economic and cultural context in which people
exist. When social, economic and political institutions cannot provide
people with an enabling environment, people and communities remain
deprived of their basic needs. This deprivation prevents them from
behaving according to established laws (Burton, 1993) and they often
resort to using illegal means, including insurgency, violence and the
drug trade, to fulfil their basic human needs. Such activities destroy
social and economic infrastructures that provide safety and protection
to people and communities.
Throughout the last 20 years of armed conflict between warring forces
in Afghanistan, tactics such as suicide attacks, attacks on public
places, assassination, bombing and night raids have caused immense
death and destruction. Before the Taliban takeover, people were dying
from attacks that the Taliban and other insurgent groups
predominantly conducted. It is true that with the Taliban taking power
in August 2021, the number of such attacks has decreased, though not
wholly—as reports highlight, there has been an increase in deadly
ISIS activities (Dawi, 2022) since the Taliban assumed control of the
government. The reason for this overall decline is apparent—before
they were in power, the Taliban had been plotting and carrying out
attacks to gain power and control of the country. But having the
Taliban in control hasn’t made the country or people safer. People are
still insecure and needlessly dying. It is just that these deaths are now
the result of starvation and famine or other atrocities. In addition, the
totalitarian rule of the Taliban has imposed strict rules on individuals’
freedom of choice, movement and participation and these aggressive
motivations cause fear, frustration and conflict.
This means that the first step to preventing large-scale threats to
people’s wellbeing and security is involving people in ensuring
people-centred approaches to security are present. The conditions
needed for better security are safety and protection, but people in
many parts of Afghanistan are deprived of those conditions. These

limited conditions have pressured Afghanistan’s educated and
progressive-minded people, especially women. The intellectuals
(France 24, 2022) cannot freely express their views, and if they do so,
they are detained. Opponents of the Taliban are not provided space in
society and politics. Journalists (Collett-White, 2021) are detained,
beaten and forced to leave the country. Women are prohibited from
meaningful participating in public and private sectors, are not allowed
to work in government positions that require decision-making
(including middle and high-level management) and are discouraged
and prohibited from participating in any political process. Women
protestors are being beaten and sprayed with chemical irritants
(Zucchino & Akbary, 2022). The atrocities and restrictions imposed
by the totalitarian system of the Taliban have caused fear and
frustration and impeded people from enjoying their fundamental
freedoms such as education, freely expressing their views and
participating in the growth of society. Such a system fails to facilitate
the necessary conditions for material sufficiency and security,
enabling conditions for a further division between the ruling system
and the people, resulting in resistance and insurgency.

Conclusion
The characteristics of the Taliban’s totalitarian system have caused a
security paradox, opening the door for broader security concerns and
undefined and unstructured insecurities. The Taliban’s oppressive
policies and repressive system—particularly those that curtail freedom
and suppress women and minorities—cause fear and frustration. The
Taliban’s governance and divisive practices threaten individuals and
the collective well-being, safety and protection of all. The severe
humanitarian and economic crisis, the social restrictions on people’s
lives, the detention of journalists and targeted killings and abductions
of women protestors have created a new form of insecurities resulting
in death, fear and grievances among the population. The lack of
stability has caused people to be concerned about their future. Even
the reduced armed conflict and attacks in the last few months haven’t
provided a sense of safety and security. Instead, the increasing level of
frustration and sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction with the current
totalitarian system is causing fear, silencing the progressives and
leading people to leave the country.

The Taliban authorities—and those controlling the military wings of
the Taliban—are hardliners who have ties to transnational terrorist
groups. The lack of inclusivity of different ethnic groups, ideologies
and gender in the political system and Taliban’s atrocities have caused
the emergence of resistance movements across the country. The
Taliban face issues and challenges balancing their ideological
commitments to governing according to international norms.
Consequently, their response to the security crisis has not been well
calculated.
In certain situations, it takes time for people to collectively react to
regimes that impose strict rules to suppress individuals and
communities. But sometimes, the resistance movement takes shape as
soon as the totalitarian regime is in place. In Afghanistan, different
parts of the country organised themselves before the Taliban had
completed their forced takeover. The Taliban lacked internal
legitimacy, something keenly felt within the country, and resistance
forces from the northern region and some pockets of the western
region emerged soon after the Taliban assumed control of the country.
In addition, Afghanistan is an economically dependent country, and

the Taliban immediately lost a significant portion of its foreign
funding. The inability of the Taliban to develop and execute an
economic plan may further elevate poverty and famine and cause
societal instability. In such situations, it would be easy for radical and
outside forces to intervene and monetise the crisis.
The Taliban now face three major challenges because of this security
paradox. The first challenge relates to the Taliban’s previous tactics—
attacks, killing and assassination—that they used to win the war. As a
militant group governing the country, they face tactical challenges by
replacing attacks with abductions, detention, silent and targeted
killings and public punishment. These tactics are in no way helping
the Taliban gain internal and external legitimacy. The second
challenge relates to the regional countries’ relationship with the
Taliban. Several variables impact the positions of state leaders when it
comes to their relationship with the Taliban. Regional leaders will
make most decisions based on cost-benefit analysis and their
intentions and expectations. This makes their stance unpredictable and
uncertain, and this uncertainty ultimately impacts the political and
security conditions in Afghanistan. The third challenge is related to

the Taliban’s ability to balance the challenges mentioned above
alongside their relationships with transnational terrorist groups,
particularly Al-Qaeda. The Taliban’s ideological commitment and ties
with Al-Qaeda make it difficult for the hardliners to compromise on
anything. This could ultimately result in fragmentation within the
Taliban on governance and security issues.
The Taliban takeover in 2021 has introduced a new set of insecurities
and uncertainty. Although it is not accurate to assume that one would
feel fully secure under other governing systems, totalitarianism does
provide a theoretical framework to help understand why the new
uncertainties and insecurities exist. When a totalitarian system is put
in place, and a militant group with ties to transnational terrorist
organisations rules over people, the uncertainties and unexpected
forms of insecurities make effective security policymaking politically
unachievable.

Funding
Footnotes
1.Doha Agreement, 29 February 2020. https://www.state.gov/wp-
content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-
Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf
2.Five building blocks are often referred to Jalalabad, Kabul, Herat,
Mazar-e-Sharif and Qandahar.
3.Another visual depiction of the leadership can be found at
4.Information retrieved from Counterterrorism Guide.
https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/haqqani_network.html
Notes
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The Collapse of State in Afghanistan: A Repeat of

History?
Nasir A. Andisha nasirandisha@gmail.comView all authors and affiliations
Volume 9, Issue 3
https://doi.org/10.1177/23477970221129901
ContentsPDF / ePub
• Related content
Abstract
The sudden and stunning fall of Kabul on 15 August 2021 to the
Taliban raised many questions about the immediate and underlying
causes of the state’s collapse, the consequences of the US/NATO’s
retreat, and what the Taliban’s military victory meant for Afghanistan,
the region and beyond. This article focuses on the main causes of the
collapse and attempts to offer an uncomplicated yet inclusive picture
first by explaining the immediate overriding security and political
triggers and then by examining the underlying strategic, structural and
historical factors. A ground-level assessment of the situation indicated
that the resumption of the Doha talks in late 2018 and its subsequent
political, diplomatic and military repercussions building over months
contributed to the precipitous collapse. However, a bird’s eye-view
analysis revealed that structural flaws in the design, process and
implementation of the post 9/11 state-building efforts in Afghanistan
such as a top-down, highly centralised and winner takes all system,
and a weak public participation and accountability mechanism were
among the underlying failure factors.
Introduction
The brazen military takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and the
devastating images of people holding onto departing military airplanes
at the Kabul Airport depicted the utter desperation, fear and
abandonment that many Afghans felt. These images were also
indicative of the collapse of the Afghan state; a fairly modern
republican state established 20 years earlier by a grand coalition of
rival political parties and through enormous assistance from the
international community.
Contrary to common belief, the state of Afghanistan did not fall
overnight. It happened in ‘two ways, gradually, then suddenly’. This
famous passage from Ernest Hemingway’s novel best describes the
collapse. It started gradually in 2014 and then took a sharp, sudden,
and unfortunate turn in the summer of 2021. The unexpected and
instantaneous fall was precipitated by a chain event starting on 29
February 2020 when the Trump administration signed a peace deal
with the Taliban, effectively elevating an insurgent-cum-terrorist
group into a semi-state entities (Lefebvre, 2021). It was further
exacerbated by President Biden’s 14 April 2021 announcement of the
unconditional and total withdrawal of the remaining US forces’

support of the Afghan security forces (Biden, 2021b). While Biden
and his close aids squarely put the onus on President Ghani for fleeing
the country and Afghanistan’s National Security Forces for not putting
up a stronger fight against the Taliban, most Afghans and regional
stakeholders blame the irresponsible and inconsiderate manner in
which the US pulled the plug and abandoned its allies and partners in
Afghanistan.
The roots of the gradual part, however, can be attributed to the flawed
process of state-building in early 2002 and several missteps by the
Afghan government and other international stakeholders ever since,
particularly after the fraudulent 2014 presidential election. The cracks
in Afghanistan’s winner-takes-all system, highly centralised state
structure and troublesome single non-transferable electoral system
(SNTV) appeared during the second presidential election in 2009.
However, there was neither a political will on the part of the
international community, the UN, and the Afghan government’s
leadership at the time, nor was there an accessible and independent
legal resort within the highly centralized constitution for the
opposition to seek reform.

On the other hand, the ultimate collapse of the Afghan state after four
consecutive elections and investments worth up to billions of dollars
towards propping up a democratic institution once again raises the
debate over the liberal internationalist project of state-building and
democratisation. While some academia and policymakers criticised
the model—an over-centralized presidential system (Acemoglu, 2021;
Vendrell, 2012)—others questioned the overall attempt of building a
modern nation-state in a society dominated by a tribal cultural-
historical resistance to modern notions of legitimacy and institutions
(Beaton, 2021; Walt, 2013). President Biden even went further and
questioned the whole concept of unifying different groups under one
state in the country (Blackwil, 2011).
While it is difficult to separate the sudden collapse from the gradual
one as the former is in many ways connected to the latter, the abrupt
disintegration of the state, the speed and ease with which the Taliban
took over the country astonished even the most sophisticated
intelligence agencies (Salama & Strobel, 2021). It cannot be only
explained by structural and socio-economic factors. Hence, the demise
of the highly centralised and increasingly personalised government

which in its last years was referred to as ‘a republic of three men’ can
be explained by its immediate functional and deep-rooted structural
shortcomings.
The Immediate Causes: A Military or Political

Collapse
Infiltration of the Haqqani network’s elite brigade, the Taliban’s tribal
militias incursions into the eastern and southern suburbs of Kabul and
the flight of President Ghani and his close aides on the morning of 15
August 2021 triggered a panic leading to the disintegration of the state
and a chaotic evacuation. Since then, several high-ranking former
government officials, security commanders and foreign
correspondences have offered their accounts of the event and its
proceedings; however, a definitive report has yet to emerge.
As President Kennedy once remarked, ‘victory has a hundred fathers,
and defeat is an orphan’. Every single account of the collapse of
Kabul by high officials passes the blame onto other individuals,
institutions, or groups. From the perspective of military leaders, it was
all a political and diplomatic failure (Sadat, 2021) while politicians

criticise the military apparatus for their mishandling, lack of discipline
and morale (Biden, 2021a).
The Military Factors

As of July 2020, the total number of Afghanistan National Defence
and Security Forces (ANDSF)—an umbrella term denoting the
combined security personnel of the Afghan National Army (ANA),
the Afghan National Police (ANP), the Afghan Air Force (AAF), and
the Afghan Special Security Forces (ASSF)—was estimated to be at
288,702 strong (Schroden, 2021).
While the ANDSF enjoyed a clear superiority in numbers, training
equipment, and technology, it suffered from an overreliance on
foreign technical and logistical support and faced acute challenges of
politicisation, discipline and leadership, and low morale. The force
was initially established as a regular standing army intended to secure
the population and a vast ragged territory, not as an agile, quick-
reaction force capable of controlling and suppressing an insurgency.
According to Ali Ahmad Jalali, professor at the War College and
former Afghan interior minister (2003–2005),

the initial false assumption that the conflict
was over had a profound effect on the
establishment and development of Afghanistan
security forces. Planning for their size and
capacity was based on an assessment of short-
term political and security conditions that
ignored the potential of strategic changes in
the area, such as an upsurge in insurgency and
activity of non-state armed groups and the
dynamics of ongoing conflict. (Jalali, 2016)
As the Taliban and Al-Qaeda resurged in the border areas of
Afghanistan and Pakistan a few years later, the US and NATO began
adjusting the numbers of ANDSF personnel until it reached its peak at
352,000. From day one, ANDSF was overly dependent on the
financial, technical and logistical support of the US/NATO forces in
Afghanistan. On air transport, surveillance and airpower, the Afghan
army was completely relying on US/NATO air assets and capabilities.
Between 2011 and 2014, as part of the transition of security
responsibilities from NATO, a small air force and a special operation

corps were added to ANDSF’S structure. While the special operations
force rapidly evolved into a strong and disciplined unit and proved
effective in counterterrorism and rescue and evacuation operations,
their technological and operational model and commando night raids
created more, not less dependency on the US military and private
contractors. In the past 2 years, while the rest of the ANDSF became
highly dependent on the air force and special operation forces, the
latter themselves were still heavily reliant on the technical and
logistical support of US personnel.
The Downfall of the ANDSF

While the most cited immediate cause of the rapid downward spiral of
the ANDSF has been the sudden removal of the US close air support
and technical and logistical assistance (Cordesman, 2021; Weinstein,
2022), middle-rank policy officers and field commanders that spoke
with the author argued that the following systemic and nuanced
factors also contributed to the drastic loss of cohesion and morale:
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The last but also a crucial factor was the spreading of confusing
rumours about a political deal between the Americans and the Taliban
on creating an interim administration. Similarly, despite clear signs of
the US departure, there was a false assurance of continued security
support after the sudden arrival of a large number of US/NATO forces
at the Kabul Airport days before the collapse. While it was made clear
that the mission of newly arrived forces was to assist a safe and
orderly evacuation of the remaining foreign personnel, many,
including senior Afghan politicians, refused to believe that the US
would abruptly leave and abandon Afghanistan.The factors above
illustrate the depth and breadth of operational, managerial and
technical challenges the ANDSF endured for several years. However,
the force demonstrated unequivocal resilience and willpower in the

face of all adversities and a soaring rate of fatalities. The existential
question which the ANDSF could not overcome by bravery and
endurance was
were the Afghan armed forces meant to fight

against an insurgency that was aimed at
substituting the elected government, or were
the Taliban just one of the constituencies
within Afghan ethnic mosaic and society,
which the government should deal with, on an
equal-status with itself as an autonomous
political entity? (Lefebvre, 2021)
Taliban’s Military Offensive
By the summer of 2020, thanks to the Doha deal, The Taliban were at
the zenith of their military and political strength. Their active force
was estimated at around 70,000, including well trained red brigades,
suicide squads and young students from religious seminaries across
the border in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Contrary to their promises under the Doha agreement to reduce
violence in Afghanistan and despite the constant pleas from the

international community, including NATO’s Secretary-General, the
Taliban opened a complex and intense spring offensive in early May
2021 (Brown & Haidary, 2021). The offensive began by first moving
into the central border districts and border crossings facilities in the
north with the central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan, and then in the west with Iran and in the south with
Pakistan. The offensive effectively cuts land connections with
neighbouring countries and deprived the government of its main
consumption revenues. In the next phase in early July, the Taliban
concentrated their attack on the major provincial capitals. These large-
scale attacks started after the group was assured of a complete
withdrawal of troops, and end of US’s close air support to ANDSF in
Afghanistan.
With disarray and frustration in the ranks and file of ANDSF due to
constant leadership changes, corruptions, attrition, high level of
casualties and above all, loss of morale and cohesion, the Taliban used
their sleeping cells within the armed forces and support influential
local elders. They even offered payments to persuade military
commanders to surrender. These tactics worked particularly well

initially in some regions (Zucchino & Rahim, 2021). However, later,
the news of such events triggered a domino effect in other areas and
played a crucial role in the fall of Kabul.
Meanwhile, parallel to the US diplomatic rapprochement with the
Taliban, some neighbouring and regional countries that kept covert
channels of communication and supplies with the insurgents increased
their military and financial support. They became more creative and
open in providing supplies to the Taliban, often under the pretext of
fighting the so-called ISK (Members of the Afghanistan Study Group,
2021).
Political and Diplomatic Factors

Despite the convincingly detrimental military factors, the
overwhelming majority of policymakers and experts argue that the 15
August 2021 collapse was primarily a political and diplomatic failure
closely linked to the lopsided Doha peace talks. The Trump
Administration, as part of its unorthodox quest for making deals with
rogue actors, reinvigorated the previously unsuccessful Doha talks,
which were initially established by the US and a few of its European
allies since 2010. In September 2018, the State Department appointed

Afghanistan-born US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, a Republican who
previously served as the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the
UN, as its Special Representative for Afghanistan’s Reconciliation.
After 18 months of often secretive exchanges with the Taliban and
open pressures on the Afghan government, the talks culminated into a
framework agreement signed between the US and Taliban
representatives in Doha, Qatar on 29 February 2020. The deal was
hailed by the Trump administration, the UK government, and the
NATO officials as a momentous and historic day and a first step in
ending their long war in Afghanistan.
However, according to Francesco Lefebvre, the deal, whose annexes
are still classified, ‘has been signed between the government of the US
and the representative of a non-recognized militarised insurgency
force’. Although in the agreement the other party is repeatedly defined
as ‘the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the
United States as a state and is known as the Taliban’, it seems
reasonable to say that the US Government, by signing the agreement,
has effectively given de-facto recognition to the (Taliban) ‘Islamic
Emirate of Afghanistan’ (Lefebvre, 2021).

The Doha agreement conferred unprecedented recognition to the
Taliban and openly dismissed the then legitimate and internationally
recognized government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in
favour of ‘a new post-settlement Islamic government, without offering
a credible mechanism toward achieving such a political settlement in
the first place’ (Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Which Is Not Recognized by the
United States as a State and Is Known as the Taliban and the United
States of America). Accepting the Taliban’s demand to exclude the
Afghan government from the process, Bruce Riedel argued that ‘the
Trump administration betrayed our ally and elevated the Taliban to
our equal’ (Riedel, 2020).
The provisions of the agreement further debilitated the domestic
legitimacy of the Afghan government, which was already suffering
from a weak mandate and the lowest electoral turnout of around 20%
of eligible voters since Afghanistan’s first presidential election in
2004. The deal also lured the Afghan political elites, such as former
Mujahidin leaders, the former President, members of the parliament,
and local power brokers who were long offended by President Ghani’s
ideological political agenda and eccentric personality to actively
undermine the government or, at best, remain indifferent to its rapid
downward spiral.
At the regional and international levels, the Doha process triggered a
race to the bottom in reaching out to the Taliban without demanding
anything meaningful in return. Regional powers such as Russia, Iran
and China increased their outreach to the Taliban, using the pretext of
the Doha process and freedom of movement for their leaders, and
started openly hosting Taliban delegations and holding parallel talks.
These parallel outreaches to the Taliban and other opposition political
functions further destabilised the Afghan state and undermined the
effectiveness of the Doha process.
Besides the Taliban, the Doha talks empowered the Pakistani
establishment, which a year earlier was called by Trump as a ‘safe
haven to agents of chaos, violence, and terror’. The primacy of
political expediency or tangible peace-making in Doha brought
Pakistan back to the regional diplomatic stage and changed it almost
overnight from a country that, according to President Trump’s famous
first tweet of 2018, offered only ‘lies and deceit’ into the main player,
deal broker tasked with delivering the good-Taliban on the negotiation
table in Doha (Roggio, 2019). While Pakistan, along with China and
to some extent Russia and Iran, were united by their desire to expedite
an unceremonious US/NATO retreat from Afghanistan, they were not
particularly interested in a US-designed political settlement on the
basis of the Doha agreement.
The build-up to the Doha talks also brought the Haqqani network and
the Quetta Shura closer than ever before, especially since the two
started cooperating in the mid-1990s. As part of the ‘diplomatic
efforts’, the Haqqani network, designated as a terrorist organization
which the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen
had referred to as a ‘veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Service
Intelligence agency’, became part of the Taliban’s negotiation team.
However, the manner in which Kabul fell and the Taliban factions
rose left only Pakistan and China in a position of greater influence and
critical responsibility. Other external players such as India, Turkey,
Saudi Arabia and the EU relied on the success of the US-led Doha
talks and were left to fend for themselves.
Taliban’s Political Agenda

The Taliban entered the Doha talks with a clear understanding of the
US’ deadlines and political urgency for withdrawal, regional
countries’ antagonism against the US presence in Afghanistan, and
President Ghani’s deteriorating legitimacy. Senior Western diplomats
rushed to Doha to meet with the Taliban, and some even secretly
invited them over to Europe to offer their own interpretation of how
the new Taliban had transformed in many ways from their old version
in the 1990s and how they sought to avoid a resurrection of the brutal
Islamic Emirate.
However, according to Wardak, the Taliban perceived their entry into
the peace talks as part of their jihad against Americans, emphasizing
that ‘the goals of any kind of potential peace should be precisely the
same as the goals of ongoing jihad itself’ (Wardak, 2019). As it was
later proved by their lack of interest in a genuine negotiation for a
political settlement with the Afghan Republic delegation in Doha, the
Taliban considered the completed and unconditional withdrawal of the
US/NATO from Afghanistan as the primary outcome of their
diplomatic overture and a major step toward a total victory and
reinstalment of their defunct Emirate.

The Taliban’s post-15 August internal squabble during the formation
of their cabinet signalled a growing rift between a group that argues
that the source of victory was political negotiations in Doha and an
opposing group that believes the triumph was a result of their military
audacity. While the Taliban achieved what they wanted, either by
political means through the so-called peace talks or by military means,
which meant unleashing an excruciating level of violence, or a
combination of the two Doha, the Doha agreement and its
consequences, in hindsight, looks like a ‘total and unmitigated defeat’
(Kristol, 2021).
From a historical and elevated perspective, the collection of factors
examined above is largely the symptoms of underlying structural
flaws and wrongheaded assumptions upon which the post-Bonn
Afghan state was established. A deeper understating of the inherent
causes of state collapse requires a survey of its hasty inception and
birth defect in late 2001.
The Original Sin: Re-Establishing the

Incompatible State
The history of the nation and state building in Afghanistan after its
territorial frontiers were defined by a series of boundary commissions
and treaties during the reign of Amir Abdul Rahman Khan (1880–
1901) is a story of trials and failures. Though initially attractive, the
ruthless method employed by him and his successors to create a
centralized state went against the two fundamental features of the
arbitrarily curved territorial state; first, a rugged and impenetrable
geography; second, a profoundly heterogeneous and fiercely
independent inhabitant. Subsequent attempts over the past 140 years
sadly followed a somewhat similar view of the nation-state building
that resulted in a frequent state collapse, and further strained state-
society relations in Afghanistan.
The latest attempt at state-building, this time with overwhelming
support from the international community and after Afghanistan
endured a decade-long bloody civil war, started in December 2001 in
the German city of Bonn. The document that established the Bonn
process, formally known as ‘the Agreement on Provisional
Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of
Permanent Government Institutions’, was a diplomatic improvisation

for managing the political transition in a post-civil war Afghanistan
(Andisha, 2020).
The process which laid the foundation of another centralized political
system is often blamed for its unambitious and superficial discussions,
a quick-fix bureaucratic approach, and a narrow institutional design
ignoring the underlying internal and external causes of the then 30
years of conflict.
While sceptics might discard the whole notion of the post-cold war
liberal international state-building, the efforts in Afghanistan, if
reflected and designed differently, were not destined for inevitable
failure. The original sin of the Bonn process, according to
Murtazishvili, was the resurrection of
old institutions that had their roots in

Afghanistan’s authoritarian past rather than
giving citizens the opportunity to build
something new that embodied the country’s
self-governance norms. Despite Afghanistan’s
ethnic diversities and autonomous regions,
there was no effort to reform the highly
centralized system that had been a source of
Afghan instability for generations.
(Murtazashvili, 2022)
Instead of sizing the historical opportunity of domestic and
international convergence and interest in state-building in
Afghanistan, the dominant approach in Bonn revolved around ‘re-
establishing’ a government institution rather than negotiating a
substantive settlement for the underlying social and political cause of
Afghanistan’s protracted conflict. Therefore, the four politically rival
Afghan groups gathered at Bonn were under immense pressure from
the international convenors to quickly conclude their negotiation
(Chandra, 2009).
As a result, the interim and transitional administrations (2002–2004)
created a co-opted centralized structure with a president as the head of
state and government and five vice-presidents each drawn from major
political and ethnic groups at the helm. The transitional period,
according to Andisha,
instead of serving as a free chapter for crafting

a new social contract and laying the
foundation of Afghanistan for the 21st century
and becoming an opportunity for remedying
the painful legacy and historical injustices,
was surreptitiously used to prop up a
centralized model as the most viable option.
(Andisha, 2020)
In his recent brief analysis of ‘Why nation-building failed in
Afghanistan’, Daron Acemoglu, a prominent economist and author,
emphasizes that
in viewing nation-building as a top-down,

‘state-first’ process, US policymakers were
following a venerable tradition in political
science. The assumption is that if you can
establish overwhelming military dominance
over a territory and subdue all other sources of
power, you can then impose your will. Yet in
most places, this theory is only half right at
best; and in Afghanistan, it was dead wrong.
(Acemoglu, 2021)
The designers and implementor of the Bonn process, intentionally or
unwisely, used every possible means at their disposal to ensure
horizontal and vertical centralization of powers and responsibilities.
For example, in one hand a rigid interpretation of a Weberian notion
of state and monopoly of force as the most desirable approach to state-
building and on the other hand excessive emphasis on the existential
threat of warlords and regional strong man were put forward in favour
of ratification of a consolidated presidential system (Andisha, 2020).
While a multi-ethnic and bilingual society such as Afghanistan, in the
words of Francesc Vendrell, long-time UN and EU special
representative, ‘needed a decentralized parliamentary system which
would spread power among several categories of people, [not] a
presidential system concentrating power in one person who was
irremovable during his five-year mandate’ (Vendrell, 2012).
The process of centralization was completed when the final ratified
version of the constitution established a unitary presidential system.
While during the interim and transitional period there were five vice-
chairs, including a woman, and each had a designated executive
portfolio, the constitution reduced the number of vice presidents to

two without a set portfolio. In this winner takes all system, the
president was the head of state, head of government and held
enormous power over the judiciary and legislative branches. The two
vice presidents were ceremonial positions intended for representatives
of ethnic groups other than the president and physically signified the
diversity of the nation and the inclusivity of the state.
With all powers vested in a single person, that is, the president, there
was a little legal avenue for meaningful checks and balances in case of
abuses of executive powers by the president or his close aides.
Operating under the president’s thumb, the judiciary never rose to the
challenge of an independent branch of a democratic state and
remained as a traditional department of the executive branch. And
finally, a single non-transferable electoral system (SNTV) led to a
weak and ineffective legislature (Andisha, 2020).
On the other hand, relations between national and sub-national units
followed a strict pattern of centralization. The main argument in
favour of such a system was the existence of entrenched regional
strongmen warlords capable of challenging the central government’s
authority. Nevertheless, the appointed governors and sub-governors,

neither accountable nor representative of the people they were
supposed to govern, often became a liability to the state-building
process. Elected provincial councils had no budgetary or decision-
making authority in their own local administration, and
constitutionally mandated district council and municipal elections had
not been held (Worden, 2011).
In less than a decade, the inconsistent state-building process went
through a severe stress test during the 2009 presidential elections
which clearly revealed the flaws of a winner takes all centralized and
majoritarian presidential system based on the ill-suited (SNTV)
electoral method. After allegations of widespread fraud and a recount
audit by the UN, the election went to a runoff. The opposition
contender, former Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew
when his demand for reform in the leadership of the election
commission was refused. The incumbent, Hamid Karzai, retained his
job for another 5 years term; however, there was no role for a loyal
opposition in the system.
Demands for electoral reform leading to constitutional reform, no
matter how popular and pressing, had no chance of being translated

into policy action. It was only one ‘man’ in the system without whose
consent nothing substantial was possible and that man was the then
President Hamid Karzai. He was more afraid of reforming a
centralized state than losing it to the Taliban. Hence, instead of
looking inward and addressing the domestic and legitimate concerns,
the ruling elite found it more convenient to blame interference of
foreign circles as the main source of trouble.
Despite the bitter lesson from 2009 and no meaningful reform in the
electoral system, the 2014 election saw the highest turnout of eligible
voters, as it was meant to be a historic event where for the first time in
Afghanistan’s history, a transition of power from an incumbent
president to a new one would be decided by ballots: one person one
vote. The runoff election between Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf
Ghani, however, became marred by incredible irregularities and in
some cases outright fraud. In an unwritten pact, the incumbent
president Hamid Karzai, the leadership of the election commission
and Ashraf Ghani’s campaign, evidence of which was partly presented
by Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of Afghanistan’s National
Directorate of Security (NDS), decided to use ‘every conceivable

mean’ to prevent the frontrunner’s victory. Evidence of fraud,
codenamed ‘stuffed sheep’, widely circulated by media implicated the
chief electoral officer, Zialuhaq Amarkhil, a Ghani supporter and later
his senior advisor in orchestrating massive fraud and ballot stuffing
along ethnic lines in favour of Ashraf Ghani in several southern
provinces. In a detailed analysis of 2014 election data, Professor
Thomas H. Johnson of the Naval Postgraduate School concluded that
‘Ghani’s campaign was at least partially, if not primarily, based on
fraud… [t]hese results in combination with other analyses presented
earlier raise the very real possibility that the election results of Ashraf
Ghani in 2014 were illegitimate’. Despite all odds, Ashraf Ghani, the
neoliberal co-founder of Washington DC-based think tank, the
Institute for State Effectiveness, was seen on one hand as the darling
of the western embassies and lobbies and on the other hand the
guardian of a ‘strong’ centralized presidential system.
After months of political tension and the imminent fear outbreak of
violence, the bitterly contested and inconclusive election saga ended
with a political agreement and the formation of a National Unity
Government brokered by then Secretary of State John Kerry. As

Johnson succinctly summarized it, ‘the failure of the election process
and the ad hoc nature of the agreement between the candidates
underlined the continuing deep flaws in Afghanistan’s political system
and political culture’ (Johnson, 2018). To many Afghans, especially
the young and aspirant generation, the setup of 2014 election and its
results tarnished their faith in democratic politics as a vehicle for
reform and change.
Conclusion
A complete withdrawal of the US/NATO air and logistics support to
Afghanistan’s armed forces, political and diplomatic legitimacy
bestowed on Taliban as a result of the Doha agreement signed
between the US and Taliban, and President Ghani’s arrogant and
eccentric personality played a major role in the precipitous collapse of
the democratic state in Afghanistan. However, the fundamental
structural and deep-rooted socio-political factors which challenged the
establishment of a sustainable state and sense of ownership among
diverse communities in Afghanistan were linked to the breakdown of
the social contract between the state and society. The overly
centralized institutional design and a quick-fix bureaucratic approach

employed by the designers of the Bonn process failed to address these
underlying causes of the decades of civil war in the country.
Instead of rebalancing power and responsibilities between central and
provincial governments through democratic participation, the system
discouraged political parties, limited the prospects of empowerment
and upward mobility of local communities, local accountability, and
trust building, and deepened the existing ethnic, linguistic and social
cleavages.
Even in the months before the collapse, despite general apathy toward
President Ghani’s policies and personal intransigence, and
notwithstanding diplomatic and political pressure from the
international partners, there was no accessible legal mechanisms to
peacefully remove him. Exploiting the full spectrum of constitutional
powers given to the president, Ghani intrinsically tied the existence of
state institutions to his person. Nothing meaningful was possible while
he was at the helm, and everything dissolved when he decided to flee.
From this angle, the tragic fall of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021
shows that at the systemic level, structural deficiency in ensuring
proper public checks and balances when combined with the zealotry
of top leaders have once again destroyed two decades of investment
with blood and treasure for building a viable state in Afghanistan.
The Taliban regime suffers from domestic and international
legitimacy problems, and their governance model, a centralized
Pashtun-dominated theocracy, not only undermines Afghanistan’s
unity, political and social diversity, it is heading toward increased
tensions and impending new conflict. It appears that Afghanistan’s old
guard and their international friend are once again trying to ‘fix’ the
problem of ‘inclusivity’ through unrepresentative, provenly
ineffective old institutions and rubber stamp institutions.
The past four decades of conflict and intermittent state-building
efforts prove that durable peace and sustainable state in Afghanistan
requires an inclusive and presentative governance structure which
could guarantee meaningful participation of ensuring local
accountability and ownership among all communities and groups.

Funding
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Reluctant or Pragmatic? The GCC’s Policy towards

neighbourhood and beyond with layers of challenges to deal with,

Cooperation Council (GCC) members are concerned about the

repercussions of the change of guard in Kabul vis-à-vis terrorism and

refugee-related instability. On the other, the withdrawal of US forces

has questioned their policy priorities, leading them to consider

variegating their international partners for their security imperatives.

The developing situation in Afghanistan can alter the geopolitical

influencing factors. The GCC governments neither praised nor

criticised the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Their responses so

continue to be relevant in Afghan affairs either directly or indirectly

through diplomatic and economic overtures as they realise that a

international community to devise a multi-pronged approach to bring

peace and stability to Afghanistan.

weeks before the complete withdrawal of US troops to end a two-

the fundamentalist group. An event of this magnitude has led states,

particularly in the neighbourhood, to recalibrate their foreign policies

towards Afghanistan. The transition has also resulted in the major

actors in the Middle East and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

members, such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar reassessing their

engagement with Kabul. The presence of the Taliban government in

Afghanistan could allow terrorist groups to use the state as a

launchpad to execute terrorist activities. The withdrawal of the US

could further boost the confidence of extremist factions in the Middle

the rapidly unfolding events in Afghanistan had a neutral tone—

responses pragmatic, informed by their security imperatives and the

existing geopolitical reality? The foreign policy orientations of the

GCC states towards the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan could potentially

determine the prospects of stability in the war-torn state. At the same

prominent role in regional geopolitics and have been influential actors

in matters relating to the Taliban and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, this article has focused more on the approaches of Saudi

Arabia, UAE and Qatar and their implications for Afghanistan’s

stability to the Taliban-led Afghanistan or further deepen the political

article concludes that although the developments in Afghanistan might

diplomatic, economic and religious weight, these Gulf-Arab states can

muster resources and international support to resolve the Afghanistan

crisis and secure their interests.

carefully crafted, neither praising nor condemning the Taliban’s

discuss the situation brewing in Afghanistan, whereas the Kuwaiti

government warned against the bloodshed that was endangering the

security of the people (Lucente, 2021). In contrast, there was no

2021). The Omani government seemed to have maintained its

neutrality, a stand it has extended to other events and situations

GCC–Qatar rift. It is important to note that Saudi Arabia and UAE

were the last GCC states to respond to the development. Saudi

made by the people of Afghanistan without external influence and

and stability in Afghanistan. The Kingdom’s response was heedful of

US presence and its concerns about Iran’s influence on entities that

work against the Kingdom’s interests.

Meanwhile, the UAE seemed to take an optimistic stand, pointing at

reforms announced by the Taliban as encouraging and hoping the

UAE had also temporarily closed their embassies in Kabul to assess

the brewing security situation. Qatar, donning the role of a mediator

the need for a peaceful political resolution.

and the impact of the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan on the pre-

existing faultlines in the Middle East, especially in the Persian Gulf.

Taliban government would sincerely undertake progressive reforms.