Miscalculations of the military strategy of the United States and its NATO allies to "democratize" Afghanistan

The security policy of the ROK since 1950 has been based upon US commitment to South Korea`s defense by providing military and economic aid to the ROK, and for the last 38 years keeping US troops in Korea against another Northern attack. However, in view of new conditions and variables confronting the Sixth Republic of Korea, it has become an imperative to take new perceptions and attitudes with regard to the US troop withdrawal issue and to pursue a new security policy towards North Korea. In the broad context of ROK security thinking as far as the US troop issue is concerned, there appear to be three schools of thought-a status quo policy, anti-status quo or revolutionary, and a gradualist view. For those who support a status quo policy, the presence of the US troops in Korea is a prerequisite for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang has maintained an anti-status quo policy by demanding that US troops be withdrawn from South Korea. In the North`s view, the presence of US troops is the basic obstacle to inter-Korean dialogue and Korean unification. The gradualist view seeks to break the current stalemate in inter-Korean dialogue. This view holds that the Seoul government should seriously consider the long-term strategic planning about US troop withdrawal issues and have serious discussions on this issue with the US Government. At the same time, the US should seriously consider transferring its operational rights to the ROK. Seoul may then consider convening South-North Korean military talks as suggested by North Korea. In short, the ROK should seek its security by improving and normalizing relations with North Korea in the 1990s. The ROK should be prepared for US ground troop withdrawal in the future, to be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the North Korean Government. The rational for this argument is based upon: first. that the ROK will not and should not expect US troops to stay permanently on the Korean peninsula. Second, should the US troops in Korea be pulled out abruptly in the future, the South Korean Government would lose an opportunity to use the US troop withdrawal issue as a political leverage in dealing with North Korea. Third, various conditions seem to be right for such an initiative, Lastly, it is unlikely that North Korea would attempt to use military force against the South.

Does withdrawing forward-deployed U.S. troops increase instability? This question is at the heart of current grand strategy debates, yet endogeneity issues make this very difficult to answer. Put simply, stability may cause the United States to withdraw forces and lead one to incorrectly infer that withdrawals do not lead to greater instability. We suggest a research design to help alleviate this endogeneity problem. By utilizing exogenous crises that cause U.S. troops to "redeploy" out of South Korea, we are able to estimate the causal effect of a withdrawal of U.S. troops on the probability of instability. We examine several exogenous crises after the end of the Korean War that force U.S. policymakers to rapidly redeploy U.S. forces out of South Korea. We then examine the rate of conflict between South Korea and North Korea, and the United States and North Korea. We find that U.S. troop withdrawals do not cause greater conflict but withdrawals are at times associated with other behaviors, such as conventional arming, nuclear proliferation, and diplomatic initiatives that could affect the future likelihood of war.

The work notes that many researchers highlight the special role of the United States in solving of the Korean problem and maintaining security in Northeast Asia. The US Government's approaches of different periods of resolving the problem in the Korean Peninsula are set out in detail. Although the United States is far from the Korean Peninsula, due to geopolitical factors, Korea has always been in the US national interest. It is known that the United States was one of the the perpetrators and initiators of the Korean Peninsula split and never lost sight of the Korean Peninsula after 1945. Depending on the political and economic situation in the world, the US government has applied different types of doctrines, strategies, and approaches, such as the Guam and Pacific doctrines. Despite all the changes in the international political world, the US has always paid attention to the security of South Korea, as it did in the Korean War of 1950-53. In order to protect the Republic of Korea and strengthen its influence in Northeast Asia, the United States continues to maintain a contingent of troops in Korea today, providing tremendous assistance in rebuilding the Republic of Korea's economy and modernizing the South Korean army. So, from 1945 to 1975 the United States spent about $ 13 billion on economic and military goals and spent about $ 4 billion in the 1970s. Of course, many US presidents have made great efforts at various times to build peace and resolve the conflicts of various levels that have occurred periodically on the Korean Peninsula. President Carter continued to withdraw US troops from South Korea for 4-5 years, but when the Reagan administration came to power, the issue of withdrawing the US contingent was removed from the agenda. The motive for preserving US troops was to gain time to strengthen South Korea's military power. Many researchers, such as E. Reishauer and G. Henderson, emphasize that a devided Korean Peninsula is a destabilizing factor in Northeast Asia and the presence of US troops in South Korea is a major obstacle to unification of Korea. Today, given the fact that a contingent of US troops is still present in Korea, we can draw some conclusions to what America wants: a unification of Korea or not? Many scientists find it paradoxical that South Korea has significant economic advantages and a fairly strong army, but still retains US troops in its home country. Is this fear of North Korea or unwillingness to upset the US ally? Despite changes in relations of US-DPRK and RK-DPRK, the USA and the Republic of Korea continue to conduct large-scale military exercises, thereby provoking the DPRK's participation in military exercises with China and Russia, prompting North Korea to resume missile tests. After Donald Trump came to power, which began to apply protectionist policies, things have changed a bit, but South Korea has still allowed the United States to deploy THAAD missile systems in Korea, thereby sharply deteriorating relations with China. It is also known that the confrontation between the US and China has intensified today. This fact certainly affects the process of settling the Korean problem. In the current situation, the role of China and the Republic of Korea as a mediator and catalyst for intensified continuation of the negotiations on peacekeeping and stabilization on the Korean peninsula started in 2018 has sharply increased.

The article examines the process of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the specifics of American military presence in the two countries. The relevance of the topic is due to the ongoing US presence in Iraq and the continuing instability in the Greater Middle East. The aim of the article is to analyze and compare the processes of US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq and to find the reasons that determined the various results of the ending of the two military campaigns. In the study the following methods were used: generalization, system analysis, discourse analysis, analogy, induction, historical and comparative method. The novelty of the research lies in the identifying within one study the differences between the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq and determining the specifics of each campaign that influenced the course of the American troop withdrawal. The authors came to the conclusion that the main similarity of the US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the American troops conducted successful combat operations in both countries but strategic miscalculations did not allow them to consolidate their success what led to the general failure of both missions. Thus, the US was forced to seek ways to end the two campaigns. Washington managed to completely withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan which was initially a priority. That happened because of the political will of different US administrations and due to the declining importance of the region. The long-term US actions in Iraq led to a noticeable destabilization of security there and a full-fledged withdrawal would worsen the positions of the Iraqi government and significantly reduce American influence in the Middle East in a period of growing instability and during the ongoing unprecedented escalation there since October 2023.

During a visit to Seoul in the first week of June 2004, senior US defence officials notified their South Korean counterparts that the United States had decided to withdraw approximately 12,500 troops from units long stationed on the Korean peninsula by the end of 2005. Though hardly unanticipated, the decision has nevertheless triggered widespread anxiety in South Korea about future US security strategy toward the peninsula. Even assuming that various contentious issues can be resolved, defining a credible basis for alliance planning looms as an unmet challenge.

The article analyzes the military operation of the United States and its NATO allies in Afghanistan, which lasted for 20 years, and the prospects for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from this country. The author states that the new US President D. Biden does not abandon the foreign policy course pursued by his predecessors earlier to reduce the US military presence in Afghanistan. Moreover, the new president reaffirmed his commitment to the peace agreement between the United States and the opposition Taliban, reached in the Qatari capital of Doha in February 2020, which provides for the withdrawal of US troops and their NATO allies from the country. However, the author comes to the conclusion that due to a number of objective and subjective factors, the timing of the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan may be postponed indefinitely, and even the deadline recently declared by the White House on September 11, 2021, may be far from final and may be repeatedly subjected to revisions. The main obstacle to the implementation of this important clause of the bilateral agreement is the lack of progress in negotiations between the Taliban representatives and the central government, as well as the lack of security guarantees for the withdrawn contingent of the US Armed Forces, NATO and the remaining staff of Western foreign missions in Afghanistan. Not only the radical Taliban wing, but also a number of current ministers in Kabul are trying to sabotage the conclusion of a second peace agreement and the subsequent integration of the Taliban into power. Without a lasting agreement between the Taliban and the central authorities in Kabul and the formation of a new coalition government, the likelihood of a resumption of civil war in the country will remain. New terrorist attacks and outbursts of violence on the part of the radical wing of the Taliban movement against the central government and foreign troops are not excluded. The penetration of Islamic State gangs into Afghanistan, which can undermine the stability of the military-political situation from within and provoke new armed conflicts, also carries certain risks. Much will also depend on the position of one of the main external players in Afghan affairs — Islamabad. Time will show whether Pakistan will be ready to take on part of the functions of a peaceful settlement within the Afghan conflict. The US administration would like more participation in stabilizing the further situation in Afghanistan from other regional forces (China, Russia, India, Iran, Turkey, Uzbekistan).

Advocates for increasing domestic drilling for natural gas, particularly hydraulic fracturing of shale formations, have rallied behind the slogan “Drill a gas well, bring a soldier home,” suggesting an association between domestic drilling and reduced troop deployments abroad. But is there any empirical evidence for a correlation? I investigate this question using 60 years of data on US troop movements and domestic gas drilling and a vector autoregression approach to account for factors that affect both. Surprisingly, results of basic specifications not only support the idea of a correlation between drilling and troop withdrawal, but cannot reject that there is a one to one negative correlation. That is, drilling one well may in fact be correlated with one soldier coming home. Results are not robust or conclusive, although there is enough suggestive evidence to warrant further research.

Significance Several rounds of US-Taliban talks have acquired a dynamism of their own and appear to be close to a deal. Because one element of such an agreement -- a US troop withdrawal -- chimes with White House objectives, US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad seems ready to leave a negotiated political settlement involving the Kabul government for a later date. Impacts The contents of a written peace agreement will be of limited significance if not all Taliban forces comply. A deal without Kabul on board will undercut US claims of concern for the future of Afghanistan, its people and their rights. Washington's leverage over Kabul will decline as its troops pull out.

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the transformation and prospects of economic cooperation between China and Afghanistan in the context of the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2021. The study focuses on three key clusters: (1) transport and logistics projects, concerning the development of railway and road corridors, including the China–Afghanistan line and the expansion of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC); (2) infrastructure initiatives, encompassing the construction of energy facilities (TAPI, CASA-1000, 500 kV power lines), fiber-optic networks, and the Digital Silk Road; (3) mining agreements, involving negotiations and contracts for the development of copper (Mes Aynak), lithium, and oil deposits (Amu Darya basin). The aim of this paper is to comprehensively assess the feasibility of economic cooperation initiatives between the two countries in both bilateral and multilateral formats. The theoretical and methodological foundation of the study is grounded in international relations theories, in particular liberalism. This theory is used to explain how economic initiatives and models of bilateral and multilateral cooperation can contribute to peace and stability in the region. The study reveals that following the U.S. withdrawal, China intensified its diplomatic and economic engagement, provided humanitarian assistance, supported the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative and the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, and resumed agreements on the development of copper, lithium, and oil deposits. Bilateral trade volumes have increased, while new transportation routes have contributed to reducing logistical costs. The primary obstacles identified are political instability, security threats (particularly ISIS-K terrorist attacks), as well as deficits in infrastructure and qualified personnel. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the systematization and in-depth analysis of state policies, economic indicators, and cooperation mechanisms between China and Afghanistan to clarify the prospects for their economic interaction. New political developments in Afghanistan following the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2021 create an urgent need for comprehensive research assessing the practical feasibility of bilateral economic cooperation. The findings of this study can be utilized to inform the strategies of international organizations and investors, and to develop mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating investment projects.

The epidemiology of 32 selected communicable diseases in Iraq, 2004–2016

The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in the middle of 2021 has put at stake and turned to shock the world community. The world, which was fighting COVID-19, faced more concerns about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. It became not only a concern of Middle East countries, but it raised questions in Europe too. While the Middle East countries were anxious about security issues in the region, Europe was anxious about the mass migration of refugees. Russia, the country which is crucially interested in stable peace in the Middle East, and China, which is cooperating with Afghanistan in the economic sector, began negotiations with the Taliban government to stabilize the situation peacefully after the withdrawal of American troops.The article analyzes the changes in US policy in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of troops in August 2021. The withdrawal of the US military contingent from Afghanistan has changed the balance of power in Central Asia, which, on the one hand, creates new risks to international security, and on the other hand, opens up new opportunities for interested players in the international arena in the region. In the new conditions, the United States is forced to restructure its policy towards Afghanistan and change its security strategy in accordance with the new balance of forces in the region. The findings of the study relate to the actual interests of the United States in the field of security in Afghanistan and in the Central Asian region as a whole.

Does withdrawing forward-deployed U.S. troops increase instability? This question is at the heart of current grand strategy debates, yet endogeneity issues make this very difficult to answer. Put simply, stability may cause the United States to withdraw forces and lead one to incorrectly infer that withdrawals do not lead to greater instability. We suggest a research design to help alleviate this endogeneity problem. By utilizing exogenous crises that cause U.S. troops to out of South Korea, we are able to estimate the causal effect of a withdrawal of U.S. troops on the probability of instability. We examine several exogenous crises after the end of the Korean War that force U.S. policymakers to rapidly redeploy U.S. forces out of South Korea. We then examine the rate of conflict between South Korea and North Korea, and the United States and North Korea. We find that U.S. troop withdrawals do not cause greater conflict but withdrawals are at times associated with other behaviors, such as conventional arming, nuclear proliferation, and diplomatic initiatives that could affect the future likelihood of war.

The potential of peace as of now is resting on four pillars of proposed peace deal which include ceasefire, counter-terrorism, troop withdrawal and intra-Afghan negotiations. Appointment of former Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as chief negotiator to lead the peace process on behalf of Afghan Taliban is a sigh of relief. His influence over Taliban’s of Afghanistan being the most respected leader after former Mullah Umer is without any doubt an important endeavor to forestall challenges to lasting peace. This paper makes the point that sustainability of peace process in Afghanistan is vested on the foundations of trust between Taliban and United States, which due to prevailing geo-political conditions is less likely to achieve. The fundamental demand of the Taliban has been withdrawal of the US troops, whereas the Americans have never demanded concrete guarantees from Taliban since they have been called terrorists from the very beginning. The draft of the proposed deal had reflected US demand as denying safe heaven to non-state actors that Taliban themselves would like to ensure. Taking the lead from geopolitical landscape of Afghanistan, this study had undertaken an analysis from the failures of previous peace dialogues to reflect insights on the ongoing peace talk between Taliban and United States. The study is deductive in nature and has applied Regional Complex Security Theory of Barry Buzan with subjective interpretations to delve upon the parameters associated with the complications of Afghan peace process.

The article is a comprehensive analysis on the domestic as well as regional status of Afghanistan after the impending US withdrawal of troops in the next two years. The analysis is built on various possible scenarios which may change a political course in the country and how the regional powers play their parts in stabilising Afghanistan. The article discusses the ground situation in Afghanistan – how the ISAF and ANA (Afghan National Army) are coordinating in counter-insurgency operations and how far the ANA is prepared to tackle the situation after withdrawal of US troops. The major issue discussed is the resurgence of Taliban as it is still not defeated. The other major concern is Pakistan’s growing salience and posturing for strategic depth. What would be the Pakistan’s role in stabilising Afghanistan where it has to tackle the Afghan Taliban as it battles Tehreek-i- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) at home? The article also discusses the role of regional powers after US withdrawal and analyse various outcomes that may lead to maintenance of status-quo.

The Afghan direction is rather important for German foreign policy, given the scale and duration (nearly two decades) of German military presence in this Central Asian country. It remains to continue one of the directions of Bundeswehrs usage outside the NATO zone of responsibility. The article tries to explore the specifics of the German military and political-diplomatic tools used in the course of Resolute Support operation. The key research methods are comparative and event-analysis. The paper evaluates the characteristics and the results of the German participation in ISAF activity by the mid-2010s. In this regard it is shown that to a large extent the efforts of the Bundeswehr contingent in Resolute Support were aimed at completing unfinished tasks during the ISAF mission. The new (since 2015) tasks of the German military personal, their determinism, and the peculiarities of their implementation are defined. The article traces the ascending dynamics of the German military presence in Afghanistan. In comparison with Syria and Iraq, taking into account the scale of threats projected from their territory to the Euro-Atlantic community in the mid-2010s, the peculiarities of forms and amounts of the Bundeswehrs use in Afghanistan are demonstrated. The author examines Berlins attempts to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan in conditions when US President Trumps administration and the Taliban (banned in Russia) signed an agreement on the withdrawal of US troops on February 29, 2020. The range of factors that could affect the revision of the White Houses position in the second half of 2020 and early 2021 is defined. During this period, Germany has been trying to keep its military presence in Afghanistan. But after the final decision of the Biden administration on the withdrawal of troops, official Berlin was forced to accelerate the evacuation of its contingent (by July 1, 2021), which largely crossed out the previously declared results of the strategy in Afghanistan. The article concludes by presenting the consequences of the military drawdown in Afghanistan for the foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole.