Efforts In Afghanistan Research Articles

Critical Analysis of United States Counternarcotics Strategies in Afghanistan

Between 2002 and 2018, the United States allocated $8.87 billion to counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, focusing on eradication, seizure, and alternative crops. Despite significant investments, Afghanistan emerged as the primary global opium supplier, responsible for 80% of opium production. Available data from 2001 to 2020 show that successful eradication and interdiction measures led to the destruction of 85,411 hectares of poppy fields and seizures of 679.05 tons of opium, yet cultivation reached 3,238,000 hectares and production reached 105,585 tons during the same period. The promotion of alternative crop projects inadvertently facilitated opium cultivation in some areas, as foreign aid empowered recipients to exploit resources contrary to their intended goals. Insecurity, weak governance, corruption, and the involvement of the elite are some of the factors for increased opium cultivation in Afghanistan. We argue that methods of foreign aid delivery, coupled with these four factors, rendered the whole enterprise of counternarcotics efforts ineffective.

Chemical Perspectives on the Impact of Climate Change in Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Review

: Climate change is a global phenomenon that has significant impacts on various aspects of human life, including the environment, economy, and social well-being. Afghanistan, one of the least developed and most vulnerable countries to climate change, is facing alarming effects due to its high dependence on agricultural livelihoods, fragile environment, poor socio-economic development, high frequency of natural hazards, and over four decades of conflict. This comprehensive review aims to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge on the impact of climate change on Afghanistan's environment, economy, and society, and to highlight the vulnerability of Afghanistan to climate change. The review also explores the chemical composition of air pollutants in Afghan cities, the impact of air and water pollution on human health and the environment, the influence of climate change on soil composition and nutrient availability, and the implications for water resources, including groundwater quality and availability. Finally, the review discusses the chemical aspects of climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts in Afghanistan, focusing on innovative technologies and practices to address climate-related challenges in the country.

Afghan Scholars’ Response to Perspectives on the Afghanistan War: Arrogant Conquest; Disgraceful Withdrawal

In response to the special issue on the Afghanistan War published by Armed Forces & Society, this article offers alternative perspectives regarding America’s longest war from the point of view of scholars who experienced the war firsthand and continue to live in its aftermath. We argue that Afghanistan was invaded by Western militaries who came to experience political failures and moral regrets. The soil could be conquered, but the Afghan nation has always strictly rejected foreign rulers and dictations. As our research critically evaluated the special issue articles published in the Armed Forces and Society Journal, we believe these articles fall short of reasonable analysis by only considering and analyzing the military strategies, war tactics, and failed stabilization efforts in Afghanistan. Civilian casualties owing to military operations by U.S.-led forces, not establishing an inclusive central government, strong resistance of the Taliban, ignoring the Afghan nation’s core ambitions, Pakistan’s double game policy, and high level of corruption led the U.S. to defeat. Nevertheless, we conclude that the U.S. approach to getting revenge for 9/11 victims and restoring their dignity through banzai attacks, blind bombardments, and night raids in civilians’ homes in Afghan cities and villages and taking innocent lives must be recognized, remembered, and condemned.

Peace Reporting: Intra-afghan Dialogue and Role of Media

John Gatling's model of journalism has been applied to coverage of newspaper reports on peace in Afghanistan in three leading English newspapers: the New York Times, Outlook Afghanistan, and the Daily Dawn. As an important pillar of the state, the media plays an important role in resolving disputes through its news reporting. By shaping it, they shape and edit people's opinions. In this way, the media is a powerful tool for shaping the nation's policy in international communication. So, the social responsibility theory of the press is discussed in this regard. The purpose of this study is to explore the coverage pattern of "terrorism and the ongoing war in Afghanistan" through print media in the framework of peace. News from three major newspapers shows that the coverage of the war and peace efforts in Afghanistan is dominated by the framework of peace journalism. Each story was coded for Peace Journalism as modeled by John Gatling. The three salient features of peace journalism that have been observed are the unbiased approach, the multidisciplinary approach, and the avoiding evil language. All three newspapers were objective and reported in their entire context. Most of the time, newspapers' approach was to resolve disputes rather than to direct them.

China’s Interests in Afghanistan: An Assessment Post US Withdrawal

Though long in the offing, US withdrawal from Afghanistan became a reality with the signing of the Doha Agreement on 29 February 2020, ultimately leading to the establishment of Taliban 2.0 in Kabul. The unravelling of the two-decade-old US-led war and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan led to a long-predicted scramble among the regional powers to fill the vacuum created by US withdrawal and threw up a plethora of intriguing questions, particularly regarding China’s role and interests in the region. This article seeks to understand and analyze China’s ever-growing engagement in Afghanistan through the paradigm of Realism, arguing that China has long-term geo-strategic and geo-economic interests in the region which requires it to coordinate more closely with Pakistan and Iran and innovate diplomatically. This article is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on China’s interests in Afghanistan viz. BRI-CPEC extension in Afghanistan, rare earth, and the need to ensure peace and stability. The second section assesses China’s response to the emerging situation by focusing on China’s engagement with the Taliban 2.0 and co-opting of Pakistan and Iran for safeguarding its long-term interests. This article concludes while looking at the position of India in the gamut.

Remembering a Road: How One U.S. Development Project Provides Insight into America’s Complicated Legacy in Afghanistan

In 2009, the New York Times published a short article detailing how a local warlord in southern Afghanistan was receiving millions of dollars a month to “secure” a local highway for U.S. forces. What the article failed to note was that the road was built by United States Army and the United States Agency for International Development from 2004–2005 as the centerpiece of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Southern Afghanistan. The story of the road is one of optimistic U.S. construction, co-option by a local strongman, and ultimately security collapse and Taliban control. Analysis of the road construction effort and what occurred after it was completed reveals dynamics that impacted and ultimately derailed both the counterinsurgency effort in region through which the road ran and the broader U.S. effort in Afghanistan. It also provides lessons that should be retained and considered before the United States’ next effort to both defeat an adversary and reshape a society.

Russian-Chinese cooperation and competition in Afghanistan and its implications for Central Asia

Background: This paper aims to explore current and perspective trends of relations between Russia and China in Afghanistan and Central Asia. It also analyzes whether the withdrawal of the U.S. and the subsequent Taliban takeover helped—and continues to help—strengthen the two powers' positions in the region and what kind of challenges and benefits they face. The paper examines the hypothesis that the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's return to power added to Russia and China's benefits in the region. Methods: The research uses content analysis regarding official documents, political and military elite speeches, interviews, and reports to explain Russia and China’s official positions and policies regarding Afghanistan and Central Asia. Relations between the two powers as regards Afghanistan and Central Asia are comparatively analyzed. The paper uses the neorealist approach, which is fit for explaining relations between Russia and China in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Results: After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, regional security is now the business of the regional powers, mainly China and Russia. Now they should bear the responsibilities and share the burdens. There is probably more ground for competition after eliminating the threats in Afghanistan and especially in Central Asia for Moscow and Beijing. However, Russia and China will continue to try to align their interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia, especially if their relations with U.S. remain at the current level or worsen in the coming years. Conclusions: Based on the findings, this paper argues that, on the one hand, Russia and China continue to try to take advantage of the instability in the region by stepping up their security and economic influences in Central Asia. However, their stabilizing efforts in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of the U.S., ironically may increase competition between China and Russia.

Counterinsurgency and The rule of law in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT A major aspect of the United States’ war efforts in Afghanistan over the past two decades has been the waging of a counterinsurgency campaign. This article analyzes the extent to which the United States and other Western intervening nations developed and implemented rule of law support missions as a component of the overarching counterinsurgency mission. This article evaluates the successes and failures of the rule of law missions, analyzing the lessons learned from two decades of conflict to provide a foundation for the policymakers and strategic planners who will be tasked with executing counterinsurgency campaigns in the future. The article focuses in particular on the social, political, and cultural factors of the Afghan people that impacted the viability of the Western counterinsurgency and rule of law missions.

A study of Afghan architecture heritage and conservation efforts in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT Built heritage and heritage cities can provide us a strong visual image of national identity; it responds to the architecture's social, cultural, and economic context. Through the architectural heritage, we seek to understand the relation between architecture conservation and the history of architecture. And how does the relationship occur between these two? The history of Afghanistan's architectural heritage reflects the country's primordial legacy and has had played a remarkable role in Afghan civilization. It is needed to visualize, protect and preserve them. The Afghanistan’s architectural heritage sites are notable for various features, one of the most significant features being the architectural significance of ornamentation and elements. These architectural features depict the age in which the building was built, utilizing the technology, craftsmanship, building morphology and styles known at the time. Afghan culture has played a critical part in human civilization throughout its lengthy history and has made significant contributions. Scholarly interest in Afghan culture, including history, archaeology, art, and architecture, has spurred research into Afghan cultural heritage during the past two decades. This study investigates explicitly to reveal the identity of Afghan architecture heritage through history definitions, style, typology, conservation and its contribution to future sustainability.

Understanding Shifts in US Policies towards the Taliban: A Critical Analysis

The ‘war on terror’ produced discourses, which elevated terrorism as a primary threat to international peace and security and justified the overthrow of regimes that were suspected of supporting terrorism. After two decades, the United States (US) seeks to wind down the war, including through negotiations with groups that it once regarded as terrorist or complicit in terrorism. This article takes a critical approach to examine these shifts in US policy in relation to the Taliban in Afghanistan. It conceives the Taliban as a networked movement that consisted of local roots, transnational jihadist ties and connections to Pakistan’s proxy war in Afghanistan. The article then identifies and problematises key assumptions of American discourses by assessing them against local patterns of terrorism and (in)security and the Taliban’s violent tactics. Drawing on US sources, it finds that the US discourses shifted over time between various aspects of the Taliban movement as signifiers of its identity to justify shifting Washington’s priorities in Afghanistan. These discursive shifts, which reflected US policy priorities, introduced uncertainties and contradictions that contributed to the failure of the war efforts in Afghanistan. Analyse critique des changements survenus dans la politique américaine à l’égard des talibans

Economic consequences of keeping peace in Afghanistan through Indonesian soft power approach

This study aims to determine the steps of the Indonesian Government in realizing peace in Afghanistan with a soft power approach and also economic consequences. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method. Data was obtained utilizing observation and literature study. This research was conducted over two years of 2020 and 2021 on Indonesia’s soft power efforts in Afghanistan. This study involved six policy makers in Indonesian foreign policy, especially soft power and soft diplomacy in Afghanistan. Respondents were asked to assess the various strategies Indonesia had undertaken to use soft power in Afghanistan to maintain world peace due to the rise of terrorism issues. The results show that Indonesia has a few strategies through a soft power approach in maintaining peace in Afghanistan. First, the two heads of state held a meeting. Second, the two KBRI institutions discussed with research institutions, Afghan community leaders, and the Indonesian embassy in Indonesia held a meeting with the Afghan scholar movement and the Peace Council. These three strategies can have a good impact on peace in Afghanistan.

The Role of the United States of America and the Peace Process in Afghanistan

The aim of the international community in Afghanistan was to fight terrorism and ensure lasting stability. Now, more than a decade and a half after the military and political presence, the prospect of peace and security does not look very clear and promising. The mechanism for security and stability in Afghanistan now defined in bringing peace through the Taliban. Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Zalmai Khalilzad has met with Pakistani and Afghan officials for the first time. U.S. pressure on Pakistan and consultations with countries such as UAE and Saudi Arabia have helped accelerate peace efforts in Afghanistan.

Progress Toward Poliomyelitis Eradication - Afghanistan, January 2020-November 2021.

Wild poliovirus types 2 and 3 were declared eradicated in 2015 and 2019, respectively, and, since 2017, transmission of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) has been detected only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2020, these countries reported their highest number of WPV1 cases since 2014 and experienced outbreaks of type 2 circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV2)* (1); in Afghanistan, the number of WPV1 cases reported increased 93%, from 29 in 2019 to 56 in 2020, with 308 cVDPV2 cases reported. This report describes the activities and progress toward polio eradication in Afghanistan during January 2020-November 2021 and updates previous reports (2-4). Despite restrictions imposed by antigovernment elements since 2018, disruption of polio eradication efforts by the COVID-19 pandemic, and civil and political instability, eradication activities have resumed. During January-November 2021, four WPV1 cases and 43 cVDPV2 cases were detected, representing decreases of 93% from 56 and 85% from 281, respectively, during the same period in 2020. After the assumption of nationwide control by the current de facto government of Afghanistan during August 2021, health officials committed to oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) campaigns nationwide, with the potential to vaccinate approximately 2.5 million children against poliovirus who were previously not accessible for ≥2 years. Although challenges remain, vigorous, sustained polio eradication efforts in Afghanistan could result in substantial progress toward eradication during 2022-2023.

UNAMA MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN

The aim of this study is to evaluate the success or failure of a special political mission UNAMA, based on the evaluation framework of Paul Diehl and Daniel Druckman. It is adapted to the context of the Afghan environment. The criteria for the mission success evaluation and its volume can be used for the problems and defects identification of allies` effort in Afghanistan during the period of 2001 – 2021.

Counterinsurgency and the rule of law in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT A major aspect of the United States’ war efforts in Afghanistan over the past two decades has been the waging of a counterinsurgency campaign. This article analyzes the extent to which the United States and other Western intervening nations developed and implemented rule of law support missions as a component of the overarching counterinsurgency mission. This article evaluates the successes and failures of the rule of law missions, analyzing the lessons learned from two decades of conflict to provide a foundation for the policymakers and strategic planners who will be tasked with executing counterinsurgency campaigns in the future. The article focuses in particular on the social, political, and cultural factors of the Afghan people that impacted the viability of the Western counterinsurgency and rule of law missions.

Afghanistan and the Failure of Liberal Peacebuilding

The collapse of the US-aligned Afghan government and the seizure of Kabul by the Taliban in 2021 as the United States withdrew its forces was ultimately caused by a change in US government policy in June 2003. At that point, the George W. Bush administration dropped its aversion to state-building and its plan for a limited intervention designed to rid the country of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The US instead undertook an extended exercise in liberal peacebuilding, involving the creation of an institutionally and coercively powerful centralised Afghan state and a liberal-democratic system. This enterprise was inherently misconceived, largely ignoring Afghan history and culture, as well as the limitations of the US and its partners. The painful experience of the past 18 years indicates that liberal peacebuilding, at least along the lines of the US-led effort in Afghanistan, should not be attempted again.

Resposisi Agama dalam Perang

Religion is two blades which one side can be a tool to legitimize stabbing humans, but on the other hand can be a source of hope. Religion in the Afghanistan conflict is not only a justification for jihadist acts, but also a hidden cause of conflict between religious communities there which gave birth to ethnic and religious group disintegration. This is compounded by the absence of structural institutions that accommodate national unity. The difficulty of reconciliation carried out by state actors and international organizations in the resolution of the Afghanistan conflict has led to the use of second-track diplomacy to help resolve this never-ending revolution. The appointment of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) which is a religious-based civil society organization as a mediator by Indonesia in supporting reconciliation efforts is the turning point of the conflict transformation effort in Afghanistan. NU has a vision to create positive peace that aims to mitigate religious teachings in contributing to the conflict and eliminate the justification of religion as a tool to perpetuate civil conflict. In the context of public diplomacy, NU uses a model of religious diplomacy that can be defined as "the use of religion to communicate with the global public as a way to overcome the Afghan conflict”. This paper seeks to explain how NU uses religious diplomacy in conflict transformation efforts in Afghanistan.

Indonesia's Involvement in the Afghanistan Peacebuilding Process

This article aims to understand and analyse Indonesia's involvement in ensuring peace, especially in peacebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Indonesia’s commitment to improve its peace efforts in Afghanistan was expressed by President Joko Widodo during his visit to Kabul in 2018. This research used Lederach’s pyramid model of peacebuilding as the primary analysis tool. Lederach’s pyramid model identifies three approaches to peacebuilding, along with the main actors in the population affected by the conflict—namely top leadership, middle range leadership, and grass-root leadership. The results of the study show that Indonesia's involvement in Afghanistan in peace efforts has been carried out at all levels. Indonesia's peacebuilding efforts at the top level are focused on achieving Intra-Afghan Talks. At the middle range level, Indonesia runs capacity building programs and uses a religious approach through ulama. Furthermore, at the grassroots level, Indonesia focuses on empowering Afghan women as peace agents. The presence of Indonesia in all three approaches to Peacebuilding shows a positive mark for the overall Afghan peace process.

Contemporary Rivalry in Central Asia: Challenges and Opportunities

Due to its unique geographic position, Central Asia has been at the center of power struggles for centuries. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union the region once again became the focal point of strategic assessments. Although the region had been endowed with rich energy resources, young Central Asian Republics (CARs) had faced multiple challenges ranging from poor infrastructure and lack of human resources to weak governance. Since their independence international environment has also undergone unforeseen changes as it moves from unipolarity towards multipolarity. Global powers, such as the USA, China, Russia, the EU; and regional powers such as Turkey, India, Iran, and Pakistan have been involved in the region, adding to the complexity of the equation. Despite numerous problems, Central Asia’s rich energy resources, common historical, religious, ethnic heritage and economic connectivity projects provide variety of opportunities for the region. In this context, with a view on the geopolitic/geo-strategic and geo-economic significance of Central Asia, the study investigates challenges and opportunities for the region. The structure of study has been based on four main chapters. After the introduction, in the second chapter, geo-political, geo-strategic and geoeconomic importance of the region has been explained with supporting historical and numerical data. In the third chapter, interests of global and regional players have been analyzed in order to identify converging and diverging interests of the respective players. The fourth chapter is allocated to describing challenges the region is facing, and exploring opportunities the CARs may have. In the fifth chapter, the findings of study have been summarized, and some projections have been put forward regarding future of the region. The study is finalized with the conclusion section, which identifies the five main outcomes out of the study: the presence of multiple opportunities for peace and prosperity of the region, the importance of Central Asia, the importance of the peace efforts in Afghanistan, the availability of multiple factors for cooperation among CARs, and the significance of BRI for the region.

China's Conflict Mediation and the Durability of the Principle of Non-Interference: The Case of Post-2014 Afghanistan

AbstractChina's efforts in conflict mediation are an important test of the durability of the principle of non-interference. By analysing the approaches and means of China's post-2014 mediation efforts in Afghanistan, this article finds that China's behaviour shows it engages in medium-level interference in domestic affairs, but mostly with the host government's concurrence. This is because of the two forms China's mediation takes. In a bilateral context, China's mediation takes the form of “incentivizing mediation,” in which its economic power, and its omnidirectional foreign policy, provide incentives or leverage for warring factions to come to the negotiation table, but which also lets the warring factions formulate their own roadmap to peace talks. In a multilateral context, China sometimes engages in “formulative mediation,” in which the mediators, not the disputing parties, formulate a roadmap to peace talks.