Afghanistan: Geopolitical Hotspot

Throughout the centuries, Afghanistan has had the reputation of being a "Graveyard of Empires". [1] The quote by Homer Lea, who helped shape American geopolitics in the early 20^th century, refers to the defeats of Alexander the Great and Great Britain, whose respective expansion plans in the Hindu Kush failed. This list of losses can be continued with the Soviet Union. It had to withdraw defeated from Afghanistan despite immense efforts, too. It is therefore not surprising that the Taliban's seizure of power in Afghanistan has not only had a direct impact on the people on the ground. Rather, the political shock effect of their rapid military victory is being felt around the world.

Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the MSC, sees the developments in Afghanistan as a "litmus test for the ability of the entire international community to settle conflicts" and notes that the Hindu Kush "manifests the current weakness of the West in geostrategic terms." [2]

Elmar Brok, senior advisor to the Munich Security Conference, also sees direct implications for Western states:

"The American century is over and with it the formative power of the West in politics, security, and economy as well as the values and fundamental rights of the Charter of the UN, if it is not possible to draw credible and quick consequences from the disaster of Kabul – but also from Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut." [3]

The fall of Kabul, however, not only calls into question the West's ability to assert itself internationally and to hold its ground. It also alters the balance of power in a geopolitically highly volatile region that, because of its unique location, will continue to define the foreign policy agenda of Western states.

To understand the country's current situation, it is worth taking a look back at history. Historically Afghanistan – as the words of Homer Lea suggest – has always played a special role. The country at the Hindu Kush has alternated between geostrategic insignificance and the role of a global political hotspot. Due to its geographic location between the Iranian plateau and the Himalayan mountains, it has become the crossroads of various empires over the centuries, none of which has been able to permanently occupy the country itself. The rugged region with its decentralized power bases of various clans was – and, as has been shown time and again: is – very difficult to govern centrally.

In the 1980s, during the Cold War, Afghanistan became the focus of U.S. geostrategic planning; after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country, it lost its special position. The U.S.-backed mujahideen had fulfilled their mission. However, in retrospect, the abrupt departure from the civil war-torn country in the 1990s was to prove a mistake. This allowed the Taliban (who initially presented themselves as a force for order) and with them Osama bin Laden to gain a foothold in the Hindu Kush.

Even after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the lack of a strategy for dealing with the country proved to be the biggest obstacle. The U.S.-led mission, originally aimed only at fighting Al-Qaeda and with the overthrow of the Taliban regime as an intermediate goal, evolved one by one into a large-scale nation-building effort. [4]

Now, 20 years later, it is not only questionable what remains of these efforts in the end. It is also apparent that the military power vacuum in the Hindu Kush is rapidly filling. Afghanistan continues to lie at the geostrategic nexus of various spheres of influence whose internal conflicts and power-political rivalries will have an impact on the neighboring country. China's first overtures to the Taliban regime have already made it clear that the changed distribution of power in the Hindu Kush is arousing desires. [5] In contrast to the 1990s, the regime in Kabul is heavily interested in international recognition. [6] In addition, the international environment and power contribution has changed.

The most relevant neighbors are Iran to the west, Pakistan to the southeast, which maintains a particularly close relationship with its neighbor as a "strategic fallback position" vis-à-vis India, the Central Asian states to the north, with three of the five Central Asian countries sharing a border with Afghanistan, and China, which is linked to its neighbor by a border corridor nearly 350 kilometers long. Russia, which has no direct border with Afghanistan, is also trying to exert influence in the region.

All of these states are caught in a dilemma: On the one hand, they are interested in a stable Afghan state that neither offers Islamists a platform nor represents a source of unrest due to an ongoing civil war and leads to refugee movements. In addition, Afghanistan offers lucrative raw material deposits (including copper and lithium). On the other hand, they want to exert influence on the country and support groups close to them, but in doing so they undermine the country's stability.

The fall of Kabul and the Taliban's assumption of power thus have a threefold effect:

First, it puts an end to twenty years of nation-building efforts in Afghanistan. How sustainable they were remains to be seen. To be sure, the Taliban's victory toppled the government at an unforeseen speed. However, the future will tell how and whether the Afghan people will comply with the Islamist regime in the coming months.

Second, it remains to be seen what the implications will be for the West's foreign policy ambitions as a whole. The discussion on this has only just begun and also depends on which path Afghanistan will take under the Taliban.

Third, the takeover has changed the geopolitical situation in the region. Here, too, the coming months will show what the implications will be for the region and which states will use the new power-political situation in their favor.

Regardless of how the region develops: Afghanistan will remain a security and geostrategic hot spot in the future. In the words of Homer Lea: Afghanistan will stay a "doorway
through which nations come and go; sometimes arches of triumph; sometimes those narrow
exists through which nations, like men, pass to return no more."

[Teaser] Lea, Homer: The day of the Saxon, San Diego, CA 2003, page 198. 

[1] Isby, David C.: Afghanistan. Graveyard of empires : a new history of the borderlands, New York 2010. 

[2]  https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/krisen/id_90622056/taliban-marsch-auf-kabul-der-fall-afghanistan-zeigt-die-schwaeche-des-westens-.html

[3] https://www.thepioneer.de/originals/thepioneer-expert/articles/auswege-aus-der-afghanistan-katastrophe?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=steingarts-morning-briefing

[4] Dobbins, James F.: After the Taliban. Nation-building in Afghanistan, Washington, DC 2008  

[5]  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/china-will-tread-carefully-in-navigating-the-talibans-return

[6] Journalist Ahmed Rashid on the Taliban’s Return to Power & What Comes Next for Afghanistan, August 16, 2021, https://www.democracynow.org/2021/8/16/us_war_in_afghanistan_taliban_takeover

Dr. Julian Voje is Head of Policy with the Munich Security Conference (MSC). He studied political science, history and economics in Bonn, Germany, Léon (Spain) and Austin (Texas, USA). His dissertation focussed on the "geostrategic significance of Afghanistan for the US, 1979-2008." Before joining the MSC, Julian Voje worked in the German Bundestag and at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, among others.