Will Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal trigger a violent new Great Game?

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Updated 17 July 2021
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Will Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal trigger a violent new Great Game?

  • Security vacuum being formed by the exit of US and NATO forces creates opportunities for regional powers
  • Russia, Central Asian countries, Iran, China and India have a stake in what comes next in Afghanistan

BERN, Switzerland: Afghanistan is no stranger to foreign interference. In the 19th century, Britain and Russia sparred for control over the ancient terrain in a shadow match popularly known as the Great Game.

Today, the game continues, only now it has many more players, and the stakes are arguably far higher.

After 20 years in Afghanistan, America’s longest war is finally drawing to a close. But for the Afghan people, whose war began decades before US boots even touched the ground, the prospect of peace seems a very long way off as their sense of certainty and security once again unravels.

As US and NATO forces pull out, people within and outside Afghanistan alike have voiced concern about the cohesion of the country in the wake of soaring ethnic and tribal tensions, waves of troop surrenders and a weakened central government. 

Nick Carter, Britain’s chief of the defense staff, has been quoted as saying it is “plausible” that the Afghan state would collapse without international forces there.

Unlike the Iraq invasion of 2003, Afghanistan was often viewed as “the good war” — emancipating the Afghan people, particularly women, from the cruelties of Taliban misrule. And yet, with every passing day, a resurgent Taliban is seizing control over ever more territory.

Furthermore, the economic gains of the past 20 years have been modest at best. The World Bank put the country’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 at $19.8 billion — just slightly ahead of Mali, Gabon, and Burkina Faso. Per capita GDP was $507, near the bottom of global rankings.

The Afghan economy remains largely dependent on overseas aid. Some 44 percent of the population works in agriculture, while 60 percent derive at least part of their income from farming. Private-sector development has been hampered by Afghanistan’s chronic security deficiencies.




US Army soldiers from 2-506 Infantry 101st Airborne Division and Afghan National Army soldiers race to get out of the way of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter landing in hostile territory during the launch of Operation Radu Bark VI in the Spira mountains in Khost province, five kms from the Afghan-Pakistan Border. (AFP/File Photo)

To trace the genesis of the current conflict, it is necessary to rewind to the events of 1979, when Soviet tanks rumbled across the Oxus River to help shore up a fractious communist regime in Kabul. When a decade-long mujahideen rebellion, backed by the US and its allies, finally sent the Russians packing in 1989, a bloody civil war ensued, culminating in the rise of the Taliban.

The Taliban regime lasted five brutal years, sending the country back to the dark ages. It was from his hideout in Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. When the regime in Kabul refused to hand him over, the US quickly invaded and removed the Taliban from power.

Fast forward to 2021, and NATO forces are themselves withdrawing in a manner similar to their erstwhile Soviet opponents before them. US President Joe Biden has assured the American people their troops will be home by Aug. 31.

The political upheavals since 1979 have led to flights of Afghans to neighboring countries in search of safety and economic security. According to estimates from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 3.5 million Afghan refugees — 90 percent of them hosted by Pakistan and Iran and 65 percent of them children, creating what many are calling a lost generation.




Farzana, who fled her village in Helmand province when it was taken over by the Taliban earlier this year, waits to see a doctor at a mobile clinic for women and children set up at the residence of a local elder in Yarmuhamad village, near Lashkar Gah in Helmand province. (AFP/File Photo)

The UNHCR has given warning of a fresh wave of displacement if the security situation deteriorates any further in the wake of the NATO withdrawal. The agency counted 1.44 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan as of July this year. Since January alone, 224,000 more have crossed the Pakistani frontier. Islamabad has said it simply cannot take any more.

Refugees place a significant strain on host countries — and few more than Pakistan, where per capita GDP in 2020 stood at around $1,170 and fiscal deficit was 8.1 percent. This has no doubt grown worse under the pressures of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Pakistan’s porous border with Afghanistan has been exploited by Taliban fighters, Al-Qaeda operatives, and all manner of smugglers and bandits. The resulting violence and lawlessness have taken their toll on the economy and local people. In Balochistan and Sindh, a flood of drugs and arms has had a disintegrating effect on vulnerable sections of society.

As a strategic ally in America’s war on terror, Pakistan has often been lavished with Western aid, but has also been penalized for hosting Islamic militants of every stripe within its borders.




An Afghan National Army (ANA) helicopter takes off inside the Bagram US air base after all US and NATO troops left, some 70 Kms north of Kabul on July 5, 2021. (AFP)

From a Pakistani perspective, which way this pendulum swings appears to depend on Washington’s relations with India, which took a keen interest in the reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan to counter Pakistani influence.

Iran, for its part, hosts roughly 980,000 documented Afghan refugees. When the undocumented are included, the number swells to 1.5 million. For sanctions-crippled Tehran, this is a huge economic burden.

Per capita GDP in Iran fell from $6,950 to $5,940 between 2017 and 2020, according to Trading Economics. But unlike Pakistan, the government at the very least has the means to regulate its borders.

The regime is also known to have used young Shiite Afghans to fight its battles in Syria under the banner of the Fatemiyoun division. It also holds a significant stake in the local economy of Afghanistan’s western province of Herat.

Given its interest in Afghanistan’s fortunes, Iran is now reportedly in negotiations with both the Taliban and the government in Kabul.




An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier stands guard at a gate of a hospital inside the Bagram US air base after all US and NATO troops left, some 70 Km north of Kabul on July 5, 2021. (AFP)

Afghanistan’s northern neighbors Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, meanwhile, are also concerned about a potential wave of refugees. Their economies would have a hard time absorbing such an influx given their structural difficulties and relatively low median per capita GDP in 2019 of $2,465, $3,580, and $8,005, respectively.

All three countries have held consultations with the local power broker, Russia, on the economic and security ramifications of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

Zamir Kabulov, the Russian deputy foreign minister and special envoy for Afghanistan, last week met with Taliban leaders, who assured him they would respect the territorial integrity of the former Soviet republics should they retake power.

Then there is China — a nation with major investments, and ambitions, in the region.

Beijing believes the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan is premature — unsurprising, given it is overseeing investments worth more than $60 billion in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which links the Middle Kingdom to the Baloch deep-sea port of Gwadar.




Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (C) and other members of the Taliban delegation arrive to attend an international conference on Afghanistan over the peaceful solution to the conflict in Moscow on March 18, 2021. (AFP/File Photo)

China also has sizable investments in the Central Asian republics, which supply it with gas and minerals, and which are also part of its Belt and Road Initiative, as is Iran. Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, is currently visiting Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to take the regional pulse.

In Afghanistan itself, China had signed a $2.8 billion deal to exploit a copper deposit in Mes Aynak, southeast of Kabul, and in 2019 imported Afghan pine nuts worth $40 million. But, overall, China’s involvement in reconstruction projects has been modest and it has thrown little money into the Afghan economy.

The Taliban has assured China its investments in the country are more than welcome. Habitually cautious Beijing is nevertheless concerned about the rapidly changing facts on the ground.

With so many regional players having a stake in what comes next for Afghanistan, there is more than a mere whiff of the Great Game about the period ahead. Indeed, the withdrawal of NATO troops will leave a geopolitical vacuum that many players are now eager to fill.

In a commentary on Thursday, Indian strategic expert and syndicated columnist, Brahma Chellaney, drew an analogy between Afghanistan and Vietnam. He said: “Recall the last time the US left a war unfinished: In 1973, it hastily abandoned its allies in South Vietnam. The next year, 90,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were reportedly killed as a result of the conflict, making it the deadliest year of the entire Vietnam War.”

If the Taliban retakes power or engages the Afghan government in a prolonged and savage conflict, there will be serious political, economic and humanitarian ramifications for Afghanistan’s neighbors, especially those with ethnic ties to the rainbow of cultures that make up Afghan society.

But there is far more at stake for the Afghan people than the interests and investments of foreign states. The last 20 years have seen the creation of an active civil society in Afghanistan, including a vibrant free press and active women’s representation.

On the possibility of those gains evaporating soon, former US President George W. Bush, who deployed American forces to the Middle East in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said: “I’m afraid Afghan women and girls are going to suffer unspeakable harm.”

Every kilometer the Taliban advances toward Kabul, the faster the worst-case scenario unfolds for the region.

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* Cornelia Meyer is a Ph.D.-level economist with 30 years of experience in investment banking and industry. She is chairperson and CEO of business consultancy Meyer Resources. Twitter: @MeyerResources


Russia’s Lavrov meets North Korea’s Kim, praises ties as ‘invincible brotherhood’

Updated 14 sec ago
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Russia’s Lavrov meets North Korea’s Kim, praises ties as ‘invincible brotherhood’

  • Relations between the two countries deepened during the conflict in Ukraine
  • North Korea has agreed to dispatch 6,000 military engineers and builders for reconstruction in Russia’s Kursk region
SEOUL: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the coastal city of Wonsan on Saturday, where he described the two nations’ relations as “an invincible fighting brotherhood,” Russia’s foreign ministry said. The ministry quoted Lavrov as saying that the visit represented the continuation of “strategic dialogue” between the two sides inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea last year.
In a message passed on by Lavrov, Putin said that he hoped for more direct contacts in future, TASS news agency reported.
Lavrov, the ministry said, also thanked North Korea for the troops it had sent to Russia.
Relations between the two countries deepened during the conflict in Ukraine. Thousands of North Korean troops were deployed during the months-long campaign to oust Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region, while Pyongyang has also supplied Russia with munitions. Lavrov also met with his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, TASS reported.
Lavrov arrived in Wonsan on Friday from Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur following the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting. Home to a newly opened seaside resort, Wonsan is also known for its missile and naval facilities.
Lavrov’s visit is the latest high-level meeting between the two countries as they upgrade their strategic cooperation to now include a mutual defense pact.
“We exchanged views on the situation surrounding the Ukrainian crisis ... Our Korean friends confirmed their firm support for all the objectives of the special military operation, as well as for the actions of the Russian leadership and armed forces,” TASS quoted Lavrov as saying.
It also quoted his deputy Andrei Rudenko as saying more high-level delegations would visit North Korea later this year.
The South Korean intelligence service has said North Korea may be preparing to deploy more troops in July or August, after sending more than 10,000 soldiers to fight alongside Russia in the war against Ukraine.
North Korea has agreed to dispatch 6,000 military engineers and builders for reconstruction in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched a mass cross-border incursion nearly a year ago.
Russian news agencies said after North Korea, Lavrov was due to travel to China to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.
TASS said the new Wonsan coastal resort could boost Russian tourism to North Korea, citing the resumption of direct trains from Moscow to Pyongyang and a project to build a bridge across the Tumen River forming part of the boundary between North Korea, China and Russia.

Sand and dust storms affect about 330 million people in over 150 countries, UN agency says

Updated 26 min 41 sec ago
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Sand and dust storms affect about 330 million people in over 150 countries, UN agency says

  • More than 80 percent of the world’s dust comes from the deserts in North Africa and the Middle East
  • About 2 billion tons of dust are emitted yearly, equivalent to 300 Great Pyramids of Giza

UNITED NATIONS: Sand and dust storms affect about 330 million people in over 150 countries and are taking an increasing toll on health, economies and the environment, the UN World Meteorological Organization says.

“About 2 billion tons of dust are emitted yearly, equivalent to 300 Great Pyramids of Giza” in Egypt, the organization’s UN representative, Laura Paterson, told the General Assembly.

More than 80 percent of the world’s dust comes from the deserts in North Africa and the Middle East, she said, but it has a global impact because the particles can travel hundreds and even thousands of kilometers (miles) across continents and oceans.

The General Assembly was marking the International Day of Combating Sand and Dust Storms on Saturday and its designation of 2025 to 2034 as the UN decade on combating sand and dust storms.

Assembly President Philemon Yang said the storms “are fast becoming one of the most overlooked yet far-reaching global challenges of our time.”

“They are driven by climate change, land degradation and unsustainable practices,” he said.

Yang, in a speech Thursday that was read by an assembly vice president, said airborne particles from sand and dust storms contribute to 7 million premature deaths every year. He said they trigger respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and reduce crop yields by up to 25 percent, causing hunger and migration.

Undersecretary-General Rola Dashti, head of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, told the assembly the storms’ economic costs are “staggering.”

In the Middle East and North Africa, the annual cost of dealing with dust and sandstorms is $150 billion, roughly 2.5 percent of GDP, she said.

“This spring alone, the Arab region experienced acute disruption,” Dashti said, citing severe storms in Iraq that overwhelmed hospitals with respiratory cases and storms in Kuwait and Iran that forced schools and offices to close.

Dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa has reached as far as the Caribbean and Florida, she said.

Dashti, who also co-chairs the UN Coalition on Combating Sand and Dust Storms, said over 20 UN and international agencies are working to unite efforts on early warning systems for storms and to deal with other issues, including health and financing.

She urged all countries to put sand and dust storms into global and national agendas.

“From land restoration and sustainable agriculture to integrated early warning systems, we have the tools to act,” Dashti said. “What we need now is collective determination and financing to bring these solutions to scale.”


More than 20 civilians killed in Myanmar air strike on monastery: witnesses

Updated 12 July 2025
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More than 20 civilians killed in Myanmar air strike on monastery: witnesses

  • Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military ousted a democratic government in 2021
  • A local resident confirmed that the Buddhist monastery hall was ‘completely destroyed’

BANGKOK: More than 20 civilians, including children, were killed after a recent air strike on a monastery in central Myanmar, an anti-junta fighter and a resident said Saturday.

Myanmar has been consumed by civil war since the military ousted a democratic government in 2021, and central Sagaing region has been particularly hard-hit, with the junta pummeling villages with air strikes targeting armed groups.

The most recent occurred around 1:00 am Friday in Lin Ta Lu village when “the monastery hall where internally displaced people were staying” was hit with an air strike, said an anti-junta fighter, who requested anonymity for safety reasons.

He said that 22 people were killed, including three children, while two were wounded and remained in critical condition at the hospital.

“They had thought it was safe to stay at a Buddhist monastery,” the anti-junta fighter said. “But they were bombed anyway.”

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

A local resident confirmed that the monastery hall was “completely destroyed,” adding that he saw some bodies loaded into a car and transported to a cemetery at dawn on Friday after the air strike.

He said when he went to the cemetery to take photos to help with identifying the dead, he counted 22 bodies.

“Many of the bodies had head wounds or were torn apart. It was sad to see,” said the resident, who also asked to remain anonymous.

Sagaing region was the epicenter of a devastating magnitude-7.7 quake in March, which left nearly 3,800 people dead and tens of thousands homeless.

After the quake, there was a purported truce between the junta and armed groups, but air strikes and fighting have continued, according to conflict monitors.

In May, an air strike on a school in the village of Oe Htein Kwin in Sagaing killed 20 students and two teachers.


Russia’s drones and missile barrage targets Ukraine’s west, kills two

Updated 54 min 58 sec ago
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Russia’s drones and missile barrage targets Ukraine’s west, kills two

  • Western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Lutsk, and Chernivtsi suffered the most due to the Russian attacks

KYIV: Russia launched a new barrage of drones and missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Saturday, targeting the west of the country and killing at least two people in the city of Chernivtsi on the border with Romania.

Western Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Lutsk, and Chernivtsi suffered the most due to the Russian attacks, and other Ukrainian regions were also hit, Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said.

“Russia continues to escalate its terror, launching another barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles, damaging residential areas, killing and injuring civilians,” Sybiha said in a post on X, reiterating the call for stronger sanctions against Moscow.

“Russia’s war machine produces hundreds of means of terror per day.

Its scale poses a threat not only to Ukraine, but to the entire transatlantic community.” Ruslan Zaparaniuk, the governor of the Chernivetskyi region, said that two people were killed and 14 others wounded as Russian drones and a missile struck the city, located about 40 kilometers from Ukraine’s border with Romania.

Several fires broke out across the city, and residential houses and administrative buildings were damaged, regional officials said.

In the city of Lviv, on Ukraine’s border with Poland, 46 residential houses, a university building, the city’s courts, and about 20 buildings housing small and medium-sized businesses were damaged in the attack, mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.


Taiwan deploys advanced US HIMARS rockets in annual drills

Updated 12 July 2025
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Taiwan deploys advanced US HIMARS rockets in annual drills

  • Two armored trucks with HIMARS were seen maneuvering around the city of Taichung
  • Deployment of weapons on fourth of 10 days of Taiwan’s most comprehensive annual exercises yet

TAICHUNG, Taiwan: Taiwan’s military began deploying one of its newest and most precise strike weapons on Saturday, ahead of live-fire drills meant to showcase the island’s determination to resist any Chinese invasion.

Two armored trucks with HIMARS – High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems – were seen maneuvering around the city of Taichung near Taiwan’s central coast on the fourth of 10 days of its most comprehensive annual exercises yet.

The live-fire portion of the Han Kuang drills is expected next week.

In wartime, said Col. Chen Lian-jia, a military spokesperson, it would be vital to conceal HIMARS from enemy aerial reconnaissance, satellites “or even enemy operatives behind our lines” until the order to fire was given.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own and has intensified military pressure around the island over the last five years, staging a string of intense war games and daily naval and air force patrols around the territory.

Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, with President Lai Ching-te saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.

China’s defense ministry said this week the Han Kuang drills were “nothing but a bluff” while its foreign ministry said its opposition to US-Taiwan military ties was “consistent and very firm.”

Regional military attaches say the HIMARS deployment in a warlike exercise will be closely watched, given that they have been used extensively by Ukraine against Russian forces. Australia has also purchased the Lockheed Martin systems. Taiwan took delivery last year of the first 11 of 29 HIMARS units, testing them for the first time in May. With a range of about 300 kilometers, the weapons could strike coastal targets in China’s southern province of Fujian on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwanese military analysts say the weapon would be used with its locally developed Thunderbolt 2000 launchers so Chinese forces could be targeted as they left port or attempted to land on Taiwan’s coast. A Thunderbolt unit was also seen in a park near the HIMARS units.

Senior Taiwanese military officials say the Han Kuang drills are unscripted and designed to replicate full combat conditions, starting with simulated enemy attacks on communications and command systems, leading to a full-blown invasion scenario.

The drills aim to show China and the international community, including Taiwan’s key weapons supplier the US, that Taiwan is determined to defend itself against any Chinese attack or invasion, the officials say.