Abstract
Afghanistan has long been a country that is easy to enter by external forces, but then very difficult to leave. As a result of the struggle with various conquerors, in the minds of the Afghans, the idea of any foreign troops as occupiers, with whom it remains only to fight, has firmly established itself. The invasion of the Soviet Union turned it into a Cold War battlefield, and the end of that war and the collapse of the Soviet Union turned Afghanistan into the arena of a new rivalry, this time between regional actors. Approximately 50 years before the communist takeover, Afghanistan was perhaps the most peaceful country on the Asian continent. The consequences of international and regional rivalry and inaction of the international community turned the country into a failed state, which poses a threat to international security.
TopIntroduction
Afghanistan, due to the events taking place in and around it, continues to be the center of attention of the world community. Moreover, it causes not only interest but also an understandable concern: the high hopes that were placed on the new authorities, foreign friends, and sponsors of Afghanistan, due to several reasons, have not yet been justified. According to many Western political scientists, the country is sliding down to the level of a “failed nation” in many respects. The role and place of Afghanistan in the modern system of international relations are determined primarily by the armed conflict that was going on for more than two decades, which is accompanied by the most acute political and ideological confrontation. This has deprived the country of political subjectivity in the international arena, does not allow it to pursue any clear foreign policy course, and threatens with a complete loss of statehood. All these pose the greatest danger to the international situation.
The crisis of power that has been going on in Afghanistan for decades, the civil war that is subsiding and flaring up in the country is associated by many domestic and foreign researchers with the Soviet military presence in this country. Research shows that it is asserted that the USSR was directly involved in the commission of a military coup by left-wing radicals. Such categorical assessments form ideas about the decisive role of the Soviet Union in the origin of the crisis in Afghanistan and its escalation (Toporkov, 2014). Afghanistan became a “black hole” of the world community since the 1973 coup d'état. Since the 1973 coup d'état, Afghanistan has turned into an arena of bloody clashes between opposing internal political forces that have caused chaos in the country. Control over state territory was no longer concentrated on one hand; the economic system became a machine for serving the international drug business (Niland, 2010). Here it is worthy to highlight that the drug business was and still is one of the complex and acute problems of Afghanistan. With the rapid growth of drug production in Afghanistan most of the Afghan drugs are transported through the countries of Central Asia to Russia, and then a large part of it goes to the West (Korgun, 2004).
We have to say that drug production in Afghanistan is the most important economic and political factor, both within the country and at the regional and even planetary levels. Afghanistan, as the main world center of drug production, is a powerful springboard for the global drug business, which causes thousands of deaths every year around the world. Furthermore, drug trafficking at the regional level is not only ruining human lives but also is a tool for promoting geopolitical interests. Another significant fact is drug production in Afghanistan which destroyed the country's economy: the existing ugly model of the drug economy is viable only as a mechanism to stimulate the production and processing of drug raw materials. Weak, and completely dependent on external forces, Afghanistan became a weak-willed territory, a source of regional instability and heroin expansion (Alaverdov, 2022). The task of the world community is to prevent Afghanistan from turning into such a “black hole” that threatens not only its closest neighbors but also through heroin trafficking and terrorist acts the whole world.
Unfortunately, so far we are witnessing a lack of coordination of the international community and, what is worse, a visible interest and purposefulness in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The great share in this area is the restoration and construction of economic and social facilities, which is carried out by the efforts of donor countries - mainly the USA, Germany, Japan, France, India, Iran, China, and the UK. They have the largest objects of economic infrastructure - roads, energy, and irrigation. So far, the recovery process is mainly due to the efforts of the international community (Malashenko, 2011). However, countries that assist Afghanistan are more often guided by their interests to the detriment of the common goal of building a peaceful, democratic Afghanistan. The United States is the most involved in the process of rebuilding the country, which, together with the European Union, allocates an immense share of funds for this purpose.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Afghanistan: The official name of the country is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. It is one of the poorest Islamic countries in the world, located in Central and South Asia. It borders Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north, and Pakistan in the south and east. Afghanistan receives international assistance since due to internal political instability and hostilities, the only successful market remains black - drugs and weapons.
Superpower: A very powerful state with huge cultural, political, economic, and military potentials, having superiority over most other states, which allows it to exercise hegemony not only in its region but also in the most remote parts of the planet.
Terrorism: A generalized concept denoting a complex phenomenon that includes fear and horror as the goal of certain terrorist acts aimed at intimidating the population or social groups to directly or indirectly influence the adoption of any decision or reject it in the interests of terrorists. There are many types of terrorism such as political, religious, information, Economic, Social (domestic), etc.
Pakistan: The official name is - the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, located in South Asia, is a federal republic of mixed type, consisting of 4 provinces, two disputed territories, and one federal territory, with a developing economy. It borders with Afghanistan, Iran, and India, and has access to the Arabian Sea. The capital of the country is Islamabad.
International Organization: An association of an interstate or non-state nature created based on agreements. There are two types of international organizations: international intergovernmental (interstate) organizations and international non-governmental (non-state, public) organizations.
International Community: A political term used as a general description, to denote some hypothetical community of citizens of all countries of the world united in a common impulse of internationalism in a united front.
Russia: The Russian Federation is one of the world's largest states. Located in the north of the Eurasian continent, occupies most of Eastern Europe and the entire north of Asia. It borders with many countries.
Armed Conflict: A type of military conflict, is a form of resolving socio-political, territorial, national-ethnic, religious, and other contradictions using means of armed struggle on a limited scale, in which private military-political goals are pursued and the state does not go into a state of war.
Threat: Verbal, written, or otherwise expressed intent to cause military, physical, material, or any other harm to any person, society, or state.
Security: The state of protection of the vital interests of the individual, society, and state from internal and external threats, or the ability of an object, phenomenon, or process to persist under destructive influences.